A True Ghost Story ... for Halloween

In the early 70s I was a college student at the University of Washington. I was attending class during summer term, I was living in a small ground-floor studio apartment in Seattle near Portage Bay on Lake Union, and it was hot that night.

I was sewing curtains, I think -- the windows were bare and open, I remember. It was probably midnight -- I was still a night owl then and I would be active until maybe 1 or 2 in the morning when I didn't have to be at class early the next day. My next door neighbor was either gone or asleep.

It was warm enough that I had cut-off jeans on, and a t-shirt. My hair was short which, weirdly, I have come to think was very important. I was absorbed in what I was doing until I was distracted by a noise outside.

When I went to the window, the porch light revealed a man outside, who apparently had just stepped away from peering in my window, but who was still facing me head on. I could clearly see his face, and the fact that in the July heat he had on a long, dark trench coat. One of his arms was through the sleeve, but the other arm was hidden within the coat, as if he had a sling on it.

I ran to the door and locked it -- it had been ajar. And then I looked out the window again.

The man was still there. He grinned at me. And slowly turned and walked away.

I called the police, who dutifully showed up, took my report and told me to keep my door locked and my blinds drawn. I had been thoroughly scared ... and the creepy event stayed dormant in my memory for years.

Until the day I saw a picture in a magazine of the man who had stood outside my apartment that night.

His name was Ted Bundy.