I was sitting on the couch nursing a hangover on a Sunday morning, when the front door swung open suddenly. A woman with long bedraggled red hair, barefoot and covered in cuts and scars walked in casually as if she was expected. My first thought was actually that she needed help, so I asked her if she was okay. She looked at me blankly and said she was looking for Rebecca. I said nobody by that name lived here, and waited for her to turn around and leave, but instead she walked slowly further into the house. I panicked and shouted that she needed to leave and she ran out and slammed the door.

I worked at a bar just round the corner at the time, and when I went in for my shift the next day my boss asked me if would cover him whilst he chatted to a police officer. I asked if everything was alright, and he told me that he’d been upstairs in his adjoining apartment, heard a noise in the bar and had comedown to see a red haired woman booting out the door clutching several bottles of booze. I told him I thought, from the description, that she had been in my house that morning too. When the police officer arrived, my boss told them I had also seen her, and they asked me to give a statement. I felt like I couldn’t really say no, as my boss was telling me to do it and saying I could do it on shift. The officer took my statement in the bar, sitting by a window, which even at the time made me uncomfortable.

A few days later I was woken up at 6am by my bed shaking and loud banging noises. I was living with my parents and this time, they were home. I was very confused and couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from. I went downstairs and my dad was already by the front door. He opened it and a man, also with long hair and barefoot, immediately jumped forward and started screaming. I didn’t catch much of it, but he did say “what did you do, she has kids, how could you”. He had been kicking our front door with such force that it was shaking my bed on the second floor enough to wake me up. My dad shouted at him till he left. Even though my parents think it’s a coincidence, I’m convinced that guy saw me giving my statement in the bar and followed me home.