As The Raven Dreams Podcast - 5 MORE Hours Of True Scary Stories - ATRD August Compilation (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Today We have a compilation of True Scary Stories from August- This is a compilation of the SECOND half of the month. If you've been around all month, you may have heard these :) So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. Have a Story To Submit? ➤ https://www.astheravendreams.com Or Post to the Subreddit ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in today's Video. 'As The Raven Dreams' is a community where we explore the darker parts of human existence through true and harrowing stories. From sinister encounters with strangers and stalkers, to terrifying experiences that defy explanation and unsettling mysteries that linger in the shadows, I am here to tell you the most haunting narratives ever whispered. Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. --- 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

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and the appellate-T-D is made to you aid. Telecharge it right now. Hi, Raven, big fan here. I'm listening to all of your videos for a while now, and I thought that I should share a very scary story that happened to me.

What happened to me didn't freak me out as much at the time, but over time, the more I thought about it and what almost happened to me, the more terrified I got. I think it's because my brain blocked what happened, and that it was so scary that I felt numb for a while. My brain has always tended to be good at blocking out traumatic events. This is kind of a long story, so I apologize. This happened back in the fall of 2017.

I was almost 22 at the time, and my friends and I were first semester seniors in college. My super close group of friends consisted of five of us, two guys and three girls, me being one of the first. the three girls. I'm going to change all of our names, including my own, for privacy. Our group consisted of, myself, girl one, Danielle,

girl two, Nicole, girl three, Marie, Guy one, Jack, and Guy two, Nolan. I'm almost 28 now, and I do not drink anymore, but as you know, a solid number of college kids

tend to go out and get a bit, drunk sometimes, perhaps a bit too often. My friends and I, on the weekends, were some of those back in the day. It was Jack's 22nd birthday, and he was throwing a birthday celebration dinner. And then, after the dinner, the plan was to go to an area of the city that had a strip of bars and nightclubs. It wasn't the first time that we'd been there, and I didn't like to go often because, it was at times a questionable area, but alas, I wanted to be there for my friend's birthday.

So, after our delicious dinner, I tagged along and we went to the party strip. We went to about four bars and nightclubs, until I realized I had regrettably gotten a bit too drunk. Nicole had as well. I asked Nicole if she wanted to go Uber with me home, but Nicole was the kind of girl who would keep going, no matter how drunk she got.

I, on the other hand, always chose to stop when I hit a certain point. Even when really drunk, though, I always still remembered everything, and I never drank myself into a blackout. Marie, who is now my ex-best friend for many reasons, wanted to stay and had no thought in how I would get home. And Nicole, who I'm still close with to this day, considered going with me. But then Jack and Nolan stepped in,

asking me if I wanted them to take me home. That's when I said, No, it's fine. I'm not going to make you stop celebrating your birthday early just because I drink too much and don't feel well. They insisted again, and I said, No, really, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

I'll get home safely. I really didn't want to be the reason that Jack left his celebration night early, or anyone there for that matter. They offered to walk me out and wait with me for my Uber to arrive, and I at least agreed on that. I told Nicole that she should just stay as well, because she was having fun, and I didn't want to make her go home early with me either. It was midnight at this point, and I was just super tired on top of it, and I kind of just wanted to hop into bed. Looking back, firmly insisting that they should stay was one of the dumbest decisions I've ever made, especially since they were only trying to keep me safe.

On the app, it said that my car was a black Toyota Corolla and that my driver's name was Michael. A few minutes later, the app said the car was on our block arriving, and a black Toyota Corolla pulled up. I said, Michael, Uber for Daniela, and he said, yes. My friends then hugged me goodbye and told me to be safe, and to please text them when I got home. I told them, I will have a fun rest of your night. He also looked like the guy in the picture, so I wasn't suspicious of anything. Back in the day, I would sometimes feel very car sick after dream. and I would ask the driver if I could sit in the front.

So I asked him, and he said, that's totally fine. By the way, I haven't done this in years. I think at such a young age we all just make decisions that we don't think about too much quite often, and fail to realize how dumb these decisions were later on. Sitting shotgun in a passenger's car can be so dangerous. but I was young and dumb so please don't judge me. After I hopped in, we made a right turn and drove a few blocks. On the route home, there's a darker area of little fields of grass

and some houses that you pass before going under a bridge and getting onto the highway. Just as we were maybe 400 feet from the bridge in the dark area near the houses, he said, Wait, may I have your attention? address. I was slightly confused, but I gave it to him assuming the app messed it up or was having some sort of glitch or something. So I brushed it off. Then, this is when I saw the guy entering my address into Google Maps. This is when I began to get a little suspicious. I looked directly at him and said, The Uber app should automatically have my address and directions. Why are you using Google

maps. He stayed silent for a few seconds before mumbling. This is easier. This is when full suspicion kicked in. I got louder and more demanding, saying, pull up the Uber app. He looked at me as if he was taken aback. This is when my Uber driver, Michael, messaged me, asking me where I was standing, so that he could pick me up. My blood ran cold. I asked. I, He asked, you aren't actually an Uber driver, are you? He looked at me quietly and said, No, with a weird smirk on his face. Now, I knew that I was likely in some serious danger.

As someone who is the opposite of passive, and will kick someone's arse if I have to for my safety, I said, If you don't let me out of this car, I will not only punch you in the first. face, but I will pepper spray you and continue to tase you as your nose bleeds, and I'll call the police as you whimper in pain, feeling real freaking sorry. I also have a pocket knife in case of idiots like you, and I won't be scared to use it on you after I use the rest of my things on you

either. To be honest, all I had on me was my fist ready to punch, but he didn't know this. I had to be intimidating, and make it seem like I had on me some things that could really hurt him. He backed slightly away from me with his back towards his left corner of his seat. I then demanded, Stop this car now and let me the hell out. He looked really shocked, and he pulled the car to a halt. I then asked, why the hell did you even pick me up? He stayed silent, looking really shocked.

one, as if he didn't expect me to figure out this soon, and two, that I would threaten him this badly, and be more than happy to fight back. He gave a look that kind of said, this one isn't worth it. I got out of the car, slammed the door, and I ran as fast as I could towards the bar again, even though they were several blocks away. I made it about two blocks before this guy finally put his car in drive, and sped away really fast. I was still mortified,

and still being in a super dark area near the houses was a huge insults to injury. Luckily, this guy was nowhere in sight. Why the two cars were the exact same? I guess just horrible luck and a horrible coincidence. I immediately called the real Michael after I had received his message and told him about what had happened,

nearly in tears. explaining that that was why I was in a different location now. The real Michael was such a kind and caring godsend. He said, Oh, no, I'm so sorry that just happened to you. He told me to stay calm, to stay on the phone with him, and to give him the description of my exact location

and what I was wearing so that he could more easily spot me and said that he would be there to pick me up as quick as possible. About three minutes later, as I'm standing in the dark shaking out of adrenaline, I see a black Toyota Corolla speeding towards me, as Michael said on the phone, I spotted you, I'm here. I cannot describe the amount of relief that I felt in that moment. I hopped into Michael's car and he said that what just happened was so scary and that I needed to be more careful out there. I told him that the guy in the car fit his exact same description and had the same car

and that when I asked him if it was an Uber for Daniela he said yes and that I was always super careful and expressed that there was no way I could have known Michael was really shocked to hear of this coincidence

but was super concerned and caring he asked me if I needed him to take me to the police station and said that if I needed him to, that he would turn his app off after getting there, and that I wouldn't have to worry about any charges for the right home. I said I was super thankful, but that I would just call the non-emergency line and file a police report when I got home, and that I just wanted to get home.

He understood, said that he had two daughters himself, and knowing that I was someone's daughter it hit an extra protective, worried nerve in him. I immediately knew that he was a safe person to ride home with, even before I got into his car with how he spoke on the phone. He helped me calm down, and when he got me home, he waited until I entered my apartment building, and once I finally got inside my apartment, I gave him one hell of a tip for saving me from this situation.

Because between the time the guy sped away and Michael picked me up, It had only been a few minutes. Who's to say that guy wasn't going to turn back around? After I got home, I called the non-emergency line and filed a police report, but there was only so much they could do, since all I could give was the guy's car model and what he looked like and where he picked me up. I was in too much of a fight or flight mode when it all happened to look at the license plate or take any pictures. I wish that I had, but my only focus was to get out of that car and get away from whoever that man was as fast as possible. I told my friends what happened the next day, and they said that they were not letting me go home alone ever again, no matter the circumstances.

And I appreciated them for that. To this day, I 100% believe that had I not caught on before the other car got on to the high. highway with me in it, that I would have been kidnapped or trafficked. I do not believe that guy had any intention of actually bringing me home that night. I believe he was putting my address in to trick me into thinking he was going to drive me home, and that he was going to end up driving me to a different place, and I don't want to ever find out what that place could have been. I believe that he was some part of a ring of men

that drove around waiting for young drunk vulnerable girls to mistaken them for an Uber and hop into their car. I'm forever thankful for Michael, because quite a few Uber drivers will cancel the ride after five to ten minutes of waiting. But Michael, he continued to circle around looking for me until he finally called me. I am forever grateful.

that I made it out of that situation. I saw that you were going to make a video about malls, and I remembered a story that my mom actually told me many years ago. This was something that happened directly to her, and she talked about it often enough with friends and family. Everyone's retelling was the exact same way that my mom would explain it, and she's really not the type to dramatize things, so I absolutely believe it.

So, here it goes. I am the second oldest kid in my house, and this took place about six to eight months after my mom had me, so, yes, I was still a baby. She was a stay-at-home mom for most of my childhood, until she got a part-time job to give her something to do while we were all in school. But when I was born, my older brother was already in all.

day kindergarten, so it would just be us during the day. One of those days, my mom wanted to get out at the house, and what could be better than a small shopping spree for some new clothes after having a baby. So she bundled me up, packed the stroller in the car, and headed out to the mall for some retail therapy. When she arrived, everything was going as planned, and she had already stopped at a few stores. After a couple hours, she said that I started getting fussy, so she went to the food court to get herself something to eat, and to feed me in the process. She pulled the stroller close to her so

that we were facing each other, as she relaxed and fed us both. While sitting there, she was looking around the court, and she noticed a woman sitting a few tables away with her eyes locked on us. She said that she had seen people staring at her before, especially while she fed me, so she ignored it at first. But then as she scanned the area, she would find herself going back to look at this woman, and she was still staring at us. But it was her expression that really caught her off guard.

While her gaze was undoubtedly on us, she said that her expression seemed blank and devoid of any emotion. At first, even though the gaze itself was pretty odd, she tried to let it go thinking maybe she just wasn't all there, or was just innocently staring off. She finished eating and throughout would glance at the woman as she continued to stare at us. Being who she was, my mother tried to show kindness to the woman by smiling at her. She described her as an older woman. Her skin appeared smooth from a distance, but she had to show kindness. deep wrinkles in her forehead and around her mouth.

She had stringy, shoulder-length hair that looked like it needed to be washed and brushed. She thought maybe she needed someone to show her kindness, and it seemed to relieve some of the discomfort. When the woman's eyes brightened and she smiled back. With any uneasy feelings now diminished, my mom packed up to leave the food court and finish her shopping trip. She said that as she walked around the outer square, she kept getting that feeling like she was being watched. She stopped in the children's clothing store, and when the feeling wouldn't dissipate, she looked around.

That's when she spotted that same woman from the food court. She quickly looked away from her, pretending that she was looking for something specific, but it was too late. The woman had approached my mom smiling and just complimented me, saying how cute I was. She thanked her, and they both awkwardly stood there for a few moments, until the woman also complimented my mom, saying that she looked great for just having a kid.

Again, she thanked her, and as the woman continued smiling and not moving, she wished her a good day and walked away to complete her purchase. As she walked toward the checkout counter, the woman followed her. and when she parked the stroller next to her as she was checking out, the woman was right there, smiling at me, cooing, and then trying to touch me. My mom was a little less overbearing with me, as she was with my brother, her first child, as in she was typically okay with people touching my hands or feet or just wanting to hold me, even though she wouldn't let strangers hold me, of course.

but she said that she started feeling uncomfortable with how involved the woman was with getting with me. So, once she was finished, she quickly made her way out of the store, helping to soon lose sight of the woman or vice versa. However, it wouldn't go the way that she wanted because she spotted the woman following close behind. She explained to me how she felt like something bad was about to happen,

and she really didn't know what to do. to do. This was a long time ago, so she didn't have a cell phone at the time. The only thing she could do was to either find somewhere that she would feel safe, or to try to leave. However, where she was located in the mall was on the opposite side of where she'd parked. At that point, she just wanted to leave so she picked up her pace, pushing along the stroller and actively trying to keep an eye on this woman. as infants do though I apparently started crying and would not let up

so my mom tried to pull me out to hold me while steering the stroller one-handed this of course slowed her down some and the woman once again approached her at first she acted like she was trying to be helpful commenting that I was upset and offering to help my mom declined telling her thanks but no thanks but the woman was adamant. She offered to hold me so that my mom could rest,

and she said that she didn't mean to, but she kind of laughed as she again said, no thank you. It was one of those nervous laughs you do when someone asks you or tells you something shocking. So this seemed warranted. Why would anyone just hand over their infant to some random stranger? Apparently this woman didn't appreciate that, though. as her previous demeanor changed, and her eyes went back to the ones she initially saw in the food court. They were dark and nearly glazed over, as she began spewing a barrage of comments and questions at my mother.

She asked her if she even knew the father. My parents are still together. She said that I didn't look a thing like her. I'm actually a spinning image of my mother now, and even questioned if I was even her real baby. My mom is still walking at this point and not responding to the woman, now slightly offended, and still very much worried about her sudden change. Finally, my mom snapped and yelled at this woman to leave her alone.

The woman seemed surprised that she spoke up and quit moving, so she took advantage of this to put me back in the stroller so that she could get out of there quicker. But the woman didn't stay silent for very long. She immediately started shouting, She stole my baby! My mom quickly turned around to confirm what she already knew. This woman was now pointing at her, making a huge scene in accusing my mom of having kidnapped me.

My mom was horrified. As the woman ran towards her, she once again grabbed me to hold me tight, fearing that she would try to take me, or that someone else would. believing this old woman's story. As more and more people began looking around, my mom left the stroller behind and ran with me into a nearby store,

asking someone to call for help. They were all starting to look out into the walkway to see what was happening, and she said that someone already looked suspicious of her. Right then, she told me that she feared people would not believe her. She told me how one of the ladies working there agreed to call night. 911, but demanded that she stay where she was. This, again, confirming her fears that they may not believe her. While the woman was on the phone, the crazy lady caught up and ran into the store that my mom was in,

screaming to give her the baby. But she was now holding what looked like a large kitchen knife, and she was swinging it at anyone that got close to her. My mom was terrified that she may actually hurt someone that worked there. or me. So she just squeezed herself into the back corner, trying to make herself as small as possible, as she wrapped herself around me to protect me. Thankfully, the knife wielding didn't last long

as one of the mall security guys got there and practically wrestled it away from her. She was held nearby, but out of the store until police arrived. My mom can joke about it now, but I can still see her get choked up a bit when she talks about this part. She really told me how afraid she was waiting for the police to arrive. She didn't know how she was going to be able to prove to them that I was her baby. She had the stroller with our belongings in it,

but she feared that they would think that she just took off with me, leaving the stroller behind. She didn't have any identification for me, just her own ID in her purse. She asked to use the phone at the store to call my dad, hoping that he would be able to get my birth certificate or some newborn photos, anything to help prove her case. While she was able to call him, thankfully she ended up not needing anything other than her ID. When the police arrived, they took statements from a few people nearby, including my mom, and they asked her if either of us was hurt or needed medical attention, and she said no. so they basically told her that we could leave.

She was confused by this, remembering how she was happy they believed her, but also concerned that they didn't do much to check. What if it played out the same way but they believed the old woman instead? The police assured her and explained why they believed her. Apparently, this woman was actually known to them. She had issues with substance abuse, and she had issues with substance abuse, and she had to her. had a few kids herself. However, they'd all been taken away by the state because of neglect and abuse. She'd been using so long that she now seemed to be paranoid and accused everyone she saw

that had young children of stealing her kids. This wasn't the first time that she had done this to someone, just the first time in this mall, apparently. She was also only in her 30s, but my mom said that she looked. much older. My mom said that she left there feeling relieved, but also remorseful for the girl. She, thankfully, never saw or heard from her again. But she also wouldn't go to the mall alone anymore.

And that was the same reason that she wouldn't let any of us kids go alone or with friends either. We always had to have an adult with us. Like I said, we joke about how I was almost kids. or how I was a stolen baby, but I can't imagine how anyone would handle that situation, and I hope that I never do, either. The summer immediately following high school graduation, my friends and I were a bit restless. Some of us were waiting to go on out to college, some of us were trying to get work here at home, but all of us were in that in-between where our childhoods had officially ended,

and our adult lives hadn't yet actually started. It was one of those, we literally have our whole lives ahead of us situations. And one of my friends, Curtis, suggested that we should go on an adventure. Curious, we asked what he meant, and he mentioned that we should go to a somewhat close national park, don't want to mention which one for privacy, and we should bike through it. His brother, a guy we all knew was a huge fitness buff,

had told him about a dense and mostly unexplored biking path. That was, in his words, breathtaking. And the more that he told us about it, the more we all seemed pretty well sold on it. A week later, we had all packed up our gear, told our parents about the trip, gotten the whole, You be careful out there,

and call the minute anything goes wrong, beach, and then met up to get the hell out of Dodge. It was just the four of us, Curtis, myself, Shelley, and Josh. We were all super close throughout school, and we had each other's backs, so we were all looking forward to whatever adventure awaited us. We got there, and let me tell you, the forest greeted us with open arms. The first day was exhilarating. We all biked around.

got that quick rush of adrenaline. That hits whenever you go way too fast down dirt paths. We were all loving every second of this trip, realizing how amazing of an idea this really was. We were the kings and the queen of the trails, young and invincible. As we ventured on, the woods had obviously started hitting that point

where it was denser, the path was getting a bit more rugged, and the air was getting thick. We slowed down a bit on this part of the trails, mostly to take it all in. And two words that I want to use to describe it are beautiful, yet foreboding. Then something happened.

Curtis was up ahead and he signaled for all of us to stop, and then yelled back, Hey, hold up. He stopped near an area that was pretty heavy with brush, and we all got to him and asked what was going on. He motioned towards the bushes. Sitting there in the brush was another bike. It looked a bit older, a bit rusted.

There was something unsettling about it for whatever reason. It was just an old bike, but something about it made me feel off. Curtis got off his bike and walked over to lift it, saying, Huh, I wonder who ditched their bike. We all kind of looked around trying to see if there was anyone there, but Curtis made the comment that the bike was starting to rust, so it had likely been dumped there for a few days, and that there was no way the owner was still around.

We kind of all agreed that he was probably correct, that the state of the bike was evident that it wasn't recently used. I was still feeling a bit uneasy, but Curtis said that we should press on, The four of us got on our bikes. The other three started on, and I took up the rear. I started to pedal to get back to speed, but I paused when I heard what sounded like someone crying out. It was weak, but it was definitely the sound of someone or something in pain.

I shouted for the others, and Shelley looked back, but I don't think the others heard me, and I thought they were going to keep going. So, I figured I should take the moment to figure out who or what it was that I'd heard. I headed toward the brush, pushed it aside, and started walking off the path. I remember asking, hello? Is there someone out there? I expected not to get a response, to be proven that I was crazy. But to my surprise, I heard a very soft...

Help me, please. I jumped into action, running into the trees and looking for who this was. Then, I saw her. It was a young woman that wasn't much older than I was, but she looked gaunt. She looked like she'd been out in the woods for a while, pale, thin, and just looking like she was crawling that thin line between life and death. I will never forget the look that she gave me. the way her blue eyes looked like they were glossing over. I wasn't sure if that stare was an, oh, thank God, there's help.

Or, and at least I won't die alone. I started shouting out for my friends, or anyone really, screaming for someone to help. I grabbed my bag and pulled out some water and gave it to her, telling her that we were going to get her out of the woods. Thankfully, my friends had realized that I wasn't with them, and they'd come back down the trail, stopping where they saw my bike parked. I heard Shelly shouting, asking where I was.

I yelled back and asked them for help. The other three ran into the woods and were just as shocked as I was to see this poor lady. Curtis and I lifted her up to carry her back to the path, while Josh and Shelly said they were going to ride back down to get hold of someone to get the medics, or someone out to help her. The time that we sat there felt like forever. Giving this poor girl some water, some of the food that I had, trying to get her knots to fall asleep, you know, just in case.

It was a nightmare. The whole time I tried to talk to her, ask her about herself, ask her about what happened. She said that her name was Sierra, but that she couldn't remember what had happened. I tried to ask her how long she'd been in the woods, and she asked me what day it was. When I told her it was Thursday, she stared at me and shook her head, once again saying that she couldn't remember what day it was

that she'd gotten stuck out here. The whole conversation was so chilling. She couldn't remember anything about what happened when she'd gotten lost. She couldn't remember why she had gotten lost. She knew that she was out here, that she wasn't injured, and nothing out of the order.

had happened. But the next thing she remembered was lying against the tree when I was standing there. There was a huge gap of time that for her was just gone. After a little while, a pair of medics rode up to the trail where we were stationed, alongside our two friends. They asked us some questions about where we'd found her, if we'd given her anything, etc. I took the lead and explained everything, and they nodded along. One of them got on the radio and called it into base, and then mentioned that they were going to have a helicopter come in for a short-haul rescue.

And they asked that we not be in the area so that they didn't have any issues with getting her out. They also asked that we head back down to the Ranger Station, and that they would meet us there for a full statement. That time that we sat there at the station, waiting for them to come back, it was agonizing. when they got back they asked who found her. I raised my hand saying that I had found her, and he looked me dead in the eyes saying that she wanted him to thank me for saving her life. And he then said that me finding her was what had literally just saved her life. He mentioned that she was closer to death than we thought,

that if we'd kept going like we planned, she likely would have died within the afternoon. I asked if she was able to tell them anything about what had happened to her, but he confirmed that she was still lost for what happened, and that it's likely that she would just remember later, which then restored a lot of my hope as to whether or not she would survive. Saying that she would remember later told me that he fully expected her to live. That's the story of the craziest summer my group of friends has ever had.

the only time we went to a national park and the only time that we ever did a group biking excursion. I never heard from Sierra again, and I can only hope that she made a full recovery. I will never forget that look in her eyes, I will never forget her weak voice, and the way she looked like a shell of who she likely was. I'm glad that we saved her,

but I always freak out mentally about that fact that we all almost just kept going. There used to be an old industrial area back in the 80s that sat practically behind my childhood neighborhood. There were a few old factories and what I think was some kind of medical supply and lab back there. I remember going with my parents as my mom dropped something off there. By the late 90s to early 2000s,

The factories had seemingly been shut down or closed, and the medical place had moved. That made a perfect area for a lot of teens such as myself to hang out and do things we probably shouldn't have been. It also had a lot of nooks and crannies that we could run to and hide if someone came patrolling the area. I'm sure we had all thought about it, but none of us, or at least no one in my friend's circle, had ever gone into one of us. of them. But then we got to talking about it, and all of us, being bored, opted to check it out. There were five of us going in that day, fueled by our curiosity and readiness to explore a new and unknown place. We helped the girls over the fence, then the remaining three of us climbed over. Once at the entrance, we all noticed we were not going to get through the front door.

There were thick boards nailed to the entrance, so we walked around the entrance. So we walked around the building trying to avoid the road, we came across a window that you had to jump to look into. It was pretty close to the ground on the inside, so one of my friends said this was probably our best way in. However, I didn't realize the window didn't open, and my friend was basically asking permission to break it to get in. So when we all shrugged and agreed to go in, we jumped as he unexpectedly kicked in the window. That's how Mikey had always been so I don't know why we were all surprised. We followed our same procedure over the fence as we all went in one by one. Once inside, we looked around to see everything still in its place, but covered in a thick layer of dust. The east and

west walls were lined with those same windows, which all cast the light down onto the factory lines and floor. At first, it was a bit of an eerie sight. The place wasn't picked up and cleaned, like how I would expect a factory to look right before it closed for the night. No, this place looked like everyone left in a hurry, such as in an emergency evacuation. There were gloves scattered on the ground, small pieces on the belts, containers of bolts and screws spilled all over. It made me stop and wonder what had happened? What caused people that worked here to leave so quickly? There was no immediate indication of there being a fire or explosion. There was nothing spilled on the floor and certainly nothing we could smell. In fact, the only thing we could smell was the

dirt and stale air. I'm not sure how to describe it, sorry. If you've ever explored a sealed up or abandoned place, you know what I'm talking about. We started walking around as some of us split up. Mikey and Gloria went one way, while Billy, Kurt, and I went another, agreeing to meet back in the middle. Billy and I had been flirting on and off, so it was no surprise when she clung to me like she was scared.

As we made our way towards the back, we saw several smaller rooms that appeared to be for storage, or one as a sort of employee lounge. There was an old tattered and clearly used couch, a wooden table with two standing chairs left, and remains of what looked like the two other chairs that had broken and fallen apart.

There was a small kitchenette-like area with a sink which is where I had to do a double-take. The sink had a small amount of water in it, but the water didn't look dirty or like it had been sitting for years. or even days. Hell, it didn't even smell stagnant. I turned on the faucet and, to my surprise, it worked.

Billy and Kurt were in the room and witnessed what I had just did, and I explained to them why I did it. Billy was already nervous about this whole thing, and our discovery definitely seemed to put Kurt on alert, but not enough to make him want to leave. And of course, what else would make an abandoned fact? creepyer than having a cellar. The door was at the end of the hall and easily opened as the door creaked.

Billy was clinging to my arm as we walked down the stairs behind Kurt. He flipped the switch and surprisingly the light kicked on too. This place had obviously been closed for years, yet the power and water was still on. Why? We looked around the small room and immediately noticed it had been turned. into a makeshift bedroom. There was a small pile of blankets and tarps on the floor and everything else had been shoved and stacked into the corner of the room.

Underneath the old buckets of junk and detritus was just an old desk holding it up. But what really caught my attention was on the edge of the desk. There were probably a dozen old worn-out dolls arranged in a neat line. They were all Barbie-like ones, each a different style between the hair and clothing they had on. But the one thing they had in common was that all of the eyes had been scraped or scratched off. It was pretty damn creepy. This place had no indication of being a toy factory. In fact, it looked like it made large equipment based on all the bolts and large metal sheets all over the place.

So where did these dolls even come from? Of course, my only thought was that they were brought here by whomever made the bed. Billy was already tugging at me saying we should go, and I had no reason to say no. This was the last place we had to check, so I thought it was best for us to go back to the front, hoping Mikey and Gloria were waiting for us. As we walked back towards the entrance, Mikey shouted for us, I could hear in his voice. He tried to sound calm, but you could tell there was distress.

We all walked quickly to the assembly line, and he brought us all in close, saying we needed to leave. No one questioned this, and we all went back out the window we used prior. Once we were out, Mikey again told us to keep going and was adamant we needed to leave the area, suggesting we go to my place. I didn't hesitate to offer this either, and we all walked back in silence. I watched as Mikey looked behind us on occasions, and Gloria looked absolutely petrified. We saw some pretty creepy and unsettling things ourselves, but I was wondering what they saw that had them so terrified. Once we got back to my place, we sat in the back of Kurt's truck

and discussed what we saw. After sharing what we saw, I could tell you. I could tell you. tell by Mikey's reaction that it only confirmed something for them. They told us that they looked in a little side room that had a bunch of books and cubbies. They all had labels on them in the form of like a first initial and last name, and most of them still had things in them. They said they were looking through the items but didn't take anything, none of us ever did. Then they looked over the books. As they pulled out the books, they found,

two that were carved out, and inside one of them was cash. Mikey debated on taking a stack for a split second, but thankfully, Gloria convinced him it was a bad idea, and I'm glad she did. As they left the room, they were going to go upstairs where it looks over the assembly floor, but as they did, they saw two guys standing up there. Both of them looked very frail and sickly, but not in the elderly sense. But then Mikey noticed one of the guys had something. Between the railing he was holding on to in his hand, he could clearly make out a gun.

That was when he tried to stay calm and act like he didn't see them and called for us. We were all pretty freaked the hell out after he told us this, and now we were looking all around, making sure no one followed us here. No one ever came around and that included the police, so we all assumed that they weren't supposed to be there either. We shook off the bad vibes that place gave us and just agree that we were done going there and would find a new place to hang out.

I'm sure it's been thought of by the others too, but while I'm thankful those guys didn't do anything to us, I worry about what could have happened if they did, or even what if Mikey and Gloria did take the money? Was it theirs? Would they have tried to stop them? It was a horrible thought I tried to forget because if they were to have acted,

no one knew where we were and we could have just gone missing, never to be seen again. This was something that happened to me and my friends back around 2011. I don't want to give away too much about where I live because this event kind of left me a bit paranoid. So all I was say is that it was not in the U.S.

I grew up in a pretty small town, and it wasn't the best one in our city either. It had a healthy population of addicts and street workers. It wasn't uncommon to see someone sleeping next to a building, or people making blatantly obvious deals right in front of you. You just looked the other way, and tried to be as non-existent as possible. This, of course, was taught by my parents,

along the idea of, it's not polite to stare, and as I got older, I understood that mentality, too. When I moved out, I stayed close to home, maybe 20 to 30 minutes from my old neighborhood, but it was never forgotten.

When my dad passed, my mom moved in with my aunt, her sister, because she couldn't bear to live in an empty home anymore. They live close to the same neighborhood, so when I went to visit them, I would drive by our old house and reminisce about the good memories there. But when I'm not being sappy,

my friends and I do like to enjoy each other's company, typically outdoors and typically with drinks and hand. This event happened on one of those nights. It was me and two of my mates, hanging out at an old decrepit park. Kids haven't visited here in many years, being it was falling apart, and a new and updated one was constructed nearby.

As long as we didn't make a scene, people typically left us alone, too. After talking a bit, we got on the topic of an abandoned and run-down building, and Liam mentioned a house nearby. After talking more about it and the liquid curate, fueling us, we all wanted to check it out. All of us came from similar backgrounds, and while I wouldn't call us thieves, we would help

ourselves to some things found in long-abandoned places, typically to sell and get ourselves a bit of extra cash. We never directly stole from people or broke into obviously used and inhabited homes. We left our car at the park and walked to the house, since it was only about a kilometer away. As we approached it, you could definitely tell the place had been left for nature to take over. The grass was overgrown, the bricked path to the door was cracking and uneven, the weeds were climbing the walls of the house, and all the windows were covered by boards.

As we stood near the entrance, trying to get through the gate, I started getting that eerie feeling that something bad was about to happen. Being who I am, though, I wasn't about to back out and told myself that it was just the booze making me feel ill, and I let it go. I helped Liam break the latch, and we walked towards the door. The doorknob itself was beyond being called a doorknob, so, with just a nudge on the door, we walked in. Stepping into the house felt like stepping into a time capsule.

It was as if the owner left the place in a rush, but expected to return shortly after. There was a cup sitting on the coffee table with something dried at the bottom of it, a small plate sat next to it with what looked like a dried and shriveled up piece of food on it. There were still a few dishes in the sink, and a jacket half-azardly thrown on the back of a chair. Everything was then covered in a thick layer of dust. Even the cobwebs were covered in dust. We explored room after room, finding remnants of a life that had once thrived within those walls. But while the floral wallpaper that was now peeling from the walls made it look like a pleasant family home,

one thing I did notice was the complete lack of photos anywhere. None on the walls, none on the tables or shelves. There weren't even empty places where they could have been. Right as we thought we had seen everything, we stopped in the family room to discuss what we wanted to do next, when I noticed Jack turned his attention to the wall that he'd been leaning on. He had now shifted his stance and was running his hand along said wall. Liam and I stopped talking and were now watching him, waiting for him to explain himself. Once he realized, he could explain how there was a slight give in the wall,

and how he could feel a small dip in it. We watched as he was able to trace a square along the wall and turned to us to ask what we wanted to do. Jack was adamant that there had to be a good reason to cover that wall as a normal hole would just have been patched. Since it was a large square, he felt like it was hiding something. Liam was a little braver than the rest of us, so he approached the wall as if he was going to check out.

out, and instead threw his shoulder into it immediately caving in the wall. After we recovered from shock and laughed, we cleared the area a bit, and we looked in. I honestly expected it just to be a larger hole that was just made worse, but that was not the case. Nope. We couldn't just end it there with a weird house and nothing of interest. The hole that we had just recreated seemed to be a crawl space of some sort. that went down into a small tunnel. And, of course, my friends are more than willing to crawl through that space. Jack went first, and then Liam motioned me to go, but I was nervous and something told me not to.

After a shove, Liam went in, leaving me alone. I could hear them talking as I put my head in, and they mentioned that there was a whole room on the other side. I paced there, annoyed that they had left me, but I now wanted to join them, not wanting to be left alone, so I reluctantly crawled through. And, once again, I expected to see some kind of storage room, but this was set up like an entire bedroom. The first thing I looked at was the bed. It was a plain twin mattress with an old-looking quilt thrown on top of it. no pillow. Liam pulled back the quilt, and we were met with a very large, dark, brown stain on the mattress.

I immediately backed away and looked around the room. There had to be cameras, and someone had to be messing with us at this point, but there was nothing on the walls. Just a single standing lamp that Jack tried, and it actually turned on. I was a little relieved to have light, but... Then the unsettling feeling overpowered me, knowing that the power was still on and working in this, what appeared, to be an abandoned place. I knew my mates weren't in any rush to leave, so I turned to look over the desk, which was the only other thing in that room. On the desk there were scattered papers, most of them being newspaper clippings, and the clippings were all about the same thing. They were all about a string of unsolved killings from my old town and the next one over.

It was something that I tried to forget about as a kid, and after the cases went cold and I moved away, I never thought about it again. My hometown had become the hunting ground for a serial killer. As a kid, I remember the fear that gripped our town during that time. They always targeted the same people. It was those that were down on their luck, the homeless, and the addicts. I just remember hearing the stories on the news or when adults talked about them. I didn't understand the whole M.O. or target thing as I was still a child at the time. But what I did understand was that there was someone around that was hurting people,

and it made me fear that the same thing could happen to me. Even to this day, I know that I didn't fit the demographic, but the fear at the time was real, and seeing those clippings brought it all back. As I reread those articles and tried to make out the scribbled writing along the sides, I noticed Jack was trying to pry open the bottom drawer. It had a lock on it, but there was no key nearby or in any of the other drawers. So, Liam did what he knew best. and brute forced it,

managing to break the lock and part of the wood off as he pulled on it. It was just another moment that I wished we would have stopped and just left. In the drawer was a bunch of random but creepy items. There was a hairbrush full of hair, torn pieces of cloth, tarnished jewelry, and even a few pictures of random people. No one was repeated in those photos. It could have been anything, sure, but the randomness of the items definitely had trophy feels to it. And that's whenever I checked out of there.

And I demanded to my friends that we leave. Jack seemed a little weirded out, but Liam thought it was all funny. Not having any other way to leave, I crawled back through the tunnel and left the house. I paced in front of it until Jack and Liam walked out. We all joked about it, and Liam was adamant that someone was just screwing around for laughs, but the fact that the wall had been closed off seemed like someone was wanting to hide a dark secret. We dropped it shortly after, walking back to the park, and talking about anything and everything. But after going back home, I couldn't forget about that room.

I looked up the case, and after seeing that it was still cold, I decided to be. make an anonymous tip. I called them, and I explained how I happened across a home and what I'd found. I explained that I didn't take anything but how it seemed like it could be relevant. They didn't seem too interested until I mentioned the drawer. They said that they would look into it, and that was the only time that I talked to anyone about it. I still look up the case, and I can't find anything about a new lead or,

a suspect being found, so I don't know if I was helpful or not. But the fear that I felt being in that room, knowing that a potential killer or someone obsessed with them, could have been in that same room, still creeps me out to this day. Hi, Raven. I wanted to share a story with you that happened to my friend and I back in high school.

My friend Adrian and I loved photography. We took any extracurricular classes in clubs that we could about it too. We even convinced our parents in letting us go on a three-day photography retreat over the summer, and our passion grew even stronger. We told ourselves that after we finished our college courses, we wanted to start our own photography business. So, until then, we took pictures of anything and everything we could. However, while Adrian enjoyed photos of people and animals, I preferred urban decay or ruined photography,

like old buildings and structures long since forgotten and abandoned, being taken over by nature. Vines growing up and around the structures, trees growing through a building. It's a slight eerie yet beautiful contrast that I adore. But as a high schooler, we didn't have many options for my style of photography, so Irbex was usually our way to go. This story took place on one of those days. Sometimes I would stay at my grandmas when I just wanted to get away for a while. I was the second oldest of five kids, and I just wanted to be left alone, so she was the best option for me. I was always close to my grandma, and when my mom and dad went through a divorce, she let me stay with her as long as I wanted.

My mom is now with my stepdad, and they had three more kids together. My older brother is much older than me, and he had already moved out at that point. Anyways, she lived in a pretty rundown area, but my stepdad helped keep my grandma's place in top shape, So hers was probably one of the best-looking ones on the block. Because her neighborhood was so much older, though, there were a lot of empty houses and one that I particularly like to look at. It was a soft yellow color on the outside and was obviously a house but had been turned into a business for insurance. It had a small sign hanging from the top of the awning with the name of the insurance company. The company was long gone, but they seemed to leave the place just as it was.

The grass was now overgrown, which told me it truly was abandoned. Typically, if the place looks empty but the outside is maintained, it was most likely not inhabited, but someone still owned it and took care of it. Usually people did this in hopes to prevent squatters or scrappers. While we still check these places out, we have to be able to. had a rule we both agreed on. We left the place just as it was. We weren't there to take things as a souvenir or to make money. We were there to take pictures. So yes, we probably shouldn't enter in the first place, but if there were no trespassing signs, we would still check it out.

So after Adrienne got permission to stay with me at my grandmas, we both made plans to check out the house. My grandma knew I was a bit of a daredevil, but she also knew telling me no would do nothing, so instead she would tell me to keep my phone on and be careful. Just another reason why I love her. As we approached the home, we tried the door, but it was locked, no surprise. So I tried the window next to the door. The windows were old and the lock was just one of those up and down stoppers, So with a simple jiggle, it would fall, unlocking the window. We both climbed through, and the first thing that hit us was the sudden smell of mildew and sitting water. We immediately knew the place probably had unseen cracks, causing water to leak into the home.

We both knew we had to be careful, but we still wanted to look around. As we walked further in, we pretty quickly saw the culprit of the smell. The ceiling had collapsed, caving into the kitchen. We watched a few drops from the rotting wood splash onto the floor, and again, just agreed we wouldn't explore that area beyond the kitchen. We went through a narrow hallway where all the rooms had been turned into small offices and took some pictures. To be honest, it was a little underwhelming, but we still got a few good shots.

We started walking back to the front, ready to leave, since we couldn't explore the rest of the house. But as we hit the cross-section of the hall in the living room slash lobby area, the world around me began to slow down. I felt my foot sink into the floor, and before I could process what's happened, the floor collapsed, causing me to jump backwards. But Adrian was in front of me,

and she seemed to be experiencing the same thing I did. She turned to look at me as we felt the floor moved, and then before I could blink, she fell through the floor, as if it swallowed her in an instant. I hugged the wall as I screamed out for Adrian, praying she was still conscious and could answer me. Thank God she did, but I could hear the pain in her voice. I asked her if she was okay, now trying to lean down to look into the hole. She said she tried to land on her feet but instantly felt and heard the pop. Once she took a second to gather her thoughts, the excruciating pain hit her all at once.

She told me she thinks she broke her ankle or her foot. I now had to find a way to get her out. I told her to stay still and to not move while I tried to quickly and safely find a way down there. It was obviously a basement, most houses around there had them, so I knew there had to be a set of stairs somewhere. I ran back around in the rooms in the bathroom and again looked over the living room and didn't see it. To my dismay, I assumed the basement was probably beyond the kitchen where I really didn't feel safe walking. I yelled down to Adrian, who I can hear whimpering, and tell her the news. We both remained silent after that, trying to figure out what to do.

I had pulled out my phone and just stared at the screen, but I didn't know who to call. I doubt my grandma would be able to do anything more than us. Calling my parents would probably mean trouble, including possibly not being able to stay at my grandmas anymore and possibly Adrian not being allowed over either. Then there's 911. I feared we would be in legal trouble for being there, which would then just be the tip of the iceberg. As if she read my mind, Adrian called out, Don't you dare call anyone.

It at least relieved a little bit of guilt that she also feared calling for help. But we needed to do something, so I asked her if she had any ideas. I asked her if she saw anything down there we could use. I was now standing on the edge, looking down, and could see her sitting on the ground. After a bit of silence, Adrian mentioned a window she saw nearby. She said it was small, but we could probably get through it. I told her I would go out and look for it and promise to come right back in if I couldn't get it open. I managed to unlock the front door and ran out of it, not caring who may have seen me, and around the side of the house,

looking for this window. I nearly missed it as it was covered in weeds and dirt. I quickly tried to rip them out and flatten them so I could get to the window. and then felt around the edges determined to figure out how to open it. There was a thick layer of dust and dirt caked onto both sides of that window. The more I touched it, the more it would cling to me, but there were still plenty that wasn't coming off, telling me it was on the inside. This also made it to where I couldn't really see into it. I pulled out my phone to call Adrian, hoping the fall didn't break hers,

and then after several rings, she picked up. She said it had actually come out of her pocket, so she was glad I called it to make sure she didn't leave without it. I asked her about the window as I knocked on it and she confirmed that it was the one she saw. I asked her if she had any way to get to it without using her leg too much, and she did agree that she could get to it, but there was a tall metal cabinet in front of it. So no matter what, I was going to have to get her out of there. I debated on what I wanted to do, if I should go back in and fall through the hole and try to open the window from the inside, or maybe see if I could find something to help open the window. I didn't want to risk falling in the hole and having the same thing happened to me, so I told myself this window had to be the answer.

I saw a tree limb in the yard and broke off all the smaller pieces to try and use it as a wedge. I lined up the branch to the small opening in the window, pulled back my arm and jammed the branch into it, and as if I was living in some dumb cartoon, the whole window split from the frame. To say that this place was falling apart was an understatement. I quickly kicked in the window and watched it slide across the middle cabinet and fall to the floor, making a loud crashing sound. I stuck my head in, looked at Adrian, who looked just as surprise as I was. We stayed as we were discussing our options but trying to move fast, fearing the whole place could just cave in at any point.

I was able to climb through the window, it being almost a perfect fit, and balanced myself on the wobbly cabinet. Once I was in, I tried to use the cabinet and some old table down there as a ramp or steps up the window. I pulled Adrian onto the desk and then helped her onto the cabinet where she was able to crawl the rest of the way out. Then she sat on the ground as she helped pull me through the window next. We hobbled our way back to my grandma's place, trying to think of a likely story, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to lie to her. So we told her the truth. She took us to the hospital and called my parents to let them know.

What I didn't expect was that my grandma gave us a cover story. She told my parents that we were sliding down her stairs railing and Adrian got caught on it and fell from the top. I thought it was weak but I guess coming from my grandma, they ate it up. Adrian got all fixed up. She definitely fractured her ankle and did something else to her foot, but thankfully it wasn't worse. After she was completely healed and walking on her own, we continued with our urbex, but we have better rules.

We still do not touch anything, but if we do see infrastructural damages, we'll just stay on the outside. I wanted to share an experience that I had when I was a preteen that was pretty creepy, and also taught me a valuable life lesson early on in my life. I believe it was 2005. My twin sister Katie and I were the typical young girls. We liked to do our hair and makeup, hang out with friends, and most importantly, we liked to shop, and especially at the mall. Our local mall was our favorite place to go and hang out, even if we didn't have money to spend. It was seriously some of the best times that we had.

This event happened on one of those shopping days. Katie and I would often go together with our mutual friends, but this time she wasn't going with me, as she hadn't been feeling well. So it was just going to be me and two of my friends. My friend Amber's mom picked me up, and we met our other friend Savannah there. Our day there started out pretty typical.

We probably walked the whole floor talking before we even decided to go into the shops. Most of the time we didn't have much money to spend, so we would try on outfits pretending like we had an infinite wallet and would walk out with wishes and oh wells. We more so just enjoyed being able to have some independence, as we walked around by ourselves. As we were walking through the shops, I noticed an older guy sitting on a bench, seemingly watching us intently. At first, I brushed it off thinking that he was just another judgmental adult, who didn't like our choice of clothing and style.

I had short pink hair, Savannah had hers half shaved, and Amber was just in her normal emo garb. So, yes, we kind of stood out. but we loved the way that we looked. We were also used to getting stared at, but it normally didn't bother us. So, we continued on our wandering spree as normal. However, that feeling of being watched continued to linger. It felt different than the normal stairs that we got, and it was making me feel uncomfortable. So I would look around the stores, and outside of it, and I would see no more.

none other than that same guy that I saw earlier just staring at us. I couldn't understand why he was not only staring at us, but obviously following us at this point. No matter where we went, it seemed like this guy was also within my view, but also trying to keep his distance. But the more I thought about it, the more I started to entertain the idea that

maybe this guy was some kind of undercover security or something. And he was just doing a crappy job. This thought made sense to me, but also angered me, as I assumed he thought we must have been thieves, or up to no good, since we weren't buying anything. So, in hopes of getting him off our backs, I decided that I should buy something.

I bought a cheap pair of earrings and a little keychain, thinking that my plan was genius and that he would just, go away. That, obviously, didn't happen. This guy continued to follow us, and again was making me feel uncomfortable. I hadn't mentioned him to my friends up to that point, but now fed up with it, I finally asked my friends about him. They did not make me feel any better about this situation.

They said they also saw the guy, but as they walked around, they noticed the only person his attention was on was me. They didn't mention this to each other until I brought it up, thinking the same thing, that he was just being judgmental, until I brought it up. They watched as he would crane his neck to keep me in his view as I walked around. Now, creeped out, we thought up a scheme to hopefully lose him. We decided that we would all go into a store that he would have no business, going in. So we headed for a store dedicated to young girls. We all walked in and one of my

friends said that he did seem to stop at the entrance. We agreed that we would try to spend a decent amount of time in there, hoping that he would just move along. After some time, I think we were in there for about half an hour, trying things on and making a purchase on some popcorn to share. We left the store. Savannah and Amber walked out first, thinking, if anything, I would be safer alone in the store. When I didn't immediately see the guy, I walked out and directly to my friends. As I approached them, I heard someone yell out, Hey! I turned around to look, and it was that same guy, now approaching me, with a happy look on his face. I stood there frozen. I stood there frozen. in not knowing what to do, and when he got closer, he berated me for not saying hello sooner,

or introducing him to my friends. I was bewildered. I had never seen this guy in my life, and I had no idea who he was. I still didn't know what to say or how to respond, so as I stood motionless with a deer in the headlights look, the guy grabbed my arm with one hand, and he still didn't know what to say or how to respond, so, as I stood motionless with a deer in the headlights look, the guy grabbed my arm with one hand and had his other arm out, like he was trying to pull me into a hug and still smiling. I started pulling back, struggling to break from his grip,

but he only squeezed tighter, now hurting my arm. My friends immediately came to my defense, yelling at him to let me go. As he loosened his grip, his face dropped to a frown, and he shouted, but I love you, Katie? I was again caught speechless. All of us were. But then I muttered that I wasn't Katie.

I didn't know what was happening at the time, so I just asked, how do you know my sister? His saddened look quickly changed to confusion or annoyance, maybe as he began to doubt me. He accused me of lying and began shouting that I had. had let him on and broken his heart, now getting the attention of others. The guy quickly noticed this and backed off, walking away with his head down. There was an adult that worked in the store that we had just left, that approached us,

asking us if we knew that guy and we explained what had just happened. They suggested that we'd come back in the store so they could contact security and told us to call our parents. Once our parents and security arrived, we explained what all had unfolded during what was supposed to be a simple trip to the mall. Security and the police never saw the guy after that, but it wouldn't be the last time that we heard from him. When we got back home, my parents called my sister out of her room and made me explain to her what happened that day. As I recalled my experience, I watched the color drained from her face. and her expression changed from one of confusion to shock. When I finished, my parents asked my sister if she was familiar with the guy that matched the description

and why he knew her and said what he said. That's when everything finally came out and made sense. My sister broke down and explained how she had been frequenting games with popular chat rooms and talking to people. One person was particularly interested in talking to her and did so every time she was in the game. It seemed lighthearted and friendly at first until they took it to emails.

The guy claimed to be 16, and we were 15 at the time, so she didn't see anything wrong with it. She shared a photo of herself. It was a normal one, nothing inappropriate, like a school picture. Because she had pink hair at the time, the guy she was talking to delayed sending her photos saying he was ugly and didn't want to scare her off.

She convinced him that she wouldn't judge, and when he finally sent the pictures, she could tell that he was a lot older than 16. The guy was clean-shaven, including his head. He tried to tell my sister that he just looked older than 16. because he had cancer, and that's also why he was bald. My sister, still wanting to not be mean, just assumed he was lonely and wanted friends. But she slowly distanced herself from him, knowing that she probably shouldn't be talking to someone so much older.

But the emails from him just kept coming. He slowly threw the comments of how beautiful she was, and how he wanted to meet him. her and make him the luckiest guy alive. When he kept asking her to meet up, she always told him that she couldn't. That day, she had no idea he was going to be at the mall, nor did she have any idea how he knew to show up at that mall. She legitimately wasn't feeling well, and had no plans on going with us that day, and after my parents checked her emails, they confirmed that she never mentioned it to him either.

She did, unfortunately, tell the guy the school that we went to, and that she liked to go to that mall. But that was it. It's still a terrifying thought to this day that that guy may have been walking around our school, or even the mall daily, trying to find her. That's exactly what we assumed happened, too. The only picture Katie had scent of her was with her pink hair. However, once it faded, she tried purple. and I ended up using her leftover pink.

So, with me now having pink hair, and us being identical twins, I could see how he could mistake us, not knowing our differences that made us, well, us. My sister got in trouble for sending pictures and giving a stranger personal information, but my dad also took over her email to lure the guy out. And it worked. my dad proposed a meetup, but the guy wanted it to be in a more secluded area due to the event that unfolded at the mall. When they met up, my dad called the cops once he spotted him, and he told them to get there quickly before he did something that he regretted.

Years later now, and I don't think my parents are completely honest as to what all went down there. But what I do know is that the guy was arrested and went away. for a long time. It was definitely an eye-opener for both of us, and as I mentioned in the beginning, we learned a valuable lesson. We were heavily monitored

with online stuff, but I can honestly say that I appreciated it. Running into a grown man that I had never met, him trying to pull me away from my friends, saying that he loved me, it was all terrifying,

and I hate to think about what have happened if I was alone, or if my sister was there. There appears to be no shortage of creepy neighbors, and living in some cities high in crime and weirdness, from NYC to L.A. and beyond, you would think I would have chosen the Buddhist stalker, the bathrobe man, or even the most distressing peeper who tumbled as a landlord.

No joy. But no. In all these decades, and I mean decades of moves, there is one who stands out above the rest. Timeless. And the memories are imprinted, flawless. It goes way back, way into the deep recesses of a childhood that was already old somehow. We had lived in Seattle. My dad had transferred to L.A. to a big job.

a golden job, dripping with celebrities and parties. I was only four or five, it was the mid-60s at the time. He was a minister to Andorra on Bewitched, to Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies, the cast of gunsmoke, some of the monsters,

the list really went on. It was a new thought, church. Sort of a precursor to the New Age movement. There was only one problem. I would wake in the night, not breathing. I have such strong memories of not breathing, and trying to move out of my room to get to my parents. And my mom would always turn on the shower while my dad got dressed,

and then we would go to the hospital. I would always black out and have no memory of anything until after the hospital, while it was still dark. My dad would drive us all west and north along the coast. We would disembark from our car and hear the waves crashing on the rocks, taking in deep breaths of air. I never wanted to leave, because the air was so pleasant and cool and pure. We had to move, though.

I had too many near deaths, and he grabbed the first church opening he could find. I recall not even knowing where we were going, but it was beautiful. We had flown there in the night. It was Atlanta, and from the second-story cafe at the hotel, all I could see was the green below, the green of the treetops. There were still asthma attacks, but they were less. We had a scare on a trip to the Bahamas. I recall the Cinderblock Hospital corridor.

Atlanta was like moving into the past. It was not hipster L.A. It was embroiled in civil rights struggles, and as a minister, my dad knew Martin Luther King, for ministers, priests, and rabbis will often get together as chaplains, except for the more extreme ones who hate all others. So when Martin Luther King was shot, and Robert Kennedy, who had come out and we had all met, and that's a long, intense story, was killed as well, my dad needed a break, I guess, because before I knew it, we were in Wisconsin, where he was again a minister, but only for a moment.

And then he dropped out of the church for a time and went back to college in a small town, and we rented a house in an old neighborhood there. Sorry to give such a long-winded introduction, but I felt it was important to show that we had been around a bit. and we'd seen plenty. We'd cruise down Sunset Boulevard, and we had been there for Martin Luther King's March, the first one. So this new move seemed like a breather. Small town, quiet homes, some very nice Victorians with smaller 50s homes as well,

the eclectic jumble of a downtown living area. There was a hippie couple who owned a head shop living above us in the renovated attic. There was an East Coast couple who wore tie-dye and gave me pet gerbils in the biggest, coolest aquarium, outfitted with Mr. Zimmerman's hand-carved cedar tunnels and bridges. In a ginormous house, catty-corner behind,

was a family of ten kids, which was pure heaven for me, an only child. And they were fun kids. We had the best time in the leaves, they fell, and we would build forts and houses, or even pirate ships, singing, X marks the spot with a dash and a dot. There was an old penny candy store still in business on the corner. It was dark and the paint had come off of the little building.

In the summer when we would come in from the light, it was impossible to see. It was easy to bump into jars of candy on the long counters. It was funny that across the street was a dentist who only gave out balloons on Halloween, next to the degenerate who gave out joints and pennies in his underwear for trick-or-treaters. And then, there was that neighbor on the other side of us directly. It was a family, but the person who stood out, the one that you saw the most, was the father. and my dad, who never gossiped about neighbors, he was a busy guy, even began to notice him. This was a college town, so casual, yet from our many-windowed place on the corner, you could see him.

I am sorry that I can't recall his name now. He walked in a perfect gray suit with a fedora hat. Again, all so neat and of another era. There was something Anachromatic about him. He was on the thinner side, pale, sharp features. He would walk alone, but as if on a mission, and he was never without a cigar box that he held on too tightly as he walked.

Years later, stories would come out about the men in black, and he looked so much like those images. An expressionless face with some, sort of determination. Men in gray, and what was in that cigar box that accompanied him on each walk? What's in that box?

Why is he dressed like an undertaker just to walk around the neighborhood? It's 80 degrees out and he has on a tight tie. It had such an unsettling Cold War vibe. And our big window, with inadequate coverings, just added to the creepiness. You could be lost, in thought, looking at goldfish or waiting for a pie to be baked, and absent-mindedly look

out the window, and there he would be, staring right back in from across the way, as if he had been there, unnoticed, for hours. He would not turn away upon discovery either. My dad's OCD would kick in over the curiosity about who this man really was, where the contents of the cigar box drugs or many flasks of booze? Or was there a transmission device inside of it? Like spyware from Get Smart, the innovative covert operations comedy. Would we ever have a gotcha moment, watching him talking into it? He did not appear to have a job.

Or maybe walking around and looking creepy was his profession. Was he a paranoid delusional? Was he a German war criminal? Our interactions with him consisted mainly of what has already been mentioned, a through-the-window affair of him on his solitary strolls that were eternal and insidious, purposeful and mysterious. He walked around the neighborhood, but he was not of the neighborhood. Sometimes, my dad would shrug and say that he didn't even look like a Russian or German spy,

more like some wax creature from outer space. Our only close encounters with him, and more broadly, his family, would come after a trip. Our house was a rental while my parents went back to school. It was a big place, but not beautiful, just utilitarian, with a plain grass yard in the front, and only scotch thistle grew along the front border of the house, blooming purple. We had gone on a microbus camping trip in Canada, and upon return, saw the thistles had been cut down. Several days later, the neighbor walked by when we were outside,

and he said that he had done it. It was eerie, because he had waited for us to go on holiday and then trespassed. He seemed gleeful in his own alien way, and he wanted to get pleasure from getting us upset, it seemed. Just such a weird ambush to get all fired up about. To go after eight thistle plants, he really was proud of himself. He'd sent a message to us. Now, this part I will never fully make sense of.

There was a family, I had mentioned, though mostly unseen. There was a wife who we never saw speak, and only come out the back door without looking so much as up, to the car and the detached garage for grocery runs. and they had a daughter, a few years ahead of me in school. I feel that she was in the fifth grade. She was, of course, more than welcome to play with the rest of the kids who jumped in the leaves out back, but she never came out, and she was pale.

She never showed emotion and seemed more like a little adult, unlike that giant Catholic family with the kids who were always making faces and laughing, especially the little boy who was only about a year younger than me. He would always be sticking out his tongue or making his eyes pop out. This was so odd. But I was invited to spend the night at her house. At the house of the fedora-hatted cigar boxmen's. I have no idea why my parents said yes.

I recall being sort of uncomfortable with the whole. thing. Did I really want to be in the clutches of that cringe mystery man, in his layer, on his turf? And why was I invited after he trespassed and beheaded the purple flowering thistles? We moved soon after this to Canada. Their house was smaller. It was a 50s box, but very much nicer inside with a white carpet, good sunlight, and a perfect area to place Chinese. checkers. The girl told me that her parents were older, and they were. Her mother looked like one of my grandmas, with a head of short gray curls. I don't even recall seeing the freaky dad there very much. He must have been out combing the neighborhood the whole time.

But the really weird part, the part that put me on high alert and still makes me wake up sometimes, was when she and I went to her bedroom and got undressed into our pajamas. She got really embarrassed. She said, oh no, like she had forgotten, and maybe that I would not have even noticed. But then I did. I very much did. And there was no way to unsee what I saw.

Her smooth body, her belly, to be exact, was missing a belly button. She had no belly button. She had no belly button. Suddenly she's talking fast and low, saying it's why she avoids swimming and only has a one-piece suit, and that she never wants to be discovered.

She begs me not to tell, not to tell anyone. I recall just staring, taking it in, knowing that I would never have another, chance, and giving myself the space to really see that she did indeed have no belly buttoned. And indeed, she had none.

It was so disconcerting, and of course I told my parents when I came home, and they didn't even question me. It seemed to just make sense somehow. Of course, the progeny of that alien neighborhood cigar box carrying MIB would not have a Pelly button. It made perfect sense. They were hatched. They were from a lab or from space.

Or was she some kind of experiment of his? Soon, the snows would come and we would be lifted out of the U.S. and into the frozen canals of Ottawa, dripping on pastries and surrounded by ski resorts.

I would miss the faces of that dear town. Studius Veder, or Tony, who's Mom had a car that could drive in water, getting lost in the big family, tearing around their boarding houses like residents or tree-rich yard. We would go on to move again and again and again. New Mexico, Chicago, the northwest. But never in all of these well-traversed years of absorbing people and places, has there been anyone so singularly mysterious as the girl with no belly button. and her father, last scene standing at night in the rain under a light,

much like a haunting movie poster that would come out exactly a decade later for The Exorcist, only staring inside our homes, at us, and for how long? There are so many questions about the nature of life and existence itself, and the voyeur next door just added another confounding set of unlawful. unknowns in motion. Is there anyone out there who has ever had a similar experience? Thank you so much. Hey guys, I'm a long-time listener, and I finally came around to having time to send my story to you.

I wanted to share this to help out younger generations, to realize that things are not always as innocent as they seem. Also, to be more aware of authoritative figures that may have more nefarious means than our young child naivety may or may not recognize. I truly hope that this helps someone, just as your podcast has helped me. So, thank you for that. Anyways, here goes. I'm a female, born and raised in New Jersey, who grew up in the 90s. I was born in 88. The story happened when I was 11 years old, and in seventh grade.

I was young from my class, and I actually started high school when I was 13. One weekend night, I was having a sleepover at my house with three of my friends. Everyone got dropped off at my house, and then we decided how much fun it would be to go to the new Walmart that was just built a town over from us. You know, because Walmart is so cool and all. This was different, because we were all used to stores being all together in a mall indoors. In this new Walmart was a strip mall, having some other stores down the length of the newly built property.

There was a beauty product store, a chocolatier, then a shoe store. So it was a pre-teen girl's dream area. Yes, they had strip malls back then too. but they were usually businesses and convenience stores, not shops that a bunch of preteen girls would want to visit. This is important later on. So, my dad being the awesome parent he always has been, dropped us off at around 6 p.m. at Walmart,

and said he would come pick us up when we were ready, but it had to be by 9 p.m. When most stores would be closed or closing, and it was getting late. I had my brick of a Samsung cell phone to call him when we were ready, and we lived about 15 to 20 minutes away, so we were all set. We all proceed to get out of the car, Kelly, Alex, Christy, and myself. We said goodbye and waved while my dad waited to make sure that we got into the store okay.

I know this may seem weird to some people, or irresponsible of my dad to just drop us off alone, but this was the norm back then for many of my friends and myself. He knew where we were. Their parents knew what we were doing. We had cell phones to call if we needed anything, and we were trusted. This I cannot emphasize enough. We were good kids, so what was the problem, right?

Other people. Other, creepy, terrible adults were the problem. So we were all giggling and making jokes amongst ourselves, walking around this huge new store that we had never seen nor been in before. To be honest, it was awesome. The four of us meandered through the beauty aisles, talking about stuff preteen girls love to talk about, all the while screwing around harmlessly. Maybe chasing and messing with each other for an aisle or two, but that's it. the only thing that could be considered bad would be when Alex grabbed one of the latex rubber gloves

that were dispersed throughout the store on the structural poles that were there for the employees to use for cleaning and sanitizing purposes she grabbed one of the gloves out of the box that was opened and blew it up like a balloon and we all smacked each other a bit with it and tried to keep it off the ground for another aisle or so We weren't destroying anything, or being too disruptive, besides the giggling and joking around having a grand old time together. Mind you, it was getting later, near the store's closing time, and less and less people were walking around in the Walmart.

If we saw anyone in the aisles, we were always respectful kids, and would stop screwing around. Except for the giggling. It was cool to feel the freedom of being an adult, getting to walk around the store and buy things with our own money that our parents may or may not have given us still, but we hadn't to care in the world and decided to buy some snacks and nail polish to go along with the movies we were planning on renting

from the in-town VHS store, when my dad came and got us later. We proceeded to the register as it was about 8 p.m. And we still wanted to check out the beauty store, the chocolatier, and maybe if we had time, the pay less shoe store at the end of the strip. This was going to be an awesome night, and I was pumped to have my friends sleeping over without a care in the world.

We get to the register, and I offered to pay for anything since we were sleeping over at my house, and my dad gave me the money for just that reason. everyone respectfully declined because their parents had given them money too Alex went first, bought the nail polish and some lip gloss. Kelly paid next and bought some lotion and body sprays. Christy bought some Oreos and chips, and then it was my turn. I bought some hair twisties and a bunch of candy.

While I was gathering my items and my purse, everyone had started to proceed to the exit. assuming the next was behind them and ready to head down to the next stores outside along the strip mall. Before I could leave the register, there was an older woman who was in line next to me. I noticed her standing behind me, but besides a quick backwards glance and a smile towards her, I was blissfully unaware of anything else. Right as I was gathering my items that I'd bought, and placing my plastic Walmart shopping bag into my purse, She grabbed my forearm gently and leaned in to say something to me. I was thrown off for a second as she whispered into my ear.

Honey, please be careful. Those two men behind me have been following you girls all throughout the store. Every time I've seen you four, they were there too, watching you girls. I looked at her speechless, and I looked behind her seeing two men in their late twenties to mid-30s, 30s, standing behind her, watching our whole interaction carefully. They both looked clean cut, had short hair, buttoned up colored shirts and slacks, and one had glasses on. I said, oh my gosh, thank you.

Quietly and walked quickly to catch up with my friends who had already gotten almost to the exit in the time that the woman had stopped me. I caught up to them and told them in a scared vault. quickly what the woman had said, and we all instinctively looked back. While the woman was still at the register paying, the men were behind her. Our line of sight connected, and the two men put down whatever BS item they were, quote-unquote, buying, barreled past the woman who had stopped me, and started briskly walking towards us. Kelly yelped, and we all instinctively started to run fast.

all scared and not understanding the true gravity of the situation we were now unwillingly in. I yelled, Run to the next store, guys. And as we got through Walmart's exit, we went right to head toward the rest of the stores and the strip. It was that, or the somewhat lit parking lot with few cars, and even fewer people left in it,

and nowhere for us to go nor escape. My gut told me. me to get into a store where there were people, and to hurry. We tried the beauty supply store, but we saw it was closed. Then the chocolatier was also closed. We finally saw the lights on the Payless shoe store, shining bright like a beacon, beckoning us into safety. We ran in there, all yelling and crying, not knowing why these men were chasing four preteen girls.

The woman in the store seemed shocked when we all barged through the, the doors, all yelling and speaking loudly, Please help us. These men are chasing us. We began to say what the woman who had stopped me had just said. The Pales worker seemed to be alone, and was in the midst of closing out the register when we had barged in. The woman that was shorter than some of us listened to our pleas and quickly said,

Okay, girls, get behind me. As we all watched in horror as the two men ran into the, store. She said to the men calmly, Can I help you? The man with the glasses spoke and said, We need to take these girls back with us to Walmart right now. She asked them what for. They wouldn't answer her and started to move forward trying to get past her as she had both of her arms outstretched, blocking us safely behind her small petite frame. She said, what do you need these young girls for?

Glasses then reached around her side and grabbed Kelly's purse out of her hand while saying They stole something and we need to take them back there now I yelled No we didn't he's lying The lady slightly turned her head to the right While backing us up behind her and asked us Girls, is that true? Did anyone take something without paying?

We all collectively yelled No As we proceeded to pull out receipts and our bags with our fully paid items. None of us had taken anything. None of us were like that, especially not at that age. Glasses, being the only man out of the two that spoke, gave Kelly her purse back. Mind you, without even looking in it.

And then started ripping the rest of our purses out of our hands. He kept Christie's in his hands now as he dropped mine and Alexes on the floor in front of him. He then proceeded to rifle through Christy's. Christy's bag nonsensically. The woman clearly noticing this, and feeling something was wrong, asked, what exactly did they steal then? Glasses, still doing all the talking, proceeded to suddenly drop Christy's bag and pick mine up off the floor next. Glasses then took out my makeup pouch out of my purse. All that was in there was some used hair ties, butterfly clips, lip gloss, and an eye shadow palette.

The new pack of hair ties that I had just bought was still in my shopping bag. Mind you, neither man ever took my shopping bag out of my hand, only my purse. In fact, we all had our shopping bags still in our hands from when we tried to show our receipts to them when they first accused us. Mind you, the men never once looked at our receipts or our purchased items in our Walmart plastic shops. shopping bags. Probably the first thing you would do as a loss prevention worker accusing said customer of theft, right? Well, they never did. Glasses proceeded to rifle through my makeup bag, grab my bright frosty blue eye shadow,

which was big in the early 2000s and looked banging, to be honest. And he said, Aha, what's this here? My big mouth could not take the disrespect anymore. being from New Jersey Yeah, we're big on that here And I said That's not new

Are you kidding me? Look at it, it's clearly been used multiple times The woman looked at me And then back at the men and said Sir, that doesn't look brand new to me at all There's no way she could have just stolen that This whole time The four of us girls were intermittently yelling out

That we didn't do anything and that we were clearly being wrongfully accused. The men both then looked at each other, as Glasses dropped my purse and walked back towards the other man, who was standing there quietly watching us the whole time, blocking the exit-slash-entrance door. Glasses leaned in, and the silent man whispered something in his ear as Glasses nodded in agreement, while looking back at us,

as we stood behind this brave and wonderful woman, who had become four-giversly. young girls protector with neither hesitation nor question. While they were conferring with each other quietly, our second woman protector of the night spoke up. How about I see some ID? You men must have some work identification if you're lost prevention for Walmart, right? They looked at her sharply,

and the quiet man whispered something else to glasses. Glasses then said, We don't have to show you anything. They are in the wrong. here, and they need to come with us, or we're calling the police and their parents. The woman then said assuredly, Okay, what if I walk them back over there with you? Glasses quickly and emphatically said,

No, we will take them. You've done enough to impede our work tonight. Our protector said, Okay, then how about I call the police and they can come meet us here, and we'll figure out what's really going on? This is the one and only time. the quiet man spoke. And he said,

Hmm, no need, ma'am. We'll just let these girls off with a warning and tell them that this is their one and only get out of jail free card. The woman, realizing that something was not right again, asked them for some identification in their names. They quietly looked at one another, and then just left the store.

We all started bursting out into hugs of gratitude and thank-yused to this kind woman who had defended our honor and saved us from being wrongfully accused. The woman then briskly walked towards the exit slash entrance and locked it, whilst telling us to call our parents. I quickly called my dad and told him what had happened, and he told us to stay put and said he would be right there. You know how I said we lived 15, 20 minutes away?

Yeah, he got there in less than 10. And once I saw him pull up out in front of the payless, the woman unlocked the door and walked us outside. She helped us into my dad's expedition and told him what had happened. He got out of the car to speak to her more, thoroughly and privately, I believe because they both realized how scared and confused we all were. My dad then thanked our protector and got back into the car. He then proceeded to pull around and park right in front of the Walmart

in the offload area right in front of the store. He got out and told me to lock the doors and not open them until he came back. Mind you, my dad played baseball professionally for over a decade, and is jacked and six foot four. He's where my siblings and I have gotten the mentality of no one screws with our family, our loved ones and people that can't defend themselves. He was in there for maybe 20 minutes, and when he exited I could tell that he was upset and furious.

He got in the car quietly and said to the four of us, Girls, what exactly happened? We then told him again, more calmly, this time. He sat there quietly, as attentive as I've ever seen him, and when we finished, he then spoke. Girls, no one is working for Walmart tonight that looks as you described, and their only loss prevention manager is a woman who's not even here tonight. He told us that he went in and asked for the manager,

and after the threat of a lawsuit, they gathered every employee who was working there at that time to come up to the front. None of them were even close to resembling these men. He also said that he lit the store manager up like a Christmas tree about how they could let something like this happen to four children on their premises. I do feel somewhat bad that he yelled at someone who really had nothing to do with the situation, but he was livid. And clearly, he needed to blame someone for what had happened.

He then told me next time to call him right away, and that besides that we did the right thing and that he was sorry that this happened to us and that he wasn't able to protect us. He then tried to change the subject and asked us about sports and school ongoings. We became distracted for the remainder of the right home and still stopped to get our right.

rented VHS tapes for the night. When we got back to my house, we talked about it amongst ourselves, and none of us had stolen anything. Seriously, no one did. If someone had, they would have come clean for sure by then. Looking back, I'm not quite sure why we didn't call the police. My dad probably realized that there was nothing that they would be able to do. Besides, maybe looking at Walmart's camera.

which may have helped in all honesty. I don't know why we never called the police nor filed a report. Looking back, it kind of seems crazy that we didn't. It just wasn't something that you did back then, I guess. I think my dad just wanted to get us out of there safely and realized more so than we did how dire of a situation we had narrowly escaped. Looking back, this memory is much more sinister than I initially thought. I always told myself that they were probably lying and didn't want to get in trouble at Walmart,

and that they were scared of my dad. But to be honest, I don't think that was the case at all. First of all, I worked in retail for some years, and employees slash loss prevention cannot follow people out of the store, even with proof that they stole something. They're just instructed to call the police immediately, I actually had a store manager when I worked at Lowe's get fired, because he chased out someone who stole upwards of $3,000 worth of copper pipes and fittings,

that they had actually hid in a bathtub's cardboard box. The manager was fired for this. Come to find out, it's a safety precaution because the companies are liable if said employee gets attacked or hurt from the thief on company property. Also, these men were both extremely clean-cut and younger, inconspicuous-looking men. They did not stand out, nor grab one's attention. I mean, us four pre-teen girls didn't notice them following us throughout the Walmart the majority of the time we were there.

Nowadays, human trafficking is much more in the forefront of people's minds. After hearing many others' recollections, I remembered this experience, and began to look at it more closely with my adult brain. These men did not work for Walmart. They were clearly trying to lure us away. And if it were not for the two angel women who, in all actuality, saved us that night, who knows what could have happened. So, if you're out there and you hear this,

and you were the woman who stopped me after I paid and put yourself between those two men and us girls, I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you were the woman who worked at Pales that bravely and fiercely stood up for us and didn't fall for those scumbags lies, I sincerely am forever grateful to you. To Glasses and the Quiet Man, I truly hope that you both effed around and found out, and were stopped from doing this ever again to anyone. and for both of your sakes, let's not meet.

To those that run this podcast, thank you for all that you do, keeping these life events fresh in people's minds, and keeping us safe and aware. I sincerely thank you. And, Bukibu, I sincerely thank you for allowing me to tell your story. So, I've been a bit down on my luck as of late, and unfortunately have had to move out of my apartment due to the building being shut down because there was a major issue.

I don't know the whole story, but I think it had something to do with mold in the inner walls or something. Basically, we were kicked out and told that we could come back eventually. But there's been no updates about it for weeks. It's incredibly stressful not being able to be in your home because of something. out of your control, and to not know if you'll be told that you can't come back, and to just get your stuff, really sucks. Thankfully, because this was an issue with the property, and not my doing, nor the fault of anyone that lives there, the rental company has to cover our living expenses, until they get

everything sorted out. However, they also have the ability to restrict where they are willing to let us stay. and they chose a hotel that is an extended stay kind of place in a rather mediocre part of town. Now, I don't want to complain about a free living space, but this place needed some major TLC. The first thing I noticed when I went to check in was that the main lobby's carpet was horrifically dirty,

like stained multiple colors and fraying at most of the edge kind of dirty. And the TV in the lobby was a thick C-Rourable, RT-style TV that was really small. I know that I sound like I'm complaining, but it's just one of those things that, in 2022, if you see a CRT TV in the lobby of a hotel, it kind of speaks to the quality of the overall hotel. Some people may disagree with that, and that's fine, but that's my opinion. Anyways, I checked in and got my key to my room, which was room to.

2003. I got to the room and went in, and it was nothing special. It was a pretty bland and plain single bedroom, and really that was fine. As wary as I was of the hotel, I was still happy that I had a place to sleep, and that I didn't have to pay for it. Honestly, it was decent here for the most part for the first couple of weeks. Until one night, on the second week, I got a phone call to my phone call to my first couple of weeks. room I answered it because it was kind of weird and I assumed it was the front desk because who else would have the number directly to my room. I say hello and the person

on the other end says, Hi, this is Howard from the front desk. There was an issue with your payment and we need you to come down to the front desk to clear it up. It shouldn't take but a moment or two. I mentioned that I wasn't the one paying for the one paying for the for the room, and that it was being paid for by my apartment complex. And after a moment, the guy said, Huh. Well, if you could just come down, I'll get your info, and we'll get this squared away. Obviously, I was annoyed, but just said okay, and that I'd be down in a moment.

I grabbed my wallet and phone and went to the elevator, and then down to the main lobby. I got down to the desk, and the same woman that had checked me in two weeks ago, was working. I mentioned to her that I got a call from someone at the front desk, saying that there was an issue with my payment. She kind of looked at me confused and mentioned that she was the only person working the front desk that night, and that she wasn't aware of any issues. I asked that there was anyone named Howard that worked there, as that was who had called my room, and she told me that there wasn't. After a few moments of her checking with my booking

and making sure that everything was okay with everything, I thanked her and mentioned that it must have just been a prank caller or something. She agreed, but told me to come back and tell her if it happened again, or if there were any other issues. I went back up to the second floor, went over to my room, and as soon as I entered, I realized what had happened. I got in and my suitcase with all of my clothes was gone. When I went downstairs, the suitcase was sitting on the chair in the corner, as I always do,

and when I got back, it was just gone. I immediately called the front desk and told her that my room had been robbed, that someone had broken in while I was downstairs and stolen my items. She was a bit confused on how that could have happened, since I was the only person that should have had the key to the room, but she said that she would call the police and would send one of the hotel staff up to the room right away. I just sat there, honestly feeling violated.

Like I should have realized something was up because there was no way something would have just gone wrong with my payment, as I wasn't the only tenant staying there. I should have asked more questions and pressed the guy, and I would have realized that it was BS. But hindsight is 2020, right? After a few minutes, I had a knock on my door from one of the hotel staff, and then the police showed up, and I explained what happened to all of them. I told them that I had gotten a call on the phone saying there was an issue that I needed to come downstairs for, and I fell for it.

and then said that when I got back into the room, my stuff was just gone. The police asked me if I was the only one that had a key to my room, and I told them that I was, and the staff member mentioned that the only people that could get into the room were the customers that rented it, and the cleaning crew. It was at this point that one of the officers asked if they had cameras in the hallways, and they confirmed they did. I'm not going to get into the spiners. specific details of all that happened, but they checked the security camera, and they did see someone entering my room.

Sure enough, he was using a cleaning crew key to get in. It was a different color than the normal room keys, and the staff confirmed that it was a staff key. Even worse, the front desk knew exactly who it was that was on the camera, stealing my stuff. It was another tenant of the building that I lived in. It was seriously someone else that was in the same situation as me. They had decided that they would take the time that they were stuck in this hotel to steal a key from a staff member and rob the other people staying there. I think he was surprised when I mentioned that I was from the apartment complex,

because I think he was targeting other people. but he still saw opportunity and took it. After the front desk confirmed who he was, the officers went up and checked out his room, and, well, long story short, he was put in cuffs. He'd mostly stolen small things from people while he was there, but when he got to my room, there was nothing sitting out, except my suitcase full of my clothes.

So, he just snatched the whole thing and ran. Hence, why, I was the first to complain about this. I was the first to have noticed. In the end, he was arrested, and I got my stuff back. I am, actually, as of the time of writing, this, still staying at this hotel. Because I don't have much of a choice, really. There haven't been any more issues, thankfully, but I'm kind of paranoid now about everything I hear in the hallways,

thinking it's going to be someone breaking in. I know that's dumb, but it's just a response to having my temporary home violated like that. Hopefully I get to move back into my apartment soon, like hopefully by the New Year's kind of soon, but I'm not holding my breath. I have to travel a lot for work, and I have stayed at countless hotels. Because of this, I've come to expect the usual disturbances. loud neighbors, creaking pipes, old rattling air conditioners. There was one night, however, that I wanted to write about because it was super weird and kind of creepy. The hotel was nice.

It was in a smaller coastal town and was decently priced. It had a really ornate facade, and the lobby was gorgeous. It looked like they had done a lot to maintain the history. of the building. There were a ton of sepia-toned images of the founder, and other images that were pretty clearly over the history of the building. I had checked in late, worn out by a really long drive, and I was given the key to room 312.

I remember being a bit annoyed by having a room on the top floor, especially since I saw the parking lot and I knew that the building was not full. but I shrugged it off, just assumed that it was something to do with logistics or whatever, and I logged my suitcase to the elevator. The room was charming, but definitely had an air of what I would say was a faded grandeur. You could tell that it had seen better days. The walls were faded, the bed and bedding was definitely old, and it still had one of those small tube televisions sitting on a little.

a dresser facing the bed. In the end, it was a bed, and that's all I really needed. I unpacked, took a really quick shower, and then settled in for the night. About ten minutes after I settled in is when I first heard it. A soft, distant melody that seemed to drift through the walls. It seemed to cut through the late-night silence of the hotel. It was an old piano tune, filled with a bit of melancholy that sent a chilled on my spine. I listened for a while, sort of entranced by the haunting beauty of it,

completely ignoring the fact that it was almost one in the morning. Eventually, my fatigue got the better of me, and I drifted off to sleep. I had the weirdest dream while I was sleeping there that night, a dream that I was basically a fly on the wall in the hotel way, way back. It was a strange dream that I wasn't really part of. It was like I was just watching the front of the hotel back when it first opened. Nothing really happened, but I remember seeing people dressed like it was the 1920s, running around like crazy.

And seeing the man that was labeled as the original owner downstairs at the front desk. He was helping customers, getting luggage upstairs. When I finally woke up, I assumed it was just my brain being influenced by the last interesting thing that I had seen that night, which was all the stuff downstairs about the hotel. The next day I went to the front desk,

and I asked them about the music, asking if they had music playing in the hallways or something, or maybe a lounge downstairs where someone was performing. But the receptionist just looked at me puzzled. She informed me that the only music that played in the hotel was in the restaurant, but that it wasn't live, and it wasn't that loud, especially not loud enough for me to have heard it on the third floor in the back end of the hotel. I asked if there was anyone in any of the rooms around me,

but she mentioned that the rooms near me were both empty, that they weren't heavily booked at the moment, so it was unlikely that it was coming from the rooms near mine. I was a bit skeptical, definitely unsettled, but I decided to brush it off and just assume that I was hearing music from somewhere. It wasn't disruptive. Sure, it was late, but it wasn't like it was keeping me awake. That next night, the same thing happened.

This time, though, the music was a bit more insistent, a bit louder. It sort of lingered around the room like a cool breeze, if that makes sense. And I decided that I would go ahead and investigate. I put some clothes on, and I headed out into the hallway to see if I could figure out where it was coming from. And sure enough, I could tell you. that it was coming from my left. I stepped out and went over to room 313 to see if it was there, but it wasn't. The only other room in that direction was 314, which was the last room on the floor at the end of the hallway.

As I approached, I noticed that the door was actually slightly open, in that it wasn't locked. I assumed that maybe a member of staff or the cleaning crew was in the room, and maybe they didn't realize that their music was so loud. So, I figured I could just ask them to turn it down really quick, and that would be that. I pushed the door open, and I was hit by this rush of freezing, cold air, and just as strong of a feeling of shock and confusion. When I opened the door, I swear I saw an old piano being played by a man. It wasn't just any man, though. It was the owner. The man that I saw in my dream.

The man that was in his 50s or 60s in the photo downstairs, that photo that was taken in the 1920s. He was sitting there at the piano and just running his hands around the keys, playing out this beautiful tune. I stood there, wide-eyed, and obviously very confused, unable to comprehend what it was that I was staring at. And then, it was over as quickly as it had started. I blinked, and the piano was gone.

The man was gone, and the music just stopped. I was just left there standing in a room that was empty. clearly being remodeled, a room that was very clearly not occupied by a piano, nor its talented player. I turned around and went back to my room and just went straight to bed, deciding that I just needed some sleep. I mean, there was no logical way that I just witnessed a spirit in that empty room, right? The next morning I checked out, and the receptionist asked me how my stay was. I mentioned that I heard the music again and thought about telling her about seeing the owner's ghost, but just decided against it.

She gave me a concerned look saying that she was sorry if it had disturbed me. I told her that it wasn't a big deal, that it was actually kind of pleasant, just wanting to keep the overall sense. positive in case the owner's spirit was present and listening. I'm not much into the paranormal, so I don't know how any of that works, but I figured keeping a trapped soul happy was the best way to do things. I haven't had to go back to that town for work since, either fortunately or unfortunately. If I have to, I'm considering staying in that hotel again. and asking if I can get room 314.

It's been a few years, so there's no way that they aren't done renovating it by now. And I kind of want to see if I can have another experience. Just to reassure myself that what I saw was real. My boyfriend, Luke, and I have been together for well over a decade now, and we've lived together for a majority of that time. We'd found a quaint, albeit slightly worn, little duplex, that was in a good spot and was easy to get to from anywhere. And they were willing to rent it to us right away.

So we took it. Our neighbors were a bit of an eclectic mix, but none of them stood out more than Dan. Dan was in his early 50s. He was tall and wiry, with scruffy hair that looked like it had seen better days. It was one of those haircuts where you could tell that the person was in denial about going bald, so they did everything they could to make it look like they weren't bald. Dan was, as I said, in his 50s,

but I would frequently see him skateboarding up and down the sidewalks. I mean, good for him. It was neat to see someone his age wheeling it like that, but he would literally be skating around at all hours of the night. I would wake up to go to the restroom in the middle of the night at, like, three, and I would glance out the window and see him trying to kick-flip off the curb at the corner. A bit weird, but whatever. One Saturday afternoon, Luke and I were out on the porch, enjoying the sun. When Dan approached us, in a strangely eager tone, he said,

Hey, do you know who I am? Luke and I both kind of looked at each other in confusion, until Luke said, I mean, you're Dan, right? Dan responded with, no, I mean, who I am, what I've been through. We both kind of shook our heads in a way to say, no, sorry, we don't know your history. This, of course, seemed to be an invitation for Dan to tell us literally everything about himself.

He began sharing stories about his childhood, about how he was physically abused by his parents, how he'd been kidnapped once when he was ten. He kept going on telling us all about his teenage years, and how he had even once gotten into a fight with the police officer and was shot because of it. He had a scar on his stomach, and he was sure to show us, and tell us that that was where he was shot.

This guy went on and on, telling us everything he could think of over that hour and a half at least. Then he paused, like he was trying to remember anything that he hadn't yet told us, and then said, Oh, I'm an artist. You want to see a painting I made? Luke, unfortunately, is a very compassionate guy,

and he engaged with him about his art. Dan then skated down the road, went into his place, and then immediately ran back out, and back to our place with a decent-sized canvas in hand. When he got back, Dan's attention completely shifted from us to just Luke. It was like he decided that Luke was the person he wanted to talk to,

and that I was just a third wheel to this conversation. Dan showed Luke the painting, and Luke nodded, saying, Wow, that's interesting. And then motioned towards me, motioning for Dan to show me

the painting. No lie, this painting? It was this really nice landscape. Very well. painted, really gorgeous, and then overlaid with a group of stick figures having a crudely painted picnic. As I looked at it, it kind of clicked what I was looking at. This beautiful painting, it was a print of a real painting, and Dan had painted the stick figures over it.

I nodded, I'm stifling a bit of a chuckle when I realized and said that it was nice. After a few more minutes of talking about literally nothing, Dan said that he had to go because he needed to help his mom, whom he'd earlier said was actually dead. We said okay, and he skated off down the road again. Luke and I had a bit of a chuckle about the whole thing, and he confirmed my thoughts about the painting. It was a print that he had painted stick people over.

Definitely weird, albeit mostly hard. harmless, and we had just accepted that maybe Dan was a bit weird. That weirdness got a bit extra about a week later, when we were in bed and were woken up by the doorbell going off at literally two in the morning. I got out of bed and went down to check the door, and was surprised to see Dan standing there on the front porch, skateboard and hand, canvas, and the other. I asked him what it was that he wanted, and he said, Oh, I wanted to show Luke my newest painting.

I was a bit rattled by the fact that he'd had the audacity to wake us up to show my boyfriend a, quote-unquote, new painting. But I stepped back into the house and yelled up to Luke, saying, Hey, your friend is here and he wants to show you his newest painting. As I was stepping back from the door and yelled up to Luke, I noticed that Dan had grabbed the door and was holding it open and kind of starting to step into our home. I just stared at him as he walked through the door, at the same time that Luke had come down the stairs to see him standing in our entryway and holding the painting. I shrugged and told him that I was going back to bed and then went back upstairs.

I could hear the conversation, and I was a bit upset to not hear Luke. tell Dan that he needed to go away. He engaged him and listened to him discuss the painting for a solid 45 minutes. Until Luke finally said, Hey, Dan, this is really interesting, but I have to be at work in the morning, so... I gotta get back to bed. Dan seemed to be okay with this and told him that he was sorry to have bothered him so late, and that he would just talk to him late.

later. Luke came back up, and I could tell that he was not happy. I asked him about the painting, and he told me that it was more of the same, a really nice print of a landscape, with stick figures painted in random places. I shook my head and told him that he needed to discuss boundaries with his new friend, and Luke agreed. Then, the worst of the events happened. happened. About two weeks later, once again it was the middle of the night and we were in bed. I was struggling to stay asleep, a common issue with me, unfortunately, and as I was laying there half asleep, I thought I heard something coming from downstairs. But I was half out of it, so I just assumed that it was the cat or some sort of normal house sounds. I went from a bit unnerved by the strange sound to hitting a sense of terrified realization within a few minutes

when I started to hear what I thought was labored breathing. I knew that it wasn't Luke, as I could hear him snoring next to me, so this breathing was coming from someone or something else. I laid there still for just a moment, making sure that it wasn't my brain doing that weird, half-a-sleep thing that it can do. But my eyes shot open when the bedroom light turned on. I jumped up, Luke jumped up, and we both sat there just staring at Dan, now standing in our bedroom and holding a canvas. This guy had somehow gotten into our house. was in our bedroom in the middle of the night, and was saying that he wanted to show Luke his newest painting.

Luke had clearly had enough, as he started yelling asking what the hell Dan's problem was. Dan just kept saying, I made a new painting. I wanted to show it to you. Luke got up out of bed and kept shouting at this man to get out of our house. The whole time Dan could not understand. what he had done wrong.

I heard Luke telling him to get out and to not bother us in the middle of the night about his paintings, and then he slammed the door. At that point, I don't think either of us were really able to get back to sleep, and Luke was incredibly upset. The next morning, when we got up,

we saw that Dan had left the painting on our front porch, with a note that said, you could have this one, I'm sorry. We also found that he'd actually broken in through the living room window. He had pulled the screen out, gotten the window open, and crawled in. Interestingly enough, we never saw Dan again. We didn't see him skating down the sidewalk.

He never showed up again to show us a new painting, and after a few months there was a moving truck at his place down the road, and new people were moving in. I have no idea about what happened to him, and I know that Luke feels bad about how he'd reacted, but also, screw that. This man had broken into our house in the middle of the night. I don't care if his intentions were innocent. We actually still have the painting. It's a print of a man fishing in a boat on a lake.

and there's, of course, a stick figure painted next to him, so it's his normal work, and it's actually hanging up in our garage. Now that all is said and done, I do kind of feel bad for Dan, and I'm sure that he had something wrong with him, and he had taken a liking to Luke for whatever reason. But he had absolutely crossed boundaries that no one should ever cross. So, this was something that I witnessed two years ago. I still don't understand what happened,

and I think that's why it stuck with me even more, not having those answers. Anyways, here goes. It was early December, as I'd been delaying my holiday shopping. We actually still have a decent mall in my area that's typically pretty busy. I prefer going there when I have shopping to do for multiple people, as I can usually buy for everyone there. I went alone this time around, hoping for less distractions.

When I'm with others, I tend to talk a lot and lose direction, possibly forgetting things. I hadn't quite been in the holiday spirit that year, so I wanted to get everything done and over with in one day. Anyways, I started down my list and after getting through about four stores, the hunger pangs started reminding me that I didn't have breakfast. So, I thought that I would treat myself to lunch in the food court before I continued. I found myself a spot after ordering and sat down, waiting to be called. While I was waiting, I started reading an e-book on my phone and continued reading it as I ate. I was at a point in the book where I didn't want to stop reading and had successfully zoned out the world around me in that brief moment.

It was once I finished the book that the world came back to me. I started looking around, just to watch people and to judge how busy it had gotten. When I noticed one guy in particular sitting at another nearby table, something about him caught my attention and was telling me that I should keep an eye on him. He was a little on the older side, but I would say no older than 50s. I'm not the best at guessing age, but with him it was a bit more difficult. His build, movement, and lack of visible wrinkles made me think that he wasn't very old.

But even with his mask on, I could tell that he had a full salt and pepper beard. His hair was short and thinning, but scruffy looking, and also had the salt and pepper look to it. I guess that was my main reason for thinking he was older. But his looks weren't really what caught my attention. It was his actions. He was hunched over a small laptop, seemingly engrossed in it. I watched as he would get close to it, squinting, and then he would back up and look around the food court.

When he looked around, he seemed to have this restless energy about him, like he was anxiously waiting for something, or someone, maybe. I didn't think much of it, just telling myself it was someone probably doing some kind of work, and maybe they realized the mall was a bad choice for that. There was nothing else substantial going on, and I knew I needed to finish my list, so I threw away my trash and continued on. I think it took me a few more hours to get through the rest of my list, as well as looking at a few things for myself when I was ready to go.

However, I wanted to get one more thing. I personally cannot resist Cineban, so I had to get myself a treat for the road. As I made my way back to the food court, I looked around as I waited and saw the same guy from earlier was at that same table, doing the same thing he was when I first spotted him. But this time, he now looked more stressed. And being closer to him, based on where I was standing, I could see the dark bags under his eyes. He looked very exhausted.

It caught my attention because he had to have been there for the last four hours or so. He was clearly tired, so what was he doing there? Why not just go home and rest? curiosity got the best of me, so I wanted to try to peek and see what he was looking at or doing on his laptop. I started walking casually towards the trash can, conveniently behind him, but I was distracted when I saw him quickly looked to the right, pushing his chair out some. It startled me a bit, thinking maybe he realized what I was doing, until I noticed the direction in which he was looking.

As I followed his gaze, I saw a group of teenage girls walking by, laughing and chatting away. Looking around, I couldn't see anything else that he could have been staring at. There was a shopping kiosk that was there the whole time, and it didn't make noise or light up. And there really weren't any other people near the girls that he could have been looking at instead. That kind of made the situation turn for me. this middle-aged man stopped in his tracks to watch these girls without taking his eyes off of them. He closed his laptop, and he quickly stood up, causing the chair to screech.

I grabbed my order, and half-azardly stacked it on top of my bags inside my shopping caddy, now more invested in this situation than my own belongings. By the time I did this, the man grabbed the laptop, putting it under his arm and started to quickly walk towards the girls. Something was telling me that I needed to follow him, because if I didn't, something bad could happen. The girls had a head start, being pretty far ahead, followed by the man,

maybe about two stores behind them, and then I was close behind him with my phone out, ready to either record something or call 911. I can't explain it. why I didn't call for help before, other than just wanting to know what he was going to do. I didn't think he had a weapon on him, as he wasn't wearing a big jacket, just a sweater with a scarf, so I wanted to find out what was really going on here. As the girl slipped into one of the stores, the man stopped and slowly paced nearby.

I rolled over towards a nearby map to hopefully make it look like I wasn't following this guy, but then I saw him start to walk slower towards the store. I watched from where I was as the girls walked out of the store, looking in each other's bags. The man quickly picked up his pace until one of the girls noticed him. They were all wearing masks, but I could tell the girl went from smiling to a more serious look. She then nudged another girl, motioning to the man now approaching them. The other girl looked shocked when she saw this. guy, and while I couldn't see the guy's face, he did put his hands out in front of him,

almost as if in a way to say, stay calm, or someone trying to explain themselves. As everything around me seemed to slow, I watched the man reach into his pants pocket and pull out of piece of paper. He unfolded it a few times and then held it up to the girls, gently shaking the paper. Then, what I didn't, expect. The girl he seemed to be directing his words to, pull down her mask, and had a look of shock on her face. I watched as her expression softened, and she shook her head. Then the man's shoulder slumped, as if he had just given up. After a few more words, the guy shoves the paper back in his pocket, and before he walks away, the girl reaches into her purse and hands the man something.

As he takes it from her, he looks around as if to see who may have seen this, and quickly puts it in his pocket too. Afterwards, the girls and the man part ways, with him walking back in my direction and then passed me. I watched as he went to a bench, sat down, and just stared forward at nothing in particular. The girls had already walked off, maybe a little less cheerful than when they started. This did not play out at all like what I expected, but I still have no idea what I witnessed. What was on the paper that he showed the girls? Why did one of them look so concerned, yet the other girl seemed shocked, and almost as if she recognized him? And why did whatever was said seem to ultimately crush this man?

I know that I probably could have approached the girls and asked them what it was about, but I thought that that would just be too awkward and nosy. I'm also a guy, so I didn't want to be the creep in this situation, so I didn't even consider that an option. I know that this may not necessarily be creepy, but the eerieness of the situation and the unanswered questions make me think that you would be interested in this too. Besides, maybe others will have some theories as well. I still have no answers.

And, of course, I haven't seen the man or girls since. In the end, I just hope that everyone is okay. I want to preface this by saying that I don't really get out much. In the last few years have been pretty rough mentally. Just keep that in mind, I guess. I'm pretty reclusive, only going out when I need to for food, gas, or work. When I got invited to a party, I was initially hesitant, but the guy was cute, and I'd honestly gotten pretty tired of staying in my apartment alone every night,

binge watching whatever on Netflix. The party was at eight, and I left my apartment at 7.45, deciding to walk instead of the 10-minute trek to the frat-house to save gas. I know what it sounds like, 20-something girl, walking to a party, alone at night. But I honestly wasn't worried, even though I should have been in retrospect. I live in a big college town, a bunch of apartments and frat houses. Not much going on besides parties and cars driving up and down the street. I had personal experience with how quiet and peaceful the town was at night.

I'd sometimes sit on the balcony after work and just watch the sky. I'd never hear a single sound, other than the crickets and the occasional kids playing out in the street later than they should be. The walk to the party was uneventful, as I knew it would be, and I got there just before it started. I was expecting the frat-house. to be full of bro dudes and girls, but when I arrived, there was just the guy who invited me. I asked where everyone else was.

Ah, don't worry. The party types don't show up until way later. Probably grabbing beer or something. Come on in. I knew that I shouldn't have. Every single part of my body was screaming at me to not go in. To wait for these supposed party types. so that I wouldn't be alone with this random guy.

But I said, Sure, okay. I don't know why I went in. Maybe I was desperate after all those years of just going to and from work. Never really having friends. Never spending any actual time in the town after moving in three years ago. Was that all this was? A desperate attempt to connect with someone?

Even if it was a total stranger alone in a frat house. I followed him into the living room, a bunch of snacks and drink cups were on the table. A big karaoke machine in the corner and a bunch of solo cups lined up in a beer pong formation on the dining table, which had been moved into the living room, I guess to keep the party somewhat contained. We sat down and talked for a while. He was really nice, charismatic. We talked about his favorite movies. he was a huge Marvel movie guy.

I was always into DC more, and we had a friendly argument about which was better. Before long, I started to realize how much time had passed, a half hour at least since we sat down. Then, there were a bunch of knocks on the front door, followed by someone rapidly ringing the doorbell. The guy, whose name will just refer to as D,

got up Gingerlyan walked to the door and swung it open. Let's get this party started, people! It was the other people, there for the party. My chest, which had been tight the entire time waiting for either the party people to show up, or for this guy to make some creepy move on me, finally released and relaxed. The people flooded into the house. Cegs of beer, more snacks, and one guy was carrying a big black duffel bag,

which I later find out was carrying a metric ton of weed. The party went on smoothly. For the first time and forever, I had a full conversation with someone new. A few new people, actually. Aside from work, I barely spoke to anyone. Not because I didn't want to, but because I was cripplingly anxious at all social interactions.

Around 12 a.m., and I decided that I'd had one too many drinks, and also my fill of people for probably the next decade. So I say my goodbyes to D and headed out, not before he asked for my number, which I so hesitantly and shakily gave. Not because I was creeped out, but because I think I genuinely liked this guy. I started my trek back home. Like I said before, it was only a ten-minute walk, but I was extremely drunk, so I had to make more slow and deliberate steps to assure that I didn't trip and smash my face into the pavement. Around what I can only assume was the six-minute mark of the walk, and only about two to three blocks away from my apartment, I started to become aware of a weird and growing feeling of being watched.

The walk so far had been me holding myself up against each wall along the way of every building and taking really slow steps to keep balanced. I never really looked around me at all, just down at my feet and forward. I had a random urge to look back, so I did. And I wish that I hadn't. Or at least that's how I felt in that moment. Because if I didn't turn around, I wouldn't have seen the bulls. broad dark figure tailing me from about 20 feet behind.

It took my brain at least a solid 30 seconds to realize what I was seeing. I didn't stop walking, which was hard, given the circumstances. At first I thought, nothing to worry about. You aren't the only person that can walk around at night. This is a party town after all. That was before I glanced down at their hand, and I saw the glint of light hit the edge of, what I assumed was a long blade extending from their arm.

My eyes widened, but before I could turn around and quicken my pace, I tripped over a trash bag that was laying on the sidewalk. I hadn't been looking forward for at least a minute. I was too focused on staring at the person behind me. I pushed myself up and turned back towards the person, who was now closer to ten feet away from me. I spun around quickly and dizzily and started sprinting. in the direction towards my apartment,

screaming for help along the way. But there was nobody. Everyone must have either been at the party or a party. Whoever it was kept pace with me all the way until we reached my apartment. I stumbled up the stairs, and I could hear the pounding of their footsteps on the hard concrete steps.

As I reached from my door, I felt a hand to grab my hair and pull me down to the ground. I let out a yelp as my head hit the solid ground. This person knelt down. It was a man, middle-aged. I could smell alcohol on his breath, and he was smiling this horrible, toothy grin at me. He put the blade against my cheek and literally whispered, I've been waiting a long time for this.

What the hell was that supposed to even mean? Who was this guy? I flailed my arms and legs, but he'd pinned me down. I thought for sure I was done for when I heard rapid footsteps coming up the stairs. Suddenly, a large shape hit the man hard, sending him flying into the railing and then over the side. I heard a loud thud as the man hit the ground below after plummeting two stories. That large shape actually turned out to be D. Turns out after I gave him my number and started walking home,

he kept an eye on me to make sure that I would be okay, at least for as long as he could see me. He told me that right before I turned the corner and out of the frat house, he noticed a man walking from the other side of the street, out near the woods, and the guy went in my direction. So he followed and caught up with us, right as the man had pinned me down. The stalker or whatever you want to call him, I guess, he didn't survive.

He fell and had a head-on collision with the pavement. The police were called. Me and Dee gave our statements, and thankfully they left. Days later, we did find out the stalker's real name. I'll keep it in disclosed for safety reasons. But he'd had a bunch of photos of girls from the town. shot from what seemed to be hundreds of yards away. And in that pile of creepy photos,

there were a few of me sitting on my apartment balcony at night, just staring at the sky, and also a few of me driving to and from work. I then moved out of that place a year later, and moved in with D. After all that happened, I actually gave him more and more of my time, until I realized I just didn't feel safe when he wasn't with me.

so we started dating and I never looked back I'm still working on how I feel about this and trying to open up more and more every day and at least one good thing came out of that whole crap show the creepiest part about that whole thing is the guy had to have waited in those woods for a few hours

because his house was like an hour away from the rest of the neighborhood I can't imagine what would have happened if I left the party too early, after assuming that D was the bad guy, and decided to act on those earlier impulses. I have a story about something that happened way back when I was only 11. It was about a party that happened at a local skating rink. This was back when everything worthwhile happened at the skating rinks, so, if nothing else,

you should be able to tell around when this happened. The rink was one of those ones that was set up to look like a disco. It had a lot of neon lights and a big disco ball that shot light spots all over the place. It was pretty well occupied every Friday and weekend, and a lot of kids my age would hold their birthday parties there. That's actually where this all happened, at a birthday party, specifically for my friend Henry. Henry was turning 12, and he wanted to have to have a birthday party.

a bunch of us kids out at the skating rink. The party was going awesome. We were playing the arcade games, skating around the big rink, and ate some of their really cheap pizza. So, overall, it was a pretty dang good party for an 11-year-old me. Henry's parents had paid for everyone, but they didn't allow you to rent the whole rink, so there were people there that weren't part of the party. but then about halfway through the party, a man walked into the rink.

He must have been in his 50s, and he didn't have any kids with him, which was a bit odd since this was a skating rink. His hair was dirty and his eyes were bloodshot, and honestly, I don't know if he was homeless or just a fairly unkempt older man, but he looked completely out of place among a bunch of preteens' celebratory. hating a birthday party. Henry's parents were busy setting up the cake, so they didn't even notice him at first. He just stood there at the entrance and stared at us, watching all of us skate around and

scowling. He didn't speak at first. He didn't really move. He just watched. I think I noticed him first, and I felt uncomfortable with how he just stared at me. It felt like he was trying to intend to. I'd intimidate me, like he knew that I knew he was watching, and that he was 100% trying to let me know that I should be scared. I nudged my friend Jimmy, and I pointed him out.

He asked who it was, and I shrugged, telling him that I didn't know. When I pointed him out, this guy finally started moving, which actually scared me even more. I was freaked out by this guy staring at me, but him starting to him. to walk towards me was even worse. He held that horrible stare as he approached, and I just stood there frozen, thinking about what was going

to happen. Henry's dad finally noticed him and approached him cautiously. I could see that he was trying to stop this guy from getting any closer to us kids, but I obviously couldn't hear him over the music. I could tell that

the man was not happy to have been stopped, and after a few moments of the two men arguing, he pulled back and head-butted Henry's dad square in the nose, knocking him to the ground. This caused the chaos to start. Everyone had noticed what had happened, and was watching this crazy man standing there and breathing heavily. The staff had paused the music and was pretty clearly trying to get the situation under control, but the second the music stopped, this man screamed.

I advise you all to leave if you don't want to die. This led to a chaotic situation unraveling as everyone started running for the front door. Us kids were all rushed out of the building, confused and scared. We all got out and to the end of the parking lot, Henry's mom asked us if we were all okay and making sure we were all there. Henry's dad took up the end. His face bloodied. I'm pretty sure this guy broke his nose with that headbutt. Obviously, someone had called the cops,

because as we were all getting outside, a number of police cars pulled up and cops all dressed in body armor ran into the building, while the others asked us if we were all okay and tried to figure out what was going on. Henry's mom tried to explain that this guy just ran in and threatened everyone, and that none of us had ever seen him before, Long story short, the cops got him restrained and arrested him.

We found out that he didn't have any weapons or anything, so his threat was just that. A threat. And odds are he wouldn't have been able to actually do anything, but none of us wanted to take that chance. Odds are, he was on, something, and whatever it was caused his rage to boil over. and he opted to take it out on Henry's dad, and of course ruin our fun time. This was supposed to be a fun day for Henry, an innocent celebration to welcome him to his last year as a preteen,

but instead it turned into a nightmarish experience that none of us who were there would ever forget. That man's face was burned into my memory, and honestly, I'm beyond. glad that I've never seen him again. I used to work at an organization for about eight years that used to do office holiday parties. They would specifically throw a really big party for the Christmas season,

as companies do, and they absolutely treated it as a moment for all of us to come together, to let loose and celebrate another year of hard work. And I will say that we all, took advantage of it. Well, for the most part. There was one year, about halfway through my tenure at that company, where the party didn't go as planned.

And it was one of those nights where I don't think anyone involved will ever forget it. The company had actually put a lot of money into the party. The CEO actually wrote the check for the party, and had rented out the local Dave and Busters for the night. I don't know how much it cost to do so, but I can only imagine that it was excessive. They paid for the food, everyone had a couple drink tickets, and I wanted to say that it was one of the nicest parties I had ever been to.

The night started off comfortably enough, but as time went on, it was pretty clear that some people were drinking more than they were supposed to, and some of the people started to get loud, or really giggly. One of my coworkers, a man that wasn't on my team, but I thought that I knew pretty well, was a man named Joseph.

Joseph had always been a bit of a wild card. He was an absolute genius based on the conversations I'd had with him, but he was also a bit volatile, unpredictable. He'd been on a corrective action for a month at this point, which was basically a situation of, he screwed up, the boss wasn't happy, and he had to not screw up again for 90 days,

or else he'd be canned. When I saw him at the party, he seemed to be in a decent mood. But that quickly changed when his manager, Leo, showed up. Leo had called him over during the party, and they had a conversation that I couldn't hear, but I could see Jos's face getting a bit red. Leo then patted him on the shoulder and walked away, leaving Joseph looking like he was about to explode. I made it a point to ask if he was okay, and he just shook his head before walking toward the bar and slamming his drink tickets down while just staring off at nothing in particular.

Others noticed his anger, too. A few people watched him as he walked away, but no one else said anything to him. We just kind of watched as this situation unfurled. There's something about train wrecks and the human psyche. About an hour had passed since that conversation occurred, and the whole time I noticed that Joseph was downing drink after drink. This is a recipe for bad things being about to happen. I've seen the results of alcohol when it's mixed with anger,

and I had a really bad feeling that something was a... about to happen. And of course, it did. Leo had been mingling with the other employees, playing some of the games down in the arcade, and then he walked up to the bar to get something to drink. I don't know if it was something else that Leo had said to Joseph when he was ordering, or if it was just that the timing was right,

but Joseph stood up, straightened his back, and he slammed Leo in the face with a really hard, right fist. It went from a single punch to Joseph grabbing Leo by the throat and slamming his head against the bar. Joseph's face was twisted with aggression. People screamed, glasses shattered and chairs toppled over as everyone scrambled to get away, to escape this insane scene that was unfolding in front of us.

Thankfully, there were police that were in the area, as the Stave and Busters were, was in an outdoor mall, and it took five of us to pull Joseph off of Leo before the police were running in to get his hands and cuffs. I will never forget how Joseph laughed as he was being dragged out by the cops, and he shouted, I guess I won't be needing that reference after all, huh, Leo? So, obviously, the party was ruined, and we were trying to keep things calm while the paramedics rushed in to get Leo, rushed him out of the building, and then we were all left in the mess left behind by that crazy situation.

Thankfully, Leo was mostly okay. He had some pretty nasty damage to his face, and his head, though. A lot of scars, and one of his eyes was actually permanently messed up. We later found out that the initial conversation that Leo and Joseph had, was Leo telling Joseph to enjoy the party because he was officially fired after that night. Joseph apparently was going through some things at home as well, which explained why he was there alone, considering I knew that he was married. The alcohol was just the trigger that set him over the edge,

and Leo just happened to walk up to the bar right when Joseph was having those dark thoughts. It was an unfortunate situation for Leo, and Joseph had pretty clearly just snapped. That night changed things for a lot of us, and it changed the holiday parties from then on. The company set up much smaller parties, more so just the teams having their get-togethers, no more alcohol whatsoever, and parties were no longer allowed to be places where any administrative decision were made. So, basically, managers could no longer fire

people at the parties. Every year after that, though, when it came time to plan for the parties, there were always whispers about Joseph, and how crazy that night was. Hey, okay, I'm not sure where to begin. This isn't one of those, oh, he looked at me funny in the grocery store,

let's not meet. kind of stories. My life was actually in danger, and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it out alive. I hate those stories where someone is looking at someone strangely, and that ends up being their story. I live on a property in a rural country town. It isn't close to the town itself,

and is about 15 to 20 minutes away. I can't see my neighbor's house, and they certainly can't see mine. The property is about 100 acres of land, some bushland with some paddocks and a small garden close to the house. We have three guard dogs to alert and, well, to bite anyone who gets too close. Even though I'm an adult, my parents don't like leaving me at home alone at night. And before this happened, I thought they were being ridiculously overprotective of me. I was settling in for the night with a movie, some popcorn, and I was waiting for a friend to come meet me.

We have gates, but they're mostly left unpadlocked. Basically, the unspoken rule is if you open a gate, you close it, mainly so livestock doesn't get out of the paddocks. Anyway, sorry, you'll find that I tend to ramble a lot. My friend texted me telling me that she would be running a little late. This isn't uncommon for her, as she is pretty terrible at time management. I settled down in front of the TV, and then I heard the dogs barking. They're idiots, and sometimes we'll bark at a mob of kangaroos jumping past, or I thought they were excited because my friend got here.

It was aggressive, and I heard a loud yelp. I got up and grabbed my crowbar ready and peeked out the window. I saw my dog running back to the house, limping, and I opened the front door to let him in. He was bleeding. Oh, it was on. I didn't immediately call the police because, one, it would take them a long time to get out here, and, two, I didn't want to call them if this was just a feral dog or something. They would never let me live it down.

It looked like someone had possibly stabbed him, but it didn't look like, could hit any vital organs. I wrapped towels around him, hugged him, and told him he would be okay. I was really scared. When I looked back, there was a scruffy and dirty-looking man standing at the window looking in.

This wasn't really uncommon. People would go for a walk in the bush, not understand how to get back, and then follow the nearest road. It was weird how he didn't call out, and didn't look like he'd been stuck outside for a while. So, I asked him, Are you all right, mate?

He knocked again. Can I come in? Now, normally if my family were home, we may let him in and call the police, and then the cops would just drive them home or wherever. I didn't want to let a random man into the house, though. My dog's barking and starling. He has a scary bark, and it tends.

to keep people away. Do you need me to call the cops, mate? My tone was a lot less friendly and more concerned this time. No, don't call the cops. Let me in. I want to come in. He demanded, and then shook the doorknob roughly. A piss off, I said.

I picked up the phone and called the police. Now, even if the cops left immediately, it would still take them a good amount of time, to get to the property, and the creepy leer on the man's face told me that he must have known that, too. The operator answered me, I told her that I needed the police and that there was a man trying to break into my house. He then broke the glass with something in his hand, and was trying to open the lock.

I screamed and backed up, and then ran toward the back of the house and opened the door to run out. I hated leaving my dog locked in another room. He grabbed my arm, and he yanked me backwards. He said something to me, but I couldn't quite make it out. We struggled for a while. He kept trying to pull open my shirt, and I was screaming. I was punching, biting, kicking him.

I wasn't going to go down without a fight. My dog then pushed through the door, that little legend. Even when he was injured, he still came to help. He grabbed this guy's eyes. arm, bit down, and he shook. The man screamed so loud, and I took the opportunity to get a quick hit into the guy's head. I just wanted to knock the guy out. I wasn't trying to kill him. When he was on the ground, I pulled my dog off of him, and we sat nearby. I held a knife in my hand and just hugged my dog. He was bleeding, but it wasn't lethal. As I thought, it took the cops a while to

get there. The Amboes came too and took care of us. He woke up and told them that I went crazy, and that my dog was rabid and vicious. They didn't believe him. My parents panicked when they got home, but they were happy how I handled myself. We obviously pressed charges against him, and screw that guy. and Chief, my dog, and my savior, got stitched up and is still kicking. He gets treats all the time, and honestly, he's spoiled rotten. We upped the security at the house, just in case it ever happens again, but I doubt that it will. We now have cameras around the place and motion lights in case some stranger ever tries to pay us a visit. The other dogos, unfortunately, were terrible card dogs, but that's okay.

They're still beloved pets. As for the idiot who attacked me, he is in prison. And I hope every day that he spends in there is total misery. I have a hotel-slash-lodging-related story that I wanted to share because it was fairly creepy, in my opinion. It wasn't really a hotel. It was a small bed-and-breakfast-type place that was owned by a couple. When I booked this room, I was feeling kind of down about things. Having gone through a recent breakup, and I wanted to get away for a while.

I assumed that a nice weekend getaway to a quaint little bed-and-breakfast in a small town would be exactly what I needed to clear my head. This specific B&B looked like a little bit of a little bed-and-breakfast in a small town would be exactly what I'd It was perfect. I booked the room and took the trip out to the house. When I got there, I immediately noticed a bit of a red flag about the guy that was checking me in. He saw me, and I quickly noticed that he was giving me this really weird, flirty stare. I'm going to assume that most of you out there will know what I mean by that.

He was giving me this half-smirk, and I could tell that he was staring at my chest. for most of the conversation. Overall, he was a creep, but I assumed that he was probably just someone that worked for them to do check-ins. I followed through with giving them all of my info for the reservation, and that was when I was greeted by a woman, and she mentioned that she would be taking me to my room. On the way to the room, I asked her for the employee's name at the front desk, because I was planning on talking to the owner about him, and she answered with The guy that checked you in?

That's my husband. We are the owners. As soon as she said that, I dropped it. I just smiled and nodded and said, Oh, lovely. She showed me my room. I set up shop and just decided to let it go and move on. The man was a creep, sure,

but I assumed that he wouldn't do anything other than be a creep from a distance and stare. It was uncomfortable, yes, but I wasn't going to let him ruin my weekend. I was here for me, and that was that. Sure, that was a bit ignorant, but again, this was a married man that co-owned business, and I assumed he wasn't going to pursue it any further. The first night was fine, and the first day was a really good time, too. I enjoyed a few places in town, and when I got back,

I spent some time in my room working on some art on my laptop. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon, and evening. And around 10 p.m., I decided that I should go ahead and go to sleep. I put my laptop away, got dressed for bed, and turned off the light. Somewhere around 10 minutes or so after I got into bed, I started feeling like something was off. It was one of those, did I have? forget to do something, or is something happening that I don't

know about that I should kind of moments? Like my instincts were saying that something was up. I opened my eyes a bit and kind of shifted to look around the room. As soon as I looked over at my door, I noticed that it moved.

I shot up out of bed and nearly jumped to the door pulling it open. And, big surprise, on the other side of the door, was the guy from the front desk, just standing there like a deer in the headlights. I asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, and he fumbled over his words for several moments before landing on,

I thought I heard a noise, and I wanted to see if there was someone in there with you. I was nothing shy of livid at this point. I asked why the hell he thought he would have the right to come into a customer's room like that, in the middle of the night. He started getting defensive and telling me that it was against the rules to bring people into the rooms that weren't on the reservation, and started screaming at me about how he was going to kick me out. Right around this time, the other owner, his wife, stepped out of their room asking what was going on. This man seriously started shouting and saying that I had someone in my room,

and then started screaming incoherently about how I was doing drugs in my room, that he saw me with a crack pipe. He was literally just throwing out everything he possibly could that literally made no sense. She looked at me bewildered, like she had no idea what was going on with her husband, and she then asked me what happened. I told her the truth, that I was in bed, looked up and saw my daughter. open, and then when I got up and opened it, he was on the other side. She looked at me and then at him, and he was seriously bawling his eyes out and mumbling something

incoherent. She asked me if I wanted to stay the rest of the night, but said that if I wanted to leave, she would give me a refund for the room. It was pretty clear that she really didn't know how to handle this event. I told her that I would like to go. go ahead and just get my stuff and go, and she nodded. She said that she would see me at the front desk in a few minutes. I went in and grabbed my clothes and my backpack, and went down to the desk. The woman was incredibly apologetic. She mentioned that she had no idea why he did what he did,

and I really think that she was just in shock that something like this had happened. She did end up refunding me for the whole step. and again mentioned that she was sorry. I accepted the apology, but mentioned that she really needed to deal with her husband. She agreed. After that, I went ahead and stayed the night in a close-by hotel and just put it behind me.

Was it creepy as hell? Yes. And could it have gone really bad, really quick, depending on what his intentions were? Absolutely. Honestly? I was just glad it was over, and that I didn't have to think about it again. I clearly never went back, and I'm just hopeful that she got away from that creep of a husband,

because he was most likely going to escalate at some point, if he wasn't dealt with. My self-care weekend was ruined, but it's all right. I moved on and got past all that, and life is better now. even though I am a bit iffy on staying anywhere other than large hotels. I've never been much of an adventurer. I prefer spending time indoors and reading books in my lounge chair. But my friend Mark has always had his ways of convincing me to join him on major hiking trips through a remote trail in the nearby woods. It was the middle of the summer.

The sun was frying the earth. as it does, and he'd somehow talked me into going to the trail and spending a few hours outside, sweating my back end off while, quote-unquote, enjoying nature. We set out early, loaded up with supplies and water. The trail was rough and challenging, and, in spite of my initial protest, I decided that I had made the right choice, and we were enjoying our time, laughing, joking, just overall in high spirits. There were a few other people on the trail,

and he would pause and take some advice on which direction to go from other hikers, and they all had suggestions. We decided that we would go a bit further in and take a hike through to a path that one of the older gentlemen we ran into had recommended. As we pressed on, heading up to where the trail the guy had mentioned should be, the trails seemed to grow a bit, I guess, wilder. The trees were a bit taller than before, making the path a bit darker, even though it was only about noon. We kept on, but then realized that we had no idea where on the path that we were.

Mark was really good at remembering markers on trails, remembering which paths headed to where. But even he had stopped and looked around like he was lost. It was a neat area, but it was starting to feel a bit chilling. Like, something was off. Around early afternoon, we stumbled upon a clearing in the thick trees. Mark was excited, despite not knowing exactly where we were, because an opening typically meant people, and we could get this all sorted out and get going back in the correct direction.

His excitement broke pretty quickly, when we walked out into the clearing, and the only thing we'd found was an old and weathered cabin. It was pretty clearly abandoned, windows shattered, a hole in the ceiling, a door wide open, and the wall was tagged with spray paint.

I don't know who Squirt was, but he was there if anyone cares. After walking around the outside, Mark made a comment like, we should check out the inside. I immediately said no, and stated that that was how horror movies started. He waved me off, saying that it was the middle of the afternoon,

and that no psycho-killer ever got started at 1.30 p.m. I guess that was solid logic, because I decided giving it a quick look-over, wouldn't hurt. Thankfully, it was a pretty small cabin, and I knew that it wouldn't take too long to get through the entire building really quickly and to get out. The inside was a huge mess, broken furniture, rotting food, and a foul smell that made me gag. But what really caught her attention was a bunch of photographs pinned to the wall.

Now, everything inside this place was awful, trashed, destroyed even. But these photos were clean. They all looked like they were all wiped down and cleaned, like someone had been keeping them there for whatever reason. These were pictures of seemingly random people. They all looked like hikers and bikers on the trail. Obviously, I didn't know any of these people, but I could tell that they were people on the trail based on how they were dressed,

and the fact that they were all taken on the trail that we'd walked. Worse yet, they all looked like candid shots. No one looked like they knew their pictures were being taken. A chill ran down my spine. I had someone been keeping photographs of hikers pinned to the wall of an old abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods. I glanced over at Mark and his face was pale. I asked if he was okay, and he motioned toward one of the photos.

It was a photo of him. him. He told me that he had hiked a trail over this way, not this specific trail, but some of the nearby ones, about two weeks prior. And the photo would have had to have been taken then. So not only were these clean, but they were pretty damn recent. He was visibly freaking out, and said that we should get out of there. I immediately agreed. We left the cabin, Mark looking like he was about to throw up and started back off towards the nearby trail. But as we started to walk away, I noticed something else. A man standing on the edge of the clearing and watching us.

He was wearing all black, just standing there and watching. He was pretty far away, so honestly it could have been a mannequin or a scarecrow or something, but I'm pretty certain that this was a person that was watching us. mostly because I didn't recall it being there when we first got to the cabin. I motioned slightly toward the man, mentioning him to Mark, trying not to make it too obvious that I saw him. Mark said that he saw him too, and that we needed to run when we got to the trail just in case. Which, we did. We got to the trail and we bolted in the direction that he thought was the correct one.

The whole time we were jogging down the path, I was thinking about that cabin. and the guy like, what the hell was all of that? Thankfully, the path that we took was the right direction, and we got to one of the main paths, the one with the markers that were indicated on the map. We kept going and got to the car, and Mark looked like he was about to pass out.

I asked him what that was, if this was some kind of prank or something, and Mark just shook his head saying that he didn't know. I asked him if we should call the cops, and he just said, uh, yeah, creepy cabin in the woods with photographs of random people being watched by a creepy man in black. Yeah, we should tell the police before someone goes missing and ends up buried behind the cabin. So, the police were notified. We told them what we saw and explained where it was.

They told us that they would investigate, but also chastised us for going off the path and, technically breaking and entering. Obviously, we never heard anything back from them, and the whole thing remained a mystery for us. Mark and I never spoke about that place again, and when we went hiking, we went clear in the opposite direction of that cabin, not wanting to even think about it.

Of course, I do still think about it, and I'm still curious, but, honestly, it feels like we stumbled upon something that, we were not supposed to. About 20 years ago, I had some pretty sudden life changes and ended up renting a small house in a small suburban neighborhood. It was nice. It was a major change for me,

and I would say that it was a peaceful and fresh start. The house was charming, not too big. Had a comfortable little yard, and I knew the person that was renting it out. out, so it wasn't too expensive. As comfortable as it was, I will say that some of the neighbors were a bit out there. The majority of them were kind people, but some of them were nosy. One neighbor, in particular, Mr. Weller, was a very confusing individual.

He lived in the house directly across from mine, and the day that I moved in, I saw him standing outside on his front porch, just sipping on a glass of tea, and watching me. He waved. He seemed friendly enough, but we didn't talk, so the only knowledge I had of him was that he lived there and was willing to wave at a neighbor that was outside. I didn't see him for a couple of days after that, but about a week or so later, when I'd gotten home from work, I felt eyes stabbing me when I was walking up to my house. I turned around to see who was staring at me, and I noticed Mr. Weller standing at his front window and just staring. He wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was staring.

He was clearly watching me, with an unreadable expression. I waved, thinking maybe he was just lost in thought and didn't realize. that he was staring, but he didn't wave back, or blink, even. He just held that same deadpan stare. I felt a bit unnerved about the whole thing. I quickly made my way inside, but the eerie feelings did not stop there. When I would come home from work or from a jog, he would be there just staring at me. When I would step out to get the mail, he would be there at his window.

If he was outside doing something like mowing the grass, and I went outside, he would stop doing whatever he was doing, go back inside, and stand at the window until I went back inside. Then it got worse. Sometimes whenever I would go inside from doing whatever I would need to do, my landline would ring. But when I would answer it, the person would just hang up. no breathing, no voice, just me saying, hello, and then a click as they hung the call up. I couldn't prove who it was, and the caller ID would always show blocked,

but I had this weird feeling that it was Mr. Weller. I had no idea what I had done wrong, or if I had done something that made him hate me. But clearly, this man had something against me. I called up the person that owned the house. They were a friend of my mother's, so I had their direct number. And I asked her if she'd ever had any troubles with Mr. Weller. She told me that she hadn't personally,

and that I was only the second person to rent the house. But the other tenant hadn't mentioned any issues. So, by this point, I knew that it was just me. After a while it started to get to me. The incessant staring, the silent calls, it actually made me feel paranoid. I would actively avoid going outside so that I didn't have to see him standing there and staring at me. I stopped going for my jogs, and when I got home from work, I would just go straight to the house without turning around. I would get the mail every few days to avoid having to walk to the end of the street.

It hit a point where I would wake up thinking that he was staring in my windows, literally just paranoid. Then I hit my limit. I went outside to get my mail one day, and sure enough, he was there at the window, staring daggers at me. My paranoia shifted to rage. and I started walking towards Mr. Weller's house. I hate confrontation, but I was done with all of this. As I was walking to the house, I watched Mr. Weller pull the curtains closed and retreat back into the house,

but I wasn't going to just let this go. I stepped on his porch, and I banged on the door, probably harder than I should have. After a few seconds of waiting for him to answer the door, part of me was actually more angry at the possibility of him being a coward and not answering. Then the door unlocks and opens, and the person that answered was not Mr. Weller. A frail old woman opened the door and looked at me with a big smile and asked how she could help me. I was a bit confused. I had never seen this woman.

I mentioned that I was looking to speak with Mr. Weller, and she looked at me. looked at me a bit like she was upset at my request. She then hits me with, Oh, I'm sorry, dear. My brother Kennedy passed away a few months ago. I've been living here for a few months now. I had no idea what to say, but after a few moments, she smiled again and said,

Were you too close? I shyly just kind of shook my head and mentioned that I was a neighbor, and that I was sorry for her love. She thanked me, and I awkwardly made my exit out of the conversation, feeling like a total idiot. I was walking back to my house, just thinking about how creepy it was that he was dead, and apparently had been for a few months. I got chills thinking about how I would see him staring at me from the window, even though he was gone. Then, I stopped. and it hit me that this was all a load of BS,

and that I had literally seen him mowing the lawn the day before. I turned and looked back at their house, and sure enough, he was there at the window staring at me. I actually laughed as I went inside. This jerk was such a coward, and was so unwilling to face me after being a creep for so long, that he had, whoever that woman was, his sister. or wife or whatever, lie and tell me that he was dead.

After that, the staring and calls actually stopped. He never bothered me again. I would see him outside doing whatever he would do, and I would wave at him any time we made eye contact, mostly to taunt him. And he would just scowl at me and turn away. In the end, I don't know what the hell Mr. Weller's problem was. I don't know what I did to make him dislike me so much, and I don't know why he was

such a creep. But I was thankful that it all stopped. I only lived in that house for another year, and the whole time I never spoke to him or that woman, and I never had any other problems. I have always been the kind of person that likes to take night drives. The roads are, less congested, the world seems to settle into a settling calm, and my thoughts drift freely as I navigate the dark, quiet streets. I have one drive, however, that changed a lot of things for me, one that sort of ruined things for me, and made me realize how close to death my simple little drive got me. It was about two in the morning, and I was returning home from a friend's house. The drive was a smooth one.

I knew it like the back of my hand. I was just drifting along, my headlights piercing through the darkness, the radio playing softly in the background, as I kept on down this seemingly endless road, flanked by dense woods on either side. As I was breathing in the cool night air as it blasted me in the face through the window, I noticed a car stopped on the side of the road with its hazards flashing. I kind of paused mentally for a moment, thinking, should I stop?

It was really late, and I was alone, but the idea of leaving someone stranded in the middle of the road like this just didn't sit right with me. I decided to stop just ahead of the car, a safe distance away from the stranded vehicle. A man stepped out of the car, and I noticed that he was limping slightly, but a look of relief, spread across his face as he approached my window, so I assumed that he did need help. He looked a bit disheveled. He was wearing a dirty shirt and some old-looking sweatpants, but nothing about him was screaming red flag. He just looked like he chose to dress lazily that day, or maybe he just didn't have a lot of money. Hey, thank you so much for stopping. My car, um, broke down.

His voice trembled a bit from what I assumed was the cold. Is there any way that I could ask you to give me a ride to the nearest gas station? I hesitated a bit, torn between wanting to help this guy and that nagging feeling that something was a bit off. I could call a tow truck for you. I figured I should at least offer that to see if he would be enough. The guy sighed and looked around for him. for a moment and then shivered again.

I appreciate that, but that would take so long. It is seriously freezing out here. Please, just a quick ride. This is where I started to feel a bit guilty. It was pretty cold, and he was definitely not

dressed for the weather. I hesitated, but then I decided that it was just a quick ride down the road, so I let that part of me that wanted to help out, when? He got in, thinking me profusely, directing me to a gas station a few miles down the road. After he gave me the directions, he just sat there silently staring out the window.

I glanced at him occasionally, noticing that he was clenching his hands, sweating a bit, and just looking a bit unsettled. This kind of bothered me, since he said that it was too cold outside. side, but now he was sweating. It wasn't that hot in my car. It was a bit strange, but I just figured that I would get him to the gas station, and it would all be over. We finally arrived at the gas station. He thanked me and got out of the car, his voice still a bit shaky.

He shut the door, and as he was walking away, I noticed something on the floor of my car. I was about to roll the window down and call out to the guy to tell him that he'd drop, something, but when I clicked on the cab light, I noticed what it was that was on the floor. It was a knife, a small kitchen knife, smeared with blood. After a second or two, it kind of clicked. He was holding this knife in his pant leg, and that's why he was limping. It must have fallen out during the trip, and I guess that he just didn't notice that it wasn't there anymore, because he was walking towards the gas station.

I immediately grabbed my phone and called 911, telling them that I just gave a ride to a guy that I think may have stabbed someone. I had to explain the whole situation, and as I was doing so, I thought about the car. I realized that he was in the seat, but I didn't see him driving it. I just saw him get out, and he didn't want me to call a tow truck, which made me think that, maybe,

His victim could have been in the car. To wrap this up, I drove back in the direction of the car with 911 still on the phone, informing them where I was going, and I told them that I would wait for the officers. I had to give them all the information that I could. What the guy looked like, what he was wearing, everything he'd said. I will also note that there was no one in the car, so I was wrong on that thought. They took the knife, obviously. They took his car, and I was questioned a lot about the whole thing.

After a while, I think they were satisfied that I wasn't involved, but they told me that they would give me a call if they had any further questions. I have literally no idea if they ever caught that guy, but I did get called in again for some more questions, but the questions seemed really vague. Like, they didn't know where to take the end. investigation. I do hope that they caught him eventually, and I hope that they found whoever it was that

he'd stabbed. To this day, I cannot shake the visual of that man as he caught out of my car. I will remember his face for probably the rest of my life. And, with all this said, I hope that he and I never meet again. Hello, Raven. You recently asked for stories, so here are her. few from when I worked in a convenience store in Portland, Oregon. This was my second time living in Portland.

This time I lived with my brother in Oregon City. I rode a bike back and forth to work. The way there was a steep hill. When I first started, I had to walk partway. By the end, I was able to ride up it at speed. This means I was in good shape. I worked at a small store near Clackamas Community College. The neighborhood was nice, little to no crime that I experienced.

In fact, in the time that I worked there, I'd only had three incidents. The first is small and means little to me. A co-worker got drunk and screamed at me while he was off the clock. What I didn't know was that he was living out of his truck, and I had taken a shift from him when I was hired. I had no control over that. It was the manager that did that. I didn't yell back.

I just waited until he was done and told him to talk to the manager. Later that manager called me and asked if I was all right. And yes, I was. She wanted to know if I wanted him fired or something. I said no. Then I just didn't want to have to deal with him if he'd been drinking. She thought that was fair enough and left it at that. The second incident was a group of teenagers that tried to do a beer run.

If you don't know what that is, I shall explain. A beer run is where you and your friends try to grab as much beer as you can and bolt out the door without paying. Now, these guys backed a truck up to the parking spot at the front door and jumped out. There were three of them and they all went for the display near the front doors. I had told the manager that it was stupid to put a giant beer display so close to the door, so I'd been expecting this. I had locked one of the double doors when I came on.

This was standard procedure for the graveyard shift. I also had a can of soup behind the counter that had yet to be put back on the shelf. Watching these guys grab the beer and run to the door, I threw the soup at the first guy. This caused him to go sideways a bit, and block the door. This caused the other two to run into him. They freaked out and left the beer,

running to the truck and taking off. The last incident is a lot more serious. It was an attempted robbery. Now, as I said, I worked the graveyard shift, the most dangerous shift for convenience stores. I need to set the stage. We had a step behind the counter for shorter people. and I always had to move it.

I was too tall to use the step and see the customers through the overhead storage that we had. So everyone thought I was shorter than I was. Two, I had cleared most of the counter of extra crap at my boss's request. This left an area where people could put their items and wait next in line. Now, I don't know if any of you have ever seen a person work themselves up to rob a place, but it goes something like this. They wander around the store, grabbing items and putting them back,

pacing in an aisle, talking to themselves. Generally, they announce what they're going to do. At least that's what this guy did. My adrenaline was pumping up before he stepped up, but I froze. What I had missed was the gun. The gun that was now in my face, literal inches from my forehead. I don't know how long I froze. My brain was on fire. I took stock of everything. Like, I thought this was my last moment, and I wanted to remember it all. The gun was small, but it looked

like it could do the job. He didn't wear a mask or face covering at all. He had long arms to get the gun so close to me. He wore a gray shirt and blue jeans. He was sweating profusely, like he was scared. I don't know what he was saying. I know that he was talking, but I couldn't hear him over my heart and my thoughts. I thought that he was not going to leave me alive. No mask.

I'm scared as hell. I was dead if I couldn't do something. So I decided to talk. Are you stupid? I can't give you any cash, I said. What? Why? He said as he dropped the gun a bit.

There was an opening and I took it. I shifted to the side as I grabbed his arm and pushed the gun back into his face as I hauled him over the counter. I had never acted so fast in my life. It was hands down the most stupid thing that I could have done, but it worked. I could have died that day. Instead, I had the guy laid out on the floor, my foot pressing gently on his throat. Anytime I felt him move, I pressed down. I called the cops and reported the attempted robbery.

When the cops got there, I asked them to lock the door. Aren't you supposed to do that? The cop responded as he flipped the latch. The other cop pulled out a pen and a notebook. So what did he look like? I looked down at my feet and started describing what I saw. The cop looked at me funny. leaned over the counter and laughed.

Huh. Hey, Bill, get a load of this. The first cop looked over the counter and saw the guy on the floor. Hey, Roger. Long time, no see. Apparently, they knew the guy, and when they checked out his gun, they found it to be empty. So, I got lucky. Very lucky. I would never suggest to anyone to do what I did. I was also suspended from work for two weeks, as per company policy.

I don't blame them one bit either. The only reason I did what I did was that I thought I was dead anyways. I don't usually go on places like Craigslist, but at the time of this story, I was really desperate. My car had been stolen about a month prior, and they found it two states away, completely trashed at the bottom of a lake somewhere in Utah. So, needless to say, I didn't have many options to find a replacement. I couldn't hitch a ride with a friend to work forever. I also hated asking for favors.

I always felt like I had to return the gesture immediately, so I usually stuck to doing everything for myself. I opened up Craigslist on my phone, and I started looking for a used car. there were a bunch outside of my price range, a bunch that were in my budget but looked like absolute garbage. And then there was this 1995 Pontiac Bonneville. It was a nice dark green, looked well kept, and only had 80,000 miles on it. The guy was only asking two grand for it, which was under my budget. And I could use the rest to fix up any problems if it had any that the guy didn't.

list. So, I called the number listed on the posting, and after a few rings, a man with a deep and rough voice picked up. Yeah. Hi, I was wondering if the Pontiac was still for sale. Yeah, you want it? Yep. I can come by today for free. Mm-hmm. Sounds good. He told me the address to meet him at, and it wasn't that far from me, so I decided to just bike there and toss the bike in the car after I secured it. With 2K and cash in my wallet, an excitement pumping in my chest, I headed out. After about five minutes later, I reached my destination. It was a small shack of a house, with a canopy on the side of it that had a car under it.

The car was under a tarp. I assumed that this was the Pontiac that I saw in Craigslist, so I stopped and got off my bike. I decided to call the guy because there was no way I was going up to this creepy ass shack alone. The phone rings and rings. No answer. I call again. Same thing.

So I texted him, but nothing. Instead of listening to my gut that something was wrong and high-tailing it out of there, I convinced myself that getting this car today was more important than my possible safety being compromised. I leave my bike on the side of the road, ready to hop on if anything goes awry. I walk up to the lifeless husk of a house and wrap on the front door a few times. The frame making a rickety, tinny sound as it bounced against the wood. After a minute or two, a large bearded man that had to be in his 50s or 60s appeared from inside and looked me up and down.

Yeah? What the hell you want? Hey, I'm the guy who called earlier about the Pontiac. I tried calling and texting when I got here, but you didn't answer. The guy just looked at me staring daggers into my soul. He seemed like he either had no idea what I was talking about, or the anger he felt after me knocking on his door outweighed the rules of the transaction. After about a minute, he just went, one sec, be right out.

I backed up from the port. just in case he decided to blow my head off or something. After another minute, the man, now fully dressed, he was in a tank top in his underwear before, walked out the front door looking me up and down again. Come here, he motioned to me with his hand. I followed him over to the tarp, covered vehicle, under the dingy canopy. It smelled musty and old.

Probably the entire property, and hopefully not the car, right? I'd have to pay to get that smell out. He ripped the tarp off, and what I saw made my jaw drop involuntarily. It was indeed the car from the listing, only it looked like it sat in that spot where we were standing for the entire 25 years since it was made. I clenched my mouth shut again before he could see my reaction. Well, he said with his eyebrow raised, pretty, ain't she? Yeah, man, she is beautiful.

I managed to say back in utter confusion. Um, just one sec, I gotta check my bank, you know, make sure I have enough money, I said. I went and checked the listing to see the pictures one more time, and something I neglected to notice in my desperation was a timestamp on the bottom right of each picture. October 11th, 1995. These were scans of printed photographs.

I looked back at the guy and he was staring right at me, the same horrible glare right into my soul. I could not buy this car, and I had to get out of this transaction somehow. Hey, man, I think I left my wallet back at home. I just need to go get it real quick. I'll be right back, I quickly said. Before he could say anything, I trotted to my bike, hopped on, and I sped out of there as fast as I could.

I never looked back, nor went back to that creepy house. A week went by, and I did end up finding a car within budget. It had about 150,000 miles on it, but it got me from point A to point B. The creepiest part of this whole interaction wasn't that the guy was trying to sell me a 25-year-old car that looked like it sat outside during a nuclear explosion, but that somehow a day or two after I left, he ended up finding where I lived. He showed up, and he started pounding on my door, yelling slurs and obscenities at me, demanding that I pay him for his wasted time. He came back once or twice over the next few days, and one of my neighbors called the cops,

and I never heard from him again after that. So, take this as a lesson. If you don't have a car and need one, don't go on Craigslist. The risk of it being a random weirdo or even some kind of serial killer far outweighs the actual real sales on the site. I have always been a bargain hunter, always looking for neat things to add to my collections. I'm the kind of person that loves finding hidden treasures and thrift stores, online market. places, etc. Craigslist has absolutely been a godsend.

That and Facebook Marketplace. I've gotten so much stuff from those sites. Vintage furniture, concert tickets, instruments. Of course, not all of my encounters have been great. Some were pretty clearly people trying to scam me, but there's one that made me question whether or not my love for online deals was really worth my time. It all started with a vintage camera.

I'm a photography enthusiast, and I love older analog cameras. I was instantly drawn to this listing, a beautiful camera from the 1960s that was in damn near perfect condition, being sold for a price that was almost too good to be true. I kept looking through the post, and the guy that posted had put a ton of detail into the description. He had pictures with information listed, had some scans of photos taken with the camera. The overall feel of the listing was by someone that was passionate about the camera's history and information about it, which made me really feel like this was a real post. Excited, I messaged the seller asking if the camera was still available.

They replied almost instantly, and their response was enthusiastic and friendly. Yeah, it's still here in need of a new home. Are you interested in seeing it? I'm available this evening if you want to come by and check it out. There was something about the quick response, the eagerness to meet up for it so quickly that did make me pause for a second, but at the same time, maybe this guy just wanted to get this thing into the hands of someone that would appreciate it.

I'm a pretty decently sized dude, so I'm not typically scared. when meeting up with other people. After a little bit of back and forth, I agreed that I would meet them at their apartment. It was a small apartment building, according to Google Maps, but it was a multi-floor building, which made me feel a bit better about it.

He gave me the address in some basic directions, and I made my way there later in the afternoon, eager to get my hands on that camera. The apartment building definitely looked a bit older and worn down than it did on Google Maps. Like, a lot more run down. The front door made this awful creaking noise, and the hallways were seriously dark.

Like half of the lights didn't work. That, and there was a smell of must in old wood. I slowly made my way to the door, which was actually down the stairs to the lower level, and knocked. My heart was pounding. The thrill of a good deal was fighting that growing sense of dread in my head. Then, the door creaked open.

The man was standing in the doorway with his face and a slight smile. He was wearing an old pair of basketball shorts, and nothing else. I was a bit taken aback with this guy coming to the door mostly naked, but at the same time, this was his home, so maybe he just wanted to be comfortable? I personally would have at least put a shirt on, but that's just me. He told me to come on in, and he ushered me into the apartment. I very slowly stepped towards the door, thinking that the second I stepped across the threshold, I was going to be grabbed or attacked or something, but thankfully that didn't happen.

The apartment was an absolute disaster. Cluttered and filled with stacks of old newspapers, and various items. that looked like they were part of a collection. I stepped in as far as three steps past the door, and stopped. The man noticed, but kept walking over to the corner, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a box that was in near pristine condition, a complete contrast to the rest of this place. I grabbed it, and I know for a fact my eyes lit up,

because the guy chuckles as he turned to walk away and sit down in his chair. I opened the box, and I pulled out the camera to give it a once-over, and it was just as quality as what he'd listed. As I was looking it over, he was asking me random questions. Do you live around here? Are you a professional photographer? Do you do a lot of deals on Craigslist? I'm giving him short and vague answers,

my instincts telling me to keep my guard up. I nodded as I finished looking the camera over and placed it back in the box, and then I looked up at the man and thought I was going to be sick. I had seen him walk over to the chair and sit down. What I didn't see was him pull a blanket over his lap, and now he was sitting there with his eyes closed and making a motion under the blanket.

I stood there for probably four or five seconds not speaking, just living through the most. awkward moments of my life. I think he realized I wasn't saying anything, because he opened his eyes and noticed that I was just standing there. I kid you not, this guy immediately cleared his throat and shouted, I wasn't masturbating. I swear, I stood there just blinking confused for several minutes,

before I pulled the cash out of my pocket, placed it on one of the stacks of newspapers, and just turned to walk out of the apartment. As I exited, the guy shouted, Thanks, pleasure doing business with you. I'm pretty damn sure I sprinted out of that building, jumped into my car, and went double the speed limit out of the parking lot.

I was happy to have the camera, but that was just gross. So very gross. He messaged me the next day, saying that he was sorry I had to see that. I obviously went ahead and blocked him. Even if he really was sorry, I didn't want to talk to him anymore after that. So, in the end of it all, I did get the really neat retro camera, but I had to deal with this dude giving some self-care in the process.

That absolutely was not. the last deal that I did on Craigslist, but it was the last time I ever went to get the item at someone's house alone. After that, I always brought a friend, or my brother. I'm glad the dude didn't do anything more, like move the blanket or try to attack me, but it was still super creepy. So, dude that sold me the camera, let's never meet again. Hello, Raven, this is now the second story that I've submitted. I really love your videos, and I listen to them while I sew on hot summer nights that make you turn and roll in bed. This happened back when I was 15.

As it is beginning to be a couple of years now, I checked with my friends to fill in the details that I forgot. At the time, I wanted to go explore abandoned places, and some of my friends were willing to go with them. me, some even excited. I found a post on a forum mentioning an abandoned house in my city, with indications on how to get there. Bingo. I went there with L, also 15, and E and A, both 16. A was the only boy that was with us.

We followed the post's indications. The first step was to go to the cemetery. It was an early September in the afternoon. noon, so it was warm, and all we could hear was the cicadas singing. I live in a small, by American standards at least, city in southern France, one that regularly has floods, some having killed over a dozen of people. The authorities take this risk very seriously, so they built tunnels under the city in order to make the floodwaters go there instead of into the streets, which, you know, and they built tunnels.

can't prevent the next flood, but at least lower its intensity. The tunnel starts right next to the cemetery. Its beginnings are littered with empty snack packaging, which meant that part of the tunnel, first few meters, that are lit up by the outside lights, are visited by fellow teens. However, the tunnel becomes dark really quickly, and by dark, I mean so inky that your phone flashed, doesn't light up anything but the person in front of you.

I looked it up on the City Hall's website, and this part of the tunnel is 5 by 3 meters, or about 16 by 10 feet large, as it is a half circle in shape. I remember the echo being crazy, and we were playing around with it at first, and I took some videos. They must be on a memory card buried somewhere in my parents' house. I remember the ambience of that tunnel, despite it not being remarkably cramped, as quite claustrophobic, since we didn't hear the cicadas, only the muffled sounds of cars above us from time to time. In the pitch-black part of the tunnel, I remember that we saw needles, little plastic bags, etc. When we shined our phone lights on the ground, we were afraid to meet someone.

the tunnel on our way, and so we kept watching out, and making sure we didn't hear any strange sounds. The second step to finding the abandoned house was to go through a small hole atop the tunnel, on the side. There were a few along the way, and none seemed to lead to a house, so we continued to walk. We went so far that we eventually arrived at the end of this portion of the tunnel, which is, apparently, according to the City Hall, roughly 1.5 kilometers long, or about a mile. But we seemed to have spent so much more time in it. This isn't a large distance, and yet I remember us walking for at least 45 minutes. We walked back and I realized where the hole was and pointed it out to my friends.

A kneeled down and helped me get up to the hole first, as I was the lightest. The hole must have been about 1.6 meters, or 5 foot 2 inches away from the ground, comparative to my height. Everyone then threw me their bags, and A helped the others similarly as I pulled them up by grabbing their arms, until we finally got A to us. That's when we realized that something was wrong. It was infested with mosquitoes, and I got at least a dozen of bites from this incident. The end of the tiny plot of land had a half-destroyed stone wall, which A promptly tried to climb.

I shouted that if he were to break his leg, that we would just leave without him, which made him get down. The plot of land was really tiny, and there was no house. It was surrounded by wire fence on all sides. but the wall, and facing said wall, was the very top of the tunnel, exposed. And to our horror, on the left, a small house that seemed inhabited. We were making a lot of sounds, as a bunch of teens would, and after a couple of minutes of trying to see behind the stone wall, still hoping for an abandoned house,

an old woman opened up one of the inhabited house windows, yelling something along the lines of, Get off of my property! I'm calling the cops! If you've never been in a similar situation as a dumb teen, I don't think you can quite grasp the short-circuiting happening in your brain when you hear those words. Common sense would have wanted us to apologize and say that we were leaving then immediately do so.

Instead, we were so scared by the thought of having the cops called on us, that we bolted out of the plot of land and jumped straight into the tunnel. And yes, I did hurt my ankle whilst doing so. The tunnel cut through numerous roads, and the only muffled sounds that our ears could detect, were cars passing above us, and a couple of times the sound of police sirens. This happened three or four times,

and it was certainly unrelated to our failed attempt at urban exploration, but every time we would turn our flashlights to each other, looking scared out of our minds. I was wondering what I would say to my parents if we ever got arrested, coming from a tunnel littered with needles after trespassing on someone's house, especially since we all told our parents we went to the city center, and instead we took a bus to the cemetery. Anyway, we got out of the tunnel walking as fast as we could without making

too much sound, and went into the cemetery, which had trees everywhere wanting to hide. Probably all the while looking like we saw a real ghost. No cops were called, and I know why the house wasn't abandoned. The forum post was five years old at that point. Anyway, this makes for a great story to tell these days, since I believe it to be highly comical. I've only kept in touch with Elle, and we sometimes bring up the time that we try to go ghost hunting, and we have a good laugh about it. I hope this story makes it into one of your videos, despite nothing having really happened, except getting thrown out at a random lady's house. And a tip for urban explorer wannabes, check thoroughly that the place you're going to be exploring is really abandoned before it.

hand. So a few years ago, I had a friend that had finally gotten herself out of an incredibly abusive relationship. We all chipped in to help her out, and she was able to get her own place. I understand that the cycle of abuse is difficult to break. To get out of a situation where someone you love, has turned to someone that loves to hurt you, is an impossible situation to navigate. So, when she was able to get out of it and move out, I wanted to do something for her, with her permission, of course. So we got a few friends together and threw a housewarming party. Her new place is in the trendier part of town, filled with lots of cool places and young people. And honestly, the atmosphere in that part of town is absolutely electric.

So I knew that if we had our little bash, it would be a great time, and we likely wouldn't have any issues. The place that she got wasn't exactly huge, so we worked out a good number of people that wasn't too much, and limited every invite to the person and one guest. A lot of people RSVPed, and we actually had a decent headcount by the time the party was scheduled. That night, the house was actually a bit of... more packed than we expected, but not overly so. The music was going, drinks were flowing, and everyone seemed to be in high spirits. I was loving the atmosphere and my friend was nothing but smiles. So, overall, it felt like a success. Then things took a bit of a creepy twist.

About an hour into the party, I noticed a guy that I didn't recognize. There were a few people there that I didn't really know, but I was at least partially acquainted with them. This guy I had never actually seen before in my life. I assume he was someone's plus one. He had these really piercing blue eyes. His head was shaved, and there was something

about him that was kind of bothering me. I don't know if it was how he was staring at me, or how his smile was a little bit too eager, but something was out of place about him. After I noticed him staring in my direction, I saw that he started walking over to me, and I thought that I was going to have to go through the whole rejection dance.

He looked like an okay guy, but he wasn't quite my type if you catch my drift. He stepped up to me and kind of pushed himself in front of me, saying, Hey, I'm John. I tried to be polite, saying, Hi, John, I'm my name. Are you enjoying the party? Trying to be a nice host and all. He nodded saying that he was, in his words, digging the vibe.

And then kind of stood there saying nothing and just staring at me. I smiled and looked around awkwardly waiting for him to say something, or for the opportunity to walk away. Then it got even more awkward. He looked at me and said, Hey, you want to go break in the bedroom? I turned to look at him with a look like, Bro, did you just ask that?

I shook my head and said, John, I'm going to be as direct with you as I possibly can, and say that was honestly one of the creepiest things you could have ever have asked someone that you just met. He stared at me like I had said something offensive. like he hadn't just asked me to go to the bedroom with him after introducing himself. He then says, Well, let me know if you change your mind, and turns to walk away.

If that was it, honestly, this would have been creepy, but not to the point of writing in a story. But of course, John was a creep. As the night were on, I would turn and he would be there staring at me. He would randomly wave at me from across the room. he would accidentally run into me when I was going to the kitchen for whatever reason. One time is a coincidence. Two or three times is intentional.

It hit a point where it was kind of starting to feel predatory. I decided that I would confront him and tell him off. I walked over, and he perked up like I was about to take him up on his previous offer. I told him that I was not interested in him, and that he needed to knock off his creepy behavior. He laughed and said, I'm just enjoying the party. You should calm down, maybe smile a bit more.

I rolled my eyes and told him to just leave me alone. But of course, he didn't. In fact, he got worse. It got to the point that he was actively following me around. Every step I would take, he would follow me four steps behind. And he was making it off. It hit a point where I was done, and I went to talk to my friend that we were throwing the party for, and if nothing else, she could ask him to leave. I told her that some guy named John was starting to piss me off, and I asked her if we could go ahead and tell him to leave, and she looked at me with a confused look on her face, asking who it was.

I grabbed her and pulled her into the other room where I'd last seen him, and he was still standing there. I pointed toward him and said, him, John. The look on her face changed from one of confusion to shock. It was pretty clear that she knew who this guy was. I asked her what was wrong, and she responded with, His name isn't John, it's James. And he's my ex's brother.

How her ex's brother had known about where she moved, I don't know. why he decided to show up at the party and be a creepy person towards at least myself, I'm not sure. But what I do know is that hearing that this guy was related to the man that had been physically abusive with my friend was enough to make me enraged. At that point, I said to hell with formalities, and I figured the best way to get this a-hole out of the house was to turn the party into a mob. I yelled for everyone's attention. The entire room of about 20, 30 people turned to look at me,

and I immediately pointed at James and said, This man needs to leave. Now. Everyone turned their attention to James, who, I think, realized that he was going to have to go, or risk being forced out. He raised his hands in defeat, and started backing up towards the door. As he got to the door, he pointed towards my friend and yelled out toward her,

I'll let my brother know you said hi, and then turned and walked out. Now, I know that the story wasn't terribly scary, but I want to point out that for my friend and myself, this was a terrifying situation. Her abusive ex that she had finally escaped, had possibly sent his brother to her new place. meaning he knew where she lived now, and this was very clearly his brother being willing to be a part of that cycle of abuse. This obviously left her in a really bad way,

thinking that he was going to show up, and that he wanted to continue to ruin her life. So far, he hasn't done anything to her, and it has been a couple of years now, so maybe this was just one last slap in the face, but it was enough to make her feel, uncomfortable and unsafe in her new home. She does have a new man in her life now, and I think that helps her some, but hopefully she never has to face her ex or his brother ever again.

It's something else here now, something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. When sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. When everything started with COVID, I lost my job for a while.

And while unemployment did help a bit, and my wife was able to keep her job, we were spreading ourselves a bit thin financially. So, I needed to do something. I thought, hey, let's offer handyman services on Craigslist. I wasn't a handyman by trade, and I admit that I wasn't certified or anything, but I knew how to do most home repairs. Benefit of my dad being pushy with making me pay attention to him when he worked. He was.

a handyman. And when I was a kid out of school, I had to go with him to all of his jobs. All that is to say that I put a post up on Craigslist to advertise my abilities as a handyman. And I priced myself lower than anyone else, hoping that that would be enough to entice people to contact me. And entice it did. I got a notification on my phone the next day. an email from someone that had seen my ad, and they asked me if I could repaint a room.

I've painted rooms before, successfully, even, so I responded and told them that I would be happy to help them out with painting a room, if they needed. The deal went through quickly. They wanted me to come over the next day to start it, and asked if I could finish it within the week. After a bit of finessing on the price and how quickly we could get it, it done, he agreed to pay me half up front on PayPal, and when the payment came through,

I excitedly said, all right, I'll see you tomorrow. I got to the house and was a bit shocked to see the outside of it. It was not pleasant. The yard was overgrown, the shutters on the windows were literally hanging off, and the exterior paint was peeling. Part of me was a bit confused. Why would worry about the color of your living room and the outside of your house is so uninviting. The other part of me was thinking, I bet I could talk him into letting me mow his

lawn and fix those shutters, too. I rang the doorbell, and a middle-aged man answered. He looked a bit tired, but other than that was pretty normal. He looked at me with half-opened eyes and a bit of a scowl,

asking me what I wanted. I want to add here that I was wearing overalls, a hat, and carrying my painting equipment. It was pretty clear why I was there. I'm here to paint your living room. I'm James from the Craigslist ad. As soon as I said this, the guy perked up. Oh, James!

Come on in. Thank you for taking the time to help me out with this. I thought maybe this guy wasn't too social, and he put on a face for uninvited visitors. and when he realized who I was, he changed his tune. I walked into the house, and let me say that the inside of this house matched the outside. The house had clearly been neglected. The walls were tinged with that nicotine yellow, and there were cobwebs in the corners.

Each room had a fluorescent light in the ceiling, of which only about half worked, and the other half just sat there flickering. I wasn't there to judge. only to paint, so I ignored it and just maintained my customer-friendly smile. Then we got to the room that he was planning on dubbing the living room. The walls were covered in a dirty, half-peeled wallpaper, and the air was stale. There was a chair in the room in one corner, but other than that, nothing else but a lamp. I wasn't expecting wallpaper, and he hadn't mentioned needing to depaper the room,

but he said that he would help me to remove the paper and make it easier, and then apologized when he realized he hadn't mentioned the wallpaper. He had some tools and some wallpaper remover to get it off the walls, so I wasn't overly concerned. We started on one corner together, but after about ten minutes, he mentioned that his back was hurting, and asked if I would be okay if he sat in the chair for a couple of moments.

I would prefer that he hadn't, but at the same time this was his house, and he was paying me to do the work, so I wasn't really in a position to argue. He sat down and just started watching me take the paper off, and while I assumed that he would get back up to help, he just sat there, watching me with a big smile on his face. As the night went on, the room started getting a lot darker. and by the time it was hitting the evening, I was about three-quarters done with removing the wallpaper.

I started stripping off the last wall, and I noticed something on the wall underneath it. I was a little bit confused, but intrigued, so I stripped the paper off, only to see what looked like a pentagram burned into the wall underneath the paper. I took a step back and said, What the hell? When I said this, the man jumped up from the chair and stood right behind me,

damn near breathing in my ear. You can see it? You can see that symbol on the wall? He asked this as if it was a serious question. Of course I could see it. It was burned into the drywall. I turned slightly, which is when I realized how close this guy was to my face, which made me jump even more.

Yeah, I can see it. What is it? I stammered out my stupid question. I don't know why I prodded for more information. I didn't want to know what it was, but I guess I was curious. My curiosity was rewarded with this man giving me this really, terrifying, Willem Defoe, Green Goblin grin. It's for the ritual.

He held that smile and then grabbed him. my arm tightly. I need your help for the ritual. I yanked my arm free and shouted, Help you with the what now? He started laughing and I saw him reaching into his pocket for, I'm assuming, a knife or something. I shoved him as hard as I could, and I told him that I was done with this nonsense and started to walk out of the room. He then started shouting about how I had to stay, and how he had sent me the PayPal, and that I had to finish

the job. I told him he could shove his job and do a charge back on the payment, and I took off out of that house, kicking myself for leaving my painting equipment, but it was a small price to pay for whatever the hell this

was. I jumped in my car and I started to back out, and I saw this man starting to run out of his house at me. And he seriously chased me out of his driveway and partially down the road. He was sprinting as fast as he could,

keeping that creepy smile on his face the whole time. Thankfully, this middle-aged creep was no match for a pickup truck, and I did lose him eventually. I don't know what all that was. I don't know if this was some kind of satanic insanity that he was trying to get me to be a part of or whatever. But the money he'd pay me was nothing in comparison to how terrified I was. Funnily enough, he never did a chargeback, or ask for a refund or whatever you have to do.

So I kept the money that he sent. I did lose a day, and I had worked my back end off stripping that wallpaper, only for this guy to turn into an absolute lunatic, but I guess I got paid for it? Hey, Raven. I want to start out by saying that you are my favorite narrator on YouTube. Thank you. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of excellent narrators that I frequently listen to. Same. But you definitely are my favorite. I have two experiences that I would like to share with you, starting with one that happened back in April. When I was on my way back from the NASCAR Dirt Track Race Night, in Bristol, Tennessee with my husband,

my father-in-law and my husband's cousin. As I stated above, it was a night race, which means we didn't get on the road to head back home to Indiana until after 11 p.m. that night. My husband's cousin was the one driving, so he put our destination into his phone's GPS for the quickest way back, as three out of the four of us had to work the next day. Thankfully, we all worked second shift.

Anyways, for whatever reason the GPS took us through Virginia. I'm assuming it cut off some of the travel time, but I'm not sure because I did end up falling asleep sometime after the strange incident occurred. It was around 2.30 to 3 a.m., and we were on the same very back country roads in the middle of nowhere Virginia. I was still a little pumped up, as it was my first time going to a NASCAR race, so my husband. husband and I were chatting in the back seat, while my cousin and father-in-law chattered in the front. We were the only ones on the road, as it was a very late Sunday night. The speed limit was 55 or 60, I don't remember exactly, but his cousin was obeying the speed limit.

So when we see headlights come up flying behind us out of nowhere, we were a little surprised. We all started making jokes about how we were in Backwoods, Virginia, and that that was probably the welcome wagon. Now, this road was very curvy at times, but the stretch that we were on at that particular moment was a straightaway. So, we could see a fair distance in front of and behind us, and we could see a vehicle approaching. Fast. I also need to mention that this was only a two-lane road. when the vehicle got close enough we could see that it was an ambulance it didn't have its sirens or emergency lights on but whoever was driving it was going way over the speed limit they rode our bumper for a few minutes before erratically swerving over into the opposite lane to pass us we had a clear view of the inside as it passed and we could see that all the lights in the cab were on as if they were transporting someone but there was no one back there.

Not an EMT? Nobody. We could see the black gurney in the upright position, but no one was on it. I remember thinking that it was strange and trying to get a look at the driver because, one, he was driving kind of recklessly, and two, why would the lights be on in the back if there were no patience back there? But I couldn't see a driver. I couldn't see anyone.

Once it passed, it took off like a bat out of, you know, where. About three-quarters of a mile up the road, it began to get very curvy again. But then, straightened back out after a little bit. We should have seen the ambulance again, and we should have been able to at least see it in the distance on the part of the road that straightened back out, because there's no way an ambulance could have taken those curves at the speed that it was going. I would say that it had to be going at least 85 to 90 miles an hour. There were no intersections or turnoffs.

We were on a country highway in the sticks with no residential homes nor businesses. If the ambulance had crashed, we would have seen some evidence of a crash. Even if it flipped and landed off the road out of sight, we would have seen damage to the trees and brush that lined the highway. just something. But there was nothing. And we did look because we all thought that it was just so weird. My father-in-law asked if anybody got a good look at the driver,

and I explained that I tried but wasn't able to. I'm not really sure if it was because of the glare of the lights that I couldn't see a driver, but nobody else saw one either. After that, we referred to it as the ghost ambulance. The second experience happened to me at work earlier tonight, and has actually happened three times in the past week, all at work. So I really enjoy all of the stories you read, but the glitch in the Matrix ones are my favorite. I listen mostly at my place of employment because it keeps me from being bored to tears while I work. Thank you for that.

I need to explain my job and its boring details in order for my story to make. makes sense, so I apologize. I'm a machine operator at a plastics factory. Basically, the company I work for makes headlights and turn signal casings for cars and trucks. Most of the parts that I work with have a left and a right part. My job is to take them off the belt as they come down, cut the parts off of what is called the spruce, the little plastic pieces the parts are connected to when the machine spits them out, and pack them into their respective totes or boxes for shipping.

The packaging has individual slots for each parts to fit into nicely and neatly. Also, the parts are identical. Most nights, I'm operating two machines and you have to find what I call your groove in order to keep up with whatever machine you're responsible for. Otherwise, you'll have parts piling up under the conveyor belt and you don't want that. The parts come down the belt, attached to the sprue. This is called a shot. So to be clear, each shot contains a left and a right part.

What works for me is to clear the belt, which is anywhere between three to six shots. Stack them on the table, and then cut each left part, pack them, and then repeat for the right. Now for the weird stuff. The incident that happened last Thursday was actually the weirdest, which, was the second time this happened. I had about three parts left before the set I was working on was full. So I finished the process that I just described, put my last three parts in each tote, rights and lefts,

grab the lids and put them on the totes. There were no parts on the table, just empty sprues that I had not yet thrown away. However, when I was getting ready to take the full totes over to the skids, I glanced back down at my workstation and there were six parts still attached to the spruce, just laying there on the table, like I had cut the rights and packed them. I did a double take and quickly took the lid off of the left part's tote, and it was completely full. Confused, I checked the right's tote, but it was as it should be as well. I checked the floor and the waist bin to see if there were six right parts that had somehow full.

fallen? Maybe I'd cut them and forgot. But there was nothing. And why would I cut six extra parts when I knew I only had three slots to fill? And then why only the rights? It just didn't make sense. For this particular part, it is very easy to spot if you put it in the wrong tote, a left in the right or vice versa. And the slots of the totes are just the right size for one individual part, so you can't put two parts in one slot. There is no reason there should have been any parts on the table because if one part is bad, and you have to throw it out, you also have to throw out the opposite side automatically to keep things even.

And besides, I haven't even had any bad parts in that machine that night. So where did the extra parts come from? As I said, I've had two other similar experiences at work, but that one was the most detailed instance. Also, I remember right before it happened, my feet and legs felt a little strange, like I was wading through warm water. Afterwards, I thought to myself, that must be what it feels like walking through dimensions. because that definitely felt very glitchy. Listening to the stories that you read, which I do religiously and with much appreciation,

I often get frustrated by young women who allow creeps to do uncomfortable things to them due to social anxiety. But I am very much guilty of the same thing. When I was in university, my boyfriend and I decided to take a spontaneous, day trip to Montreal, a three-ish-hour bus ride from where we live. We had a great day, and we caught the 1 a.m. bus back home. The bus was packed, and we were

stuck sitting at the very back in a row with three seats. My boyfriend sat in one corner, I sat in the middle, and an older man sat in the seat next to me. Since we had a long day, and it was so late, I started falling asleep. Then I noticed a hand caressing my hair. I woke up, and it was not my boyfriend. I turned to look at the man next to me, and he pretended to be asleep. Thinking maybe it was a mistake, I fell back asleep, only to become aware of a hand touching the top of my head again.

When I woke up, the dude next to me again pretended if he was asleep. At this point, I'm feeling thoroughly creeped out, but I didn't know what to do. My boyfriend was fast asleep, and there were literally no other seats available. So, I tried my hardest to stay seated upright and awake. Anytime I nodded off, his hand would find its way to my head, shoulder, the back of my neck. It was awful, and I was so painfully shy that I had no idea what to do. Finally, we got to our destination, and I got off the bus as quickly as I could. Thankfully, the creep was continuing on to another stop, so we left without him following.

I still kick myself for doing nothing in that situation. So, girls, if someone is being a creep, call them out on it. Don't let it be a regret that you carry. Your voice matters. So, I used to live on the streets of Portland. I don't have too many scary stories from then. There is, however, one story that freaked my friend out that I was walking with. My girlfriend and our two friends, who were also a couple, often did things at night.

The girls were in college at the time, and it was a Christian college, with some strict rules. So, bars and the other usual stuff were... a no-go. So we would drive to some places that we hadn't been and just wander. Here is where I have to explain something. I am a big guy. I was six foot, five inches, and around 300 pounds. I had worked as a security guard, furniture mover, and I lumped loads for truckers.

I was still pretty fit. In high school I played football and trained in various martial arts. This means that my friends were more than happy to wander into places that we shouldn't be because they had me around. I was always paying attention. I would tell them that we needed to move to the other side of the street to avoid some people or owly mouths that I didn't like. This is all to say that they felt protected when I was around,

and would often not think about the dangers around them. Enough backstory. Now to the story. My group was wandering around near the event center in Portland, the one off of the freeway. I think it's called Rose Something. Now, we had many adventures walking around, going up to Mount Taver Park after dark, and looking at the skyline. Never had we felt in any danger, or even really worried, as we should have. We made a day of street surfing, as we called it.

and this was getting an all-day all-zone pass from the Max line, Portland's mass transit. We would park our car at the 60th and Division Station. It was near a police station and was in the Hawthorne District that was known to be safe. And then we would ride the train and bus all day, going where we pleased. This night, we'd gone back to the car and decided that we didn't want to stop. We got into the car and drove to the event, There was free parking at night, and it was near one of my friend's homes. Walking from the parking spot to a Denny's, so that we could get our munch on, were laughing and joking.

I was totally absorbed in talking, so much so that I didn't notice this large man walking towards us. While he was not as tall as me, he was physically bigger, wild curly hair, and he was walking like he owned the sidewalk. As he approached, he starts yelling loudly, And the great Lord Satan will take you, points to each one of my friends in turn, And you and you. He didn't point at me.

He didn't even look at me. He just walked on babbling. My friend looked at me and said, Why didn't he point at you? I was still shocked a bit. but laughed it off and said, Well, you see, Satan and I have a deal. That was all I could think to say.

I had no idea who this guy was, never seen him before nor since. I know it doesn't seem that scary, but at the time we were young and invincible, and to see the danger that could have been, looking back at this, it could have gone much, much worse. Thank you for your time.

and thank you, Raven, for doing such good work. Thank you. Hello, Raven. I'm a huge fan of your reading and love that you encourage people to share their strange and unexplainable stories. I've been listening for about a year now, and I thought it might be time to share my own experience. Since I can't remember, I've had dreams that later come to fruition, or end up affecting my awake life in some way. These are just a couple of examples of such dreams. I graduated high school in June of 1998,

and gave birth to my first born in September of 1999. Shortly after graduation, but prior to getting pregnant, I began having a recurring dream that I had not graduated. In my dreams, I always found myself back in school, lost and trying to figure out my class schedule. I would be wandering that semi-familiar hallway and telling each faceless student that I came across that I didn't belong there

because I'd already graduated. I would wake up feeling strange, but just chalked it up to the pressure put on me by my parents to get my high school diploma. Fast forward, 17 years, and my oldest child graduates high school a year early. The school let everyone know that although they were still waiting for the scores from the final test,

they were going to go ahead with the graduation ceremony. One day in July, my kiddo was watching a softball game and happened to run into her principal. He told her that the test results were finally in, and unfortunately she had failed by just two points. She would be required to return to the school next year, and remain in attendance until she could retake the test, and pass it. So, my dream had actually come true, only not in a way that I ever could have imagined.

I am happy to say that she did pass the retake, and only spent about two weeks there before she was done for good. Not once have I had that dream since. The last thing I want to add is that this dream phenomena has been a thing that my mom has experienced forever. She's had dreams of people passing away, and they always do within a few weeks. Sometimes it's even people who aren't sickly or expected to pass. We're of indigenous descent, and I'm not sure if that contributes at all. I really would love to learn more about any special gifts that I may have been given, but I don't really know where to start.

Story 2 is about a possible abduction. On the night of July 9, 2023, I had a dream that I was in a hospital setting and appeared to be getting prepped for some sort of procedure. Allstaff had their faces completely covered, and I don't recall any of them speaking. I was the only one to actually say anything. I somehow felt or got the impression that they were about to insert an IV, so I told them about the scar tissue and the crooks of my heart. arm from years of plasma donations. I explained that I usually have to get IVs in the back of my hand. I remember there being three people in the room, and they all exchanged a quick glance

before I felt the IV going in, and that was it. I also recall not being able to see any features of their faces, not even the eyes. They all had masks and goggles on, and the goggles. seemed to be reflecting the bright, sterile lights in such a manner, so as to keep me from seeing their eyes. I woke up what felt like hours later. After a bit, I thought back to my dream and looked at my right hand. And, I just so happened to see what looked to be a scab from an IV, right, on a vein, exactly like I've had so many times before when actually being in the hospital.

I can't explain it, and my boyfriend chooses to believe that my cat must have scratched me during the night. I don't feel like that makes sense since it wasn't a scratch, but rather a tiny puncture wound. I have never liked the outdoors or being in nature. I get a lot of crap for this. I prefer to stay inside in the nice AC with all the comforts of home, rather than go outside where there's nothing but bugs, the heat, and people. I appreciate beautiful nature pictures and scenery, but that doesn't mean that I want to be out in it. My sister, however, is the complete opposite of me.

She loves the outdoors and always tries to go hiking whenever she can. I like seeing the pictures and hearing about her adventures, but that is as far as I will go. but for her birthday she asked me to go on an easy hike with her we have different ideas about what an easy hike would be she doesn't really ask much of me so I told her that I would give it a go but to understand that I might not be able to do it we were walking along the path and we stopped regularly to take breaks

it was a beautiful place but my feet hurt it just wasn't my thing. We had one more trail to go down before we'd go down another one in order to get back to the car park. My sister was talking about how we should do this again sometime. I just wanted to get through the day. We weren't alone on the trails. There were families and small kiddos walking by, couples, older people, and even the odd occasional single hiker. What I'm trying to say is that this trail really isn't in.

in the middle of nowhere, and generally has the reputation for being safe. I hurt my ankle somehow. I don't know how, but it ached. So my sister and I sat down for a while, chatted, etc. Before we knew it, it was dusk, so the sky had that pink hue to it, and it was colder at that point. We got up and started walking home. My legs and ankle really hurt, so.

I was limping. My sister walked beside me and I knew that she was itching to walk faster. She's one of those speedy people who like to really walk fast everywhere. We heard rustling from the trees and we froze. Neither of us knew what it was and we held each other's hands only for a deer to jump through. Like a cheesy part in some horror movie. We laughed. It was kind of ridiculous.

and then the birds and just, I guess the forest, I guess, really just went quiet. It was weird. My sister stopped and looked around to see what was causing it. She leaned closer to me and whispered that we had to go. Now. I wasn't going to argue with her. Instantly she was on her feet and she pulled me up quickly. I asked her what was wrong and she just told me not to worry.

just to come with her and not to waste any time. We walked at a fast pace, as fast as I could go with my injury, in order to get back to the car park, and she would not tell me what was wrong. I didn't ask again, and I figured that she would just tell me when we were safe. She kept looking to see what was up there,

and as we were getting close to the car, she told me to hurry up and just get straight in the car when it was unlocked. When we got back to the car, we got in right away, and the moment we were inside, we locked the doors. Normally, when we got back to the car after doing something, we would just talk or relax. This time she drove off and didn't answer my questions until we drove to a local McDonald's. She pulled into the parking spot, and her hands were shaking. I gave her a moment before I asked her what had happened.

She told me that she saw someone watching us in the forest from behind a tree. At first, I thought that she was overreacting, because there were a lot of people there. She then told me that he was naked, and he had a knife in his hand, and that was why she told me that we needed to go. I asked her how she knew that he had a knife, and she said that she knew it because it got bright and was reflecting, and admitted that she really couldn't be sure, but it was better to get out of there before it got dark anyways than to be out there when it was nighttime. So maybe we were being stalked by some psycho or a murderer.

I don't know. I haven't gone hiking since, and my ankle has gotten better. She's gone hiking again with friends, never going alone, but she has never tried to go back to that first. forest. She told me that she doesn't want anyone to stop her from enjoying nature. I have a story that some people may read and think it's not scary in the traditional sense. And it's really not, but it's still a nightmare situation to be in. And it's a story that I want to tell, so here goes. I used to volunteer for a local search and rescue team near a prominent national park.

Our team was flush with medics, experienced hikers, and even a couple canine units that could be called in if necessary. We weren't typically needed, but when we were, we gave it our all, and we absolutely saved the lives of a number of people out there in the woods. What follows is one of the most harrowing events that I have ever lived through, both as a search and rescue member and in my life in general. It happened on a morning that was colder than normal. It was late November, though, so we knew that we were going to start to get that wintry mix in the near future. The sky was dark, even in the late morning.

The clouds blocking out the sun, making it feel even colder out in the forest. We'd gotten a call that we needed to do a full sweep of part of the trails, as there was a hiker that had been missing for around three days. and each hour that passed made us all feel more and more desperate. With the cold coming in like it was, being out in the elements like this, depending on where he was,

things could quickly go from scary to tragic. The area where he was thought to be was rugged, a lot of steep cliffs with some horrifying drop-offs, a lot of terrain that was working against us. By the time that night fell on, on that first day of searching, the temperature had dropped sharply, and the sky decided to open up with some freezing rain and a bit of snow, which was going to make the terrain even harder to navigate.

Our team started considering the possibility that this was no longer going to be a rescue mission, but a recovery mission. On that second day, one of the canine units had actually picked up a faint scent near a treacherous ravine. We followed, all of us getting that hit of adrenaline with that growing sense of dread crawling all over our brains. And then we found him. He was lying at the bottom of a cliff, twisted and broken, his face pale and his eyes wide open in the look of sheer terror. We were all pretty visibly shaken as we approached. Even professionals get scared as things come to a head like this. It was pretty clear that he was severely injured.

His leg was visibly broken in ways that I can't explain. His body was covered in bruises and cuts, and he was looking pretty bad. We all jumped into action, working to stabilize him. At first, things appeared to be heading towards a better outcome. We had found him. He was still alive. And if we all worked our back ends off,

we could get him out of here, and he would have a fight. fighting chance. But when we all got to him and started to work, things took a sharp turn. He was smiling at us, but his breathing started to get shallow. His pulse was weakening,

and his eyes started to fall vacant. We all knew what was happening, and we did everything we could to keep him with us until the helicopter could get to us. We all worked to keep him going, to, warm him up and keep his heart beating, but we couldn't. The man saw us.

He knew that we were there, and I can only imagine that he thought that we were going to be able to save him, but we were too late, probably by no more than a few minutes. I will always have those thoughts, that if we had just woken up 20 minutes earlier, if we ran just that slight bit faster, climbed down with a little less regard for our safety,

we may have saved him. I will always have that in my mind, that this man was seconds away from being saved but had slipped away, that no matter how much he wanted to hold on, no matter how much he thought that we would be saving his life, his body just couldn't take it any longer. His body was carried away, and we were all left to face the unforgiving wilderness,

now tinged with the sadness that we, as a unit, had failed. Unfortunately, the story is just a reminder that there's not always a happy ending. And even those innocent little outings can turn into something so much more serious without warning. Ultimately, nature has the final say in how things go, and all we can do is try our best, try to be as careful as we can and try to prepare for the unexpected and the last thing that I want to say is

be careful out there we can do a lot to save people but there are times where things do not go as planned the first story is a possession story and the second a ghost story as I was coming home from my brother-in-law's house late at night maybe around

1 a.m. I had my stepson, a teenager, with me. As usual, we were both in good spirits, making jokes, singing along with the radio, talking about whatever came up, however random or strange someone else might find it. We're about halfway through our 45-ish-minute drive, when I look at him and he's looking at me like he's afraid of me. Eyes wide, mouth open, gripping his seat. leaning practically through the passenger door terrified. I turn the radio down and ask if he's okay. He says, I don't know. Are you? Which, why wouldn't I be?

I tell him I'm fine and ask what's wrong. He asks me if I know where I am. And while I look through the darkness, I notice I'm about three to five minutes further down the road than I thought. It's a dark mountain road, and I'm going slowly. I kind of give him this, what the hell look, and he says I was singing, and then he watched a smoke come in the open window,

enter my head, and take over. As then I stopped singing mid-song, didn't answer him when he was talking, and just stared blankly ahead driving, still safely. And then after a few minutes the smoke changed, just left my body. And that's where I looked at him sitting there terrified.

I don't know if this has ever happened to me before, or since, because I felt fine. I don't have any recollection of the three to five minutes. No confusion, nor sense of dread. But I was possessed by something, right? Maybe just an old backwood's ghost that missed driving? Maybe something else. I have no choice but to believe him as, A, I'm missing time. B, he would come to me to talk about things openly and honesty,

and C, he would never pull it off if it was a prank. He would laugh four seconds in. The second one is on the same winding road, and just the two of us again. Closer to home this time, I start hearing a rhythmic, metallic sound. For a couple of miles, I can't figure out what. in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, that could be. I recognize the sound from somewhere. I couldn't place it, though.

As the miles pass, the sound keeps getting louder and I finally figure out what I think is happening, but it makes no sense. It's the rhythmic, tink, tink, tink of pickaxes on rock. Yeah, like the old chain gangs and movies. This is the same road I took to. get there. There were no repairs happening, and it's a dirt road. It had been there for quite some time. It's the only road around, and again, it's the middle of the night. The noise keeps getting louder. On the last stretch at the road before home, we climb this big hill, and at the

top, there are three guys with pickaxes. They look like they're on break, but they aren't in color. They're more like a sepia tone. They look toward the car as we approach, take a step back to give us extra room, and all three acknowledge us with either a nod or a slight wave. What's that called when an event leaves a spiritual impact on an area? That's what it had to have been. Residual energy, I think. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big guy, six foot, five inches. and 300 pounds.

I've worked many physical jobs, so at this time I was in good shape. This allows me the freedom to do stupid stuff that most would be too afraid to do. I don't think about it. Call it my big guy privilege, if you will. I would often take walks late at night, most of the time with friends, but at this time I was living on the streets of Portland out of my car. I did this by choice. My sister lived across the Columbia, and I could stay there whenever I wished.

Just most of the time I didn't feel like going back there. I would have to be back in the morning anyway for work. I would also have bouts of insomnia, times when I just couldn't sleep. See, I was used to physical jobs, and at the time I'd landed a desk job, and I had to burn off a lot of energy. So, I would choose a direction. and walk. That night, I went to Old Town slash Chinatown.

That's what it was known as at the time. This is not a place for a young white guy to be in, but I was ignorant of that fact. I loved the area, the very ethnic style of the buildings, at least their facades. The smells and the people, it were always so nice to me. There was a pizza place that I loved, had been too often, but was closed at this time, so I was just wandering when I heard something

behind me. Looking back, I saw a couple of guys walking the streets like me. No problem. I turn and just keep on walking. After some time of aimless wandering, I hear more noise behind me. Now, there are like six guys walking in a group. thinking nothing of it, I just keep going. Now, I have to say that I was walking down alleys, looking at storefronts, I was just stopping at anything that caught my eye.

The group of guys probably thought I was looking for someplace to break into. At that time, though, I was getting a bit worried. As Ron White once said, I don't know how many I could take, but I knew how many they were going to use. I started getting scared as they were getting closer and closer. I saw a phone booth. Yes, this was that long ago. And I stepped in. To this day, I have no idea why I did that, but it may have saved me.

In that phone booth was a card for a Baptist church. It took me back to the crazy guy at Denny's in my previous story, and I decided to go for crazy. and act like a preacher. Now, I was raised in a very Christian household, almost cult-like, so I knew the Bible backwards and forwards. I started yelling out verses into the receiver, which was not connected to the phone. I was just holding it up in front of me like a microphone, talking about the wages of sin, and how only the Lord can save.

I turned and walked to the group of men belting out verse after ruse. verse. I probably scared those poor guys, who were most likely just trying to protect their homes. To this day, I do feel kind of bad about it, but I also never walked there again at night. I hope from time to time they think of this story and laugh about it like I do. Even though at the time, I was scared, stupid. And thanks again, Raven, for doing such a good job bringing life to these stories. The story takes place in February of 2022 in the American Midwest. All names will be changed for privacy reasons.

So my friend Alice and I decided that we want to go do some urban exploring. We want to take some cool pictures and just in general see some amazing old architecture. We decide on spots that I will not name in this story, as urban exploring is not acceptable in the eyes. of the law. We plan for the day, gather what we need, and head out to the location. We drive separately

and meet up once we're there. Luckily, there is still a parking lot that we can convene at. We park our cars, say our hellos, and start walking towards the building. Now, at this location, there are three buildings,

one of which is still in use as a local business. The other two, however, are in array. Those are the two that we have our sights set on. We gather our belongings and start walking towards the disheveled buildings. There is spray-painted graffiti all over the inside and outside of the buildings. Some graffiti reads funny or weird things that some kids wrote, and some writing seems more menacing. Of course, the menacing graffiti was most likely done by kids as well. But it did set a tone of sorts. We enter the building after taking a few picks of the

outside, and when we walk in, we noticed it's a good 10 degrees cooler than the already crisp outside air. We meander through the halls and see that the place is practically falling apart. Alice begins to tell me about the last time they were here, the person they were with at the time, mysteriously ended up with three large scratches on their arm. They never fell or even brushed against a wall. Alice said that they could feel just a presence, and not a good one. They said that their chest was tight the whole visit, and it felt hard to breathe. As we walk through the first building, we take note of the interior

and talk about what this place might have looked like back in the day. As we're chatting, I see a car driving and coming towards us. I scream, Car. And then immediately after, Alice screams, Run. As fast as we can, we bolt out of the building trying to avoid a felony charge for trespassing. We make it out, panting, and worried that a cop has got wind that we were there.

However, it was just a pass or through, and the car was now gone, and, nowhere in sight. We build the courage to then go into the second building. This building has a sense of heaviness to it. We're exploring around and decide to take a photo in an aesthetic-looking part of the interior. To take this shot, I had to go down about half a level, and Alice stayed on the first floor. I went down and into the little closet room that you could see down into from where Alice was. Alice starts snapping photos

when all the sudden we hear Hello? We freeze Alice looks at me and I look at them Alice shouts once more Run We scatter like cockroaches Sure that a police officer is outside waiting

with handcuffs and a felony charge But once we gather ourselves and make it outside We see that there's no cars on the premise or even driving away. Other than our own vehicles, of course. We walk around the premise, and to our disbelief, we see no one. Not a single person is to be found. We're both shaken and can't believe what just happened.

We both heard a man say hello. We call it quits for the day and decide that we've gotten enough photos, and as we're leaving, I look up at the building that we were just, in, and I see something. I'm not sure what, but I see movement, if that makes sense.

The next day, I wake up with giant scratches on my belly. It makes a perfect A shape on me. I think it's weird, but I don't think too much about it until I tell Alice. They're in shock. They say,

like, A for Alice? I gasped and immediately cleansed my apartment. There have been no other marks on my body since. Alice and I agree that we both have spent enough time at that location, and we have no desire to return. So usually, when I buy something off of Craigslist, I make sure to go with someone just to be sure nothing bad happens.

This time around, however, all of my friends were busy, and I had already set up a time. and I really wanted what I was buying. I'd been looking for a specific computer that came out in the late 90s. I used to have one as a kid and it played DOS games better than anything I had afterwards, and it had the best built-in speakers. This outlet was claiming to have one. They posted a bunch of old stuff that they apparently had in stock.

All of it's retro and old-fashioned tech. some car parts, anything you could think of they were claiming to have. I sent the guy a text and set up a meeting time for 4 p.m. In hindsight, I should have just kept looking on like eBay or something more safe, but the price was just too good. I hopped in my car and headed to the address the guy gave me. I arrived at 401, cash in hand, ready to finally make this purchase. What I didn't notice until I got out of the car was the smell.

This place smelled like old garbage and rusty metal. In fact, I didn't really look at the place at all until I got out. It was filthy. It looked to be a whole acre of land just covered in trash and old tech-slash-car parts. The smell was putrid. I should have backed out. I almost did. But as soon as I was even thinking of getting back in the car and getting the hell out of there,

this linking man came hobbling out of this small building in the center of the lot. Howdy, welcome to Jimbo's Warehouse. We've got all kinds of stuff. I'm sure you'll leave happier than when you arrived. God, I hope so, I thought. I decided to full send it. Hey, I texted you earlier about the DOS PC. Is this the right place?

Sure is. I got two of them. You can take a look and pick which one is better for your budget or whatever. Follow me. I slowly started walking into the muddy garbage-filled garage lot. The smell was so strong. So putrid. I had to cover my mouth and nose while walking through,

hoping this guy didn't turn around and see me. We start going around the side of the small building instead of in. It's just around back here. He said. I should have just turned around when he wasn't looking and just ran back to my car. I think I was convincing myself that maybe the place was dirty, but if he actually had the product and it worked, who cared? We finally reached the back of the building, and it was odd. The dirt and the grime was gone, even the smell.

There was a clean blacktop with tables and tents lined around the corner edge. looking to be a small outdoor consignment area. I walked to the PC-looking area, and the dirty, lanky man pointed out two big, clunky computers. There it was, the computer that I had been looking for since my childhood. It was cheaper than it was listed on Craigslist. I handed the guy the money and walked out of there as fast as I could, thanking the man. It went better than I thought.

I didn't really get a chance to use it. it. I did plug it in to make sure that it worked, and then I packed it up along with the rest of my boxes and stuff. I was planning on moving within the next few days. A couple weeks after I moved out, I got a call from the guy that I sold the house to. He said that a few big men in masks broke in the first night he was there and ripped the place apart. He said that he hid in the bathroom until he left. They took all of his electronics. His TV, computer, game consoles,

anything that was considered tech, I guess. My theory? Was the guy sold pristine tech to people after putting in some kind of tracker? And then when they went home and used it, he and a few people would break in, steal the stuff from their home, and bring it back to that landfill of an outlet

to do it all over again. I feel sorry for the, guy that moved in after me, but I am also very glad that I moved. That could have been me. I got scared that they tracked me somehow when I turned on the computer to see if it worked, so I just tossed it in a dumpster after I got off the phone. Thankfully, I hadn't even plugged it in since I'd moved. I would have sold it, but I didn't want another person having the same problem as the man I sold the house to. I would rather be out the money and the PC than put someone else through that.

It's safe to say, I won't be buying anything off Craigslist for a while, or ever again.