As The Raven Dreams Podcast - 5+ Hours Of True Scary Stories | True Horror Compilation 2

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

5+ Hours Of True Scary Stories | True Horror Compilation 2 is a HUGE Collection of the scariest true scary stories I've featured! Most of these are from my friday themed videos, and are all guaranteed to seriously scare you! Do You Have A Story you want to see featured on this channel?  Send it my way  ➤  https://www.astheravendreams.com/submit  Post it To my Subreddit  ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream  Or Email me at [e-mail] Get Early Access and Help the channel by Joining Channel Memberships, or signing up for my Patreon! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Channel Memberships ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join ✯✬✯✬ New True Story Collections Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday! Creepypasta on Saturdays, and sometimes other days 😉  ➤ https://www.youtube.com/c/astheravendreams?view_as=subscriber?sub_confirmation=1 Watch TRUE Scary Stories! (Glitch In The Matrix, Deep Web Horror, Middle of Nowhere Stories, Etc.) ➤ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyjanWDZygZ-cq9gavLVSGHbuC9XkpYkW  Watch some Creepypasta or other Fiction ➤ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyjanWDZygZ_RmFLHdyo7XdwhcsyR3rFU  All videos come with a content warning for language, potentially triggering situations, and disturbing content. Viewer Discretion is ALWAYS advised... I do scary stories- it's not all rainbows and daisies around these part.  Always Remember That You Are Loved, You Are Valid, And You Are Important. NEVER Let anyone tell you otherwise. ♥ ✯✬✯✬ 【Enjoy The Nevermore】 Subscribble to the Chibble! ➤ https://www.youtube.com/c/astheravendreams?view_as=subscriber?sub_confirmation=1 MY True Crime Channel ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9TQVx8YUuuI5gBP58NTtA Listen On Spotify! ➤ https://open.spotify.com/show/1EFYMKPBTTkmKyDla2JE1Q Listen On Your Apple Device! ➤ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/as-the-raven-dreams/id1543612283 Wear The Nevermore (MERCH SHOP) ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Follow me on Twitter ➤ https://twitter.com/RavensDreamYT Everything Else ➤ https://www.astheravendreams.com/the-nevermore ✯✬✯✬ Too many stories to Time Stamp- The stories in this video are from the following vids on this channel! Hiking Stories on 4/9 Walmart Stories on 4/16 Trucker Stories on 4/23 Past Life Stories on 4/30 Delivery Driver on 5/7 Gas Station on 5/14 Small town Stories on 5/21 Uber Horror on 5/19 Dark Web again on 5/28 Home Invasion on 6/4 Summer Vacation on 6/25 July 4th on 7/2 ✯✬✯✬ 【LEGAL DISCLAIMERS】  ➤All stories within are used w/ direct permission from the author- or under some level of CC license (where noted) True Stories are not verified, and should all be considered 'supposedly true'. Some Fonts used are from https://www.misprintedtype.com - Eduardo Recife makes some AMAZING fonts! If you need to contact me for Business purposes, please contact me at [e-mail] and indicate that the email is for business.  #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories Be sure to *subscribe* if you like any of the following; Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Creepy Encounter Stories, Deepweb horror stories, Darkweb Stories, Reddit scary stories, True Scary Stories, Creepypasta, Reddit ghost stories, Or really anything- my channel is pretty diverse. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Me and a couple of friends like to go urban exploring. It started out when we were kids. There was a house down the street that had been condemned after the old lady that lived in it passed away. Me and my friends, André and Stacey, who lived on the same street as me, talked about going in there and looking around. So, one night, we agreed to take a look.

We found a few trees. treasures and safely left from there, it definitely sparked our interest in future explorations. This made up most of our summers. We would find other small houses, shacks, or even old buildings that may have been abandoned or gutted after a fire or something. I bring this up because it's ultimately what led us to these following events. After graduation, Stacey moved out of state for a job offer while Andre and I still lived close by.

Keeping in touch with us, Stacey always called us to talk about life where she lived and that we needed to come check out her new place. She always knew what to say, though, to really tie us in. She said she was purposely looking for places for us to explore, and found out that there was a really old school that had been closed for decades, about two hours from her. After she sent us some pictures when she passed by it and looked up the directions, we were convinced. So, a few months away from summer, we started making our arrangements to head out there. With summer vacation starting, Andre and I drove out to her place, preparing to be there for,

about a week or so. Upon arriving, Stacy greeted us and got Andre set up in the spare bedroom, and I offered to take the couch. That night, we caught up over dinner, and she started showing us more pictures that she had taken from the outside. She wanted to go in, but decided to wait until she had us with her because she knew that we would be interested. The school sat in the middle of an overgrown feat.

From the satellite map, it looked like there was a small shed or house a few yards away. There was a fence surrounding it, so we were definitely going to be trespassing. And this is where I say don't do this. It was a stupid idea. Only go to places open to the public. So, we basically brainstormed what all tools and equipment we wanted to bring with us, packed everything up and settled in for the night. The next evening, we headed out to the location.

We wanted to go later on so there would be less traffic around and hopefully less people likely to report us. We took Stacey's car since it had local tags and parked off the side of a gravel road next to the property. The fencing wasn't anything fancy, just chicken wire basically secured to posts. There wasn't even barbed wire above it, so we bent the top of the wire down, hopped over, and proceeded to the entrance. The door? It was barely a door. It was only on the top hinges, and the bottom part looked like it had been crumbling away.

There was a big piece of thin wood in front of it, but it was only nailed to the top. so you could easily bend it up to slide under it. This was our way in. Upon entering, you could tell the air was stagnant. You could smell mildew, old wood, and maybe even that smell of decay. Like, the smell that a lot of old buildings start having. If you do this, or start doing it, you'll recognize the smell. Most, if not all, of the windows were boarded up, so you could just see the light of the sunset peeking in the cracks.

We put on our masks because you never know what you could be breathing in, grabbed our flashlights and headlamps, and started figuring out where to start. There were two floors and one set of stairs to the right from what we could tell. We started on the first floor, of course. We walked to the left to see two classrooms on one side and the gym and cafeteria on the other. We entered the first classroom. Most of the desks were still in their place. There was a bookshelf in the corner with some heavily damaged books and old toys on it.

The pages in the books were all stuck together, most likely due to water damage as the window right above it was broken out and poorly boarded up. There was still string hanging up from above the chalkboard for, like, a party banner or something of that sort. It was interesting to look at, and even though we didn't go to the school, it still brought back some good memories from those times. As we were looking around, we started hearing a scuffling sound coming from above us. Now, this isn't our first time, as mentioned. We've made rules for ourselves if we ever run into trouble, such as cops, animals, or other people. A lot of places are bound to have animals living in them.

Not a lot of people are going to bother going in there, so they don't have to worry about danger. You just have to give them their space for the most part. You may run into squatters, and as long as they're non-violent, you can usually just walk out with, without much interaction. As for police, if there are trespassing signs, then you know the risk that you're taking. We've only run into them twice.

Once as teenagers, and they just escorted us home, and the second time they suggested we leave due to the structure not being safe. With that being said, we just go quiet for a second to see if we heard anything else or any talking accompanying the sound.

We heard nothing, so we assumed it to be an animal and moved on. We walked over to the gym to see what we could find. There was a basket in the back with deflated dodgeballs, covered in a blanket of dust. Stacey found an old doll that she ended up putting in her bag to take home. She said it reminded her of an old doll her mom, or her grandmother had, but to me, it was just creepy looking. As we continued to look around, we heard more shuffling upstairs and paused. This time, we heard what sounded like a really weird meow.

Andre made a comment about that not sounding like a cat, while Stacy argued that it was. It sounded enough like a meow to me at the time, though. we then made our way over by the stairs, where there also appeared to be an office for maybe a principal, a nurse's office, and a faculty room. It was starting to get a little darker, so we decided to head upstairs before it was too dark, so we could check out what was up there,

then make our way back down to the offices. As we headed up, we could hear more noise, and now it sounded like it was coming, from one of the back glasses. Stacey was interested in finding the cat while André was hesitant. He had a point that we did have to be cautious in case it had rabies, or was just aggressive. So we at least convinced Stacey to hold back some. We went into one of the rooms closest to the stairs when we started hearing whimpering, like a small puppy.

but this one definitely did not sound right. Stacey and Andre agreed, but Stacey thought maybe the dog was just ill or scared. After a little back and forth, we opted to check what the sound was coming from, so we could all relax and explore more. We started heading towards the back when the meowing started again, and this time, it legit just sounded like a person meowing. I remember Stacey's staying back a bit while I entered the room, followed by Andre. It was another classroom, but appeared to be for younger children like a nursery.

In one corner, there were maybe six or seven cribs stacked on each other to make like a sectioned-off part of the room. Of course, that would be where the sound was coming from, too. As we walked in further, we turned on our flashlight to point into the corner, and that's when we saw a full-grown man, crouching naked in front of us. Embarrassed, André and I turned around, and I apologized for intruding, as I was about to say that we would leave, the dude starts barking at us.

Stacey was asking us from the doorway what was happening when Andre started laughing and shouting about a crazy guy living here. As we started walking back and, while Andre continues to poke fun at the guy, his barks became louder and more and more aggressive. I'd swear that was a dog if I hadn't seen him. I told them it was best that we just leave when Andre yelled, Look out!

Before I could register what he said, this guy had jumped on me and was scratching at my back. I tried to turn over, but this guy had to be at least 200 pounds, so it was a struggle. Thankfully, Andre ran over and punched the guy in the head, which caused him to stumble back a bit, enough for him to help me up. I stood there for a second

looking at this guy as I tried to gain back my composure when he proceeded to crouch on his hands and feet and growl. Stacey started yelling at us that we just needed to leave, so we started walking quickly away when I looked back to see this guy walk out of the room

still on all fours. He started kicking back his legs and Andre shouted, Oh, hell no. And the guy started running for us. I have never seen a human run so fast on his hands and feet. It was terrifying. We got to the stairs and got to the bottom,

and I jumped from the second to last stair, or something like that, and my foot went through the floor. So, once again, I'm falling to the floor with both of them yelling at me, and this guy closing in. I remember Andre yelling at Stacy to pry open the door, and he helped me up again. Right as we got to the door, the dude had fallen from the top of the stairs to the bottom.

I kid you not. It was like he just fell over the side and landed in front of us, nearly scaring the hell out of me, but he looked like he had knocked himself unconscious. I stared at him for a second to see if he was still breathing at least. The guy was just skin and bone. I could see his spine clinging to his skin and his arms and legs looked frail and thin.

You could even see his cheekbones nearly protruding his face. He was terrifying looking. Stacey yelled at us so we made our way to the door. We got out, made sure we didn't lose anything too important, and weren't hurt, and started making our way to the fence. As we were climbing over it, we saw that man again. This time he was standing on the school entrance by the door, just staring at us.

He wasn't moving or barking, still on all fours, but just watching. We didn't waste any time after that, though. We ran to the car, got in, and locked the doors immediately. We looked up and the guy was now howling. We went to grab our phone to take a picture, but the guy quickly ran back to. inside and we obviously never saw him again. So that scared the hell out of us for the night. We went back to her place, had a few beers to try to calm down and laugh it off.

We were debating on if we should call the cops to get the guy help, or if we would be worse off for trespassing. Andre thought it was probably someone really messed up on drugs, and he had just found a place to call home, but It was terrifying. It hasn't stopped us from our adventures since, but we did add that to our rules. If we find weird people, we leave ASAP. I'm trying to convince them to go back there with me next summer so we can see if the guy is still there, and maybe get photos for proof. So, did we run into just some really messed up guy?

Or do you think maybe there was something more to it? The town that I grew up in is considered to be a fairly small town overall. It's basically made up of continuations of previous generations. And while they may have recently gotten a Sonics drive-in and a dollar general, it is still and forever will be a super small town in north-central Colorado. Most people think of Denver when you mention the area, but we're actually a solid hour, hour and a half away. I spent most of my life in the arms of what was basically the middle of nowhere.

But unlike the rest of my graduating class of 30, I ended up moving out further west when I hit 20. So I know both sides of life, this tiny town that no one's heard of, and the big cities out on the coast. What's weird, life in the small town is actually more terrifying, in my opinion. Sure, living in Cali, you may get robbed or accosted by someone on some sort of substance, but at least you can expect it.

For some reason, learning about the horrors of your hometown tends to blindside you. Or at least it did me. I don't know. Maybe not all small towns have secrets that they hold on to like mine does, or maybe they do. My hometown actually had a few things that everyone knew about, but nobody spoke about. Some of them happened in my grandparents' time, some of them in my parents, but they were some of the best kept secrets around, honestly. The one thing I learned was that I apparently had an aunt at one time. Back when I was around 15, my grandma accidentally slipped up and called me Nance.

My name is certainly not Nancey or any variation of that. I asked her who Nance was, and I remember when I asked, she looked like she was about to seriously burst into tears. She said that she couldn't tell me, but that I should talk to my father about it. I honestly had no idea who they were, nor did I expect what my dad told me. Apparently, Nancy, lovingly referred to as Nance by my grandmother, was my aunt, my father's older sister. This took me by surprise, as I never knew that I had a paternal aunt. I thought my father was an only child, mostly because I had never seen a photo of this woman,

never heard her name mentioned, and I had never spoken to her. Obviously, I was curious about who she was, where she was, and why she hadn't been around, and I wish that I would have quelled that curiosity, because it was pretty horrible. I was informed that back when my father was 12 and my aunt Nancy was 14, she had apparently gone missing. There was one night back then that she went out with her friends, and she just never came home. At first, my grandma thought it wasn't a huge deal.

She was just out there and being stupid, but then, by morning, it was apparent to her that something had to have gone wrong. He told me that my aunt was a straight-A student, and would have likely graduated valedictory. but that night she seemingly vanished. This was obviously creepy to me. I had never expected to have an aunt that was a missing person.

Then, he told me that she was not a missing person. She was murdered. He went on to tell me that when she went missing, the whole town went into what was essentially a small town lockdown. They put a curfew into a, effect, and every adult was on the lookout for Nancy. They seriously combed every inch of the city, and spoke to everyone they could to see if anyone had known of her whereabouts.

It spoke into the friends that my aunt had gone out with, and they all told the same story. They were out, basically loitering wherever, and a police officer pulled up with his lights on. They said that the officer rolled down the window and called out to Nancy. and that she ran over to speak to the officer. Apparently, she then turned around, yelled to them that she needed to go, and got in the car. And that was it. The biggest issue with this is that not a single one of her friends had seen his face. None of them could describe him at all.

And there were no extra details in the car that made it stand out, and none of them had gotten a license plate. A year after she had disappeared, everyone had pretty much given up on ever finding her alive, when someone actually ended up finding what looked like a shallow grave in a creek bed that had receded. The police came out and they dug it up, and, as you can probably guess, they found the body of my aunt. Based on how she was buried, they assumed that she was sexually assaulted. and the cause of death was determined to be strangulation. At this point, the only thing anyone knew was that the last person to see her alive was a police officer,

but there was literally no information on who it was. Then, he explained that, not long after they found her body, two police officers resigned from the force. One of them had a daughter of his own and was married, and the other was just the opposite. Single, no kids. The one with the family left town. No one has any idea where he went.

The other officer actually became the physical education teacher at the high school that I graduated from, and was also the football coach. I saw this man almost every day for four years, and every single day after learning this, I had to think that he may have seriously. I seriously assaulted and murdered my aunt. The worst part, there's no way that we'll ever know what actually happened to her,

mostly because of how much damage had been done to her body over the year. There was no physical evidence, no DNA that they could find, no prints or anything like that, just a dead girl and silent suspicions. Apparently, the entire town, for lack of a better word, knew that these two were involved.

The timing was too suspicious, and it was apparently believed that their higher-ups may have been aware of the situation. But, like I said, nothing ever happened to them. One is gone, and the other still teaches high school gym class. Honestly, it was just one more reason to get the hell out of there when I got the chance to do so. I live in a cozy little home with my son and husband.

Since our home is on the smaller side, we usually go to other people's homes for holidays or parties. One past year, we wanted to do something for just our family, so we decided we would go camping for the 4th of July weekend. Our county also doesn't allow fireworks, so we thought we would find a place in the next state over. and have a different view, see a fireworks show, and maybe light off a few of our own.

Our son had never been camping before either, so it would be an exciting first time, and he was really looking forward to it. We went and bought a tent, sleeping bags, and other camping essentials to start preparing. We started going over safety tips as well, such as making sure we had plenty of first-aid stuff, bug spray, sunscreen, and aloe.

Some things, though, are a little harder to prepare for. The time came to head out to the campgrounds. The fourth was on a Friday, so we decided to go on Thursday, that way we could get there, look around the area to decide what we wanted to do, and then after we enjoy the fourth, we could spend time doing what we wanted for the rest of the weekend. When we got there, we found our lot that was right by four other tents.

One was a middle-aged couple that was there with their dog. Two tents were for a family of five, the parents, two kids around nine or ten, and a toddler. And the last one reminded me of ourselves, a couple with just a little boy. As we started setting up, all the kids around were ready to play, going over to each person's tent and asking the kids' age and names, and if they wanted to go play by the water. He was my first born, so I was quite protective of him, and didn't want him playing by the lake without us.

So I agreed to let him play on the small playground equipment that was next to our area. I could see him from there, so I was okay with it. The four kids were playing and talking about whatever kids talk about, and the parents of the single boy, I'll call him Kyle, came over and introduced themselves. They said this was their second attempt at camping. They tried last summer and were forced to evacuate after someone caught part of the campgrounds on fire.

And they said it was most likely caught, caused by a fire pit that wasn't allowed, and that got out of control. And they said it was fairly close to them, because they could see the flames and had to pack up in a rush, which scared Kyle. From what they explained, the poor kid was pretty scared for a while to do anything close to fires or camping related. They mentioned how they eased him into it, though, by camping in their backyard, which made me think we should have tried that first to see how our kid would react. Overall, though, they wanted to say thanks and for letting Kyle play with our son, Nathan, and compliment how well-mannered he was and being willing to pull Kyle in with the other kids.

It was a very proud parent moment for myself. That night, and the fourth itself were both great. Since everyone was so kind and welcoming, we had a couple of good. cook out together and put all of our food into it. The kids were having a blast. We gave some of our little firework stuff, like smoke bombs, to the larger family, since they didn't have any, which kept them occupied. I will say those older two were a little more on the daredevil side. They were trying to throw smoke bombs into the air and catch them, hold them in their mouths,

tried throwing rocks from the gravel road at birds. just things like that. Thankfully, Kyle and Nathan stepped away from those activities. On Saturday, we decided to have a little more time relaxing. After sleeping in a bit and having breakfast, we decided to go for a little walk through the trees. My father-in-law always took my husband fishing and hunting, and was always big on the outdoors, so he knew his trees and wildlife and loved teaching Nathan and just the same.

To our surprise, Kyle was just as interested and asked if he could join us. I don't think I would have been too comfortable with it, but then his parents asked if they could join too. They said they would show us where the fire was, and then we could go to a more secluded part of the lake where there were less people. We're not familiar with this campsites,

so we agreed and thought at least we would have some more peaceful time away from the other rowdy kids. So, we put our swimsuits on under our clothes, grabbed the things we wanted to take, and headed off. The fire occurred on the other side of the grounds. There were several trees that were still standing, but obviously dead from the fire.

There was a patch of what appeared to be dead grass where they attempted to regrow it, but it wasn't doing very good. They had posted a sign as a reminder that fires were not allowed outside of their permitted pits or grills, too. The area was empty of people as well. It appeared to be open, but no one was staying there. It definitely didn't look pretty, so I'm sure that was why. From there, we decided to go swimming since it was empty.

We hung out in the water, we all talked, and... the boys were having a lot of fun by themselves. I think they wanted that more, to be able to do something a little more innocent on their own. I felt comfortable enough that they wouldn't get into trouble, and with no one else around, I could loosen up more. At one point, the boys started gathering fallen branches, mud and rocks to make a cave for a rabbit they saw.

I wasn't going to be the one to tell them they were. lived in holes because they were having fun, so I let them go. They started talking about being short on supplies, and my husband had mentioned one of the trees that were burnt that would have softer and easier branches to break. So off they went to start collecting. They did this once and came back pretty quickly. But the second time they left to gather more,

I didn't see them come back for a few minutes. So I hollered over for them. When they didn't respond or come back, I got a little suspicious and decided to head over to see what was going on. As I walked over the small hill, I noticed them quickly shuffling around dirt like they were trying to find something

or bury something. I asked them what they were up to, thinking they were just playing some game, but they were both acting standoffish and quiet. I asked if there was something wrong, and Kyle responded no and that he wasn't feeling good anymore. I started to approach them to figure out the change in tones when Nathan said they found something bad. Thinking they were playing with something they found like a lighter, I approached them, smiling, saying it would be all right, whatever it was whenever Kyle started crying.

Nathan pointed to a pile and started talking. fast about how they were just trying to get dirt. I was trying to calm down the two young boys, while also looking over to see what they found, when my stomach dropped. There were bones in the dirt. It was a hand, with part of an arm sticking out from the ground.

I just stared at it for a minute, not knowing how to react. I finally grabbed both the boys by the arms and started rushing them away while shouting for my husband. husband. They all started running over towards me. I guess my tone sounded alarming, too. I explained to them what I saw, and the guys went to go take a look. My husband agreed to stay nearby just in case, and the rest of us hurried over to a campsite nearby to ask someone to call a park ranger. From there,

it became a blur. The rangers came out and looked. They had to call the police and tape everything off. We were all obviously on edge. After being interviewed by the police and the poor boys being questioned, we were finally cleared to go back to our campsite. At this point, we were ready to go. This definitely wasn't going away, so we decided to just leave. We spoke to law enforcement, gave them our contact info, as well as Kyle's family,

because they still seemed like a great little family, and left. Later on, Keith and Marissa, Kyle's parents, contacted us, and they told us that the body had been identified as a little girl that had gone missing about a year back. It was then assumed that the fire was likely used to cover up the murder, though the body wasn't found at that time. It was hard to have that conversation with Nathan,

to explain that there are some evil people out there, there, and that's why we are so picky about who he's with, where he goes, and that we want to make sure we know where he is. He was too young to have to witness something like that. It was a terrifying thing to see myself, and I don't even know if they ever found the person who did this, but I hope that no one that I know ever has to witness or go through something like that. Growing up, me and my brother lived in my grandparents' home with our mother.

She had us at a young age, so my parents didn't last long. My grandparents helped raise us while my mother went back and forth between working and trying to live like a teenager with no kids. We could go a few days without seeing her. Our grandparents would get us off to school, feed us, and bathe us, My mother didn't care much for responsibilities. The less work she had to do, the better, which is why none of her jobs lasted more than six months,

and she was always taking advantage of whatever she could get, like unemployment. I bring this up because it shows how much I respected my grandparents and looked up to them. When my mom ran off with someone to another state, thinking that they would get married, then come back to us, and have this rich life. My grandparents were the ones that paid for our school fees, bought us lunch, helped with homework, all of that. My grandmother, it was such a kind and giving person.

She taught me everything I needed to know about cooking, fixing and mending my own clothes. She helped me learn how to do my own hair. while my grandfather always tried teaching me and my brother how to be self-sufficient and fix things on our own. He acted tough, but he had a soft heart as well. He was always giving my mother another chance just for her to take advantage of them over and over again. This always made for interesting holidays. The house wasn't huge, but it certainly wasn't small either.

It was a three-bedroom, but they had a big backyard, so the holidays were usually spent over there. My grandparents would always be in the same spot inside. Grandpa would be sitting in his big recliner and grandma in her rocking chair that he had made for her. Outside, they had two rocking lawn chairs they always sat in, while everyone else had to decide where they wanted to be. It was a perfect view of the whole yard, so they could see everyone coming and going, and on the 4th of July, it was a perfect view of the fireworks, going straight up. My grandmother loved the fountains. She didn't care much for the huge mortars that went into the sky, but the little ones had always had a story to them and different colors. She loved those.

As we grew up, my mom continued being the same person she was, so she became more of a distant relative. However, when my grandfather passed away a few years after I graduated high school, she was around more often, trying to care for my grandmother. I ended up getting an apartment nearby to help out as well. When I would come over, we would begin to hear weird sounds. or have weird events occur, and my grandma would always say it was grandpa watching over us. I used to just shrug it off,

thinking it was just something people said to help cope with the loss. I'm sure feeling like someone is close to you that you've lost can ease the pain. I began to believe it more and more when I would personally experience things. My nickname that my grandpa gave me was buttons, because I started collecting them. I've bought many clothing items, purses, and bags just because I liked the way they looked

and would cut out the buttons and use the items for something else. My grandfather worked at a junkyard, and if he ever found any, he would always bring them home to me too. So, when I started finding buttons that I'd never seen before in places they shouldn't be, I really felt like it was him giving them to me

his gifts. I became a little more open to the possibility from then on. So, continuing with tradition, we would always keep Grandpa's seat open for the 4th of July, so he could be there with my grandma. Over the years, I ended up getting married, and my husband moved in with me. My mom also started losing interest in helping out my grandma, so she would begin disappearing for days again. so I would have to go over to make sure she had enough food and toiletries,

and just make sure she was okay. My brother also moved out of state, so there was little that he could do to help. I'm thankful my husband was always understanding when I would have to go over there after work, or when he was willing to help me to get her groceries for her. Sadly, my grandmother passed away too, due to heart complications, And once again, that meant that my mother would be back around. She wanted to help as much as possible with the funeral arrangements. She spent time with me and my husband, too, and actually kind of seemed like a normal person.

However, I would learn that it was more so to find out about her will. My grandpa, of course, left everything to my grandmother if she survived. So now she would actually get. something out of them. Turns out they actually left her their house, but most of the money they had saved, they gave it to me and my brother. I could tell this angered my mom because she wanted the opposite. She threw many hints at us about it too, but we always ignored it or changed the subject. She actually moved into the house. We stopped talking to her for the most part and just went about our lives. I ended up putting the money I got into savings to hold

on to as we were planning on getting our own home and starting a family. To speed this along, it was less than two years since my grandmother's passing for my mom to destroy that house. I went over there a few times, and she had tried to sell almost everything she could. When she tried selling their lawn chairs, I actually paid her for them, and begged her to keep them there until I had a place. Since she started running out of money and couldn't pay for the repairs, she was actually trying to find someone to sell the house. She tried letting her friends live there, but quickly learned that, much like her, they

didn't want to pay rent. I couldn't stand to see this house go to someone else or take any more damage, so after talking to my husband, we agreed to try and buy it from my mom. After many discussions and her asking for ridiculous amounts, she finally agreed to let us have it. We made very strict rules about her not being able to show up uninvited, and that the locks would be changed to prevent this too. And she agreed. Of course, saying one thing and following through are two totally different things. Throughout the next year or so, we made the necessary repairs and moved in, but I noticed that, unlike my grandfather was in the past, there seemed to be no presence of either of them.

I would notice this on those bad days, where I just wished they were still around to see what I had all achieved. This made it even harder when I was pregnant and had my first child. I wanted them to be able to meet her and show her. that grandparent love that I got. Before I continue, I will say that shortly before my daughter was born, I cut all ties with my mother. We found out she was involved in some really shady

and dangerous things as well as people. She brought someone to my baby shower, uninvited, and they tried doing coke in my bathroom. I told them to leave before I called the cops, and that she was never allowed to come back. She has not met my daughter, and she tries calling to see her in between asking for money, so I blocked her number and tried to move on without her in my life. Now, my daughter was born healthy and happy in April.

Other than my husband's birthday in June, the next big holiday coming up was going to be the 4th of July. So we wanted to have a small party with a few friends. As we started setting up the yard, I remembered the lawn chairs, and I dug around the shed to find them. They weren't taken care of like I would have liked, but they were still there. So I cleaned them up and put them right back where they belonged. When we went to get our fireworks, I saw a huge fountain called The Beautiful Rose.

My grandmother's name was Rose, and I just knew that she would love it, so I happily brought it home with me. The party was going great as I expected. At one point, I went and laid my daughter down to sleep. I turned on the monitor and clipped the other one to my shirt so I could hear her if she woke up. While we were outside, a friend asked about the lawn chairs, and I explained their history. When I went over to move a plate that was sitting in one of the chairs,

I noticed something under it. It was a button with the name Chloe on it, my daughter's name. It was odd that it was under the chair, and after a quick thought, I knew it was my grandfather, which made me ecstatic. As the night progressed, though, I started having more events like this occur. It may sound weird to some, but I would find the letter C everywhere. When we would move the dead fireworks, I would pick up. the shredded pieces of paper, I would throw the plates away and the sauce on it would make a letter,

I mentioned it in passing to my friend who was there, who was very spiritual, and she said it may be a sign from someone else. At first I chuckled at the idea, and then became curious, so I went and grabbed the piece that I recently threw away in the plate, and to my surprise, it spelled out Chloe again. I thought I was crazy, but then my friend asked if she was okay. I thought it was weird at first because I knew she was fine, until she said it may be their way of getting my attention. So we went to her room, and as I opened the door, to my horror, Chloe was not in her bed, the window was open, and the monitor had been turned off.

My friend ran to get my husband as I ran to the door. window. Her room faced the front of the house, and we were all out back, so we didn't notice. As I ran out the front door, I noticed someone sitting under her window. As I approached the person, preparing to knock them out, I realized it was my mother, rocking my daughter back and forth. I grabbed her from her, as I noticed she was obviously on something. She was twitching a lot and trying to talk but could hardly make a sentence or stand up on her own. I started screaming at her and all she could say was sorry and choking. I started looking at Chloe when I noticed she wasn't hardly moving.

I brought her inside and then noticed that she was turning purple. By the time the police and ambulances showed up, we found out she came over wanting to meet Chloe, high on something. She had a bottle of apple juice and she was, was trying to feed it to her, and she nearly made her choke and drown. Thankfully, Chloe was okay. My mom?

She was taken to jail since she had stuff on her, too, and we decided not to press charges, but did get her restraining order. We haven't heard from her in quite some time, but my brother still talks to her. He claims that she's cleaned up and doing better, but I'm still not sure that I'm ready to see her. If I had waited much longer to check on her, Chloe could have had brain damage. To this day, I'm certain that it was my grandparents trying to get my attention. From the button letting me know they were there, and all the letters trying their hardest to warn me,

I'm definitely more accepting of paranormal experiences now, and I do think that they are still helping me raise her, even if they're not physically there. I've been delivering food for one of those popular gig companies that you all know and love, the ones that will charge you way too much to have McDonald's mecdelivered to your house. Since I've been doing it for quite a while, I've seen a lot of strange and creepy things, and I've dealt with what I would consider the most terrifying people out there. Some of my favorites are the ones where the people that you're delivering to come to the door smelling like death or not wearing enough clothing.

To add to that aside, please, when you order food from a pizza place through Uber or DoorDash or whatever, please wear clothing. And please wear enough clothes to cover yourself. I can't tell you how many naked people I've seen through the open curtains, or when they opened the door to get their no-contact order. Anyways, moving past my complaints about people having no modesty, one of the other things we tend to run into are crazy people. Sometimes you get people that have pretty clear mental issues, and I understand that a lot of them cannot control their mannerisms,

and maybe that's what was wrong with this lady, but honestly, this situation scared the absolute hell out of me. This all happened last year during the C-19 situation, and as stated, I was a driver for one of the companies that delivered food to people from random restaurants. This was near the beginning, when we were still able to hand you your food, but then we also had the option to do the no-contact delivery. When we do the no-contact, we were still expected to make sure that the customer got their food.

Basically, we were supposed to drop the order on the porch, ring the bell, and step away to around six to ten feet away, and wait a moment for the customer. I was very specific with how I did things. I wasn't one to just drop the food and run back to my car. This order was a decent-sized order from a bar and grill, which was fine. I drove to the restaurant, got the food, and then headed out toward the customer's house. I was heading down the street and approaching the destination, when I noticed the overall appearance of the neighborhood was starting to,

to decrease. By this, I mean that the houses went from pretty normal suburban homes to a bit run down all the way to some of the houses looking really bad. I would go as far as saying trashy. I was driving to the end of the road and was trying to find the house that I needed to deliver to and was honestly starting to get one of those pits in my stomach. The last couple of houses went as such. One house looked kind of meh.

One house was completely and totally trashed, and looked like a drug house, and the last one looked decent. Looking at these three, I was honestly scared that the drug house was going to be where I had to deliver. So, imagine my surprise when it wasn't, and the number matched the cleanest of the three houses. Anyways, I parked my car in front of the house and grabbed the food, making my way up to the porch. As expected, I dropped the order on the porch, and then I rang the bell, and then I stood back and waited for the customer.

Within a few seconds of my ringing the bell, I hear the door next door, the door at the drug-looking house, fling open hard and smack against the siding. Obviously, this caught my attention, so I looked over to see what was going on, and I really wish I hadn't. Out of the door comes a woman that had a look about her that was nothing shy of horrifying.

She looked like she was genuinely pissed off at the world, and like she wanted to hurt someone, and at that point in time, the only person nearby and the only person making eye contact was me. Out of nowhere, she yells, What the f are you doing and what do you want? I immediately looked back to the customer's door to wait for them to answer and tried to move on from the situation. I reached forward and rang the doorbell a second time, and once again stepped back to my waiting position.

Then, out of nowhere, I get this incredibly sharp pain in my leg. I didn't think much of it at first, but when I looked down, I see this literal screwdriver handle sticking out of my leg, and this crazy woman standing there and staring at me like I was literally the cause of every problem she's ever had, and the only solution was to stab me with the rusty screwdriver from her junk pile. I honestly cannot overstate how awkward the situation was. Yes, I had a screwdriver sticking out of my leg, and yes, I was starting to bleed,

and yes, she had seriously just stabbed me. But something about the moment of silence between us was just awkward. What exactly do you say to some crazy woman that had just stabbed you with a screwdriver while you were trying to deliver chilies to their neighbor? After a few seconds of silence, the customer opened the door and reached for their food and almost grabbed it to go back in, until he saw me, the neighbor, and the screwdriver. He dropped his food and ran out to the yard and basically, stepped forward to get between me and his neighbor. I don't really remember much between that moment and when the whole thing came to an end.

I know that the neighbor was screaming that she had just stopped me from robbing him, and then the customer was screaming about something else. I just remember feeling woozy and asking them to call an ambulance, and for some reason, randomly thinking about how I wasn't going to be able to mark my delivery as finished. If anyone is curious, yes, the cops came, and yes, I ended up going up to the hospital. Getting stabbed with a rusted and weathered screwdriver is something that they typically want you to go get checked out for. I'm pretty sure she got arrested for this situation, but I don't really know because the officers never spoke to me about this situation. I did go back to delivering when I could.

I just now have a bit of a limp and a nice, circular, scar where she stabbed me. This actually happened to me a few years ago. I started working at a local gas station part-time after high school. I figured, if I'm staying home, I might as well do something productive and make my own money, too. Most shifts were at night, so they were either dead or full of drunks. But I usually worked with one other person, so it wasn't too bad. especially when we had people get out of hand.

I actually like it for the most part. On the slow night, I let the neat freak in me come out and I start organizing the shelves better so that everything is lined up right, not scattered around and piled up. There was one guy, Mark, that usually worked the knights with me and he would play music on his phone.

So it wasn't completely silent, which was nice. One downfall, though, was that I didn't have a car anymore, as mine finally died on me, so I had to rely on rides from my parents, friends, or sometimes an Uber to get to places. Still, it was manageable, because I only lived a few miles away from my homes,

so I could even walk there if I had to. I believe it was late September when this happened, because it wasn't too hot, but it had started getting cooler overnight. I decided to walk to work since it was nice out, and my parents weren't home to take me anyways. It was a normal shift, except it was also football season, so we were a bit busier before the games started. We were dead while it was on, and then we would get a quick burst of people at the end. As I'm ringing people up, I looked up to see my line, and I noticed a guy in basketball shorts, socks with sandals on, and a shirt that said something about the gun show. Hyroll, am I right?

He was looking right at me and smiling, so I just smiled back and continued working on the line. After a few, I looked back and noticed the line wasn't going down, so I called for Mark to come up and. help. Sandal guy was up next. I noticed he had one of those tall cans of tea and nothing else. And he was still smiling, so I just said, I'm sorry you had to wait so long just for this. Without taking his eyes off of me, he said, oh, it's all right, sweetie, as long as I get to see your beautiful smile. I haven't really dated much, nor have I had not. much experience and flirting, so I didn't really know how to react. Not to mention, he had to be close to my parents' age, so I just made some weird

chuckle sound and didn't say another word. He paid with a card. I handed him his receipt without saying another word to him, and he said, "'Gan' that, sweetie, as he walked out. I didn't have time to process what happened, as I had a few more people. people in line, so I just continued until we cleared out again. When I was done, I was about to ask Mark to help me with something when he said, Oh, sure, sweetie.

He was a nice guy. We never had problems with each other, so I knew he was teasing, but it snapped me back to that when I started laughing and asked. So you saw that, too? Was that not weird? He said he thought the dude was weird, but... The flustered side of me was adorable. Funny to him, I didn't know what to say, and the guy was just...

Off, so none of that was enjoyable. Our night went back to normal for a while. He was in the back again, as he did some of the bookwork, while I was in front messing with the shelves. We were kind of shouting back and forth about something that we were both really involved in when someone came in. I started walking back around the counter when I noticed it was Sandel Guy again. He noticed me, and he waved, so I waved back.

And he started walking towards the coolers in the back. I quickly made a comment to Mark about him being there and just waited for the dreadful checkout. He walked up to the counter and said, I forgot to get gas. If that was the case, why did he walk to the back? I just smiled and rang him up. As I handed him in his receipt, he made sure to reach further in to touch my hand and said, I'm glad I decided to stop here tonight.

And smiled as he shook my hand. My hand was limp because I was not interested in this at all. At this point, Mark had walked out from the back and said, Hey, Kate, my part's done. I'll take over. Thank God. I pulled my arm back real quick and dashed to the back and waited. I didn't hear another word from the guy, but I heard the bell on the door, and then Mark walked back to the back. He said when I turned around, the guy cocked his head like he was trying to look at my ass when he walked in front of his view.

He said that when he noticed this, he grabbed his candy and dashed out the door. Who does that right in front of people? Anyways, the rest of the night was okay. We had some lady come in singing and got Mark to sing, so that was funny. We were having a good time. It was getting close to closing, so Mark could take the trash out back so we could smoke, and I was up front again, reading a magazine. To my surprise, Sandals walks in again.

It had to show on my face that I was not okay with this, but he again immediately smiled and was looking around quickly like he was trying to find something. That's when he grabbed another candy bar and said, For you, Catherine Lee, I can't stay away. Can I give you a ride home so we can talk? I was shocked. My name badge says Kate. I don't go by Catherine or my middle name, so how would he have known that?

I didn't know how to reply, so I just said, No, thanks, I have a ride. To which he said, but you walked here, right? How would he have known that? I just told him I had a ride and he would not stop, saying he wanted to get to know me more and take care of me. I remind you, was around 19 years old, and this guy could have been my father.

I tried cutting him off to ask him if he was going to purchase anything when he tried to reach for my hand again, and I pulled back. At this point, Mark walked back in right as he started pleading. Mark immediately walked over to the guy telling him that he needed to leave. He started shouting as he was being pushed out that he'll wait for me. Mark locked the door and made sure I was okay, but I was just more shaken up than anything. He had me doing some other things from there, like more organizing, stalking anything that was empty and mopping while he watched the door. He would unlock the door to let people in and then lock it again.

At closing, he was finishing the last thing, so I'd pulled out my phone and opened up Facebook when I noticed I had a friend request. It was Sandals guy. That's when I figured out where he knew my name from and also realized, that my address was on there. I told Mark about this, and he suggested that he take me home. I didn't refuse, either.

As we left, I was looking around to see if he was waiting, but I never saw anyone. As he was driving, he tried to loosen up the tension and joke with me, but I think we were both worried about it still. Once we got to my place, the lights were on,

so I knew my parents were still up. thankfully, and I noticed Mark was still out there when I had gone in and locked the door. I thought it was just to make sure I got in okay. After I was in, I changed clothes and went to get something to eat, and there was a knock on the door. It was the cops. They were explaining that there was a report of a suspicious person and gave a description and vehicle of the person.

You know it, it was the same guy. so I had to explain to my parents and the cops what happened. The cops said they would drive around a few times to make sure he didn't come back, and thankfully he didn't. But they did tell us that if he did come back, to call them again. Unfortunately, there was little they could do since he hadn't actually done anything. The next time I worked, though, Mark explained what had happened. He said he noticed.

a car following us, but he didn't want to say anything and scare me. After I got inside, he saw the truck turn the corner onto my road, so he got out of his car and noticed it was the same guy as he was driving by. He said he thinks he recognized him too as he started to speed up, so he had called the cops to report it for us. I was so incredibly thankful for what he did, too. thankfully, we never saw the guy again, so hopefully he got the hint. But you can bet that I did a lot of cleanup on my Facebook as well.

Every year, my family would have a big Fourth of July party. My grandparents would come over, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even some close friends and neighbors. All the kids would line up their fireworks and, We would decide in what order we wanted to shoot everything. The adults always prepared the food and would sit around and talk. It was always a blast. We rarely had issues, as in fights, injuries and the such. And I think a lot of that had to do with my grandfather.

If anyone tried to start an argument, he always knew what to say to get people to calm down and ease the tension. He was a smart man, and I definitely learned a lot from him over the years. As I got older and started going to parties, or hosting my own, I always held on to some of his wisdom and advice to make me a better person. One of the things he taught me was to be aware of your surroundings. He was in the Air Force, and he always talked about how important it is to know what's happening around you, and while you shouldn't dwell on the negative,

you should also be able to get an idea as to possible outcomes around you, and know how to react to them appropriately. This has helped me tremendously in my career of becoming an aircraft mechanic, as you have to be precise in everything you do. Another thing he taught me was, no matter where you live or your age, it's always polite to get to know your neighbor. Again, you never know if you could be the person they need in their life to be a friend

or someone they can turn to when they feel they may be in trouble or need help. So, when my parents moved and I was still young, we made little baskets for everyone on our block as a way of introducing ourselves. These were two things he taught me that are important to this story today. I was thankful that my wife was able to meet my god. grandfather before his passing, so she knew all about him and his wisdom. So, when we got our first place together, she knew that we would have to introduce ourselves to the block. We moved in early June and decided we wanted to have a housewarming party,

and Fourth of July party, all in one. Because of this, we agreed that we would let the neighborhood could know, as well as a warning in case we got too loud, or if they wanted to join and get to know each other better. We prepared our gifts that week, and over that weekend, we went off to start handing them out. Everything went, as I would expect. Some people were happy to meet us. Some were surprised. People still introduced themselves.

And some even wanted to show my wife her jewelry collection. There were two houses, though, that we did not get an answer at, so we left our gift with a card at the door, so they still get the introduction and invite. One of our neighbors, Kathy, seemed to be the cliche neighbor that knows everything about everyone, so we got the short version of everyone's history from her. I appreciated this, since I wasn't able to meet everyone, and I had mentioned this to her. She explained that one house was someone's winter house, and that they wouldn't be back for a few months. And the other one, she said to give up on trying to meet them. Curious, I asked her about this.

She said it was a middle-aged couple living there. They rarely went outside. She thinks the guy worked overnight, and she always saw him coming home late at night and not leaving until the evening. while the woman always left midday, looking her best, and coming home before he left for the night. She tried talking to them on a few occasions, and the guy tended to ignore her,

while the woman seemed to rush the conversation and did not want to get too close. She said she gave up on trying to get to know them, but she'd had her door camera, so she always saw them coming and going since they lived across from her. I kept this in the back of my mind to process it later. We said our goodbyes,

finished by going back to the winter house to pick up the gift we had left, and agreed to try again in the winter, being assured by Kathy that she would let us know when they got back. The following morning, as we left to get coffee, I noticed the gift from the mysterious couple's home was gone, so hopefully they'd come. got it, and at least enjoyed it. The next couple of weeks went by as normal.

We unpacked and prepared ourselves for the party. This whole time, we never saw the couple. Kathy was certainly right. It was going to make for a difficult time if we ever wanted to try meeting them. Then came the night of the party. Both of our parents showed up, a few of our siblings, because some couldn't make it, as well as some old friends and new neighbors.

Kathy came over and brought us a cake, I believe, but said since her dog was afraid of fireworks, and she would watch hours from her home so he wasn't alone. A few people had kids with them, so we kept it appropriate for the time being. After the kids finished off their fireworks and those families left as well as our parents, we started getting a little more rowdy. There was more drinking, a little more stupidity with fireworks, but everyone was having a good time.

At one point, I was fetching more rounds for everyone, asking who all wanted one, when I noticed a guy that was talking to my wife's friend over towards the side of the patio, that I didn't recognize at first. He was wearing dark jeans that appeared to be really, muddy, a button-down shirt that was halfway open, and a baseball cap. Thinking it was someone her friend put along, I asked if they wanted anything and made my way

to the kitchen to grab the drinks. I gave her friend and the guy the drinks, they both said thanks, and I carried on passing out the rest. As the night went on, I saw the same guy talking to the other people, including my wife. He was still carrying around the same bottle that I got him, and when I asked if he wanted another, or if I could take it from him, he always refused,

saying that he was still drinking it. I kept an eye on him just because I didn't recognize him, and no one had introduced him to me yet. We still enjoyed our night, taking pictures and recording our stupid antics, until it was time for people to start dispersing. When my wife was seeing her friend off, I noticed the guy wasn't with her, so I went and asked her about him. She said that she had come alone, but the guy was talking to her for quite a bit.

She said she didn't recognize him either, and thought it was one of my friends from work since I was talking to him quite a bit. I let it go, thinking maybe he was someone from work that I just didn't know too well, or maybe he was. he came with someone else and I didn't notice. I did drink a lot that night, so I was also not fully there, I'm sure. We cleaned up a bit and headed to bed. Thankfully, we were off the next day so we could recover, but we're still never able to determine who our mystery guest was. As I was coming home from work sometime that same week,

I saw several cop cars of the non-social. neighbor's house. Like anyone would, I tried looking to see if I could tell what was going on, but I couldn't see much more than crime scene tape going across the house. I got home to be greeted by my wife and Kathy in the living room. They told me that they didn't know what was going on yet either, but Kathy was already visiting when the police started showing up. Shortly after I got home,

Kathy mentioned going back home so she could try to find out more and we actually had someone else knocking on our door. It was another officer, wanting to ask us questions about our neighbor and if we had seen him. I explained that I didn't even know what they looked like, but Kathy began describing them more and said that she hadn't seen them in a few days. The officer pulled out a picture to show us, and asked if we had seen him when my wife and I realized he was the kai that was at our party.

Kathy and the officer both looked shocked. The officer began asking us what he was wearing, how long he was there, wanted to know when he got there and when he left. If he said anything to us, or if he was acting suspicious at all. We tried to answer the best we could about his whereabouts, and explained he was technically invited, but since we never actually met them, we didn't know if they would show up or not. Kathy finally started asking the questions that we were all wondering, to find out what was going on when the officer tried being vague, but still informed us. He said that they were called there on a welfare check by someone, and upon arrival, they had reason to enter the property,

where they found a female's body in the tub, and the man that lived there was nowhere to be found. Kathy's description confirmed it was the woman that lived there, and we were all in shock. They said they were looking for him for questioning, and asked us to call if we saw him, but to avoid letting him know as he might be dangerous. So we were obviously a bit on edge at this point,

not knowing what to do, We offered to let Kathy and her dogs stay in our spare room so she wasn't alone, but she was insistent that she would be okay by herself. We walked her back home, and when we returned, we made sure that all the windows and doors were locked just to make sure that there was no chance of somebody getting in. Thankfully, we also had security cameras that we could watch as well. That day came and went without them finding the guy.

Newsvans started showing up, and we were seeing it on TV by this point. That's when it started getting worse. They said that he was wanted for the murder of his girlfriend who most likely died on the 4th. That is when I started thinking, this guy was definitely at my place on the 4th of July. He wasn't talking about himself. much, but he made sure to talk to a few people, to make it obvious that he was there. I began feeling like we were being used as an alibi. I felt sick. This girl was either dead or

dying in a house a few down from hours while we were there covering for him, a murderer. Our families were there. It was a terrifying thought. While it was a bittersweet result, as a woman did lose her life, they did finally catch the guy. He was trying to flee the country, but only got as far as Texas when they finally caught him. Now, this was coming from Kathy.

She said her husband was a cop, so she knew some of the detectives. They told her that the woman's sister hadn't heard from her, and the guy had a record, and she was worried something had happened. She was most likely killed, the night of the fourth, so that confirmed my suspicions.

We were definitely being used. I'm glad they caught the guy, but since the incident, I monitor things a hell of a lot better, at least as to who comes over to my place, or who I'm around in general. My grandfather was definitely right. You really can't be too careful. Back in the early 2000s,

I worked in a gas station, rest stop that was off of a highway. It was one of those stops that was in the middle of nowhere, that you see as the single stop for the next 100 miles. So, it was quite the drive getting there and getting home, but it was also quiet, for the most part. You can get some weirdos crossing the state line, but it's always nice knowing you probably won't see the same,

person again. Outside truckers. Maybe. Sometimes, my husband would come in on his day off and sit up in one of the booths, reading, or something while I worked. I remember this event happening in the summer because it was so hot, so I had the fans on near the front just to keep cool since I would be close to the doors. My husband wasn't feeling well, so he had stayed home, but there were two other people working. An older woman, Rosa, who worked in the kitchen area, where we make the hot foods, and the other cashier, Evan. Rosa had left as we had closed the food station at nine, so it was just going to be the two of us. Again, with our location and it being as late as it was, we didn't get a lot of customers. More so, it would be people coming in to buy a phone charger, use the restroom and sleep in the parking lot. It wasn't uncommon to see cars parked, but we still kept an eye on them for our safety. On this night, Evan had just walked away.

to get something to eat and take a short break. I was up front sitting behind the register, reading, when a few people had walked in. By this time, it was around 11, so the first couple to walk in looked exhausted. They were looking at energy drinks and donuts, and all I could do was chuckle to myself, knowing that they were going to crash soon.

While they were looking at energy drinks, they were looking around, I saw another person walk in. Because the door makes a sound when it's opened, I looked over immediately to see them, and she turned her face away, quickly as she started fidgeting with her hair. It was a woman who appeared to be by herself, but she stood out to me, because she was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants. Like I mentioned, it was summer, and it was, it was It was hot. The state I'm in is known for being hot and miserably humid, so I thought it awed, especially because she didn't look cold. In fact, it looked like she was sweating.

So, maybe she was ill. She looked like she hadn't brushed her hair either, but was trying to run her fingers through it and pull it around her face. Again, we can get some oddballs, so I didn't think anything else of it, other than to just watch to make sure that she didn't steal anything. After walking around a few aisles, she came up, and while trying to avoid eye contact, she asked where the restrooms were. I noticed when she approached that she didn't really look well. Her face was pale, lips dry and cracked,

and she was, in fact, sweating. I asked her if she was okay, and she smiled slightly, saying that she was just car sick. I let it go, as it was none of my business as long as she wasn't in any danger, or anything, and I pointed her to the restrooms. So, the restrooms are on the little diner slash food side, so she had to walk towards the other side,

to get there. We have one of those corner mirrors hanging so we could see people coming and going from that direction, though. I watched her walk over there and head down the hall with no issues. A couple of minutes later, the first couple walked up with like

six different energy drinks, donuts and two puddles of water. I remembered this because I teased them about the water-to-cafine ratio and convinced them to buy more water. I speak from experience, after all. We joked and talked for a bit, where they were from and headed, and how they mentioned they

grossly underestimated how much they would spend on gas. They gave me a tent to put towards their gas, and they left. Shortly after, Evan came back up from break, and we started talking about the couple that came in when the phone rang. There was a phone up front that was usually only used by us employees to call in, or when we needed to make a call. Management when they would ask or remind us to do something, and, of course, emergencies. It was the manager, calling us, asking how it was going,

and to check if Rosa turned off all the friars and oven, as she had forgotten a few times. I remembered this because the kids, and is creepy when it's closed, because it gets really dark and all you can hear is the AC slash heater blowers, or faint talking from the front. So what else does a lady do but ask the guy to go do it? So I stayed there, and I started reading again when Evan came back in one piece, thankfully, and we turned on the small TV that we had up there. It had been a few hours of us sitting, walking around, getting a customer here and there when we had one lady walk in and again ask for the restrooms.

As she started walking in the back, I remembered the lady in the hoodie, because I never saw her leave. I started asking Evan if he had seen her when the woman had come running back to the front, saying that there was a baby in the restroom. I remember I just paused for a second to register what she said when she clarified There was a newborn in there, alone. I immediately rushed to the restroom, and in the stall, was a newborn, in the toilet. It looked like someone tried to cover the poor thing with toilet paper and seat covers. I have a daughter.

She's a teen now, but... I remember when she was born and it being the best feeling in the world, so this made my heart drop. I immediately grabbed the baby and noticed that she wasn't breathing. She was cold and almost a purple color. I took her the sink and tried my best to run some warm water on her and clean her up, and I did my best with CPR. I was so worried that I was going to hurt her or that I was too late, but she finally started crying.

I was relieved, but still in shock, as I held this baby with no sign of her mother. I picked her up and immediately ran to the front, asking Evan to grab towels from the kitchen as I grabbed the phone to call 911. When Evan came back, he looked as confused as I did at first. I wrapped the baby up the best I could and got her to stop crying, The woman that found her said she just opened the stall and saw her in there, but there was no one else in sight.

She was the only person that had asked for the restrooms since the woman in the hoodie. That's when it dawned on me that she probably looked the way she did because she was going into labor. But if so, she left without me even seeing her, and how long was she in there? We didn't even hear someone, and believe me, labor is not a silent thing. With our location, the ambulance didn't arrive fast, but it also felt like an eternity, holding this baby, trying to comfort her, knowing that one of the first faces she's seen, she may never see again. With the ambulance and the police there, they took our statements, and that's when I really started feeling awful.

We didn't even see the car she was in. We didn't know where she was coming from or where she was going. She could have been in a completely different state by this time. We did have cameras set up, so we had to give that to the police, but unfortunately, the one inside was the only one that recorded. The one of the parking lot was live and didn't save, so we didn't have car information. Before they left, the paramedic did tell me that the baby seemed fine, and that I most likely saved her life.

I don't know if they ever found the mom, but I hope the girl is doing okay. After that, I took a CPR class, and I paid more attention to my customers and their comings and goings. This story takes place back whenever I was a teenager. Back then, I lived with my parents in part of South Dakota that had a lot of wilderness, and I was one to always take advantage of the woods in the area. I was all about heading out onto the trails in the woods to see what I could find out there, and I loved to spend my weekends hiking, finding new areas. We lived near a small pond that was right by a small section of woods,

that is then right by a cave system. I spent way too many hours of my teen years in that cave system, and honestly, I loved to spend my entire days out in the wild, just taking in the sights and sounds. That said, nothing is perfect, and there were a few close calls I had when I was young, and I thought I was invincible. I once fell from a pretty high ledge when I was 13,

and I broke my arm. Thankfully, that was all I brought, because I could have died. No, that's not the scary story, just a point of note to tell you who I am as a person, a risk-taker, an idiot, essentially. I used to go out and do pretty much whatever to whenever and then head home and do it all again the next day.

Like I said, nothing's perfect, and I can recall two specific stories that made me feel like maybe spending all of my time mountain the wilderness where no one knew where I was, maybe that wasn't such a great idea in the end. The first incident, it happened during one summer where there was a good amount of foot traffic in the area. Some years, there would be more tourism than others. We weren't really a tourism city, but some people that were nature buffs would stop by in the area for the scenery. Like I said, This year was one where we had seen more people in the area.

On this day in particular, I wanted to go down to the pond and just watch the animals down the way. I did as I always did. I got up, got dressed, eight, and then head out to hit the path as early as I could. One thing to note, I had gone this exact same route the day before, and nothing was out of place. About a quarter of a mile into the path, I ran into the body of an animal. That may be gross to a lot of people, but living in nature kind of desensitizes you to animal death.

There are so many predators out there, bears, wolves, etc., that you just kind of accept when you see a carcass. And then you put yourself in a bit of a defensive mentality in that there may be a predator nearby. Now, this kill was fairly fresh, so that as well puts you in a position, where you watch your surroundings even more. The main thing I found to be odd about the carcass

was that the head was missing. Again, a little bit strange, but nothing too crazy. Animals do weird things. I continue down the way and make my way toward the pond when I see something that legitimately makes me sick to my stomach. Down by the water, I see what looks like a shovel or spade or whatever,

stuck in the ground near the water's edge, and on the end of the stick that's pointed upward, is the head of an animal. I'm assuming it's the head of the one that I found on the trail, as it's a deer and it also looked rather fresh. This alone was enough to scare the hell out of me, but as I got closer, I saw there were a pile of Polaroids scattered around the ground

near where the shovel was. I hesitantly stepped forward. forward to look at the pictures, and they were just as sickening as you might think. The pictures were basically each part of the timeline of how the people that killed this deer did so, and then beheaded it. There were about 15 pictures in total, and they were each taken at different points. There were two people, but they were wearing masks and dark clothing. Like I said, this path was clear of the afternoon prior, which meant that whoever did this

did so in the middle of the night. Now, I'm sure they were doing it all to be edgy, but it was absolutely disgusting. I ended up heading home and calling the police. They came and took the evidence, which was pretty much just the pictures and the shovel, and they had park services come out to clean up the scene. I'm pretty sure they never actually caught anyone,

which lends more to the possibility of it being a tourist that did it. The other story I have is one that's less straightforward and is more on the probability side. Like I said, there was a cave that was down by the pond, and it was a fairly large cave. I spent many days in my summer checking it out, and I'm certain that I never found every vein that it actually had, mostly because I didn't really try,

and the situation proved that was the right way to do things. On this particular day, a friend of mine and I had decided that we would go through a part of the cave that I hadn't yet explored. This was an idea that he'd had that I honestly wish that he hadn't. We got to the cave, and we started to explore. Pretty much nothing was out of place until we got to the back far left, and then into a vein that we had never traveled. Back in the rear vein there was a small pocket that pretty much looked to be the size of a small room. Inside this pocket, there was what looked like a makeshift bed,

made of a sleeping bag and some clothing. There were posters that were basically taped the wall of the cave in a sloppy manner, and there were a handful of books that were scattered around. While this was creepy, the part that made it worse was that there was also a lantern lying on the ground that was still lit, which told me that whoever was staying in the cave wasn't too far away. Now, you may think, that's not that bad. It's just a homeless person making the most of what was available.

The problem lies with the fact that we lived near a federal prison, and there had been a few escaped inmates in the past. And around the time that we found this, there was an inmate that had gotten a and through the fence and hadn't yet been caught. Odds are, what we found, was a makeshift camp of an inmate that was hiding out. Of course, at the time, as a kid, I didn't realize this. We just bolted out of the cave and laughed about it, and then never went back to the cave, or at least not deep into it.

I don't live in South Dakota anymore, but if I did, well, like, can promise you that I would probably still be out there every weekend, just like back then. As a child, I was raised in a small, tight-knit town. I hated it. Everyone knew you and there was no such thing as a secret. If you tell one person, you'll hear it from someone else in two days' tops. I had a group of four or five friends, Max, that I might share things with, that I could actually trust. Hell, some things, I couldn't even tell my little sister without getting something on her. Otherwise, we would just use it as leverage on each other. That's what makes this situation even crazier to me. Our school classes were pretty normal in curriculum and size, in my opinion.

We had maybe 10 to 15 of us in a classroom. No one outside of our town was interested in going to our school, and as soon as they were given the opportunity. Kids in high school that had cars would get to choose to go to school outside of our district to get out of here, or people would move out before then. I was not so lucky. My family was far from wealthy, so we stayed in our town until I was old enough to move out. Anyways, back to the classes. Obviously, being a teenager, relationships.

are bound to happen. There weren't many to choose from, and some may have even been a year younger or older than you. I dated a few different girls, but there was one that I was with for about two years.

For privacy reasons, I'll call her Macy. From the outside, Macy was a fun girl to be around. She was tall, had about shoulder-length dark hair, and dark brown eyes with freckles.

She could talk to anyone. She was definitely outgoing, and I never really saw a mean side to her. I think she would strive to be everyone's friend. She was just part of a group of friends for the longest time. She wore makeup and dressed more feminine, but also loved going down by the river with me and a few of our friends to catch things, and destroy things, and maybe enjoy some drinks. It was over the summer that I really got to know her more.

I know her dad was a drunk and her mom worked a lot, so she didn't see them much. She came over to our house a lot for dinner, and sometimes even slept in our living room. There was one time that she had gotten into an argument with her father. He had grabbed her and started choking her when her mother finally convinced him to let her go, but her mother told her it was best for her to leave for a while. She came over in tears and I helped her calm down, and I think that really solidified our relationship in a weird way. I was angry.

Now, my parents weren't perfect, but they never hurt us kids. How could a parent do that to their own child? It was worse when the cops showed up and did absolutely nothing. and they showed up to their house, took him in, he said he was sorry, and was able to come home after sobering up. Like, that really changed anything, though. She practically lived with us at times. She slept on the couch. Sometimes she'd fall asleep in my room, and I would sleep in the living room.

We acted like a normal couple for the most part, hanging out with friends together, always walking to class together, things like that. But after a while, I started seeing a different side of her. I noticed that some of the smallest things would set her off. If a friend teased her about something, like throwing a ball weird, and I didn't immediately defend her, she would be pissed. It started as her just ignoring me for the rest of the night. Then she would complain to me in private about how she was embarrassed.

But then, it started to become more public. She would call me out in front of our friends and even my parents, and then storm off. This was my first real relationship, so I didn't really know how to react to it. I'd go through the motions, apologize, and we'd make up and be fine. However, it always seemed to get worse. The more serious fights would happen when it was just us. She would kick things, punch things, scream if she could, and sometimes would even hit me.

It was usually just punching me in the chest or smacking me in the face, but it was still unusual. I thought surely this had to do with her father being the person he was. Maybe this is what she did because she was used to it. So I would do what I could to calm her down, but it stopped working after a while. I would have to lock her out of my room, or I would leave until she calmed down. But of course, that's when the accusations would fly. She would start getting loud, and she would push me while at school,

and it was embarrassing for me at that point, so I would just walk away. way. For some reason, when I did this, she thought I was trying to hide from my other girlfriend. She started accusing me of cheating on her, and she would always show up at the door of my classroom and wait and see if I walked out with another girl. We had a group project in one of my classes, and I was paired with my friend Jeff and some girl that I didn't know too well. When I was leaving the room, she punched me in the face and started saying that she finally caught me. I remember the girl just looking horrified

as she tried leaving without Macy noticing her. People were starting to gather, but she had her eyes locked on and then jumped on this girl's back and started slamming her around. I managed to get her off of the girl and told her that we were done. I remember calling her a psycho

or something equally hurtful because the look in her eyes changed to sorrow and she ran off. I, of course, got called to the office and had to explain what happened. Macy ended up being expelled. I told them it was my fault, hoping the other girl didn't get into any trouble,

and then I ended up being suspended for the quarter. I finished my suspension as awkward as it was, and returned to the school to be the center of discussion for everyone. I didn't get to hear much on what happened to Macy, except for what my friends knew, which, again, wasn't much until I returned. I heard her parents were forced to put her into therapy, and possibly some kind of school for troubled teens, but I never saw her again.

That happened about 18 years, years ago. Right after high school, I left that town. I wanted to go somewhere that was a lot more lively and meet people that I hadn't known my whole life. My sister and I even inspired our parents to get out of there a few years ago. However, they still surprise me with the amount of information, news, and gossip they tell me about the people that live there. That? That? Well, that's where it gets crazy. Around the time of our 10-year high school reunion, people started contacting me about getting together.

I thought, why the hell not? And decided to start making plans to visit. However, a few weeks after that, I got a frantic call from my mom late at night, telling me there had been a fire in our old town. She told me that it was Macy's house, and the terrifying part, her parents died in the fire. My father was good friends with one of the cops there,

and he had told him that Macy was still living there on and off, but she was working the night that had happened, and they had to go pick her up. After the investigation, they had determined that her dad had passed out with a cigarette. He was blitzed, of course, and her mom had actually taken sleeping pills. It was just a bad situation, and I felt sorry for her. I almost wanted to reach out to her, maybe to at least give my condolences, but something told me not to.

My mother went to the services, and she said that Macy was just a shell. She just sat in the front pew staring straight ahead until the services ended. Afterwards, she said she was nowhere to be found, so my mother left her card and, with the other items, and left after that. I never heard about Macy or her life again until last year. This time, my friend actually text me and sent a link to the local news for our old town. It started as a suspicious fire. Police were called to an old barn that was on fire. behind one of the bars. Someone apparently walked out back, smelled the smoke, saw the flames between the trees that separated the property, and called 911. After they put out the fire, they found a man's body in there. He had been stabbed multiple times, bludgeoned with a shovel, and then doused in some kind of oil, and set on fire. They couldn't ID the guy,

because he didn't have anything on him. That was crazy enough, right? Not at all. Not for that place. Rumors started flying pretty quickly. People started talking, but not to the police. But that didn't stop them from finding out. That's when my friend started filling in the blanks where the story left off.

He still lives there. He actually took over his parents' truck store, so... He gets just as much information. The guy ended up being identified as the owner of the bar. They figured this out because his wallet was found in the dumpster at his bar, but his cash was missing. Coincidentally, someone showed up at a different bar, flaunting cash, and buying everyone drinks, saying it was in this guy's honor.

Thing is, they hadn't publicly announced, announced this guy's identity. So, the police took note of this. The girl was picked up and questioned when she finally confessed to the murder. And odds are, you know where this is going. It was Macy. She was apparently dating the owner, or at least there was something going on between them. However, he was married.

Rumors are that the wife found out. The owner tried to break it off with Macy, and she wasn't having it. Now that she is locked up for this, the rumors are coming back that she may have been involved in her parents' death. So, not only did I date a less than stable girl in high school, but she turned out to be a murderer. So I guess I got lucky at the time. But it does make me think what could have happened. if I did reach out to her when her parents passed. What if we didn't move?

Could I have been one of her victims? I also think if this was related to her childhood, and if that could have made a difference as well. One thing I told my friend, though, is that he's going to have to come see me from now on, because I do not want to step back in that point. place. This happened to me and my wife when we were in our 30s. We live in a fairly popular city, surrounded by houses on all sides, and a couple blocks east was the shopping side, with grocery

stores, restaurants, and even a farmer's market popping up out there on the weekends. We liked going to the market, because my wife was due soon, and it gave us a place to the place to the place. to walk that was outside and close to home. Not to mention she ate so many tomatoes while pregnant, and she claimed they had the best ones. The neighborhood itself has always been nice. No real issues with anyone. I think the cops were called once because there were kids playing in the park nearby.

They were screaming a lot, and people thought something was wrong and called them. Turned out, it was just the kids playing around, but I think it gave them a nice scare to not scream so much. So, maybe some loud kids, but that was about it. One night in particular, the wife wasn't feeling well, so she went to bed early. I wasn't tired, so I stayed up for a bit longer to finish the show that I was watching. just to get a better idea of the layout of our place, when you walk in the front door you enter the living room. This is where I was watching TV.

To the right is a hall with our bedroom, a bathroom, a bathroom, and our nursery. Going straight from the front door, you'll go to the kitchen, and the wall to the left had a door to the garage. The back wall of the kitchen has an entryway to our little green room, I suppose, could call it. It had tall windows on all three walls and a sliding door on one that led to our backyard. We had some long curtains hanging on all the windows because it can get pretty hot back there, and we use that as an office and now extra storage. The yard wasn't fenced in, which was fine because the two houses next to us were owned by an older couple, with no kids,

or pets, and the other was owned by an older guy that appeared to have his daughter and granddaughter visiting, so there was no trouble with them. So on this night, while I was watching TV, I thought I saw a light go by the window, like a flashlight or a reflector on a bike or something. I didn't really think much of it at first because it also faced the road, so I thought it was probably just a bike passing. After a few minutes, I saw what looked like someone walking by my window, so I got up to look and saw nothing. No cars, no one outside at our neighbors.

So I made sure the door was locked and went back to watching my show. At this point, it had probably been 20 to 30 minutes because the episode had finished. So, before playing the next one, I went to the kitchen to refill my cup. Of course, we have to have sweets in the house. So, as my eyes met the chocolate chunk cookies, I went to open them, when I heard a thumping sound coming from the green room. I just paused at first, making sure that what I heard was real, when I heard what sounded like the door sliding closed.

So I grabbed a steak knife. It was the closest thing to me, and slowly walked to the back. As I got back there, I noticed that the door was, in fact, slightly open still. We don't always lock the back slider, because there's no reason for anyone to be back there besides us. So now I'm looking around to see if someone is in here, or did they leave already. Mind you, the lights are still off, so there's a light coming in from the neighbor's patio, but that's about it. I'm walking as close to the back wall as I could while looking around the room,

when I noticed someone very poorly hidden in our curtains. As I mentioned, they are pretty thick, which makes them stick out some, but they don't go all the way to the floor. So if you're trying to hide behind them, you'd better hope you can levitate, or else your sneakers are going to show off. So with that, I mustered all the bravery in me,

and as deep and threatening as I could, I said, You've got ten seconds to run out the door you came in, and if you make it, I won't call the cops. I don't even think I got it all out before the guy darted out from behind the curtain and took off out the door. I'd be lying if I said I was totally calm and prepared if he ran towards me instead. I did take notice of what he looked like, though. It was dark, but the light by the door coming in was enough for me to tell that he had long dark hair, pulled back in a hair tie.

He was wearing a dark hoodie with some... kind of logo on the left arm that looked like a circle. He also wasn't wearing anything to cover his face, so I could tell he had a short beard. After a few seconds, I ran to the door, locked it, and looked around to see if he was anywhere nearby, but he must have taken off, because he was nowhere to be seen.

I did a quick look over of the room to see if he did take him, did take anything, but nothing looked like it had been touched, except the penholder that was on the floor. I assumed that was probably the thump that I heard. I don't think he had time to even consider taking anything yet. I closed all the curtains in there and the living room, checked any windows to make sure they were closed and locked, and then went to check on my wife, who, based on her. snoring, had been out the whole time. I ended up going back to the living room because I was too freaked out and wired at this point to

sleep, but ended up passing out a few hours later. I never told my wife, because I didn't want her to worry about it unless something came up again. I didn't want to add any stress to her. I told her I must have passed out watching TV, though, and And she believed me. From then, I was more cautious of making sure that all the doors and windows are locked at night, or whenever we left. The following week, we went to the market one last time before she was going to be going to the hospital.

While she was looking at the tomatoes and talking to the couple that sells them, I kept moving down to look at everything else. I came across a small table with lemonade set up and a little girl sitting at it. On the other side of the lemonade container was a crate of strawberries for sale. The girl looked really excited that I had stopped and offered some lemonade for a price, of course. I think it was something like a quarter. I agreed, and the girl turned and yelled Daddy to the man who was doing something behind her. He stood up and started approaching the table when my stomach dropped. This guy had long, dark hair, it was pulled back,

and he was wearing a hoodie with the same logo I noticed in my house a week ago. It was for a local community college by us. He had shaved recently, though. The girl told her father that I wanted a lemonade, so he helped her begin pouring it. I asked how long they had been set up out here, and I think that's when he recognized me, too. The guy's voice began to crack, and he was shaking. He said he was trying to make money since his wife was pregnant with their second child, and the people agreed to let him set up here.

He had strawberries he was selling, and he had bought some lemons to make lemonade with them to entice people to buy them. He said they were down on their luck, with her not working and him losing his job recently. He also said it felt like he was given a second chance to do the right thing. My wife walked up about this time, and I mentioned that we were about to have our first one too, and he congratulated me. I ended up buying a pound of strawberries and gave the kid a five for the lemonade, and her eyes lit up.

The guy actually shook my hand and thanked me and then we left. So that's the story of how I paid a guy that broke into my own home. I do hope that what he said was true, though, and that I was the first and last place that he broke into. This is about my younger sister, who had many visions about her past life. My parents always called her, weird or claimed that she just had a vivid imagination, so she only ever talks to me about them now.

One of the first times she mentioned this to me was when we were playing house or superheroes. We always made up names for these games, but she always chose the same name, Charlotte. I didn't think much of it at first, but I usually swapped between the same two or three names, unless I learned a new name that I liked. But she always chose Charlotte. One day, we decided to have a picnic in our backyard, so we gathered stuff to make peanut butter sandwiches and some chips and then head it out.

One thing I will mention is that, when it came to PBNJ, it could never be grape jelly. I was okay with it, but my sister would not eat it. My parents always said or thought that she just didn't like grapes, so we always got something else. Anyways, when we sat down to finally eat, she asked me, So, do you remember many different lives? I was confused by this question, so she tried to explain more. She mentioned, since I used multiple names, she was curious if I was,

I remembered the past lives of multiple people. I told her no, that I just liked the names. But she went on to explain that she used to be named Charlotte. She explained that she used to live somewhere hotter and near a beach, and that she was allergic to grapes, which is why she avoided them now. I thought, in a way, it made sense, but she wouldn't eat them so he would have,

no idea if she's allergic to them now. Later that night during dinner, I asked my parents if we knew someone named Charlotte. They thought about it for a while, but then said no and asked me why. My sister was looking at me curiously, and I explained to them that she used to be a Charlotte. I remember my mom mentioning that was a good imagination, while my dad chuckled but said nothing. else about it. From then on, my sister continued telling me more stories of her past life. But it was later that year we went on vacation in Texas, where it became more real.

We were going to a friend of my mom's house when we got turned around in a cul-de-sac. My sister pointed out one of the houses excitedly and said, That was my old house. Well, it used to be my parents, but I inherited it. when they died. My dad was driving and looked up at us in the back seat, while my mom looked back in confusion. She said,

What are you talking about? My sister went on to explain that she knew that was the one because of the front deck. It had an awning and was screened in with an old swinging seat hanging from the roof. She said she used to sit there and drink coffee, while she read, especially whenever it was raining. My dad said nothing, well, my mom just stared at my sister and then turned back around to face forward. I remember it was awkward for a few seconds when my sister said, I had a bad reaction to the juice I was drinking, and I couldn't breathe.

This caused my mom to snap and say something like, enough. She started asking us what we watched to learn all that, and even asked my dad what he was watching with us. We all said nothing, and my sister went quiet. From then on, she never mentioned anything to my parents about her past life, but I still asked her about it. I was absolutely curious about all this, and, at that age, I didn't know what reincarnation was.

She explained to me a bit more about what she looked like, long golden-brown hair with green eyes, light freckles, and fair skin. She said she was never married. She had a gray cat named Milo, and she was sad that she died and didn't know what happened to him when she was gone.

She told me different stories over time about her past life, and I had no reason to not believe her. As we got older, we didn't talk about it on a normal basis, but it did come up on occasions. We're now in our 30s, and we got together

for lunch one time and something occurred that caused us to talk about it. She went into more detail about that time how Charlotte had died. She said the juice she had contained grape juice, and it caused her to go into anaphylactic shock, and then she died from it. And this is why she avoids grapes. I asked if she ever had an allergy test to see if she was still allergic to them, and she said she thought about it, but she was she said she thought about it, but she was she she said she remembered her death so vividly and that she didn't want to risk it.

We were curious about how close she was with all this information, so we actually tried looking for Charlottes that had passed away in Texas, and for house records. Surprisingly, we did find that house, and I actually found a way to contact the current owners to ask about the history of it. I told them I had grown up in the area and was trying to remember the name of an old friend that lived there. To my surprise,

they were glad to help. And from the real estate, they bought the house from, we were able to track down the records and found a Charlotte that lived there and her parents that owned it before her. We found pictures of her, and she matched the description

that my sister gave. It was crazy to actually put physical proof to what she told us all these years. We haven't said anything to our parents since they don't seem to believe any of it. We're still trying to figure out if we can find out her cause of death, but the house and her description in time that she lived was proof enough for us.

So the wonderful Walmart was my first real job. I started working there shortly after graduating high school and continued to for a little over three years. I was younger, as mentioned, right out of high school, so maybe a little naive and didn't run into many serious conflicts, so I didn't know how to react to some situations. But I quickly learned. Walmart makes you grow up pretty fast as an employee.

I'm sure others will relate to that. I bring this up because of these two memorable experiences that I encountered during my time working there. The first one was about a year into my working there. A young child around a year old in a neighboring city had gone missing. There was a lot of speculation about the whole situation, from the mother being suspicious and even cadaver dogs alerting authorities to specific spots in their home. But sadly, they never found anything on their property or any evidence to make any arrest at that time.

This case was always fresh in my mind as I worked the early shift, and I heard about it on the news every morning before I left for work. I was a cashier and also worked at the customer service desk on occasions. I'd see a lot of people coming in with their kids, and most of the younger ones that are in the cart like to watch the big carousel as it spins. Sometimes they talk to me and their parents always smile and try to be a part of the conversations as well, especially with smaller babies that can't talk,

but they can smile and laugh, so it makes for a good time. On one occasion, though, I had an older lady come in with a small infant. The woman looked old enough to be the grandparents to this child. Now, of course, this wasn't an unusual situation, but something just felt off. When she first pulled into my checkout lane,

she was focused on this child, smiling. I greeted her and she started putting stuff on the belt. She bought a lot of clothes, a baby mattress, diapers, formula, and toys. I thought it was a bit odd for the amount. Now, I've seen grandparents, friends, aunts, etc. Bring in a small child and buy them an outfit or a toy or something, but never a full wardrobe. So maybe the parents were a little down on their luck,

and she was helping them out. But still, the kid was small, but she definitely looked too old to still be on formula alone. But that was the only type of food she bought. Other than the items she bought, she didn't talk much and she would not take the child out of her sight. After sitting every item down, she would look up at the baby. Once she pulled the card up to the carousel, I looked over at her to see if maybe the kid looked upset or was being playful or, something, but she just looked around and looked at me. You know that look infants get when they're confused or scared,

right before they burst out crying? That's what she looked like. She looked like she didn't know what was going on. The woman, now waiting on me to finish ringing everything up, is staring at this child again, rubbing her head, smiling, but not saying anything to her. Once I finish ringing everything, up. I tried to put the items back into her cart, and she stopped me quickly by saying,

It's okay. I got it. Don't worry about it. Which was a little weird. Rarely people stopped me from loading up their groceries, but I let it go. She gave me a credit card to pay, and at the time, our machines did ask for ID if they used a credit card and the amount was over a certain amount. When I asked her for her ID, she became flustered and started looking around her purse for it. After a few seconds, she asked to just pay in cash, which she then pulled out a wad of bills. I completed the order, and she started leaving so quick that she almost forgot a bag and her receipt. After she left, my line was empty again. It was around six or seven in the morning, so we were really slow at that time.

When this happens, I start to straighten out my lane where all the impulse items are, including the magazines. And that is when I looked over at the magazine covers to see the face of the missing baby, when I realized why that encounter was so off to me. That baby looked just like the missing one that has been on the news lately. She had the bright green eyes and the light curly hair starting to grow. she was from a city less than 30 minutes from here too. The part that started worrying me more was that this child looked confused. She didn't look like she was particularly happy or comforted by seeing this woman,

but she also wasn't crying or screaming. Another thing was that the missing child had a birthmark on the back of her neck. Could that be why this woman didn't want me to go to the back of the cart and see the back of the baby's head? Obviously, this didn't dawn on me at the time, so I didn't even look at her to check. Then there was the fact that she was also worried about showing me her ID and wanted to leave so quickly. Both were very suspicious. Lastly, the items that she bought were just too much to be used as a random gift. Of course, this is all me speculating, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I just let someone go that could have been related to this case.

It's been ten years now since that case, and this child still has not been found. I can only hope it was an unfortunate coincidence. Part of me still wonders. What could have happened if I had reported this? The second experience was something that continued throughout the last year that I worked there. I will say that I am a female, 18 to 20 years old at the time, so... it was a normal thing to have both men and women call me sweetie, hun, baby, etc. Most of the time it was fine.

Usually the older people, so no harm done. Every once in a while, I would get an older guy that may call me beautiful, but I moved on. However, this guy was more persistent. The first time he came through my line, he says, Well, good morning, beautiful. I smiled and said good morning back. asking him how he is, a normal small-talk stuff. This guy was older, too, like old enough to be my grandfather.

I know this not only by the way he looks, but he even makes the comment. He went as far to say something about, You wouldn't want to be with someone like me, not at my age. By the end of his purchase, I hand him his receipt and he holds out his hand to shake mine. Kind of weird. But I held it out. He put his other hand over mine, like he was cupping it as he looks at my name badge. He says something about,

It's a pleasure to meet you, Marie. See you next time. I again smile and say, Same to you, have a good day. And I move on with my day. No more than a few hours later, this guy is back and in my line. He's literally only buying a soda from one of the small cases right up front by the registers. I remembered this because I thought,

Why go to a Walmart for a single soda when you could have just gone to a gas station or something? When it was his turn, he said, We meet again. And I just smiled and made a comment about, miss me that much. To my surprise, he said, yes, actually. It was awkward. And he tried to make small talk, but we were busy at that point, so he was trying to stand next to my register and talk while I'm still ringing up other customers.

I think he finally took the hint that I couldn't really talk, so he just said, well, I'll let you get back to work. Good night, Marie. And left. This guy was already making me feel, Weird when he said my name, but I did my best to ignore it. Sadly, this continued as mentioned for months. He would be there several times a week.

He would always end up in my line, buying random things. He even tried to buy a box of Valentine candy for me afterwards, and as I handed him the bag, he said they were for me, for his Valentine. I, of course, refused them. I told him I couldn't take gifts from customers, and I also was happily taken. This seemed to upset him a bit. He made a comment about how it was rude to not accept a gift in his religion, and that he wanted to speak to my manager to convince them to let me have it.

I finally got a manager, and they insisted that I could not take it. He finally accepted that answer, but said he wanted to just return it and get a refund. I remember him throwing a fit because he had to go to customer service instead of going through me to do so. So he just left with it. At that point, I told my manager about this guy and how he made me feel so uncomfortable. They said if it's ever too much to call them over and they will switch me out so I don't have to ring him up. I thought that was fair, and I just left it at that. This night in particular my fiancé had to take me to work and take me to work and

pick me up because of car issues. As I was leaving the store for the night, my fiancé was actually walking in when I noticed the creepy guy was sitting on a bench by the carts. And of course, he noticed me. So as he started getting up,

I was close enough that I did a fast walk to my fiancé and hugged him, making it very obvious to this guy. He saw this and just stared at me. So we walked around the store and I told him about the guy. He agreed that if he was going to start sitting out there

or causing any more problems like that, that he will park and come in to walk me out to the car until we felt it was safe again. Sadly, this guy did not stop. I never saw him waiting around by the doors anymore, but he would continue to show up around the store and would try to get into my lane. He would make it there sometimes, and he was never short on questions to ask me about my personal life, but I never gave him any answers. If anything, they were vague. But still, he did not stop. When they would switch me out, though, he would holler at me as I was walking away from the register, saying things like, Where are you going?

I miss you. Are they doing this to us on purpose? Like we were a thing or something. It was awful, and he started making me dread coming to work. I even felt bad for one cashier as she was swapping out with me, and he was one behind the current customer. He lost it. He started laying into this cashier,

calling her so many awful names and slamming the items down on the belt. I went and told the manager before I went and hid for a while, and I think he was told to calm down, or he would be asked to leave. They rarely banned or kicked people out. It was always just empty threat. I was so happy when I finally transferred to customer service, as I didn't hardly see him at all after that. I would see him passing by and wave at me,

but at that point, I stopped caring, and I wouldn't even acknowledge him. I don't know if I just blinked out that much, or if he moved on to someone else, but thankfully, I didn't see him the last few months that I worked there. This isn't as much a small town horror story as it is a middle-of-nowhere horror story, or a horror story that took place just past a small town. But I think it still qualifies because it occurred on our way out of said small town. A few years ago, around the summer of 2018, my girlfriend and I came into a bit of money, and we decided that we basically wanted to take a cross-country road trip.

Basically, we would drive from Pittsburgh all the way to Las Vegas. We'd spend a few days in Vegas and then drive back. The trip in both directions was going to take around 32 hours total. if we went straight across on I-70, and we would be tasked with driving from PA to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Utah before finally getting to Nevada, and then our final destination. We plan to do this over a few days,

and we wanted to stop in a few states to get pictures and just kind of enjoy the Midwest. I know that a lot of people will sit there, that the Midwest is boring, but if you think too hard on it, every state is boring. I think they all have their own personal charm. So, we plotted our whole route, decided on a few places to stop, and everything was going smoothly. Most of the trip was just driving straight. We were making great time, and this event was really the only thing that stood out.

There was one point where we had to stop to get gas, and my girlfriend said that she also wanted to stop and get something to eat. At this point, we were about two-thirds of the way through Kansas, and the next town was a small town called Ellis. Ellis, Kansas is a bit to the west of Hayes, which is actually a decent-sized city for being in literally the middle of nowhere. but Ellis Ellis is pretty much the polar opposite

Small town vibe with pretty much nothing to do or see but again it has its own rustic charm We pulled into Ellis and we got gas When I saw a menu for a restaurant that I decided we needed to try

It was a locally owned pizza and Mexican food combination And I'm kind of of a sucker for small town pizza. I grabbed the menu and got back to where my girlfriend was finished filling the tank, and I told her that we had to go. She agreed. It sounded interesting, if nothing else.

So we left the station, and we found the small building for this anomaly of a restaurant. Cutting out the details about the food, it was seriously good, though. If you're ever in Ellis, check this place out. you'll find it. It's the only pizza and Mexican food place there is. The visit seemed to be fine for the most part. I was enjoying my lunch, and I thought that she was as well, until I looked up and saw that she had a strange look on her face,

kind of like she was a bit worried. I immediately asked her what was wrong, and she mentioned that there was a guy at a table at the other corner that was staring intently at us. At first, I didn't think much of it. But then, I looked back and, sure enough, he was staring. He didn't even make an attempt to look away when I checked. He nodded at me, basically confirming that he knew I saw him.

I quickly looked back to my girlfriend, and I tried to play it off. Maybe he knew we were tourists, and he didn't like him. like the idea of outsiders. Maybe he thought she was pretty. Maybe he thought I was pretty. Maybe he was just a very angry man by nature. She didn't really buy it. But my attention got pulled away from the situation when the waitress came to the table,

asking how we were doing. I told her we were doing well, and then I started to tell her that we were actually from out of town and traveling across the country. As I mentioned this, I tried to pull my girlfriend into the conversation in hopes to get her mind off of the creep in the corner. It sort of worked. The waitress seemed excited to talk to us about our trip.

We explained that we were from Pennsylvania, and that we wanted to drive all the way to Vegas so that we could see the parts of the country that we otherwise wouldn't have. The conversation between us, all three was great. She mentioned one or two other places that we should check out. She started talking about the one time that she had gone to Vegas when she was younger. Really?

It was just friendly small talk. When we finished talking and she walked away to go do what she had to do, my girlfriend looked back and told me that the guy was gone. Honestly, that was a relief. I was thinking that we could stop worrying about him and, She would calm down to finish her lunch. I really thought that was going to be the end of that situation, that we would leave, get back on the highway,

and just continue driving for a few more hours before we checked into a hotel somewhere. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, that's not how things went. At least, not right away. After lunch, we got back in the car and we hopped back up to I-70 and started out of town. It was less than a couple miles down the way when we spotted what looked like a minivan stopped in the middle of the road,

long ways. It looked like they were in the middle of a U-turn on the highway and just stopped. Or maybe their car had died. Either way, I slowed down as I approached, and I stopped the car a bit of a distance from the actual van, a couple car lengths at most. After a few seconds of just sitting there,

I noticed that there were two guys sitting in the van, one in the driver's seat and one in the passenger seat. And they looked like they were discussing something, or arguing. It was hard to tell. Then, after a few more moments, they look back at us and get out of the car. That's what my girlfriend,

and said, that guy that just got out of the passenger side. That's the guy from the pizza place that kept staring at me. I thought maybe she was mistaken, and maybe she was just being a bit paranoid because she was freaked out by the whole thing. But then, the guy walked around the van, same flannel shirt, blue baseball cap,

and torn jeans as the weirdo from before. It was at that moment that it clicked what this was. Or more so what it likely was. These guys were looking to do something aggressive toward us. Obviously, I didn't know the specifics. I didn't know if they were going to rob us, steal our car, kidnap us, etc., but it wasn't going to be good. Everything seemed to be incredibly still and silent for a few seconds,

until I saw the pizza creep start to reach for something. I have no idea what it was, but as soon as I saw him reach, I told her to get down and I floored it. I pushed that pedal as hard as I could, and while I may have been driving in early 2000s Honda, that think jumped in speed quickly. I aimed the car straight for him, and toward the shoulder, basically playing chicken with this guy. He was either going to get out of the way and let us pass, or be embarrassingly run over by my tiny ass sedan. Thankfully, for his sake, he jumped out of the way,

and I got past them on the shoulder. We kept going at max speed until I thought it was safe to slow down. Honestly, it was really weird, and I realize now how dumb it was to do what I did. If he'd had a gun, he would have shot me and killed me while I was driving towards, him. If he hadn't moved, I would have murdered him with my car, and, well, that would have been a whole other situation. Alternatively, they could have chased us, and let me tell you that Ellis is one of the last small towns that have an actual presence until Colorado. It was a solid four hours to Denver, which was the next metropolitan, and I'm assuming that these guys wouldn't have been keen on letting us

lead them for four hours without trying to ram us off the road. As lovely of a city as Ellis was, and as good as that pizza was, I don't think we're ever going to go back. On the way home, we actually took a different highway, just to avoid that part of Kansas altogether. It never fails to amaze me how brave some people are in public, especially towards other people, such as myself. I started working at Walmart a few years out of high school, so I was barely 21.

I definitely ran into some jerks before, but the creepy old guys were the kicker. What's worse is how they didn't seem to care who else was around to witness this. I started working in the fitting rooms and we saw plenty of people attempt, to do inappropriate things in them. Those are stories for another day. I eventually transferred to customer service because I was tired of being the one to call maintenance into the fitting rooms.

Before Walmart had the specific money service centers, we did all that at customer service. So, money orders, money transfers, and even some utility payments. We started getting this one guy that just, looked slimy as hell. He always wore jeans and a nasty tank top.

His hair was really long and stringy, like he washed it twice a year, but usually pulled it back into a ponytail. He would hit on all the younger girls and treat the older ones like dirt, if he couldn't just avoid them. He started coming up to customer service to be rang up when the lines were too long

because he learned we wouldn't turn people down. When it was just me there, he would always be leaning over the counter, smirking, and he would always call me babe, which alone was creepy and made me feel gross. Unfortunately, he had more reasons to go to customer service because he started doing money transfers too. Those started becoming really suspicious, too, and he could tell that I was on to him. They were always even amounts, always under the amount that we had to report, and he always made it out to people and the names were never the same. I tried to play dumb once, since he had sent well over 10 grand within a week, and I acted concerned for him saying,

Do you know the people you're sending money to? And I mentioned how there have been a lot of scammers. He smirked, and he said, Yeah, they're my employees. This is the fastest way I can pay them. I thought, well, not really, but hey, it was none of my business, so I dropped it. However, he continued coming in and continued being a creep, and I was getting fed up with it. I mentioned it to someone else that worked there about how the money transfers were really

suss, but she just shrugged it off. The problem with, at least the store I worked at, was that nobody seemed to care. If it didn't directly affect them, they didn't bother with anything. So I figured out how to file a report myself on the money transfers, and I did. In the meantime, he continued to show up there. However, things got worse. We all wore name tags so he could see our first name but not our last. yet one time he came in to do another money transfer.

He started handing me the paper. He took his sunglasses off and then said, Let's do this without the small talk today, Ms. Anderson. How the hell did he know my last name? I just stared at him for a second before continuing. It was obvious at this point to him that he was correct. I completed it without another word to him and continued on. with my day. I again told my co-worker when they came in, and he said he probably just saw it

somewhere or overheard someone else say it. I didn't believe this, because I had no reason to use my last name, but could do nothing about it. From then on, he would come in and make more gross comments to me. Call me, babe, make kissing faces even at me. At one point, I was already having a bad day when I saw him in line, so I called up my manager and told them that they needed to ring him up because I was no longer comfortable doing it. Their idea of doing that was to look over the form, check his ID, and then hand it to me telling me to do it. Furiously, I did so, as he leaned against the counter and chuckled. He then said that I was too smart and too pretty to be working there, and that he could get me a good paying job with

my looks. I looked him straight in the eyes and said no thanks, and didn't say another word to him. That night, as I was walking to my car to leave, I noticed an envelope on my windshield. As stupid as it was, I looked around, got in my car, and opened it. It was a card, saying happy birthday with a hotel card in it, with a room number written on it. The card said something like, in case you change your mind. The part that freaked me out the most

was that my birthday was the next day. Granted, I had no proof, but I knew it had to be this guy. Not only did he know my full name, but he also knew what I drove and my birthday. I started crying in my car. I lived alone, so I had no one to turn to or talk to about this other than my mom. She suggested that I call the police,

but I had no evidence it was even this guy, and besides, he hadn't done anything specifically to me, so I knew they wouldn't do much. I did start having this guy that did carts walk me to my car just in case. He was one of the few people there that I liked and believed me. I quit shortly after, and I started working with my mom because I didn't want to see this guy ever again. I hope he got caught. Because I never want to see him again, and I hope he didn't put anyone else through this. I grew up in a small, local town.

It's one of those that you would just pass through on your way to your destination. Hell, most people probably wouldn't even stop there nowadays. If it's not the lack of Wi-Fi, my parents still live there, and they use some crappy local service that gets like five megabits max. or the one hotel located there. It's nothing fancy, and usually just the home of meth users and runaways, that it has to be the homely look of the rusty metal siding and abandoned-looking farmhouses with the really creepy child swing in the front yard

that actually drive people away. I was born and raised here in the 90s. I was a kid, so I was really naive and didn't realize, until I was older, how some things were actually weird and creepy about our town. Growing up, it seemed normal. Both of my parents raised me in the home given to them by my paternal grandfather. I went to the public school there. I made friends with the people in my class as well as some older and younger, as I was an only child. Nothing was ever too weird at the time. My Friends and I would ride our bikes to the fire station on occasion to get sodas from the machine there,

but I do remember my parents always telling me to take a specific route to avoid that neighborhood. I always thought the people were just mean or didn't like kids. I learned as I got older that the block was just a bunch of run-down and condemned houses that meth users and squatters took over. There was always something illegal. and dangerous going on, so they, of course, didn't want to take any chances. Fair enough reason for me, so as if I was on autopilot, that road didn't exist, and I always avoided it. Even now, when I go to visit my parents, I don't dare to walk or drive that way.

Now, some may call this good or bad, but because of how small our town was, everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew your business. That included this older lady that we called the neighborhood grandma. I called her grandma Carol. She was always such a sweet and forgiving soul. She would make so many sweets during the holiday and bring them to the church, and she would pass them out to us kids on our way to the bus stop or at home. I remember her even bringing me a handmade scarf,

one year for Christmas and having dinner with us. She didn't have any kids and she was never married. She said she could never find a man that could keep up with her, but she did have a dog. I believe it was a Boston Terrier, the small dog that always looks old and has a long mustache. His name was Prince and she spoiled the hell out of him. He always had on different sweaters in the winter that she made.

I was so impressed by this that I actually went to her house once, so she could teach me how to crochet. I still have the doll dresses that she helped me make. Carol was also very giving to our town. She was a lunch lady for a while, but she ended up retiring. She was also very active in the tiny church there, as mentioned, by making sweets and other food items for parties and ceremonies. She also made what she called a care package, which included long-life food items like canned goods, boxed meals, juices, etc., as well as small necessities, like small travel bottles of soaps and band-aids. She always included a card with a different Bible passage on each one, and she would drive them over to the forbidden neighborhood and hand them out.

I remember my dad saying that she was crazy for it because they could easily overpower her and kill her. But she didn't see it that way. She brought them food and water and treated them like everyone else. They loved it. I remember one time my mom actually went with her and was telling me that when they saw Carol, one guy put out his cigarette,

dusted off his shirt and hands so he could hug her. He even helped pass out the gift baskets. My mom said that she even got worried at one point because one of them said something inappropriate and the guy helping had this raging look in his eyes and he just smacked him on the head and told him to apologize to them. But Carol never had a concern being around them. She was always fine with them and even stayed

and tried playing with the kids. Carol really made a difference to them, which makes this whole situation even stranger. I was in middle school at the time. The school year was almost over, and next year I would be going to high school. I was planning on going to Carol's when I got home because she agreed to help me make treats

for our school graduation that was going to be that Friday. I got home, grabbed some of the ingredients that we had bought, so not to use up hers, I told my mom I was going and headed over to her place. When I got there, I noticed that her gate was open. She had a beautiful front yard. She loved gnomes, and they were all over the place, and different poses, different sizes, and she was quite proud of it.

But I also know that she always kept the gate closed, because she would let Prince run around while she was working. working on her yard. So I found that strange, but still a kid, so the thought didn't stay long. I got up to the door and knocked, and I waited as I looked around. When she didn't come to the door, I rang the doorbell. Maybe I was being impatient, but I remember it feeling like I waited forever. After a while, I tried the door, and it was locked, so I carefully.

walked to the back to make sure I didn't step on any flowers, and I noticed that the door was cracked open. I knew it wasn't okay to go into someone's house without permission, so I yelled for her. I called for her a few times, and I even called for Prince because he always came running to the door. Now, even as a kid, this seemed very off, and I started getting scared. So, I was a I left all my supplies sitting on her porch, and I ran home to tell my mom. She thought maybe she was just in the bathroom or fell asleep and forgot to shut her door, so she called her. When she didn't answer, my mom and I drove back over there.

She told me to stay on the front porch, and she went around the back. After several minutes, she came back to me with my supplies and told us that we needed to go home. Once I was home, I wasn't really told much, but I do remember her telling me to go to the kitchen to make my treats. And that's about when the police showed up. My mom went outside to talk to them, and then they left. I found out after a while that Carol was missing. My mom tried not to scare me, but at least tell me what was going on. She said when she went in there,

neither Carol nor Prince were anywhere to be found, and she wanted to make sure that she was okay, so she called the police. Not only our home, but the entire town was affected by this. It wasn't the same. There were many rumors, some hateful comments,

and some flat-out crazy conspiracies. This was over 20 years ago, and Carol still has not been found. As I got older, my parents explained to me more as to what happened, and I would get little bits of information from people still living there. My mom explained that when she went in, her TV was on and the kitchen table still had a bowl of oatmeal sitting on it. Her medication was also sitting next to her breakfast,

but hadn't been taken for that day. It was one of those weekly pillboxes. Now, I remind you, we noticed this after I got off of school, so around three or four. Way past the time that she would have taken her meds and eaten breakfast. She said that Princess Food Bowl was either empty or knocked over, which, that bowl was never empty, and that her purse was sitting open on her bed. My mom knew pretty quickly that something was wrong because she didn't leave home without her purse. And when she was home, it was always sitting on her kitchen table.

The fact that it was in her bedroom and open was not right. I heard from a lot of people that the police couldn't find any evidence, such as a break-in, no blood. nothing else seemed disturbed, but they definitely felt there was foul play. A lot of people accuse the addicts, including my father, which is possible. Maybe someone was high and thought they could get money out of her or something, but I didn't feel the same way. She was the only person that didn't see them as less of a person. She tried helping them, and they seemed like they had a lot of respect

for her too. I get some people are just unstable and unpredictable, but I think they were just as shaken up. But that didn't stop them from being harassed and interrogated, I heard. The only thing that ever gave us hope, but also tore us down more, was a few years after her disappearance. My mom told me when I came home from high school,

there was a group of women that got together to play bunko at night, and as one of them was leaving, she heard barking. When she finally saw where it was coming from, she noticed it was a small gray dog that looked malnourished and in need of a bath. She brought the dog back inside the home when she started realizing he looked just like Prince. Surprisingly, she confirmed it when she called him by his name and he responded. So here's Carol's dog. Alive, covered in dirt, oil and starving.

But definitely alive. It had given us hope for a while that Carol may have been close and even alive, but then people feared that if Prince was alone, that would mean something bad had happened as she would never leave him. It's still a mystery to our little town. but I had to move out after graduating. Not only did I need to relocate in order to get any kind of career, but that was all anyone ever talked about.

I miss her, as she was like a grandmother to me, but hearing about it day in and day out takes a toll on you. I hope we get closure one day, but I also don't want to hear that they found her in any condition other than happily making blankets and cookies and seclusion. So, thinking back, I actually have a story from back when I was a delivery driver for a certain sandwich shop that pretty much doesn't exist anymore. And while there are certainly people out there that won't think of this as creepy, it was certainly messed up and skeevy. It's one of those stupid memories that you wish you could get out of your head, but will not leave.

and when you least expect it, bam, instant re-visualization of the situation. And it was not a situation that I want to be reminded of frequently. So, as stated, I worked at a certain sandwich shop that was known for making their sandwiches toasty, as they would put it. Unfortunately, they don't really exist anymore, or at least nowhere near how they used to,

I was 18 when I worked there and was basically the second in command to the manager, mostly because I'd been there for two years, which made me the longest employee at the time, aside from him. Unfortunately, being what was basically the assistant manager meant that when corporate told us we were going to do something experimental, I got put on the lead for it. In this instance, we were told that we were told that we were, were going to start doing deliveries during what was essentially the dinner hours.

Because of this, we would need a delivery driver, and he said he intended to hire one, but until then I had to do the deliveries during my shift, and he would do them on the days that I was off. I was honestly not happy with this, but since it was so new and wasn't even being advertised yet, it was most likely going to just be people that knew about the location and regulars. Because of that, I was a little more okay with it, but still annoyed. Anyways, after a couple of weeks doing deliveries, it became pretty clear that the manager was in no rush to hire a real delivery driver. So, I was going to be stuck doing it,

and I pretty much just accepted that it was my job at the job. that point. And again, most of them were fine. That is, until my manager decided that we didn't have enough deliveries, and put flyers on every car in his apartment rental complex, and every car in the parking lot of our shared strip mall. Basically, he went hardcore on advertising the deliveries as much as he could, and it resulted in us having more than we could handle. and in places that we had never gone. This was obviously a mess, and it really pissed me off, but it's also what led to this delivery that, I guess, stuck with me.

The delivery started just like every other one that I'd gone on, except it was to the rental complex where my manager lived, which was basically the absolute farthest we would ever go for a delivery. The delivery comes in, I roll my eyes angrily and I make the sandwich. Then I tell the other two co-workers that I would be back in about half an hour, and if another delivery called in, tell them it would be a while. I get in my car, and I drive out to what is probably one of the darkest rental complexes I have literally ever been to.

I spend several minutes trying to figure out which townhome this guy lives in, until I managed to spot his number on what is probably the darkest corner of the entire property. To add to this, he didn't have his porch light on, and it didn't look like there were any lights on inside. I hesitantly park my car in front of his building and just sit there, staring. The main thought going through my mind being that I was about to be robbed. It was way too dark and desolate. looking for this to go normal. After a couple of seconds, I just sighed and got out of my car, and then I walked up to his door

and knocked. After knocking, I turned to look back out into the parking lot to make sure there's no one sneaking up on me. I just kind of stood there awkwardly and stared off into the nearly empty lot for longer than I was comfortable with before knocking a second time. This time there was a response to my knocking. I heard a guy's voice say, Who is it?

To which I said, I'm with the sandwich place. You ordered food for delivery? He then responds, asking, How old are you? This question was weird. I just responded saying that I was there to deliver his food and that was all. He pushed again and asked if I was at least over 18.

I really wanted out of this situation, so I just said yes, hoping he would move on. Then he replies with, Oh, come on in then, which is not something I expected, nor wanted to hear. I politely informed him that I just needed him to take the order since he had already paid for it, and I would be good to go. He then again says that I should just come on in so he didn't have to get up. It was at this point that I was legitimately livid. I wasn't going to risk my life and blindly walk into someone else's house,

just so this guy could be lazy and not get off his ass for a damn sandwich. I respond as firmly as I could without being rude, that I could not enter his home and that I needed to get back to the store. I then said that if he did not want to get up, I could leave the bag on the porch for him to get at his last. leisure, but I would not be entering his home. Within a second of me saying this, the door opens and it got worse. The guy that answered was standing there and staring at me with a big grin on his face

and was completely naked, wearing nothing but a baseball cap and his socks. Obviously, I jumped. I didn't expect to see some dude in the bus. come to the door for his sandwich, much less one with such a creepy stare on his face. I turned to look away, and I pushed his food order for him to just take it so we could end the ordeal as quickly as possible. This guy then reaches out and seriously caresses my hand with his, and then says, Oh, come on, no need to be shy. You sure you don't want to come on in?

I seriously almost puked as soon as he said this. I more or less shoved the bag at him and turned, making a mad dash to my car. When I started my car and my headlights kicked on, all I could see was him in all of his horrifying glory, standing in the doorframe and laughing at me. I pulled out and I drove back to the street. store as quickly as I could. As I was driving, it hit me even harder about how pushy he was for me to come inside.

The whole thing just made my skin crawl. When I got back to the store, I called my manager and I informed him of the situation. I expected him to be livid that this happened, much more so that the fact that this guy was practically his neighbor. Much to my surprise. I got nothing more than, well, if he didn't hurt you, then we can't do anything about it. I then asked that he be blacklisted from the deliveries,

seeing as how he had pretty much attempted to do something, and if nothing else, this was indecent exposure. To that, he said, I can't really blacklist him, so just be more careful next time. And as soon as he told me that I needed to be more careful, I told him to find another assistant manager and that I quit. I hung up, put my hat, apron, and store keys on the desk in the back, and I left. I only went back to get my last check, and I didn't even say anything extra to the manager.

I was genuinely disgusted that this happened, and also angry and hurt that my manager did not seem to care. It just pains me to think that if I were a little more not. naive, a year younger, maybe a bit less observant of my surroundings, I may have thought that it was okay to go into this guy's house. And then, who knows what would have happened to me? I've been a driver for the same company for several years now, and I've definitely had some weird run-ins between people, locations, and maybe even the unexplained. Here are a few that stand out for me. When I have to stop to sleep, I'll try to stop in an open or empty parking lot instead of an actual truck stop. Usually, in those of businesses that have been closed, so there's no chance of traffic blocking me in or making it difficult for me to leave.

Word of advice, if you see a semi parked in the back of a lot, don't be an ass and park next to them. Like I said, it just makes it easier and there's less traffic in those. Also, doing this, I don't normally have to worry about people coming up to my truck. So, on one trip, I pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be an old circuit city building and prepared to sleep for the night. I had just called my wife to tell her that I was going to sleep and headed to the back for the night. I fell asleep as normal, but the waking up part was when it got weird. As I started waking up, I was hearing cars driving by, which was odd since I was in a lot,

and they sounded like they were going pretty fast instead of just passing through slowly. So I got up, I looked out the window, and realized I was on the side of the road, not in a parking lot. I got out of my truck and noticed there were a few cop cars around me, too. They came up kind of smirking and asking if I was okay. To which I responded that I was, but just confused as to where I was. I was worried at first thinking,

did I sleep drive or something? But they did explain to me what had happened. Apparently, while I was sleeping in the back, someone decided to take my rig for a spin. I had left the doors unlocked because it's never been an issue before, but they got in, and they started driving off. Two problems with this, though. Apparently, the guy didn't know how to drive a manual, so the truck wasn't moving too fast, and a cop that was behind me noticed it was drifting into another lane, so he tried pulling it over.

Another thing to note was that I snore, a lot, and loudly. The guy heard me and started freaking out even more, so he tried to stop the truck and take off out the passenger side in an attempt to confuse the police. They did catch him, and he explained all of this, but they didn't even know that he wasn't the owner until I got out of the truck. My wife likes to tease me about my snoring now, but I also say that it probably saved my life.

Now I make sure to lock my doors, no matter where I stay. Another time, something had broken on my truck, and I had to get it fixed, and quickly. Unfortunately, the closest place wouldn't have the part for a few days, unless I went to a local mechanic that didn't sell the parts individually, as they had to be the ones to install it, making me have to pay for the parts and the labor. I didn't have the money for something like that, and I had expressed this to the person at the shop

who said that was the only option that they could give me. I told them I would think it over, and I start heading back out to my truck. As I'm walking back, there was a lady that was hollering at me, so I stopped to see what she wanted. I noticed that she was in the shop at the same time as me, so maybe she overheard our conversation and had a suggestion.

She confirmed this, and I explained that I could replace the part myself. I just needed to buy it. She said she had ways to get a little extra money to those in need like this. I know the price of the part in labor was going to probably be twice, if not triple the amount I was expecting to pay, so I would not expect charity from a stranger for that amount. so I started to tell her it was okay and that I would figure something out. Then she stopped me and said,

Really, it's no big deal. Anyone can do it and it's nothing illegal. So I thought, fine, let me see what she is suggesting. Maybe she has a job or something I can do real quick. Then she asked me if I had two kidneys. I'm sure the look on my face had to see. say it all as she giggled slightly and said, I'm serious, you can get good money for it, like donating blood.

I asked her out of confusion if there was a hospital nearby that was just openly taking kidneys or something, and she said, not a hospital, but we do have a facility that can have you in and out pretty quickly. This freaked me out, so I just said no thanks. I think I figured something out. or something along those lines, and I briskly walked back to my truck. I sat in the truck for a bit and called my wife to try to figure out what to do,

and I noticed this chick had not left yet. It had been at least an hour, and she was still there. It started freaking me out a bit, so I did something I probably shouldn't have, and rigged the part up to work enough to get me to the next city that had the part that I needed. My wife called a few places for me to find it as I drove so I could get out of there, because who knows if she was serious and if she was serious enough to try and get one of my kidneys by force. I didn't know that was a thing that people just tried to solicit around here, but... Well, now I know.

I've been working as a gas station attendant for quite a while, somewhere close to 10 years. mostly because I have a record, and I had some demons in my past that made me struggle with living a normal life. That said, I am clean and healthy again, but working at my local station has been almost therapeutic. It's not a terribly difficult job. It's not overly demanding. The pay is enough for what I need, and I get to talk to various. people that I both want and don't want to know. That and I just get to do my job and not be bothered with too much. And it's kind of tough to get fired. The more I talk about it, the more I realize I really do like this job, which may sound weird, but I'm kind of weird myself.

Anyways, all that aside, I've been doing this for a long. long time, like I said, and I haven't had too much happen that's been too terribly crazy. We were robbed once, when I wasn't working, and the police were there within literal seconds. The guy got shot, but survived. And after that, we were pretty much never hit again. We actually still have a bullet hole in the back wall from where one of the officers' rounds hit. It's a good conversation piece for the newbies at the very least. It's a good way to say to them, Look, this isn't the safest job in the world, and stuff happens.

But you're more likely to get attacked walking out in the streets than you are behind the thick plastic that we have between ourselves and the customers. So, all that aside, let's get into the one major event that made me dislike this job just a little bit. It's less of a scary story, and more like an unsettling event-slash-situation to be put in. Plus, it kind of messed with my head, to be honest. It all started on a Thursday night, which is not a busy night for our station. We usually get around 70% of our foot traffic Friday through Sunday, so I was pretty tired and bored with the night.

Anyways, we get a customer that walks in the door, and I immediately knew it was going to be a problem. This guy looked incredibly familiar to me, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he recognized me. For most people, that wouldn't be an issue. For me, that meant that he was probably a druggie and that I most likely knew him from back when I was a user. Based on his appearance, which I know you really shouldn't do, he was a user. When you work in retail, and when you know those kinds of people, you tend to watch them to make sure they aren't shoving things in their pockets. I was watching this guy like a hawk, keeping my eye on him and on the camera screens.

To my surprise, he didn't do anything bad. He didn't take anything. He just grabbed some chips, candy, a red bull, and a few other things. Then he walked up to the counter and gave me a mostly toothless smile. Being as polite as I could, I asked how he was that evening, just trying to make small talk and keep it shallow. He tells me that he is doing all right. I start scanning his items, and then I turn to tell him his total,

and he smacks the counter with his hand. making me jump. As soon as he does, he shouts, Wait a minute. Daniel, I knew I recognized you, Danny. How you been, man? Which, again, was something I was hoping wouldn't happen. I've been clean for a long time.

I've avoided these kinds of people for years and have been trying to keep myself on the straight and narrow. I told him I was doing good, and that I was just chugging along, keeping clean and working hard. He laughed and told me that he was trying to stay off the junk and that it was really hard. I agreed. I told him that it takes time and a lot of willpower, but it's worth it. I told him that ever since I stopped using, life became more clear,

and I realized what kind of damage I was doing to myself. I knew it was probably preachy, but I was hopeful that I could get him to see that being clean was important. After a bit more of me trying to convince him that being clean was worth it, and even mentioning and giving him the name of a great rehab center in the area, he literally asks me if I know where he can score some heroin. I just paused, and I stared at him. My jaw clenched and my eyes half-closed. He realized that he had just asked someone that had been clean for years where to get drugs.

I know he realized this because he said he was sorry and out of line, which should have been enough, but honestly, he hit a nerve. I didn't say much more to him. I just finished bagging his stuff and told him to have a good night, in a manner that could be seen as cold. I felt bad, but at the same time, you don't ask a former addict, one that worked hard to get clean, if they can help you score a hit. You just don't do it. After he left, I kind of just forgot about him.

I moved on with my night. We had a few more customers, but overall, the night was pretty standard. I rang up everyone, stocked the shelves when I could, and pretty much just killed the hours, cleaning, and so forth. About four or five hours later, my second person came in for the end of my shift, so I could go ahead and start doing the outdoor cleaning, trash pumps, and cleaning up the lot. Anyways, Jay gets in, he clocks in. I run the count on the register and put it in the book in the back. I then inform him that I'm going to take out the trash, so he takes over the register.

I get all the bags ready, and I head out to the back towards where the dumpster is. I throw the first bag in, and... The sound seems off. It sounded like there was something in the dumpster. It may sound really dumb, But after doing this for damn near a decade, there are patterns and things like that that sort of click in your head. They empty the dumpster midday around here on Thursdays, so it should have been empty. And the trash bags usually make a decent thump in an empty dumpster.

This time, it didn't. It sounded like it hits something soft at the bottom. My first thought was, maybe they just... didn't pick up the trash earlier, which would have been an issue, as the owner pays extra for that service. I sighed. I put my foot up on the rung,

and I hopped up to look in the dumpster, and then I see him. The guy that came in to the store a few hours prior. The guy that asked me where he could get some heroin, was lying on the bottom of the dumpster and was clearly blitzed out of his mind. He even still had the cloth around his arm. I was livid.

This guy had seriously jumped in our dumpster to shoot up. He seriously had the audacity to do this after everything I had said to him. I threw the second bag off to the side and went back into the store. I then told Jay to call the cops. I told him that some junkie had shot up in the dumpster and passed out, and that we needed the cops and probably a paramedic. He called 911. I told him to wait out front for the cops and that I would take over the store until then.

He did as I asked. I called the boss to let them know what was going on, and he said he would be there in about 30 minutes. This whole time, I'm just fuming at the fact that I told this guy, this guy that I knew from back when I was hooked on drugs, all about how I got clean, how life was worth it, and how he should look into getting help. And I even gave him the name of the facility I went through, and then he felt it was okay to go get trashed in our trash.

My anger was, best way to put it, short-lived when the paramedics showed up. I expected them to just pull him out, wheel him up on the stretcher, and get him to the ER. Then, I noticed that, with the stretcher, they pulled out one of those plastic body bags. My rage immediately shifted to a deep sense of pity. Jay came back in with the boss and one of the officers, and they asked questions, obviously. I told them that he came in earlier and bought some stuff and that we chatted. I told them that I actually recognized him from back when I was an addict. but that I was clean and hadn't seen him for at least ten years prior.

They then informed me that they found the candy and a half-empty bag of chips on his person, along with a card that I had written the number for the rehab facility on. They also informed me that he pretty much, for certain, died of an overdose. Then he probably just overdid it and passed out, then didn't wake up. honestly, this is a terrible situation. And while I was upset that he went and did that, I was just as depressed over the fact that I was probably the last person this guy talked to. I know that there was nothing more that I could have done,

and I feel like had this guy woken up in the morning and saw the card with the number when he was sober, he might have gone and gotten help. Of course, we'll never know, and it really will never know, and it really does haunt me that had I not gotten clean when I did, that could have been me in that situation. I do feel bad that he passed away, but users all know the risk when they push that needle in. I really honestly do hope that he found peace on the other side.

I have been a driver for both Uber and Lyft in the past, since around the time I turned 20, and I've honestly loved it. It's been a fantastic way to make extra money when I needed it, and I love the whole work when you want thing that they have going on. Yes, I know I sound like a walking advertisement.

Trust me, I'm not. While it is a great way to make extra cash if you have a good car and live in a good area, there are absolutely some really messed up people out there. That's the biggest issue I have with working with these services. Most of the time, I would say around 99.99% of the time, you get normal people that just need a quick ride to wherever it is that they're going. Then, that 0.01 comes along and makes you see,

seriously second to guess everything in life. This story involves that 0.01, that tiny bit of the population that terrifies the living hell out of me. The story is actually one of the reasons I stopped driving for a while. I have since gone back to doing it, but I think you'll get why I decided to take a break by the end. I remember that this was one of those ride pings that I would look forward to. Those ones where you get the message saying that there's a rider nearby, and that their destination is a good distance from where they are. I like these ones.

You get to enjoy the ride, maybe have some small talk, and get paid an all right amount to do so. I accepted the ride and headed over to the house where I saw that he was standing outside. I rolled down the window and told him that I was John, his driver. He nodded and then got into the back seat. He buckled in and just kind of stared at the back of the seat that was in front of him. At first, I thought maybe he looked tired, and that would make sense because it was late in the afternoon and I was a bit drained myself.

I started in on my small talk routine. basically just talking about random things like how the day was going. When I asked him how his day was, he seemed to flinch a bit and told me that he wasn't having the best day. I apologized and asked him if he wanted to vent anything, basically saying that therapy sessions were a free perk of using Uber. You'd be surprised how many people open up when they think about the fact that you'll like never see them again. He just shook his head and told me that he didn't want to talk about it.

So, I moved on to my last attempt, which was basically just mentioning any small detail to get him thinking. He was heading to another house on the other side of town, over in a neighborhood that I personally knew, so I said as much. Oh, hey, you're going off over road name. I know that area. I used to have a friend that lived over there. It's a really nice part of town.

She used to take her dog over to the dog park because they don't require a leash. After I finished my statement, he just nodded and kept staring out into space. It was then that I noticed that he was clenching his jaw really hard, that his eyes looked bloodshot and that he just seemed out of it. We pulled up to a stop sign, and I stopped and glanced back at my passenger. Hey, I just need to check and make sure you're okay to be out here. You look like you're in pain or that something is seriously wrong.

I know this may sound incredibly annoying, but I'm not going to be that driver that lets some injured person get out of my car and then die because I didn't speak up. If you need to go to the hospital, I'll take you there. We can just get the charge for the ride canceled. I just want to make sure that you're okay. He didn't even look up at me. He just started shaking like he had the chills and continued staring off into space.

Hey man, I won't report you or get you in trouble. I just need to make sure that you're okay and that you're not on some sort of substance. This is for my safety right now. I'm willing to help you in any way you need me to. When I said this, he finally glanced over to me and actually looked me in the eyes. He said he was fine, just that he was stressed and had had a really bad day, that he needed to get home.

In the end, I had to accept this answer. I couldn't force him to go to the hospital, but I was still concerned. I told him that if he changed his mind at any point during the rest of the ride, I would take him to get help at no charge. He said thank you, and I pulled back onto the road and kept going. The ride was silent for quite a while. I think we were about three-quarters of the way to his destination when he asked me if I could stop.

I did. I pulled over when I could and asked if he wanted me to take him to the hospital now. Then, he surprised me and said, No, I need you to take me to the police station. At this point, I was starting to wonder if this poor kid was the victim of a crime, or if something happened at his original place. I asked if we needed to call 911, or if he just wanted me to drive him there, and he said to just drive.

I canceled the trip and made a mental note to call support and explain the situation to them after the fact. Then I opened maps to get to the closest station. When I got back on the road, I told him, Hey, I went ahead and canceled the ride. You'll get a refund for it. I'll contact support and let them know that this was on me, so they don't think that you did something wrong. He then replied with,

I killed my mother. Obviously, this caught me off guard. I assumed that I misheard him and I said, I'm sorry? I murdered my mother. I strangled her because she pissed me off. She made me mad, so I killed her. I want to turn myself in.

As he said this, I could see his tears starting to well up, and my heart was seriously pounding. I nodded and told him that we were on the way to the station and that he was doing the right thing. clearly he was not stable at this point in time and I didn't want to antagonize him or make him second-guess talking to the cops as you can imagine the entire time we were driving to the station after that I was watching him in the mirror I pulled up as close to the door of the station as I could

he said thank you and got out and then walked in I pulled into one of the the spots and I kind of just sat there. After a few minutes, one of the officers came out to talk to me, which I partially expected. They asked me if I knew the kid. I told them that I literally picked him up as an Uber and that I was just taking him to another house, and then he told me that he wanted me to drive him here and that he had murdered his mother. I told them that I had no idea who he was.

I gave them the address of where I picked him up and where he was going. I showed them in the app all the proof I could just to show that I was only an Uber driver and not an accomplice or anything like that. My worry was that they weren't going to believe me, and they were going to charge me as aiding a murderer. But they let me go when they were satisfied. And you can bet your ass, I called support, and I spoke to them. about this whole thing. I don't really know what I expected them to do, but I felt like I needed to tell them about it

just in case the police contacted them. In the end, I have no idea what happened to the kid. I have no idea if he was telling the truth, and I have no clue what went on after I left the station. Honestly, I kind of... of prefer it that way. In my 45 years on this earth,

I've kind of been everywhere throughout the continental U.S. Most people would refer to me as a drifter. I like to look at myself as more of an adventurer. I've never locked myself down to one place, and I've always lived my life to the fullest extent that I could while enjoying the sights and scenery that most people ignore. I know that most people don't have the ability to do what I do with my time, but I have enough money to live, and I seriously enjoy not being chained to any one location.

I've hiked and backpacked and camped pretty much in every state, but I'm partial to the West Coast more than anything. It has some of the most beautiful untouched wilderness that's out there. I've spent some of my favorite nights camping in the woods up near Montana all by myself. And that said, if you spend enough time in the woods by yourself, you are absolutely bound to find something weird. There was one trip in particular that sticks out in my mind that is worth talking about. On one of my camping trips, I found a perfect area of woods that was comfortable and empty. Well, I thought it was empty, until I got about a quarter or a half mile into the woods,

and found what appeared to be an abandoned community. That might not be the right word, but by it I mean there were small houses just outside of the tree line in a completely secluded and surrounded area. This was a place that houses seriously had no business being, yet here they were. I admit, I checked out the small community, and again, I'm only using that word because I cannot think of a better way to describe it. It wasn't a town or a village. It was just four houses that looked old as hell and run down sitting inside of a forest clearing. Behind one of the houses was a small playground that looked legitimately run down,

like there hadn't been a child to play on the equipment in a couple of decades. The climbing equipment and the monkey bars were nothing more now than a tetanus nightmare. The merry-go-round thing, or whatever you call it, it didn't go around whatsoever. The center part of it was completely rusted and seized in place. There were a handful of toys that were strewn around the playground area, but they were all broken or sunbleached. At this point, I had decided in my mind that this place was, likely, sufficiently abandoned,

and I went to check out one of the houses next. I went to the house next door, and I peered in through the back door window. Despite the window being dirty and there being a curtain, I could see that there was, in fact, still furniture in the house. I could see part of a living room, and from where I was, there was a chair, an old couch, and an old CRT television that was sitting in the corner of the room. Then I did the illegal thing that I probably shouldn't have, and I broke into the house.

I say broken, but I just more so walked in. The back door was unlocked. The first room in the door was what appeared to be a mudroom, with a washer and dryer in it. There was a half-empty box of detergent sitting on the washer and some dryer sheets on the dryer, but nothing too crazy in this room. Then I walked into the kitchen area where the door led,

and honestly that's where it got a bit strange. The cabinets were all closed, but as I opened them, they were full. There was a pantry that was filled with old-looking canned foods. There were dishes in the strainer next to the sink, but none in the sink itself. There was a dining room table that had places set with a vase that had plastic flowers in the middle. Nothing about it really screamed abandoned, other than the significant layer of dust on everything. I pushed on into the house, and it all just got weirder by the room.

There were pictures on the walls, photos, and... What looked like paintings on canvas that looked like they were hand-done. The bedrooms all had beds that were made, and there were clothes in the dressers. On top of that, there was a laundry basket in the hallway that had clothing in it. Now, I understand to some people that this may not sound weird or creepy, but all of the houses in that area were similar to this one, in that they were furnished and full of random belongings, but they were also a bit messy and fully coated in dust and dirt.

It was completely clear that they were all abandoned. These houses were not in use, and they hadn't been for quite a long time. The dishes by the sink in the first house tells me that whoever lived here probably left in the hurry, or at least with expectation of coming back. These houses were completely abandoned, and they were abandoned in a hurry. The people that left, they left all of their belongings, their food, their furniture, etc. I have no idea why anyone would have done that, and I can't think of any scenario where someone would have to leave their homes permanently in that state.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'm open to hearing them. Like a lot of other people in this country, I have to depend on Uber and Lyft and other ride services to get from point A to point B anytime I don't have someone that I can ride with. Well, most others out there use the services because they're convenient

and easier than calling a taxi. I use them because I actually have to. I have no choice. I was unfortunately diagnosed with very serious epilepsy, and as such, I'm actually restricted from ever getting my license. Something about being a high risk and possibly having a seizure while driving. Apparently the state looks down on people that may hurt themselves or someone else because they started seizing on the highway. As such, using these services has been a godsend. I don't have to sit at home and wait for my boyfriend to come home to go anywhere,

or have to call my parents and ask if they have the time to come and get me, just so I can go to the store to get some avocados for dinner. They've seriously changed my life, and I am beyond grateful for them. That said, not all of my rides have been perfect. Most of the time I put it in the app, I get the people that show up at my door, and I get in the car. Most of the time, there aren't any issues, and most of the time, it's just a matter of making sure that I have enough money to pay them.

I will seriously say that almost all of the drivers I've dealt with have been nothing short of amazing. They're fast, dependable, and I'll sometimes explain to them that I do have a medical issue that makes me, unable to drive. Usually, when they hear that, they loosen up and realize I'm not just some girl that doesn't want to drive myself. Now, all of my praise for this wonderful service is one thing, but, like I said, it's not always perfect.

Sometimes, you get drivers that are straight up rude, or just not talkative. I can typically deal with the one. ones that don't want to talk. It's whatever. In the end, they're there to do their job and nothing more. That's fine. But when they get rude for no reason, that I do have an issue with. I'll rate them low and pretty much just move on. That is, I'll accept this one driver that this story is about. This happened probably about a year or something. so ago. I think it was late 2019, because it was definitely before we all had to spend a year

inside, but not by much. It was one of those days where my boyfriend was at work. I didn't want to bother my sister or parents, and I needed to go to the store for various things. For the most part, just like any other day, I loaded up my app and I put in for a ride. I marked the local supermarket, and it said that my driver, Manney, was on the way. Great, no problem. Everything was working as it was supposed to. Then, Mani pulled up in a not very well taken care of Nissan sedan. And I'm not one to judge people, honestly.

I know that some people can't afford new cars, and he may have just been doing this to make ends meet for whatever reason, but this car kind of looked like it was coming close to the end of its life. The paint was peeling, the rear passenger-side tire was half low. There were more issues, but in the end, I just said whatever and got in. I needed to get to my store. It was only about a 10-minute drive at most, and I could just call for a new driver when I needed to get back home. In the end, if the car got...

got me to where I needed to go, then I would be happy. As soon as I got in, I noticed that this guy was just staring at me. Like, intently, staring at me. I tried to smile in an attempt to maybe break the tension, but he just kept his face focused and his eyes wide open. After I got situated in the back seat,

I looked up and, sure enough, he was still staring at me. It was at this point that I realized this guy looked like he hadn't slept in a couple months. His eyes were sunken in, the skin around them was bluish, and his face looked dry and tight. Again, not one to judge, but he was clearly either not well or on something. But, once again, me being the self-contained and fairly small woman that I am, I just kind of nodded and asked if he knew the best route to the store. His response was, the phone will tell me where to go.

And then, he slowly shifted his gaze forward. He starts pulling forward back onto the road, slowly, and he glances back at me again, and asks me my name. I gave a slight smile and I told him that my name was Ashley. It didn't click until after the ride that the app would have told him my name, and he should have known it. He nodded slowly and started to make that weird noise people make whenever they suck on their teeth. Followed by a bit of a low grumbling sound.

I reflexively asked him if he was okay, and he seriously said no. It was around this time that I was certain that I was about to die. This whole trip, the whole four minutes and less than half a mile of it, more honestly enough to make my stomach turn and my skin crawl. I grabbed my bag and put my hand in it, gripping my mace and just holding on to it just in case. He turns on to one of the main roads, making the turn as slow as he possibly could, and then looks back again. Are you religious, Ashley? I sheepishly replied, not particularly.

And he laughed at my response, and then slightly shook his head. You should be. He nodded as he started talking again. You should be, Ashley. You should be. You need to be. I think I just replied with, Okay. He glared in the mirror again and started back up.

No, it's not okay. You don't know what's coming. His tone was seriously freaky at this point. Big things are going to happen. And you need to repent, Ashley. You need to beg forgiveness. And you need to repent. Repent for everything you've done in this life and every past life that got you to this point.

Mind you, at this point, he was already driving around 20 and a 35, and repeatedly glancing back up in the mirror at me. Ashley, tell me that you're sorry for what you've done. Repent to me, Ashley. I, um, I'm... Sorry for everything that I've done. I just kind of felt like if I did what he asked, I might make it through this ride. Good.

That's good, Ashley. Now that you start to repent, you can beg for forgiveness when it matters. It was at this point that he pulled the car over toward a sidewalk and looked back at me again. I started to reach for the door handle. But he shouted at me to stop, and I jumped when he did. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate,

and I was definitely in a state of panic. He then said that we needed to say a prayer, and that he would let me go on with my day after that. Once again, I just nodded, and I looked down, waiting for him to say what he needed to say. To our dear father, I beg of you, forgive Ashley for she knows not what is to come. Her soul is clean.

She means well and she deserves the love of you and all those that watch over us. I beg of you, Father, accept Ashley's request for forgiveness. Allow her to ascend when you return. I beg of you, Father, accept Ashley's love into your heart as she has started to accept your love into hers. She has been reached. She has begun her first steps down the path to your paradise, and I beg of you, Father, please, show her the way. Amen.

By this point I was starting to cry and felt like I was about to pass out. I said amen and then said thank you to him. Yes, I seriously thanked him at that moment because I had no idea what was going to happen. Surprisingly, the answer is nothing. He hit the unlock button and told me that I could go. I opened the door, he told me to have a blessed day and drove off. This whole ordeal was around ten minutes,

and he hadn't taken me more than a couple blocks down the way. My only thoughts were, How the hell did I not get murdered just then, and what the hell just happened? Obviously, I contacted Uber support to report this, but I have no idea what ended up happening. They didn't inform me that they were going to take action against him, and I'm pretty sure he rated me as a five-star passenger. The only thing that I ended up with was a refund of the trip because he was unable to get me to my destination. I have no idea what happened to Mani, the apocalyptic preacher, for whoever the hell has.

his father was, but I hope to never, ever run into him again. My daughter is weird. I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. She does normal kid things and plays weird made-up games and has nonsensical jokes. I love her to death and the things that she comes up with, but sometimes it's hard to know when she's serious or still playing around. One morning, she woke me up and said someone was tapping on her window, and she looked scared. I thought she was joking around at first, until I started focusing and realizing how serious she looked.

So I got up to go look, and she had a stupid wind-up toy that flaps its arms like it's flying, sitting next to the window making it tap it. The grin on her face when she saw me turn around with it in my hand was enough to make me laugh, too. This is just to show you how playful she can be, and why this really alarmed me. So, she started to come up with imaginary friends. I say imaginary because it's your normal stuff. I see her playing in her room, and she talks like, someone else is in the room with her.

Our rooms are right across from each other, so while I was in my room putting laundry away and getting ready for bed, I heard her play into the conversation. It got weird. One of her dolls died, I guess, and she grabbed another one saying something about getting it to live again. So, as I'm listening, she's explaining to her friend that she lets her dolls relive since she got to do the same.

She then said that her old name was Rebecca, and that she didn't like her old mommy, but she forgave her. I thought this was weird. Maybe it was a weird game, but I walked into her room and asked her who she was talking to. She said it was her friend, Lily. and I tried playing dumb and said, Oh, I thought you said Rebecca. She just kind of looked down shyly and said, no. So I dropped it for then, thinking it was just a make-believe thing.

A few days later, I picked her up early from school for a doctor's appointment. Afterwards, I had a few errands to run myself, and since she was so patient and helpful, We decided to stop for ice cream, since she had already had lunch at school. As we were leaving the parking lot and I was helping her buckle in, she hugged my neck and said thank you. It just warms me when she gives me random hugs like that, so I got her all situated and got into the car myself.

As I'm driving home, she said something that confused me at first. She said, you're my favorite mommy. Without thinking much about it, I responded with, Oh yeah? Well, I think I'm your only mommy. And that's when she said,

No, but first mommy wasn't very nice, but I know it wasn't her fault. At this point, I looked up at her in the mirror, and she was looking right at me, and she looked sad. So, I tried pushing a bit more on this, thinking it was some kind of weird game still. I asked her, what mommy is this?

And why wasn't she nice? She honestly looked scared to tell me, like she was going to get in trouble. So, I told her that it was okay and that she could tell me anything and I wouldn't get mad. Part of me was glad that I asked, and part of me was glad that I asked, and part of me regretted it. She would get mad at me for things that you let me do, like play with my friend Lily. So I asked her what she meant by that. She would call me names and yell at me and punish me.

Now, my daughter goes to a public school. I haven't had any issues with them before, and she's never mentioned anything to me about being punished, nor have I ever had reports from them about her being punished. in trouble. The only person that is around her on occasion is my mother, who she does not call mommy or anything like that. So I tried to ask her more about who this other person was and how they punish her, but she said she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

This scared me, as my first thought was, is there something going on at the school that I need to know about? So that night, I tried to see if there were any marks or bruises on her just to be sure, and there weren't any, but I decided I would talk to the school the next day just to double check. So I brought her to the school. She's just as excited to get in as she always is, and she doesn't steer clear from anyone there either. I did get to speak to the teacher, who said that she doesn't have any issues with her.

She's not shy, and she's kind to all the other kids, which makes sense. I told the teacher that she had just said something that caught my attention and that I wanted to double check. I didn't need her calling someone on me or anything, so I let it go for the time being. Sometime that week, she was playing in the living room while I was making dinner, and she was playing and talking to Lily again. and then she mentioned her first mommy again, so I started listening more. She said,

I couldn't hold my breath that long, so I got a new mommy. Something set me off with that one, so I went in there again and asked her about it. I again tried prying who she meant by this first mommy, and I told her that she can trust me, that I won't tell or she won't get in trouble. She started whispering to the air and then looked at me and said,

Lily said I should tell you, so I will. She explained to me that when she would play with her imaginary friend, she would be called names and would be locked in a closet, and that it was very dark and she would be hungry. She also told me something that broke my heart. She said one time that she was caught talking to her friend, and her first mommy shoved her in the bath to clean. her, and that she couldn't hold her breath that long, but she forgave her because she knew that

she was sick too, and now she's got a new name and a new mommy that lets her play with her friends. I just started crying, and I hugged her tight. I told her that she would never be punished for that by me, and she told me not to cry because she was happy now. So, after that, we had dinner, and when she went to bed I was up because I couldn't sleep. I started going through the shows we watch and the games and things that she had on her tablet to see if there was something that could be related to this,

just to see if she was copying something she heard or that she read. However, I found nothing at all. So the only other thing I could do is look up the name Rebecca. I did change this for the family's privacy, for a little girl that may have died. To my horror, I found one, where the mother drowned the daughter thinking that she was a witch, which explains why she went crazy over her talking to herself or her imaginary friends. This also happened before she was even born. I'm not a religious person, but that night, I prayed.

I asked if Rebecca could hear this, that my daughter has now accepted what happened, and forgave her mother and that she could move on. It's been a few years now, and she barely mentions Rebecca's life. I don't know how to explain it, or how to handle it at times, but she usually just brings up the good things that she remembers. We typically leave it alone. though. However, Lily is still around, so now I'm no longer thinking that it's just an imaginary friend, and I'm going to wait to look into that one. This is actually something that happened to my

father while he was a tow truck driver. He did this for a few years, as far back as I can remember, because I was quite young at the time. He worked all different hours, including including on call or overnight. Depending on the time, or if I was awake, sometimes he would let me, my sister, and my mom, ride with him. It was actually a lot of fun. Riding back to the tow lot where they dropped off the vehicles they kept was always a blast, too. There was an older lady that worked there,

and she always had snacks open to us. They also had two junkyard dogs that were sweet as can be. sometimes I would stay up later, when allowed, just to try to go with him. We got to watch him load up the vehicles, and he told us what the different buttons and switches did. Sometimes we even got to go if there was a mild accident, like someone hitting a light pole or something like that. Of course, he's also been called on some pretty bad accidents, too, like when cars flip, or when there are severe injuries or even fatal ones. These, of course, we were never allowed to go on, and I'm thankful for that now.

As I got older, I was talking to him about his experience working there and asked him about some of the worst ones he remembers going to. This one, though, still creeps me out. He said he even remembers telling me and my mom that we couldn't go with because of the situation. There was a convertible, speeding and swerving between the lanes on a highway. It was like a main road and highway because it still had stoplights on it. It was also next to an open field, blocked off by the guardrail and barbed wiring.

Of course, the highway also has warning lights a few miles back to tell you when the light is red, to warn you to start slowing down. Apparently, this guy didn't see those, didn't care or something, and thought he would try to run it. My dad said he doesn't remember if he was racing someone else or just speeding. Sadly, there was a small decline before the intersection, and there was a semi already at the light. This convertible must have hit the decline, got a little air, and before they had to be a small decline. time to react or break, probably because the car was partially airbound, they went under the semi, causing the underside of the semi to act like sandpaper. The scene was not pretty, and they were

already in the process of the cleanup by the time my dad arrived. However, he said they were just pulling out the body, and from the looks of the accident, he could piece it all together. He remembered this one, of course, because of the gruesome details, but also what he saw while trying to load up the vehicle. He mentioned it was taking longer than normal because they had to try to get the car out from underneath the semi and then get the car onto the tow truck. Towards the end, as he was loading up the car,

he felt like he was being watched. So he looked around to see the cops and the other people weren't nearby, and no one was trying to get his attention. attention. Then he looked over towards the field. From there, he saw a figure standing by a tree that appeared to just be watching him. He just stared at him for a minute to see if he was maybe just a bystander, trying to watch what was going on. Unfortunately, you get people like that, going to these scenes to try to get pictures or something. However, my dad noticed he wasn't holding a camera or anything.

Just standing, hands to his side. Once he finished loading up the car, he started walking towards them to see what he was doing. As he got closer, he noticed the person looked like a younger kid, maybe in their teens. He took note of the clothing he was wearing in case it came up in the future, like missing person, someone fleeing from the scene or family, etc. As he continued walking, he says that he got a page, if that tells you how long ago this was, and when he looked up from the pager, the kid was gone.

He looked around to see if he ran off, but he didn't see him anywhere, so he went back to his truck, finished up what he needed to with the authorities, and left. A few days later, he said he heard additional information about the crash and saw a picture of the kid from the accident. To his surprise, the kid he saw in the field looked just like him. He said even the hairstyle and shirt he was wearing was identical. Of course, my mom said he probably saw his ghost, who was trying to piece together what just happened, before he moved on, and that's when he left this world.

My dad, of course, doesn't believe in any of that, so he claims he probably just saw the kid as they were pulling him out and saw what he was wearing and chalked it up to him being tired. I don't know, though. Those scenes have to be gruesome. and maybe even scar some people that would see them, but I'm thinking it was the kid passing over. He had some other more creepy calls that maybe I can ask him about, but this was one that I specifically remembered.

I was lucky enough to work at Walmart for four years. These are a few experiences I've had just from those few years. I started working there in the evenings, usually noon to 9 p.m. or as late as 3 p.m. to midnight. The first one I recall was closer to when I started, which is why it was so memorable. I was a cashier and eventually also worked in customer service, so I was all over the front end. It was my first job, so I took it seriously, and I was proud of it, too. I did a great job, at least according to my review.

I was polite, friendly, and fast at ringing people up. I got a few people that I would call my regulars, some of them that price matched, if that tells you how long ago this was, and extreme couponing. Some of them were definitely unbearable, the ones that are unorganized and nitpicky on the order you ring everything up and bag them, but I dealt with each one as best I could. One lady, though, made it.

to where I cringed any time someone pulled out their binder of coupons afterwards. She came in probably every two weeks with a small child in the basket part of the cart, not in the front where you would normally see a kid. He was holding an old tablet that was not in good condition. The screen was spiderwebbing in one corner. It looked like the plastic frame was splitting apart too, but he was still watching or playing something on it, with the volume on full blast, too.

He hardly looked up from it. His legs were pulled up towards him, probably because he didn't have room, as this did not stop his mom from filling the cart up with the items. Not just dry food, but raw meats and produce, too. The lady was always very organized as she laid her items on the belt. She made sure to tell people behind her she was going to be a while, and they usually just left my lane.

If you reached over to grab a different item, she would flip. She would yell slightly to say, stop or don't! Or give you some kind of lecture about doing items in order, but without ever making eye contact with you. She would keep looking down at the floor or her purse or something. So I learned, and I kept everything in order and bagged as she requested. I never really had any more of an issue. Other than that, so my co-worker teased that I was her favorite.

However, that would soon change. She came in as normal. The kid is covered in food, playing on his tablet. Mom is organizing the items on the belt. I picked up two packs of cookies and the coupon on it, that was a buy-one-get-one, when I noticed the coupon had expired by three days. When I looked up,

I told the woman I wouldn't be able to accept it since it expired, and she yelled, What? And immediately snatched it from my hand. She looked at it, told me I was wrong, and to try it again. I again, apologized, and told her there was nothing to try as it was expired, so we couldn't accept it. She began arguing about what day it was,

telling me that my register obviously had the wrong date. I again had to explain that wasn't possible, and even showed her the date on my phone to prove it. From there, she lost it. She started screaming about how I was incompetent and a liar, and that Walmart's brainwashing had finally gotten to me. At this point, I called for a manager. I'd only been there for around six months,

but this was the most confrontation I had come across, and I didn't know how to handle it. Thankfully, the manager's podium was within my view, so they could see the look on my face and started coming over quickly. When they arrived, she immediately directed her anger to the manager saying I was refusing to take her coupon. I tried explaining the situation to the manager when this lady pulled a steak knife from her purse. My manager immediately called security on the walkies and tried calming her down. She was pointing it at us,

screaming that we were just trying to ruin her and cause her to lose her kids. kid. This whole time, I kid you not, this kid has not looked up once. He continued to play on his tablet. He was not phased at all, which sadly made me feel like he was used to this from her. At this point, the whole store seemed quiet, but her screaming and my manager trying to calm her down. There were people all around recording and taking pictures, which only seemed to make her angrier. after what felt like forever, she tried to run towards my manager with the knife raised when another customer saw this

and bravely tackled her to the ground. The knife slid away from her and my manager put his shoe on it to hold it there. Thankfully, two cops walked in as this was occurring and quickly took over. This whole time, again, the kid has not looked up. The cop actually had to come up

and grab the kid out of the cart before he even looked up. The mom was already outside, but I would expect a kid like him to be crying or scared. But he didn't even ask for his mom. It was actually sad. I don't know what happened to her son, but I think CPS showed up to take the kid. These next two are from my late night shifts. Maybe not necessarily dangerous people, but definitely ones that I wouldn't approach on my own.

This first one is the lady my co-workers nicknamed Gucci Grandma. We called her that, because she always came in around midnight with the flashiest clothes on. Typically, it was a really tight pencil skirt, heels or knee-high boots, and some kind of shirt, and she had to have a dozen of those fuzzy half-jackets. At this point, I swear, I've seen one in each color, some with different patterns or sequins and she had those giant sunglasses on. As I mentioned, it was midnight. Her hair was also a sight.

It was shorter and gray, but it was usually pulled up in a tall bun, think beehive style. Then she always had bright red lipstick and very pink cheeks, like way too much blush. Then in the rare occasion, she takes off her sunglasses. She also has eye shadow on to the extreme. So while her look is pretty out there, that's not the weirdest part. She always comes in with what looks like one of those cheap children's toy strollers, with something wrapped in blankets sitting in it. We couldn't tell if it was a real child at first until one of my friends in the fitting room area

saw her swiftly shushing something and grabbing it. When she lifted it up, It turned out to be a baby doll, but the baby doll was creepy as hell. It looked really old. Like, it was covered in dirt or soot. Its hair was a mess entangled, and it was definitely not making any noises. But she kept swinging it and shushing it like it was alive. My friend tried not to make eye contact and just kept working on her stuff when she walked up to her.

and apologized for all the noise, saying, She gets cranky around this time. My friend said she didn't know what to do, but smile and say it's okay. We saw her many times after this shopping, browsing aisles, talking to the doll, and even taking pictures with it. It became a normal thing, as weird as it looked, but the last time we could account for her, she came in looking rough. Her hair was a mess

It wasn't in her normal bun But was frizzy and standing up Like she stuck a fork in a socket Her jacket was really dirty Her shirt was stained Her skirt was torn on the side And she was barefoot She still had her glasses on

But her lipstick was almost gone All this But she still pushed her stroller with the baby doll We just stared for a while When I decided to ask if she was okay We may have teased in the past, but I actually felt bad at this point. When I approached her to ask, she shushed me, patted me on the head and whispered that everything would be all right. She left after buying a package of Band-Aids, and we never saw her again.

I don't know whatever happened to her, but I do kind of miss singing her, and I hope nothing bad happened. This last one was more odd than anything. We were just starting to switch over to the night shifts, so around 10, and we had a ton of people in checkout all at once, so I was asked to stay a bit longer to help bring it down. I didn't pay much attention to the actual people in line because I was just ready to go, but noticed the customer stopped talking to me as well. I soon learned why as a cart pulled up and slammed down to huge boxes of diapers. It made me jump, and I looked to see who the jerk was when I saw some middle-aged balding guy in a trench coat putting stuff on the belt, with a full-grown woman sitting in the cart. Not only was she sitting there, but she had her hair in two side pigtails. She was wearing an adult diaper with a weird tutu-style skirt and a sports braw.

Not only this, but she also had a pacifier in her mouth. I didn't know what to say, or how to react, so I just kept ringing up their items, diapers, baby bottles, wipes, teething rings, and a camera. Those I remembered specifically. The woman just stared at me with empty eyes, and when he noticed me staring at her, he said something like, isn't she precious? And rubbed her cheek. She didn't budge, didn't flinch, didn't smile, etc. I had just continued with the purchase and gave him his receipt.

As they strolled away, she smiled at me and he didn't even look back. That was creepy as hell. But thankfully, I never saw them again. Right after graduating high school, I dipped from my mom's place. I couldn't stand the guy she dated. or had around, and she didn't seem to care much how I felt, so I was done. I had saved up most of my money while I was working in school and got myself a cheap car, so I didn't have to rely on her.

Then, the week after I graduated, I got as much of my stuff in my car that I could and left. I still talked to my mom, so I knew the rest of my stuff. would be okay there, but I just needed out. For the first few years, I lived with friends or cousins, and just kept most of my stuff in my car. A few months before my 20th birthday, I had a friend offered to get an actual place together, so it would be in both of our names. I agreed, and soon after, we got a nice little duplex that was perfect, for us. It was a two-bedroom with the full basement. We ended up turning the basement into a party

and gaming room. He had an Xbox set up down there, his computer, and even a stereo system. We ended up finding a foosball table that we brought home and put down there, and made some makeshift ping-pong tables. It was a nice little place to hang out, and I loved it. We got to know the neighbors. A few of them were younger couples around us with kids. There was a guy that lived with his on and off again girlfriend across

the street that had come over a few times that we had gotten to know. Then there was the guy in the duplex attached to us. It was just one guy, probably in his late 30s. He usually kept to himself, like

he may nod or smile at us if we're outside. But that's it. However, he did have his share of guests. Most of them showed up with hats and sunglasses on, and never acknowledged anyone. They always immediately went inside. There were other times where it'd be really late at night,

and we would see a car's headlights pull and sit there until our neighbor ran out to the car. And then they would exchange something, and then run back in. We could piece things together after a few of his visitors, but nothing ever happened over there, and he never bothered us. It just became more of a minding our own business thing, and we never thought much else about it.

A little over a year later, we renewed our lease, and were getting ready to have a party for my 21st birthday. I remember us going to get snacks and drinks. My friend was 22, so he bought the drinks, of course. And just having one hell of a party. We probably had a dozen people over, downstairs, out back, in the living room. It was a great time. I know I drink a lot, but I was home, so once I was done, I passed out in my room.

Later that night, I started to hear a lot of thumping that sounded like it was coming from next door. The wall my bed is against is the joined wall of our neighbors, so we can hear a lot when you're in the bedroom and sometimes the living room. I was pretty out of it, of course, but I remember waking up to use the restroom. When I came back, that's when I started to hear all the sounds. At first it was just single thumps, like someone slamming a door or maybe even dropping something. I then started hearing grunts and muffled yelling. I didn't really think much of it, and couldn't really process between being tired and drunk,

so I just passed back out. The next morning, though, I woke to more pounding, but this time it sounded like it was coming from our door. So I got up, groggy as hell, and made my way to the front door. I thought maybe it was one of our friends coming back to get something they left, but, unfortunately, it wasn't. I opened to see two cops standing at my door. They introduced themselves and vaguely explained at first that there was an ongoing investigation, but they said they had some questions.

I offered to let them in, but they stayed near the entryway. They asked me if I was home last night, and when I told them I was, as well as several others for a party, they asked if anyone else was in the house. I assumed my roommate was, and they told me to go get him, and anyone else inside. I quickly went and knocked on my roommate's door to get him up, and asked if he knew if anyone else said,

stayed over, and he mentioned someone being downstairs. I went down there and woke up our friend and her boyfriend and got them upstairs with us. The cops then had us all go outside, and asked to search the place.

With our guests back at their car, my roommate and I asked what was going on. They said they got a call for a welfare check on the man next to us, and they said that they found him dead. and they said it appeared he had been robbed,

so they wanted to check with us to see if we heard or saw anything and make sure that we could account for all of our guests. I certainly knew everyone that came over, and I didn't suspect any of them being the killer. The cop then said that they were more so concerned if anyone was here that showed up unexpectedly or was acting suspiciously. I again said I couldn't recall anyone like that and we gave them permission to look over the place to make sure no one was hiding in there.

That was terrifying enough. The thought that we could have been hiding a killer? I went ahead and let my friends that were there know that they could leave with permission from the other cop. I didn't feel like telling them what had happened and they seemed like they just didn't want to be around the police. they left pretty quickly too. As I walked back to the door,

I noticed the window of our neighbor's place had been broken and the screen door was nearly ripped off of its hinges. After their search, they told us it looked like someone had nearly pulled off the back door handle, so they dusted for prints. They said that they most likely saw all the people and took off instead of targeting us, especially if the suspect was alone.

They had a few more questions for us before finally leaving us to comprehend what all had just happened. We were in a bit of shock, and it was quite sobering, unfortunately. I think it was the following day that we had the news van drive by taking pictures and recording, which was weird, until we saw it on the news that night. They were talking about our neighbor. They said that he'd been strangled and found by the police after his sister tried calling multiple times and not getting an answer. My friend thinks that, since he was a seller or possibly a user, that he was targeted and probably robbed for whatever he may have had. The fact that they tried us did worry me a bit.

was their plan to make sure we didn't talk or see anything? Was it just a robbery gone bad? Did he think he'd hang out at our party and blend in? It was a bit worrisome at night, sometimes wondering if they would come back, until the news reported that they had arrested someone in relation to this case, which definitely made me feel better. I think the place sat empty for several months,

before we got a new neighbor. It was an older couple, which put a bit of a damper on our parties, but at least we knew they probably wouldn't have any shady guests around. I have a story that happened a few years back when I was 19, and I was a delivery driver for a certain pizza place. I won't give the name of the actual restaurant, but I think you can figure it at it.

out, if I call it, Pizza House. This happened in what I would call a fairly small town that resided in these suburbs of a much larger city. And I thought it was a pretty safe area up

until this point. What happened could have happened to anyone really, but it happened to me because I happened to be the delivery driver that got sent on this delivery. It was a pretty normal night at the pizza house. We were fairly

busy, but we weren't being slammed too bad. I was one of three drivers that were on the clock that night, and we were busy enough that we didn't get to relax between drives. I remember I was on a double delivery when

this took place, and for those of you that don't know, a double delivery is literally what it sounds like. You're tasked with taking two deliveries at the same time. You basically drive to the closest location, then to the furthest location, and back. It's an incredible pain in the ass because you usually end up late to the second delivery and the customers get angry.

So, as I said, I had to take a double delivery, and both of them were pretty far from the store. In fact, they were actually on the outer ring of our deliveries. When it came in, I grabbed the bags, put the light-signed thing for Pizza House on top of my car, which was a requirement, and headed off to my first location. Everything was going normal. I was talking to my girlfriend while the GPS told me which way to go. I was most of the way to the first location when I pulled up to a red light and stopped, like I had to. I was complaining to my girlfriend about how much I genuinely disliked being the pizza boy when I glanced over and saw a couple of guys crossing the road. I made eye contact with one of them and pretty much just kept talking about random nothingness.

As I was watching the one cross the road, I noticed that the other guy walked a little closer to the lane I was in, and my mind immediately clicked that something bad. was about to happen. I was just sitting there, defenseless at the red light, chatting about literally nothing with my girlfriend on the phone,

and it didn't occur to me until it was too late that these guys were up to no good. By the time it seriously clicked, the guy that was in the lane was pulling on my door handle and shouting that I needed to unlock the door. I thought about slamming my gas pedal

and driving off. I thought about just running the light to get the hell away from this, but then I saw that the first guy was standing in front of my car and pointing a gun at me. I was literally sitting there, staring down the barrel of some handgun on some street that I didn't know with two guys about to carjack me. Well, that's what I thought they were going to do. I thought they were seriously about to rob me.

carjack me, steal all the stores' cash, and leave me on the side of the road. I even said that to my girlfriend. I told her to stay on the phone but not say anything, and that I was being robbed. She quickly stopped talking and did exactly as I asked. I looked back over to the guy at my passenger door, and he was shouting at me to unlock the door. I slowly did as he asked, and reached down to hit the unlock button. as soon as I did, he pulled open the door, grabbed the two delivery bags with the pizza,

then slammed the door and the two of them just ran off. I literally just sat there with my heart pounding and my blood pressure seriously spiking hard as I watched these two men seriously run off with food and nothing else. These guys Had me at gunpoint For pizza Pizza

They didn't take my money They didn't take my phone My car, nothing They just stole around $85 worth of pizza I even told my girlfriend Between adrenaline-fueled tears That I was just robbed

But they only took the pizza I remember her asking if I was serious and then even laughing slightly. I told her I needed to call the store and tell them. I hung up from the call and I called my manager directly. I told him that I was robbed, and he at first asked if I was okay. But when I told him that they just stole the pizza, he seemed a bit less serious about the situation.

Obviously, I was terrified. I was seriously thinking that I was going to be hurt or lose my livelihood. I'm actually thankful that these guys just wanted the food and decided not to take anything else. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I've run into some really weird, funny,

and even some pretty creepy situations over the years. It's not as easy as driving an SUV because some people don't know how to respect the spacing of big rigs, which alone can cause stress. Then, there are the times that you can end up in some strange places that you're not familiar with, and possibly some really weird people, especially nowadays. People are unpredictable.

That being said, I can usually handle the people being strange. It's the unexplained that really racks my brain and puts me in a frenzy. Yes, I believe in a lot of cryptids and paranormal because we can't really explore that kind of thing, and there are still tons of things out there that haven't been discovered and identified. So it's entirely possible that they exist, right? And that being said, I do watch and follow a lot of podcasts, and I make notes of the ones that are about the area that I may be driving through as a way to check it out myself.

Doesn't mean I'm not going to be a tad bit freaked out going to see them, though. Here are the few that I have come across that were some of the creepiest for me. I had a delivery in West Virginia, and with how I drive, I tend to be earlier than needed. With that being said, I can't really do anything until then but sleep. so instead of wasting what free time I was going to have, I decided to find somewhere to sit down and eat, instead of fast food.

I ended up finding a little barbecue place, so I sat in, tried seeing if there were any places of interest nearby, but didn't look into too much as I was already getting tired. I decided to go ahead and leave so I could find a place to stop overnight and try looking around the next day. Apparently, my truck didn't agree, and something ended up breaking on it, not even an hour into my drive. I pulled over to check out what happened. Thankfully, it wasn't too major.

However, I didn't have the tools to fix it, so I called dispatch who got into contact with our insurance company, who was going to send someone out to help. Unfortunately, they were an hour out, so I had some time to kill. Since it was going to be a while, I started laying out the reflective triangles behind my truck, and while I was doing this, I started hearing talking. It was very faint, but enough to make me look around. I didn't see anyone, though, but it would start and stop again several times. As I looked around, I noticed the fencing on the opposite side of the road with some interesting-looking trees.

Something was different about them. They looked old, unkempt, and like they had a story to tell. So I pulled out my phone and I started taking pictures of them. As I did so, I noticed what looked like a person standing under one of the trees. My phone wasn't the best, so when I tried zooming in, I couldn't see much. So I got into my truck to grab my actual camera. As mentioned, I liked going to so-called haunted places when I can, so I got myself a decent camera. As I went back to take more pictures, the person was gone.

This got me a little more curious, so I crossed the road and I approached the fence line. What's there, I started getting some more pictures when I saw that person under the tree again. They were just watching me. Something definitely felt off, but I'm stupid enough, so I walked the fence line to get closer. As I did, I started hearing laughing. Children laughing. I again was looking around to see if I could see anything, but there were no children. children in sight.

But this figure was still under that tree and had moved to now face me. Getting a bit closer, I could tell it was a person. A small child, to be exact. She was wearing a dress with long straight hair. I took a few more pictures when I heard the laughing even closer, still seeing nothing. The fact that the laughing was getting closer, even though I was moving, did throw me off. I took one more look at the kid under the tree and tried calling out to it.

I think I said something like, Do you need help? Or something like that. When it turned to face away from me. At that time, the laughing sounded like it was right next to me, as I felt a tug at my leg. At that point, I'd seen all I needed, and I started sprinting back to my truck as fast as I could.

Once there, I locked my doors and started looking at the pictures I took. To no surprise, there were no kids in the photos, but a lot of lights or orbs surrounding the tree. That was enough for me to feel uneasy, so I tried doing something else to occupy my mind till the help arrived. I ended up dozing off and woke up to a tapping on the passenger window. I thought it was the help, but to my horror, it was the face of a child. It was a boy.

He looked wet. His face almost looked like it was waterlogged. I may have yelled expletives and threw something at the window. After catching my breath and calming down, I opened up my door to look around when someone started pulling up behind me. Thankfully, it was the roadside assistance. So they helped me out, and I left as soon as I could. That night, I found a well-lit stop and stayed there, but I don't think I slept much. I called my brother the next day and told him about what happened, as he loves this stuff too,

and he started looking into the place to find out more information. Turns out, I wasn't too far from an abandoned amusement park that had several kids die there. One boy had actually drowned in the lake there that had boat rides. After learning this, it creeped me out even more. But now we're making plans to go back to visit the entire site to find out more about the place. Another experience doesn't have a good background, but is equally terrifying. I had arrived at the drop-off location a few hours before they were open, so I decided to sleep while waiting.

While sleeping, I started hearing barking, thinking it was just someone walking by with a dog. I waited for it to taper off. But after a while, it wasn't stopping, and it was actually getting closer. So, maybe it was a stray dog in the area. It got annoying, so I thought I would open the door real fast, yell at it and scare it off. However, when I opened the door, I didn't see a dog. I looked around, and I saw a few feet in front of my truck the source of the barking. This thing, it didn't look like a dog.

This thing looked like a human, standing on all fours and barking. But the spine was so arched that it looked too long to be a human or a dog. That's when the barking stopped, and it started standing straight up. It was easily nine foot tall. maybe more. I jumped back into the truck to turn the lights on, just so I could see it better, when it jumped out of the light

and appeared to climb alongside the building. I've never seen anything like that, and it scared the hell out of me. That one I don't care to look into, because that was not a ghost, and it was bigger than me, so I think I'll leave that one alone. This was actually about a camera,

kid I used to babysit. He had a wild imagination, between all these made-up games that he played, stories he would tell me and the likes. So, at first, it was hard to take this seriously. One time, I was watching him in the evening, so I was making popcorn for us. They had a gas stove,

so it was always a trick to get it to light. While I was starting it, he came running into the kitchen, so I told him. him to slow down and watch out, so he didn't catch his hair on fire. He responded with, Oh, I know, fire hurts. I died in one.

And had these huge eyes as he told me. I just kind of snickered, thinking he just said something incorrectly, and then said something like, then you know you shouldn't be close to the stove. So he smiled and walked away. Weird. A few days later, I was over there again and we were watching some kids shows. I don't remember what it was called, but they always did some kind of simple learning or science thing,

and they would always go through a safety part like don't run with scissors, always use the crosswalk, look both ways, things like that. This time it was about how to escape from a fire and to stop, drop, and roll. They showed if you were in a bill, building to keep low and to put a damp towel on your head, if possible, and then crawl to the exit. This boy pops up and says, sometimes you can't. I just said, what do you mean? We didn't have towels downstairs, and it's hard to crawl upstairs.

Once I finally figured out what to say, I asked him if his old house caught on fire, though I didn't recall his parents ever mentioning one. So he explained more. He said his old house did, but he couldn't get out. What are you supposed to say to that? I just asked, did someone have to save you then? He looked annoyed like I wasn't understanding, and I guess I wasn't.

Then he said, no, I died. And just stared at me. I just said okay and left it at that. I asked his parents that evening about a house fire, and they said they've never been in one, and he certainly hadn't. I told them what he said, and they thought it was weird too, but assumed it was just something he watched, so I let it go, even though I still thought it was odd.

They ended up going on vacation, so I didn't babysit for two weeks, but when I came back, he was right back at it. We were playing something like superheroes, and I ended up being killed by the bad guy. As I laid on the ground, he came up to me, rubbed my face, and whispered, Be alive again. So I got up and pretended to be a zombie,

and he told me, No, you get a real life again, like me. I thought we were playing still, so I mentioned that. he hadn't died yet. He then tried to explain to me again that he got a new real life after the fire. I know it's useless arguing with the child,

but I said, your mom and dad told me you guys didn't have a fire, though. That's when he must have gotten tired of repeating himself, so he explained it as he walked pack and forth. He said it was his old self in his old home with his old mom, dad, and big brother. He said he was in the big brother. basement, in his brother's room where he fell asleep, and he woke up feeling hot.

He said the last thing he remembered was yelling for his brother, in the stairs being too hot to climb. This whole time that he's telling me this, he doesn't seem sad, but more so relieved, especially as he said, but it's okay. They were able to get out, and they had a party for me. Not gonna lie, that freaked me out. But just to check, I had asked him, so did this happen to you, or did you see this in a movie? He got mad at me, like I didn't believe him, so I had to apologize,

and I told him that I was happy that he was okay now. I tried asking if he remembered what his home or family looked like, but he said all he could remember was the yellow house. This time, I didn't tell his parents. He seemed so matter-of-fact and detailed for such a young child that I left it alone. But now, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in looking up house fires. Does anyone know how to tell someone who lost a child that they've moved on and they're happy again? This happened to me when I was still in high school.

I lived in a fairly nice neighborhood. There were hardly any police around unless Mr. Jefferson on the corner called about a noise disturbance. There was a younger couple that lived across the street from him, and they always had parties for any event, and almost every weekend, and he hated it. Otherwise, the neighborhood was peaceful, and everyone got along. I was one of the younger boys in the neighborhood that would rake leaves, shovel snow, walk dogs, and I got paid for it too. I was 16 and made my own money to do what I wanted with it. I also had started house-sitting for a few of our close neighbors, too, and those were some of my favorite times.

I would go over to their house, and if they had animals, I would feed them, let them out to play with them, them and just chill. Most of them had snacks and drinks that they said I was welcome to as well. I had two older brothers, so I didn't normally get to watch what I wanted to on TV, so I would enjoy a soda and watch something for a few hours before I left for the day. One summer, our neighbors, two houses down, were going to be out of state for two weeks to see their daughter in college and asked if I could watch their house. They said they would pay me $100, so I was in.

I could ditch my friends a few hours early each day and make some easy money. They had some pretty simple requests. They had a dog, so I would feed and water, let her out back and clean up after her. They asked me to get their mail and to flush their toilet if I don't use it. otherwise it drained or something and it messed with the pipes. Then, of course, just clean up after myself if I made any messes. But otherwise, I had free reign of their home. I had walked their dog, Penny, plenty of times in the past, so I knew her pretty well.

She was part lab and very kind and playful. She had a dog bed in their back office, so... when I would come in, I would holler for her, and she would come running up to me. I'd let her out back and we would play fetch for a while before going back in. The first few nights went, as normal. I remember I had gone back over to the neighbor's place for the second time, around seven or eight at night, as it was just starting to get dark. My brothers had a few friends over, and they were starting to annoy me, so, I used the neighbor's place as an excuse to go over there and just get away for a while.

I came in, Penny was already at the door, waiting for me. I thought she probably needed out, so I went to open the door, but she didn't move. She sat in the kitchen and just kind of stared at me. So I shut the door, gave her a treat, and went to the office to play a game on their computer to kill some time. Usually, Penny would come back to the room and sit on her bed, but I noticed that she never followed me. I went to see where she was, when I noticed her on her back legs, trying to look out the window to the back door. I tried opening the door again to let her out, and she just stood there, with her tail down, looking out back and then at me. It was kind of annoyed, most likely due to my brothers, but this act.

added to it. So I shut the door again and tried to push her away from the door. She again would not move. She actually fell over and just laid on the floor in front of the door. As I was becoming more irritated, I gave up and decided to take a shower to chill out some. While I was in there, I started hearing their home phone ring. Sometimes they would call if I was there to check in or leave a message on their machine for me in case they forgot to ask me to do something. Not thinking much of it, I just made a mental note to check the messages when I got out. And while I was drying off, it dawned on me that it only rang like three or four times. So, maybe it was the wrong number.

Then I started hearing Penny barking. I got dressed and went out to see what she was barking at, and noticed that she was again staring out the window. I went to open the door again when the phone started ringing. I went and picked it up, and it was Mary Ann, the wife that lived there. She started asking me all these questions, like if I had a friend over there with me, and how long I had been there. I was trying to answer her all while trying to get Penny to stop barking,

when Mary Ann noticed that as well, and asked what she was barking at. I tried explaining that she had just been staring and barking out the back window. I then heard her tell Martin in the background to call 911. That's when she told me that she had just called, and someone else answered the phone. She said it sounded like an older guy trying to sound younger, like me. She asked who he was and where I was, thinking I had brought a friend over, when the guy hung up on them.

I certainly didn't bring anyone over with me, so she told me to take Penny out the front door and wait out front and stay on the phone with her. At this point, I was freaking out. I was alone, or so I thought, and someone else appeared to have come in while I was in the shower. I grabbed Penny's leash, and finally got her to go out the front door with me

while staying on the phone. It felt like hours standing there, looking around to make sure that no one was hiding. My dad and brothers all ran over thanks to Martin calling them shortly before the cops arrived. I explained what happened the best that I could, and then they walked around the house to see if they could find anyone. They saw footprints along the side of the house that went to the back door. They dusted for prints on the outside knob, but I don't know whatever came of that. that they didn't normally lock their back door. They left it unlocked in case they were ever locked out,

or if their older kids came over when they weren't home. However, they also didn't have a very secured fence to keep people out. You could just lift the metal latch to get in, meaning anybody had access to their yard. They didn't end up catching anyone that night, and I had to have my mom or dad go away, me for the remainder of the time that they were away. I think they ended up coming back a few days early.

They paid me $100 and also gave me a gift card for something. I don't remember since I had to go through that. Sometime that same year, there was actually another break-in, and the people that lived there came home while they were going through their stuff. They caught the guy, though, and it turned out that, It was the same one that tried robbing the house that I had sat for. The scary part was, the guy had a knife on him. Who knows if he did when he broke into the house I was in,

but it was pretty terrifying to think about. What would have happened if I was still in the office, or if I had walked out of the bathroom to answer the phone. On a better note, though, they did put up a privacy fence after that, and started locking the doors. So my parents and I were both more comfortable with me going over there alone for future trips. I also pay more attention to Penny when she's acting differently. I think she was trying to tell me there was someone out there that shouldn't be.

So always lock your doors and trust the dog's instincts. I love to go hiking in the winter, mostly through large patches of wood near where I I live. Mostly because most people don't go hiking when it's cold out, and especially not when it's snowing. Because of this, I can usually enjoy around an hour or two just walking the paths and feeling the cold air as it rushes against my skin, and I can usually get some really pretty pictures of the snowfall and various woodland creatures. Out here, you can typically see a couple squirrels, some cardinals, and every once in a while a deer. While I usually don't see anyone else along the paths,

and it's incredibly quiet in the area, sometimes you do run in to random people. And typically it's light conversation, and you both move on with your day. Nothing about this area or park or these paths have ever screamed creepy or strange to me. That's not to say there haven't been a few strange things that haven't happened, and I haven't run into a few people that I would consider out there.

I think the strangest thing I ever found on the path, other than what the story was about, was one of those fancy rocks that people paint to leave behind on the trails that was painted to look like a skull. It was actually pretty neat. I found it, took a picture of it, and I left it on another part of the trail. I also once found a Bible in the middle of the path,

which, I guess some people could think that's creepy. I just assumed that someone dropped it. There was one day that I decided to go for a walk with my dog out in the park, just after a fairly heavy snowfall. It had been snowing pretty much all night and all morning, so there were a few inches of accumulation. I laced up my boots and got my dog ready for the cold, then we headed out the door and went towards the nearby woods.

Honestly, it was gorgeous out that day. The ground was blanketed in white, the sky was a bit of a gray blue, and everything else had that pale reflective color it gets when there's snow on the ground. What's even better, when I got out to the path, it was completely silent. the only exception being the bird singing.

If I could give a description of Zen, it would have been that morning in the woods. So, my pup and I are walking the path, as we have many times before, and just overall enjoying the view. He's more so enjoying the snow piles off to the side. We get about halfway through the path when I see something up ahead in a small clearing. It's small, and it has a bit of a bit of the side. of a glint to it, but I don't really think much of it at first. Maybe it's just something that someone dropped at some point. I just kept walking the trail and moving forward, toward whatever that was. When I got closer, I noticed that it wasn't the only thing that was there. As I stepped

toward the object, I noticed that there was something written in the snow. In the snow by the trail, in a flattened part of the ground was the phrase, I'm sorry. It was written as if someone had gotten down on their knees and used their hands to ride it out in the snow. The only problem with that is the fact that there were no footsteps

anywhere else on the path or near the writing. With the exception of where that was written, the snow on the path and in the clearing was completely undisturbed. It was as if either the person who wrote this wasn't touching the ground at all, or the snow fell in every single place other than where it was written. Either way, something weird had certainly happened in that spot. To compound the weirdness, the object that was next to the message in the snow,

it was a photograph, an old one, of a little girl. It looked like the photo was from the 70s or 80s based on the clothing and how faded it was, and the frame was a fairly fancy one. It was metal. And while some people may think that the message and picture in the snow wasn't creepy, it absolutely freaked me the hell out. I took my dog and we immediately walked back to the apartment. I have no idea who was in that picture,

and I have no idea how anyone was able to write a message. in the snow without leaving footprints, but I didn't go walking that path again until after the snow had melted. And no, the picture wasn't there anymore, thankfully. When my sister and I were younger, we were left at home by ourselves a lot. My parents split up, and my mom had custody of us. She worked a lot, so she would get us off to school in the morning, and then I had a key to the house. to get in when we got home because she would be working until six or seven. I was in eighth grade, and my sister, Taylor, was in sixth.

Sixth grade through eighth grade was middle school, so we went to the same school and rode the same bus. It was a normal routine. We'd get home, call mom on the phone to let her know we made it, finish our homework before she got home, and then have the rest of the time to do whatever. After homework, we would watch TV, play in our rooms, or sometimes call the neighbor kids over to hang out. The neighborhood was pretty great growing up. There were tons of kids around to play with,

and older people that were always willing to pay you to rake their leaves or shovel snow. When we were younger, one of the ladies used to come over and watch us. I told my mom that I was old enough to handle myself and Taylor, so she slowly let me do so. She let me stay home if she had to take Taylor to an appointment, or let us both stay home if she had to run to the store. This school year, though, she started letting us go home alone, which had been great. She said as long as she never heard us complaining about the other when she got home,

and that our homework was done, she would let us continue doing this. Taylor and I always made sure to work things out before she got home, so we didn't lose such privileges, such as being home alone. One day after calling my mom, she told me that she was going to be running a little behind, but that she would call when she was on her way home.

Seven o'clock rolled around, and she called saying it was going to be running, to be longer than she thought, so she was going to order pizza for us. After discussing our options and arguing over toppings, the order was placed. She told me when they arrived, get the food, and since it was already paid for and tipped, to close the door and lock it again. We were not to open the door for anyone but her, unless she called to tell us someone is supposed to be coming over.

So, we sat, watching television and waiting when the doorbell rang. I thought nothing more than it just must be the pizza guy because it was late, and mom said no one else was supposed to be coming over. To my surprise, though, when I opened the door, it was three guys, all wearing bandanas over the bottom parts of their face, and immediately rushing in shutting the door behind them. I remember screaming and Taylor seeing everything and starting to cry. One of the guys tried to put his hand over my mouth,

and the other one ran to Taylor, shushing her as she tried to climb to the back of the couch. She wouldn't go towards the guy, and I tried my best to keep the one by me off me when the third guy pulled out a gun. He said if we didn't keep quiet and do what he said, he would shoot us, and then wait for my mom to get home and shoot her too. Taylor started sobbing and I tried to quiet her from the door. Once the gun guy was satisfied,

he asked us where the basement was and made me lead them to it. Gun guy told the other two to take us downstairs and figure out how to secure us. We walked downstairs. Taylor was still crying as he led us over to a pole behind the stairs where water drained from. I think it came from the bathroom upstairs. The other guy went through a laundry basket that was nearby, as our washer and dryer are down there, and pulled out two shirts to use to tie us up. He tied us back to back to the pole and knelt down in front of Taylor and whispered something about staying quiet.

He told her to count to 100 in her head, and they would be gone. Then he looked over to me and asked if I knew if there was any jewelry or a safe in our house. I didn't know if my mom had a safe, but I did know she had a jewelry box, but I told him no. He stared at me for what felt like forever with a raised eyebrow, then stood up and motioned for the other guy. The guy that tied us up went back upstairs, and we heard a lot of stuff being moved and loud thumbs. It seemed to go on for quite some time. I remember asking Taylor what number she was at, and she said she stopped counting. I can't blame her, though.

However, as we sat there, waiting for this eternity to end, the doorbell rang. I assumed it was the pizza guy, but whom had it. whatever it was, I was happy they were there. The guy downstairs looked like he had just seen a ghost and didn't know what to do. He asked me if we were expecting someone, and I told him, pizza. He took off up the stairs, shutting the doors so that we were in the dark and quiet of the basement alone. I heard a lot of what sounded like running, but no talking. We sat there for several seconds as I started to work.

work on untying myself. Taylor had started crying again, so I was trying to quiet her, so I could focus on what was happening upstairs and untying. I finally got loose and untied her as well, but I told her to stay there, so she looked like she was still bound. I walked up two or three stairs, when I started hearing walking again, and paused. Then, I heard someone should. shout, hello?

And I ran back over to Taylor and crouched. I heard the first steps get closer and the basement door open. Then I remember the next part because it was one of the best feelings ever. The voice said, Pizza is here. And I ran up the stairs to be greeted by a younger, tall, less intimidating guy in a pizza uniform. And I started crying.

I yelled for Taylor to come out. and I remember unloading on the poor pizza guy. He actually got us calm down and said that he had called the cops when he saw the guys running from the house. We called our mom, but apparently she was already on her way home, or almost home. She had tried calling and got a busy signal as she tried to rush home, then knowing something was wrong. When she got there, the pizza guy was talking to her about what happened with us, right by her. Apparently, when they opened the door,

they knocked him to the ground, while the one pointed a gun in his face and told him not to move until they left. He said he decided to come in to check if someone was hurt since someone had to have ordered the food. After the cops looked around, they determined they had stolen our game console that was in my room and a couple necklaces that my mom had hanging in the bathroom.

Sadly, the pizza was a casualty too, but we weren't very hungry that night. My mom did give the pizza guy a big hug and kiss on the cheek, and we hugged him too. It was a terrifying situation, but I was thankful he was brave enough to come in and check instead of just leaving. My mom doesn't like to leave us alone anymore, unless it's during the day, and the neighbors know too so they can check on us. I believe they did end up catching at least two of the guys, because I remember my mom taking us to identify their faces. I hope I never have to do that again, because that alone was overwhelming. I got a job at Walmart in 2019, working as a cashier.

I was laid off, and I decided to get what I could at the time just to get some extra money, so my husband wasn't the only one work. It was all right for the most part. In 2020, I started helping more at the doors, with counting how many people were coming and going, and to make sure they were wearing their masks. As I said, it was all right for the most part. You got an occasional person that would lose their mind when you offered sanitizer, or a mask, but it was tolerable.

However, I did see people do. some crazy things while just walking around on my lunch or my breaks. At one point, when people started freaking out about the toilet paper issues and thinking we were going to be locked down for months, things started to be too much. The store was a mess, shelves were already empty and people were losing their minds. There was one night in particular, I remember walking to the back to go on break, when I was walking past the toilet paper and paper towel aisles. There was one lady that was crying as she pushed a cart with a single gallon of milk in it,

and a kid in the front of it licking the cart handle, touching the shelves, and sticking his hands in his mouth. I overheard a couple debating if they should try to using paper towels instead or go someplace else first. I saw people fighting over Santa Towers. and the kid next to them screaming at their parents to stop. These were all upsetting to see, but it didn't stop there. One night, I was talking to my friend that was stalking the shelves after I was off work.

They were stocking toilet paper, of all things. There was a guy that came in from the other end of the aisle and slowly made his way towards us as he looked at the shelves. He eventually got right next to my friend, like within arm's length. I motioned with my head to my friend that he was right behind him, so he stood up and asked if there was something he could help with. This guy went off. He started getting angry, claiming we were holding back inventory on purpose to make people like him suffer. My friend and I were equally confused, since he was literally stalking the shelves at

time. He tried calming him down, but the guy must have seen the box cutter sitting on the palate and he snapped. He stepped backwards and pulled out a switchblade saying, Let's have a real knife fight. My friend grabbed the box cutter, so this guy didn't try to grab it, and we walked backwards as we tried to calm the guy down. He didn't really pay much attention to me, so I was able to pull out my phone and call 911. Someone else that worked there must have heard what was going on, and they rushed over to help us out. Somehow, we finally got the guy to put the knife away, but the police still came and arrested him. I know 2020 has been one hell of a year, but some people just snapped.

I quit shortly after this, because I couldn't risk any more weird occurrences like that. All I can say, though, is be safe out there. watch your surroundings and be kind to others. Every summer a group of my friends gets together to go on a week-long vacation. There's usually four of us, but this year, we bullied our friend into bringing her girlfriend, too. We would decide on a place and a couple of activities to do in the area, and then we would rent a condo or vacation home, so we had the whole place to ourselves. instead of going back and forth between hotel rooms.

We all agreed on Utah, as we wanted to go hiking in the national parks. We found a small home for a great price. It didn't have many reviews, but the ones that were there were all great. It was a two-bedroom with a sectional in the living room, as well as one of those giant recliner chairs. There was plenty of room for us all to hang out, to sleep.

We went in late June. We all met up at Leila and Desire's place, as they agreed to drive this year, as Desire had an SUV, so we could all fit better. It took us about 20 hours or so to get there, with little issues. Thankfully, Leila is also good with cars, so I was grateful that she came with us. The house had a pinlock, so no care. key needed, and it made it so much easier on five people. We got in, and it looked even better than the pictures. When we weren't outside, we were definitely going to be spending a lot of time

in the living room, and I called dibs on the chair the moment that I sat in it. There was a huge flat screen with two racks of movies and TV shows. They had stocked up the kitchen with tons of different snacks and foods with a long shelf life. Different granola bars, chips, popcorn, dried fruit, puddles of water in the fridge was like a small liquor store with beer, wines, and mixers. There was even a small pool in the back that was full and kept clean. The bedrooms had a king size in one and a queen in the other.

Layla and Des took one room, Natalia got the other, and Alma and Hannah and I took over. over the living room. There was a note on the fridge with the rules and requirements, like the normal that we see in these places. Usually, they just post them on the rental site, but sometimes you may find them in the rental or additional requests. The rules were a lot of the normal.

No smoking, if you break it, replace it, contact for any maintenance issues, etc. But one of them was different. It mentioned keeping the shower curtain to the right, as it allows the light from the window to shine in and helps with drying the floor, preventing mold and mildew. I didn't know how any of that worked, so it made sense to me. So I reminded the girls, and we moved on.

Once we all got unpacked, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things to make our own dinners. We then just had a nice night in. while we determined our plans for the next few days. The next day, we went to Zion National Park. It was one of my favorite parks that I had gone to, and there were plenty of trails to walk on, but there was also a few streams we ran into

that we took advantage of to cool off. We may have even filled a bottle with some of the water as a nice reminder of the time that we had. By the time we got all the way around, we were hot and exhausted, so we picked up food and brought it back to the house. After eating, I decided to go take a shower. As I went into the bathroom,

I rubbed my hand against the wall to turn on the light, and as I did this, I saw what looked like a light that was coming from the shower. I turned the light on and saw nothing. I turned the light back off, still nothing. Thinking I was just seeing things, maybe the moonlight from the stained glass window or something,

I moved on with my shower. The rest of the night went as usual. We drank and talked until we passed out. The next day, we decided to make it more laid back. We went shopping, found a local place to eat, and would then head back to go swimming. Once we got home, Natalia wasn't feeling well, so we decided to skip swimming and just watch a movie instead.

As we settled in with our snacks, Dez was picking out a movie. She pulled out 51st dates. It was one of my favorites. When she opened it, her face changed from all smiles to confusion. She said it was a blank disc that looked like it was a homemade video with the title Young Couple 2018. We were confused by this, but poor Leila and her naivety thought maybe it was the owner of this place and that they put it in the wrong case. Based on the look on Desire's face, we both had the same thought.

She put the DVD in the player, and to our disgust, we were right. This was home footage of this very place. The worst part is this was coming from the bathroom. That's when it clicked in my head. The light that I saw in the bathroom, I started telling them about what I saw, and Dez told me to show her. I followed her to the bathroom,

as we started looking around based on the angle of the video we saw. She rubbed her hand along the wall, and right between two tiles toward the top, she could see a small gap in the caulking. After looking closer, she could tell there was a small, small hole. She immediately told us to get out. She closed the shower curtain and shut the door. Now it was obvious why they wanted the curtain in that position. It kept the view of the camera

open to the rest of the bathroom. At this point, we had called the cops. All five of us had showered, dressed in, and used that bathroom. I know I speak for them as well when I say that I felt violated. By the time they arrived, we had already packed up all of our stuff, and in tears, we explained what we had found. They saw the video, and they saw the spot where the camera was in the bathroom, and without us realizing, Des had gone to the bathroom they stayed in, and found one in a vase of fake flowers on a corner shelf.

It was buried in between other little belongings, so it was just as hard to see. Who knew how many cameras there were? I know the owner had been contacted. The cops had to call the vacation place we went through to get his contact information. We all pressed charges, and he tried to say that it was for security.

Don't worry. That line didn't work. because he legally wasn't allowed to put them inside the home, only outside. Oh, not to mention, he wasn't allowed to keep recordings like that. We did get a full refund from the company, thankfully, because we had to get a hotel room. We thought about going back home, but Dez wouldn't let us back down. She convinced us to not let that stop us and ruin our plans. Unfortunately, we're all too afraid to...

to rent from individuals now that this is in the back of our minds, but we agree that DES should be a permanent addition to our trips due to her attention to details. We just spend a little extra money for a bit more peace of mind. So, I just discovered this sub and have my own creepy encounter that I think you guys will like. It's quite a long story, so grab a drink and enjoy. I used to deliver pizzas for a pizzeria in Cape Town, South Africa, when I was in university to make some extra cash. I used to deliver to the same house quite often.

Incidentally, this place is quite close to where I lived at the time. There was nothing overtly strange about this place, except that, whoever would receive the pizza, would normally take quite a long time to come to the door, and would always ask me to pass the pizza through the security gate, instead of unlocking it and making it easier for everyone involved. One quiet night, a call comes through for this house, and I collect the pizzas, and gets to the house reasonably quick. This time a lady who I have never seen at this house before

opens the door and lets me in, not entirely uncommon to be let into a customer's house, so I don't think anything of it. She points me towards the kitchen, which is down quite a long corridor, and asks me to drop the pizzas there. She follows me all the way, still nothing weird. The passage opened up into an open-planned dining room and lounge area. Through this area is the kitchen through a door on the line, As I was passing through the dining room slash lounge area, I saw something that sticks with me to this day.

An old-looking dentist chair, with a person lying on it. Whether this guy was alive or not, I still don't know. He had a sheet covering his whole body except the very top of his head and his feet, which were duct-taped together. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. The lady that opened the door was still right behind me, and she said absolutely nothing. We went into the kitchen, and she paid me for the pizzas. At this point, I was either expecting to be attacked by this lady,

or someone else hiding somewhere, or to be scared by the guy under the sheet as some part of sick joke. Not wanting to give anything away, I didn't say anything, and I prepared myself to either defend myself or not be frightened should it be a joke. I walked out towards the front door, double-checking to see what I saw was correct and not just my imagination. The lady was still behind me the whole way, and she closed the door behind me as I left and said nothing. To this day, I still have no idea what was happening in that house. It could have been some joke, but I really don't think it was.

The presence of a dentist chair still makes no sense. I didn't see anything else that would suggest the residents of the house collected weird paraphernalia. I drive past that house quite often and still wonder if I was actually in any danger. Since being very young, my brother Jamie would often do or say strange things. There are many instances. but these are the ones that I remember most clearly. He was, and remains, a very thoughtful and intelligent child, often deep in thought.

I first noticed that you could be cooing and playing with him, and suddenly he would cloud over with a deadpan expression, and it would take minutes to get his attention again. As he started stringing sentences together, He sat down with my mom and told her, Do you remember before, mommy? She said, before when? To which he replied,

Before, when I had a different mommy. My mom simply told him that she was his only mommy, and he didn't say anything anymore. He then spoke to me, and he told me he remembered that when I came out of mommy's tummy. I told him that he can't remember it, because he wasn't born yet. He got pretty irate with me,

and said, Not when I was born this time, before. I asked what he meant. Before, when I wasn't your brother, when I was mommy's brother a long time ago. This left me pretty shook. As in 2004,

over a decade before my brother was born, my uncle, my mom's brother, who was also named Jamie, passed away. Due to the suddenness and trauma caused by his death, it is an extremely sore subject and is rarely ever discussed. So, there was absolutely no way he could have known about him. Then, one day, on the way home from the park, around three years old, Jamie asked me,

You know when you die? I was taken aback. by it, but I said, do you mean what happens after? He said, I've been thinking about it, because I think it's really dark forever, and you can't see

anything. I explained to him in a child-friendly way the different beliefs that people have. Example, heaven, hell, nothing, ghosts, reincarnation. When I told him about reincarnation, he nodded.

Yes, it sounds nice, but it takes so long. When I died the last time, I had to stay the same for ages before I was a baby again. Honestly, I was so spooked. Jamie is now six. He still will speak about things he really shouldn't understand, but does. People often remark how knowledgeable he is about the world around him. Maybe that's just the way he is, or maybe it's because he's seen it all before. I suppose I'll never know, but all the comments he made, and even his mannerisms and behavior, we've all thought that perhaps Jamie is Uncle Jamie.

The story takes place about ten or so years ago, back when I was around 18 years old, and I was a much more fit and active young man. Back then, I lived in the northern part of Oklahoma, which, was where I was born and raised for pretty much the first half of my life. This area was gorgeous, and I lived near a certain Native American reservation. And it was a really lovely place with a lot of wilderness and trails and woods. I didn't live on the reservation myself, but I lived in an area near it, and I had a lot of friends that did live there, including my then-boyfriend, Zach.

I was super serious about nature back then. I would honestly hike and bike through the recreation area, and I spent so many of my younger years in that natural area. I spent so much time there that I would say that I had memorized all the trails and paths throughout. I would spend entire days on the trails sometimes, heading out around 10 or 11 in the morning, and then wouldn't get home until dinner. or when the sun was setting.

As I said, my boyfriend lived on the reservation, and he was great about going out to the trails with me, but at the same time, he just wasn't as big of a trail nerd as I was. There would be times when I would head over to his place to spend time with him, but would end up biking down on the trails later in the afternoon. He would typically just stay home and do whatever he was doing. because of this, I was usually alone in the woods, just me, my thoughts, and a bunch of trees. While I loved each of the trails and spent a lot of the time going as far into the forest as I could,

and then went out to find new areas, there was one specific trail that I was very partial to. I don't remember if the trail had a name, but this trail I personally dubbed the down, stream path. I named it as such because it went alongside a stream and it was downhill, which was super creative, right? This trail was my favorite for a handful of reasons. The path was beautiful. There were trees on one side and the stream on the other. You could get a lot of speed as you took the downhill, and it was mostly remote, so there was very little risk of ever crashing into another person or running into other hikers. On the specific day of this event, I was riding the trails alone.

It was really early in the day. I don't recall the exact time, but Zach wasn't awake yet. There was no other foot traffic on the path. I was riding the trails and was just happily taking in the morning air and enjoying the cool breeze. When I came up toward the hill where the downstream path started. I was really feeling the cool air that day, and there was seriously nobody on the path, so I figured, why not just hopped on the trail and go crazy with it.

I hopped over to the top of the hill and stared down at the lower parts of the forest. There was a thin haze that was rising over the stream and through the trees, and it was just absolutely lovely. I geared up for the downhill and then took off. I was riding down the hill, and picking up speed, and was probably going way too fast for my own personal safety. I was taking the bends and curves tightly as I approached them, and feeling the energy and adrenaline of the ride.

When I took one of the curves way too fast and too sharp, as I was trying to straighten out the wheel and regain my bearings, I hit a bump, and I ended up ditching the bike and landing in a small section of the woods flat on my back, just staring straight up at the morning sky. I was just sitting there, lying on my back, staring up at the dark blue and tops of the trees. I was trying to catch my breath and sort through what exactly happened,

as the moment of fog slowly lifted out of my brain. Landing square on your back after crashing out at a high speed will absolutely make you see stars, and it will make it to where the moment feels like the world is spinning. To be honest, the whole thing was almost comfortable, until I started to hear the sounds of the forest after a few moments. Then I started hearing what sounded like heavy steps somewhere around me, steps that had some real weight and heft behind them.

While I ignored them for a couple of seconds, my thoughts went through what it could be, and then it occurred to me that I was in the forest in Oklahoma, which meant that there was a real possibility of it being a black bear. I quickly sat up and looked around me for a bear, but honestly didn't see anything at first. After sitting confused and trying to see exactly what it was, again, still thinking it was a bear, I saw what was actually making the sounds. and while it was not a bear, I kind of wish it was. In the forest line, around 30 or so feet from me, there was something, some sort of creature that was standing by the stream.

This thing stood to be at least six or seven foot tall. Its entire body was covered in dark brown hair that it was a bit matted and coarse. Its mouth was elongated, and it had large. pulled-back ears, and while it wasn't snarling, I could see that it had fairly large teeth. It had the stature of a man to some extent, but it was taller and lankier than any man I had ever seen. If I had to describe it in fewer words, I would say this damn thing looked like a stereotypical werewolf. This thing, it was just standing there and staring at me.

Kind of like it was trying to size me up and determine if I was worth its time. The entire time, which was probably only a few seconds, my heart was racing, and I could feel myself starting to hyperventally in a panic. I was trying to stay still and I was trying to remain calm, but this thing could have killed me. And I honestly thought that I was about to die. Thankfully, after those few months, moments. This thing slowly

knelt down and just stepped away from me, back towards the stream. Each step he took, though, made my heart skip a beat and felt like it pulled the air from my lungs. When I was certain that he was far enough away that it was no longer interested in me,

I slowly stood up, grabbed my bike, and slowly stepped back towards the trail. Then I hopped on and took off like a pat out of hell. When I got back to Zach's house, he could tell that I was freaking out, and he asked me what was going on. I told him about how I was riding the trail and how I'd crashed, and then I told him that I saw a weird creature in the woods.

I described it as best I could, pretty much like a werewolf. Then, out of nowhere, Zach says, huh, you mean like a dog man? Then he goes to tell me that there have been sightings of the dogman in the woods on the reservation. Then he goes on to drop the bombshell that I was lucky, because apparently, this creature could have torn me to shreds, and no one would have

ever found my body. This happened a few years ago. I'm a female in my late 30s now, and I love trucking. My dad was a trucker when I was a kid, and I loved riding with him, and sitting in the cab,

so I knew I wanted to wanted to do the same. I also loved the idea of being able to go across the country for my job, so it was always like a never-ending vacation. I'm married, with no children, and this was part of the reason. I don't see that working out for us, especially since my husband actually does this with me. So, this was perfect for us. On longer trips, we would take turns driving.

He would drive at night and I during the day. He loved being able to watch the birds and other wildlife when driving and the different sights along the way, but then also to be able to enjoy the night breeze while I slept. I'm also one of those people that listens to podcasts on murders, mysteries, and unexplained events, as well as things like forensic files. So yes, I may be a bit paranoid about some people. But I think that also comes with being a smaller female.

However, I also think that makes me more aware of my surroundings and cautious of strangers. I've run into those truck stops where some of them are just really gross older guys that wants to hit on me or cat call. but I don't let it bother me. I always have a knife or my pepper spray for protection, and I'm lucky enough that my husband is right there with me if things were ever to get out of hand.

There was one instance in particular that did freak me out a bit, and I still think about it at times. As mentioned, it's normal to get hit on by random truckers, but this guy was by by, far the most memorable. I got out of the truck and stretched. It was during

the day, so my husband was dozing in and out, so I just went in to the stop by myself, which is not unusual. I noticed a couple of guys sitting at a table outside of the entrance talking. No big

deal. I did notice, though, as I was walking to the door, that one of them kept staring at me. whatever. I just keep walking. While I'm in the store browsing, I just felt like I was being watched. So I kept looking around, not seeing anything really. Because I can't shake this feeling, I started heading to the restrooms.

The place was set up with the entrance and exit doors on each end of the building, and the restrooms were towards the center and the back. So as I round the corner towards them, one of the guys sitting outside comes from the other side and causes me to jump a bit. Not to mention, his appearance screams danger. He was wearing overalls, an old stained and torn shirt, and had maybe eight teeth. He smirks. He puts his hands up and says, Sorry to start of you, missy.

I smiled and said it's okay, and tried to go to the stall when he seriously leaned against the doorframe, blocking the damn doorknob. So I started to say, excuse me, or something, when he asked, where are you from? I definitely wasn't going to be honest, so I told him, I'm local, excuse me. Apparently he didn't like that, because then he moved completely to block the door and started questioning me like, I've never seen you round here before who you contracting with. At this point, I was just annoyed, and his breath smelled like spoiled milk and feet, so I started turning around to walk away when he grabbed my arm. I turned back and he said, It's kind of rude of a lady to ignore a man that's talking to her.

To which I said, Well, grabbing a lady's arm is not a way to get them to talk to you either. And shook my arm free. I ended up not buying anything and started fast walking out the door. I noticed his friends were no longer sitting there, but I started reaching for my pepper spray just in case. As I'm walking back to my truck, I had to pass by the side of another truck when he came right up behind me and grabbed my hips like he was trying to pull me back or pick me up. Thankfully, he didn't have time to react to me turning around, elbowing him, and sprang him in the face.

He just screamed some expletives at me as he tried to wipe his face, so I just made a mad dash to my truck. Thankfully, my husband heard the man screaming and woke up about that time, so he was starting to get out of the truck, but I motioned him to stay. Then I got it, and we took off. I told him what had happened, and he was upset that he wasn't there, but I wasn't mad at him. Nor do I fault him for it. That was the worst it's ever gotten, and the first and only time I've ever had to use the pepper spray. He does tell me to wake him up if he's sleeping, if I do have to stop anywhere, just to be safe. And I have no problems with that.

Now, to make things worse about this situation, though, a few years later, we ended up making another delivery to a location near the stop. This is one that I cannot forget because of what happened, so every time I see that welcome to specific stage, date sign. I shiver a bit. We get to our destination, and we went to a nearby diner to eat. While we were there, the TV was playing the local news, and they mentioned that someone had been arrested or captured for a kidnapping. Something told me to pay attention to this, so I started watching it, and as I did, my stomach dropped. I saw a very familiar.

guy in the mugshot. It was the same guy. He had the creepy eyes, like they were just piercing me through that television. Apparently, he actually tried abducting a girl, and as he tried pulling her into his truck, she managed to break free and was able to get help.

I went to my phone really quick to get more info, and apparently, his ex-wife was interviewed as well and mentioned that she left him because of his extremely abusive behavior. The kicker to all this was his ex-wife and the victim looked just like me. Small build, medium-length dark brown hair. I flipped. I told my husband about it and he agreed. The similarities were way too close to be a coincidence. I'm so thankful it wasn't worse,

but I'm also glad the other girl was able to get away. I also hope those were his only attempt. and that they got him so he couldn't be successful. Overall, just be careful and stay aware of your surroundings because you just never know. This all started when my son was around seven. I remember one night we stopped somewhere to pick up dinner, and I let him choose where and what he wanted. When we got home and got situated to eat, he thanked me for letting him choose, and then asked me if I remembered when I was a kid

and getting to choose what was for dinner. I said yes, and mentioned that I usually chose what I wanted for my birthday dinner, much like he got to choose last year. Then he asked me if I remembered when he was a grown-up and let his kid choose for dinner. I just chuckled and said, You haven't been a grown-up yet, buddy?

But you can definitely do the same when you are. He shook his head and told me I was wrong, though. He mentioned that he was a grown-up and that he let his son choose dinner. I didn't know how to respond, so I just stared at him for a minute. At that point, he said his name was Timothy and that his son's name was Jake, that he lived a long time ago. I was speechless. I thought maybe he was just pretending and had this crazy strong.

story that he'd planned out. So I just dropped it from there and ate my dinner. We had more situations like this over time. I will say me and his mother split up, but we are on good terms. She is still in school to become a nurse, so I have full custody over him. She took him for about a week over summer vacation, and she had some questions when they returned. While he went to play, we were talking, and, she asked me if I had watched ghost shows or something with him in the room.

I told her that there weren't any in particular that I could remember, and that I tried to avoid watching anything that could be potentially scary in front of him. She began telling me that something was brought up about what happens when you die, and he mentioned that not everyone becomes a ghost, and sometimes you get to be a new person. She then mentioned the names Timothy and Jake again, I was surprised, so I told her about the night that he mentioned it to me as well. We both thought it was odd, but we had no explanation for it.

So we agreed to just heavily monitor what he watched or listened to, to see if we could figure out where he may have gotten this from. From then on, as I'm watching all the shows that he would watch, they had no names similar to those and nothing about ghosts or. or reincarnation in them. I will say at one point, I had moved into an apartment and I didn't have cable or internet

installed yet. Until then, my son just watched movies that we had or whatever was on the local channels. At least I had an antenna. While I was making breakfast for us, he asked to watch TV, so I told him that I would

be right in to help him. As I wrap up what I'm doing, I walk into the living room to see he's already got it on, and he's watching some old Western-style show. It was a Sunday, so I know there wasn't much on in ways of cartoons, but this is what he stopped on. Not to mention, he was fixated on it.

Legs crossed, chin resting on his hands, just watching. I went and asked him, "'Nothing good on?' And he said, without looking over at me, I love this show. I was confused, because we've never watched this before. I certainly haven't, because I don't like those kinds of shows. So I called that out and said,

You've never watched this before. To which he responded, I used to watch this all the time when I was Timothy. I didn't know how to respond, so again, I just stood there and watched him. When I finally came back to reality, I decided to test him and ask him, the show was about.

He told me the name of the show and explained it as best as a seven-year-old can about what was happening. The character's names, all of it. I was surprised. I had no explanation as to why he would know all of this, but since he found this and since I have installed cable and internet, this is what he watches on Sundays. I was worried about him watching it with some of the typical violence, but he didn't seem phased by it, and he never acted it out or even wanted toy guns. So, his mom and I agreed to just

let him watch it. One of the last occurrences that we came across was when we went to the park. He was going to his moms for the weekend, and I usually drop him off there, but she was running late, so we decided to go to the park while we waited. I pushed him on the swing some, helped him across the monkey bars, the usual. At one point, his mother called saying that she was on her way, so we started walking back to my car. I was still on the phone, and I didn't notice at first that he had stopped holding my hand. I stopped and looked back to see him staring into the entrance of a cemetery. It was a small one, and older with not many headstones in it from what I could tell.

I told his mom I would meet her at her place, hung up and went to my son and asked what was wrong. He said, I know this place. Again, he's not been to any funerals, nor has he known anyone who's died. But we also didn't know anyone in the cemetery as it was by my new place. So I asked,

What makes you think that? And he flat out said, I was buried here. What the hell? So he started walking in, and I honestly wanted to stop. stop him, but I also wanted to know what he was going to do, so I just followed him. He led me to an old headstone towards the back, and I froze.

Sure enough, the headstone said, Timothy, beloved son, father, brother. How? How would he have known any of this? As terrified as I was, though, I had to know, so I asked him. How did Timothy die, buddy? I shot myself. I picked him up, and as I carried him out of that cemetery, he began crying. I didn't know what to say or do, so I think I just said something like, you're okay now, and I just hugged him tight.

I was at a loss of words, but on the way to his moms, we stopped for ice cream, and he started cheering up. I told his mom about it, too, letting her know what had happened, and she flipped out, of course. It took some convincing, but I think I finally got her to trust me that I didn't let him watch anything about suicide. Also, after this, he stopped mentioning his past life. I don't know if that was like Timothy accepting what had happened and passing on, but it still confounds me. Out of curiosity, I did try to find a Timothy that lived within that time.

and found someone with a son named Jake, and that's where I stopped. I didn't want to find out any more information, and I'm leaving it at that. I hope my son has completely forgotten about it, too, and is not being haunted by this anymore, because hearing it from a child his age, that was gut-wrenching.