Last night I went to yoga and dinner with a few friends. I stayed out much later than I usually do just talking with my yoga instructor and another friend. I left around 11:30 and started driving home. I was on PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) and got in a left turn lane to go home. I noticed in my rearview mirror a car behind me, stopped a car length or two away at the same light. As I turned left onto the two lane road that twists and turns with a blind curve, the car begins swerving in and out of the oncoming traffic lane, back to my lane and speeds up, getting very close to me, slows down, stays in the oncoming traffic lane through the blind curve. I think "Well, they are obviously quite drunk," so at the stop sign just after, I pull over onto the dirt parking area to let them pass. I realize then that they have pulled up behind me. I feel the itchings of fear. I decide to put the gas on and get out of there. They do the same. Not sure whether to stop at the next stop sign or not (I realize that I had some wine that night and I certainly didn't want to be pulled over by the police though the idea of that sounded nice), the itching becomes a wave. I stop at the sign, they are coming too close so I floor it and go. All the next lights are green, I'm driving fast, they are following me, at times looking like they are aiming their car at my car, speeding up, slowing down, veering in and out, across all lanes. I come to the light to get on the freeway which leads to my house. There is a car already at the light. There are 4 lanes at the light and I pull up next to the car already there. The car following me stops a few car lengths back again. I wonder if they were just fucking with me and that they'll move on now, we've just crossed the major freeway in California, the 5 freeway, and they'd have to turn to get on the onramp for it. When the light turns green I go straight... so do they. We are now on a small two lane freeway that is not completed yet. It basically goes to the area I live in and nowhere else. At midnight, you just wouldn't be on that freeway unless you lived there. In my head I knew the people in that car didn't live in our neck of suburbia land. I was getting scared and they were getting more erratic. There are only two exits on that freeway and when they skipped the first one I knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were following me. I exit the freeway, not sure whether to stop or not, decide I need to find my cell phone and stop because I have quite a lead on them. I slow down, rolling stop, get my cell phone and as I'm turning left, they do as well with an attempt to cut me off. I had enough room on my right to swerve further that direction and avoid their car but the fear was heavy on my thighs now and I was petrified. The thoughts running through my mind were various - my kids, my husband, do I go home, do they have a gun, why are they chasing me. I get my home number up and call. The Husband is asleep, he isn't fully coherent as I'm screaming into the phone asking what to do, where to go. At midnight there is no one on the streets in my suburbia-land, no real metro areas to go to aside from a Ralph's supermarket and we don't even have a police station. I'm frantic and I'm driving towards my home, they are too. Every turn I make, they get closer to me as if trying to hit me. My legs are shaking, my heart is racing and I'm scared. When I turn onto the cross street in my neighborhood I freak when they do to. I'm yelling at The Husband to tell me what to do, he is saying come home but I was afraid to -- there was no way to get my garage door open, in the garage and closed...they'd be in our house by then. I didn't want them to know where my kids were so I decided I'd fly through my street and then drive to the fire station a mile away. As I turn onto my small suburban street that is no thruway to anything, I see their car begin to turn and I near tears...then suddenly they fishtail and go straight. There is only one other street for them to go to because the housing development ends the street behind ours. I'm confused now...are they just going to see where I live? I'm also scared and I want my husband. I get the garage open, get in, get it closed behind me and put my shaking legs on the ground. The Husband is waiting, watching out the window to see if they come. He goes outside and watches for awhile... and 10 minutes later he sees the car come from the road behind us, go up the hill and out of the housing development.

I'm still sorta reeling from the experience. It was terrifying really.