Here's a "shut-up" story for you (just think of Elaine on Seinfield)

My mom sent me a copy of what she had written about something that happened to them recently when returning home from a night out. I thought many of you may find it interesting, shocking, scary, and unbelievable! Here it goes:

We Live in a Secure Building

We live in a secure building …sometimes I’ve said it’s too secure, because it seems to be so much trouble to get in, that our children don’t ever come to see us here.

One quiet winter evening, on Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, Stuart and I returned home from an outing about 9:30 P.M. and as usual, Stuart dropped me off at the 3rd floor while he went up to the 4th floor to retrieve our mail. Since we live in such a secure building, needing a magnetic key to enter from the outside, and living on the 3rd floor, we usually leave the door to our unit unlocked. As I tried to enter our unit, I couldn’t open the door wider than about a foot, and something seemed to be blocking the entryway. As I tried again, I looked down and was immediately startled and pulled back. There in the dark, on the kitchen floor, blocking my way was a young girl…limp and looking lifeless. Shocked, I pulled the door back and looked at the door number to make sure I was really at my own unit. Yes, I was at 308. I opened the door again and the girl stirred slightly. At least she wasn’t dead!

“Are you alright”, I stammered? Thinking at first that it might be the young maid who cleans our building, I asked, “Where are you supposed to be?”

She looked up at me with groggy eyes and groaned, then pushed our door shut. I was shaking as I went to meet Stuart at the elevator door just around the corner. I told him what I had discovered, and we went back to our door and once again tried to open it. Now it was locked from the inside! “She’s got to still be in there, and she’s locked the door !” I said, “ I have been here in the hall by the elevator and no one has come out and it’s only been a couple of minutes since she closed the door.” Cautiously, Stuart unlocked our door and we entered the unit and flipped on the light. The girl was no longer on the floor and the rest of our apartment was dark. Not even thinking that someone else might be in the apartment, we went searching through every room. She obviously wasn’t in the kitchen or living room, Stuart checked the study, and the laundry room…not there. I checked the master bedroom, bathroom and closet, and then met Stuart back in our hallway to check the other bedroom. We couldn’t see her in the closet or on the other side of the bed – not even under the bed, but the mattress itself was askew about a foot and it looked like someone was or had been sleeping in the bed. Stuart pulled back the bedspread… discovering only bunched up covers. Then, he lifted the mattress to adjust it back onto the box springs, when out came a leg!

Stuart gasped and jumped back. As he caught his breath, we lifted the mattress and discovered the girl between the mattress and the box springs! She was lying there still as a corpse. She had no shoes and her unmatched clothing was on inside out. Her hair was straggly around her face and she was pale as a ghost. I called to her, shaking her slightly and saying, “wake up, are you okay?” I could see she was a young teenager and called to her again, this time saying, “Honey, you’ve got to get up, let us help you.” She stirred and I got her sitting up on the bed. She looked both groggy and frightened, and then started to cry. I led her out to the hallway in our apartment where Stuart put his arm around her and she leaned into him and continued to cry. I put the mattress back in place, and then helped Stuart lead her to the couch in the front room. We tried to find out where she was supposed to be and where she thought she was. Now I could smell the alcohol on her breath and knew she was in no condition to think rationally. She called out, “I promise I won’t hurt you…I promise.” Interestingly enough, I had never thought that she might hurt us, and told her, “we won’t hurt you either, and we just want to find out where you need to be.” She said she was there to visit her sister and brother in law who lived on the 1st floor. She gave us their names and we tried to lead her out the door. “I’ll be in so much trouble,” she said, ‘Don’t call the police, I promise I won’t hurt you.” She continued to cry and staggered out with us to the elevator where we proceeded to the 1st floor.

As we got out of the elevator, our friend, Bob was at his storage unit working, so we asked him if he recognized or knew this girl, and told him the name of the sister she was looking for. He didn’t know either of them, but looked in his directory for the name she had given us. No one by that name was listed in our building. She insisted her sister lived there, so we decided to knock on every door on the first floor. As we went to the first unit to knock, the girl once again panicked and said, “Don’t knock…I’ll be in so much trouble.” I had let go of her arm, and suddenly she bolted, and ran down the hall. I turned to follow her, but didn’t run. By the time I got down the hall, turned and gone down the second hall, she was gone. There was a doorway leading to the stairs and it was shut. I walked back to Stuart and Bob, and they suggested we just go back to our apartment, check for damage and lock the door.

After getting back upstairs, we checked and could tell nothing had been taken or damaged in the apartment, but I was not content to let things stand as they were…really I was most concerned about the girl and wondered what we should do about her. It was a freezing cold winter night…what if she had run outside and now couldn’t get back in where it was warm. What if she were not only drunk, but on drugs and needed something more than sleep to recuperate? How did she get in the building? Who was responsible for her? Should we warn our neighbors and even have them help us look for her? Should we just call the police? Finally I called back downstairs to Bob and he let me know that the girl had returned to their unit, thinking it was her sister’s place. Bob was taking more things to his storage unit, and his wife had been on the phone. Somehow the girl got the notion that Bob was holding his wife hostage and she was calling for help. The girl got frantic when Bob came back to “help” again. Once again she bolted, and Bob couldn’t find her. I decided I needed to tell other neighbors and get some help, and went to leave, when our phone rang. It was another one of our neighbors who said the police were here and wanted to talk to us.

When the police came up to our unit, they were with a few of our neighbors who had apparently heard about the trouble. Soon a young couple also showed up that identified themselves as the girl’s sister and brother in law. They are the ones who called the police. We told the police our story, and they let us know that they knew the girl and had dealt with her before. “She is only 17 years old and has some mental problems,” they said. The sister added that the girl is bi-polar, and is border line schizophrenic.” She is on drugs and of course tonight was drunk as well. They ask if any damage was done and how we were. We told them that we didn’t want to cause further problems for anyone and simply wanted to see that the girl got the help she needed. They all thanked us, told us that they had found the girl asleep on a couch in the clubhouse and had now sent her to the psyche ward at the University Hospital.

Her sister and brother in law apologized and thanked us and went back to their unit. (Which was on the 4th floor, which is the main entry from the east side of the building, which makes it seem like the first floor.) They had just moved in two weeks ago, and therefore weren’t in the directory, nor did they know very many people. The young girl had come to tend for her sister!!! (We didn’t know what condition the girl was in when she came to tend, nor where she got the alcohol that got her drunk, but at least we knew the girl was now in a safe environment.) I kept thinking to myself…what if we had gone to bed not knowing she was between the mattress and the box springs!!! What would we have found the next time we changed the sheets?

Even though we “complain” that we live in a building that is sometimes “too secure”… I think we’ll keep our unit door locked from now on!