This didn’t happen to me but I was involved in it. The victim was actually my girlfriend and I got the story later.
At the time my girlfriend and I were attending college together. It was a smaller school in a pretty quiet place so most of the students were from the area. My girlfriend, Caitie, was one of those. I came from a distance and so lived in a dorm at the college. Caitie and I would hang out together in my dorm between classes and even some evenings and weekends when we wanted to be together but didn’t feel like going out. It was a Friday night and both of us being pretty introverted decided not to do anything crazy so we planned to spend the night in my room with each other as my roommate was out that night. She wanted some time to go home after classes and assured me that she’d be back around 8:00.
Caitie had a car but she never liked driving. Unless she had to pack around her instrument she usually took the bus. That Friday night she had a pretty unnerving experience in doing so that freaked the two of us out for a long while after it happened.
She was a small girl, definitely didn’t look like a college aged student. She was short, thin, and quiet. Standing alone at a bus stop in the dark was probably not ideal but she preferred that over taking her own car. She waited for the bus, innocent as a rose, when a van drove past her, then again, then again, then again. She was a bit suspicious but told herself he was probably just lost or killing time. The van then pulled over right in front of the stop and the driver rolled his window down.
“Isn’t it cold out here?” he asked, “The bus is always late. Hop in and I’ll give you a ride.”
Caitie declined politely and took a few steps back trying to show him she wasn’t interested in anything he wanted. He asked again if she was absolutely sure that she didn’t want a ride and he drove away after she turned him down again. The bus arrived moments later and she was relieved to step on. To her horror, she then noticed the same van right behind the bus. The van followed the bus directly and Caitie texted me to explain the situation to me. I could tell that she was panicked, which isn’t uncommon for her. I offered to talk to her on the phone to calm her nerves and she accepted. We talked about school and things to get her mind off it. Once her stop came, she felt safe enough to hang up the phone and walk the short distance to the college. When she arrived at my dorm room, she was hysterical. It took me over an hour to comfort her enough to get the story out of her and this is what she told me.
The van had stopped following the bus after getting stuck at a red light, giving the bus a chance to get ahead. However, after getting off at her stop, the van sped up to her. He was driving like a maniac at this point, going at least 20 kilometres over the speed limit. The bus had already pulled away when the van stopped next to her. It had pulled over right where she intended to go to get to the college so in a panic, she bolted the other way, and the driver raced after her. When she turned her head to look behind her, she noticed he was holding a large butcher knife and waving it in front of him in her direction. She did a wide turn to get back on track to the college, the man following close behind. Lucky for her, he lost his footing on an icy patch on the road and his fall delayed him enough for her to get far enough ahead. When he got back up, he didn’t chase after her again but instead yelled out “I will find you and I will get you!”
Since then, she’s always taken her own car instead of the bus.