Alice Springs was no place to call home, at least not if you
cared about peace and quiet. Growing up there, you learned
pretty quickly that the streets weren't exactly safe, especially
after dark. Crime was a regular part of
life, and you couldn't go far without hearing about someone
getting into trouble, fights, robberies, and worse.
It was all pretty normal. Some people called it the Wild
West of Australia, and to be honest, they weren't wrong.
Even the government had to step in, banning alcohol sales and
putting curfews in place. It got that bad.
By the time I turned 20, I was ready to start working and
getting out on my own. That's how I ended up working as
a night security guard at a local youth center.
Now, this wasn't some fancy building or anything.
It was just a place where local kids could hang out, play video
games, watch TV and stay out of trouble.
But it was packed with expensive stuff, and in a town like Alice
Springs, that made it a target. The youth center had all sorts
of electronics that would catch the eye of local thieves, TV's,
stereos and video games. People were always trying to
break in and swipe whatever they could get their hands on.
That's where I came in. My job was to make sure that
didn't happen, at least during the nights I worked.
I wasn't alone though. Most nights I worked with Simon,
an older guy who had been doing security jobs for years.
He knew the town and its dangers better than anyone.
Simon had this laid back attitude, but he was no fool.
He'd been around long enough to know when things were about to
get out of hand. Some nights we'd just sit around
and talk while keeping an eye on the place.
Other times we'd order food from the Chinese restaurant around
the corner, and if we were feeling extra relaxed, Simon
would send me next door to the bottle shop for a drink or two.
The nights weren't always that bad, though.
Sometimes they were quiet, almost peaceful, but there was
always this feeling of tension, like something could go wrong at
any second. It was just how Alice Springs
felt. After the sun went down, the
streets got darker and the people who walked them got more
desperate. One night, Simon sent me out to
grab food from the Chinese place like he'd done 100 times before.
It was a hot night, sticky and uncomfortable.
All I could think about was grabbing a cold drink to cool
down. So after picking up the food, I
decided to stop by the bottle shop next door for a Coke.
I'd done it plenty of times before, and it never seemed like
a big deal. The bottle shop was small and it
always had a few people inside, either getting drinks or just
hanging around. But when I walked in that night,
something felt off. The place was dead quiet, there
wasn't anyone at the counter and I couldn't hear any movement.
It was like walking into an empty room and it put me on edge
immediately. I started walking down one of
the aisles, looking for the drink fridges at the back.
That's when I saw him. A man with long copper red hair
pulled back into a messy bun. He was shirtless, wearing khaki
shorts and slides, and his chest was covered in milk.
He was chugging from a carton like he hadn't had a drink in
days. But what really made my heart
race was the hammer in his other hand and the blood dripping from
it. As soon as I saw the hammer in
that guy's hand, I froze. My brain was yelling at me to
move, but I just stood there for a second staring.
He had this wild look in his eyes, like he didn't care about
anything except drinking that milk.
His chest was soaked in it and the blood on his hand made my
stomach turn. Then he looked up and saw me.
What are you looking at, you dog?
He snarled. That snapped me out of it.
I turned around and started walking as fast as I could
toward the door, hoping I could get out before he did anything,
but I wasn't fast enough. The next thing I heard was him
shouting. What did you say to me?
Followed by the sound of heavy footsteps.
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest as I realized he was
coming after me. I made it to the door, but there
was a problem. The door wasn't one of those
automatic ones that slide open. It was a heavy door that you had
to pull to get out. In that moment, I knew I didn't
have time to open it before he'd be on me with that hammer.
So instead of trying to get out, I did the only thing I could
think of. I threw myself backward, away
from the door, hoping to buy some time.
That's when I heard the loud crash of the hammer smashing
through the glass. I didn't stop to look.
I sprinted toward the counter and jumped over it, nearly
knocking over a shelf of bottles.
Behind me, I heard more glass shattering.
He must have thrown the hammer, but I didn't want to stick
around to find out if he had something else.
The back of the shop was my only way out, so I ran toward the
open door. As soon as I burst through it, I
found myself in a narrow alley, heart pounding and breath coming
in short gasps. But just as I thought I was
safe, I ran into another problem.
There was a man standing at the end of the alley, holding a
phone in one hand and a massive kitchen knife in the other.
It looked like he was calling the cops, but when he saw me
running toward him, he raised the knife like he was ready to
use it. Hold on.
I yelled, throwing my hands up. I'm not him.
I'm not the hammer guy. The man squinted at me for a
second, and I could see him thinking it over.
Thank God he believed me because he lowered the knife and started
apologizing, but there was no time for that.
No worries, mate. I panted, looking back toward
the shop. But we got to move.
He's still in there. We didn't need to talk after
that. We both took off running down
the alley as fast as we could. My legs felt like Jelly, but the
fear of that hammer man kept me going.
By the time we reached the main road, I could finally breathe
again. He wasn't chasing us anymore.
Just when I thought it was over, we heard police sirens.
The man with the knife and I watched as two police cars came
flying down the road and stopped outside the bottle shop.
One officer had a gun, the other a stun gun and they ran inside.
We stayed back, but I could hear the hammer man yelling.
Then there was a loud bang followed by silence.
It was over. Alice Springs had just gotten
even darker. So after hearing all of that,
you can understand why I laugh when people ask me why I moved
away. Back when I was in high school,
a friend of my mom's asked if I wanted to babysit their kid for
a few hours. They offered a generous rate of
pay. After I proved myself capable,
they asked if I'd be interested in babysitting for a friend of
theirs. I said sure.
They gave me a number to call, and once we made arrangements
for me to babysit for them, they gave me their address.
They lived out in East Hampton, about a 45 minute drive from my
home in Medford. As soon as my mom found out, she
said something like East Hampton.
Huh. That's a real fancy place.
So I kind of knew what to expect before I got there.
But when I actually saw the house for myself, I was blown
away. Their house was basically three
of my mom's houses put together with a gigantic backyard, a huge
pool, and even a giant chess board with pieces half my size.
The inside looked like the sitting room set from Asterisk
The Fresh Prince Asterisk with a cream color scheme and wood
paneling, giving the place a very distinct air of class.
The kids, mom and dad, were very warm and welcoming, and when
they introduced me to their nine year old daughter, all my
reservations instantly evaporated.
Instead of some bratty rich kid, Angie was just as delightful as
her parents and I knew from the moment that I met her that we'd
get along very well. She wasn't too demanding and was
content to just watch a movie or two until she got too tired to
keep her eyes open. We'd order pizza, watch some
tapes, eat a ton of ice cream, then I'd either chill out or
work on some homework until Angie's parents came back from
wherever they'd spent the evening.
Sometimes it felt almost criminal just taking that money.
They paid my gas money, paid for the pizza, and even made sure
the fridge and pantry were all stocked in case I got hungry
after Angie's dinner time. Then, with the family home being
as incredible as it was, it fast became my favorite sitting job.
Now cut to Friday, October 16th of 1992, and the family in East
Hampton had arranged for me to come over for what would be my
fifth time sitting for them. I drove over after school,
arrived at around 4:30, and Angie's parents left for dinner
at around 5:00. We ordered pizza, did each
other's hair while we watched TV, then broke out the crumb
cake at around 7. We were still finishing our
slices when the phone rang and upon hearing it, Angie spun
around and asked me if she could be the one to answer it.
Her parents sometimes called just to check in on us and I
figured that there was no harm in letting her pick up the
phone, so I said sure, why not? Angie ran off to pick up the
phone and I stayed put eating my cake.
The phone was mounted to the wall dividing the sitting room
and the kitchen, so I could still see and hear Angie as she
ran over towards it. She reached up on her tip toes,
grabbed the handset and in a way that was so adorable it almost
hurt, she said hello. You've reached the residence,
how may I take your call? I watched her with a big proud
smile on my face. But following her grand
introduction, a confused look came across Angie's face before
she asked hello for a second time.
There was another pause and then she turned, raised the phone up
and told me there was no one there.
I put down my cake and then got up and walked over to her.
She needed help returning the handset to its cradle anyway, so
I took the phone from her, put it to my ear, then heard the
sound of a deadline. I told her it was probably just
a wrong number or something and then we went back to finish off
our cake. But not 10 minutes later the
phone rang a second time. That time I got up to answer it
and when I did, I'm guessing I heard the same thing Angie did.
I picked up the handset and asked hello, and then got
nothing in reply. I asked hello again.
Then after another pause, I heard the distinct sound of
someone hanging up a phone like that old plastic rattling before
the line goes dead. I remember that exact moment,
that feeling of confusion shifting to one of creeping
dread. And that made it 2 silent calls
in just over 10 minutes. I'd seen enough cheap thrillers
to know that that wasn't a sign that anything good was about to
happen. I just didn't think that it had
anything to do with the family I was babysitting for.
I thought that it was all about me.
And yes, I phrased that in a deliberately egotistical
fashion, but only to reflect on how stupid and self-centered I
felt afterwards. Because due to the very severe
limitations of my 17 year old mind, I became transfixed on the
idea that it was a guy from high school that had been bugging me
Around that time. He'd slid notes into my locker
at school, asked my friends to pass on please to call him, or
my least favorite, wait for me outside the girls bathroom
before basically cornering me on the way out.
He'd also somehow managed to get a hold of my home phone number
at one point. And he'd called my house one
time, asked my dad if he could speak to me, and then said
nothing for like the 1st 10 seconds once I'd been handed the
phone. But the worst thing was, my mom
and dad thought that it was cute.
It didn't seem to bother them much that his attention was
completely unsolicited. The solution was ask him to
leave you alone. And then when I told them that
I'd already tried, that it was, well, ask him again.
And that's why, when I realized that there were silent calls, my
first suspicion was that my unwanted Romeo had somehow
gotten a hold of the family's home phone number.
I was too busy trying to figure out how that could happen to
consider any other more frightening possibilities.
Angie asked who was calling, so I lied for a second time and
told her that it must have been a wrong number.
She might have been one of the sweetest girls I'd ever babysat,
but Angie was not gullible and was vocally confused as to why
someone would call the wrong number twice.
I made it up on the spot, joked about them having pudgy fingers
or something, which served as just enough of a distraction to
get Angie's thoughts off the silent calls.
I didn't think my stalker, and I used that term very loosely, had
the stones to actually show up at the house.
He seemed to be more about opportunity than anything else,
but it was still a lingering concern for me, and one I didn't
want to pass on to little old Angie.
Another hour or so went by and we were fast approaching Angie's
extended bedtime of 10:00 PM. Our little secret.
I asked if she wanted one last soda.
Diet, of course, with no caffeine and no zoomies.
And then walked into the kitchen to get us some drinks.
The layout of the house was such that the kitchen led to a dining
room via a set of double doors, with the dining room windows
allowing a view of the driveway outside.
When I walked past the doors the first time empty handed,
everything seemed perfectly normal.
But when walking past it a second time, with a can of soda
in each hand, I saw the headlights of a car shining down
the driveway. The family had sort of an
intercom at their automatic gate, and if you didn't have the
little key card or the code or whatever it might be, you had to
be buzzed in to even get access to the driveway.
The car was stationary, its front bumper pointed at the
gate, but the intercom in the house wasn't buzzing.
My first thought was maybe I just caught the car turning
around, but Nope, it stayed put, like it was waiting for the gate
to open. Then I figured it was Angie's
parents arriving home early and that, I don't know, maybe they
lost their key card or something.
I walked into the dining room to get a closer look out of the
window, studying the headlights as the car idled by the gate.
And then suddenly, silhouetted by the car's headlights, I saw
three or four men climb over the gate before they began walking
down the driveway at a very brisk pace.
I remember the feeling this rising panic as I put down the
sodas on the ledge near the window and then walk toward the
phone as quickly as I could. I remember grabbing the handset
and trying not to sound too panicked as I loudly asked Angie
to head upstairs. This was like a whole hour
before her promised bedtime, so she was very naturally dismayed
at the sudden change of plans and began asking me why.
I told her to be a good girl and do as I asked before putting the
phone's handset to my ear. I thought that I might hear the
911 person's voice or at worst, the last few dials before 1
answered my call, but instead I heard nothing.
I remember pushing the little switch to reset the phone,
expecting the drone of an open line to return, but I did it
once, twice, and then three times before I realized that the
line was dead. I didn't know it at the time.
I thought that I'd simply experienced an astronomical
amount of bad luck in having the phone die on me when I needed it
most. But it hadn't died.
There had been no kind of malfunction.
Someone had cut the home's phone line to ensure that no emergency
calls could be made. I knew the family had a second
phone in the master bedroom, so after taking Angie's hand, I
quickly walked us up the stairs and toward the bedroom door.
By then, Angie had begun to sense how frightened I was, and
she kept asking what was going on, her terror intensifying each
time I let the question go unanswered.
We walked into the bedroom and when I heard no sound at all
coming from the handset of the second phone, that's when I
realized something much worse was happening.
I know having a bunch of guys climbing a gate and rushing the
house was bad enough, but the phone line being dead suggested
a very chilling degree of organization from these guys.
Those guys were not your average home invaders, if there is such
a thing, and realizing that brought a level of terror that I
can only barely describe, and by then there was no hiding my fear
anymore. Angie was demanding to know what
was going on and I couldn't think of a lie quick enough, so
I just told her the truth. I told her that there were some
bad men outside and that they most likely wanted to break into
the house and that we needed to find some place to hide from
them. I'll never forget how completely
petrified Angie looked in the seconds after those words left
my lips, and I still beat myself up about it all these years
later. But in the moment, there was
nothing else I could think of. I was 17, scared out of my mind,
and Angie knew her home better than I ever could.
I was reliant on her to be able to find the best hiding place
possible, and that transfer of responsibility terrified us
both. Right then, on cue, we each
heard a loud, dull hammering sound coming from downstairs as
the men outside started to try and break in.
Angie screamed, and I remember grabbing each of her arms before
shushing her. I tried to be gentle, trying to
keep her as calm as possible. Then I asked her where the best
hiding place in the house was. There was like a voice in my
head in the moments after I asked her, one that screamed at
me. How the hell is she supposed to
know she's just a little girl, an innocent little girl that you
are failing to protect? I still feel almost, at least in
principle, that that voice was right.
In the milliseconds that had popped into my mind, a girl
Angie's age probably thought the back of her closet was another
dimension, or that the space under her bed would be
sufficient to hide us both from violent criminals.
But in reality, Angie knew the perfect place to hide, and it
was nowhere I could have ever taken her.
After I asked her about the best place to hide, Angie thought for
a moment, then took me by the hand and started leading me
towards the home's third floor. When we got to the top of the
stairs, there were 3 doors in front of us, two of which
clearly led to larger rooms and one smaller door that turned out
to be a closet. Angie took us to the closet.
When she opened the door, I saw shelves on either side filled
with boxes of old junk along with a bookcase against the rear
wall. I remember telling Angie that we
needed somewhere bigger, someplace the bad men wouldn't
see us if they came and opened the door.
I spoke, but it was like Angie didn't hear me.
She ran over to the bookcase and reached to the back of one of
the lowest shelves like she was about to retrieve a book.
I was halfway telling her that this wasn't the time for reading
when I heard a loud click coming from behind the bookcase.
I knew in an instant what Angie had just done, but that didn't
stop my jaw from hitting the floor when she used all her
strength to pull the bookcase away from the rear wall.
The only reason that she could do so with the strength of a 99
year old was that the bookcase was actually mounted on a huge
set of hinges, and behind it was a short downward leading
staircase. It was a weird feeling, almost
amazed, but at the same time I didn't feel surprised at all.
Of course they had a safe room. And of course, they told their
nine year old daughter how to access it in case of
emergencies. But what really did surprise me
was just how well this safe room was decked out, and how Angie's
demeanor shifted completely once the door was closed behind us.
I remember how she reached up and flicked on a light switch
that illuminated the stairs in front of us, and then after
taking a few steps downward, she turned and told me to close the
door. I followed her downstairs after
doing so, and was greeted with the first of two rooms.
That one was basically a small sitting area, complete with
bookshelves, ATV, and VHS combo, with some snacks and bottles of
water stacked in one corner. The next room, however, was
essentially some kind of command center.
There was a wall of TV monitors all linked up to security
cameras in each room, with an attached panel of switches that
meant that you could both see and hear what was going on in
the house. But the most important, and
possibly the most impressive thing was that this command
center had a working phone. I don't know if it was hooked up
to a satellite or a hidden alternate phone line, but when I
picked it up and heard a working dial tone, I almost burst into
tears from the sheer relief that I felt.
And I called the cops. I told them everything, but it
didn't make Angie feel any safer.
She felt safe the second the door closed behind us, and after
announcing that the bad men couldn't find us in there, she
went about deciding what VHS tape she wanted to watch until
the bad men had gone away. It got to the point where I
couldn't decide if she was the bravest little girl I'd ever met
or if this was something that had happened before.
Once I was done talking to the authorities and then telling
Angie that the cops were on their way, I asked if this was
something that had happened prior and she said no, but that
her mom and dad had shown her what to do in case any bad men
came to the house. She then put on Avhs tape and
sort of settled herself down on the couch opposite the TV and
asked me do I still got to go to bed at 10:00 PM and the question
alone almost knocked me off my feet.
But once I'd regained what little composure I had, I told
her no, that she didn't have to go to bed at 10 and that she was
probably about to have her latest night ever.
It was incredible really, seeing a little girl acting calmer and
more collected than myself in the middle of a crisis.
But like Angie said, she knew the drill, and I guess that
knowledge dispelled any fear of the chaos unfolding downstairs.
But not only was it chaotic, what I heard over the monitors
scared the living hell out of me.
I remember walking back into the little control room, or command
center as I referred to it before, and taking a moment to
study the little switch panel. It wasn't hard to work out how
to switch the monitors on, and it wasn't hard to switch audio
feeds either. But listening to what those men
were saying down there made for some extremely difficult
listening. I expected to see them looting
the 1st floor, grabbing all the various electronics before
running back down the driveway to load up their vehicle.
But that's not what I saw when I switched on those monitors.
They weren't looking for expensive goods to steal, they
were looking for what I can only assume to be Angie.
I realized this before I heard anyone talking, because none of
the four masked men seemed in the least bit interested in the
huge TV and lavish stereo system that was in the living room.
They were going from room to room, opening up closets and
looking under beds, and then moments later I managed to catch
two of them talking to one another in the same bedroom that
we'd been in just minutes before.
One of them asked something like where the hell is she?
Before the other told him I heard her voice.
I was frozen, thinking about what might have been happening
to us at that moment if Angie hadn't taken us to this safe
room. And I carried on watching the
men downstairs, waiting for the cops to show up, until there was
suddenly a whole bunch of commotion from them, presumably
after they had heard the sirens coming from the street outside.
And after that, that's when those men ran.
And finally, when I could see only uniformed officers walking
calmly into the rooms downstairs, I opened up that
safe room door and then told Angie to stay on the couch while
I went to talk to the cops. And that was the one time she
openly disobeyed me. And I can't say that I was mad
in the moment. She just wanted to say hi to the
people who had come to rescue us.
It made for a very cute ending to what had been the most
terrifying experience of my whole short life at that point.
And to be honest, nothing has ever really topped it in terms
of sheer terror that I felt, not to mention that skin crawling
feeling of knowing those men were after this girl that I was
watching and not just money or jewelry.
The officers were then able to contact Angie's parents because
they'd left the address of where they'd be that evening and they
were back home and hugging their daughter within 1/2 hour of the
cops first arriving. The police managed to catch the
driver of that car, but he claimed to be just some getaway
driver and had no idea what the others were planning.
The others, though, were never caught, but the security cameras
recorded what they'd said about looking for the girl.
And by the girl, they almost certainly meant Angie.
Angie's parents thanked me for saving their daughter, and I had
to actually sit them down and explain that I didn't do
anything. It was actually Angie, the
little girl that had saved both of us.
I'd done nothing but tell her about the guys breaking in.
They said that they'd understand if I didn't want to babysit for
Angie anymore, but all it took was the thank you letter that
she sent to convince me that I had to stay.
I mean, it definitely sweetened the deal that they promised to
hire armed security in the future, which basically meant
that Angie had a second, much more intimidating babysitter,
but there was no way that I could just turn my back on her.
I guess that makes me sound a little crazy, but that's
honestly how I felt. My love for that girl and her
family overrode any fear of a repeat home invasion.
And besides, if it did happen again, I knew exactly what to do
to keep her safe from the maniacs who wanted to kidnap
her. It was almost 10 years ago, but
I remember that night like it just happened.
My wife and I had been fast asleep when a loud scream
suddenly woke us up. It wasn't a normal noise,
definitely not the type of thing you'd expect in our quiet
suburban neighborhood. We lived in a typical two-story
house, just like all the others on our street.
The lawns were always neat, and nothing much ever happened here.
It was the kind of place where you feel safe, especially at
night. But that night was different.
I sat up in bed, my heart already racing from being
startled awake. My wife, Sarah, was awake too,
her eyes wide with worry. What was that?
She whispered. I didn't have an answer, so I
got up and walked over to the window.
Our bedroom faced the street, so I pulled back the curtains and
looked outside. At first I couldn't see much,
just the faint glow of streetlights.
But then I noticed a car parked right in front of our house.
Its engine was running, but both the front and back passenger
doors were wide open. Two men stood outside the car,
yelling at two other men who were sitting inside.
I couldn't make out what they were arguing about, but it was
clear they were mad. Every few seconds, one of the
men would start shouting even louder, waving his arms around.
Sarah came up behind me and peeked over my shoulder.
Should we call the cops? She asked, her voice shaky.
I hesitated. They were definitely being loud
and obnoxious, but it didn't seem like anything dangerous was
happening. Let's wait a minute.
I told her. It looks like they're just
arguing. They'll probably drive off soon.
We stood there watching the scene unfold.
I expected the argument to end any second now, but it dragged
on. Just when I thought I should
maybe call the police after all, the two men outside slammed the
car door shut with a screech of tires.
The car speed off down the street, leaving the two men
standing in the middle of the road.
Sarah sighed with relief. Well, that's over.
She said, heading back to bed. Let's try to get some sleep.
But I couldn't. Something about those two men
still standing in the street made me uneasy.
They were still arguing, though their voices were lower now.
My instincts told me to keep watching, just to be sure they
wouldn't cause more trouble. I stayed at the window, peeking
through the curtains. The two men were gesturing
wildly at each other, their argument clearly not over.
They didn't seem like they were about to leave anytime soon, and
I was starting to feel more and more anxious.
Then I heard something. It was the sound of a car
approaching fast. The roar of the engine sent a
chill down my spine. I looked down the street and saw
headlights speeding toward the two men.
The car wasn't slowing down. My stomach dropped as I realized
what was happening. The men in the street didn't
seem to notice the car until it was too late.
One of them barely managed to jump out of the way, but the
other wasn't fast enough. The car hit him full force,
sending his body flying through the air like a rag doll.
I stood there, frozen, unable to look away.
He crashed down onto the pavement with a sickening thud,
and everything went quiet. I turned to Sarah, my voice
shaky. Call 911, I said.
Someone's been hit. After the car speed off,
everything seemed to slow down. I was standing at the window,
watching the terrible scene unfold, unable to move.
One of the men was lying in the street, not moving at all.
His friend, the one who jumped out of the way, ran to him and
started screaming. His cries echoed through the
quiet night, sending chills down my spine.
I turned to Sarah, who was still holding the phone.
Did you call 911? I asked.
She nodded quickly. They're on their way.
I told them someone was hit. They said the police and an
ambulance should be here soon. I looked back out the window.
The man who had dodged the car was still screaming, crouched
down over his friend's body. He looked completely panicked,
shaking his friend's shoulders, trying to get him to wake up.
But I knew deep down that it was too late.
The way that car hit him, there was no way he could have
survived. Sarah came up beside me, her
voice trembling. Should we go out there?
Maybe we can help. I wanted to do something, but I
didn't know what I could possibly do.
No, I said, my throat tight. There's nothing we can do.
The ambulance will be here soon. It felt wrong to stand there and
do nothing, but I also knew that rushing out wouldn't change what
had already happened. Then, out of nowhere, I heard
the sound of another car engine. This time it was coming from the
opposite direction. My heart sank.
I glanced down the street and saw headlights, another car
speeding toward the two men in the street.
My mind raced. Why wasn't this car slowing
down? Didn't they see what had just
happened? The man who had been screaming
over his friend finally noticed the car coming.
He jumped up, running toward the sidewalk, still yelling no, no,
over and over. I could hear him clearly now,
his voice filled with desperation.
The car didn't stop. It didn't even slow down.
In one horrifying moment, it ran over the man lying in the road.
The sound of the impact was sickening.
The car flew over his body as if he wasn't even there, but I
could see the terrible result. Pieces of him, his clothes, his
body were scattered across the street.
The man who had escaped stood frozen on the sidewalk, staring
in horror at what was left of his friend.
His screams, now louder than ever, filled the air.
It was the most heart wrenching sound I had ever heard.
I felt a knot in my stomach, my hands shaking as I watched.
By the time the police and ambulance finally arrived, it
was already too late. The paramedics rushed to the
scene, but there was nothing they could do except clean up
what remained. The police tried to talk to the
man who survived, but he was too devastated to say much.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the window.
Even though I didn't know these people, I felt connected to the
tragedy unfolding outside. It was like watching a nightmare
come to life and I knew I would never forget what I had just
seen. Sarah and I sat down at the
kitchen table, both of us too shaken to sleep.
We didn't say much, just sat there in silence, trying to
process everything. I knew one thing for sure, our
quiet, peaceful St. would never feel the same again.
Many years ago, a lifetime ago it really seems.
I used to work as a bouncer at pubs and clubs in Newcastle city
center. It had quite a rough upbringing
and the school playground could be a violent place, so for a lot
of young lads like me who weren't particularly big or
strong, you had to learn to fight if you wanted people to
leave you alone. And the place to learn to fight
was the local boxing gym. I started training twice after
school on weekdays, then every Saturday morning for a full 4
hours, and I loved every second of it.
I made good friends, learned how to defend myself, and instilled
2 very valuable traits in me, discipline and respect, both of
which have served me very well over the years.
By the time I was 18, I was lined up for a few actual
organized fights, but with me still being an amateur, I wasn't
making any money off of it. That's where Graham stepped in.
Graham was a mate of the boxing gym's owner and seeing as he did
a lot of boxing in his youth, he'd pop down to the gym every
so often to see some of the lads train.
But he wasn't just there to watch them train, he was head
hunting for lads to come and work for his door firm.
One Saturday morning I managed to catch his attention.
He told me to show up to a club in the city center at midnight
for a trial shift and if I could handle myself then I could
expect to be working every weekend from then on.
It was a little bit of an I'm not asking, I'm telling kind of
deal, but the money was so good that no one ever turned him
down. I'm pretty sure no wasn't a word
Graham was used to hearing very often, we'll put it that way.
And so that's how I started working the doors around
Newcastle from age 18 onward. By the time I was 25 I had
graduated from the early doors pubs and clubs to the late night
gigs that got properly lively after about one or two in the
morning. These places were on another
level. When I first started, there'd be
two of you working a Saturday night in a single floor pub, but
by the time I was trusted to work the bigger jobs you were
looking at 2-3, sometimes four floor nightclubs that could fit
hundreds of punters. But with the bigger jobs came
bigger money. And if you managed to get one
particular job that I got that will go unnamed for legal
reasons, then you made absolute megabucks.
That's because on top of your normal taxable pay, you got your
extras, which is what you were paid to look the other way for
the dealers gram allowed into the club.
This was at the time when ecstasy tablets had first hit
the Northeast, and when it did, it hit big.
Times were hard for people growing up back then as most of
the shipping jobs were gone. So having happiness in tablet
form sweep through town was like everybody wanted a bit.
And since everybody wanted a bit, the money people were
making was off the scale. Dealers were getting into clubs
with a few 100 tablets, then walking out with 1500 lbs.
Then they'd go to the next club and do it all over again and
again and again. There was money going around
like you wouldn't believe, and the only thing standing between
the dealers and all that cash were us doorman.
I suppose at some point it came down to a choice.
Act like complete Saints. Refuse to partake in any of it
and settle for your hard earned wage, or make £200 more every
single night just for looking the other way with one single
solitary dealer. Times that by two or three and
you're walking away with more money and extras than you did
from your normal wage. And were we declaring any of it
to the tax man? Were we Bollocks.
Things stayed sweet like that for a while and we had a really
good go of it, but the more money people generated, the more
people wanted in on the action. We started having loads of young
lads, all of them unauthorized, trying to sneak bags of tablets
past us to make a few £100 without us taxing them.
At first we just confiscated their gear, gave them a slap and
then sent them on their way. But the problem wouldn't stop.
And that's when Graham passed down the order to make an
example of someone. And so that's exactly what we
did. We took this one lad, we'll call
him Spar, who we had dealt with a couple of times before, and we
kicked 7 shades of crap out of him around the back of the club
one night, all on Graham's orders.
It was just to make an example out of him.
It wasn't anything personal, but since he ended up in hospital,
Sparky took it personally. About two weeks after, a bloke I
worked with called Ronnie walked out of his gym, got into the
driver's seat of his car and was about to drive home when someone
tapped on his window. Ronnie turned his head to look
and bang, someone shot him in the face, and by some stroke of
miraculous good luck, Ronnie survived his brush with death
because the bullet went through his eye, then out the side of
his head, totally missing his brain and spine and all of that.
And we were made-up to hear that he'd be OK.
But the message was a clear one. Ronnie had been one of the
fellas to give Sparky a kicking, and when we heard Sparky was
nowhere to be found, we had a pretty good idea that it was
him. But without knowing where he
was, we were all vulnerable. He could walk up to any door in
a crowd of people wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses or
something and just boom, that would be us rubbed out.
But as you can imagine, this had us properly on our toes for the
next two weeks or so. And the worst thing was, we
couldn't even be certain that it was Sparky that we had to be on
the lookout for. Graham had been the go between
from the police to Ronnie's family and us.
But as much as he had been pestering the police for info,
they told him that they had no idea who the shooter might have
been, nor did they have any idea where Sparky was.
But Graham didn't believe them. He thought that they were
treating us like mushrooms, feeding us crap and keeping us
in the dark. Because God knows if we'd have
figured out where Sparky was, he'd have been a dead man for
what he'd done to Ronnie. But then that meant that we had
no idea if or when he was coming for us and I'd never seen so
many big hard blokes acting so scared for their lives.
Graham told us all that he was trying to get hold of some
bulletproof vests and that our door would be the first to get
them when he did. But till then we had to just sit
tight, hope Sparky showed up somewhere and keep our heads on
a swivel when we were at work. Two weeks after Ronnie was shot,
we were all still proper on edge.
But the more time that went by, we started to think maybe Sparky
had run off to the coast of Del Sol after shooting Ronnie and
most definitely thinking he'd killed him.
And if that was the case, then we had nothing to worry about
and we might never see Sparky ever again.
But it was still that worry that he was just bidding his time,
waiting until we'd let our guards down a bit to strike.
And that's why we could never properly relax.
And so that Saturday night, a fortnight after Ronnie was
rushed to hospital, a group of five of us were working the
doors of the unnamed nightclub and three of us had been
involved in Sparky's beating. So we were proper on edge and
watching the street for any signs of him and his boys.
Suddenly I hear one of the lads saying why?
Hey man, who's this here then? And he's looking down the street
at someone. So I walk over to see who he's
looking at and we both see this kid walking down the street
towards us. He looks to be about 14 or 1553
with a little teenage Tasha above his lip and he walks right
past us and towards the doors of the club.
The boss doorman was like where the bloody hell do you think
you're going young man? And the kid says inside and the
boss asks him and how old are you?
Then when he replies 18 we all burst out laughing.
The boss tells the lad if you're 18 then I'm Bobby Charlton,
bugger off before I give you a slap and this wee lad just walks
off in a huff. But we thought that he was
brilliant because he'd really lightened the mood and this was
about half one, something like that.
And we were all saying I wish something like that happened
every night. But then about an hour later it
did. We get the nod that there's a
kid in the club and that he's trying to sell tablets to the
punters and the boss sends 2 door staff down into the club
and who do they drag out but the kid that we just given the
knockback to not an hour earlier.
He's kicking and screaming and the two lads are carrying him
out with a hand under each arm so his little legs are actually
flailing around as they're carrying him.
And we laughed so hard that I thought I was about to blow a
gasket. And off the young lad went for a
second time, huffing and puffing.
But before he went the kid shouted back.
I'm going to come back with a gun and I'm going to blow all
your heads off. And we were just about rolling
on the floor after he said that. This pint sized gangster
threatening to slaughter us when he probably had school in the
morning. And so we just waved him away
after telling him to come back next week for another laugh.
When the laughter had died down we asked the two lads who went
in to get him how the kid had gotten into the club in the 1st
place and they said the sneaky little bugger must have slipped
in one of the back doors when one of the club staff took a
bottle bin out to empty. You had to admire the gumption
to do something like that. But then the two lads told us
the kid actually did have a little bag of tablets on him.
And they weren't fakes either. He was trying to flog
indigestion tablets as ecstasies.
They were legit and they all had the little :) or bat signal
designs on them. There were only about 10 in the
bag but it got us thinking, where's this we lad got tablets
from? And there's no way anyone would
be so daft as to send a child into an over 18 bar and you
might as well just turn yourself into a police station.
So how's he got his hands on them?
But it's also not like we had time to wrestle with the
question. We had a job to do and for the
next few hours when things were at their most hectic, we were
occupied trying to keep order in the club.
By about 3:00 in the morning, the busiest part of the night
was over and although it was still bumping in the club
downstairs, the crowds were starting to thin out and people
were starting to flag taxis down to make their way home.
I couldn't wait to get home and get a shower.
I'd had to turf about 5 people out that night and I'd had
drinks spilled all over me in the process.
My shirt stank of beer and alcopops and I'm just trying to
run down the clock until I can call it a night.
But then about half an hour from closing, who comes walking down
the street but the Newcastle kid, or at least that's what one
of the lads christened him as he came walking up the street
towards us. And we're all laughing, saying
things like, oh, here he comes. He's about to pull out a shooter
and start blasting. And then when he gets within
about 10 to 15 feet of us, he pulls out this big cowboy
looking pistol from his pants and points it right at us.
It didn't look real, it was dull looking and it looked like the
handle was coming off, like this wee lad had pulled the orange
cap off a toy gun and brought it down to the club to brandish it
at us. We're just about falling all
over the place, singing themes from old westerns, like it's a
showdown at high noon and all that.
We'd been that tense over the past two weeks that it was just
this big release of tension, I think.
I mean we were dying laughing at the wee lad.
Now for a bit of context, there was a lot of gangsters using
guns at the time, like our old mate Sparky for example.
But that in turn had some unexpected consequences.
Because everyone was hearing about all this gun crime,
everyone was terrified of having one pointed at them.
So what robbers and other unsavory types started doing was
bringing toy guns to robberies. All they had to do was flash
their toy guns or sometimes just point to a lump in their jacket
like that's a gun that is. Now hand over the cash and the
terrified cashier would do just that.
It became a bit of a thing in Newcastle at the time.
So when we saw that kid pull that old falling apart cowboy
gun out in that poorly lit St. we thought there's not a cat in
Hell's chance that that's a real gun.
But then the kid pulled back the hammer of the gun, the clicky
thing that they do in the movies, you know the one.
And we knew toy guns did not do that.
There was this moment of silence after we heard it, as everyone
had this collective moment of thinking, oh bollocks.
And then the moment we started to scatter, that kid fired.
It was the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life.
Literally deafening. The street we were on at the
time was quite narrow too, so when the gun went bang it echoed
off the narrow streets and made it sound like a bloody rocket
exploded or something. I had my back turned when he
shot, but I remember seeing the street almost light up as he
fired. I didn't know fear like that
even existed, and in the blink of an eye I went from standing
there in the street to cowering behind a van, just waiting for
the next shots to be fired. And that silence seemed endless,
waiting for the next shot. I mean people were running,
people were shouting, but I was focused on the next shot,
terrified the lad would find me behind the van and make me his
next target. But he didn't and no other shots
were fired because as it turned out, this wee lads gun misfired
right after that first shot and since he didn't know how to fix
it, he just ran off. He only got one shot, but one
shot was all he needed. A second of our firm had been
shot in less than a month and this time the victim didn't get
so lucky. I won't name him for privacy
reasons, but even though we tried our best to stop the
bleeding, my guy had lost so much blood that he died on the
way to the hospital, and it was devastating.
But the question everyone was asking was, how could that have
happened? How could such a young lad have
gotten his hands on drugs and guns?
We were convinced that it was connected to Sparky somehow,
that he'd put the kid up to shooting one of us, but that
didn't explain why he tried to get into the club to sell
tablets. And that was the big hole in the
theory for me, the thing that made me think something else was
going on. And I was right.
There was no rhyme or reason to the shooting.
This young lad's older brother was a dealer and a crack house
owner that kept his business on show, and his little brother
idolized him. And so off he went trying to
sell tablets just like his older brother did.
And when we checked him, he did exactly what his brother talked
big about, which was not letting anyone disrespect you.
And so this young lad went to where his brother hid his gun,
loaded mind you, took it, brought it into town and shot a
young doorman dead with it. And he ended up going to a young
offenders institution. And I got out of the security
game about nine months afterwards when I met the girl
who'd eventually become my first wife.
It was a dangerous time to work those kinds of trades.
And it was those two shootings that made me decide that I had
no future standing on doors. My name's Owen, and I've lived
in this old kind of quirky apartment for almost 10 years.
It's not fancy or anything. It's got that 70s style that
makes you think of old movies. But I like it here.
The rent's good, the landlord's nice, and everything's usually
peaceful. That's important to me because
after a long day at work, all I want is to relax.
Things were pretty normal until Aaron moved in next door.
She seemed nice enough, she was about my age, maybe a little
older, and had a kind smile. I learned she was trying to
start over after some tough times, which I totally
understood. I've had friends who had their
own battles with bad habits, so I felt for her.
We'd sometimes chat when we bumped into each other at the
mailbox or in the laundry room, which double S as our mail room.
It was never anything deep, just little talks about the weather
or how slow the mail was, but Aaron always seemed a bit shy or
like she had a lot on her mind. For the first few weeks,
everything was calm and quiet, just like it's always been.
But then things changed. It was a Tuesday night, I think,
when I first noticed it. I'd woken up around 2:00 in the
morning because, well, nature called.
After using the bathroom, I was washing my hands when I felt
something weird, like a vibration through the floor.
What the heck? I thought, drying my hands
quickly. I opened the bathroom door,
stepped into my living room, and then it happened again.
This time it wasn't just a feeling.
I heard it. Thump, thump, thump.
It sounded like someone was banging on a door.
Oh great, not the cops again, I muttered to myself.
We had the police here a few weeks ago because of a fight
outside, but this time it was different.
There were no voices, no shouting like you'd hear if
someone was in trouble or if it was the police.
I crept closer to my front door, curious but a bit scared too.
The banging kept going and I wondered if I should peek
through the blinds, but as I reached for them, the noise
stopped. Everything outside went totally
silent, except for a dog barking somewhere far off.
I stood there in the dark, listening hard, but nothing else
happened. Whatever, I'll figure it out in
the morning. I decided and went back to bed.
The next morning everything seemed normal as I got ready for
work. I grabbed my mail on the way out
and there was Aaron heading into the laundry room.
Good morning. I said, trying to sound
cheerful. She smiled back but looked a bit
worried when I brought up the banging.
Oh no, you heard that? She asked, looking really
surprised and a bit nervous. I nodded and she quickly
explained that it was just a friend who had come by to drop
off something she left behind when she moved at 2:00 in the
morning. I wondered silently.
That seemed really odd, but I didn't say it out loud.
I just smiled and asked her to maybe keep things quieter at
night. Aaron agreed and hurried off.
After that, I thought that was the end of it.
I went to work thinking it was just one of those weird things
that happened sometimes, but I had no idea that it was just the
beginning and things were about to get a lot stranger.
I wish I could say that the weird banging was a one time
thing, but it wasn't. Almost every night, like
clockwork at exactly 2:15 AM the banging started.
It was always three loud knocks that seemed to shake the whole
building. At first I jump out of bed to
check, but I never saw anyone. It was like they vanished into
thin air. This went on for nights and it
was really starting to mess with me.
I couldn't sleep well anymore. Every night I'd lie in bed
waiting for the banging to start and then I'd be wide awake.
Even when it was quiet I'd just stare at my ceiling, feeling
tired but too anxious to sleep. One night I was so fed up that I
decided I had to do something. I couldn't keep going on like
this. I stayed up sitting in my living
room with the lights off, just waiting.
And like always, at 2:15, the banging started.
This time I was ready. I tiptoed to my door and peered
through the peephole. The hallway was dimly lit by the
Night Lights, but I could see a figure at Aaron's door.
It was really tall and looked like a person, but something
about it was just off. I couldn't see its face clearly,
but the way it moved wasn't like a regular person.
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
As scared as I was, I opened my door a crack, just enough to get
a better look. The figure was pounding on
Aaron's door with so much force that I thought the door might
break. But then it stopped and turned
as if it felt me. Watching what I saw next made my
blood run cold. Its eyes were red, glowing like
brake lights in the fog. It was staring right at me.
I slammed my door shut and locked it, my whole body
shaking. I backed away from the door, not
taking my eyes off it, half expecting that thing to come
bursting through, but it didn't. The hallway went silent again,
just like that. The next day I saw Aaron in the
laundry room again. I had to ask her about it, I
needed answers. She looked really scared when I
told her what I saw, and then she told me something that made
my skin crawl. Aaron said that her
ex-girlfriend, who was into some really weird stuff, had put a
curse on her. She said it involved summoning a
demon to haunt her. Aaron thought it was all just a
crazy threat until the knocking started.
She described it exactly like what I was hearing.
Loud, terrifying knocks at the same time every night.
She explained that the demon couldn't enter her apartment
unless she invited it in. That's why it just knocked,
trying to scare her enough to break her down.
And now that I had seen it too, the curse was passed on to me.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
It sounded like something out of a horror movie, not something
that could happen in real life. I left the laundry room feeling
numb. This couldn't be real, could it?
But the banging was real, the red eyes were real, and now this
nightmare was mine too. How was I going to get out of
this? How could I stop it when it
seemed like there was no way to fight something you couldn't
even understand? Ever since Aaron told me about
the curse, my nights turned into real life nightmares.
Every time the clock hit 2:15 AM, the banging would start and
my heart would drop into my stomach.
It felt like the walls of my apartment were closing in on me
and the darkness of the night got heavier with each knock.
I tried everything to ignore it. I put on headphones, played loud
music, and even tried sleeping with pillows over my head, but
nothing worked. The sound of the banging pierced
through everything. It was like the demon knew
exactly how to get into my head. As days turned into weeks, I
could feel myself changing. I was always tired, dragging
myself to work and barely making it through the day.
My friends at work started noticing.
They asked if I was OK, but what could I say?
Oh, a demon is haunting me every night because of a curse.
They'd think I was joking, or worse, losing my mind.
And maybe I was. The sleepless Knights were
taking their toll. I saw shadows moving in the
corners of my eyes and every little noise made me jump.
I was scared to be alone, but also scared to be with people.
What if the demon followed me to a friend's house?
I couldn't risk passing the curse to someone else.
I remembered what Aaron said about how the curse could be
passed on. It haunted me.
The thought of making someone else go through this nightmare
was horrible, but then in my weakest moments I'd wonder if I
could do it, if it would finally give me peace.
It felt like there was a war inside my head between what I
knew was right and the desperate part of me that just wanted to
sleep through 1 quiet night. One evening I was so exhausted
and scared that I couldn't take it anymore.
I went outside, sat on the steps of the apartment building, and
looked up at the night sky. It was full of stars, a
beautiful sight that I hadn't really noticed in weeks.
It made me feel small, but also gave me a weird sense of peace.
That's when I made-up my mind. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't pass this curse to someone else.
It wouldn't be fair. Whatever this thing was, I had
to face it. I had to find another way.
I started reading about curses and demons, looking for any clue
on how to break the curse without harming anyone else.
Most of the stuff I read sounded crazy, but I was living a
nightmare, so who was I to say what was crazy anymore?
Knights were still a terror, but having a purpose made them a bit
more bearable. I was learning, trying to
understand the curse better and hoping I'd stumble upon
something that could help me. It was a long shot, but it was
all I had. And so, night after night, I
faced the banging, armed with my new knowledge, hoping that one
day I'd find a way to silence it for good.
Until then, I held on to the hope that somehow, some way, I
could beat this curse without losing myself completely.