Transcript
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Several years ago I was maybe 19 or 20. We lived in the state's capital. Some family friends were coming to visit us during that summer and my mom wanted to cook a particular dish for them. This dish is best served the next day as the flavors have time to develop. However, we needed chorizo sausage to make the dish, something my mom forgot about until 7pm that night. As this was in the Midwest, chorizo was hard to come by, so a quick Google search revealed a small butcher shop close to our state capitol building. Mom called and they said they had chorizo. Dad volunteered to go get it and and I agreed to go along because I was bored. We got into our nice Cadillac Escalade. This is important to note, plugged in the directions into our GPS and drove down while we were maybe 100 yards away from our state's capitol building, which is actually pretty nice. The neighborhood this butcher shop was in was not street lights wore out, windows were dark, houses had peeling paint, some were boarded up, and there were no cars in sight or anyone else around, not even walking their dogs. Something about this place gave me a weird vibe and I mentioned to my dad that we should get out of there. But we had a mission and good luck trying to convince my dad to change his mind about something. We go into this butcher shop and I don't know how in the world they managed to run without a visit from the health inspector. But holy cow, it was bad. It was hot and sticky inside and I didn't hear any humming from the display cases, meaning the cooling elements weren't working. Inside the Grimly display case are pork trotters, pig ears, pork belly, etc. And flies were buzzing. The floors hadn't been mopped or even swept in God knows how long. How do I know this? Because we are leaving shoe imprints and our shoe imprints were the only ones there as I pretended to busy myself by browsing the shelves. In reality I was scanning the store and watching the exit for trouble because I did not feel right being there. Dad asked the husband and wife manning the counter about the chorizo, to which they responded that they had just sold out of it, but they had plenty of fresh ingredients to make our own for the right price. As my dad was trying to get his way out of there, haggling and asking for directions for the closest grocery store, I noticed movement outside the smudged and smeared glass door. There were four burly looking shadows outside close to our car, which wasn't the only car out there but a beautiful Escalade with all the bells, whistles and had just been detailed. In other words, we were a giant bullseye. Thinking fast, I pretended to look at my phone. Hey dad, mom asked Luisa. And she had plenty of chorizo. I said a bit more cheerily than I intended. Before dad could ask what the heck was going on, I grabbed his arm and tugged on him. After a quick thank you, we got out of there. Fortunately the burly shapes were gone. My knees were like jello wobbling and I was still on the adrenaline high. Dad was looking at me confused. Hey, we don't even know a Louisa, he said as he unlocked the car door. I know. I just wanted to get out of there because I had a bad feeling, I admitted as we both got in, locked the doors and turned on the ignition. The car's headlights turned on and not even 10ft away were the four burly shapes. They were just standing there. They were four men, middle aged, dressed in jeans, T shirts and caps. I noticed one of them was holding a crowbar and they started walking towards us. I screamed dad, get out of here. He didn't need to be told twice. Dad gunned it and the Escalade, which is built for not only beauty but speed, accelerated. The men jumped out of the way and we took off down the road. We didn't stop until we were home. Mom was more glad we were okay than about the chorizo, especially when she learned what happened. Fortunately we were able to find some the next day at a reputable supermarket that Specialized in Latino food. Obviously. I'm so glad nothing happened, but I will always wonder what those men truly wanted. Just our car or something else In a summer between my years in college, I moved in with my old high school friends. They had a place close to their campus and college party district in our hometown. I attended school in a different city and need a place to stay while I worked over the summer. One roommate was going abroad so more or less I was subletting. The house they lived in was an older duplex in a corner lot. We lived in the bottom floor and the top floor was always vacant. The house would have been a prime frat house in its heyday. It had a large porch on one side large enough for couches and coffee tables. Could easily host 15 people on the porch alone. We spent many summer days and nights on that porch day drinking and playing music. It wasn't uncommon for us to exchange pleasantries. People walking by on the sidewalk less than 10ft from the porch. Most times people going to party would come around the corner and walk down our street to go to the bars and clubs. Friday and Saturday nights the crowds would start around 8pm going one direction. Then the traffic would reverse around 12am Mostly college aged crowd with the occasional transient bump or tweaker. Sometimes random people would ask to come up and chill for a minute. One evening in particular a man happened to walk by. I saw him come around the corner. He was older than the average college crowd, late 40s or early 50s. He sees me on the porch and I wave and say hello. He continues along the sidewalk in front of the porch. When he is closer I can tell that he looks weathered. His clothes look worn and old, hair a mess, beard and somewhat dirty like he had been working outside. He pauses for a minute. I can't remember specifically why I think he commented on the porch or the weather or something. I do remember that he asked for directions like is this the way he wants to go? I tell him he is on the right track. He makes a comment about having friends in the area then just continues on his way. I don't think anymore about it. It was a low key night mid summer. Just one of those dog days I think. My buddy and I had a few beers then decided to call it a night early, probably around 10 or 11pm which was early for us. So you understand the layout. My room is on the porch side of the house. It shares a wall with the front door and a window to the porch with a wall to divide the bedroom from the main room. My friend's room is all the way at the back of the house a good 30ft from the front door. I dozed off easily but was abruptly awakened by a slamming sound. At first I thought my friend was up having a smoke and maybe slammed the door mistakenly. Before I could make sense of it I realized it was a violent knocking on the door. Like SWAT team style knocking. Still being in a daze, I am like what the hell is going on? As the third round of knocks shake the wall. I peek from behind the curtain in my room out to the porch and can see the same guy from earlier beating on the door. He seems out of it, uneasy on his feet and obviously stirred up about something. He starts yelling to me to let him in. Nope. I dropped the curtain and reached for my piece because they are past the point of having a conversation and I am feeling like the door may not hold. I thought to myself I don't have time to call the cops because if this guy comes through the door, my room is the first stop. I go out to the living room about 10ft back from the door as the fourth barrage begins. He is telling more now sounds like he is asking someone to open the door by name. This time I responded with you got the wrong house, thinking that maybe will enrage him more or help him get a clue. The banging stops momentarily like a decision is being made. I hear shuffling but can't tell if he is leaving or just moving around. Suddenly one more loud burst of knocking. So I give him the same response, this time fully prepared to defend myself if the door swings open. It doesn't. Then silence. Then a few seconds of nothing. Then more silence. Apparently that was his last effort. I went back to the window. He was gone. Or at least I couldn't see him. Don't think I slept that night, thinking it might just be the first of the night. Fortunately, that was it. I talked to my friend in the morning. He was completely unaware. He said he thought he heard something, but nothing alarming. Goes without saying, lock your doors and always be prepared When I was in my early 20s and living in Chicago, I wasn't making much money when I found this apartment. It was too good to be true. The top floor of a duplex with six rooms for $775 a month. The agent who showed me the apartment stressed to me that the landlords were very religious. I didn't have a problem with that, even if it did sound a little ominous. The landlords were an elderly couple that lived downstairs. They seemed okay at first when I saw them in the yard, they would smile at me. They took good care of the house. When they saw I was having my boyfriend over, things started to get really weird. One day I was in my office writing. I hear a knock at the door. I open it and it's the old lady from downstairs. Before I can say hello, she says, have you ever gotten an abortion? I shut the door in her face. No, thanks. This was a colossal mistake. The house was laid out kind of weird. There was a door at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Stairs that I thought led to a communal laundry room. But after accidentally opening it once, I discovered it led directly into my landlord's living room. I unfortunately learned this the hard way. I was in my kitchen cooking. My boyfriend was at work, and I was by myself when I heard what sounded like the click of a door. Okay, I said out loud. What the hell was that? I didn't really make the connection that it could have been the door that led into their living room. I walk into the hallway and look around. I don't see anyone at the end of the hallway. I poke my head into all the rooms. Nobody there. Then I look down the staircase leading to their house and the neighbor lady is standing there staring me down. I screamed. She flinched and stepped back into her apartment and swung the door shut. After that, every time I left the house, I would come back and something would have been moved. A window would be shut. Once the shower was dripping and my towel was damp. I couldn't lock the door. Since it was technically a door to their house. They were the only ones with the key. The knocking got so frequent three or four times a day that me and my boyfriend propped up an old mattress so we wouldn't have to hear it while we slept. The second to last straw was when I opened the door for work and the stairs were gone. I physically could not leave my house because there were no stairs. They had been dismantled and were sitting on their porch. I called them repeatedly, but they didn't answer. Finally, their son came out of the house and explained that they were remodeling their porch. He told me I had to cut through their apartment downstairs. I descended the stairs and opened the door, and they were both sitting at their filthy kitchen table, staring at me. The phone was in its cradle. They must have heard it ringing. They kept staring at me with this blank look on their faces. I crossed their kitchen and left out their back door. A few days later, I came home from my job and noticed the bathroom floor was almost completely flat. Flooded. Like somebody left a faucet on or the shower on. The old woman, seeing that I had come home, came upstairs and knocked screaming at me that I had flooded the bathroom and that her son had to come fix it. I was so run down at this point that I just told her it was okay. Her son came by a few hours later. He was completely drunk. I open the door and tell him that I need an hour or so before he comes and he picks something up and swings it at me. It was a massive wrench. I somehow duck out of the way and he stumbles over. I book it down the newly repaired stairs as quickly as possible and call the police. They come by and take down a complaint but claim since there was no physical contact they can't do anything, which seemed odd to me. I learn later that the old couple has a daughter on the force. In the middle of the night, me, my boyfriend and several of his friends packed all of our stuff into a Chevy Astro. We lived in hotels and the van for a month until we found another house. They never attempted to contact us again.