Why Was He Chasing Me?

 I'm 23 now, and this happened about ten years ago, when I was 13 or 14. Back then, I used to skateboard all the time with my friends Tim and Brandon.

One day, after we finished skating, we decided to stop by the 7/11 for some food and drinks before heading home. Remember, we were only 13 or 14, so we weren't driving—we had skated there and planned to skate or walk back.

Anyway, we bought our drinks and left the store. We walked to the edge of the parking lot, preparing to cross the highway (it wasn't a busy highway, since it's a small town). As we waited for the traffic light to turn red so we could cross, I glanced back at the 7/11 gas pumps. I noticed a man, maybe 40 to 50 years old, pumping gas into his white truck. He was staring right at me. Before I knew it, he dropped the gas pump, jumped into his truck, slammed on the gas, and sped straight at my friends and me.

He missed us, but he grazed my arm and knocked my skateboard out of my hand. My friend Brandon screamed, "What the f—! You f***ing dick!" as the man peeled out and sped into the parking lot next to the 7/11. I swear to God, he then drove through a ditch separating the two parking lots and tried to run us over again.

This is where it got bad.

The three of us started running at full speed across the highway toward the local library, which is about two or three blocks away. When we were half a block from it, I looked back and saw the maniac speeding toward us, his face twisted with rage. Brandon and Tim ran for the library doors, but I veered toward the woods. I knew the library was closed (it was Sunday), and there was a trail in those woods that led straight to my backyard.

As I bolted, I heard the maniac's truck screech into the library parking lot. I glanced back just before disappearing into the tree line and saw him hop out. He reached into the bed of his truck and grabbed what looked like either a shotgun or a crowbar—I was pretty far away by then, and I was freaking out, so my vision wasn't great.

I ran all the way home without stopping. When I reached my street, my neighbor—Tim's dad—told me to get in his car. We had to go to the video store where Tim's mom worked. When we got there, I found Tim and Brandon (they had run there after finding the library locked) and three police officers. A minute later, my mom rushed in, crying her eyes out. Brandon and Tim had told her they didn't know if I was alive. Everyone thought I'd been captured.

Then Tim told me something that chilled me to the bone: he had seen the guy run after me, into the woods. That was the scariest part—I’d thought the maniac was chasing them, not me.

He was never caught. I spent the next five years worrying about every white truck I saw.

Edit: I forgot the most terrifying part. My town is small, but it's not empty. There were plenty of people around while this was happening. I felt so utterly helpless, running for my life, while at least a hundred people nearby did nothing. And to be clear, we didn't provoke this man at all. He tried to hit us for no reason, and that’s what’s so creepy. Brandon only called him a name after he tried to run us over. We were just good kids trying to walk home, and we almost died because of it.