| Night of the Intruder |
| Allison Bressler |
| It was a Sunday night in summer, and after a weary week-end, my seven-months-pregnant body needed rest. My one wish as I settled into my nest of pillows was that sleep would be swift, dreamless, and undisturbed. So much for wishes. Being a light sleeper, I am accustomed to getting up with my children during the night whenever they are sick, scared, or just need a drink of water. This particular night, however, sleep had me submerged in oblivion, and I was, to say the least, reluctant to be roused. So when I heard the familiar swish-swish of my two-year-old daughter Katie's pajama clad legs coming down the hall, I scarcely gave it a thought. Although she shared a room with her sister Christy, who had just turned six, it was apparent that Katie preferred the security of mom's and dad's bed when things went bump in the night. "Can I sleep with you?" She had always asked, regardless of whether anyone was awake to answer her. "What's the matter?" I asked, raising my eyebrows as far as they would go, as if that action would automatically pull my eyelids open as well. This, of course, did not happen. "Something scared me." Nothing out of the ordinary here. "Okay, go on back to sleep," I said, relieved that nothing further was required of me. I took my own advice and probably beat her to it. I had not been asleep long when I heard Christy calling from her bedroom down the hall. "Mom, I need you." Another bad dream, I thought. Not wanting to get up, I called back to her something I hoped would satisfactorily reassure her and we could all go back to sleep. "Mom, I mean it. I need you to come here." Something about the sound of her voice seemed strange to me, and I was immediately awake. I tried to wake my husband because suddenly I was feeling a bit frightened myself, but he just muttered something unintelligible and resumed snoring. I went down the hallway to the next bedroom and saw that the door was closed. Christy's voice came more urgently as I started to open the door. I turned the knob. The door was locked from the inside. This puzzled me more than alarmed me. Had Katie locked and then shut the door when she left the room? Why would she do that? "Christy, your door is locked. Can you get up and unlock it for me?" All the time my brain, still struggling to become fully conscious, was attempting to tell me something was wrong. "Mom, I can't get up. Please hurry!" I quickly went to find something to unlock the door. As I turned on my bedroom light, Bill, my husband, was beginning to sense that he was needed. By the time he got out of bed, I was unlocking Christy's door. The first thing I noticed as I entered the dark bedroom was that the air was warm and humid and humming with mosquitoes. I took note of the fact without really trying to ascertain the reason for it. I reached my daughter's bed and by the light from the hallway I could see her eyes, large and round and full of fear. "I woke up because I felt something touch my arm, and I thought it was a spider, but when I opened my eyes, there was a man standing by my bed, staring at me." "It's okay, honey. I'm here now. You just had a bad dream. Everything's alright." She had dreamed about spiders on numerous occasions. "No, Mom. He was standing right there, all the time I was calling you, until right when you started opening the door, then he went out the window." Still believing it to be a dream, I walked over to the bedroom window just to make sure it was locked. My blood turned to ice water as I reached through the drapes and found the window wide open! Bill appeared at the doorway, and as I filled him in on what Christy had told me, he confirmed it. The sliding glass door to the patio was open, the contents of my purse had been dumped on the living room sofa. Someone had been wandering at will throughout our apartment while we slept, had no doubt wakened and frightened Katie, and then had locked himself in the bedroom with Christy. This was daunting enough in itself, but what we learned from the detective who arrived a short time later was even more terrifying. The suspect was in all probability a rapist the police had been trying to apprehend all summer. (Fingerprints later confirmed this was true.) While the police were busy at our apartment taking statements, dusting for fingerprints and gathering evidence, they received two more calls on the radio. The suspect had been spotted at another apartment complex nearby, but had fled on foot. A short time later the second call came in: a young woman had just been raped at yet another complex. The suspect had a gun. The suspect was still at large. While I was immensely thankful that we had escaped such tragedy, the incident was not inconsequential in our lives. Christy began suffering from terrible nightmares, and wet the bed nightly for an entire year. Where I had once felt safe and secure, I became increasingly paranoid over a period of several months, and experienced recurring panic attacks. I suffered from insomnia, and got up several times each night to check on the girls and to make sure windows and doors were secure. Sudden noises made me jumpy and nervous. There was a lot of emotional stress on the family. Christy was mostly unaware of the real danger to her at the time. Believing the man to be a burglar, her greatest concern was that he might have stolen her new Barbie doll that she had just received for her birthday. When I recall the incident today, I am so amazed at her presence of mind in handling the situation. She called for help in such a calm and mature manner, no hysteria, no freezing-up with fear. I doubt if I could have done as she did. Thought the rapist continued to operate in our community for some time, he was never apprehended. |
 |