This is pretty old. It was my first attempt at writing a creepypasta. It ended up twice as long as I meant it to be. I know it's bad but I don't know how to make it better - I'm horrible at suspense and scary scenes. Any advice would be appreciated! 

It was a party in the city in the home of a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. I'd been invited via a mass invite on Facebook and went just to have something to do. My roommate, who I'd come with, had left early to study. I'd stayed behind to try to hook up with a guy. But he'd wanted to watch a movie with his friends in the friend-of-a-friend's parents' bedroom, and then he'd fallen asleep, and by then I was starting to get way too absorbed in the movie, to the point that I'd lost track of time. That's when someone snatched my purse.

I didn't think about the fact that they might have a weapon on them, that they might be bigger and scarier than me – I couldn't see who they were in the dark, they were just a flash of dark clothing dashing out of the room. I was on my feet and on their tail within seconds, pausing only to pick one of my stiletto heels off my foot.

Some party guests watched quizzically as we ran by, but they didn't try to stop the thief. I didn't expect them to – they weren't my friends, I didn't know most of them at all. The thief turned onto another street and I started to gain on them. Just as I was about to lunge for them and jab my stiletto heel into their neck, they began to slowly turn around. I jumped back and held my shoe in front of me. They kept their head down, and their long, dark hair hung out over their face. Their body was chubby and covered in loose, black robes, but a glance at their midsection revealed that the thief was a woman.

Why did she stop running? Suddenly I became aware of my surroundings – the road was almost completely dark, and no one was outside. Dark bushes lined the sidewalk. There were cars parked on the side of the road. Anyone could be in those cars. Anyone could be in those bushes.

The woman didn't want my purse. I had been lured there.

"You better give that back right now before my father sees what you did," I said, "He just got out of work and he'll be coming this way." I gestured towards the dark office building down the road across the street with a nod of the head, but I didn't take my eyes off the bushes or the woman.

She dropped the purse.

"I'm not moving," I said firmly. "Give it to me." And she bends over to pick it up, I'll knee her in the face and run.

She kept her head down, and swayed slowly back and forth. She took a few steps backward towards the edge of the sidewalk – there was a three-way intersection behind her - but I remained rooted in place.

She slowly raised her head as she pointed straight behind her.

Her face was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life; I couldn't resist gasping a little once I saw it. It was covered in piercings; her lips had a whole line of rings across them. Her skin dropped under the weight of two metal crosses hung upside-down from her cheeks. The front half of her scalp was shaved clean, and the image of a giant pentagram was carved – no, probably tattooed – on her forehead.

I gaped at her, and she swiftly turned around, turned the corner, and ran.

I grabbed my purse and took off running, too – in hindsight, I should've gone back towards the party, but I didn't want to be on that deserted street. I wanted to be somewhere with cars, stores, people. She'd gone left and pointed straight, so I took the right, which thankfully led to a shopping area. When I found myself in the midst of others, I leaned against a streetlight and rested until my breathing could return to normal.

My phone beeped.

I'd turned my phone off in the middle of the movie because it had already had a low battery and the sound was annoying, but it must have bumped something and turned back on. I reached in my purse to find it (and thank God, my credit card was in there, too) to turn it off, and when I did, I saw the time. 8:30 exactly. I had half an hour to get to the bus.

I cursed as I turned off my phone and tried to figure out which way to go.

I supposed I could go back to the party and find the bus stop from there, but I didn't want to go back down that road, and I didn't have much time. Asking for directions was equivalent to saying, "Hi, I'm a tourist, please mug me." The fact that I looked like an easy target in a club dress, barefoot and carrying one heel, with a purse didn't help. But wandering blindly though the city at night was an even worse idea, and what would happen if I missed the bus? I imagined waiting alone at the bus stop all night, with nothing to do but trying to stay awake and alert and alive... what if the freak came back with whoever she was luring me to? Trying to crash with my friend-of-a-friend wasn't an option; she'd made it clear that everyone must be out by midnight before her parents got home. Besides, seeing as how a Satanic thief had gotten inside without anyone batting an eye, her house no longer seemed any safer than the rest of the city.

I started down the road in what I thought was the direction of the mall with the bus stop where we'd gotten off, but after a few minutes I had to stop. Nothing looked familiar. I wasn't where I thought I was.

I ran up to a middle-aged woman and said, "Excuse me!" When I said that, she looked at me impatientl, as if to say "What do you think you're doing, approaching strangers in a city like this?" But all she said was, "Yes?"

"Do you know where the mall is?" I asked.

She pointed behind me. "Down that road, then take a right."

I looked back. That would be more of the deserted road, as well as the direction the freak had pointed in. "Um, do you know how to get there by bus?"

She pointed behind her. "That bus stop right there."

I thanked her and headed off towards the bus stop. There were some guys there smoking cigarettes. I started to wonder when the bus would get here, and how I'd know if it was the right bus, and if it was the same bus that would take me home or if I'd have to transfer. I thought about asking the guys, but then one turned to look at me, with his face shrouded in smoke.

In the smoke, I swear I saw the image of a pentagram.

I got up and ran in the opposite direction. I had no choice; I had to go the direction the woman had pointed. It was as empty and creepy as it had looked. I didn't even know when I was supposed to turn off. When I passed an intersection of another road, more well-lit, I considered crossing there... but just as I did, all the streetlights flickered on and off at once. What the hell? Too weird of a coincidence. Too creepy. I kept going until I saw a turn-off to a shopping area that I thought might have been my turn. There was a sign for a McDonalds. I know I'd stopped at a McDonald's while my roommate had stopped at a Starbucks down the street, so if I kept going and saw a Starbucks, that would mean I was in the right direction...

I reached the end of the street. There had been no Starbucks.

I cursed and prepared to turn around. But as soon as I did, I heard a loud snarl. Five angry, hissing cats emerged from the buses and ran out in into the street in front of me, several of them brushing my legs as they passed. I turned right and ran down the sidewalk as fast as I could, dropping my heel intentionally. There had been nothing there that would've scared away the cats. If something was chasing me, it wasn't something I could fight.

I was almost in tears; my nose was running. My feet were getting blisters from running on the rough sidewalks and gravel roads, and my dress would be ruined from sweat. I wanted to get out of this city, out of the dark. There were lights at the end of the road. The mall? No... just a grocery store. But I'd run too far, I couldn't keep going. The store was about to close; massive amounts of people were leaving at once. It wasn't where I needed to be, but the presence of people drew me in. I leaned against the wall to catch my breath and turned on my phone to check the time.

8:57.

I was in big trouble. I didn't know any public place that was open all night, and I wouldn't be able to afford a hotel room.

"Are you okay?" I heard someone ask. I turned to the sound of the voice and saw a young woman holding grocery bags and the hand of a little girl.

"Oh, I'm... fine," I said, trying to smile.

She frowned, unconvinced. "Do you need me to call anybody?"

"N-no," I managed to say tightly, but my voice started to crack. I'm sure I looked like I'd been through something much worse than I actually had. I sniffled to hide my runny nose. "But, could you please tell me how to get to the mall?"

Her face lit up and she pointed. "Oh, the mall? Go out that exit and go straight. It's right there, you can't miss it."

"Thank you so much," I said, and started power-walking in that direction. But I didn't have much hope. I didn't know how far straight I was supposed to go, I didn't know if something would be there waiting to ambush me, and the bus could've already been gone. My walk started to slow.

And then there footsteps behind me. The street was lit, but I saw no shadow – I just heard the footsteps getting closer and closer. I felt a rush of adrenaline and started running with all the strength I had.

And then I saw the mall. There was a bus pulled up at the corner.

I didn't look for cars before I darted through the crosswalk. I got honked at but didn't care. I saw the bus number. It was my bus. I'd just made it.

The light and the people on the bus made me feel better; I even felt silly for suspecting that I was being chased. The flickering lights that had scared me were probably just a brown-out, the cats had probably been fighting over territory, the footsteps might've been a jogger...

But when I looked out the window, I saw the thief from before standing on the curb, and smiling straight at me.

I whipped out my dying phone and called the police. The operator seemed concerned, and agreed to send someone out to search the area right away. She told me she might call me back for more information later.

Nothing much else happened that night; let's just say that the sound of my roommate snoring peacefully on the top bunk had never been more comforting. I was just glad the ordeal was over.

But later that morning, I woke up to the sound of the news. Two days before, a woman's ritualistically-mutilated body had been found in the city sewage system. The two suspects, known Satanists who had fled when their family found blood on their clothes, had finally been arrested. They'd been found alone at the bus stop in the mall, just a few minutes late for the last bus of the night.