There is a specific kind of silence that falls over Sydney suburbs after 11:00 PM. In the 1980s, before the constant hum of the internet and the blue glow of smartphones filled our voids, that silence was absolute. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket that pressed against windows and eaves, turning a friendly neighbourhood into something that felt marooned at the edge of the world.
I learned early that our home's safety was fragile. I was twelve, the eldest of three sisters, and proudly holding the title of "babysitter" for the very first time. My parents had left for a midnight screening of an old favourite film, leaving us with a mandate of responsibility and the promise that they’d return by 2:00 AM.
For the first few hours, it was freedom. We kept the lights off, bathed in the flicker of the television, feeling grown-up in the dark. Then came the rustling in the front yard, an unsettled whisper in leaves and gravel. At first, we dismissed it as wind or a stray cat, the logic of the innocent.
Then came the sound that shattered our logic.
BANG. BANG.
It wasn’t a polite knock. It was an assault on the wood of our front door, as if something outside was trying to punch its way into our lives.
Fear is cold. It started in my stomach and froze my limbs. My sisters and I went silent, killing the TV instantly. We were in the dark, crouching on the floorboards, listening to the house listen.
BANG. BANG.
I knew I couldn’t open that door. But a child's curiosity is a dangerous thing. I crept to the entrance. The door was heavy wood, inset with thin strips of frosted, coloured glass that smeared the outside into warped light and shadow. Through the glass's distortion, I saw a shape. A shadow. Then, the doorknob rattled violently, metal clattering like teeth in a jar. The person wasn’t knocking anymore; they were trying to get in.
Panic has a way of sharpening your focus. I grabbed a heavy wooden doorstop and jammed it under the door with trembling hands, praying it would hold. The phone, our only lifeline, was right next to the door, too close to the intruder, too close to the idea of being heard. I couldn't risk it. I ushered my sisters upstairs to my parents' bedroom, and we huddled on the floor, terrified.
The window overlooked the front stoop, covered only by heavy drapes. We knew we shouldn't look. We knew it was dangerous. But we had to know. Slowly, we slid our heads under the hem of the curtains, peering out at the night as if the night might blink first.
I wish we hadn't.
Standing on the stoop was an old man. He wasn’t looking around; he was looking up. His eyes were dead, cold, and locked onto our exact position as if he could see through the heavy fabric. His face was twisted into a menacing scowl. In one hand, he held a brown paper bag. He held it by the neck, making it clear there was something substantial inside, something with weight and intention. As we watched, paralysed, he raised his other hand. He pointed a long, bony finger at the bag. Then, slowly, rhythmically, he moved his forearm back and forth, a deliberate pantomime toward whatever nightmare lay inside that paper sack.
We ducked back, recoiling in horror. When I worked up the courage to check the edge of the curtain a minute later, the stoop was empty, only darkness and concrete, as if the world had swallowed him whole. My parents came home to three hysterical girls. The police were called, a report was filed, but the man was never found. I never learned what was in the bag, and I never saw his face again. But I learned a lesson that night: the boundary between safety and danger is thinner than a pane of glass.
You would think that experience would make me paranoid for life. But time erodes fear.
Over a decade later, I was in my mid-twenties. I was an orphan of the state by then, having navigated the foster system and eventually landing a job in data entry at a publishing house. I was studying law and psychology, arming myself with knowledge about the human mind. I felt capable. I felt safe.
I had developed a routine. To save money, I walked home from work, a twenty-minute trek through a quiet, average suburb. It involved a shortcut under a railway station and through a zig-zag of residential streets. In the daylight, it was mundane. But one summer evening, a sales deadline kept me at the office until 7:30 PM. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the pavement like dark fingers stretching for my feet. I was tired, relieved to be done, and suffering from the dangerous complacency that comes with familiarity.
I walked through the railway underpass. It was empty. The houses beyond were silent; the kind of silence where people are inside eating dinner, oblivious to the street. As I passed the high school, the hair on my neck stood up, that same cold feeling from when I was twelve.
I turned. About fifty meters behind me, a man was walking.
It was an Australian summer, humid and hot, the air thick against the skin. Yet this man wore a massive, thick anorak that reached his thighs, heavy hiking boots, and a cap pulled low. He was large, over six feet tall, a moving block of wrongness in the heat.
Don’t be paranoid, I told myself. He’s just walking.
I kept my pace. My phone was dead, a useless brick in my bag. I was cut off. I decided to run a test, crossing the street to see if he followed. He didn't hesitate. He crossed the street, matching my trajectory. My heart began to hammer against my ribs, loud as a fist on a door. I crossed back to the original side. He crossed back.
It wasn't a coincidence. It was a hunt.
The gap between us was closing. He was taking longer strides, his face void of anxiety, his intent palpable. The menace radiated off him in waves, heatless and certain. I was wearing platform sandals, I couldn't run without risking a fall. I needed a sanctuary.
Ahead, across the road, I saw a verandah light. A beacon. I crossed the road one last time, walking briskly toward the gate of a stranger's house. I was ready to pound on their door, to scream, to lie and say I lived there. As I reached the gate, I saw salvation. A few doors up, a family was packing their car for a weekend trip. Kids were laughing; a trunk was slamming. The sounds of normal life pierced the bubble of terror like a pin through plastic.
I turned back to look at the man.
He had stopped. He stood on the opposite side of the road, staring at me. He saw the family. He saw the witnesses. He knew the window of opportunity had slammed shut. Without a word, he turned and continued walking into the darkness, fading away just like the old man on the stoop all those years ago.
I never walked that route again after 5:00 PM. I went back to taking the bus, accepting the inconvenience as the price of survival. Both incidents changed me. The first stole my childhood innocence; the second stripped away my young adult arrogance. Whether it is a brown paper bag held by a scowling old man, or a heavy winter coat worn in the height of summer, the world will sometimes show you its teeth. I am older now, a lawyer who deals in facts and evidence, but to this day, I trust the rustle in the bushes, and I respect the shadows.
