It was really difficult for me to work up the courage to post this because it still haunts me to this day and I still don’t have a solid explanation for what happened. For context, I was 12 at the time, living in a small suburb in New Jersey. I am female.
One day, I was home alone, sick, and my parents were at work. It would have taken my parents at least 40 minutes to get to me had I called them, and there was no family living nearby me at the time.
They had given me the same standard instruction- don’t open the door for strangers, don’t spend the entire day watching TV, etcetera. I obeyed, and stayed in my bedroom the entire day, playing online chess on my dad’s computer to pass the time.
Suddenly, I heard a knock at the door. I peered out my bedroom window, which had a view of the front door, and saw a kind of gaunt teenager. Probably around 16 or 17. Shoulder length hair, dark eyes, above average height. I would compare him to Charlie Walker from Scream 4 (if you’ve seen it.)
I didn’t know him, and honestly even if I did I wouldn’t have answered the door- my parents had a video doorbell and smart lock and could answer the door perfectly well on their own without my interference.
The knocking went on for a solid minute or two. It was really more irritating than anything. Ten year old me was not having that so, very stupidly, I opened my window just a crack and screamed, “Fuck off!” to the kid standing there.
He immediately stopped banging on the door and looked straight at me. That’s when I knew I had made a terrible mistake. He grinned maliciously at me, and pulled out of his pocket a large kitchen knife.
I screamed, slammed my window shut and locked it, and called my parents while barricading the door to my room. I was too afraid to call the police because I was afraid I’d get in trouble if he ran away and they didn’t find him, and that they wouldn’t believe me.
My mom picked up the phone and I asked her to check the doorbell camera right now as somebody was at the door scaring me. At this point the knocking had turned into banging- very VIOLENT banging. It seemed like his entire body weight was put into every thud.
But he didn’t show up on the cameras. Neither him nor the ruckus he was making showed up on the camera. This didn’t make sense as he was literally right before my eyes- he was there all right. I asked her to check the living room camera because the front door opened up into the living room. The noise he was making didn’t show up there either. Both cameras had audio capabilities. I still don’t know why or how this happened.
She didn’t believe me, and hung up. I called my dad but the same thing happened with him.
At this point I was really scared. I didn’t have any sort of thing that could be used as a weapon in my room besides a vase. I started praying and hoping that everything would be alright. I was terrified, and the bangs seemed like they went on for hours. In reality it was probably more like 10 minutes. But they seemed much longer.
Finally, the bangs stopped. I looked out my window, and the man was gone. I called both my parents again, and they checked again, but nothing showed up and they were convinced I was lying for attention. Now, 3 years later, they still don’t believe me.
But I still remember him very clearly. The sunken in face. The malicious grin. The eyes that looked devoid of any mercy or sympathy. I still shudder to think what could have happened had I answered the door.