The Predator at the Park

I was seven years old when it happened. I still see it in my head.

I lived on the third floor of an apartment complex with my brothers and my stepdad.

That day, I was watching YouTube in my room when he got home from work.

My brothers were on the bunk bed next to me. We shared the room.

Then my brother said he heard knocking on the door.

It was dark outside. I didn't believe him at first.

But then I heard it too. A knock.

My brother started to get up, but I told him to stay down. I'm the oldest.

I didn't want him opening the door for a stranger.

I walked to the door. There was a chair beside it.

I didn't want whoever it was to know someone was home.

So I climbed onto the chair instead of moving it away from the door.

I leaned close to the peephole, almost falling as I tilted my body to look.

That's when the fear hit me.

A masked man. A blue raincoat. Like some kind of official.

He was holding a gun. Right up to the peephole.

As if he wanted me to see it.

I slowly stepped down from the chair without making a sound.

I slipped off my slides so they wouldn't make noise.

I turned to my brothers and made a gun shape with my hand. Be quiet.

I shut off all the lights and ran to my stepdad's room.

Just before the man came, the electricity had gone out. The internet too.

It made everything feel even scarier.

My brothers followed me into my stepdad's room.

We used the flashlight on his phone since the ceiling light didn't work.

The knocking continued.

My stepdad wanted to look through the peephole himself.

But I wouldn't let him. I was too afraid even the smallest sound would give us away.

We stayed in that room for over an hour.

Then we heard a little boy and his parents walking into an apartment on our floor.

We heard kids playing downstairs on the first floor.

That's when I knew he was gone.

I called my mom and asked if we could go to my aunt's house. I didn't tell her why.

We left in a hurry.

I never saw that man again.

But what if I had let my brother open the door?

Now I'm 28 years old. I was seven when the second story happened.

It was 2003. I went to a local park with three friends.

We'd been going there for almost two years.

But over the last five months, we noticed something strange.

Every single day, there was a short, fat, creepy old man on a nearby bench.

He just sat there watching us. For hours. With an unsettling grin.

Our parents trusted us. The park was close to our house. We had no phones.

Two weeks later, he finally came over to us.

It was just me and my three friends that day.

He asked if we wanted to go to his house to play video games and see his new dog.

We were kids. We were foolish. We said yes.

He said it was about a twenty minute walk from the park.

The four of us walked with him.

About ten minutes in, a cop car drove by and started to slow down.