It was dark and rainy outside the Fort Hamilton Parkway subway station in Brooklyn when Tim Malloy approached a woman and offered to walk her home.
She looked confused, even alarmed - and no wonder, since the Windsor Terrace neighborhood is one of the areas where serial gropers have struck.
Malloy, 46, a security guard, explained that he had started a volunteer escort program because of the string of 20 sexual attacks.
"I thought you were being creepy," the woman said, apologizing.
One of Malloy's volunteers, Tim Foley, 49, agreed that some of the women are "caught off guard at first" when they emerge from the F station to find a half-dozen men standing there.
"Then they're very grateful," Foley said. "We're guys from the neighborhood doing the right thing. It's about community, people standing up."
Alexz Johnson, 24, a musician walking with her roommate, Jessica Earnshaw, 28, a photo editor, eagerly accepted company for the stroll home.
"Oh, you're the defenders I heard about," Johnson said. "Ever since I heard about the first [attack], I'm not comfortable walking. I think about it all the time."
She said she and Earnshaw recently started meeting up in the city so they can commute home together, and they discussed getting pepper spray.
"We're here every night," Malloy told them.
The attacks began in March, and cops say 20 women have been groped on the street and in the subway. They have arrested one man for one attack and think three others are at large.
A longtime Windsor Terrace resident and married father of two who runs his own security firm, Malloy launched his patrol Oct. 10 after a neighborhood woman was ambushed.
"That was two blocks from me," he said.
Every night from about 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., his team of licensed guards - all co-workers and neighbors - stand at the ready in neon green shirts. He says they'll be there "until they catch this guy."
That's also the mantra of Jay Ruiz, 46, a messenger dispatcher from Prospect Heights who rolled out his Brooklyn Bike Patrol on Sept. 14.
Skittish women call him to say where they'll be and he or another volunteer cycle to their location and escort them home.
"The first night was weird," he said. "A lot of people said, 'Thank you for what you're doing,' but no one had me walk them home. Not trusting us was the biggest obstacle we had."
It's not a problem any more. He gets calls every night.
Marie Weller, 27, a Columbia College student who lives in south Park Slope, is a regular. Rob Blatt, an interactive marketing manager, walked her home one night last week at 10:45 p.m.
They chatted about the Wall Street protests, and she encouraged him to drum up money on the Web to buy winter gear for the volunteers.
"We're looking for USB chargers for our bikes," Blatt said.
That same night, Ruiz came to the rescue of actress Iliana Inocencio, 25, who also lives in the south Slope.
"I really appreciate it," she said. "People tell me to take a cab. Honestly, I can't afford it."
Ruiz, who started a Facebook page for his service and reached out to local cops, is hoping to expand.
"If everyone had an escort home, it would be so cool," he said.
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