It was dead in the middle of summer and this night was particularly hot and humid. My friends and I were staying up all night as we did many times, especially in the summertime. I was 15 at the time, I’m 23 now, a rather petite female. Anyways, my friends were staying over for the weekend and we were all out in my pool house. We usually hung out in there because us was like having our own house all to ourselves with no parents although my mom would check in on us often.
I lived out in the country, a slightly rural area but a small city within a 10 minute drive and a small 24 hour cafe within a 10 minute walk away. We had been sneaking drinks all day and was pretty buzzed when we decided to take the walk to the all night cafe just after midnight. We collected ourselves and set off giggling down the street in route of the cafe.
Halfway down the street we noticed a man and woman out in the pitch black darkness arguing rather loudly and pushing each other. We were at the top of the road and their driveway went down a steep hill and was pretty long, so their view of us was blocked. We paused for a moment and watched as the arguing seemed to calm and the two went inside the house.
At this point my friend Jennifer realized that she had left her wallet, so we would have to turn back to get it as she was paying and the only one with cash on her at the time. We all begrudgingly turned around and head back to get her wallet, giggling and joking about the man and woman we saw arguing, trying to guess what they might have been arguing about… we came up with some pretty stupid things… the things you might expect a teenage girl to come up with. It didn’t take long for Jen to grab her wallet and we were on the way back within 15 minutes at the most.
We had just made it halfway back up the street, when we saw a van pulling out of the driveway that we had saw the couple arguing at. It pulled out and drove by us really slow. We were super freaked out but tried to remain calm as it drove on past us picking up speed as it drove away. We finally made it to the restaurant and ordered.
We spent some time in there talking, laughing and just having fun and by the time we were leaving, the whole couple arguing thing was already long gone from our minds. It wasn’t until we were turning down the dark street that I live on that we remembered the creepy guy in the van and the events that had transpired earlier. This is when my other friend Cara points out that the van is still gone… she said, “maybe we should go peek in the window and see what she’s doing.” We had came up with the idea that she was probably cheating so this was the reason for Cara’s bright idea.
Even though I was a little nervous, I didn’t want to seem like a scared little girl so I went alone with it. We head down along the side of the drive as to stay in the shadows and hide. We were stumbling and giggling and shish-ing each other the whole way down.
Cara speaks up and says she’ll go peek while we keep lookout so she does and we do. That’s when I notice Cara backing away slowly with a horrible look on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. She clasps her hand over her mouth and looks at Jen and I and mouths… “let’s go, RIGHT NOW!” We stand there confused as she grabs our wrists and says, “Run, now!” We all take off, asking her wtf is going on as we run. “That lady” she says “I saw her, she was laying on the staircase… covered in blood” “Oh my God she was dead” Cara said. Neither of us believed her, we gave each other (that look) and broke free from her grasp sneaking back down the drive to have a peek for ourselves and that’s when I realized that I should have listened to Cara. I’ll never forget what I saw. It looked nothing like the stuff you see in horror movies. The blood was dark and everything looked surreal. Time stopped momentarily but Jennifer’s piercing scream brought me back to reality. We darted back up the hill, screaming. Cara stood there waiting but before we could speak we notice the van steadily approaching us.
He must have seen us coming out of his yard so we continue to run as fast as we could past him but he jerked the van around in no time and caught up to us just as we were running through my yard. He saw us. He continued driving by extremely slow and then turned around and drove by heading back to his house. We were freaking out about what to do. “Do you guys think she was for sure dead?” I asked them as Cara proceeded to say “She had a kitchen knife protruding from her chest and blood was streaked on the walls and floor so I’m pretty sure she was dead.”
We were too scared to tell my mom and too scared to call the cops because we didn’t know how to explain how we saw it. We were just stupid teens. Had I known then what I know now, i would have called the cops right away… but we didn’t call them at all. We stayed in pure terror the remainder of the night and we all swore that we’d never tell anyone but I decided to break that promise today because it’s taken its toll on me over the years.
I was petrified that entire summer, I was so scared that man was going to come for me but thankfully he moved out of that house near the end of the summer. Before he moved, I’d often see him drive by my house really slow whether it was day or night.
I made eye contact with him once and he gave me the creepiest most unsettling look, smirking as if he knew my dilemma, that he knew I’d never tell and that he was free to do whatever. His eyes cold and souless. I was so happy the day I saw a for sale sign in his yard. I never heard anything about the woman, I searched the missing people’s reports in our town for years to no avail. Jennifer,Cara and I never mentioned it again and life went on as if it never happened. But the fact remains that we all witnessed the aftermath of a murder. And somewhere out there the killer roams free.