Used to work near DC then take the Metro back home every night. I was essentially catching the last bus to the train station, the last train to my bus stop, the last bus to the station in my town then walking maybe 2 miles to my home every night. By the time I was in my town, it was anywhere from 12:30 to 1:30. The town is pretty lily white so I felt relatively safe, but I just also like the silence of the night--usually a lot of traffic so walking through the streets when no one else is there is refreshing above everything else.
So at the stop, there's usually three or four people that get off the bus, one of them a guy who worked next to my office and whom I eventually hired at my place. I came to know him really well actually--he lived near me too--but he had a bike that he would ride over to his place to promptly sleep then do the same schedule we always did (had to wake up two hours earlier since the train ride + bus ride was so long; not fun). Anyways, we talked for the usual five or ten minutes off the bus, he got on his bike, sped off. The other two filtered off and I made my way over home. Now, I never during the few months I did this had anyone ever walk the same path as me. Not a single soul. I was a little paranoid when I saw someone on a bike cruise by but sighed when they sped ahead.
Then they did it again.
Then again.
Then again.
Now, my walk is a straight path down the core of the commercial area, then cuts between a small shopping mart before running along a long dark narrow road, then up another long dark that goes up a hill to where my community is. It wasn't that safe but it was quick and if need be, I could run pretty fast. So when he went by the second time, I thought that maybe he was just lapping late at night.
The third time, I was thinking that he was trying to scare me.
The fourth time I was confident he was planning to rob me, but I also knew that he couldn't do that on the bike and so if he got off the bike, I could simply outrun him (I was pretty fast at the time) or lose him in the apartment or housing complexes that lined the road.
Each time he was lapping me, he was just going left or right at the intersection that took you to the mart. I make it to where the shopping mart is when the guy on the bike passes me, rides through the mart then nothing. He just speeds off the corner. I actually didn't pay it any mind, weirdly enough. I am usually very paranoid when I walk in cities or towns, but in that place at night I ask no questions.
So I enter the small square where the mart is from the "south", walk through an empty lot at it's center, and exit at the "north" block of the square to take a right onto this long dark road. I'm maybe five steps down the road when I hear a weird rustling sound coming up ahead. I stop, it doesn't sound natural and I'm actually curious because like I said, it's absolutely silent when I walk through town. So on this dark road, it hugs the "north" of the mart, then the mart has a corner of the square which touches it before retreating south again. The corner, however, is diagonal. So you can see the slope before you even walk up to it. I must've been at a 135 degree angle when I spot, hiding around the corner, I spy a shadowy figure as I walk up--they're standing maybe 40 feet back. I see what looks like a bike, I mutter a very quick fuck as I realize I forgot about the kid on the bike and obviously he was trying to see where I would walk to set me up.
I scan around, there's no one else around so I think, I'll double back and run to the 7/11 in the mart and wake up my father from there, get a ride. As that thought completes, the guy pulls something down over his face, fuck fuck fuck fuck, I'm already backing up but can still see him in case he gets on the bike (as long as he isn't on the bike, you can out run him). Then he reaches for his waistband and I am so shocked I actually stayed still for a second, I distinctly remember asking myself what he was doing then a few no's. What comes up is a long, clunky looking thing and I was still paralyzed until it was out at his side and he started walking up towards me.
I don't think it really clicked he had a gun until he raised it at me, and when he did that I fucking ran as fast as I could. I ran back up the road, towards the mart, then started hollering as I ran in Z's back and forth, trying to get any sort of attention. I heard nothing for a few seconds then the clacking of shoes on the pavement behind which meant he followed me. I really stared hollering now, I mean I was screaming as if I was a little girl getting murdered, my voice has never gotten that shrill or high before. I am weaving in and out anticipating gun shots, trying to get to the 7/11.
I still hear the clattering behind me, much more distant and I can tell he hasn't kept up at the very least, and I just close my eyes as I power through and give up zig zagging, praying its not a gun or that he doesn't shoot me and that I reach the 7/11 because I really don't want to be found dead in a parking lot with a gram of weed in my back pocket above all other things. When I pull the door wide open, god it felt like I was home for a quick second and then it slams behind me as I struggle to breathe. "Gun...outside...phone...police...help" that's literally what I said, I gave up trying to speak because of how strained my entire body was after running about 300/400 yards for my dear life. My heart is fucking thumping trying to leave my chest, my tongue feels strained and tastes like something but nothing, my mouth as a whole is dry, the insides of my body are aching like they never have. I am not a fucking runner, I just want to lay and sleep and get this over with and I'm trying really hard to communicate but it's hard. The second everyone hears gun, they retreat from me but they hear outside and phone, then the clerk tries to ask me a few questions--I can't even breathe so I'm heaving--before calling the cops.
I got a ride from a police officer that responded, one of my few positive interactions with a cop. Went home, laid in bed silently and called in sick the next day in the morning. Never walked home again, I arranged with the friend who rode with me to get his fiance to drive their car up to the lot with another bike attached, then bike back so we could then get into the car and drive back to our neighborhood. But those few minutes we walked a block over to where the car was were the most nerve wracking parts of my life for a few weeks. I was never so paranoid, never have been, hope to god I never will be.