No Way to Run

I am deeply frightened, I  live alone with two dogs and I perceive through my window  there is a  guy, whose face I cannot see well wearing a dark thick fabric gray raincoat,  walking on the sidewalk in front of my house.  He also wears an advertising hat on his head. His medium length untidy hair helps him hide his face. On his left shoulder hangs a colorless huge tarp bag.

Without deviating his eyes from my house, the strange man stops. I hope he does not see me hidden behind the closed shutter. I do not have a relative, a close friend to call for help.  I am  all alone. Hopeless I realize he crosses the street and walks to my gate.

My property is all surrounded by chain link fences, about six inches tall, the iron grids are nor thick nor thin.  The strange man’s intentions are not good because he does not ring the bell.  I was not wrong. My heart feels as if he were forcing it not the doorknob.  He pushes the gate in order to try to enter, but it is locked.

I heave a sigh of relieve when I think he is giving up his intentions and leaving. I listen to my blood pulsing in my ears when he looks around and realizes he is alone in the street. It encourages him to go on.  His bag is placed on the ground and he looks for something. I cannot see properly, but it is a piercing tool, maybe a screwdriver.

Without breathing, I run to the telephone desk and call the Police.  My uncertain fingers tremble and I can hardly dial.  There are only two police cars in town and both are busy at the moment, says the woman who answers me.  She promises to send the first vehicle  to my address  as soon as  it arrives, she continues.  After this she takes note of my home address. I restate her that I am alone and terrified. It is an emergency request - I want to continue, to beg, I want to make her understand I am alone.

 My worries are just mine. Just mine.

I go to the window in time to see the evildoer entering the patio. As I was predicting it would happen, I previously locked the back door and windows and put my two dogs, Brownie and Cookie , inside. Why is it not one more nightmare, like the ones I have always had? Why is it happening to me?

We are here now, the three of us. My companions  sniff the air and bark furiously feeling something imperceptibly for me. All doors are locked. But what is a lock for that man?  I feel a mix of pain and agony in my throat as If I was being strangled.

I call the next-door neighbor, until the connection drops in the electronic mailbox. I go to the window and call the other side neighbors by their names. No one listens to me. I call 911 again.  The same woman answers me, although she wants me to repeat everything I had already said before, my address, what is going on... She definitely has no memory and asks me to calm down… Of course, this is happening to me, not to her or someone she loves. If I am killed here it is not going to make any difference for her. I will be part of statistics, nothing more. I ask myself: Where is police when we need it the most?

I listen with horror to the man forcing the back door. I pull Cookie and Brownie to my bedroom. They are unable to stop barking. I hug them to calm them down even though I am panicked. I do not  know if  I cry  or  laugh  when I lock the  door, I know that person is opening when he arrives there. The windows grills do not allow us to escape. Some years ago I installed them so that the house would be safer. I regret it now.

It has not been a good idea to go to my bedroom.  Maybe I should have left with the dogs by the front door and run to a house nearby when I could.

I enter the bathroom, and push the nonstop barking spiny fur dogs to come with me.  I lock it with the key. I grab a red towel and begin to shake it outside though the tilt window on trying to call someone’s attention.

I shout for help. My cries join my dogs’ barks. No one, no one listens to us.

My bedroom door opening sound tells me the man entered the room. He is there!  A few steps distance from us. The dogs feel his smell and bark even more.  I cry as I never thought I would be able to.

The bathroom door handle moves up and down. I listen to the sound of his body about to break the door. He will break into at any time.