Andy's Nightmare

1. Going Back Home

Andy decided that it was time that she went back to her own apartment.

She hadn't been back since that fateful night in January. She stood outside her door for a few moments while trying to find the courage to turn the key and go in. Eventually, she braced herself, took a deep breath and turned the key in the lock to open the door. She pushed open the door until it hit the wall, then slowly walked into the living room.

It still looked the way she left it that night when she was taken to the hospital. She stood there, frozen, as if she couldn't move. She could only look around at the way the furniture had been thrown or knocked over as she tried to escape and fight him off. Papers and books were all over the room and the broken lamp still lay on the floor where she had thrown it to stop his approach. There was blood splattered and soaked into the couch and rug from where she had tried to fight him off and free herself. He had cut her and hit her too many times to count before she passed out and. . . She had to shake this off and try to forget what had happened.

Andy was grateful to the neighbors who had heard the commotion from the usually quiet apartment next door and called the police so that the attacker was caught while he was still inside her apartment after she had passed out.

Andy's apartment was only connected to one other apartment, with two apartments across the hall from her. Her building consisted of four upstairs apartments and four lower apartments.

Andy lived downstairs because she knew she worked odd hours and didn't want to be above someone else and wake them when she would get up early for work or get home after closing the store.

Her downstairs neighbors consisted of two elderly women, one single mother with a young child and one elderly couple.

She was friendly with all of them and the elderly ladies looked at Andy like a surrogate granddaughter.

They all knew Andy as a quiet and respectful neighbor. She never played loud music, never had her tv on so loud that anyone else could hear it in the hall or through the walls. Even when she would leave early or come home late, she would close the door as quietly as she could. Nobody ever had a complaint about her. So when the neighbors were woken up by a loud commotion, breaking glass and sounds of a fight or struggle, they immediately knew something was wrong.

Each of them wanted to go over to check on the quiet, young lady next door, but they were all elderly and afraid that they might end up being hurt in the struggle as well, so they all decided to call 911, not knowing that the others were doing the same.

With three calls coming in at almost the same time, the police were there within a couple of minutes and found her door unlocked because the attacker had only slammed it shut with his foot because he was holding onto her and was unable to lock it.

They found Andy lying on the living room floor in a pool of blood. They didn't know if she was dead or alive. She had multiple slashes up and down her arms, legs, stomach and chest. And she laid there naked, bruised and bleeding. One of the police checked on her vitals while his partner checked the rest of the apartment.

They found the suspect in the bedroom going through a jewelry box that was on the dresser, covered in blood. The officer blocked the door to prevent him from fleeing as other police officers and an ambulance arrived to take Andy to the hospital.

When they were removing Andy from the apartment, she still had not regained consciousness. Her neighbors were outside their doors after seeing the police take a man to their car in handcuffs and then paramedics took a stretcher into the apartment. The women were almost hysterically crying. One was being comforted by her husband, while the other two were hugging each other. The single mother was at the door talking to one of the police, while trying to comfort her young daughter, who had been woken up by the commotion outside.

They would each have to give a statement as to what they heard, but they hadn't seen anything. They could only vouch for the type of lady Andy was and that she was not the type to attract this kind of attention.

As Andy was standing just inside the door staring at the mess in front of her, there was an unexpected knock on the open door behind her which made her freeze. She was reluctant to turn around until she heard the familiar friendly voice of her best friend Charlie. “Andy? Are you ok? Your mom told me you were coming back here. Thought you may need some moral support. Or some help cleaning up the place?” Charlie had walked the couple of steps inside and put her arm gently across Andy’s shoulders. She slowly led Andy to the kitchen and put her back to the mess in the living room. She busied herself in the kitchen making some tea to soothe Andy’s jangled nerves.

“I’m not sure that I can live here anymore,” Andy said in a shaky voice, on the verge of tears. "I can’t handle walking in this place every day remembering what happened. I thought since he was in jail that I could handle coming back here. I was wrong.” Charlie placed the tea on the table and Andy took a sip before going on. “I still feel like he’s gonna jump out of some corner and the whole nightmare is going to start all over again. I should never have come back here. Let’s get out of here, please”

“Alright,” Charlie started as she walked over and put a reassuring arm around her friend and walked her to the door, trying to carefully avoid letting her see the messy state of the living room as much as possible. “We can talk about you taking Janice’s room since she’s getting married in 2 weeks. And I’ll need someone to help with the expenses anyway, and I can’t imagine anyone better to take her place.”

Janice was Charlie’s roommate, although she was rarely there because she was already almost living with her fiancé.

They went to a small diner and talked for a couple of hours, making arrangements for Andy to move in as soon as Janice was officially moved out.

“I’ll have to go to the management of the apartment to get out of my lease. I just hope they understand.” Andy said when they were out of the diner. “I’ll let them know that I’ll pay for the apartment to be cleaned to remove any trace of the attack.”

“I'm sure they will understand." Charlie said. "Do you want me to go with you?”

“No, but thank you, Charlie. I should be OK as long as I don’t have to go back inside there. I’ll get movers to pack my things up as well and get rid of all that furniture. Since I'll be moving in with you, I'll only need my bedroom furniture, and he didn't attack me in there, or I'd have to get rid of that too.”

They said their good nights and Andy went back to her mother’s, where she’d spent the last 2 months since that night. Her mom was already in bed when Andy got there so she quietly made herself a cup of herbal tea and sat down to watch a late night movie in her room. She was hoping that tonight she would get to sleep early.