A Nightmare on 49th Street

For a few months, while trying to save money, I moved in with a family in their four-bedroom apartment, paying $600 a month for the smallest room.

One weekend, the family was on vacation, and I had the place to myself. So, of course, I took to Grindr and found the cutest boy in my area.

I don’t have much to say about the hookup: He came over, he was cute, we canoodled, he left.

Afterward, I went to take a shower. I walked through the long, dark hallway to the back of the apartment, not bothering to turn the lights on.

I started to shave—immediately cutting my sharp jawline. Blood rushed down my body and over the white tub into the sink—I can’t believe how much a small face cut can bleed. It looked like the scene from “Psycho.”

That’s when I heard a noise—a loud BUMP coming from the other room. Not a knock on the door, more like something had fallen over…as if someone had knocked over a lamp while wandering through the dark apartment. “Did I lock the front door after he left?” I wondered. My heart raced. Leaving the shower running, I threw a towel around my waist and went into the hallway, leaving wet footprints behind me.

I turned the corner into the living room, seeing nothing but a dark room. “What the fuck am I doing?” I asked myself. “I let a stranger into my apartment, then I cut myself shaving and bled all over, now I’m checking on a loud, scary noise in just a towel. This is how every teen scary movie starts.” I could practically hear people in the theater shouting at me: “Don’t go in there, girl!” All the same, I walked forward into the living room

Something raced past my feet, and I gasped—it was my black cat, Thomas. Now an animal jumping out for a cheap scare? “I’m living in a horror movie right now,” I told myself. And again, all the same, I walked through the living room and into the pitch-black hallway leading to my room, light shining through the bottom of my door. “Did I leave the light on?” I asked myself. I couldn’t remember.

I reached for my doorknob when three quick knocks came at the front door directly to my left. I screamed. I went to the door and looked through the peephole—it was my hookup. I unlocked the door, and opened it an inch. “Hey?”

“Sorry, I think I left my keys in your room.” I let him back inside and opened my bedroom door. His keys were on the floor next to the bed, and my fan had fallen over on the floor (probably a result of my cats running around), explaining the loud bump.

He took his keys and left, but even with everything explained, I locked both deadbolts on the front door. I ain’t about to be no Sidney Prescott.