2 Horrifying Stories About Creepy Neighbors

At 58, I bought a house by myself for the first time. I mention my age because people tend to imagine someone much younger when I describe what happened. They want to know why I trusted a neighbor, why I didn't recognize a threat, why I allowed the situation to continue. I had managed payroll for a small manufacturing company for 26 years. I'd been through a divorce without lawyers having to speak for us at every meeting. I knew how to say no. What I didn't know was that there are people who hear that word and begin making plans. The house was outside Meadville, Pennsylvania, on a road with six other homes. Nothing grand. Two bedrooms, a detached garage, a little over an acre. The kitchen needed work, and the downstairs bathroom had pink fixtures that I intended to replace and eventually decided I liked. My divorce had been final for 14 months. I wasn't lonely. I was tired of explaining that to people. I wanted a place where the decisions were mine. If I painted a room and hated it, I could paint it again. If I ate toast for supper, nobody would ask whether that was all we were having. My former husband, Peter, wasn't a cruel man. We had simply reached the point where we were much kinder to other people than to each other. We divided what we had, sold our place, and stopped making each other miserable. The new house had one feature that later became important. The garage sat well back from the road, with a broad gravel drive running along the east side of the house. Behind the garage was a narrow strip of grass, then my neighbor's large metal workshop. His own driveway was on the far side of that building. He had been driving around the back of my garage to reach a pair of wide doors facing my property. I didn't know that when I bought it. The strip looked worn, but so did the rest of the yard. The previous owner, had been in assisted living for almost a year, and the landscaping hadn't been anybody's priority. My neighbor introduced himself the afternoon I moved in. His name was Vernon Pike. He was in his sixties, compact and strong, with close-cut gray hair and very clean work clothes. He carried over a broom because he'd noticed broken glass near the garage door. I thanked him. He swept while the movers carried things inside. Before he left, he told me the mower repair shop he used, which trash service was reliable, and which part of the road held water after heavy rain. He didn't seem nosy. He seemed accustomed to being useful. The first disagreement happened three weeks later. I was having coffee at the kitchen window when he drove his tractor across the grass behind my garage. There was a small trailer attached, loaded with engine parts. He passed so close to the building that I could have reached out from the rear window and touched the door. I waited until he shut the tractor off. He explained that the old owner had allowed him to use that route. He couldn't get long items into those workshop doors from his own driveway without turning several times. I told him I understood, but I was planning a raised vegetable bed behind the garage, and I didn't want vehicles crossing there. He smiled and said the bed would do better beside the house. I said I'd already decided where it was going. That was the first time his expression changed. He said, It wasn't dramatic. He looked at me for a moment longer than the conversation required, then returned to unloading his trailer. I remember being irritated by his manners. Fear didn't enter into it. A week later, a garden center delivered soil. Vernon came over before the driver had finished backing in. He told the driver he couldn't put it there because there was an access lane. I corrected him. He corrected me. The driver stood between us, with his delivery form, until I asked him to leave the soil beside my side door instead. Once the truck was gone, Vernon told me I should check my paperwork before I caused myself an expensive problem. So I did. I called the title company, then the surveyor whose name appeared on the paperwork from the sale. The title company checked the records from my purchase and found no recorded right for him to cross that strip. The surveyor, Owen, agreed to come out and mark the line again. He showed me where the corners were and explained which things his survey established and which things would be for a lawyer to address if my neighbor continued disputing them. The boundary was several feet closer to Vernon's workshop than I had thought. The entire worn route was on my land. Owen was still packing his equipment when Vernon came out. They spoke beside the garage. I couldn't hear every word, but Owen's manner changed from friendly to professionally patient. Later, he told me Vernon claimed the previous owner had made a permanent agreement with him. Owen had suggested he produce it. He never produced the agreement he claimed to have. I spoke to a local attorney anyway. She sent a short notice telling him to stop crossing my property and to direct any documentation to her office. It cost more than I wanted to spend on a strip of grass. I thought spending it would end the matter. For ten days, he stayed on his side. Then the trouble started in ways that I didn't know. I didn't know what to do. I didn't that made it difficult to describe trouble. My trash container was laid on its side when I got home. The lid had been shut, so nothing spilled. The following morning, it happened again. I thought wind at first, although the container next to it remained upright. Then the garden center called to confirm I was canceling my remaining delivery. Someone had phoned and said the house was being sold. A man I had hired to replace a rotted porch post failed to arrive. When I called him, he said he'd stopped by the previous afternoon to confirm measurements. A neighbor had warned him that I was involved in litigation and wasn't paying contractors. He apologized when I explained, but he still didn't want the job. He said he'd been burned before. That was the first real damage Vernon did. Not damage I could point to with a repair estimate. He made ordinary things look like they were not. I didn't want to be a part of it. I didn't want to be a part of things more difficult and made other people reluctant to deal with me. I asked him directly whether he'd spoken to the carpenter. He stood in his open workshop doorway, drying his hands on a cloth. He said people asked him questions because he'd lived there for thirty years. He couldn't help what they concluded. I told him to stay out of my business. He said, very mildly, that I was the one who had involved an attorney. I began keeping a dated record. This wasn't my first time handling someone who denied a conversation after the fact. At work, I had dealt with supervisors who forgot promises they'd made about overtime. I wrote things down because I didn't want to rely on memory. At the beginning, the record was about a page long. By the time the police collected it, I'd filled most of a notebook. There were complaints to the township about rainwater pooling near the property line, about the height of grass at the back of my property, about work that's supposed to be a job. I didn't want to be a supposedly required a permit. The township employee who came out was polite and a little embarrassed. We walked around together. I showed her the vegetable bed, still unfinished because I hadn't found anyone willing to help install the heavier boards. She found nothing that required immediate action. Vernon stood outside his workshop the whole time. He didn't approach us. He wanted me to see him watching the inspection. Two days later, he offered to make the complaints stop. I had come home with groceries and found him waiting beside my garage. He said we could settle this between ourselves. All he wanted was what he'd always had. I could sign a simple permission form and we'd both stop wasting time. I told him any proposal could go to my attorney. He looked at the bags in my arms and asked whether I wanted to spend the rest of my life needing someone else to speak for me. That bothered me more than the complaints. He had identified something important to me and was using it. I went into the house and locked the door. Through the glass, I could see him standing where I'd left him, not angry in any obvious way. He seemed to be waiting for me to come back and correct my answer. That evening, I called my friend Marcy. We'd worked together before she retired. She listened without interrupting, then asked a question I hadn't asked myself. Did I think he would stop if I gave him the strip? I didn't. People sometimes tell me now that I should have let him drive behind the garage. They talk about the value of peace and the foolishness of fighting over land. I wasn't fighting over land by then. I was dealing with a man who had learned he could make my life unpleasant and believed that entitled him to decide what happened next. I installed motion lights and replaced the locks, including the one on the side door of the garage. I was able to get him to come back. I kept my phone with me when I worked outdoors. Marcy came over for supper twice a week for a while. Having another car in the driveway helped me feel less exposed, though I disliked needing it. In late September, I found one of my tires flat. The tire shop couldn't tell me with certainty how the damage had happened. I refused to put more certainty into it than they did. Three days later, the replacement was flat too. This time I called the police. A trooper came to the house, took my information, and walked over to speak with Vernon. When he came back, he explained that Vernon denied touching the car and said we had an ongoing property dispute. The trooper didn't dismiss me. He gave me an incident number and suggested I keep reporting anything that happened. He also said that knowing who I suspected wasn't the same as being able to prove who had done it. I knew that. I had known it before he arrived. Hearing it still made me feel sick. The next morning, Vernon drove past my kitchen window on his tractor. He didn't use the disputed strip. He remained on his own land. He simply positioned himself where I would see him and stayed there long enough to make sure I did. I moved my car into the garage. That should have been an obvious step earlier, but the space was full of moving boxes and I had been treating the boxes as an excuse not to admit what I was doing. I spent a Saturday clearing room. Marcy helped and we took two loads to a donation center. While we worked, I discovered something behind an old metal shelving unit. The narrow service door at the rear of the garage had a split in the wood around its latch. I had barely used that door. It opened onto the grass facing Vernon's workshop, and the shelf had partly blocked it since I moved in. The split looked new. Pale wood showed beneath the old paint. Marcy recommended a carpenter named Denise. She reinforced the rear door, replaced its hardware, and repaired the side door frame. She didn't lose interest when I told her there was a dispute. She asked sensible questions and gave me a written estimate. Before she left, she helped me shift the shelving. After she left, I moved to the front wall, so the rear door was completely clear. She said a second way out wasn't much use if I couldn't reach it. That advice is one of the reasons I'm alive. I considered selling. I looked at listings online and even drove past a small condominium closer to town. The idea of moving didn't offend my pride as much as people assume. What upset me was the prospect of handing this situation to someone else and of explaining to a buyer that the man next door might punish them for owning the wrong piece of ground. My attorney was preparing the next step. I had an appointment with her for the following Monday. Until then, I intended to stay mostly with Marcy, come home during the day, and finish the small things I needed to do before colder weather arrived. Vernon somehow knew I was staying elsewhere. He mentioned it when I came back on Wednesday afternoon to collect clothes. He was at the edge of his driveway, wearing a padded brown vest. He said a vacant house developed problems quickly. I didn't answer. I got what I needed and left. Later, when investigators asked whether there had been an explicit threat, I repeated those exact words. A vacant house developed problems quickly. Written down, they look like advice. Standing beside my car, with the man I suspected of trying to enter my garage studying which bags I carried, they sounded different. I was in a hurry to get to the garage. the floor. He noticed and told me to settle down. He said he hadn't come there to hurt me. There are sentences I still find difficult to hear, even in ordinary situations. That is one of them. He made me stand and move toward the rear door. I told him I needed to use the bathroom. He said I could wait. I told him again, more urgently, because I wanted a reason to enter the house, where there were doors between rooms and neighbors might hear me if I could reach a front window. He became impatient. He took my upper arm and steered me past the sink. I didn't resist yet. I was watching the distance between his hand and the tool, watching the rear door, trying to decide whether I could get into the yard before he stopped me. Outside, the ground was still soft from rain earlier in the week. My workshop-facing garden bed was partly assembled. Three sides of thick timber with the fourth lying beside it. His large rear workshop doors stood open. Between us and them was the disputed strip, barely wide enough to justify any of what had happened. He intended to take me inside his building. I stopped walking. He pulled my arm. I said I would do whatever he wanted in my own garage, but I wasn't going in there. I didn't say it bravely. My voice sounded strained and high. His grip slid down to my wrist. He pulled again, jolting the hand he'd already struck, and I bent at the waist because I couldn't help it. He told me I was making everything difficult again. I started calling for help. He pushed me back against the garage wall and put his forearm across my throat. My head struck the siding. There was enough pressure that my next attempt to shout produced almost no sound. I could see an ordinary afternoon around his shoulder, my lawn. The empty driveway of the house beyond his. A blue recycling container near the road. I kept looking at those things because I couldn't understand how they could all remain normal while this was happening. He released the pressure just enough for me to breathe and told me nobody could hear me behind the buildings. Then he made a mistake. He looked toward the road to see whether that was true. I dropped my weight and turned toward the garage door. My cardigan tore at the sleeve when he grabbed it. I got up and went to the garage door. I looked at the road and saw that it was closed. I went inside. I pulled the door toward me and threw the new lock. His hand hit the other side before I was finished, but Denise's repair held. I stood with both palms against the wood, waiting for it to give. It didn't. He had my keys. That realization came almost immediately. I couldn't remain there. I ran toward the side door, turned the lock, and got into the yard just as he began working at the rear one. My house was perhaps twenty-five feet away from the garage door. I reached the kitchen door and pulled it open. I hadn't locked it when I carried the tea out. I remember being grateful for that careless act even while I was inside, turning the deadbolt with a hand that would barely close. Vernon followed me at a walk. That walk stays with me. He knew he had the key. He didn't have to hurry until he saw me drag the kitchen table across the room. The table was small and light, nothing that would stop a determined person from walking. I man for long. I pushed it beneath the knob and wedged a chair against its legs. Then I ran through the dining room to the front door. My intention was simple. Get outside, reach the road, find anyone. Through the glass beside the front door, I saw him turn at the corner of the house. He had anticipated it. I backed away before he reached the porch. He tried the lock. The deadbolt began turning, and I caught it in my good hand. We stood on opposite sides of my front door, turning the same piece of hardware against each other. He told me to let go. I shouted for help as loudly as my throat allowed. The sound hurt. It didn't carry the way I wanted it to. My voice had become rough and thin. He stopped turning the key and stepped away. I heard the porch boards creak under his weight, then silence. I kept my hand on the lock, I knew if I released it and ran back to the kitchen he could come in through the front. If I stayed there, he could return to the kitchen and force the furniture aside. There wasn't a choice that secured both doors. My handbag was on the dining room chair. I reached it without fully leaving the entry and emptied it onto the floor. Wallet, glasses case, hand lotion, a little bottle of pain medication. No spare phone. No miraculous thing I had forgotten I owned. I had a working landline at the office, not at home. The laptop I used for bills was with Marcy because I had been staying there. I tell this part plainly because afterwards several people wanted there to have been something I could have done in a few seconds. They suggested objects I didn't have and devices I had never used. I had my house, an injured hand, and a man outside with the keys. The kitchen table scraped across the floor. I left the front door and went up to the stairs. It was a small house, one of those places advertised as having a story and a half. The bedrooms were under the roof, with sloped ceilings and low storage cupboards along the outer walls. My bedroom faced the road. The spare room faced the garage. Between them was a short hall and a bathroom, whose window was too narrow for an adult to climb through. I shut my bedroom door and dragged the dresser in front of it. One leg caught on the rug, and I had to go to the bathroom. I had to get down and pull the rug free. By the time I reached the window, I could hear him moving furniture in the kitchen below. The bedroom window had been painted shut before I bought the place. I knew that. Opening it had been on the list of little jobs I intended to get around to. I tried anyway, first with both hands, then with my good hand under the frame. Nothing moved. I found a heavy ceramic lamp on the bedside table. I struck the glass twice before it broke. The second blow sent pieces onto the porch roof below and back across my slippers. I leaned toward the opening and shouted for someone to call the police. A car passed without slowing. The road was farther from the house than it felt when I walked to collect the trash container. There was traffic noise, and from the road, only my head and shoulders would have been visible in the upstairs window. I shouted again until I had to stop and swallow. Behind me, Vernon tried the bedroom door. The dresser shifted an inch. He said my name in an irritated tone, the way someone might address a person refusing to come to the table. He said I had cut myself and needed to calm down. I looked at my forearm. There was blood on it, but I couldn't tell which piece of glass had caused it. I took the quilt from the bed and spread it over the broken lower edge of the window. The porch roof lay a few feet below the sill. I could get onto it. I didn't know how I would get down from there, but I could get onto it. But it was outside. The dresser moved again. A drawer slid open and struck the foot of the bed. I put one leg through the window. The roof was steeper than it had appeared from the yard. My slipper slid when I tried to place weight on it. I brought my leg back inside and took both slippers off. There was glass on the floor, and I stepped on some. I didn't stop to examine my foot. I climbed through barefoot, keeping my weight on my elbows because my feet were my left hand couldn't support it. Behind me, the bedroom door opened far enough for Vernon's arm to come through. I lowered myself onto the roof. For a moment, I was out of sight of the window, lying on my stomach with my feet downhill. I could hear him pushing harder against the furniture. I moved toward the near end of the porch, where a narrow patch of grass ran beside the driveway. The roof ended well above my head when I stood on that grass. Dropping from it was going to hurt. I sat at the edge and tried to turn so I could hang by my arms first. My hand failed when I put weight on it. I fell awkwardly, struck the porch rail with one hip, and landed on the grass beside the steps. I couldn't stand immediately. The breath had gone out of me again. One ankle hurt so sharply I thought it was broken. I pulled myself upright using the porch post and started toward the road. I made it as far as the front corner of my car, parked outside. Vernon came through the front door. He had blood on one wrist. I hadn't seen what had cut him. His face was red, and for the first time he looked frightened. That didn't reassure me. It meant he understood how much worse this had become. He grabbed the back of my shirt before I could move around the car. I held onto the side mirror with my right hand. It folded inward. I began screaming again, and he pulled me down between my legs. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't the car and the hedge along the driveway. From the road, we would have been difficult to see. He put his knee against my back. I couldn't move enough to get a full breath. My injured hand was trapped under me. I remember the smell of the gravel, warm in the sun, and the taste of blood from where I'd bitten the inside of my cheek when I fell. He told me we'd both gone too far to keep acting this way. Both. He said both. I tried to turn my head far enough to see him. I wanted him to look at my face. I thought that might matter. He kept looking toward the road. A vehicle slowed. He took his knee off me and crouched beside the car. For one brief moment I thought someone had seen us. I lifted my head and tried to shout, but he pressed me down again with one hand between my shoulders. The vehicle accelerated. Whoever it was had probably been looking for an address. I never found out. Vernon waited until it was gone. Then he pulled me upright and told me to walk. I could put weight on the ankle, though it hurt. He kept my right arm bent behind my back. We went along the side of the house and into the garage through the open side door. I tried to slow him near the kitchen entrance, but he twisted my arm farther and I moved where he wanted. Inside the garage he sat me on the floor against the lower cabinets. He used a length of plastic cord from my own gardening supplies to secure my ankles. I remember staring at the little container and thinking, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I didn't know where it had come from. I'd bought it to tie up tomato plants the following spring. He told me I had proved I couldn't be trusted. Then he bound my wrists in front of me. He did it quickly and without checking how much pressure he was putting on my swollen hand. I cried out. He told me to be quiet and went to the side door. He stood there for some time, watching the driveway. Then he closed the side door and turned its lock. I tried to think beyond the pain. Marcy expected a call after Denise's visit. Denise believed I had cancelled. My attorney expected me on Monday. It was Friday afternoon. People knew I was having trouble, but nobody knew it had become this. Vernon still had my phone. He could answer another message, explain an absence, buy himself more time. I had never felt so completely dependent on someone noticing that a normal sentence didn't sound quite like me. He came back and crouched in front of me. His voice was quieter. He said he couldn't let me tell people he'd attacked me. He had a life. He had worked for what he owned. I had come from nowhere and turned everyone against him over something that had never been a problem before. I said nobody had to know. He shook his head before I finished saying it. That was when I stopped believing he might release me. He didn't need to explain anything more. I could see him considering what to do with me, and the consideration was no longer a problem. I could see him considering what to do with me, and the consideration was no longer about getting a signature. He left through the rear door and crossed to his workshop. I heard him move something heavy there. I didn't wait to identify it. I pulled at the cord around my wrists until the pain made me feel faint. It gave a little when I brought my hands together, but not enough to get them free. My ankles were bound over the loose legs of my trousers. I bent forward, brought one knee toward my chest, and worked at the cord with fingers that hardly seemed to belong to me. I couldn't undo it, but he'd wound it around folds of trouser fabric. As I worked the fabric free, the binding loosened enough for me to turn one bare foot sideways and pull it through. I had to stop twice because of the pain. Then that foot was free. I could move. The side door was locked, but the lock opened from inside. He hadn't tied me to anything. I got onto my knees and then stood, using the cabinet for support. My hip hurt from hitting the porch rail. My ankle hurt. I could walk if I moved slowly. I reached the side door and turned the lock. Before I could open it, I heard him returning to the rear entrance. There wasn't time to cross the yard again. He would see me from behind the garage. I turned toward the front of the building, where the main vehicle door was shut. Beside it was the narrow space between the wall and the shelving unit Denise had helped me move. A full sheet of plywood leaned against the wall, and I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I couldn't move. I there, taller than I was. I went behind it. It wasn't a hiding place I would have chosen with time to think. There was only enough room to stand sideways, and from the wrong angle he would see my legs. But he entered through the rear door looking toward the cabinets, where he had left me. He said my name. I kept my mouth shut and pressed my wrists against my stomach to stop them shaking. He went to the side door, found it unlocked, and opened it to look toward the house. He swore. He'd seen me get into the house once already, and he went straight across the yard toward it. He hadn't checked behind the shelving. I heard him calling from near the kitchen. I waited until his voice came from inside the house. I came out from behind the plywood and went to the rear service door. His workshop was directly ahead. To my left, beyond the unfinished garden bed, was the bedroom. I was in the kitchen, and I heard a voice. It was the door. It was the back half of my property. It ended at a shallow ditch overgrown with brush and a wire fence separating my land from a small hayfield. Beyond the field stood another house, farther away than any of the houses along my road. I had never met the occupants. I went left, walking across wet grass barefoot, with my hands tied and one ankle injured, was slow. I couldn't run. Every few steps I looked back. The garage blocked very far away. I didn't see Vernon's view from the house, but it wouldn't do so for long. I reached the ditch and sat down hard on the bank. There was muddy water at the bottom, not deep, with old leaves collected against the fence. I slid into it and crawled beneath a low section of brush where the bank had washed away around the roots. I wasn't hidden from above if someone came close. I was hidden from the yard. Vernon called my name from near the garage. He wasn't asking where I was. He told me I was hurt and couldn't go far. He said I needed help. I concentrated on breathing through my mouth because my nose had begun running and I was afraid of making any sound. My wet trousers clung to my legs. A cut on the bottom of my foot stung in the dirty water. I could see the fence through the branches, see the field beyond it, and know how far I still had to go. He came down the yard. I could hear his clothing brush the tall grass. He stopped and said, I stopped on the bank above me. A little soil broke loose and fell into the water beside my knee. For several seconds I saw the toe of one work boot through the roots. I waited for his face to appear. There was nothing I could do if it did. I couldn't get away, couldn't stand quickly, couldn't use my hands properly. I had never understood how long it could take for a person to look down. Then his phone rang. Not mine. His. A louder tone. Close enough that I flinched. He answered and told someone he couldn't talk. He listened for a moment, then said he wasn't at home. He ended the call and moved farther along the ditch. I stayed where I was until I couldn't hear him. There was no useful way to count the time. My watch was turned inward beneath the cord. I knew he might return. I also knew that remaining there meant waiting for him to search more carefully. I crawled along the ditch until I reached a fence and saw him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. I couldn't hear him. The bottom wire had sagged there. I lay on my side and worked beneath it, catching my cardigan on a rough end of metal. I pulled until the fabric tore again. Then I was in the field. The grass had been cut recently. There was nothing to hide behind. I got to my feet and began walking toward the distant house. I didn't look back for the first several yards because I thought looking would make me fall. I kept my eyes on the square rear porch. And the bright fabric hanging over its railing. Someone had laundry out. That detail mattered to me. Someone had been there recently enough to put it there. When I finally turned my head, Vernon was at the fence. He was looking directly at me. He climbed over it without much difficulty. There was no point trying to hide now. I started shouting toward the house. My voice came out badly, but I kept using it. I walked faster, then tried to run. My ankle buckled, and I went down on one knee. I heard him behind me telling me to stop before I hurt myself. A woman appeared on the porch. Her name was Lillian. I didn't know it then. I saw a woman in a green sweatshirt coming out with something in her hands. She looked toward me, paused, and set it down. I lifted my bound hands as high as I could. She went back inside. For one awful second I thought she had decided not to get involved. Vernon reached me before I could stand. He caught the back of my cardigan and pulled me upright. He was breathing hard now. He told me we were going home. I dropped to the ground again because I couldn't fight his grip, but I could make him carry my weight. He dragged me several feet through the cut grass. Then a man's voice came from the porch, telling him to let go. Lillian's husband, Arthur, had come outside with a long-handled garden tool. Lillian was behind him with her hand. He was holding it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. I couldn't hold it. They didn't rush into the field. Arthur remained on the steps and kept telling Vernon to take his hands off me. Vernon let go of the cardigan and raised both hands. He said I was confused. He said he was trying to get me back to my house because I'd fallen and wasn't making sense. He spoke loudly and clearly, using the voice he'd used with the delivery driver and the township employee. I crawled toward the porch. Arthur told him to stay where he was. I heard Vernon begin another explanation. I didn't listen. Lillian came down the steps and met me halfway across the last stretch of lawn. When she saw the cord around my wrists, Her expression changed. She told the person on the phone that I was tied up. Those were the best words I'd heard all afternoon. She didn't ask me whether I'd misunderstood. She didn't ask why we were arguing. She told the dispatcher what she could see. Vernon began walking backward toward the field. Arthur said the police were on their way. Vernon turned and ran. I reached the porch and sat against the wall. Lillian brought a kitchen towel and wrapped it around my bleeding arm. She didn't try to take the cord off until the dispatcher told her what to do. I kept saying my address because I wanted them to understand where he'd gone. Then I began apologizing for getting blood on her porch. I wish I could say I felt safe at once. I didn't. Every time Arthur looked away from the field, I wanted to ask him to look back. The troopers found Vernon at his workshop. He had changed his shirt. My phone was inside, along with my keys and the agreement he'd forced me to sign. He initially claimed I had brought those things over while asking him for help. That explanation became difficult to maintain once officers saw the damage inside my house and garage, the broken bedroom window, and the places where I'd bled. Denise arrived while they were there. She had finished her previous job early and decided to stop anyway. Not to work, but to leave a sample of door hardware and make sure I was all right. There was no hidden message in Vernon's text that she had decoded. She was simply a decent person who knew a customer had been having trouble. I don't want to turn that into a story about a perfect rescue arriving on schedule. I had already reached Lillian's house. Denise's arrival helped establish when she had received the cancellation and that I hadn't spoken to her. At the hospital, they found fractures in two bones of my left hand, a badly sprained ankle, bruising around my throat, and a deep cut in my foot. My ribs weren't broken, though breathing hurt for weeks. There were smaller cuts and bruises I didn't remember getting. Marcy arrived with a bag of clothes and sat beside the bed. She didn't tell me what I should have done. When I said I'd signed his agreement, she said we could worry about paper later. The investigation answered the question of how he'd entered the garage. The rear door hadn't failed. He had forced a small window on the far wall, gotten inside, and opened the door himself. The shelf had hidden that window from where I stood at the sink. The damaged plumbing under the sink had been meant to occupy me. He admitted that much in one of the changing accounts he gave after his arrest. He called it away to get my attention. Investigators found the clothing he'd worn during the assault. They recovered the phone messages, collected the cord, and took statements from everyone who had been involved in the dispute. My notebook helped establish the sequence. It wasn't the thing that proved the attack. My injuries, the physical evidence, and the people who saw the end of it did that. The search also turned up a length of heavier rope, laid across a hand truck, just inside his workshop. The prosecutor believed he had gone back for it when I freed my ankle. Vernon wouldn't explain it. For a while, I kept trying to work out every movement he'd intended to make after that. I thought knowing would help. Eventually, I accepted that the part that mattered was established. He had meant to move me out of my garage and into his building, where I would have been even harder to find. He had checked whether I could summon help. He had canceled the person I expected to see. After I escaped the first time, he had restrained me. When he talked about his life and what he stood to lose, he had stopped discussing the boundary altogether. He was held while the case proceeded. There were hearings, postponements, and more months than I expected before anything felt settled. I had an advocate who kept me informed, and an attorney who handled the remaining property issue, so I didn't have to think about it every day. The case ultimately went to trial. I testified. Lillian and Arthur testified. Denise did too. Vernon chose to describe the entire afternoon as an attempt to help an unstable neighbor who had injured herself and become violent. His attorney questioned the accuracy of my recollection, including whether pain and fear might have confused the order of certain events. There were details I wasn't sure about. I said so. I couldn't tell them how many minutes I had been in the ditch. I couldn't tell them which cut happened first. I could tell them who had tied my hands. The jury convicted him of the murder. The jury convicted him of the violent offenses arising from the attack, including kidnapping and aggravated assault. He received a prison sentence with a minimum of more than 20 years. I have the paperwork. I don't keep it in the house where I live now, and I don't read it unless I need to. I sold the property after the criminal case. There was disclosure and paperwork and advice from people whose job was to make sure the sale was handled properly. Vernon's property was sold separately while he was in prison. By the time my sale closed, someone else owned his former property and he was serving his sentence. The buyers had the fax that I'd wished someone could have given me. I live in a smaller place closer to town. I have neighbors on both sides. One of them brings my trash container up when the weather is bad, and I do the same for her. I haven't decided that kindness is dangerous. What I have stopped doing is treating someone's familiarity with a place as authority over the people who own it. For a long time, I felt ashamed of how readily I signed that form. It made no sense, but shame rarely waits for sense. I had spent months standing up for myself, and then, in a few minutes, I agreed to everything. My therapist asked what I believed the signature had cost me. I said my self-respect. She asked what refusing might have cost. I don't feel ashamed of it now. I also don't think about the vegetable bed very much. I don't think about the vegetable bed very much. People expect that small strip of land to mean something to me. It was grass behind a garage. I would have given it away a hundred times over to avoid that afternoon. The thing I remember is Lillian looking at my hands. She didn't know my history. She hadn't heard Vernon's version or mine. She saw a person who needed help, and she said exactly what she saw. I visit her and Arthur a few times a year. We have lunch. We have a job, and I ask about their garden. We talk about ordinary things until it's time for me to leave. Then I walk to my car, with both hands free, and go home. Just breathe. From Blumhouse, executive producer of Obsession. She calls it Other Mommy. She look like you. What? And James Wan, producer of Back Rooms. You said you wouldn't leave my room. Are you mad at me? I won't save you. I won't save you. We'll have so much fun together. Other Mommy, directed by Rob Savage. Rated R. How far would you go when someone threatens everyone you love? Who can you trust? From Academy Award winner Ben Affleck. Animals stars Affleck, Kerry Washington, Animals stars Affleck, Kerry Washington, Jillian Anderson, and Steven Yeun. When a Los Angeles mayoral candidate's son is kidnapped, a job of deception, forced to make choices that could tear their world apart. Watch Animals in select theaters and on Netflix October 9th. Rated R. Tap the banner to learn more. Rated R. Rated R. Hi, I've been listening to Just Creepy for a while. Usually on my way home from work. I'm sending this because you've read a few stories about bad neighbors, and I kept thinking about the guy who lived upstairs from me. You can read this on the podcast, but please leave my name out. I've had enough people I don't know looking me up because of what happened at that house. For about a week, strangers knew things about me that I hadn't told them. They knew my address. They knew where I worked. One guy knew which side of my kitchen table had a broken chair. The part that scared me later was how long I spent trying to explain each of those things separately. I thought somebody had mixed up a listing online. Then I thought somebody had stolen my information. By the time I understood that a person was actually using my home while I was gone, he'd already given people reasons to come looking for me. I was 27 and living on the first floor of a divided house in Dayton. I worked at a distribution center. Most weeks I was on evenings, though I picked up earlier shifts when somebody needed coverage. I had enough money to live alone and not enough to be picky about the building. That was basically the whole apartment search. The house had two units and a shared basement. Upstairs had an outside staircase along the driveway. My place had the original front entrance and a kitchen door opening into a back hall. That hall also connected to the yard and the basement stairs. If you lived upstairs, you came down your outside stairs, if you lived upstairs, you came down your outside stairs, space was right beside it. That's relevant later. Nobody had to pass through somebody else's apartment to use any of the shared spaces. I rented from Mrs. Bell, who lived near Columbus. Luke handled repairs for her. He was a quiet guy who always seemed to be finishing one job on his way to three others. My first month there, he fixed a loose toilet, replaced part of the porch railing, and told me the dryer needed smaller loads, unless I wanted to be there all day. I liked him. He actually showed up when he said he would. Upstairs was empty when I moved in. Then, about six weeks later, Nick arrived. He looked somewhere in his thirties, maybe a little older. Dark hair cut short. Beard that never got beyond a few days' growth. About my height, but heavier through the shoulders. The first thing I learned about him was that he bought and resold things. Furniture. Tools. Exercise equipment. He said he helped clear houses after people moved or died. And whatever the family didn't want sometimes came home with him. That explained the changing assortment of stuff in the basement. At least I thought it did. We each had a storage area marked out along opposite walls. Mine held a folding table, seasonal clothes, and plastic totes I hadn't unpacked. His filled up with power tools, small cabinets, and cases with fitted foam inside. Some weeks there would be a bicycle down there. Other weeks, a pressure washer. The basement had once been used as a workshop, so there was room. As long as he left a path to the washing machine, I didn't care. He wasn't somebody I would have chosen as a friend. He answered questions with questions. If I asked whether he needed the dryer, he wanted to know when I was leaving for work. If I asked him to move something from the back stairs, he asked whether I was expecting company. I figured he was nosy and liked knowing what everybody was doing. He also had this habit of saying my name too often. Not a nickname. My actual first name, inserted into perfectly normal sentences where it didn't need to be. I thought it was some sales trick he'd picked up. About a month after he moved in, my gray work hoodie disappeared from the laundry basket. I went through the dryer, checked behind it, and checked my apartment. It wasn't there. Nick said he hadn't seen it. A week later, I found it folded on top of the washer with the sleeves tucked underneath. I assumed he'd accidentally taken it with his stuff and didn't want to admit it. I washed it again. That was the entire investigation. Then I started finding little things out of place upstairs. A dining chair pulled away from the table. The adjustable lamp on my computer desk turned toward the wall. The bathroom hand towel damped when I got home, even though I'd left it dry that afternoon. If you're waiting for me to say I immediately changed every lock, I didn't. I was tired most of the time. I lived alone. There was nobody to tell me whether I'd moved a chair before work or used a towel and forgotten. The things weren't dramatic enough to turn into a story I could tell another person without feeling stupid. Once, I came home and found two forks in the sink. I could account for one. I stood there looking at the other for maybe ten seconds, then washed both. I think about that second fork more than some of the worst things that happened. Nick asked about my job a lot. Whether we had lockers. Whether employees could buy damaged merchandise. Whether I drove straight home after a shift. I told him we didn't get to take things just because the box was dented and that I usually stopped for food. He said he'd heard warehouses practically gave stuff away. I didn't connect those questions to anything. People hear where you work and ask about discounts. I got it all the time. The first stranger arrived on a Thursday around noon. He was an older guy in a clean pickup with a second man in the passenger seat. He asked for me by my full name. I said that was me and he said he was there for the generator. I told him I didn't own a generator. He looked past me into the apartment and then back at his phone. He asked whether it had already sold. I said I hadn't advertised anything. He showed me a conversation with an account using my name and my address. The seller had asked him to come before one because I supposedly had work afterward. The man thought I was messing with him. You could see it in his face. He had driven nearly 40 minutes with somebody to help load the thing and now the person at the correct address was pretending not to know what he wanted. I asked whether he'd paid any money. He said no. I told him to report the account and showed him the empty space beside my car where he had apparently been told the generator would be waiting. He left annoyed but he left. Nick was outside when I went to work. I mentioned it, mostly because I wanted him to know somebody had used the house address. He said there were a lot of fake listings around. Then he asked whether the man had given me his name. I said no. Nick said that was a shame. He might have known him. At the time, I took that to mean he knew people who bought used equipment. Later, I wondered whether he'd wanted to know exactly which person had come to the wrong door. The following Saturday, a woman approached me in the grocery store parking lot. I had left some bedding in the washer while I went to get food. She said my name and I turned because I thought I knew her. I didn't. She looked at me, hesitated, and asked if I'd changed my hair. Then she asked whether I still had the other tool cabinet. I told her she'd mistaken me for somebody else. She said she'd been at my house on Tuesday. She described the kitchen table, the scratched floor near the back entrance, and the black chair with one damaged leg. She remembered that chair because the man who let her in had told her not to sit on it. I couldn't come up with a response. I kept asking which house she meant, as if hearing the address a fourth time was going to make it a different one. It was mine. She became uncomfortable. I was probably making a face. She showed me the payment conversation on her phone and asked whether she should be worried about what she'd bought. I told her I didn't know. I asked her to send me the listing and the messages, and I gave her my real phone number. She sent them while we stood there. The account had my full name. The number attached to it wasn't mine. The seller had said he worked evenings at a distribution center and resold things on the side. He had used my apartment for the sale, while I was at work. I called Tristan from my car. He's a friend from an old job, and he's the person I call when I can't tell whether something is a problem or I'm making it into one. He didn't ask if I was sure I'd forgotten selling a cabinet. He told me to stay where I was and call the police. I used the non-emergency number because nobody was threatening me at that moment. An officer called back and took the information. He told me to preserve the account myself and make a report about the use of my identity and the apparent entry into my apartment. He also said that if someone was inside when I returned, I shouldn't go in. That sounded obvious until I drove home and realized I had no idea how I was supposed to know whether somebody was inside without opening the door. Tristan met me there. We went in together after announcing ourselves from the entrance. Nobody was there. Nothing large was missing. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what was missing. My computer, television, and game console were exactly where I expected them to be. The kitchen table had been wiped clean. I knew I'd left crumbs on it that morning. I called Mrs. Bell. I told her somebody had been in the apartment conducting sales under my name. She sounded confused, then concerned. She said she would get the locks changed and asked whether I'd lost a key. I hadn't. But I also couldn't tell her when the locks had last been changed. Before I moved in, because I'd never asked. Luke came that afternoon and replaced both entrance locks. He checked the frames and the small basement windows that opened under my kitchen. There wasn't damage suggesting somebody had forced a way in. The interior separation between the two apartments was still intact. He said he couldn't account for every key the old locks had ever had. That wasn't what I wanted to hear, but I appreciated that he didn't make up an answer. Nick came down while Luke was finishing. He watched for a minute and asked what had happened. I told him the same thing I'd told Mrs. Bell, including the report number. I wanted it known that I'd reported it. If somebody upstairs was involved, I wanted them to understand I wasn't going to quietly absorb it. His expression didn't change much. He asked if I thought it was connected to the man with the pickup. I said I assumed so. He told me people should be more careful about what they put online. I hadn't put my address online. I told him that. He shrugged and said he meant in general. That evening I showed the woman's messages to Luke. He recognized one of the tool brands she described, but that didn't establish anything. Nick sold tools. Plenty of people sold tools. I asked whether Mrs. Bell had checked his application. Luke said I needed to discuss that with her. I spent the night at Tristan's. The next morning, I was in the office. I was I checked my financial accounts. changed passwords, and began dealing with the identity report. I had no evidence my bank account had been touched. That should have helped. Instead, it made the whole thing harder to understand. Somebody was pretending to be me, entering my home, and apparently leaving the obvious valuables alone. I didn't understand yet that my address was more useful to him than my television. On Monday, a detective contacted me about an investigation into stolen tools. The woman from the parking lot had checked the serial number on her purchase after we spoke. The cabinet itself wasn't reported stolen, but equipment sold with it was. The detective wanted to hear how my name and address had become involved. I gave him everything I had, including the report I'd already made. I also gave him permission to contact my employer about the hours of the day. I gave him all the information I had. I gave him everything I had, including the hours of the day. I gave him everything I had, including the hours I'd worked during the sale. He didn't tell me I was cleared of anything on the spot. He said there were things to check. That distinction mattered. I knew I hadn't sold the tools. He was trying to establish who had. I asked whether I should leave the apartment. He said that was a decision I could make, and that any new threat or unauthorized entry should be reported immediately. He didn't have grounds at that point to tell me Nick was the person responsible. Neither did I, beyond a growing list of things that made him the obvious possibility. I stayed with Tristan another night. Tuesday, Mrs. Bell agreed to end my lease early if I wanted to leave. She wasn't admitting anything about what had happened. She just wanted me to have the option. I told her I would take it. Tristan said I could stay with him until I found somewhere else. I started moving after work that week. A bag of clothes, my computer, the things I didn't want to lose. I kept the new keys with me. Nothing in the apartment appeared disturbed after Luke changed the locks. Then the angry messages started. Not from the fake account. From people who had found me through my actual social profile after searching my name. Some wanted deposits back. Some wanted to know why I hadn't shown up. One said he'd come to my job if I kept ignoring him. I forwarded everything to the detective and stopped replying, after explaining one of the accounts that the account wasn't mine. The detective told me not to arrange meetings with any of them. I wasn't tempted. I could barely deal with the grocery store conversation without feeling sick. The worst message came from a man who said he had been inside my apartment the previous week and had left after an argument over a cash payment. He described the man he'd met as roughly my height, dark-haired, and wearing a gray hoodie with the name of my employer on it. The hoodie was back in my closet by then. I took it out and laid it on the bed. There was a small burn on the cuff I hadn't noticed before. I don't smoke. Nick did. That wasn't proof by itself. I knew that before anyone could tell me. But I no longer believed the hoodie had ended up in the wrong basket by accident. I sent another message to the detective. I told Tristan what I'd found. Then I folded the hoodie, put it in a clean grocery bag, and took it with me instead of leaving it in the apartment. Nick stopped pretending we were friendly around the same time. He didn't ask about work anymore. He watched me carry bags to the car. Once he asked if I was moving out and I told him yes. He said I was making a lot of trouble for somebody who wouldn't be around to deal with it. I asked what that meant. He said he meant the landlord would have to find another tenant. I reported that too. It sounded weak written out, but I included the exact same message. I said, I wasn't going to improve them into a clearer threat. I was also done deciding on my own, which parts somebody else might consider important. By Friday, almost everything I cared about was at Tristan's. I had an appointment to speak with the detective again the following morning. He'd asked me to bring the bagged gray hoodie, so I'd put it on the back seat of my car. Mrs. Bell wanted the remaining furniture removed over the weekend. I had a few basement totes. A lamp, some kitchen things, and the bedding I'd never collected that Saturday. I'd stopped using the shared machines after the woman described my kitchen. By then, I didn't even want the bedding back, but I wasn't leaving any more of my belongings for Nick to use. Tristan would meet me at 7.30 with his SUV to take what wouldn't fit in my car. I'd covered a day shift, so I had the evening free. The plan was boring. Finish work, get the basement again. I got back to the house a little after 7. It was still light. Nick's pickup wasn't in the driveway. I sent Tristan a message saying I was there, then went inside. The apartment looked the way I'd left it. The lamp was by the door. Two kitchen chairs remained because Tristan had offered to take them. My new lock worked normally. For a minute I felt relieved enough to think the basement for the bedding. My bedding wasn't in the washer where I'd left it. It was folded in my basket beside the stairs. I stood there looking at it. He hadn't stolen anything this time. He'd dried and folded it. At some point, while I was reporting the sales and changing locks, he'd handled my bedding and folded my pillowcases into neat squares. There was a smell of cigarette smoke on the top sheet. I left the basket where it was and went to area. I wanted my totes out of there. I didn't want to touch anything else, discuss anything else, or spend one more evening deciding whether something was normal. One tote had my last name written across the lid in black marker. I'd done that before moving, because some friends were helping me and I had borrowed a few containers. I knew what was supposed to be in it. Winter clothes, spare towels, and an old pair of boots. It was too heavy. I put, both hands under the edges and barely moved it. Clothing didn't weigh that much. I undid the catches and lifted the lid. There were tools inside. Not little household things. Expensive cordless equipment. Batteries. Hard cases with somebody else's business name marked on the sides. A zippered document pouch lay across the top. My boots were in a black trash bag behind the tote. So were the clothes. Somebody had emptied my container and refilled it. I opened the pouch because my name was visible through the clear pocket on the front. Inside was a stack of sale records. My full name appeared at the top of several pages. My apartment was listed as the seller's address. There were dates, amounts, descriptions of items, and signatures that looked enough like mine to make my stomach tighten. One page used the same awkward loop I make on the first letter of my last name. I wasn't looking at an account made by somebody who'd found me online. Whoever had done this had gone through my papers. He'd seen my handwriting. He'd sat at my kitchen table and practiced pretending to be me. There was more. My expired driver's license, which I'd kept in a folder in my bedroom. A pay statement from an earlier job. The warranty paperwork for my laptop, with my personal information on it. Ordinary stuff I hadn't even thought to check when I looked around for missing valuables. I closed the pouch and put it under my arm. I didn't start opening Nick's boxes. I didn't search for every stolen item. I wanted the papers with my name on them, and a route outside. I called the detective while I walked toward the basement steps. It went to voicemail. I said I'd found stolen-looking equipment in a container labeled with my name, along with what appeared to be fake receipts and documents missing from my bedroom. I said I was leaving and would call again from somewhere else. Then I heard the outside basement door open. Nick stood at the bottom of the concrete steps, with an empty handcart beside him. His pickup had been parked on the street beyond the house, where I hadn't seen it when I drove in. I didn't know that yet. All I knew was that he'd arrived through the exit closest to my car. He looked at the pouch under my arm. I said I was taking my things and leaving. He asked who I'd been talking to. I didn't answer. I kept moving toward the interior of the house. I looked at the pouch under my arm. I looked at the interior stairs. That way would take me through the back hall and into the yard by a different door. I wasn't interested in proving I could walk past him. He told me to put the pouch down. I kept going. He came across the basement and caught my sleeve before I reached the stairs. I turned because I had to, and he put his other hand on the pouch. We both held it for a second. His face was close enough that I could smell smoke on his breath. He said all of that stuff had been found in my storage area. I said I'd go to the bathroom. He said I'd go to the area. My name was on the box. My name was on the sales. He asked who I thought the police would believe. I told him they already had the messages from the buyers and my work records. That was the first time he looked uncertain. It lasted maybe a second. Then he pulled hard enough to tear the pouch out from under my arm. I let go. There wasn't a single document in there worth staying in that basement for. I went up the stairs. He followed. I didn't turn around again until I reached the back hall. He was close behind me, holding the pouch in one hand. With the other, he reached past me toward the outside door. i shoved it open before he could get a grip and ran into the yard he grabbed the back of my black zip-up hoodie it was open and i pulled out of it leaving it halfway turned inside out in his hand i kept going in my work shirt my phone was already in my hand from the call to the detective i dialed emergency services while i ran around the side of the house my car was on the driveway the keys were in my trouser pocket i got the driver's door open and climbed in while the call connected nick reached the car before i could close the door he caught the upper frame with his hand and pulled against me i couldn't shut it i told the operator my address and said my neighbor had attacked me and was trying to pull me out of my car hearing me say that seemed to make him angrier he leaned into the opening and reached for the phone i pulled it against my chest his arm came across my face and i bit it i'm not proud of that or embarrassed by it i didn't think of anything better his skin was right there and i couldn't get him out of the doorway he pulled back i got the door shut and locked it he struck the driver's window with his palm then with the side of his fist the glass didn't break i put the phone on speaker in the cup holder started the car and backed out fast enough to bump over the edge of the driveway the operator asked whether i could get somewhere safe i said i was heading toward the main road away from the house i gave my name the color of my car and the direction i was turning nick was still beside the driveway when i left i thought getting into the car had ended the physical part of it he had the pouch he'd seen me call the police surely the next thing he would do was leave with whatever he could carry at the first stop sign his pickup appeared behind me he hadn't stopped to get rid of anything he was driving one hand and the other hand he was driving one-handed with my turned-out hoodie hanging from the open passenger window i could see it when he pulled partly alongside me before an oncoming car forced him back i told the operator he was following she asked me not to go to wherever i was staying i said i wasn't there was a busy gas station on the larger road with a store and a row of businesses nearby i wanted people around me i wanted to pull into a place where he couldn't reach into my car without somebody seeing it the station was less than two miles away i've checked that distance since during the drive it seemed much farther at the next intersection he bumped the back of my car it wasn't a huge impact my head moved against the headrest and something in the trunk slid forward for a second i thought maybe he'd failed to stop because he was too close then he pulled back a few feet and did it again the operator heard me react i told her he had hit the car she asked which intersection i was at and i read the street signs aloud i remember being weirdly careful with the names i didn't want to say the wrong thing and send somebody to the wrong place meanwhile nick was sitting behind me with his front bumper almost touching mine the light changed i went through it normally because there were cars turning across us he stayed behind me my phone slid out of the cup holder and landed by the gear shift i could still hear the operator i told her i was there she said officers were being directed toward us and asked whether he had a weapon i said i hadn't seen one then i remembered how he'd been reaching into my car and realized i had barely looked at his other hand i couldn't answer better than that he pulled out to pass on a stretch where there wasn't room to pass safely i slowed down because i didn't want him alongside me he slowed too for several seconds his passenger door stayed beside my front fender partly across the center line he was yelling i couldn't hear the words clearly through my closed window and the sound of the vehicles i kept looking ahead trying to find a place with people standing outside there was a bus stop empty a small office with the lights out a tire business with a chain across its front entrance beyond those i could see the gas station sign i told the operator i was almost there then nick turned toward me the side of his truck struck the front corner of my car it made a long tearing sound and the steering wheel pulled hard in my hands i hit the brake his truck went ahead then slowed blocking part of the lane my front tire was rubbing against damaged metal every time it turned something scraped i didn't know whether i could keep driving without losing control i could still move i could still move i could still move but i couldn't steer the way i expected a horn sounded behind me somebody had seen at least part of it on my right was an open entrance to a service lane running behind the row of businesses i turned into it to get out of the traffic and out from between nick's truck and the curb from the road it looked as though the lane continued around to the gas station it didn't there was a gate at the far end not a gate someone had closed for me an ordinary locked gate to the gas station it was a gate at the far end not a gate someone had closed for me a gate joining two sections of fence with a sign saying the rear entrance wasn't open to the public i stopped short of it and put the car in reverse nick turned into the lane behind me i told the operator i was behind the businesses and gave her the name from the nearest wall it was a building supply place the lettering was old but i could read it she asked whether i could get out on foot the pickup was coming toward me there was enough space beside my car to open the driver's door but not enough to turn the car around without going back toward him i put the car in park grabbed my phone and got out i left my car keys in the ignition i left the lamp the last kitchen things my wallet and the bag with the hoodie from the earlier sale i wasn't trying to save evidence anymore i wanted to get away from the truck a delivery platform ran along the back of the building supply store at the far end was a short metal stair leading up to it beyond the platform i could see a gap between that building and the tire shop i thought i could reach the front sidewalk that way i ran for the stairs nick's truck hit the rear of my empty car before i reached them the impact pushed it into the gate metal rattled hard enough that i felt it through the soles of my shoes the gate bent but didn't come open he stopped got out and came after me i was still talking to the operator i don't remember every word i know i told her i was on foot i know i described the loading platform in the truck she kept saying she was there and that help was coming i wanted her to give me an exact number of seconds something i could count down she couldn't i reached the platform and ran along it calling out to anybody inside the building there were wide loading doors all shut and an ordinary employee entrance farther along a light burned over that entrance the door with my open hand and shouted for someone to call the police nobody answered i didn't stay there the gap between the buildings was ahead of me i could still see daylight through it nick came up onto the platform behind me he wasn't running full speed anymore he'd noticed there was a fence across the gap before i did it was set back from the street almost hidden by a stack of empty pallets i reached it and grabbed the gate it was fastened from the other side beyond it was the sidewalk i'd been trying to get to people were driving past the end of the narrow passage without knowing i was there i shouted toward them anyway nick told me to put the phone down i turned he was between me and the metal stairs he had a short utility knife in his right hand the kind with a replaceable blade the document pouch was no longer with him i couldn't see it anywhere i told the operator he had a knife he heard me say i couldn't see it anywhere i told the operator he had a knife he heard me say i couldn't see it anywhere i told the operator he had a knife he heard me say it he came forward so quickly i backed into the fence the platform ended at that passage on one side was the wall of the building on the other was a drop to the paved service lane about waist height i could jump down but i'd have to pass him or get close enough for him to reach me behind me was the locked gate i pulled the gate again hard enough to hurt my fingers it wouldn't move i was outdoors with traffic maybe 50 feet away and nobody on the road could see far enough into the passage to understand what was happening i held the phone at my side and told him the police knew where we were he said i had no idea what i'd done he sounded angry about the inconvenience that's what i remember not frantic not confused angry that i had made his situation harder than it needed to be i asked him to step back and let me leave he said i wasn't leaving with that phone i understood he didn't just want the device he'd taken the documents and i had still called he'd struck the car and i had kept talking as long as i could tell somebody what he was doing he couldn't control what they were going to hear about it i put the phone on the platform beside the wall the screen was still lit i didn't end the call i just moved my hand away from it and held both hands out where he could see them he looked down at it i moved toward the open edge of the platform and i said i didn't want to hear about it he said i didn't want to hear about it platform. He caught my upper arm and swung me back against the wall. The side of my head hit brick. For a second, the sound from the road seemed distant. Then I saw his hand coming toward my stomach and understood where the knife was. I turned away. The blade cut across my forearm instead. I grabbed his wrist with both hands. There wasn't any technique to it. I was trying to keep that hand from moving toward me again. He was stronger. He shoved me along the wall, scraping my shoulder against it, and brought his free arm across my throat. I could see the phone on the platform a few feet away. I could hear the operator asking whether I could speak. I couldn't get enough air to answer her. I tried to push him off and couldn't. His forearm pressed harder. I bent at the knees without meaning to. He was trying to pull his knife hand out of my grip, and every time it moved, I tightened both hands until my fingers hurt. Blood from my arm made everything slippery. My heel reached the edge of the platform. I don't know whether he was trying to force me over it, or simply wasn't watching where we were. I knew that if I went backward, he would come down on top of me with the knife. I tried to turn, so my back was toward the building again. We both moved at the same time. His shoe slipped off the platform. His weight pulled me toward the edge, and I lost my grip on his wrist. I caught the metal edge of a loading doorframe with one hand. He tried to pull me over, but I couldn't. He tried to grab my shirt. The fabric tore, and he fell into the service lane. I heard him hit the pavement. I stayed on the platform, one knee down, holding the doorframe. My first thought was that he'd get straight back up. He didn't. The knife lay a few feet from his hand. I could see his chest moving. His head was at an angle I didn't want to look at. There was blood beneath it. I backed along the wall until I reached the phone. I picked it up and told the operator he had fallen. I said we needed an ambulance. Then I told her I was hurt too, as if that had only just occurred to me. She asked if I was still in danger. I said I didn't know. That was the truth. He wasn't moving, but I had spent the last several minutes doing everything I could to keep him away from me. I couldn't make myself walk down to where he was lying. I told her there was a knife on the ground beside him and that I was staying on the platform. She kept me on the line. The first officer came into the service lane from the road, followed by another carrying a medical bag. They had to come around my damaged car. I kept one hand raised and the phone in the other, until somebody told me I could put it down. I said Nick had a knife. I said it again while one officer checked him and the other came up the metal stairs toward me. I expected to be asked why I hadn't gone down to help. Instead, the officer asked why I hadn't gone down to help. Instead, the officer asked where I was bleeding and whether anyone else was involved. I told him it was just us. The ambulance crew took over with Nick. Another crew came to the platform. They cut my sleeve open and wrapped my arm. My hands had started shaking so hard I couldn't hold the phone properly. The call had ended by then, but the screen was still open. I kept looking at it because it was the only part of the last few minutes that had worked exactly the way it was supposed to. One of the officers said, The officers told me there had been other calls. A driver had reported the pickup striking my car on the road. Another person had seen us turn behind the businesses and called after hearing the crash into the gate. The officers hadn't been depending only on my increasingly bad descriptions of where I was. From the first emergency call outside my apartment to their arrival was a little over 12 minutes. I would have guessed half an hour, maybe longer. I had driven that route plenty of times. Without noticing most of the places I tried to reach that night. Now, I could describe every closed entrance along it. Who can you trust? Animals stars Affleck, Kerry Washington, Jillian Anderson, and Steven Yeun. When a Los Angeles mayoral candidate's son is kidnapped, he and his wife are pulled into a web of deception. Forced to make choices that could tear their world apart. Watch Animals in select theaters and on Netflix, October 9th, rated R. Tristan called while I was being checked in the ambulance. He had arrived at the house, found neither of us there, and seen a patrol car outside. The officers who had gone to the original address told him I was alive and getting help. He asked which hospital. I told him, then started explaining about the laundry as though that was the thing he most urgently needed to understand. He said we could deal with the laundry later. Nick died that night. The hospital tried to save him, but the injury from the fall was too severe. I wasn't told until the following day, when a detective came to speak with me again. I had needed stitches in my arm and treatment for the cut near my ear. My shoulder was badly scraped, and for a few days I couldn't turn my head without moving my whole upper body. I was discharged the next afternoon. Nick never left the hospital alive. That difference was hard to get comfortable with, even knowing what he'd been trying to do. I didn't wish he'd survived so he could come after me again. I wished there had been some point before the platform where he had decided to stop. There had been plenty of opportunities. He could have let me leave the basement. He could have stayed at the house when I drove away. He could have driven past after hitting the car. He had kept choosing to come closer. The police took my account, then took it to the hospital. They checked it again when I was less exhausted. They collected the knife and the pouch from his truck. My hoodie was on the passenger seat. The damage to the back of my car, the marks on his truck, and what people had seen on the road all supported the pursuit I'd described. There wasn't a recording of the fall that somebody could replay from a perfect angle. There was the emergency call, including me reporting the knife before the struggle, and then the sounds of what happened. There were no injuries, and the scene. I told the investigators where my memory was clear, and where it wasn't. I didn't try to make the fight sound more organized than it had been. After reviewing the evidence, the prosecutor brought no charges against me over Nick's death. I received that decision through the attorney my family helped me hire. I was relieved, obviously, but I also had another problem to solve. People still believed I'd taken their money. For the first few days, my phone kept receiving messages about sales. A man demanded that I return a deposit I'd never received. Another said he had reported me and hoped the police were on their way. I was sitting on Tristan's couch with a bandage around my arm, reading complaints about a person who was already dead, but had left my name on everything. I didn't argue with them. I sent the new messages to the detective. When he asked me to send a short response directing people to his office, I gave him exactly that response. It gave them a report number and a way to speak to somebody who could actually investigate their loss. The accounts Nick had used were taken down. That didn't undo the transactions, but it stopped new ones from being arranged in my name. Investigators searched his apartment and his storage area under a warrant. They found property connected to several theft reports, along with personal documents belonging to other people. His real first name was Nick. The last name he'd given Mrs. Bell wasn't his. He had used a false identity to rent upstairs, then used mine for the sales happening at the house. He hadn't built some perfect case against me. The payments, devices, and buyers gave investigators ways to separate what he'd done from what I had actually done. My work records helped establish where I was during several transactions. The woman from the grocery store and other buyers identified Nick as the seller when investigators found out. I had to keep explaining which phone number was mine, which account was mine, and which signatures weren't. But none of that was automatic. There were calls to make and records to obtain. For weeks, I had to keep explaining which phone number was mine, which account was mine, and which signatures weren't. The tools in my tote had been stolen. The paperwork inside had been made to support sales in my name. He'd also put equipment in another one of my containers, underneath an old blanket. I hadn't opened that one on Friday. If I'd simply loaded both totes into Tristin's SUV, I would have carried stolen property away with my own name written across the lids. That's the part that still makes me feel sick. He'd seen me moving. He knew which things were mine. He didn't need me to cooperate with him. He only needed me to finish packing, without looking carefully. The detective couldn't tell me whether Nick intended to report me himself, or just wanted the property associated with him. He confirmed that the key had never been returned, Mrs. Bell hadn't changed those locks before I moved in. The former tenant wasn't charged in connection with the thefts. Giving Nick access to his apartment hadn't meant giving him permission to enter mine months later. I know how angry I was when I learned there hadn't even been damage for Luke to find. Changing the locks had stopped Nick getting into my apartment. It hadn't stopped him using the basement, which he could reach from the yard without passing through my new locks. That was where he'd put the things with my name on them once I started spending my nights somewhere else. I had been checking the wrong part of the house for signs that something had changed. Luke helped the investigators identify which storage spaces belonged to which unit. He also confirmed when he'd changed the locks and what I'd reported to him beforehand. He didn't find another hidden entrance or a device inside my walls. Nick had been coming through a door, sitting at my table, using my belongings, and leaving before my shift ended. The reason he hadn't stolen my computer was probably practical. A missing computer would have made me call someone immediately. A moved chair was something I explained away. I can't prove that was his reasoning, but I know which one of those things bought him time. Some of the buyers got their money back through the services they'd used. Others had paid cash, and I don't know what they ultimately recovered. I felt responsible for a while, because they'd come to my home and been given my name. The detective reminded me that I hadn't invited them there, or received their money. Eventually, the messages stopped. The people who had contacted my employer were directed to the investigation, and my manager confirmed that the matter had been resolved as far as my job was concerned. I hadn't taken company property. I hadn't sold anything from the warehouse. Nick had borrowed the credibility of my workplace, along with my hoodie. I got the old driver's license and my personal papers back when the investigators no longer needed them. The forged sale records stayed with the case. I didn't want copies. I already knew what my name looked like in somebody else's handwriting. My car was written off. The insurance process took time, and I drove a borrowed car until the claim was settled. Mrs. Bell returned my deposit and confirmed in writing that my lease was over. Tristan and Luke called me. Tristan and Luke collected the last of my belongings after police released the property. They checked every container before it left the basement. I wasn't there for that. I didn't need to watch them empty a room to know I was finished with it. I stayed with Tristan for a few months, paid my share, and eventually rented a smaller apartment in a different part of town. It has its own washer. My spare keys are somewhere I chose, and nobody else's belongings are mixed in with mine. I also stopped trying to arrive. At first, I wanted a new phone number, a new job, and an address nobody I knew could accidentally give out. Some of those changes would have created more problems than they solved. I worked through the actual compromised accounts and documents with help, instead of replacing everything because I was scared. I haven't received another message about one of Nick's sales in more than a year. The last buyer I spoke to was the woman from the grocery store. She contacted the detective to make sure I was all right, and he asked whether I wanted her number. We had one short conversation. She apologized for approaching me in the parking lot. I told her not to apologize. She was the first person who described the inside of my apartment in a way I couldn't explain away. Before we hung up, she said she'd wondered why the man selling the cabinet seemed so familiar with the kitchen, but couldn't find a clean glass. He'd opened three cupboards before he found them. She had assumed he wasn't home much. I knew exactly which cupboards he'd tried. I could picture him standing there in my hoodie, explaining where I worked, deciding what to charge her, opening doors until he found what he needed. I didn't ask her for any more details. A few days after that conversation, I unpacked the last tote at my new place. It held the winter clothes Tristan and Luke had checked for me. I went through them anyway, then put them in a drawer, and took the empty container to the store. Then I took the container downstairs to the recycling area. I don't keep things with my name written across the lid anymore. There's no great reason for that. I just don't like looking at it. When I need something from storage now, I open the cupboard inside my own apartment. I know who put it there. I know who else has been in the room. And when I come home from work, the only fork in the sink is the one I left there. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what to do with it.