“Station wagon Stalker”

I think I’ve told this one in the comments before, but I couldn’t find it. This isn’t really paranormal either, but it happened to me when I was a kid of 12 or 13.

I was walking back home from the park with my sister and my best friend one Saturday. The park we went to was a quarter to a half mile down the road (we’ll call it Woodvale) from our houses, a straight shot with only 3 or 4 intersections (four way stops) along the way. It’s an old southern neighborhood, with trees shading the road, and no side walks. As usual there’s not much traffic, so we’re just walking in the road.

We had just passed through the first intersection, reaching it just before an old brown station wagon reached the stop sign. As the station wagon turned left onto Woodvale directly behind us, we stepped off the road and continued walking in the grass, out of the car’s way. As the car passed us, I could see the driver slow down, looking at us in the rear view mirror. He kept driving, but slower than he had been. As he reached the next intersection ahead of us, he turned left, going around the corner and out of sight.

Not thinking too much about it, we continued walking, my sister and friend cheerily munching on snacks we’d grabbed at the minit mart, chatting away.

As we walked passed the second intersection though, I looked down the road the car drove, and didn’t see it. It’s a long, clear stretch down that road, and we should have seen him, unless he had turned left to loop back for some reason. As I’m thinking about this, I see the brown station wagon pull up to the stop sign at the first intersection again. He had done a complete loop back to where we first saw him.

And he turned left, back onto Woodvale behind us once again. As he passes us for the second time, I see him looking in the mirror at us again. He pulls up to the third intersection... and turns left, passing out of sight behind the houses again.

“Guys, that’s the second time that station wagon has passed us” I announced to my companions, “He passed us, looped back, and passed us again”. My sister starts getting nervous, so I try to play it down, saying that it’s just weird, and nothing to worry about just yet. But as we pass through the third intersection, I look behind us and see him stopping, and turning left onto Woodvale behind us for the third time.

At this point, there’s only one intersection left between us, and the stretch of road our houses are on. So as he passes, still watching us in the mirror, I hatch a plan. Explaining it to my friends, the plan is to turn right at the fourth intersection, onto a road we’ll call Buck. If he is following us, he’ll turn right onto Buck, but the road hooks left almost immediately, putting us out of his sight. More importantly, there are no connecting roads or intersections from that road to the one our houses are on. He’d have to drive all the way down to where Buck ends at a T intersection with Woodvale. The plan is to lose him by doubling back once he’s around the left turn, and running towards our houses.

So as we reach the intersection of Buck and Woodvale, I see him coming up behind us for the 4th time. We turn right, acting like we’re talking casually, but I can’t hear anything over how hard my heard is pounding. I felt like you could see my heart beating through my shirt.

As expected, he turned right onto Buck behind us. He passed, and right before he reached the left turn, he slowed WAY down. We kept walking forward down Buck like nothing was wrong, but my hands were already trembling. He was watching us in the mirror. And as he neared the turn, he stopped looking in the mirror, and looked back directly at us.

It felt like it took ages for him to complete the turn, tectonic plates move faster than he took that turn, but eventually, he could no longer see us.

“NOW! RUN!” I snapped, and we doubled back towards Woodvale, running up the street towards our houses. As we ran, we crested a hill just a hand full of houses from our homes, when my heart lept into my throat. All the way at the bottom of the road, between the houses, I saw a brown station wagon reaching the T intersection of Buck and Woodvale. Having realized he couldn’t loop back easily, he must have gunned it. No rational driver could have reached the corner that fast.

“LEFT!” I shouted, as I ran for the backyard of the nearest house. We ran behind the house, and peered out around the corner. A couple seconds later, a brown station wagon sped past. The second he was past, we bolted out of the backyard, and ran 4 more homes down the street to my friends house, running into the garage and turning off all the lights.

Standing at the back of the garage, peering from a distance out the garage door windows, we watched as the station wagon passed once, twice, a third time from the other direction, and then a fourth and final time. I don’t know how long we stood there in the garage. But eventually, we peeked out, looking up and down the street. With no sign of the station wagon, my sister and I ran the rest of the way to our house, and locked ourselves inside.