Her Last Resort
I’m a female, first of all. I’m 21 now, but when I was four years old, my sister had just turned 16. She had just gotten her license and was so excited. It was probably only September, and she got her license in July. My sister is from my dad’s first marriage, and she lived with her mom and stepdad while I lived with our dad and my mom.
We lived about 30 minutes apart. My dad worked late hours, and my mom frequently traveled for work, so I had to spend a lot of time at a babysitters (which was costly) until my sister got her license. My dad finally gave her permission to pick me up after she got out of school and take me to her mom’s until he was off work. She was so excited to finally be able to use her license!
I know I said I was only four, but I remember this event so vividly. It took years for my sister to even ask me if I remembered it, but when I told her all the parts I remember (about 80%) she filled in the rest for me. It was one of the first times my sister would get to pick me up from my babysitter, which means it would be one of the first times she’d been allowed to drive with me alone.
Almost as soon as we pulled onto the main road, a white pick-up truck swerved behind us. Weird, but whatever. After a few turns, my sister noticed that the truck still followed her. Even when she would just switch lanes, he was right there switching behind her. My sister, being a bit of a paranoid person, tested it a little and switched lanes several times.
She said she heard his tires squealing by his quick cuts to get behind her again. She told me not to worry, and I remember being an oblivious little kid. She looked scared, but I had no concerns. The man started to get really angry. I don’t remember anything about what he looked like, but I do remember that he had this look of pure hate on his face
It’s strange that you can sometimes remember expressions but not the faces they were on. He wasn’t only angry, he was full of hate. He was honking the horn repeatedly, just laying on it, and he was very close to our car. He was swerving back and forth, trying to get our attention. He would pull up beside us occasionally, flip us off, and honk.
The first big event came about when we pulled up at a four-way stoplight. It’s a bigger one, so there was a lot of room in the intersection. We were the first ones at the stop light in our lane, and nobody was beside us. The man used this lane to pass us and pull his car in front of us almost in the intersection. He was now blocking us.
I so perfectly remember that white pick up truck. He got out of it, and started storming towards our car. He was screaming so hard I remember thinking his face almost looked purple. Neither one of us remembers what he was saying, but he pulled up his shirt to reveal to us that he had a gun. He pointed to it and at us, threatening us and closing the gap between us. My sister put her hand over my body, told me to close my eyes, and floored it through the intersection.
She said she was worried we were either going to hit him, or get hit in the intersection, but it was a better chance than sitting there and waiting for the psycho to shoot. But that was just the beginning of the nightmare. He hopped back into his car and followed us. My house was closer to where we were than my sister’s, so for some reason, she decided to go to my empty house.
Obviously, he followed us and blocked us into the driveway. He got out and walked towards my sister’s parked car. Once again, she had to think fast and swerve her way across our lawn back out onto the road. This was before cell phones, and she had just started driving and was still young. She had no idea what to do, really.
He followed us back onto our neighborhood road, pulling up next to our car and hitting his truck against us, trying to make us skid or wreck. There is a smallish area of grass between my neighborhood road and a major busy road, and it was obvious he was trying to push our car hard enough to send us into the traffic beside us. I remember him doing that little gesture where you drag your finger along your throat, like you’re slitting it.
His face was still purple. There was a gas station nearby and my sister decided on the last Hail Mary move she could think of. I remember her talking to me so seriously and sternly. She told me she needed me to be a big girl and the second we pulled by the door of the gas station, to undo my seatbelt and jump out, and run inside so fast that I shouldn’t even worry about closing my door.
I was to run inside and go directly to the person behind the counter and tell them to call 9-1-1 because a bad man was following us. We pulled in and she threw the car in park and I jumped out and did as I was told. She was only a few seconds behind, but she had to actually stop the car, park it, turn it off, whatever. She closed her door and mine for me, and just ran inside with me.
The man came into the parking lot behind us, and when we were inside, he went through my sister’s car. By the time officers arrived, he was gone. They never found him, and we never knew what provoked him or what his plan was. The only thing he took from the car was my sister’s ID and the cash she had on her. I can still so vividly picture what was happening, but I don’t remember being scared.
I don’t remember my sister ever showing that she was freaking out, although later at her mom’s she did lose her mind, sobbing her eyes out and yelling, understandably. I think the way she handled it really prevented it from being a really traumatic experience for me. It’s still scary, but it’s not something that haunts me, and I have her to thank.