Julie was walking down the street in her own neighborhood. She decided to walk that evening instead of taking her car. But along the way, this time she had the feeling she was being followed. She stopped walking and looked around to the back of her. She saw nothing. It must be all in my mind, she thought. However, she kept walking until she got to a lighted area. She walked into a coffee shop. She ordered some coffee and sat down in a seat with a table to sip on it. She had brought her magazine and was reading as she was sipping her coffee.
A man in a pickup truck drove up and parked in the parking lot and parked in a spot a distance across from the café. He turned off the engine. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out some binoculars. He adjusted the binoculars and looked straight ahead in the direction of the café. The café had glass walls. He could see Julie clearly through the binoculars watching her sip her coffee and read her magazine.
Julie had broken up with her boyfriend a year ago. They had been getting into too many arguments and then the last straw was when he committed a horrendous act out of revenge.
Julie looked up from her magazine when she noticed headlights coming through the window of the coffee café. Then the headlights turned off. Julie finished her coffee to get up to leave. She went to the lady’s room and came out. She didn’t notice any headlights turned on or anything suspicious. She then left the café. She hadn’t noticed the man in the pickup in the dark with the binoculars. He had lowered them when she left out of the café door.
Julie walked down the street to go back to her house. She was a block away from the café before the man in the pickup turned on the ignition and started up the truck. He slowly and quietly started to pull out of his parking spot. He reached the edge of the parking lot then turned in the direction of Julie. He was moving very slowly keeping at least a block away from Julie.
Julie walked down the sidewalk. The night air was misty and quiet except for the sound of crickets. Julie noticed some headlights that turned on then off. The pickup slowly moved about five miles an hour in the dark. There was the slight sound of small rocks crackling under its wheels.
Julie thought, what is that? Is someone following me? Julie decided to try a different route to get home to see if she really was being followed or if it was all in her imagination.
Julie proceeded to take a detour. She walked through the grass to the backyard of a church. She passed by the church windows and saw the parishioners praising God. She then passed through the parking lot in back of the church then onto the sidewalk back on the street. She passed by a house with a white picket fence. A dog that was in the yard barked when he saw Julie but the dog stayed safely behind the picket fence in his yard. Julie continued to walk by. She cut through a backyard of a house where there was a swing set. The night was quiet. There were no lights turned on in the house. Julie had a seat on a swing and started to reminisce about better times. In a flash of an instant she saw flashlights straight ahead of her coming from the front of the house. I wonder if the people who are living here came home, she thought.
Julie got up off the swing set and walked up to the corner of the back of the house. She slowly peeked around the corner and saw the pickup. The headlights were on then they turned off. It was pitch black, dark. Julie made a run for it in the backyard and climbed over a neighbor’s fence.
Julie then tried to run for it but was blocked by another fence. She saw an opening when she noticed that one of the houses didn’t have a fence around their yard. She climbed over a fence in that direction. She ran down the side of the other neighbor’s yard and out onto the street. She walked down the sidewalk through the mist. The silence was deafening. It was pitch black. The street lights had burned out. Her fear was intense. She was now on the opposite side of the road she had been on originally when trying to escape. She then took a few more detours unto other roads where the lighting was better. She started to feel a sense of relief. She took a deep breathe. The air was clear and clean. I think I probably lost that man in the pickup by now, she thought. She continued with her walk for a path back to her house.
Julie finally arrived at her house with her key in hand and opened the front door and walked into her living room. She put her magazine on the night table by the phone. She then noticed her living room window was open and went to close it shut tight. I wonder how that window was open, she thought. Did I forget to close it? She then turned on her lamp beside the window and turned around.
“Hello, Julie,” said the man. He was sitting on her living room coach.
“How did you get in here, Matt?” exclaimed Julie.
“I miss you, Julie,” said Matt.
“I don’t miss you,” replied Julie. “What are you doing here? The last time we broke up together is when you poisoned my dog. You’re a monster! Now, please leave.”
“I’m not going to leave, Julie,” said Matt. “I want you.”
“Get out or I’ll call the police,” said Julie. Julie picked up her phone to dial 911.
“Don’t do that,” said Matt. “Or, I’ll hurt you.”
Julie finally got an operator on the phone. “Please help,” said Julie. “There is a man in my house who’s going to kill me!”
“We’ll send a policeman right away,” said the 911 operator.
“I’m not going to kill you,” said Matt, “as long as you put down the phone and come back with me.”
“Are you crazy?” said Julie. “Kill me? Leave me alone. Go away!”
Matt came up to Julie and wrapped the telephone cord around her neck and pulled it tight. Julie choked and gasped for air. She struggled to pull the cord off her neck but she couldn’t budge it an inch. She struggled and struggled to remove the cord but Matt wouldn’t loosen his grip.
“Say you’ll come back to me and I won’t kill you,” said Matt.
Julie couldn’t talk if she wanted to because she had no air to breathe to be able to.
“You bitch,” said Matt and pulled the cord tighter around Julie’s neck.
Then finally there were flashing lights and a siren came from outside. The police had finally arrived.
Matt dropped the phone and cord and ran out the back door of the house. Julie then began to choke and gasping for air.
A policeman knocked on the door. Julie coughed and spat out, “come in” but forgot the door was locked and then went to open it. The policeman walked through the door. “He, Matt my ex-boyfriend choked me with the phone cord,” she coughed out. “He ran out the back door. He’d been driving a pickup. He was stalking me tonight and broke into my house through the window.” The policeman went out through the back of the house to look for Matt.
