On The Patio
I grew up in rural-ish Illinois, but when I was 16 was housesitting for my aunt and uncle in the middle of nowhere Illinois about an hour and a half away from anyone I knew. (Which was dumb of me because I was such an anxious kid, but they were paying me $300.)
I had all of the blinds and curtains tightly closed so I wasn't creeped out by the desolate location (corn, as far as the eye could see.) Around dusk I was nearly positive I heard the back door jiggle but convinced myself I had imagined it - I was popping popcorn so I blamed it on that.
An hour or so later I heard very distinct whimpering outside, at first I thought it was one of their cats but then I realized it was more human / childlike.
I started peeking through blinds and didn't see anything. At that point I called my dad to try and get him to come out and stay with me (when I accepted the gig he warned me that he wouldn't come to my rescue when I got too scared, so he told me I was psyching myself out and that I was safe.)
It wasn't long, though, before the whimpers turned into actual human cries, and to me it sounded like a little kid. I put on my brave pants and opened the sliding glass door blinds to see that a girl was lying on the patio furniture crying. I quickly unlocked the door and flung it open but as soon as she heard me she jumped up and started banchee screaming while looking me dead in the eye.
It turned out that she wasn't a girl, it was a grown (but petite) woman, maybe in her 50's just staring at me and screaming at the top of her lungs. Obviously I slammed the door shut again and locked it and sprinted into the kitchen to call the cops (this was before teenagers had cellphones, so I was relying on the landline) During that call she began violently banging on the sliding glass door.
I decided to hide in a lower kitchen cabinet (lol, dumb hiding spot) in case she got in, it was going to be a bit of a wait because the police station was about 30ish minutes out. I had about a million anxiety attacks in that time, but after a few minutes the banging had stopped and it was dead quiet. I also called my dad back and had him on the line while he drove (he was an early adopter of the cellphone thank goodness) because the 911 operator said they couldn't let me "tie up their lines" and stay on the call with them until the cops arrived.
A very lazy, disinterested police officer finally showed up, did a 5 minute sweep of the property before saying there was no threat. Mind you, this was a massive farm operation with half a dozen out buildings, a few sheds, acres of corn, and endless opportunities to hide. And this man took a single lap around the house, half heartedly pointing his flashlight around. Luckily he did agree to stay with me until my dad arrived.
My dad showed up and told me to go to sleep, and he sat on the patio with a shotgun until sunrise. The next day my dad and I (and his shotgun) poked around the property and found evidence that someone had been staying in a storage shed, but no sign of the woman. And there was no sign of the woman ever again after that. If it weren't for her little hidyhole in the shed, I almost feel like people would have thought i imagined it.
This experience actually caused a huge falling out between my dad and his sister, because they she me they needed me there as a house sitter to feed the cats and keep an eye on the chickens, but it later came out that they had a feeling that somebody had been nosing around their home and that's why they wanted a house sitter.
They never found the woman, there was 0 evidence that she was doing drugs on the property (that was our initial assumption and she could have been, just nothing to point to that in the shed), she was about 4 miles from the nearest home and 30 miles from "town" aka a gas station, grocery store, and church so they were unsure how she even got there in the first place.
She absolutely terrified me, and I had literal trauma afterwards and couldn't be alone, but I feel horrible for her because I can't begin to imagine the circumstances that led her to that night, and I worry about where she went afterward.
#Person/Intruder #Person/Stranger #Location/US/Illinois