The Face at the Window

Growing up, I always looked forward to the day that my parents would let me stay home alone. While "All the other kid's parents" were doing it, it didn't happen for me until I was 13 years old. The first time I was left home alone, my parents went out to dinner with friends. Unbeknownst to me, one of our cats had slipped into the garage undetected, knocked something over and briefly freaking me out. So much for wanting to be home alone. But I got over it and when the second time came around, I was more than ready to prove I was mature enough to be left alone.

Before I get too far ahead, first a little prologue. We lived out in the country. Not really in the middle of nowhere, but the nearest neighbors were relatively far away. Our next door neighbors to the east owned an old 2-story rock home that also came with a smaller stone guest house, which they rented out to people from time to time. Most of the time the people they rented to were transients, only living there for a few months before moving on. At the time of my 2nd "home alone" experience, the couple they were renting to were somewhat strange, or at least what translates into "strange" when you live in a small town: withdrawn, unfriendly, unsociable. Being a small town, rumors of the couple being peeping toms didn't take long to circulate. Incidents of "peepery" (I just made that word up), not to mention break-ins suddenly started to be reported in the newspaper shortly after their arrival as well. Living next door we'd never had any problems with any of their tenants so this wasn't necessarily something that we worried about...

Seven o'clock came and my parents were getting ready to leave. They gave me the number they could be reached at and said they'd be home late. "Late," at the time meant after 11PM. I rushed them out the door, anxious to have the house to myself. It was always fun being on my own...at first.

After they left, I locked the door and immediately made phone calls to friends, watched movies and sang/danced to music, not worrying about volume for once. Around 9:30 or so I paid a visit to the bathroom and while I was going about my business I heard the dogs start to bark. All throughout my childhood we always had at least 2 dogs in the back yard. They had their own pen and it wasn't uncommon for them to bark at a stray possum, cat or whatever.

Not giving their barks much thought, I wasn't immediately alarmed, that is until I heard the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, directly beneath the bathroom window. All bathroom activity ceased, so that I could listen and make sure I heard what I thought I'd heard. There it was again. This time accompanied by a low, almost inaudible "Shhhhhhhh," as if someone were coaxing the dogs into calming down...or talking to someone else. I closed up shop and looked outside, but couldn't see anything but darkness. I decided to turn off the light to see if that would help my eyes adjust to the dark, so I could better see what the dogs were barking at.

After turning off the light in the bathroom, I crept over to the window, keeping just below window level, and slowly rose to cup my hands on either sides of my eyes as I pressed my nose against the glass. There, looking back at me was a man doing the exact same thing! ...and if he was here...where was she?!

I sprinted out into the hall to call the police on one of the phones on either end of the hall, and that's when I heard the noise. The scraping, gnawing sound of metal against wood. At first I couldn't tell where the sound was coming from, then after a few seconds, I was able to determine it was coming from the door at the end of the hall that lead out onto the back porch (our screened in laundry room). Evidently they'd cut one of the screens on the porch and gotten in, in order to get to the door leading into the house.

I ran and found my air horn that I'd brought to one of our school pep rallies (which was quickly confiscated, only to be returned at the end of the school day), turned on the flood lights which illuminated the entire back yard and ran up to the door she was at and yelled "Get out of here! I've called the police!," kicked the door then layed on the horn.

I immediately heard footsteps retreating down the steps and the screen door slam shut. Left in their wake: a huge portion of cut screen, the box cutter used to cut it and chipped pieces of wood from where someone had chipped away at the door frame. The next day our neighbor's tenants had apparently left in a hurry, even leaving some of their personal belongings behind.