Let's Not Meet Again

He Was In My Wardrobe

This happened a few years ago, and suffice to say, I don't like being home alone any more.

I was a 21 year old female, in my third year of university (I live in England). My boyfriend and I lived about two minutes away, and we often stayed at each other's houses, although there wasn't an exact routine to it. The city we lived in wasn't known for being particularly safe, but I never once felt threatened. Although I was a country girl at heart, I never took unnecessary risks, but even walking through typically 'unsafe' parks in the dark after choir, I was never given reason to be alarmed. The scary things always happen to someone else, right?

My boyfriend lived in a house with three other guys, one of whom dropped out halfway through the year. The house had a previous history of break-ins, and just before they rented, it had a new lock fitted on the front door; the previous year, a burglar had actually knocked the door down, despite it facing a busy street. That being the case, everyone was pretty diligent in locking the doors, whether we were inside or not.

On the night in question, my boyfriend was out at his band rehearsal, having left at 6:30pm (18:30), and his two remaining housemates left to go to the pub at 8pm. I wasn't much of a drinker, so I opted to stay home, and in the blissful hour to myself, I decided to have a shower.

Now, I'm in my uni choir and I absolutely adore singing, so I grabbed my phone and speaker and headed to the bathroom. I don't often get the chance to really blast it out when people are in the house, out of consideration for them, so I was relishing the opportunity. My phone was at about 15%, but I figured it'd last for the majority of my time in there, and I could just charge it up when I get out. So I'm in the shower, having an absolute banger of a time, when my phone predictably dies about twenty minutes in. I was done washing a few minutes ago, so I just get out and get dry and head to my/my boyfriend's room.

As soon as I walked out of the bathroom, I got this feeling that something wasn't right. I was home alone, but I had this horrible tense feeling like I wasn't the only one in the house, even though the house was absolutely silent, for save the slight sound of traffic.

I shrugged it out, figuring I'm just being paranoid, and dump my stuff on the bed. To give some context, the room is pretty large with a desk opposite the door, large bay windows with curtains drawn across them, and to the left is a large wardrobe. My boyfriend often liked to hang sheets and duvet covers to dry on their open doors, which drove me mad because it looked so untidy. The reason, I bring this up, is that immediately I felt like something was off. Firstly, my bedroom light was on and I could have sworn I'd switched it off, and secondly the sheet hanging on the wardrobe was in a crumpled heap on the floor and the wardrobe door was shut.

Cold shivers ran up and down my body, and honestly I still get shivers thinking about that moment. The first moment I realised someone was in my room and I was absolutely, completely defenceless.

I froze for a moment or two, and then the thought occurred to me that maybe someone had broken in, as it had happened before, and I had just interrupted them. It seemed the most logical explanation, so I grabbed my phone and made out like someone had called me.

"Oh hey Katie!" My voice was too high-pitched and fake, but I carried on with my oh-so-clever ploy. "Yeah, I'm just getting ready. I just need to—" I cursed and forced a laugh at this point. I cringe at how unconvincing it was, but I was like a cornered rabbit. "I forgot to shave my legs! I'll nip and do that now. Talk to you in a second!"

Clutching my dead phone to my chest, I pretty much bolted for the bathroom, locked the door, switched the shower on, and switched off the light. I sat opposite the door, shaking and crying, watching the light streaming in and waiting for the person to pass me and run downstairs.

I saw the shadow of their footsteps before they arrived, but instead of going downstairs, they halted just outside the door. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stop myself sobbing out loud, and I swear the creepiest voice I've ever heard, rasped:

"I know you're in there, little girl."

I tried to shout, but in reality, my voice broke as I said, "I'm calling the police right now!" The man just laughed and laughed, banging on my door harder and harder until I thought it would break. Then he stopped, and then banging was replaced by something altogether more sinister: a scratching, scraping sound, up and down the door. I practically wet myself there and then, trying to find something to defending myself with (best I had was the disgusting toilet brush and a can of shaving foam).

All of a sudden, everything stopped and I could hear him absolutely legging it down the stairs and into the kitchen. Seconds later, I heard the front door bang, and then eventually someone walking up the stairs. I was still holding my makeshift weapons and crying so hard I could barely see, when I heard my boyfriend swear, and I finally managed to unlock the door and let him in. Turns out there were grooves all down the door. The man had had a knife. He was scraping down the door with a knife.

I made my boyfriend call the police and stay with me till they arrived, even though he wanted to check the house over to make sure the man had actually gone. I was so scared though that he ended up sitting in the bathroom with me until they arrived, took a statement and scanned for prints.

It turns out one of the guys had left the back door open when he went to check the meter. That means that whoever snuck in here knew it was left open (we were otherwise very diligent about locking the doors, as I've said), and they knew that no one else but me was in the house. They also must have entered someone's house (whose back gardens face our back garden), or they must have sneaked in the flats next door to climb over the wall separating the properties. If he did that, someone must have let them in. My boyfriend's rehearsal finished about half an hour early, meaning that he was back before the man clearly expected. My only explanation is that he must have had someone outside watching, because that's the only way he'd have had time to bolt down the stairs, in full view of the front door, and out of the back door, still in plain sight, if he hadn't had some prior warning. That means someone else was involved, and I shudder to think what might have happened in the extra half hour he thought he had.

The thing that really gets me, though, is that he knew that I'd be at my boyfriend's house, which room I was in, and he'd brought a knife. This wasn't an accident. He'd been watching, he knew where we would all be, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

The police found prints but it wasn't anyone in their system, and they never found him. The bastard's still out there doing who knows what and no one knows who he is. I know it's not my fault, and if I did anything differently I might not be here to tell the tale, but I wish I had been able to do something more to identify him and get him off the streets. I can't bear the thought of him succeeding where he failed with me.