Mom, dad, the man in the alley said he’d walk me home

Edit: I’m blown away by the staggering amount of responses and awards. I posted in part to try to process this experience, and I’m glad others are finding it enlightening. I had a couple of questions about the incident that I’ll try to answer here:<br><br>1. I assume I was 8 or 9 because I must have been in third or fourth grade, as I remember walking to school on those days, and only in the third grade.<br>2. I’m not sure where he was originally headed when he was walking towards us, but there were no other people in the area. He suddenly veered off his path and approached us in the alley.<br>3. The “Oh no, no, no. I wasn’t going to hurt you” thing seemed so bizarre to me then and now. I’ve never heard anyone say anything like that. It was spoken in a hushed, urgent tone.<br>4. I’ve gone over this in my head a million times and I’ve concluded that the only thing that saved me from getting kidnapped or worse was my brother’s presence. There’s no way I would have been kidnapped alive with my brother there. I think the guy knew it as well, which is why he bolted.<br>5. If I had to recreate the route, I would have been able to find the house they entered, but I didn’t consider doing so at the time.<br>6. I made a couple of attempts to recreate the way the man sounded when he said “oh no, no, no….I wasn’t gonna hurt you”. It creeped everyone out, so I gave up.<br><br>When I was younger, I walked three blocks to school almost every day. My routine involved leaving the house at 7:05 AM, then walking down our street to the corner where I turned right. I walked half a block to the corner stop sign and turned left onto a short, narrow street with no sidewalk. At the other end of the street was the main road, where I turned right to the next corner. Here I turned left onto a main thoroughfare that led to the school.<br><br>I walked to school over 200 times a year, and aside from the occasional stray cat or dog, never had a problem. Still, I always kept an eye out. <br><br>One day I took a different route. I followed my original route to the corner stop sign, but turned right instead of left towards the main road. This street was a little longer, with a sidewalk only along the left side. My brother was following me at a distance, about half a block back, as he walked to school on a different route and this was the only stretch our paths overlapped. I wasn’t aware he was there until I heard my name being called. If he hadn’t been there, I’m not sure I would be writing this entry today.<br><br>The street turned slightly to the left as I approached the corner leading to the main road. It was a blind turn due to the houses on the corner and some large trees between them. As I turned the corner, a man approached from the other direction, walking his dog on a leash. It was a small white dog with big floppy ears. I don’t remember the exact breed, but I thought it was a beagle or a basset hound. The dog was on a leash, but it kept running ahead of the man, pulling the leash taut. <br><br>He wasn’t wearing a shirt or shoes, just shorts. He was walking in the direction of the main road, towards me, and seemed startled when he suddenly saw me in front of him. We were maybe 20 feet apart at that point.<br><br>The man stopped in his tracks and turned around, almost in a panic, and started walking the other way, back the direction he came from. His dog was still ahead of him, running towards me, and he yanked on the leash to restrain it. As he was walking away, he looked back at me with an urgent stare and said, “Oh no, no, no…..I wasn’t gonna hurt you.” He dragged the dog to the corner and turned right, out of sight.<br><br>I walked to the corner and turned right myself, looking down the street to see if I could find him. He wasn’t in sight, but I noticed the houses on the corner of this street were connected by a shared fence, the only ones like this on the street. At the other end of the street the man and his dog turned right onto the main road. <br><br>I was startled, but not panicked. I turned around to head back the way I had come and saw my brother turning the corner. I told him what had just happened, and he suggested we find out where the man with the dog lived. <br><br>We walked back to the houses on the corner and looked over the fence. We saw the man and his dog entering a house two doors down. The front door opened, and a woman let them in. She looked at us over her shoulder but didn’t react. The man was still barefoot and shirtless, and his dog was still on a leash.<br><br>It was getting late and we were in danger of missing the morning bell, so we headed back towards school. I never walked that way again and never mentioned the incident to my parents.<br><br>Reading the stories on this forum has made me realize that I came close to disaster that day. I only recently mentioned the incident to my brother, and he didn’t remember it. I’m glad I posted this, because it’s made me realize that suspicious people aren’t always in cars or hiding behind bushes. Sometimes they’re walking their dogs.