As The Raven Dreams Podcast - 62 TRUE Scary Story Compilation To Keep You Up All Night - All Stories From February 2023 (Mega-Compilation 01)

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

This Episode is Sponsored by Better Help. Today we have a MEGA Compilation- This is all of the NON-GLITCH Stories from February of 2023 (And some from January). It is a BROAD mix of stories including Stalker Stories, Paranormal stories, Small town stories, Cryptid stories, Online Dating Stories, Unexplained Horror Stories, First Date Stories, Ex Lover Stories, Craigslist stories and other True Scary stories from Reddit. I Plan to start doing these monthly- so hopefully you all enjoy! ➤ Want your story featured? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/Submit ➤ Want to know where to follow me on the internet? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/the-nevermore for all my links! ➤ You can also get EARLY ACCESS By joining my Patreon! https://patreon.com/astheravendreams ➤ All stories within are used w/ Either direct permission from the author- or under some level of CC license (where noted) True Stories are not verified, and should all be considered 'supposedly true'. 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

If you have a story you would like to hear featured on this podcast, please go to ashtheravendreams.com and click the button to submit your story. Also, if the platform you're listening on has the option to rate this podcast, please consider doing so. And thank you. Back in 2017, I was in a pretty healthy relationship. Charlotte and I had been together for almost three years, and we were thinking about our future. We started looking at apartments together, and if things continued to go as well as they had been, I was going to save up to propose to her. However, even though a lot of the places we looked at were her choice, and she seemed so excited about this,

she then threw a huge curveball at me. She told me that she had a great career opportunity in Oregon. We lived in Missouri. At first I thought, okay, a cruise. cross-country move is a huge step, but I was willing to do it if it meant a better life for the both of us. And even if it was kind of scary, moving out of state can also be exciting. But, much to my surprise, her plans did not involve me. She said she wanted to make a life for herself out there first before she thought about a long-term relationship, and before I could

even recommend it, she shot down the long-distance thing saying that she couldn't guarantee that she wouldn't cheat. It hurt, but at least she was honest. I didn't know how to feel, though. I understand wanting to do what's best for your own good, but why even consider apartment searching then? Why lead me on to believe that we had a future together? Overall, I was definitely upset and heartbroken, but I moved on and wished.

her the best. But I wasn't the only one caught off guard by this. Even some of her family found it odd. I was actually pretty good friends with her younger brother, and that's how I met her. And he was telling me how their parents were shocked that she just left everything behind. They were worried that maybe something sinister was going on and forcing her to leave out of fear or something. But she assured everyone that that was not the case.

She even showed us pictures of her new place and shared links to the place that she was going to be working for. It was an illustration company. Knowing that she was at least okay, we tried talking here or there, but I think overall it just made me feel worse, so we agreed it was best to cut ties. Now, it's been several years since this event happened. I've entirely moved on, and I'm happy. I decided to make some changes in my life, too, and got a new job.

I met a girl named Valerie that worked at the same place as me, and I could instantly tell that there was a connection. We went on a date, hit it off immediately, and we've been together for about four years now. Charlotte wasn't even a thought in my mind. I was still good friends with her brother, but we hardly talked. But that was just life.

So, needless to say, I wanted to propose to Val, and when I got hints from her and her friend, I took it as the go-ahead. Things definitely felt different, but in a good way compared to Charlotte. And to make it the second best day of my life, she said yes. At that point, life started moving pretty quickly,

so when I was waiting in line to get her, coffee, I didn't notice the people around me until I heard my old nickname, making me look around. That's when I saw Charlotte. We hugged, and I asked her what she was doing there. She explained that she was thinking about moving back but was just visiting for a week. We quickly caught up for a bit, and she suggested that we grab a coffee or lunch together sometime. I agreed.

I gave her another hug, and then I left. I even went home and told Val that I had run into her. We were very open with each other, and she knew of Charlotte, so she saw no issues with us catching up either. It was probably a few days after that that we met up at the same place. We sat and talked about the past years. She showed me so many pictures of Oregon and places that she went, and even a few famous people that she met through her work. So I asked her, since things were going so well, why she would ever want to move back. Her answer was vague, but said something about being able to work on her own time now and how she wanted to be closer to her family.

Then she turned the conversation on me, and I told her that I was engaged. She looked surprised, but also said that she was happy for me. As we continued to talk, I noticed her. becoming more and more hands-on. She would touch my shoulder, go down my arm, she would grab my hands and even rub my leg with her foot. It was, well, it was a weird feeling, to say the least. It reminded me of who she was when we were together.

I mean, I didn't feel anything as I was in love with Val, but the thought was in the back of my head. Was she trying to do something? something? Was this her flirting with me? I tried not to think about it, and we parted ways after a few hours. When I saw Val that evening, I even told her what had happened, and she found it odd. And then she mentioned that maybe there was a hint of jealousy from Charlotte, but otherwise she wasn't really worried about it. So, again, we moved forward with our life, and I got random casual messages from Charlotte.

My phone number never changed, after all. However, we started having strange events occur and honestly never really connected them at the time. Val ended up moving to another location under the same business that we worked for, so we were no longer driving together. However, I had to take her to work one day because we went to leave one morning and her tire was flat. It wasn't like it just lost air or like there was a nail. I didn't even have to look for the cause. Towards the back side of the tire, there was a pretty big puncture in it. It wasn't a clear

cut like a knife, but it wasn't mangled like the tire had just exploded. Not to mention, there was no additional damage to her car either. We were confused, but I just took her to work and told her that I would take care of it. Val had a pretty new car. I went with her to test it out, and it was only a few years old at the time. But she ended up having a pretty scary issue with it. We kissed each other goodbye one morning and left for the day. And when we got to work, we usually texted each other one more have a nice day with me usually being the first one, as my drive was shorter by about 15 minutes. When I didn't get a text back, I thought it was odd, but then just assumed that maybe she had forgotten or someone stopped her on her way in, both of which have happened before.

So after I got in and to my desk, I was prepared to text her when she called me hysterical. When I finally got her calmed down, she explained what happened. She said that she noticed her car hesitated a little when she shifted from reverse to drive, but ignored it as it soon went away. She thought maybe she imagined it, but made a mental note to tell me about it when she got to work. However, she didn't make it to work because as she rolled up to a red light,

her brakes kicked back and did nothing else. She went right through that intersection at about 30 miles per hour, instantly teaboning a van. Her airbags deployed and she was obviously shaken up. She told me that the police were already there and that tow trucks were on their way, so I left work immediately to go be with her. The sight was pretty terrifying, and I felt so bad that she had to be in that situation, and alone to boot.

The van had a woman and her toddler in it, but both were in their seatbelts and the kid in the car seats, so they were okay as well, just a bit shaken up. After the scene was cleaned up, we went home and she walked me through the situation again. It definitely sounded like something happened to the brakes, so after they towed the car back, I had someone come take a look at it to see if they could diagnose the issues. They were certainly able to, and they told us that one of the brake lines had been cut,

and it was obviously done by someone that was not trying to replace a line or done by accident. He said you could see where they tried to cut it in multiple. multiple spots until they finally got through. We were terrified and confused. Who would try to do this? Val was such a kind person, and it's not like she had any enemies that came to mind, so I just didn't know how to handle this. But then, she asked me if I thought Charlotte would do something like this. I also didn't see Charlotte as the type to do that, and while we talked,

it was still very casual conversation. She shouldn't have even known where we lived. While I was questioning this, she brought something to my attention that she hadn't really told me about. She said that she had gotten a few calls at work, like they were transferred to her office line specifically looking for her,

but when she would answer, they would just hang up. She thought it was weird, sure, but nothing scary or worth mentioning. Then, a few days prior to the accident, she got another call and this time the person talked and said something with a slight giggle, like, nice car that you've got, and then hung up. I was horrified. I didn't want to think about Charlotte possibly doing this or even entertain the idea, but

then I remembered the way that she acted when we met up. I honestly could not roll it out. So I called her while Val was in the room so that we could hear her voice. I played it off like I thought that she called me and was returning the call, so it didn't last long, but I could tell by the look on Val's face that it was the same voice. I was furious. Why would she try to do this? She was the one that left me behind.

Now, almost a decade later, she wants to ruin my life? As mad as I was, I started coming up with the plan. I bought a camera, and I had it set up to face our driveway. Then I texted Charlotte asking to go get coffee again. When she showed up, I was not friendly at all like I was the first time. I asked her point blank if she was following or stalking my fiancé. She looked at me like I was crazy and denied it, but then I mentioned her stupid phone calls. She had this dumb grin on her face and actually said that she was just trying to have a little fun, but she was pretty easy to track down.

She admitted to the calls but would never fess up about the car, but after I chewed her out some, she started to show her true colors. She said that I was the one in the wrong, that I was supposed to wait for her to come back and have a relationship with her again and her only. That was never the case. She broke up with me. She ended it because she obviously had plans to hook up with other people. Why did I have to wait around for her? I was supposed to just be alone all those years? Hell no.

I told her that she was crazy and that she needed to leave us alone because we were happy and that I would never be with her again, or even once to talk to her ever again. And I left that place feeling much better. I knew that we wouldn't really be able to take legal action, though, unless we had proof, and that was where the camera came in. I had this feeling that she was going to try something again, and I was right. It was three or four days later, and we checked the camera,

as we do every time before we leave, and we were also sharing a car at the time. the time. There she was, clear as day, walking around and inspecting my car. She then proceeded to pour something in my gas tank, wiped off the side and the cover, for prints, I assume, and then she climbed on top of the hood, pulled her pants down and squatted. I'll let you fill in the rest. Charlotte had lost it. I have never seen that. I have never seen that. I have never seen that. I was sight of her and I was frustrated and obviously embarrassed that I ever let her back into my life. Sorry the story ended up being so long, but to wrap it up, we pressed charges. We filed a restraining order and were at least able to sue her for the damages to my car. As expected,

we never heard from her again. And thankfully, her brother had no ill will towards me either. He said that she complained to him about me being engaged, and he basically told her to get the hell over it, like I did, because I had to move on. In the end, I think exes are better left at that. No friends, no contact, just old memories. Good or bad, I suppose. 27-year-old female here, I used to live in a small town where, Everyone basically knew everyone, and people in the smaller towns in the area. In 2018, after I had lost my job, I was going to a place where people, 16 to 30, learned how to look and apply for a job and a lot else.

There, I met a woman who all call Why. One day, Wye started talking about a friend of hers who lived out of town, with her mom, her dog, and her creepy German stepdad. This detail is important. Her friend told her that she desperately wanted to move out because her stepdad makes her so uncomfortable. Her bedroom is right next to their bathrooms, so she would usually put on her new clothes in her bedroom.

But now she does it in the bathroom, because he would look at her inappropriately when she walked to the bedroom. According to why, you can see the bathroom door from the living room. Her stepdad would get off the couch and try to spy on her while she was in the bedroom. I had a gut feeling that this wasn't the last I heard of him, and I'm sad to say, I was right. I broke up with my ex in 2019, but shortly after that, I got a job at a thrift store taking care of jigsaw puzzles and board games. In 2020, came along, and I became so lonely that I downloaded.

an app that was aimed for finding friends. I started talking to a guy in January who said that he was 26 to 27 years old and that he was from Germany, that he lived in the exact same town that Yise said her friend did. I thought that was odd, but out of curiosity, I talked with him some more. He said that he moved to Sweden with his wife and their dog. Insert red flags here. He was looking for someone to talk to because they were going through a divorce right then, and he wanted to meet and perhaps go for a walk in the forest near his house. He then talked about hobbies that he had like his motorcycle and other things that I've forgotten about at this point. This is also important. My crepe meter was peeking and I ghosted him hard. Eight months later, when I was laying a jigsaw

puzzle out, I heard a man with a German accent come in. I felt that something was off, but I continued to do my job. For obvious reasons, we didn't have a lot of people who worked there at that point in time, but this made me the youngest woman there. It was 25 at the time. My male boss was going to do something before he went to show him around the place. While my boss worked, this guy roamed around, and then he asked me if he could sit down and talk to me. I said okay, because, of course, there could be more than one German person, even in a small community. Do you remember all of the important things?

Yeah, he told me almost all of the same things again. He wasn't the age that he said he was. He was old, if not older, than my father, and he's 53 now. The color disappeared from my face, and I started to scratch my neck and fear. He then trauma dumped on me. He talked about how he had sex with a young girl in Germany, got her pregnant,

and then was forced to leave Germany because of this. Apparently she gave birth to a son, and his son reached out to him when he was older. His son had told him that he was gay, and the creep was then blaming himself for somehow making his own son gay. He talked about his dad's alcoholism, and just other things that I don't remember. He also asked if we could eat together, but I declined.

HR came into our working room, the room where we looked through the stuff that we get, and she called my name. I turned my head and she clearly saw that I was afraid. She said that she needed to talk to me. I only nodded, stood up and walked over to her still scratching my neck. We walked to another room where she sat me down in a sofa, and asked me if I was okay.

All I could say was yes. I was afraid of this man, and when I had calmed down, I gave her the short version of what happened, and her eyes widened. It was close to closing time, so she asked if I wanted to go home, and that she would make sure he only left ten minutes after I had gone. My apartment was only five minutes away. I didn't even look at her. I was so frozen in fear that I only stared at her.

at the wall while continuing to attack my neck. After a few minutes, I only nodded. She walked me to the employee entrance and stood there while I walked home. I then saw the damage I had done to myself when I arrived home. My female boss wasn't there until Monday, and unfortunately HR wasn't there that day. My boss came over to my desk and said that she had spoken with HR, but that she wanted to hear it from me. I told her exactly what had happened, and I also told her that I heard about him before. Her response was, and these are her exact words, but in English, I've heard of him before,

because I have an old friend who, unfortunately, is at a mental hospital right now. She told me that he's the kind of person who likes to attack young, thin, vulnerable, and insecure women. I fit that description. My fear turned into rage. I just looked at her and said, Are you crazy? You know what type of man he is, and you knew that I'm working here,

and you still hired him. She said that she had talked with the male boss who also knew about him, but that they had decided that people can change. I said that I agree, but he has already shown that he is not willing to. She decided to make him work during the weekends and forbade him to come to work during the weeks when I was there.

Of course, he showed up. up anyways. When HR was there, she would tell him to go out, but when she wasn't, you could clearly tell that he was looking for another victim, or for me. My bosses are lovely people, even though they are severely confused. I should have reported them, but it's too late now. I've since moved to a city that's over two hours away, and he doesn't work there anymore. A couple of edits from the original poster. Sorry, but I forgot a very important fact. The thrift shop that I worked at hired people who are in vulnerable situations

and are desperate for a job. And they still hired a predator knowing that fact. I don't know if this part is important, but I would also like to say that the company I worked for also helps people by buying groceries that are about to expire, and then they make food bags that they give out for free. They also give clothing out for free if the person really needs it, especially if that person happens to be a single parent who needs clothes for their children.

They also help in other ways, but I've honestly forgot the rest. A while back, when I hit 19, I kind of ended up in a situation where I wanted to get out of the house and get my own place, mostly because I was tired of all. living with my parents. It was more that I was tired of living by others' rules. I love my parents dearly. I really do, but they were also pretty strict with things, and it was definitely holding back my social life. I'm kind of a free spirit, and I like to be out-socializing, and they wanted me home by 8 p.m. every night. That's not me complaining. Their house, their rules, and all, but it was enough to make me realize that I could just move out and get a cheap place nearby,

keep them close, and make sure that I had my freedoms. So that's what I decided I was going to do. After looking around for a while, I actually found a decent apartment that I could afford with my job that was less than ten minutes away from where my parents lived. I went through all the motions to get the apartment, paid the deposit, and got it. Moving day came, my parents helped me get everything in and set up, and it was at that point that I realized I didn't have a whole lot, and definitely didn't have enough to fill a full apartment.

My bedroom had my bed, my desk, my dresser, and my living room had a table with a TV on it, and that was pretty much it. I started talking to my dad about it and trying to figure out a list of things that I needed for the apartment or what I could use, and my dad made a suggestion. I should look for cheap furniture on Craigslist. We talked about it for a bit, and he actually mentioned that if I found some stuff for the apartment on Craigslist that would work for me, and it wasn't terribly expensive, he would go in on half, and he would go with me to get it all. I thought this was a good idea. He had a truck, plus having him with me would make me feel a whole lot safer in dealing with strangers. I agreed.

I told him that I would look online and get a hold of a few people over the next couple of weeks, and we would meet up when I had everything ready to go. So I did just that. I got on Craigslist and went through a number of postings, sent a few emails. Some responses I got were obvious scam. or bots, so I ignored those. I had a few people that were interested in selling to me at first, but ended up disregarding me after I told them that it was going to be about two weeks before I could pick it up.

Apparently, they weren't willing to wait to sell things, which is fine. After sifting and sending, I was actually able to get a few people that were willing to hold on to their items for me, so at least it wasn't a huge waste of time. Then I found a post that was, more or less, furniture, men's clothing, electronics, and more, I wanted all gone, $200. I clicked through the pictures that this person had posted, and, looking through it,

they were selling a lot of things for such a low price. There were a number of furniture items, a couple game consoles, a decent desktop computer, and then clicking through it, I noticed that the men's, clothing were mostly my size. I was over the moon, thinking I had hit the jackpot. Sure, it seemed a bit sketchy, but at the same time, if this was legit, I would have furnished

my whole place and had a bunch of what would basically be luxury items for $200. The post had a phone number on it, so I immediately grabbed my cell phone and called the person. I mentioned the post, and I asked the woman that had answered why she was selling things for so cheap, because it did seem a bit odd. She then said that she and her boyfriend had split up, and that she hadn't seen him for over a week at this point, and all the items that she wanted gone were his. She even sent me a few pictures of herself in front of all the items while we were talking to prove that it was all real.

I told her that I would give her the full, $200 if she could just hold it for me for two days, as it was the Thursday before we were supposed to go get the items, and that I would take every single item off her hands that she wanted to sell. She actually agreed. She mentioned that I was the first person to call and said that she would go ahead and mark it all as sold. Again, I was over the moon. I had just struck Craigslist gold. I called my dad and told him that this lady had a bunch of items that she wanted to get rid of for 200, and he seemed a bit concerned at first. I explained the situation, mentioned that she had sent me proof that it was all real,

and then told him that it was all left over from a bad breakup, and that the boyfriend hadn't come back for it. It took a bit of extra convincing, but I was able to finally get him to go with it. Saturday morning comes around, I text the woman mentioning that we would be there within the hour. She responds with, okay, and that was it. Not the best response to get, but it was enough for me. We headed to the house, and I was feeling even better about this transaction. The house was nice.

Like, multi-story and well-taken care of so she could afford to just get rid of these things for way under retail. value, kind of nice. We pull into the driveway, walk up to the door, and I ring the doorbell. Nothing. No response. We wait for a little while, but after a couple of minutes with no response, I rang the doorbell again and still no answer. I pulled up the messages between the two of us to make absolutely sure that this was the

address, and it definitely was. I then decided to go ahead and give her a call. When I did, I could hear the phone ringing inside the house, like just on the other side of the door. I actually glanced over toward the window by the door and started looking inside. My dad chastised me at first, saying that I was being rude, but I had this really weird feeling that something was off. This was a nice house.

The woman I spoke with was. was friendly and seemed like she really was wanting to get rid of these items. And I was really wanting to get the stuff that she was selling. Then I realized why I was feeling off about this whole thing, and what it was that I was actually seeing, there was someone lying on the floor just inside the door. I mentioned it to my dad, saying that I think something had happened to the lady,

He came over, looked in, and then he told me to call 911. I could tell by his tone that something was definitely wrong. I called them, and I tried to explain the situation to the person on the other end. It was a bit weird having to tell them that we had no idea who this person was, just that we were here to buy stuff, and then tell her that there was a person unconscious on the floor inside the house. It was just as awkward trying to explain it to the first cop that pulled up to the house as well, but I think they understood it better than the dispatcher did. Sure enough, the officer agreed that there was a person unconscious in the house,

and decided that that was cause enough to kick the door in and call the medics. They obviously kept us out in the driveway, and we had to answer a lot of questions about why we were there, how we were connected to what was now a crime scene, which after the medics showed up, the potential crime scene was confirmed to be a crime scene, and it was pretty clear how serious this really was. The long short of it, the woman was deceased,

and based on how the officer explained it, it was a pretty obvious homicide. Thankfully, I had all the text messages and screenshots of the post to help and show that we weren't who killed her. But I was also able to explain to them that she had told me about her ex and how they had split up. They ended up taking my information and telling me that they would be in touch with me if they had any more questions. And we had to leave at that point. They never called me back, nor asked me to come in at all.

I don't know if they ever ended up solving the case, but it definitely seemed like this was a situation where the ex-boyfriend came back and did the unthinkable. What makes it worse, part of me still thinks that he may have done it because she was selling his stuff. And if I hadn't set up the meeting to pick it all up, he may not have done it. But if it weren't me, then someone else would have jumped on this deal. I don't let it tear me up, but it's not. it does bother me just a little bit. I did end up getting a couch from my living room from another cellar and a few other things,

but that was the only time that I ever used Craigslist. I know that this isn't a common thing to happen, but I didn't want to ever be put in a situation like that ever again. My story starts back whenever I was 19 years old. as a lot of young girls do I didn't have the best self-esteem and I clung to people that showed interest in me be it just platonic or romantic

this is when I met a man named Rich he was about 12 years my senior and at the time I just saw him as a good friend I was working at a local thrift store and he came in there a few times and in fact I think I caused him to frequent there more often. He was always kind to me and seemed to actually care.

He would always ask how work was going, how my week had been. I was wanting to go to college, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to major in yet. When we were slow, he even talked about what I was interested in and tried to help me find my way. I had never really experienced this kind of attention, so I guess that I was falling for it. It started as me just hanging out with him after work, as friends. He had taken me out for dinner many times, and I even went to his house, as I was still living at home. My parents had even met him, and why they never questioned their 19-year-old daughter hanging out with a 31-year-old man was beyond me. Then, things turned romantic between us.

I truly felt that I had found my prince, and that we would have this happily ever-after life. At the age of 20, less than a year after we met, I became pregnant. He even assured me that he would always be there to take care of both of us. He welcomed me to move in with him officially, and even convinced me to quit my job, promising me that we would be financially fine. That way I could focus on being the best mom I could to our child. Everything was going as he promised, too. The whole time that I was pregnant, we were in that honeymoon phase.

He did everything for me. He went to all of my appointments. He helped me when I was sick. He even catered to my silly cravings. Then when our daughter Adelaide was born, I fell in love all over again. Even after she arrived, we were doing great. We were both happy.

She was healthy, and we learned how to be the best parents that we could be together. We did have a few moments here or there, like when she would wake up throughout the night or when nothing we would do would seem to comfort her, but I just thought that was the nervousness and stress of being a parent. My grandmother, though, she's been the rock throughout my life, and she was on speed dial any time I had concerns.

Needless to say, she helped me through a lot. But things started slowly turning sour day by day, and it really broke me. It would start as rich having to work late a lot, so I saw him less. When he would come home, he seemed to be in a bad mood or just really didn't want to talk about it. He was an electrical engineer, so I'm sure that it was stressful,

as all jobs have their bad days, but he just never seemed to want to talk to me about anything anymore. Then he started calling me to say that he wouldn't be home for dinner and telling me not to wait up for him. Again, he would claim it was all work-related, but I had my doubts when he finally arrived home at midnight, or even later, and just passed out on the couch. In fact, I started seeing him less and less as a whole. I would see him off in the mornings, but that was about it.

Even on the days that he was off or had an event to go to, he did not want to be around me. He stayed out and he didn't have me go with him. He used to take me and Addie to his parents' place on occasions, but when I got ready to go once, he got mad at me for assuming and then left us there. It got to the point that the only time I ever left the house was to get the mail or occasionally get groceries after nagging him about being low. He failed to realize this because he was hardly home to eat with us. He became verbally abusive.

He mocked me when I tried to ask. ask him for the simplest thing or for any kind of intimacy from him. I craved our conversations, our silly little inside jokes, or even just holding each other on the couch. I became severely reclusive and depressed. I hardly talked to my friends or family. I certainly didn't get to go anywhere or do anything because I didn't even have my own money. Hell, I even tried talking to him about going to school so I could help to pay. for things, and he wouldn't have it.

He would shoot it down every time, saying that it was too late for that now, and that I was stupid for even considering it. As I mentioned earlier, the only thing other than my little girl that kept me going was my grandma. I talked to her about everything, and when I stopped calling her weekly or seemed to want to talk very long, she surprised me with a visit, and brought her homemade chicken casserole and some groceries. I broke down and told her what had been going on, and she told me that I needed to give him an ultimatum and stick to it. Rich was definitely verbally abusive, but never physically so,

and she definitely gave me the strength to do it. To wrap up the sob story, I guess, the ultimatum kind of did not go in my favor, or at least not how I would have wanted. He kicked me out. He told me that I was just ungrateful and that I could leave. I tried talking to him about Addie, but that's when he dropped it on me that he couldn't care less about her, as he didn't believe that she was his kid. He was my first serious relationship, and I was still a virgin when I met him. Heartbroken, I packed up a few things that I had and that were important to me, and all of Addie's things, and I moved in with my grandparents,

until I got back on my feet. Fast forward about four years, and I'm still with my grandparents, but we're all happy. My grandfather had an accident, so I decided to stay to help my grandma take care of him. They loved spending time with Addie and watching her while I was in school. Yes, I did finally start school again, and I was working part-time, and I loved it.

I was happy with my life, even as a single parent. Addie even started going to pre-K and I would pick her up before I went to class in the evenings. That's where things went downhill again. The school that Addy was going to was very big on security, and that's why I chose them. So, when I got a call from them saying that someone who was not authorized attempted to pick her up early, they called me immediately. Only my grandparents and my sister were on the authorized pickup list. I left work and went to the school when I saw cop cars everywhere. I had to show my ID and be checked before they even let me in.

Little did I know that the cops were actually there because of me. The principal described the guy that attempted to get Addie, and when they refused to let them, saying that they would have to call and ask me first, the person stormed out. That's when they called me. Shortly after that, they had a lockdown as they saw the same guy walking the fence of the play area, where the kids were about to be released for recess. Rightfully so, they feared that he may try to do something to the kids, or even abduct Addy.

As you may have guessed it, it was rich. I hadn't gotten as much as a phone call from him in years, and here he was, trying to take our kid from school, our kid that he said he wanted nothing to do with. They had me identify him later that day as they caught him hanging around the school and had him in custody. After a lot of back and forth with him and the cops,

it came down to him wanting a relationship with his daughter. Now, nearly five years later, he suddenly cares. I hated it. I felt like it was him trying to control me again, but once again my grandma talked me through it and said to keep an open mind. There didn't need to be anything between us other than being parents to the same child, but if he's changed, maybe he could actually be a good father. So, after a lot of lawyer talk, we worked out supervised visitations.

If I wasn't present, my sister and her husband were there. If he would try to take her from the school, I didn't trust that he wouldn't try to take her if they were alone. As expected, he used this time to try to get back with me. When that didn't work, he would become angry and end the visitation. When my sister and brother-in-law went, he brought another girl with him and was too busy with her to pay attention to Addy. I guess it was just an attempt to make me jealous, I guess. One of the last times that I saw him, it was just me again. And when I finally put my foot down telling him that I was there for Addy, not him,

and that I didn't want a relationship with him, he leaned in and tried to kiss me. When I pulled away, he slapped me, saying that it would be the biggest mistake that I have ever made and how I wasn't thinking about our daughter. I grabbed Addie, who had been playing alone at the park, and we left. I was ready to get a stern talking to for ending his visitation early, but I never got a call. This was obviously his main motive, as, once again, I never heard from him. He stopped showing up to visitations. He wouldn't answer my calls, and even his lawyer gave me the whole,

Don't call me, I'll call you line, and that was it. It's been three years since then, and I know it probably sounds bad and selfish, but I hope that I never hear from him again. Addie deserves to have a father in her life that cares for her and not just be used as a way to get to me. Until then, my grandfather has honestly filled that role really well, and I can't thank him enough. I just have that fear in the back of my mind that he's going to show up one day

and attempt to talk to her again, and I hope that she's never in a position to allow that to happen. This is another long one, because I'll be addressing several elements that relate to the haunted dorm room. When I finished telling my friend who had never seen a UFO, in the story, but wait there's more, about my own early experience, our conversation moved to the other unexplained phenomena. He mentioned the thing below the dam at the park,

and I instantly knew what he was talking about. We had attended the same university, though we didn't actually meet until 10. 10 years later. Neither of us knew what the thing was, but we knew where it was, and that there were times that you hurried past, and there were times that you did not go there. Though by daylight, it was usually perfectly innocuous. And he mentioned encountering a ghost in Bryl's Hall.

My first weird experience that may be related occurred the year that Baby, the kleptomanian, philodendron was first planted. My roommate and I noticed that a door at the top of the stairwell on the fifth floor was unlocked. So, of course, we had to explore. It went to the roof, where we discovered, to the right, a kitchenette, all dusty and disused, and a door to what had been a rooftop sun deck a long time ago. To the left was a blank cinder block wall, and a single door with its jam set about knee height, it already having been established that we were nosy, we tried the knob and the door opened into blackness.

I helped my roommate step up to the jam, and she started to step inside, though we couldn't see a thing. And I suddenly had the overwhelming sensation that there was nothing, nothing under her feet. I grabbed her belt, told her to stop, and we went back down to the room for flashlights. This was long before cell phones. When we got up to the little room again and shone the flashlights inside, we discovered that Bryle's Hall once had an elevator, and the shaft was still there, standing empty, all the way to the ground more than 50 feet below. The thing is, my roommate swore that she had felt something solid under her foot when she stepped inside.

She was really freaked out to see that there was nothing there and couldn't explain what she'd felt. So, what does this have to do with the ghost? Just let me continue. A couple of years later, I was living in the dorm room on the northwest corner of the fifth floor, just below the old sun deck. One day, my sweetmate had a helium balloon that went missing from her room. Somehow, it had gotten through two locked doors and our shared bathroom, and made its way to my room where I found it wedged between the hanging pot of a certain kleptomaniac philodendron,

and the glass pane of the window. We joked that baby, the philodendron, liked balloons and just let him keep it. But there was other oddness that happened in that room. My sweetmate would commonly hear someone walking around in my room on weekends that I went home. Not going to lie, I figured that she was hearing things, or that it had to do with recreational pharmaceuticals, but she was adamant and pretty freaked out about hearing things. footsteps in an empty room.

Mind you, sometimes I had the impression that someone had been in my room. Things were moved or disappeared only to reappear later. It wasn't my sweetmate. I kept the bathroom door locked and that was a deadbolt. It could have been the RA, resident assistant, who was in charge of the floor and doing inspections. She wasn't supposed to come in like that, but who else had a key? I set traps, inconspicuous things that would be disturbed if someone came into my room when I was gone. They were never moved, yet the footsteps and other disturbances continued.

And then there was the night that someone climbed into bed with me. I woke to the sensation of the mattress sinking as a warm body laid down at my back. I was facing the window and stared into the darkness, too scared to move. Gradually, as the sky grew pale with dawn, the sensation of weight, warmth, and solidity faded away. I got up, checked my locks, and got ready for class. Just a case of hypnagogic hallucinations, right? I convinced myself of this, too. Then, came the night that three men and a baby first aired on TV.

This was obviously back in the dark ages of the 1980s, before PCs and streaming video. So, if you wanted to see a particular show, you needed to stake out one of the three TVs early. And if it was on at the same time as McGiver or Beauty and the Beast, forget it. The lounges were standing room only. Any fellow dinosaurs reading this may recall the rumor of a ghost glimpsed in a window as the character in three men and a baby were moving from one room to another. The rumor sparked the sharing of other supposed hauntings, and one of the RAs brought up the story of a young woman who ended herself up in that rooftop kitchenette at the top of the stairs

decades before. Her room? You guessed it. She had been living in the room that I occupied that year. Just a random confluence of phenomena, right? I pretty much thought so, too. Until I went back to my room and thought to knock. on the door of the girl across the hall.

She hadn't been downstairs to hear the stories, and I hadn't said anything about my experiences either, so she shouldn't have had any reason to make something up. I asked her if anything odd had happened in her room. She gave me a sketched-out look, and asked if I remembered the occasion that I had seen her smudging her room with Sage. I did recall this,

but I had no clue of the purpose of, that practice at the time. She explained that she had been smudging her room because someone who wasn't there had climbed into bed with her the night before. Some answers to anticipated questions. No recreational pharmaceuticals were involved, except maybe on the part of the sweetmate. Most of my friends didn't even drink. We found college to be a liminal experience on its own without any mood-altering substances involved. No, this is not fair. every part of it's true. My friend who encountered the ghost was living in the dorm as part of a two-week summer program

for high school students. He didn't see anything, but he and another of his friends sensed something was there. They and the group that they were exploring with ran away without further investigation. And yes, I have submitted the story about baby the kleptomaniac philodendron, and it's in a video that I did last week. The unexplained video. A long time ago, I was a single mother with a young boy about seven years old. I was doing my best to make ends meet with what little money I could scrape together working part-time.

We didn't live in the best home, but I did everything I could to keep him happy, healthy, and fed. And I like to believe that I did a damn good job. I can say that nowadays things are much better. He's grown. I'm in a new marriage and honestly life is much happier. That said, there were times where I made mistakes and where things got really rough. This is actually about an event where the unthinkable could have happened and I really shouldn't have brought him with me. But I'm also kind of glad that I had.

Though I will say that my dad. decisions weren't the worst part, I thought things were okay. I just ended up trusting someone a bit more than I should have. So this was back when my son and I had just moved into a new apartment when he was about seven or eight at the oldest. My husband and I had been divorced for about a year, and I was just really getting into the world after losing the house. There's a long story there that we won't get into. I was working part-time, so I didn't have a lot of money, but I had a family member that was helping me with the rent for the time being,

so it wasn't a huge deal. However, after having lived with them for a year and then moving into my own apartment, I realized how much I was actually missing being self-sufficient. Then, I realized that one of the other big things I was missing was a vacuum cleaner. Vacuums are the one thing that you never really think about, and when you realize you don't have one and then go look for a good one,

you come to the conclusion that they are rather expensive. So, in a moment of genius, I went to Craigslist to see if I could find a cheap second-hand vacuum that was at least decent quality. In my mind, if I could find one that I could use and keep for a year at most, I would most likely be able to get the money together to get a really good one that was new.

As such, I went for a mid-low-priced tier when searching. I ended up finding one that I liked, and the person only wanted $20 for the vacuum. I contacted him. Everything seemed reasonable, and honestly, I didn't even get any red flags when myself and this person sent messages back and forth, about the whole thing.

Everything about this transaction seemed like it was going to be ideal. Like, I would bring $20, he would give me a vacuum, and that would be it. Of course, one of the dumb decisions that I did make was being willing to meet this guy at his house instead of a public place.

I will admit that I was a bit naive back then, and I hadn't done many transactions online, and I thought that this would just be a five-minute thing. On that following Sunday, I started heading towards the address that he gave me, and I sent a message saying I was on my way. I pulled up to the house, and there was a man standing outside on the front porch, holding a glass of iced tea, just kind of watching me as I pulled up.

I got out of the car, and my son followed pretty closely behind me. I thought about telling him to stay in the car, but I then thought that that would probably be the worst idea in a strange place. As I approached, the man on the porch asked if I was my name, and I said I was. He turned and opened the door and mentioned that I could step in the entryway and that he would go get the vacuum for me. We stepped just inside the door, and the man went over toward the other end of the house and into a bedroom. As he was out of my sight, he kind of started making small talk about the vacuum. saying it was still good, that he had just changed the belt on it,

and he then also apologized that he had lost one of the attachments. After this, he, out of seemingly nowhere, asked me if I was a Christian. I mentioned that I was, and because I was taken aback, I asked why that was relevant. He followed it up with, well, I was just asking, I'm sorry if I pulled you away from church to do this, sale. He came out of the room with the vacuum and then continued. I'm pretty devoted to my faith myself, so I know how important it is to go to church. Do you go to church? It was a bit weird,

but I thought that maybe this man was just really religious. So I mentioned that we hadn't lately, because we had just moved and hadn't found one in the area to attend. He smiled and nodded like he understood, and then it got weirder. He said, and this is a direct quote, because I will never forget his words. You know, God told me that you would be coming alone, and that if you did, I should take you as mine and run away into the desert. I just sort of stared at him like, what the hell is wrong with you? He laughed and then said, but you didn't come alone, you came with your son.

I think he was testing me, and that this was his way of making sure that I'm truly faithful. I was ready to run out of that house, but I was also afraid that, if I did, he would do something. After what was probably two or three minutes of panic-filled silence, he just kind of pushes the vacuum towards me and says, Here, you can have it. I don't really need the money.

I grabbed it and just sort of turned away to leave. The entire time we were walking towards my car, this man was seriously saying some prayer, one that I didn't actually know, so I don't think it was a real one from the Bible. I pulled away and I drove out of that neighborhood faster than I should have. Thankfully, my son just kind of thought that the guy was weird and it didn't really click that we were in the presence of an absolute psychopath.

I just kind of laughed and said, Yeah, he was a bit weird, huh? And thanked my lucky star that he decided that my son was a good reason to not hurt me. That was one of the only times I ever did any deals off of Craigslist, and it was the only time I ever did wanted someone's house. After that, it was always store parking lots or other public places. I will also mention that I blocked his number after that, as he did try to text me one more time.

I'm asking if I wanted to go to his church. I responded with, no thank you, and then blocked him. Thankfully, though, the vacuum did work. So I guess that's a plus. I had been using a few dating apps casually to meet new people. I've probably made more friends than a significant other, but it is what it is. I did have one pretty crazy experience, though, that kind of turned me off the whole thing for a few months.

I matched with a guy that started his message with a blurb from one of my favorite books that I listed on the site. I thought it was pretty impressive because it wasn't a mainstream or popular book either, so this guy either had to read it or looked into it just to send this. To be honest, it was a... a cheesy mystery romance, so I doubted that he'd actually read it. But to take the time to look into it stood out to me, and I liked that. I'm a sucker for the grossly romantic stuff, so he had already piqued my interest. We started talking, and probably after about a week, he asked me to dinner.

I told him that I would go with him, if he told me truthfully, whether or not he had read the book. and to my surprise, he admitted that he knew nothing of it, until he saw my profile and had looked into it. We both had a good laugh, and I appreciated his honesty, and we set a date. He said that he wanted to pick me up from my place. I lived in an apartment, so I just told him the name of the complex and the building. That way, my exact unit was unknown just in case. and I waited for him out front.

I got a text saying that he would be there within two minutes, and I was in awe when I looked up to see not a fancy car or a limo, but a horse-drawn carriage. The guy got out, and while the carriage was gorgeous, I was actually thankful he didn't have on a suit and tie, as I would have been way underdressed. He had said that this was the proper way to pay. pick me up, since I was a romantic like himself.

I thought that it was incredibly sweet and thoughtful, if not a little embarrassing, since it was starting to draw attention. It wasn't a bad embarrassment, but like when you're called out at work for doing a good job and you don't expect it. So he helped me up into the carriage, and we headed to the restaurant, which was in a very upscale part of town. dinner was fantastic. I had never been to this place, as it normally would be way out of my budget, but, after asking

to go elsewhere, because I didn't want to assume that he was going to pay, or in the off-chance the date was a flop, I could pay and leave quickly, he insisted that we should go here, and not to worry about the cost, as he was covering everything. So I just kind of let it go. He got a bottle of wine, and we shared brusetta, and I had the best shrimp Alfredo that I still have ever had in my life. Our personalities clicked so well, we had many things in common, and even our pet peeves had lined up. After dinner, we decided to walk around the plaza where the huge fountain is.

It was just a lot of fun, and I was pretty into the guy. After about half an hour or so, he said that we could just ride around in the carriage some, but said that he wanted to stop by this place to grab something. I honestly wasn't ready to end the night, so I was more than willing to go with him. His place was probably about 20 minutes out of the plaza area. It was a cute little two-story house with a fenced-in front yard. When we stopped, he said that he would be right back and then he hopped down. out. But then the driver of the carriage also hopped out and followed him into the house.

I sat there kind of curious, but again was probably clouded by how great the night had really been. I went to pull out my phone and start a text to my friend, and when I started hearing people talking and getting closer. I looked over, and I see my date, the driver, as well as an older woman and four of a woman. other people walking towards the carriage, smiling. They had all come out of my date's house. I stayed where I was until my date approached, and offered his hand asking if I would step down for a moment. I didn't know what was going on, so I just accepted it and got out.

As soon as I stepped out, he introduced me to everyone that was around. This was his family. His dad was the carriage driver the whole time. The older lady was his mom, and the other four people were his siblings. While I did still think that the carriage was romantic, from what I got out of him, he didn't really choose it. That was just their normal means of transportation. None of them had a car.

Then I started getting bombarded by questions from his mother and his two sisters. The mom asked me about flowers, what I liked, my dress size, what type of design I preferred and said that she would be making it for me. I was confused as to what was going on, and then I saw his mom snatch the daughter by the arm to move her out of the way. I was face to face with my date, until he fell to one knee and held out this gigantic, old-looking ring

that was pretty clearly not going to fit me anyways. Everyone was standing there, silent, smiling. I didn't know where I was or what to even say. Obviously, I wanted to say no. I just met this guy, but it was so awkward that nothing was coming out of my mouth. When I did finally get my voice back, all I could really muster was, I need to go.

I'm guessing they were all really expecting a straight answer by the look on their faces. But my date quickly stood up and brought me back to the carriage. I told him that I could get a ride so as to not be a bother, but he insisted on taking me home. So we both climbed into the back, and his father was in the front. The ride back was pretty damn awkward. We hardly spoke, and when we did, I felt like he was just talking to talk.

He mentioned how he knew a house nearby that was for sale, He told me some facts about an old grade school nearby that was now sitting empty, and of course started talking about the weather. Once we got to my place, he tried walking into the building with me, but I stopped him at the door. He asked me when we would see each other again, and I told him I wasn't sure, but I wanted him to have a good night. He even tried to go in for a kiss, and I just backed up and went inside. I called my friend immediately and told her what all had happened, and she agreed that I needed to put an end to that immediately, so as to not lead him on or give him any ideas.

We hardly knew each other, and he was already wanting to get married? That is insane. I messaged him that night, and I told him that it wasn't going to work out, and that I wished him the best. That went on longer than it needed to. as he kept pushing me that I was wrong, since the date seemed to go so well. This guy really acted like this dating site was some kind of planned marriage or something.

I basically explains to him, like I would my grandparents, how it was used. He was still adamant that I was the one and started spouting off some religious stuff that I couldn't follow. So, I basically ended at, we're done here, do not message me again, good luck in the future. I figured that that would be the end of it. But other than the random text here and there, he also tried to add me on Facebook. And when that wouldn't work,

he tried adding my friends, telling them lies about things that I apparently told him on our date. He even tracked me down on some future dates that I had gone on with other guys, and even a business lunch claiming that I cheated on him and called me some other colorful names. Thankfully, he didn't stick around when he started being threatened by my friends and coworkers. I did have one date leave during the event, saying he didn't want to be involved, but I can't say that I blame him.

While this was all very stressful and ruined some potential things for me, the worst part of it all was when I saw him standing out front of my complex, just staring up at it. He still had no idea which one I was in, and I think that that was probably the only thing that stopped him from going any further. I was just worried that one day he would be out there as I was leaving or coming home, and then I worried what his other intentions were. At one point, though, he did add my ex, and we were on good terms, so he told me about what he was telling him, too. My ex actually said a few things back to him. I don't know what exactly because he wouldn't tell me, but I never heard from him again.

So it's probably best that I don't know. I'm sorry if this wasn't all that creepy, but there was definitely a mix of emotion during this time. So, again, it was pretty stressful. I do still use the same dating app, and I'm still a sucker for romantic stuff, but I've made sure to drive myself from then on. This is a story that I've told to very few people

because I know that no one would believe me. When I was six years old, my mother worked as a cleaning lady for a dying old woman who was a bit scary. She had hired two cleaning women, so my mother worked with another woman who also had a son. I got along relatively well with a same, other child, however, he was sometimes quite strange. And, in fact, the old woman really didn't

like children, and I remember her asking us to be good, otherwise she would call a monster. The monster was obviously just a model on her balcony. But the other child seemed completely terrified. And I remember that I spent a lot of time winnowing at him, calling him a sissy. He told me weird stories, like the appearance of the monster at night. They were just classic kid's stories. It was then that one day the dying old woman told our mothers that she no longer wanted us to come over because we were rather turbulent. My mother was initially annoyed, but decided instead to call on the son of a friend of hers

who was unemployed to look after us. This is where the strange stories began. The guy who watched us was called. Kareem. He was between 18 and 20, but I remember him as a guy who traumatized me. His goal was clearly to scare us. However, he didn't do it the classic way. In fact, he was doing terrifying things that even today, I couldn't explain. First of all, he often told us about a dog, which he said was very naughty. I remember that the other child was, wanted to see this dog at all costs, so one day, after our mother's left, leaving us in the care of

Kareem, he asked us to go to the kitchen. I remember being very hesitant to follow them. That called me a coward, and I ended up following. That's when he opened the fridge. However, we were in a blind spot so as to not see the inside. I heard a very strange noise like something eating, and then he took out his bloody hands. Today I think it's perfectly explainable that it was just a bad joke. As a kid, I was just gullible. And Kareem was that kind of person.

And when I told my mother all of this, she seemed to ignore it. It was then that one evening my mother invited the mother of the other child and Kareem to my house. That night, I had planned with the other child not to sleep. So, we decided to

to just disturb our mothers and Kareem. We made noises, we fired projectiles with toy guns, and that's where I saw him. A super tall man came from the corridor and looked at us in our room. We shouted, and the man did too, and then he ran and disappeared. My mother heard us, and had come to reassure us. And we ended up sleeping in my mother's room that night. There was a closet in the hallway, and I don't know. don't know why, I had always linked this closet to this strange man.

Anyway, even today I don't really know what happened. It was probably a joke by Kareem, but how is that possible? Kareem was in the living room with our mothers. And above all, only me and the other child had seen this thing. I typically don't just tell this story in general, as it seems too far-fetched and false. However, I know very well what I saw. It wasn't a dream or anything. It was real, since I had seen the same thing with the boy and my mother had reassured me that night. I would like to have your opinions on this story.

Tell me what you think and help me to lend less importance to this thing that happened to me. Also, I don't think that it's a paranormal thing or something. That's why I'm posting it here. This man was probably real, and I absolutely don't know what the hell it was. So I'm here to tell you about an experience I had with paranormal activity that took place back in 2006 in the summer. I was 18 years old and was living with my brother in a building which had two apartments, two floors. In the lower one, there was us. And on the second floor, my cousins, my uncle, and my aunt.

Every summer, my cousin's aunt and uncle used to go on vacation at their home village, so the house was completely empty for three months, and no one was living there. My aunt's bedroom was built right above our bedroom, my brother and I, and three to four times a week when we were playing video games, we used to hear heavy steps right above us in the aunt's bedroom. As said before, there was no one living in the apartment. and it was locked up for many days. Also, there weren't any buildings built next to this one,

so it couldn't have been our neighbors. We couldn't explain this situation, so we decided to investigate it. We did some research, and finally we bought a professional microphone, which detect specific frequencies, I don't fully remember the details, in order to detect something paranormal.

My father had a separate key if my aunt's apartment for emergency reasons, so we took it, and we opened the apartment, set up the microphone, and waited. If a non-paranormal sound, like cars from outside, our voices took place, we took notes so that there wouldn't be a misunderstanding. Also, we were setting the microphone in the bedroom around 3 a.m. for one or two hours. The first night, we heard nothing. The second night, we also heard nothing. Third night was the same story, but the fourth night we heard something that froze our blood. I went into the room and said the following question. What's your name? I want

an answer. I then left and sat with my brother and cousin in the living room. Three hours went by, and when we checked the recording ten minutes after my questions, we heard four loud steps and a weird noise, like the lips of someone who's very close to the microphone, and then a clear name, Yota, which is a Greek name. We freaked the hell out. We never thought we would catch something like that, and we were terrified. After that, we never did this again because we were pretty scared, and we also read on a site that if you start talking to him, you should end it right away, because it isn't any good. Four months went by, and we never told anyone or showed the recording about this incident,

until our grandma randomly said that someone called Yota used to live in this apartment. When we asked about her, she said that this woman died at the age of 26 many years ago. This incident still haunts me every night. I really don't believe in ghosts or stories that I read on the internet about them, but even now as a grown man, I still wonder what happened that day. I liked going on walks late at night or real early in the morning, like midnight or midnight or 3 a.m. I preferred this because I could be alone with just my thoughts or music and enjoy the atmosphere. The weather was typically perfect around this time for nothing more than shorts, a light jacket, and some running shoes.

I loved having music on one side and then listening to the wind blow around the leaves and tree branches. It was quite peaceful, and a great way to unwind and decompress, especially after a rough day. Nine times out of ten, it was at the same park, same walking trail as well. I had it down that I could probably walk the entirety of it with my eyes closed. But sometimes, I wanted to change it up and would go to a different park, a little further away. The first one was also close enough for me to walk to, so I didn't even drive there. I lived in a great community with very little crimes, so I didn't feel unsafe being out there that late.

However, I did have a few situations that arose that made me protect myself a little more when I did go out. This occurred back in the autumn months. It was around one in the morning at this time, and it was pitch dark. At the beginning of the path, there was light along it coming from the moon and the street lights, but the further in you went, the darker it got as the trees blocked out the light. I usually had a small compact flashlight with me just in case I needed it, but other than my phone, that's all that I had on me. I was walking the path as normal, getting into the music and zoning out,

when I started hearing what sounded like whimpering. not like from an animal, but a person, like they were holding back from crying. Like I said, the area of this park was pretty upscale. There wasn't a lot of crime and thinking back, I don't remember ever hearing any reports of something happening in that park either. So when I heard this at first, I just ignored it, thinking maybe someone was needing some time alone too.

As I continued walking, The whimpering got louder, until I heard a cracking sound. I made a mental note of the area that I was in, but again, I kept walking. However, my curiosity got the best of me when I started hearing crying and an alarming conversation. I could hear a woman crying and saying things like, I'm sorry, please, just stop, please, let's just go home. I could also hear a very angry man saying, you need to shut the hell up, among other unpleasant trees.

I started slowing down and turned off my music so I could pinpoint where they were. As I looked through the trees, there was a small opening where I could see the silhouette of two people. I had managed to walk right past them, and I assumed neither of us noticed each other. I stopped where I was and leaned onto the closest tree, hoping that they would continue to think they were alone. I watched as I saw the guy drag this woman by her wrist deeper into the trees. He then grabbed her by the hair, yelling something at her, and shoved her to the ground. After some shuffling, I saw him pick something up off the ground, like a stick or a tree branch that had fallen. The last thing I heard from him was something along the lines of,

You brought this on yourself. Now, in case anyone asks why I didn't do something sooner, or do more. more, I myself was a small woman. I was 5'4, 190 pounds at the time. There was no way I was going to be able to do anything to this guy. I may not have been able to see him clearly, but he had to easily be six foot, two, three hundred pounds. He had a similar bill to my boyfriend at the time, so that's what I was basing it off of.

I definitely did not want to leave this woman out there with him knowing that this could easily be the last terrifying moments of her life. So, I dialed 911 on my phone and held it with the screen facing my chest in hopes of blocking out the light. Then, I just yelled the first thing that came to mind. What the hell is going on? I heard the woman gasp and the man stood up and froze. I started saying the address of the park out loud, hoping that the operator would hear it too.

They both went completely silent. and I was holding as still as I could praying that this guy would not see me. Then, the guy pointed at her and said, Next time I catch you, you're effing dead. And took off through the other side of the trees. I waited several more seconds, making sure that the guy didn't come back and then picked the phone up to tell the operator what was going on. They assured me that they already had someone on the way.

I started to approach the woman as she asked, Is someone there? I told her it was okay and that the cops were already on the way. I walked with her back to the entrance so that they could find us, all while still on high alert that this guy could come back to try to attack us both. Thankfully, if he did plan on doing that, the cops beat him to it. I told them what I saw and heard, but the lady claimed that she didn't know the guy. I don't think the cops believed her either, since I told him I heard her say something about

going back home. Of course, they can only do so much since he didn't stick around, and she didn't want to go to the hospital. Regardless, I'm glad I did something because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I hadn't, and it was actually on the news the next day. After the woman hugged and thanked me, one officer agreed to follow her home, and since I walked there, the second officer took me home, which I was fine with. The mood was definitely ruined for that walk.

Nor did I even feel comfortable being there. I don't know whatever happens to her, but I hope she's okay and that he got caught. As for me, it took a few months before I walked that park at night again, but no matter where I go, you will no longer find me without pepper spray and a pocket knife. This happened probably about 14 years ago when I was 17. I was in university in California. I graduated high school early, so I started at university early. And I used to go to a local Starbucks by my campus in my free time to study,

because it was hard for me to focus at home. I remember this older guy used to come in a lot and just sit alone at a table always facing me with one small coffee. And he would just stare. It made me deeply uncomfortable. but I was too young to think about reporting it because I didn't think there was anything to report. He was just staring, not approaching me or anything. In fact, I thought that some of it was in my head.

I began to notice that sometimes he would leave around the same time that I did. With this Starbucks, the parking was mostly in the ground level of a free parking structure that was around the corner from the shop. It was usually super easy to get a spot right in the front, so you could actually see your car from the street in the structure. I usually parked there and never felt particularly unsafe, except when I would realize that he was following me out. I began to note what his car looked like and where he would park. It would usually be a little away from me, and I would wait for him to leave before I went anywhere, because I didn't want him following me. One afternoon, though, I was heading to my car, and I noticed that he had parked right next to me.

The passenger's side of the car was by my driver's side, and it was very close. I didn't see him, but I remember just having the most awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realized he had parked so close. I rushed to get into my car, and it was at that moment that I shut the door that I realized he was following me, and approaching the driver's side door of my vehicle. He had gotten as far as the door when I quickly locked it, and thankfully I did it fast enough because he tried to open my door a second later. I immediately backed out of that spot and floored it out of the structure.

I got caught at a red light outside of the structure, though, which gave this guy enough time to catch up to me in his car. I honestly don't know why I didn't call the cops at this moment. I remember trying to rationalize what was going on in my head and thinking maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing, even though the man had just literally tried to open my car door. I know, it's stupid, but I was 17. If it were me now at 31, you bet I would have driven straight to the nearest police station.

Thankfully, though, I was aware enough that I needed to lose him before I went home. so I turned into a series of residential streets to see if he would follow. He did. I just sped up and made a bunch of random turns until I was sure that I lost him. Then I drove home, and I never went back to that Starbucks again. I don't want to think about what would have happened had I not been quick enough to lock my door or lose him. So this story is from two or three years ago. One night, I'm on my way home from work, and to get to home I have to take some back roads as shortcuts.

But on this particular night, it was snowing, and the roads were a little icy, so I was driving slower than I normally do. On this route that I normally take day in and day out, there's a long stretch of road that has hills and can be rough sometimes. There's no houses or hunting camps on it, or any other turnoffs. It's about three or four miles until the next intersection. I was about a quarter mile down this road when I see in my rear view mirror, another car or truck coming up behind me, as I was going up the first hill on this stretch of road. I was about halfway up this hill when they passed me.

As I crested the hill, I was expecting to see them go down the hill, or on the short straightway to the next hill. But I didn't see any taillights. so I slowed down thinking that they went off the road and crashed. As I was coming down the hill, I was looking for the car slash truck that passed me, but I couldn't see much of anything. So I stopped at the bottom of the hill and put on my four ways. I got out of my truck with my flashlight and started to walk up the hill, scanning the side of the road to see if I didn't find anything. I ended up reaching the top of the hill without finding any trace of the vehicle.

that passed me. So I thought to myself, maybe they went off the road on the other side, but I still found nothing. No tracks, no skin marks, no evidence of a vehicle going off the road or even driving on it, except for me. But I know that on this road, there have been a lot of accidents. So, in conclusion of the story, I strongly believe that I saw a ghost car that is stuck in a loop, on the night that it crashed. Off the bat, I'm acknowledging that the way that the story happened is the result of me doing a dumb teen girl thing, so don't judge. Recently, I went to Walmart alone to get some thong underwear as I wanted some,

and my mom doesn't like the idea of them. Hence, I decided to make it a little secret mission. I had everything timed out and even tried to wear it, some sort of disguise. I also decided that I wanted to act not like an amateur while in the store. I was just having fun planning it all out

at that point. Anyways, while in Walmart, two different people in two different sections of the store assumed that I worked there. They asked me if I knew the store, if the store had a certain product, etc. I really

don't think I looked like an employee, though I joked about having a disguise, I was simply wearing a black t-shirt. Somehow, did me thinking about looking like I wasn't an amateur make two different people think that I worked there? I actually wanted to add a bit of a personal note to this story. This one was submitted to me, but I wanted to let this submitter know, I've actually had the same thing happen to me, and I agree with them.

It is super awkward. It was actually just the other day. patients and I went to the store, and we were heading towards the self-checkout. And some random lady came up to me with a container of sugar cookies saying she didn't want it and was asking if she should just give it to somebody

or put it down. And I looked at her like, actually I looked at her and said, I don't want it. I don't, I'm not going to buy it. And she literally backed off saying, oh, you don't work here? I looked nothing like I worked at Walmart.

I was wearing khaki pants because I do typically. but I was wearing a red shirt. So it's weird and awkward. And I agree with this, and that's why I included the story in this video. So thank you. I have a really weird story from way back when I was a very young lad. I think at the time I would have been around 12, maybe 13 at the very oldest. Back then, I lived in my parents' old house,

which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, in the northern Midwest. I don't want to give the exact location, because I really don't know what this whole thing was about, and if it was more serious than I think, I don't want to, I guess, anger someone or a group of people. I know that sounds stupid, but to me it makes sense, especially with what I saw and how it ended up.

Back then, I used to spend a lot of time hiking in the woods behind my neighborhood. There weren't any other kids in my area, and my only sibling was my older sister, so my childhood was honestly pretty boring and void of friendship. I made the best of it, though, and I used to make up a lot of fun games with myself. Not that I remember what I used to actually do,

just used to play some dumb games until I had to go home for dinner. This event actually took place in those woods, It was sometime in the middle of summer because I was out of school and was home alone for most of the day, because my sister was always over at her girlfriend's house, so I just pretty much did whatever I wanted to do. On this day, I was doing as I always did and went out into the woods to see what I could get up to. I was out playing, doing a whole lot of nothing, when I noticed something out a bit in the forest. It kind of looked like a person.

Like it was a person standing in the woods, and they were of an adult's height and stature, but they were just standing there completely and totally still. I was a bit nervous at first. I hadn't seen anyone in these woods in the years that I have lived there, and most of the people didn't spend any time back there. It was really strange to see this person just standing in the woods, and even weirder that they were wearing all black from top to bottom. It looked like they were wearing a ski mask too,

since the back of their head was covered and some kind of black cloth as well. Again, this was the middle of summer. It was kind of hot outside, so the fact that they were wearing all black and what appeared to be a ski mask was even weirder. I started kind of creeping around to see what exactly this person, was looking at, because like I mentioned, he was just standing there, completely stone still. At first, I was kind of sneaking around, but again, he wasn't paying any attention to me, so

after a bit, I just stopped sneaking, and I just kind of started walking around him from a safe distance. Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure that he was actually a person and not a mannequin that was placed there, because he didn't react to me walking around into what would have been his line of sight. As I got around to the front, I noticed

two things that made this whole thing even weirder. First off, he wasn't staring at anything. There was nothing in front of him. He was just standing there and looking down at the ground. Secondly, he was wearing a plain white

mask with no details. It was a mask that was shaped like a person's face, but it was just plain white with no other details. So, to reiterate, this person was standing completely still, wearing all black, including some kind of head covering, and was wearing a detailless white mask, and he was staring at literally nothing. After just standing there for a few moments, I decided that this was actually terrifying, and I took off to go back home.

Again, I kept my distance, but he continued to not pay attention nor acknowledge that I was anywhere nearby. There was a point where I did get close enough to see that this man was breathing, and that this was a person, not a mannequin. I went home and I wasn't really sure what I should do, or if I should actually do anything. Because he wasn't hurting anybody, or doing anything illegal or anything like that, I did tell my mom when she got home that there was a weird man in the woods, and she told me that it was public and that there wasn't anything wrong with that. I kind of just accepted that response and moved on.

Now, it doesn't quite end there. There is actually a little bit more to this story. A couple of days after that happened, I had actually gone back out into the woods because I wanted to see if the man was still there. I have no idea why I thought he would still be there, or again as it was a few days later. I guess I just thought that if he was there again, then whatever he was doing was certainly sketchy, and I could possibly get my parents out there to see what was happening.

Of course, he wasn't there, but when I went out to where he was standing, I did find something that I did not expect. Right there where the man was standing, was a small wooden cross stabbed into the ground, and the white mask was nailed to where the two parts of the wood crossed over. There was nothing written on the cross, there was nothing else there just the cross with the mask. Back then, it was just weird to me, and I had no idea what to think.

But now, part of me thinks that it may have had something to do with a cult or something, because it was just odd behavior, And the whole cross thing was just bizarre. And that's actually why I didn't want to mention the location, because if it was a cult thing, I don't want them coming to find me, because I still live in the town. And before anyone asks,

no, I never went back to that area of the woods, no, I've never told anyone else about the cross, and I have no idea if it's still there. So, to me, this was the scariest thing that I've ever experienced, and I hope that I never experience anything like it again. I've been kind of scouring this subreddit for a bit, and I decided to throw my experience into the mix.

My first story was from when I was 12 years old. Me and my family had been living in this house for about two years, and nothing seemed off about it. But one night when I was sleeping, I suddenly woke up. I remember looking around for a few minutes just wondering why. Then, this woman just seemed to show up in front of my bed. I couldn't see her face, but I could see her hair and her figure.

I turned over in bed and covered myself in my sheets in pure terror. Then, it was something I'll never forget. I felt the bed sink down as if she was sitting next to me. I can still feel the little. weight. The weight stayed there for seemingly forever, but then it went away and after a few minutes, I uncovered myself, and sure enough, she was gone. The second story is more recent, but to me that makes it a little freakier. I was 22, I'm 23 now, me and my fiancé were watching movies when I got up to go to the bathroom. One side of the hallway goes out towards the living room,

and the other goes towards the guest bedroom, and the floor is carpeted. After using the bathroom, I walked out and stopped in the hallway to look at my phone, and off to my right, I hear footsteps approaching me. I hear the carpeted footsteps, and I look over thinking it was my fiancé. I even said her name, as I looked over, and nothing was there. The footsteps stopped, and it was just pure, dark, nothing. nothingness. When I say I got goosebumps, I scampered back into the bedroom my fiancé was still laying and closed the door. I even slept with the light on. That's how much it spooked me.

So those are my two stories, and I know people say this all the time, but I like to think that I'm a logical thinker, at least as much as one is expected to be. But both experiences are borderline unexplainable, and I've tried to explain them away. We moved about four months ago into a temporary place while we build our forever home. This is an older single-wide trailer, probably 1980s, that has been updated inside. It's cheaper, so it helps with building expenses. Anyways, my son's room is on one end of the trailer and ours on the other. We frequently go to the bathroom throughout the night next to his room.

Several times now, we have went to use the restroom and heard my son giggling and talking to himself. In complete darkness. By himself. Sometimes you can hear what he's saying. Like, that tickles. You're funny, etc. Now, my significant other says he has heard him around 3 to 4 a.m. most times, whereas I've heard him around 5 to 6 a.m.

My son stays with my ex-husband half the week. We have 50-50 custody. And when my son isn't here, we have heard things from his room. My significant other has heard giggles and muffled talking. Toys randomly coming on. However, we always find logical reasons to dismiss it. We live next to a 24-hour gas station, about 20 yards from my son's window, and figure that it's people talking over there.

Plus, we have two cats that may sneak into his room and knock the toys on. That being said, this morning my son told me that there is a boy in his room and that he tickles him. This totally has me freaked out. Some backstory on my son. He's five years old and is diagnosed with autism. He was non-verbal until last year. We do struggle with complex conversations, so asking him to describe what he sees just doesn't work well yet.

He's a very happy and loving child. Since moving, he seems to be acting the same, just these issues at night where he's awake, which is causing him to be sleepy during the day. So, ghost, imaginary friend? I'm just hoping that someone has had a similar situation. Our home is projected to be done in September. So we'll be here for several more months.

Thanks. Update. So, I've been doing some digging and talking throughout our small community, and apparently a 10-year-old girl passed away from cancer in the home. Also, many drowning deaths have occurred in the river that runs behind our home. And a car accident happened in front of the home where a woman was killed. Aloha. I'm Chrissy.

I'm born and raised in Hawaii on the island of Wahoo, and this took place in Honolulu, on Thanksgiving Day in 2019. It's around 3 a.m., on our way to Kaiser Hospital in Honolulu with my mom to pick up my brother. As I turned into the hospital, I saw a woman at the corner on the opposite side of us. She looked as if she was waiting for someone, and another woman in nurse's attire, smoking a cigarette, closer to the building, maybe ten feet away from each other. We did the loop to pick my brother up and begin driving near the area where I saw the two women, and my mom makes a comment.

That lady's not scared being by herself there in the dark? Then I go, Mom, there's another lady by the corner near her. And my mom just stares at me and says, What are the lady? I didn't see anyone else. Then we reached that. that corner and indeed there was no other lady and oh no it doesn't stop there while we were driving home the whole truck smelled like smoke like someone lit a candle and put it out instantly and it smelled that way the entire way until we got off the freeway at our cutoff

and then we made our left turn and the smell disappeared i've had paranormal experiences all my life but only one time have I seen a ghost. I lived in an apartment on US 41 in Puntigorta in about 1990 for about a year. It didn't seem haunted like other places I lived when lights would go on or off and doors would open or close. One night as I watched TV in my recliner, a little girl, aged about six, went right next to me, on my right side of my chair from the kitchen. She skipped by me and turned her face to look right into my eyes with a beautiful smile on her face. She skipped through the living room and into the bathroom through the closed door.

I jumped up and opened the bathroom door as my fiancé was on the toilet, and I asked her if she saw the girl. Sandy gave me hell for opening the door and said no. I can still picture the little girl with Gold's. oldie locks and a sundress. If you can remember the little girl from copper-toned suntan lotion, that was her, right down to her pigtails. I think I was in elementary school, or just starting middle school. We lived in a pretty normal neighborhood at the time, across the street from an elementary school.

I have an older brother who was 13 years older than me. He was often out very late, and would come home late, because he would go clubbing and whatnot, and sometimes not even come home until the morning. It was past midnight one day, and I heard the bell ring multiple times, as well as knocking on the door. He didn't have a cell phone,

it was the beeper era, so my brother couldn't have called anyways if he didn't have his keys. I got out of bed and ran downstairs just assuming it was him. Before I could get to the door, I heard talking outside, and a woman's voice. I looked through the window blind, and I saw an older woman staring right back at me.

My mother then grabbed me from behind and told me to stay away from the window. Just then, the woman at the door began to pound on the door and start screaming. Help, please help me. Help, please! My mother took me upstairs and we sat on my bed, which was right by the window facing the front of the house. and she was holding me close. Thinking back now, I'm sure that she felt terrified,

but she didn't seem that way to me at the time. We had to listen to the doorbell and pounding of the door constantly for a few minutes before a man's voice behind the woman asked her, Where's my money? Which put an end to the knocking. My mother later told me that the man was standing behind the woman and that there was a car parked in front as well. The woman was maybe trying to stall

and continued to bang on her door for a while before she gave up. Then they left together. It was a very odd encounter that left us shaken for the night. Nothing bad ever happened at that house again, but my cousins had previously lived at that house and were once robbed when nobody was home. On another occasion, my aunt was in the kitchen by the back door and a naked man was standing outside the door staring in at her through the window, just smiling at her.

After we left that house, the next residence were also robbed, so we dodged a bullet, I think. I bet that the man and woman that paid us a visit were working together, but I don't know what the whole line about the money was supposed to do. Were we supposed to feel bad for her and come outside to give her the money that she needed? I'm glad that I didn't open the door, and it gives me chills to think about what would have happened if I did. This was about a year ago. For a while before I started taking melatonin, I had always had lots of trouble sleeping. Many nights I would stay up until 3 a.m. or so, and whenever I stayed up past midnight, I felt very weird.

I always passed this weird feeling of dread as my generalized anxiety. anxiety disorder, which I have lots of problems with. I still get this feeling sometimes randomly during the day, too. A note before I get into the next part, I have a leopard gecko in my room, so there's always a bit of light coming from her tank. So one night, around 2.30 a.m., I still couldn't sleep. I rolled over as I do a lot when I can't sleep, but something was off. It took me a second to realize, but it was.

It was brighter in my room than normal. For this next part, let me go over some stuff about my house. My room used to be a porch, so it's almost entirely windows. And if I were to roll over, I would face my backyard. We have a wooden deck, and it covers most of the yard, except for most of the parts that I can see from my window. Anyways, it took a few seconds, but I realized that the backyard motion sensor light was on. And it confused me since usually stuff that would pass by doesn't set it off.

It hasn't been set off in the middle of the night before or since. I got up, wide awake, and I looked out the window. There I saw some really weird creature. It kind of crawled like a cat, but way too fast crawling to be a cat. It was too big to be a raccoon or groundhog or something similar, though it was brown. It had no tail or ears, but it looked like it had very thin fur. Again, too big to be some kind of rodent. I had a good comparison for size of a nearby lawnmower.

It was unnaturally fast, and it crawled unnaturally too. I could tell it was crawling because I could see defined shoulders, and it was very low to the ground. This thing was again the size of my dogs, so about three, feet tall if it were to stand up fully and two feet long. It darted across my yard behind the deck where I could no longer see it. I stared for a while, but I never saw it come from anywhere. If it were to come back from behind the deck, I would be able to see it if I tried, which

I was. It took half a second to move a solid 20 feet and keep in mind that it was crawling. My best guess is maybe it was some weird crawling coyote, since there are some in the area. There was no way that this was a dream, though, because I remember checking my phone for the time when I eventually went back to bed, and I couldn't fall asleep for another hour. Plus, I don't really get nightmares. Another thing, it was not one of my dogs. I have no solid brown dog, and none of my neighbors do either. though I don't think it was a dog since it was crawling way too fast to be a dog, and it had no tail or ears.

This may be related, but a while before this happened, I heard some kind of weird canine howling, and I even recorded it. I could hear it in the video, but everybody that I knew never heard this thing. This was happening for two solid days. I even showed them the video and they couldn't hear it. I felt like I was going insane because I could never find anything in the area that would howl like the howl that I heard, and it freaked me out. I'm not exactly sure which topic the situation would be acceptable for, but I'm going to say it's leaning more towards creepy stories or paranormal encounters. And also, extreme trigger warning. This is very disturbing.

Please make sure that you're in the correct. headspace to read this true, but extremely disturbing situation that is very much affecting my entire life. A little over a year ago, I found a video in my TikTok drafts. That in itself is weird, because I always keep my draft folder cleared out. Anyway, I noticed a video, and of course was curious about what it was, so I opened it. The video was of myself. However, I was staring into the camera and not saying anything.

My eyes looked different, and they began to turn a solid black color as a strange grin crossed my face. The expression on my face was as if I was someone or something that had never seen myself in a reflection or on camera. The facial expressions were not mine. I immediately got chills all over and my heart started to race. Who or what was this? I've never sleepwalked, so I'm sure that it wasn't that. I was awake in the video and coherent, but the face was not mine, and I have absolutely no recollection of recording this weird footage of myself,

just glaring into the camera. It was also dark, and there was absolutely no sound. I didn't speak. I didn't explain what the video was. It was just me glaring into the camera with a wicked-looking face and black eyes. I still have the video and I've shared it on my social media, hoping to find answers from the paranormal community. One person claims I could be what is called a changeling. I didn't know what a changeling was, so I researched it.

I got a sick feeling in my stomach as I learned, what a changeling is. It's basically when your soul is stolen and your body is taken over by something paranormal as a child. Without writing an entire book about changelings, I'll leave it up to the listeners to look it up.

There have been other incidents with me that also lead me to believe that this could be what is going on. My fiance said that one time I was asleep in the middle of the night and he was laying next to me reading. He said that,

but I suddenly sat straight up in the bed, and I turned my head almost robotically straight at him and just glared at him. He said that it creeped him out so much that he left the room. He said that it didn't look like me, and that it seemed like my body had been taken over by something dark. This has been one of the many incidents over the last year since I found that video footage.

How long has this been going on? could I be doing stuff at night and not even know about it? It's another level of creepy knowing that something is taking over my body while I sleep. The worst part is, no one can help me, and when I tell people about it, they instantly become afraid of me and I get ghosted a lot. Can anyone tell me what is happening to me? Please, if you can, I beg you, leave your advice in the comments.

I wonder if this has anything to do with all the glitches that I have experienced as well. Either way, I did not make that footage. And whatever did is still around. Using my body to do whatever it wants while I sleep. I think about this a lot, and I truly think that I might have stopped a kidnapping just by being in a parked car. My ex-boyfriend lived with me for over a year, and there was a period of time where his truck was acting up, so I would pick him up from work. He worked just down the road from my place at a liquor store, so he would get out around 10 p.m. on weeknights. One night he asks me to pick him up, and I agree.

I get all swaddled in my pajamas and drive down to grumpily wait for him since my bedtime was 10 p.m. due to my job. I parked my car in the small parking lot out front. His liquor store is sandwiched between an adult shop and a head shop. Party Central, I guess. By now, the head shop and liquor store are closed, so their thirds of the lot are mostly empty. The adult shop only had one other car in front of it. Outside the liquor store is my car, and one other, so three total cars.

with a woman standing outside of it, sitting on her hood. I don't think much of it. Maybe she's waiting for someone in the adult shop or one of my ex's co-workers and just relaxing in the summer night air. I sit hunched in my seat, car off playing on my phone. I notice a white van. I know, cliched, but that's why I noticed it. Pull into the lot.

It drives through slowly and then back out onto the main road. road. Weird, but maybe they wanted alcohol and saw the store was closed. Whatever. I go back to my phone, but I glance at the woman. She's still outside of her car, but she's moved between my car and hers. I had parked a couple spots over, so close, but not too close. I go back to my phone. The same white van pulls in again and stops in front of her. I sit up slightly to watch. I'm a true crime nut. What can I say, I'm easily alerted, and I watch some guy roll down the van window and lean out to talk to the woman. I pull out my phone to snap a photo of the license plates, again, just in case, but I can't see it. So I turn on my car and go to open the door, but the guy in the van instantly pulls away and leaves. The woman moves closer to my car as I get out and approach her. I ask her what was that and she says she doesn't know. He was trying to ask her for directions, but he stopped mid-sentence when I turned on my car.

I asked her if she's waiting for anyone, and she says, kind of. She's been sitting outside the liquor store for three hours waiting on a tow truck because she locked her keys inside her car, and she couldn't leave the car because her puppy was in the back seat. Thankfully, it wasn't a hot night. It was a very nice night, so she was waiting for a tow truck. as her and I are talking, my ex comes out and asks what's up, so we decide to help her since there was no freaking way I was leaving her alone. I have some rope in my car for emergencies, and my ex uses it to basically jimmy her door open, make a lasso, and hook it around her door lock and pull it up to unlock it.

It works, and we open the door just as the tow truck pulls in. her puppy is safe, we wish her well, and I get back in the car and tell my ex, I think I almost watched her get kidnapped. This is my first time posting on Reddit, but I was eager to share my creepy encounter. In about 2007, I had turned 13, and my parents began letting me watch my younger two brothers, ages 10 and 8 at the time. We were allowed to be a last. We were allowed to to play outside in the backyard, but had a long driveway that extended to the front gate, facing the street that we often used to race each other on toy cars, sitting on skateboards, etc. Our street is on a cul-de-sac with our house closer to the dead end,

so most traffic that came down the street was recognizable. One midweek summer afternoon, we were racing up and down the driveway, with the closed front gate, When I noticed a six-foot-tall white man with black sunglasses, slowly driving by and sticking his head out the window to stare at us with a large grin. My first thought was that he was a relative, that I just didn't recognize because he looked happy to see us. But then as he drove back around, my instincts started to freak out, because his car was slowing down, and I realized I didn't actually know this man.

I quickly told my younger brothers to go inside, and we all went through the back door, which I quickly locked. Then we all stood quiet and hid. I peeked out from our large front windows that were only protected by white curtains, and the man had parked his car across the street and was standing by his car, looking back and forth up and down the street. Don't judge me, but I remember feeling bad for him, because he looked lost, or like his car had just broken down.

My middle brother was also peeking out the window with me, as we told our youngest to just stay in the opposite side of the house, but to keep the TV off and stay silent. He stood there for about five minutes, just moving things around in his back seat and trunk. But my sympathy turned into fear when the man started walking from across the street, towards our house.

I quickly went to the entryway, and we laid on the floor hoping that he couldn't see us at low level through the curtain. He rang the doorbell three times and kept trying to look in. I remember feeling frozen, but still being naive and debating if I should just see if he was okay, or find out what he wanted. He said, hello, hello? and looked really frustrated, which kept on making me feel bad for him. He rang the doorbell three more times, stood there, and finally just left.

He was dressed in a nice dress shirt and pants and didn't look homeless or anything, which is why I kept thinking that his car malfunctioned. But as soon as my parents came home that night and we told them what happened, they put locks on the gate and added a security camera. I think what scares me the most as an adult now is how close I was to just opening the door for him and the endless possibilities of what could have been. Had he been watching our house before and seen three young boys? Did he just need car help? This was right before cell phones were everywhere.

I never saw this person ever again, so I doubt it was a relative. and I grew up in a suburb where the entire cul-de-sac was Asian or Hispanic in descent. So this man stood out. But it still freaks me out to think about, mostly how excited he smiled when he first saw us. Anyways, I just wanted to share my story. Hi, Raven. This event actually happened to me fairly recently,

and I wanted to share with you after listening to some similar. experiences, so here it goes. I'm in my late 40s, and the closest to a serious long-term relationship I've had was with my kid's father. I got pregnant at 16, which forced us into a marriage per our parents' demands. We were still kids ourselves, and barely knew each other, so it was definitely difficult at first. But we slowly worked on ourselves to make sure that we were there for our little girls.

Then we had another girl that wasn't necessarily planned, but was also very welcomed. However, I had her when I was 30, so my girls are about 15 years apart. Thankfully, they get along regardless of the age difference, and I am incredibly blessed for them. Now, their father seemed to have two sides to him, so while he seemed ecstatic about our second daughter, I guess he was having a midlife crisis and had burned through a bunch of our savings on his friend's wife, whom he also sort of had an affair with. Anyways, long story short, and we got a divorce. The girls both chose to stay with me, so could reddance.

So, even though I've only been legally divorced for the last two years, I was already emotionally divorced or alone for years prior. I was feeling pretty lonely, especially with one daughter already being grown up and have moved out. So, my oldest, Lacey, actually suggested that I put myself out there and try my hand at love again. I'm not the best with technology, but I can get myself around a computer. She came over and got me set up on one site that, she had also been using herself.

I had a few younger guys message me, but it was way too weird to me that these guys were interested in me because they were too close to my daughter's age. But I did finally come across a guy named Bill. He was actually two years older than me. He had three kids close to the same age as my younger daughter and said that his wife had died a few years prior, so he was looking to start over. We started talking through the site, and then even started talking over the phone. He seemed very family-oriented, which made me feel even better about him.

I also shared with him about my little family and how I ended up here. I told him about my two girls, and he also seemed very interested. I've noticed while scrolling through people that there weren't a lot that were interested in a woman with kids at home, so I was relieved more than anything when he asked about my daughters. He asked how old they were, their names, he asked about things they were interested in, and he seemed like he genuinely cared, which was already winning me over.

So, after about a month of talking, I finally got up the courage and agreed to meet him in person. We met at a local coffee shop, which we were both familiar with, and frequented often. When we met, we hugged, and then I noticed he looked around me and asked where my daughter Molly was, my youngest. I told him that she was in school, as she was 15 at the time. It was a slightly odd question to me, as I knew he had kids around the same age, so I assumed they were in school as well. I did let it go, however, as we did talk about her a lot, so I assume he was just wanting to meet her, too.

We just talked for a while before we eventually decided to leave. It was very kind, very funny, and he had a very distinguished look. He reminded me of a slightly overweight Robert Downey Jr. So, for my age, I thought if this worked out, then I'd gotten lucky. We had continued talking, and we met up for dinner a few nights after. This time, Molly was at a friend's house after a sporting house. after a sporting event, so she didn't join us. Bill, again, made a comment about this,

and I explained the whole thing to him, and he just seemed kind of disappointed. I know now that it was just me being clouded by the situation, but, again, I thought it was kind of sweet that he was so interested in meeting my kids. So I told him that we could look into scheduling something so we could both bring our kids, and he seemed to like the idea.

It was probably about two weeks later, and the church that I volunteer at was doing a potluck dinner. Molly and I were already planning on going, and everyone was invited, so I thought I would ask Bill to join us, since there would be plenty of kids for them to play with, too. He happily agreed. We planned to meet there that night. However, when we all arrived, I saw him get out of his Jeep with what I assumed to be, be his youngest, who was only around eight or nine. I asked him about the others, and he said that they were all busy doing something else, so he just had the youngest. I knelt down to say hello, knowing their name already, but they were really shy. But that was understandable. Bill quickly cut our conversation off, though, to ask where Molly was, and I told him that she was already inside helping out.

so I escorted him into the church and went to get Molly to introduce her. Molly knew that I had been talking to Bill, so she also knew what he looked like and a little about him from what I had told her. She's also a very kind and outgoing girl, so when she approached us, she smiled and said hello. Bill immediately pulled her in for a hug. She hugged back and even laughed about it. again, I thought it was a sweet moment and I was really happy that they both seemed okay with each other.

But then as the night progressed, I started noticing things that were making me uneasy. As we sat and talked while eating, he was talking to Molly even more than he was talking to me. He was asking her similar questions that he asked me on our coffee date. He asked her what she was interested in, what she liked to do, her goals and asking her. aspirations, all of it. Again, it just seemed like he cared about her feelings, but then it got weirder. He started asking her with me present if she had a boyfriend.

Molly and I were really close, so I knew that she was kind of seeing a boy at the time. They'd basically gone to their school dance together. She answered him, saying yes, and he said, ah, well, a boy's lucky to have a beautiful girl like you. She smiled and thanked him. He continued to ask her more, but when I tried to ask about his son, he would barely answer me.

And Bill would answer for him or stop me from being able to talk to him, which I found really odd. Feeling a bit weird, I decided to grab all of our plates and take them into the kitchenette. I wasn't gone long, but when I came back, Molly jumped up and said that she was going off to help in the back, and then rushed off. I thought it was odd, but decided to leave it alone for the moment. I went to sit down again, but Bill then stood up saying that he had to leave, and after a quick, half-hearted hug, he was gone. And with that, the whole night ended with this really weird aura.

On our way home from church, I noticed that Molly was extremely quiet, which was unlike her. I asked her if something was wrong, and after a deep breath, she said no. I know her too well, and I know that there was something wrong, so I pushed, refusing to take that as an answer. Thankfully, it didn't take long to get it out of her. She said that she didn't like Bill, and that she didn't want me to see him anymore. She then explained the situation at the church, and it made me sense. to my stomach.

Bill had asked her if she was a virgin, and if she had ever experimented with a boy, or with herself. She told me that she didn't know how to respond, so she just sat there and he told her that if she was ever curious, she could come talk to him about it.

There were other little things he said, but as soon as she saw me coming, she jumped out of the conversation. I was horrified and disgusting. I had no reason not to believe her. Both of my girls were happy that I was willing to find someone, so she wasn't the type to try and sabotage this, especially with this insane of a story.

I apologized immensely to her and told her that it would never happen again. I messaged Bill that night and tore him a new one, and I told him that I was reporting him as well. He never messaged me back. I reported it to the authorities, but to my surprise, they couldn't even track the guy down. I had printed out his profile, so at least I had a photo of him, but his profile had since been deleted. His phone number had also been disconnected, and after looking into this guy further, it all seemed made up. I don't know who I actually met, or even if that kid was his.

I was horrified that I brought this strapped. around my daughter, and I kept my promise and told myself and my girls that if I ever meet someone else, I will make sure to do a thorough check on him before they meet. But, to be honest, I think I'm pretty happy with just my girls from the time being. My name is Cal, and I got a pretty creepy story for you. It was so bad that I ended up leaving my job for another shortly after this happened. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to some information. Like the title states, I was 16 when this happened.

I was also working at the place where dreams go to die. Walmart. I absolutely hated working there. But thankfully, this encounter was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now, another thing I should mention, I look a few years younger than I actually am. I have a baby face, so... even though I was only 16, I looked 13. It was during the day when this incident happened.

It was a pretty slow day. I had spent most of my shift wandering around, helping where I could. I was already done with everything in my department. I was in the middle of heading back to my area when a man approached me. He was a bit of a creepy dude, but I didn't want to be rude by not helping him. even though everything in me was telling me to walk away. Anyway, creepy guy was asking me to help him find a gift for his niece. I asked him if he had any idea what he wanted to get his niece.

He said he wasn't sure, so I took him to the kid's section so he could choose something. While he was browsing, he started asking for my name. If I lived in the city, how old I was, that sort of thing. I obviously wasn't overly keen on providing this information, so I was pretty vague when answering. Other times, I would completely avoid the question altogether and redirect the conversation to his niece. It was evident that he was not interested in discussing his niece,

so he provided one-word answers and went right back to his intrusive questioning. He started asking me more personal stuff, like if I had a boyfriend, if I'd ever had sex before, etc. Now, I was horrible at communicating when someone crossed a boundary. I hated confrontation, and my managers sucked. They would give me hell for the stupidest crap, which made me really anxious whenever I had to talk to them. As a result, I did everything I possibly could to avoid talking with them.

Anyway, I asked him if there was anything else that he needed, I just wanted to hurry up and end this whole interaction. But, of course, he told me that he needed a card and a bag to put the gift in. So I begrudgingly directed him to the card section, all the while he upped the creep factor and began asking me extremely personal questions. He was now giving me compliments. He would tell me how beautiful I was, how I had such a great-looking back-end. Keep in mind, I don't look a day over 13, and yet that did not seem to stop the creep for making these crude remarks.

While he picked out a bag and a card, I kept my distance, but I remember that he kept giving me, the best I can equate it to, is bedroom eyes. It made me sick to my stomach, but I figured that he would eventually get everything he needed and be on his merry way. He eventually got a card and a bag, and he asked me to lead him to the till since he didn't know where they were. Obviously he did, but I just sucked it up and directed him to the checkouts. When we got within walking distance of a till, I politely excused myself and felt relieved to finally get rid of him. Unfortunately, he ran ahead of me and asked me for my number. Even go as far as making this horrible comment, I like my girls nice and

young. They can just keep going and going. You and I will have lots of fun. It's not the exact word-for-word thing he said. Nobody needs to hear the real things that he said. That made my skin absolutely crawl. I told him I didn't have a phone. I did, of course, and it was sitting in my vest pocket. He thankfully didn't seem to notice it, but I was beyond paranoid that he would spot the phone and call me out on my lies. Despite being repeatedly told that I, in fact, did not have a phone, he kept insisting that I give him my number or a social media where he could contact me.

It got to the point where I was backing away from him because he would get so close to me that I could smell his breath. Unsurprisingly, he didn't take the hint, and he kept inching towards me. Want to know the real punch to the gut? I had a couple of my managers walk past, They definitely saw this guy harassing an underage employee, and they did screw all to help. I was getting desperate.

No one was coming to my aid, which made me feel hopeless on top of it. I thought I would never get rid of this guy. My saving grace was my manager walking through the front door before this creep got handsy with me. My manager was my absolute favorite person. He was pretty intimidating, used to. serve in the military. He was also a pretty big fellow. Pure muscle could probably break me in two with one hand, but he was a gentle giant. Whenever customers got rowdy with the employees, he would intervene. It was always hilarious to see people who were red in the face deflate the moment they

saw him approaching. I spotted my manager, and I gave him a look of desperation when he glanced over at me. I can't tell you how relieved I felt when I saw him make a beeline for us. He placed himself between me and the creepy dude, slapped on his customer service smile, and asked if he could assist the creep, since I was supposed to be on my break. I happily took the hint and practically ran to the back of the store. I went to the staff room and was shaking from the adrenaline and on the verge of crying. I was in the staff room for about 20 minutes before my manager called me into his office. He asked if I was okay.

I said I was shaken up, but fine. He assured me that he'd have me working in the back for the next week just to ensure that if the creep came back looking for me, he would not be able to find me. He then told me that the guy kept asking where I went, what my number was, what my name was, but my manager told him that he couldn't release that information. My manager literally escorted this guy out of the store and watched him drive away before coming back to talk with me. I never did see the guy again. Then again, I left my previous job shortly after this encounter.

I got another offer to work with my best friend at her dad's restaurant after I told her what happened, which I happily took. I admit, I was a little sad to leave, mainly because I really did adore my manager, but my hatred for Walmart, and my fear of that dude was ultimately what pushed me to leave. So, to that creepy guy who harassed me at my job, let's never meet again. And on the off chance that we do, I owe you a punch to the teeth. I actually have two dating stories that should be pretty quick, hopefully, and they're not necessarily horror, as in scary. but their horror in the sense that they were horrifying

and turned me off online dating pretty much altogether. I don't think much backstory is really needed for me beyond the fact that I was in my mid-20s, have never really had luck with meeting people that I care to really spend time with, and I wasn't exactly picky with who I swiped match on. When I say that I wasn't picky, I mean that as long as they were a guy above a,

two on a scale of ten, and didn't throw out any major super creep vibes. I was pretty willing to give them a try. I know that this may sound pretty dumb to some people, but I'm the kind of person that is really willing to give anyone a shot to see if we vibe, if that makes sense. Anyways, on to the first date story. I had matched with a guy named Jake on one of the apps, and he seemed like a pretty straight,

forward guy. His profile was your basic mid-20s dude that was into tech and fitness, two things that were actually bonuses for me. He and I spoke for a while, sent a few photos, had a few phone calls, and he was pretty much the most average guy I've ever spoken with. I was totally okay with average. In fact, that's kind of what I was looking for more than anything. We agree to meet up for lunch at a small diner-like restaurant, and we set a date. The day comes, I show up first, and I get the table for the two of us. As I'm sitting there, just waiting, I get a text from Jake saying that he's had some car troubles and that he's going to be a few minutes late, but he was 100% not ghosting me.

That was fine with me. I get it. I've had my shares of why won't my rust bucket start, moments. I tell him I'm at the table, and that it's totally fine, that I understand and so forth and so on. After about 20 or so more minutes, he finally does walk into the restaurant and to our table, but he looks like he's having a panic attack. He's sweating. It was early spring, so it was still pretty chilly outside, and he just looked distressed and disheveled overall. He sits. He sits down and immediately just kind of looks like he's lost all sense of the situation.

Like something has happened, and he's freaking out. But he can't make it not obvious that he's freaking out. I ask him if he's okay and what's going on, and he kind of just starts looking at me like he's about to start sobbing. As soon as this happens, I hear shouting. I see several cops running into the restaurant, telling him to get down on his knees and subsequently arresting him. It took me a few minutes to convince them that I was already there at the restaurant,

and that I was not with him prior to the minute he walked in. Thankfully, the host and server could vouch for me on this. As come to find out, on his way to the date, Mr. Jake had actually hit someone with his car and then kept going. I don't mean like he sideswiped or bumped somebody's else's vehicle. I mean he literally hit a person and ran over their leg, causing major injury and then kept going to meet up with me at the restaurant. I'm assuming I was supposed to be an alibi, or I guess I would have been if he hadn't already been being followed and looked for by the police.

So, obviously, that date ended pretty quickly with him being shoved in the back of a police cruiser and me just staring at the floor like, what the hell am I doing with my life? Thankfully, the waiter was sympathetic, and she didn't make me pay for my drink, which was nice. I guess at least I got a free Dr. Pepper out of the situation. The second one is one that's not necessarily scary,

but it's still what I would consider a dating horror story. It was, once again, a story where I met up with a guy that I had met, on one of those dating apps. This one was a dude named Chris. Chris's profile was a bit above the others that I looked at on the apps, because Chris was actually really attractive, and he was all about staying fit,

as he claimed he was former military. Now, I've never been with a military guy, but I do know a few of them, my brother, for one, and I have found that most of them are fairly tolerable, and even pretty fun to hang out with. Talking with Chris went pretty smoothly, at first, though he seemed to have a really strict,

I can't chat with you before 8 p.m. kind of schedule about him, which, admittedly, had me initially concerned that he may have been a married man looking for an affair. I figured I would at least see it through to the first date and see if I could spot an indentation on his ring finger, or try to ask him what it was all about. I mean, it could have been that he had a job that he worked until then and couldn't have his phone with him. Or maybe he just had other adult responsibilities that he had to see to.

I was willing to be patient with him and to get answers, so we scheduled a date for dinner. That 8 p.m. rule made it kind of hard to do anything else, and I was looking forward to it. Once again, I was early to the date, and I got a table for us. Then, when he finally shows up to the date, he walks in with another woman. I was a bit confused and taken aback, thinking he really had the audacity to bring someone else to a date like that, but it was even more awkward when he sat down and said, it's very nice to finally meet you in person. This is my mother.

This man literally brought his mother on the date without warning me. Now, mind you, if his mother had needed his care or been disabled, I would have had no issue with it, assuming he probably would have informed me beforehand. But this woman was quite fit and definitely able to be disabled. able to take care of herself. And she was definitely there because she wanted to be there. Which was even weirder. At no point did Chris stop and think or act like this was a weird thing.

He just kept up the conversation as if she wasn't there. Then it hit the apex of, oh my God, this is so freaking awkward, when it came time to order. He tried to order one thing, and his mother told him, No. Then told the waiter something else. When the waiter walked away, he tried to tell his mom that he wanted the other thing, almost whining like a little kid. But she told him that it was too fatty and that he needed to watch his carbs.

I just kind of sat there like, what? Was this woman really ordering for her adult, former military son like this while he was on a date with a date? another woman? Again, I know that this wasn't scary, but it was definitely my, nope, I'm done with this moment. The entire date was so strange, and I pretty much ghosted him after this. I tried to think that maybe I was just being shallow about the whole thing, but it was too much. Chris was actually my last date through any of those apps, and I kind of just embrace. raced being single for a while, for reasons that I think are pretty obvious.

While writing a post on another subreddit, I remembered a creepy encounter that I had when I was around 11, and I just thought I would share. From ages 8 to 13, I was living in a small village where everyone knew each other. My brother and I spent the majority of our time playing with our cousins and the other kids, and since everyone knew each other, our parents never really watched over us while we played. But I'm kind of glad that they did this time. It was literally just a sunny day like the days before,

and we kids were all playing at the small grass field, just about the size of a football or soccer field. It's placed in the middle of the village with the two main roads of the village on each side. Some of our parents had decided to get together, drink a beer and talk in one of the front lawns where they could see us play. In the middle of our game, we noticed a man approaching us from the opposite direction from where our parents were sitting. None of us recognized this man, so he was clearly not from the village. As he got closer, we started looking back at our parents, but none of them had noticed that we had stopped playing, nor the man.

This was a time where kids my age started learning about stranger danger, kidnappers and other creeps. So I immediately thought the worst about this man. And since I was one of the oldest kids and was responsible for the younger kids, I started trying to get the others to back away from the man. I think he noticed the creeped-out look that we gave him, because he stopped up a few meters from us and started talking to us. And please, bear with me.

This happened almost ten years ago, So I don't exactly remember the conversation. But he told us not to worry because he just wanted to talk to us. One of the older kids told him that we couldn't talk to him, and I kid you not, this man actually started pulling some kind of classic, Do you want to see my puppies or kittens? He literally asked if any of us wanted a kitten.

There was some more conversation between us and the man, but I don't remember what it was. I remember looking back at our parents again to see if they had noticed anything by this point. They finally had. I have this clear picture in my head of our parents. All of them were watching us with alarmed faces. Some of the parents were still sitting in the white garden chairs, and others were standing up and looking like they were mere seconds from interfering.

I remember looking back at the man and saying, Our parents are watching and pointing towards them. The man looked at the direction I was pointing, and then reached inside the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a single red lollipop. He tried to get one of us to take it, but I loudly told the others to not take it, because it could be poison, which it probably wasn't, but it worked because no one wanted the lollipop. I remember the man looking in the direction of our parents again, and I feel like some of them might have been getting ready to come over, because he took a few steps back. He smiled and walked over to the small bench that we had pulled out from one of the other kids' houses,

and he put the lollipop down and said, I'll just leave this here. Then he turned around and walked towards the direction that he had come from. I kept on telling the others to not touch the lollipop, and suddenly my uncle was standing next to me with one of my cousins, asking what the man had wanted. We told him what had done. just happened, and some of the other kids started calling the man a creep.

I think that my uncle didn't know what to do, so he just told us that we were allowed to go to his house, grab a soda, and then come back and continue playing. We quickly forgot the encounter with the man, but my brother and I have occasionally brought it up as a weird memory from our childhood. I used to live in a small town in the Midwest that wasn't exactly the nicest place. in the world. We weren't so small that everyone knew everybody else, but we were small enough that most of the large corporations passed over the town when they were opening locations, and anytime something new was coming to town, everybody knew. It's kind of hard to explain, really,

but I think it's best to look at it like this. We were a small, unincorporated suburb outside of a larger city. The town had a name, but it wasn't one that most people would know. And it was small enough that if you ever had to introduce yourself, you would just say that you were from the bigger city that was to the north. It was small enough that we only had one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school, if that makes more sense. Anyways, I had a plan when I was in high school, that I was going to move as far away from the town when I graduated, and then I graduated and realized that I needed to have money to do anything. So I ended up staying for a few more years to save up and get my own place.

During this time, I worked for the only big-name grocery store that had recently moved into the town. I had started as a cashier, but after a few months, the owner had wanted to try something new. and his big idea was implementing a delivery program. Basically, the customers would call in or go to the website and order any number of things. Someone would pick it out, and then the driver would deliver it to the person's house. The only real rules were that the order had to be over $20, and it had to be within 10 minutes of the store. I, of course, was promoted to delivery driver, because, I had been there longer than most of the other cashiers.

I was a bit iffy with it at first. I wasn't a huge fan of going to strangers' houses with groceries, but I didn't have to handle any money since the orders had to be paid for before we did the delivery. So, as my boss would put it, I was at a pretty low risk of being robbed. Plus, it wasn't like I was driving around a car that had a logo or said I was a delivery driver. It was just my old Ford, and the likelihood of someone robbing me in an old rusted-out-90s fiesta was pretty much zero. And after doing it for a couple of weeks, I started feeling like it wasn't that big of a deal. I got to know some of the people in my town better.

They were mostly friendly, and people actually did tip in cash, so it was kind of neat. then, of course, there's the event that ruined everything, and the one that the story is actually about. We got a delivery to a house that had an address that seemed familiar to me, but I wasn't sure why it was familiar. I didn't live on that street at any point in my life or anything, and I looked at the map at the store, but nothing around it seemed familiar to me. I just shrugged it off that I must have done a delivery over there at some point, and the house was just familiar because of that. I grabbed their order, which was literally a dozen frozen pizzas, and headed out. It wasn't until I pulled up toward the house that I actually realized why I was somewhat familiar with it. I once had to pick up a friend of mine from this house to get him away from his not-so-great lifestyle,

Back when I was, like, 16, this was what is commonly known as a trap house, and it was one of two in our town. It was an older house that was clearly not kept up, but was actually really nice looking, as long as you didn't get close. I looked at the delivery slip in hopes that it was just a house nearby or something and not this specific house, but, of course, it was one. 100% this house. I parked my car in front of the house and just thought to myself that they ordered groceries. They knew you were coming, and nothing bad was going to happen. I got out, walked up to the front, and as soon as I stepped in and closed the gate to the front yard, all hell broke loose.

Apparently, one of the inhabitants heard me walking up the sidewalk, because, She threw open the front door and immediately started screaming at me, asking who the hell I was, what I was doing in their yard, and, most importantly, screaming that if I moved, she was going to put a slug in my head. That last statement was the one that bothered me the most, obviously, because she was walking towards me with a double-barrel shotgun and her fingers shaking near the trigger. I tried to tell her that I was with the grocery store and that I was delivering food and this was apparently not okay with her. She actually pushed me to the ground and put the barrel of the gun to my head

and started yelling about how I was obviously a cop and then she said that I needed to say my last goodbyes to Jesus because she was going to end me. I remember just begging and saying that I was not a cop. I tried to push the girl. groceries toward her and tell her that I was a delivery driver, but the words were just not coming out. I seriously thought that I was about to die, because this woman was clearly not thinking straight,

and I had apparently walked up at the wrong time. Then, my savior, a guy named Ken, walked out the door, and in the most chilled and non-bothered voice, said, Heyo, Mary, you need to chill. He's not a cop. He's here to bring me my pizzas. When I say unbothered, I mean completely calm and damn near like a surfer. The woman with the gun, I'm assuming now that her name was Mary,

completely changed faces and reached down to help me up and said that she was sorry. She then seriously started laughing at the whole thing. She thought it was the funniest thing to happen to her all week. She was cracking up and just saying that she almost killed a kid over nothing. I just nodded and said that it was okay, and I tried to chuckle along with her. Then Ken walked over to us and looked through the bags to make sure all his pizzas were there. Again, like nothing had just happened. He counted them out and said they were all there,

and that he appreciated me bringing them. because his car was in the shop. This was the most awkward conversation that I had ever had with anyone, confirming that all the food was there while thinking that I was going to need a change of pants, while the woman that nearly blew my head off was chuckling and slapping her legs in a laughing fit. Ken then nonchalantly handed me a $5 bill and said that it was for my troubles, and then said that Mary wasn't normally like that. she was just having a bad morning.

I took the money and made it away from that house as quickly as I could. I have no real way of explaining the feeling I had afterwards other than pure adrenaline. The whole way back to the store, I was shaking, my heart was racing. I got back and told my manager what had happened, and he said he would make a note of it on their account, but that he couldn't blacklist them. thankfully they never did order for delivery again and while I did see Ken come into the store a couple of times I never saw Mary ever again thankfully surprisingly enough I did keep doing the job for another year after that but only because I needed the money once I had saved enough I got out of there and I moved to a nicer town on the other side of my state and now

the only reason I ever go back is so I can see my mom for her birthday or for Christmas. I've had paranormal experiences since I was young, and this one was pretty creepy. My husband and my two-year-old daughter had moved into a semi-new apartment complex. I was a stay-at-home mom. I first noticed that the lights flickered in the hallway

and the TV would turn off on its own. I always felt uneasy being alone in the apartment. It felt dark, although it had lots of windows and there was plenty of light during the daytime. One very early morning at the break of dawn, I heard a jingling of tags from a pet, something jump onto the bed, do circles in the comforter and lay down by my legs. I grew up with a dog sleeping with me and thought, The dog is asleep now. But we don't have a dog.

I bolted up. There was nothing there, and I thought that it was a dream. I decided to switch bedrooms with our daughter as she had the larger one. One night, in the other bedroom, I was asleep early morning again, and the covers kept being tugged off of me. I'm always cold in a light sleeper, and I finally woke up, and the covers were moving on their own. My husband woke up and saw it too. they were being pulled down off of us. Didn't go back to sleep that morning either.

A couple of weeks later, I had a dream where someone said, Do you want to see a ghost? And I said, sure. I got out of bed and walked into the living slash dining area. I looked to the right and noticed that our apartment was filled with old antique furniture and was decorated with someone else's things it looked like. Confused, I turned my head to the left dining area and saw an old gray woman crouched over what appeared to be a desk.

We had a dining table set there. She turned her head and glared angrily at me. And it scared the crap out of me, and I woke up. I was rattled for days. A month or so later, we were sitting outside talking to the upstairs neighbors, a mother and a daughter. She went on to say that the former tenant, in our apartment was an elderly woman who was a piano teacher

but they made her stop having students to the apartment because of the traffic in the parking lot taking up parking spaces and the noise from the piano playing. She also said she was an extremely angry old woman and that she had died in the apartment. I froze and said

did she have a little dog that died there too? She said yes she did with a puzzled look on her face, like, how did you know that? I didn't even go into my experiences because no one ever believes you and writes off these experiences as sleep paralysis or something else. But the apartment was haunted.

We were only there for a year and then we moved, and I never saw that old woman again. I have a fairly short and really weird story about one time when I used Craigslist to find a rental. At the time I was living with my aunt and uncle, and I was working to find a new place. They weren't really pushy about me getting out of their home, but they were definitely wanting their space back. I appreciated them letting me stay, and I could take a hint, so I decided I would go and try to find my own place. Enter Craigslist, the world of weird people selling things at a low price.

I decided that I would hop on to the internet's version of Kmart and see what was readily available nearby. On the plus side, I didn't have much to move. I could get it all out and in within a few hours. It was really just a bed, a dresser, and a fish tank. Everything else could fit in my duffel bag. Obviously, with only that going for me, I was looking for a small place to stay,

like preferably a studio or something. After searching, talking to a bunch of weirdos and blocking a few numbers, I found what looked to be a dream come true. A fully furnished, ready-to-move studio apartment that was in a decent part of town. I contacted the owner, and after a quick chat on the phone, we had set up the time for me to move in that following Monday, so long as I could watch.

him the deposit money by Friday before. At that time, it was Wednesday, so I had two days to get him the money. Thankfully, I had this plan for a little while, so I did have some cash set aside to get this all done. And he only wanted $500 for the deposit, which was going to be a bit more than half the rent per month. After discussing it with him and sending him the money via whichever transfer app we used, he had mentioned that the deposit would cover the first month. It was the middle of the month, so it was good with me, and that on the first of the month I would owe my normal $750.

I was perfectly fine with this arrangement. Monday came around and I showed up with my truck filled with my few items and my clothes. When I got there, he was standing outside the studio apartment, and we chatted about the location as he gave me a quick tour. It was a nice little place, perfect for me, and it had everything I could have ever wanted. I actually asked him about the furnishings, why he was renting it out with everything in it, and by everything I mean everything. There was a TV with a console connected to it, a stereo on the side of the room,

and a bookshelf loaded with some pretty popular books. He then mentioned that he used to rent it as an Airbnb. be, which is why it was fully furnished, and that he was just tired of dealing with random people like that, so he wanted to rent it out to an actual, long-term tenant. It sounded like a really good arrangement to me at the time, so I thanked him, told him I would have the rent to him on the first of the month, signed his contract that he had typed up, and that was it. Well, that wasn't actually it. In fact, it was not it at all.

I lived there for a total of three days, from Monday to Wednesday. On Wednesday night, I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I heard somebody talking out in the hallway of the apartments. I figured it was just the neighbors, until I heard a key hit the lock. And then the door opened. I cannot express the awkward moment. moments that followed.

The couple that walked into the apartment looked at me like I was a robber. I was looking at them like they were breaking into my new home, and I think we all just kind of wanted to scream in terror. They asked who I was. I told them I was the tenant. I asked who they were, and they said they were the tenants. Long story short, and after a lot of loud talking and confusion, We figured out what happened.

They were the real tenants. They had been out of town for a couple of weeks. I was actually not the tenant, and was basically sold an occupied unit by somebody that didn't have the rights to do so. I showed them my lease, and they showed me their much more official-looking lease. I showed them the messages and the email and the proof that I paid someone, And, well, they lived there, so they didn't really have to show me anything.

What was worse? They did not know the guy that I had paid. The app that I paid him with said his name was something like Mario. And they really had no clue who the hell he was. We ended up getting the police involved so that we could make a report for the whole situation because it was so messed up. In the end, I apologize. for eating their food and using their furniture,

and we agreed that I could leave my stuff there for a couple of days so that I could move back into my aunt and uncle's house, mostly just my fish tank and dresser, as they were heavy and hard to move. Thankfully, they were incredibly polite with me, considering I was basically an intruder in their home, and thankfully they believed me and didn't resort to violence or anything like that. Unfortunately,

I was never able to get a hold of the landlord, or I guess supposed landlord, to give him a piece of my mind. And I was out $500. I did keep in touch with a couple that actually lived there, and they never figured out how the guy got the key to their apartment. And they had the actual owner change the locks immediately. So that's my weird story about the time that I rented a unit that wasn't, really for rent. I ended up finding a place that was legit on Craigslist and moved in. And thankfully, there were no more late-night surprises.

I know this story wasn't terribly creepy per se, but it's still scary to think that this guy had the wherewithal to coordinate this while the couple was out of town. And worse yet, he had the key to their place without their knowledge. In the end, it's just a good. one of those weird, creepy life lessons. This happened in November of 2021. Me and a friend, both 20 female at the time, attended EDC Orlando.

The first day slash night was amazing. The second day there was a completely different vibe. Tons of people there looking like they just came to party because they heard about the event. That night while leaving was, terrifying, as there were tons of creepy men cat-calling us on the way to the shuttles. We had bought a ticket for a home base after-party that also had a shuttle pass. On the way to the shuttles, we were asking all the people checking shuttle tickets, which one we were to go to, and they kept saying all the way down to the right.

We got to the last one, and they said the same thing. We continued to walk down, and there were a bunch more sketchy-looking. shuttles with signs saying home base unofficial shuttles followed by more sketchy men trying to get us on and we kept walking and found a long line for a shuttle with people saying it was going to home base as we get to the doors the shuttle there was a man with the bulletproof vest and walkie-talkies my friend asks him what unofficial shuttles meant and he said it was just because home base wasn't actually linked with EDC. He tried to scan our passes, and it didn't go through, and he talked to someone through his walkie-talkie,

and they decided to let us on. Mind you, we are rolling at this time, but I'm still very aware of my surroundings, and was uncomfortable getting on to the shuttle based on everything we went through to get there. The shuttle was supposed to take us to window, resorts. On the way there I was paying attention to every street sign and looking at everyone else seemingly high out of their minds, and sleepy from the long day that we had just had. We arrive at a Best Western Hotel, and everyone gets off, including me and my friend.

We begin to walk not knowing where we're supposed to go, and the entire hotel seems empty and ghost town-like, with a seemingly homemade, home-based, sign. We turn around and see absolutely no one from the shuttle that just came off with us. We see a man coming from the back dark parking lot walking towards us. We turn around again and see two men walking towards us as well. We decide to just stand there and wait to ask them a question about where we're supposed to go, but as all three approached where we were, they shook hands and said, Oh, what's up, bro? How you been? Staring at us, the entire time.

That interaction scared us, as we felt that they didn't really know each other, and were trying to get us, so we just extremely fast walked to the parking lot, and came right out at a drive where it was fully lit. We got an Uber and went straight back to the hotel. Safe to say, the next day we went sober. I have a story that happened just a couple of days ago, on January 20th, at a moment, around 2 to 3 a.m. I just want to write it to see if anyone has seen anything similar.

So me and my boyfriend went to park at a parking lot, right by a church. We were in his Jeep facing the church, and he was telling me his past life story, and I was listening to him talk because it was something heavy that was on his chest, and he felt he needed to let out to me. He works night shift, and was on break, so he gets a call to come back to. work at three. So we're pulling out of the parking lot, and we noticed three deer. And there was an alleyway that went toward the direction to where you can get a good glance at them. My boyfriend asked me if we should pull in to see the deer, so I said yes, and we did. We parked there for

a minute straight staring at these deer, and two of them were male, and one was female. But it kept walking while the other two male deer stopped and stared. We just looked at them, and it was cool, and then we backed out with the headlights facing towards the third deer standing there. We stopped, and my boyfriend stared at it and said, That's an ugly, weird-looking deer. I looked, and it did not look normal at all. It stared back at us, but this stare looked so eerie.

This deer had a white face from the bottom to its eyes, and its nose was pushed downward like a flat face. The eyes were facing directly straight toward us, and not sideways as a normal dears would have. The body was that of a deer, and my boyfriend continued to stare and examine this thing, and I was questioning, like, is that a deer or a different animal?

And he's like, no, that's a deer. I stared at it and told my boyfriend, and why are we just staring at it, and I looked away because I didn't want to stare at it anymore. I told him to go, and we left. I was just like, that deer did not look normal, and he was like, you saw that too, right? I had the chills all the way back home.

He told me to not tell anyone what we saw, and tried to convince me that we had only seen the two male dears, and not the third one to help me feel not as. scared, considering I was going home alone. I got home safe and went right to sleep. The next morning, me and my boyfriend talked about it, and agreed what we both saw, and then stopped talking about it because I can still see how it looked in my mind. But that's my story.

It's just been on my mind because I've never seen anything like that in my life. We are next to a reservation where we were, and I'm not sure if this is relevant, but maybe 30 minutes before we left, there were coyotes in the field whining, and we rolled our windows down to listen to them, and they stopped, so we had just continued talking. I've been bouncing between a few different dating apps for a few years now, and while I'm still not in a long-term relationship, it hasn't all been bad. I've at least met a few people that have become good friends, but I did have one date that was very memorable for different reasons. I'll start by saying that I found my date on an app that was heavily used by the LGBT community. I'm a female, and I ended up coming across a woman that I'll refer to as Jody. She was gorgeous. She had a few pictures on her profile.

but her bio was kind of lacking. She gave a few things about herself and what she was looking for in a partner, but that was about it. Unfortunately, I'm used to seeing a fake profile on occasion and catfishers, so I was hesitant, but I guess I was thinking that I would either find a good date or find another account to report. I was surprised when I got a response back within a reasonable amount of time, and it didn't seem like a canned response. She greeted me and made small talk about herself and what her interests were.

She even apologized if she seemed dull and short-answered, as she explained that she was new to this and just recently accepted who she was. This made me feel a bit better about her being a genuine person, because it's normal for people to be withdrawn and shy. So, I was ready and willing to take her under my wing and help her feel comfortable with herself. We started talking more, and quite frequently, daily even. It all stayed within the app, though, as she said she wasn't ready to talk or text via phone. I could understand that, especially if she hadn't come out to her friends or family yet.

So it was probably about three weeks of us talking. I wasn't too confident that we would. would ever meet, or at least not in the near future, so I started accepting the fact that she may just be a new friend, which was fine. However, she did finally ask about meeting up, casually, for drinks or something, and I was all for it. Jody and I agreed to meet at a bar and grill that was about midway for both of us. She was already there when I showed up, and she looked just like her photos. Except her hair was a little longer.

She was sitting at the bar, looking around the front for what I would assume would be me. I walked over to her and she hugged me immediately and had the biggest smile on her face. We ordered drinks and wings and just continued our conversation from the app. It was like we knew each other for years. We could finish each other's sentences,

we had the same sense of humor, and she just genuinely seemed to have a lot of fun. Like, I could tell that this was the true Jody. This was who she wanted to be. She grabbed my hand a few times and said that she really appreciated me being so patient with her. It wasn't a big deal to me. I would like to assume that anyone meeting new people would do the same,

but I know that we don't live in a perfect world. Now, the date was going great, perfect, even in my opinion. But one thing that I noticed was how her phone went off quite a bit, and she would constantly look down at it. However, other than looking at it or swiping the notifications away, she stayed off of it. I'm sure many people would find it rude, and if she was constantly on it, I would probably have a different opinion on it, but I couldn't help but notice that we'd be able to find it. When she did look at it, her mood seemed to change.

Her smile would slowly fade, and then she would look back up at me and smile. At some point in the night, her phone lit up with the phone number that I couldn't see the name on. It was pretty obviously a phone call. It was obvious that it was getting to her based on her size and how her swiping to dismiss it was getting more and more eccentric. So I just told her if you need to answer someone, I totally get it. She immediately started apologizing, and I assured her that I was not upset. It just seemed like maybe it was important, and I suggested that she take it if she needed to. She thanked me, and excused herself saying that she would be right back.

I watched as she walked to the front and started talking on her phone. From the look on her face and her hand motions, I could tell that this was not a pleasant conversation. When it was finally over, she walked back and again apologized for it, and now visibly upset, she explained that it was her ex, and that they had split up over a month ago,

but they wouldn't leave her alone. Given the situation we were in, and since she didn't say much more about them, I just assumed it was a bitter ex and I didn't want to ask because she obviously didn't want to talk about it. So we pushed it aside and continued with our date. After we finished our last drinks, we decided to head out for the night.

I was pretty smitten with her, so when she looked down at her phone one more time and asked if she could spend some more time at my place, I agreed. She wanted to leave her car there and just get a ride home with me. We walked to my car, got in and continued our conversation on our way home. The parking lot at my apartment was pretty limited, and since I was getting back late, I was going to have to parallel park.

There was a car behind me, so I rolled down my window to let them go by before I started. As they were passing, they slowed down almost to a stop right next to me, At first, I was about to make a comment about them being in the way when Jody said, Oh, my God. And then exclaimed that that was her exes car. It was too dark for me to see a person inside. They may have had tinted windows, too. It was kind of hard to tell.

But they did have a lighter colored stripe down the side of the car, so I assumed that's how she could tell. I definitely was not ready to deal with an ex on a first date, but was ready to call the cops if necessary. So, after they finally passed me, I parked and got out, ready for confrontation with some crazy lady. What I did not expect was this burly football player guy to get out of the car. Crap. All I could think in my head was he wouldn't start a fight with a girl, right?

He immediately yelled at me, demanding to know who I was and what Jody was doing with me. Before I could say anything, Jody jumped in and said that I was a co-worker, that we had just had dinner, and that I was going to show her my guinea pig because she was thinking of getting one. I did have a guinea pig, though, so I guess that really wasn't a lie. I just stood there, letting her talk to see where this would lead. However, as his tone became more and more aggressive, I put my keys between my fingers and unlocked my phone. She was over on my side of the car, so as he got closer and closer to her, I could tell that she was visibly shaken.

I really didn't like where this was going, so I approached them, saying that he needed to step back, but before I could finish, I was punched in the jaw with enough force to make me. fall backwards. I was trying to regain my composure and trying to figure out what exactly just happened when I heard Jody's screaming. I stood up and I saw that she had run to the other side of my car and this guy had just grabbed her by the hair and was dragging her to his car. I was terrified. I'm far from being a small girl, but there was no way I was going to be able to stop

this guy. I quickly dialed 9-1-1, but thought that I needed to do something right then and there for her. There was no way of knowing what would happen to her if he left with her, if he was willing to deck a total stranger and a girl at that. So I ran at them screaming for someone to call for help, shouting out my address and grabbing Jody from the fronts to hold her back. I was trying to hold her hair so that it wasn't ripped out, but he was fighting me the whole time.

Thank God someone walking their dog noticed this and immediately ran over to us. He started fighting with the X and the dog was biting ankles until he finally gave up. He let go of Jody, and he turned his anger on this good Samaritan. He didn't really get any hits on him before the cops showed up, though. He was detained and I sure as hell pressed charges.

Once he was out of sight, We all talked to the cops, and that's when I learned that this guy was just as abusive to Jody behind closed doors as he was to us that night in public. Jody had finally gotten the courage to split up with him, but he didn't accept that. She was very apologetic and embarrassed, but it's not like it was her fault, so I still invited her in to calm down. We talked more that night, and she did end up staying. so that way she knew that she had a safe place to go, in case he somehow got out. To sum it up, Jody and I became pretty close. A romantic relationship didn't really work out for us, but she's become a really good friend.

And, in fact, we now live together. I at least was able to convince her to file a restraining order and block him on everything, so that she could finally stop hearing from him. I do joke with her, though, that that was definitely the most memorable first date that I have ever been on. About 15 years ago, I had something happened to me that has haunted me since the day that had happened, and I genuinely do not have an explanation for what exactly it was or how things went the way that they did. This is the only time anything like this has ever happened to me, And for that, I am thankful, mostly because the outcome was not a positive one.

And with how everything compounded within a short period of time, I was honestly ready to give up. Obviously, I'm glad that I didn't, but I was ready to. Let me explain how it all went on that day. As I said, it was a decade and a half ago, so it would have been back in 2007. Back then, on Sundays, I used to get together with a few of my girlfriends so that we could get brunch and a local hangout spot that we really liked. It was decently priced, in a good part of town, and they had really good food for their brunch menu. When we went during the warmer months, we would always take one of the seats that was on the front patio, as it was always incredibly comfortable sitting outside and having our meal.

It had pretty quickly become the main thing that I would look forward to every week, as the girls that I spent time with were my best friends from high school, and we would just talk and gossip about whatever was on our minds. On this particular day, we were there eating and just talking about our weeks. Then I noticed a man that was sitting on the ground in the nearby park, just propping himself up against one of the brick retaining ones. walls. This is not a judgmental statement, but he did appear to be homeless. And by that, I mean that he looked like he was a bit unkempt, his clothes were dirty and a bit ragged, and he just had that weathered look, you know the one, like he had been through a lot and was just doing his best to get through it all. Again, there was zero judgment on my part. He just kind of fit the appearance of what I think of when I think of a homeless man.

I will say that my area doesn't have a large homeless population, so he definitely stood out and caught my attention. After noticing him, I went back to the conversation with my friends, and we were just kind of chatting, and then I looked back over at him, and I noticed that he was looking straight at me. As soon as we met eyes, he looked at him. He looked at him. He looked at him. He lifted his hand and gave me a slight wave. At first, I wasn't sure if he was actually waving at me, but when that thought entered my mind, he nodded, as if he knew that I was thinking it,

and he was telling me that he was, for certain, waving at me. I felt obligated to wave back, and as soon as I did, the man stood up from where he was resting across the street and started heading toward us. One of my friends asked if I knew him, and I mentioned that I didn't, and they were all kind of asking why he was coming over to us. And again, I said that I didn't know. I just kind of sat there in silence as he approached,

kind of like I was in a trance. I didn't know this man. I had never seen him, nor met him, nor spoken to him, but I felt like I needed to hear whatever it was he was going to tell me. He crossed the road, walked over to where we were sitting, and he actually knelt down right by where I was seated. He reached over, grabbed my hand, and he said, I am so sorry for what you're about to go through. Stay strong, don't give up.

Everything will be okay. Now, this in and of itself was actually terrifying. This man just walks up, kneels down, and gives me this cryptic and almost throft. threatening message, but it was even more so when he just stood up without elaborating and walked away. He didn't go back to the park. He didn't stick around the restaurant. He didn't say anything else. He just walked down the sidewalk until we couldn't see him anymore.

Obviously, my friends said that that was really weird, and they asked if I was okay. I told them that I was fine and just kind of agreed that it was weird. and they kept talking about the whole thing, but after a while I asked to change the subject because I was kind of starting to feel uncomfortable about it. Now, as I said, this was weird and kind of creepy, but what happened next was actually what makes this such a haunting situation. That week, the same week that this man told me that he was sorry for what I was going to go through,

that was the week that I lost both of my parents. It was exactly six days later on that following Saturday. They were out driving, just going out to do whatever it was they liked to do, and their car was struck by a drunk driver driving way too fast and swerving into the wrong lane. They were hit head on at too high of a speed for anyone involved to live. They both lost their lives, and the driver of the other vehicle died as well.

They were all three killed on impact. To say that dealing with losing both of your parents suddenly like this was hard is an understatement. It was devastating. It killed me inside, to be honest. I'm an only child, and I had to deal with all of their affairs and their estate and everything, and I was only 24. I had no idea what I was doing in my life, much less how to handle things after my parents had passed away. Dealing with their stuff afterwards wasn't the hard part, to be clear.

It was the fact that I had to sit there and try to do paperwork, and schedule funerals, and talk to lawyers, and I was in that deep pit that grieving shoves you into. I couldn't really focus on anything, and I was holding back sobbing literally every moment, that I was awake, which was all of them because, let me tell you, my sleep schedule was non-existent. I wanted to end it all, because my parents were my rock. I needed them for guidance in my life, and they were just never going to be there ever again. On the day of their funeral, my extended family showed up, and everything was so bleak. I felt like I was just empty.

I didn't know what I was going to do the next day. the next week, or if it was even worth continuing. As I was sitting there, mulling over the options, my uncle on my dad's side was up at the podium, saying some final words, and he caught my attention when he said, We have to make sure that we stay strong. Don't give up and remember that everything will be okay. When he said this, the thought of that homeless man reentered my mind.

Obviously, I hadn't really thought about him with all. that was going on, but at that moment he was all I could think about. I remembered what he had said to me and was again reminded of his words, considering my uncle had said them almost verbatim. I got through the hard parts by just reminding myself that things would be okay eventually, that it was okay to feel pain, that it was okay to have these feelings during this time, so long as I stayed strong and kept going. and for the sake of my parents I did keep going

I did stay strong and eventually things did get less painful I won't say that it ever hits the point where things are fine losing them is still devastating to this day but I'm able to live my life for me and for them and I'm able to keep a smile on my face and actually mean it most of the time that all said that day 15 years ago when that man grabbed my hand and said that he was sorry for what I was about to go through,

what was that? Was he clairvoyant, and he was able to see it coming? Was there some sort of otherworldly connection that he and I shared, and he was able to tell what was actually about to happen? Or was this honestly just a really weird coincidence? In the end, I obviously never saw him again. I tried to find him. But if I ever do, I will thank him for the heads up, and I'll thank him for the encouraging message that he gave me because, as haunting as it's been, it's also because of his words that I realized I needed to keep going.

If he was able to see the bad that was going to happen, then I have to assume that he was also able to see the good. And encouraging me to continue was his way of saying that he knew. Things would be okay. Before I moved to London, I used to live in a 1950s built house in Hampshire, UK. My parents had purchased it 99 from an old couple who had lived in it since it was built, so no one had died in it. The first thing that happened was that the cats wouldn't stay in the house. They would always bolt out for some reason. After my parents started renovating, my brother and I started feeling.

like we were being watched in the house. And at night in the living room, you would always feel like something was watching you through the new glass doors from the hallway or the stairs. After a while, if we were sitting downstairs, and we started hearing footsteps moving from my bedroom in the room above, walking to my brother's neighboring room, and then across the landing to the hallway to my parents' room.

My parents both dismissed it as the pipes cooling. or the floorboard settling, but you could distinctly tell exactly what boards the footsteps were treading on. At one point, some friends came over, and I was alone, and as you walked down the street you could see into our living room, they asked if I had relatives staying as they had seen people sitting on the sofa. Things started to move. You would place shoes by the door and then they would be under the stairs, or things like keys would be moved somewhere else. then it gets really creepy

one day I had run a bath and was listening to music on the computer and the study in the next room it had been a while and the music had stopped as the PC had gone into standby mode I had been in the bath for about an hour and I fell asleep and as the water had just gone past my nose

the music on the PC shot back on louder and woke me up bearing in mind that in those days you had to mash the keyboard or really jiggle the mouse to wake up the computer this saved me from potentially drowning I took this to be that whatever in the house wasn't bad however a few weeks later I woke up bolt upright like something had woken me up

it must have been around two in the morning my door was open to the landing and it was a bright full moon night shining through the hallway on to the brick landing. I looked, and to my terror, I saw an old man. But he wasn't standing up. It was like he was laying on the stairs in his head was at foot height, staring around the landing wall directly at me. The moonlight was on his face, and it haunts me to this day.

I closed the door and slept with my light on for the rest of the night. My parents sold the house in 2004 when they moved to New Zealand, and when I spoke to my dad about it later, he said that he knew something was in the house, but he hadn't wanted to scare my brother and I. He'd had his own experiences. He heard the same footsteps on the floorboards, and in the mornings when he would get up to make tea from mom,

he would hear footsteps behind him in the kitchen walking towards him, something brushing past him, and the taps would turn on by themselves. Years later, when I told him about the old man that I'd seen, he said that on a few occasions, he'd been in the lounge at night, and in the reflection of his reading glasses, he could see the exact same man sitting in the armchair behind him.

My dad is a massive skeptic, a policeman back in the day, and a no-nonsense project director. Apparently he was so freaked out, that he went to the public records office to see what our house had been built on. The area had been made up of an old mansion estate

back in Victorian times. And it looked like our kitchen had been built over a pathway leading from the old big house to an ice house outbuilding. He thinks that maybe it was the servants or whoever that walked that path.

But it was very spooky. So back at my mom's house, My room was in the basement, and the only way to get into the furnace room was through my room. The way my bed was set up when I was on my side, I could see directly into the furnace room because there was no door separating my room from the furnace room. So one night when I was laying in bed, I saw a cat walk out of the furnace room and kind of look around my room, and after I blinked, it was gone. So, after that, I talked to one of my friends whose family was friends with the people we bought the house from,

and she told me that their cat had actually died in the house. I'm not sure if it died in my room or not, though. Another time, I was suffering from an ear infection, but my mom would never believe me when I told her I was having problems. She always thought I was doing it for attention or being dramatic. So, again, I was not. lying in bed not able to do anything because of the pain. And there is a possibility that I was hallucinating from the pain, but I saw a man standing in my doorway. He was around average height,

but he was built and had wide shoulders. I was watching him for around 10 seconds. When I heard a deep man's voice ask me if I was okay, I didn't feel scared. It almost lessened the pain. and I fell asleep. Around a day or two later, my mom told me that she woke up to a man standing at the foot of her bed, and she felt him tapping on her foot. She told the man to go away, and after she said that,

she felt like she was being pushed into the bed. When she was describing the man, it matched exactly what I saw. The way that my house was, you would walk down the stairs, and then there was another staircase with like, four stairs that you went down, and that's where the furnace room and my room and the laundry room were.

So, one night, when I was in bed, I was looking at the laundry room, which was open. And I saw a woman walk in wearing a white dress. I remember her being pretty and not creepy at all, so I walked into the laundry room and it was empty. I went upstairs in the living room because my stepdad was still awake watching. TV, I told him what happened, and he said that he saw that same woman walk down the stairs. One time when I was home alone, I was sitting on the couch watching TV, and it was a couple of days after my brother's birthday. So he had one of those helium balloons in his room upstairs. I was watching

TV when I see the balloon floating down the stairs, and it stops right in front of me. It was like something was trying to play with me at first. I thought it could have just been an open window, but I realized that all the windows were closed, and it would have had to have left his room, floated down the stairs, and turned towards me to stop, which kind of freaked me out, so I told my parents, but they just laughed at me for getting freaked out by a balloon. Then a couple days later, the same thing happens to them. but the weird part was that they were sitting in different seats than I was, so I don't think that it was a draft or anything.

The last story freaked me out the most, but could also have been my imagination. I'm not sure. So one night I was in bed, and my stepdad had built a wall to cover the furnace room in my room, and then made a doorway outside my room in the hallway, so it was easier to get into. As I'm lying there, I can see the shape of a person peeking into my room and then quickly ducking back into the furnace room.

I watched whatever it was do that for around ten minutes. But the weird part was, it was really dark in my room. But whatever it was, was darker than the darkness, if that makes sense. I only saw that thing the one time, so I don't know if it was me imagining it or not. Hi. Just to give some description about myself, I'm a 20-year-old female. I'm fairly short, and because of my appearance, I often get mistaken for a minor. I live in a somewhat small town in California, and this town isn't really all that safe, but then again, most places aren't either. This happened when I was 19, by the way, just to clarify. Back to the story. When I used to to live in my previous house before getting kicked out by my D-bag landlord-uncle.

We didn't do anything bad. He just wanted money for himself. What a guy. I had a friend over that night. He was a good friend. I let him crash at my place because he didn't want to go back to his household from how insanely toxic and dysfunctional it was. But anyways, I let him stay. We had this idea to go to our local 7-Eleven that was right.

up the street from my neighborhood. It was about a nine-minute walk. When we went out, it was pitch black outside. And I know what you're thinking. Why the hell would you be outside walking at 3 a.m.? I'm not sure. We just wanted some snacks and some drinks since we were watching a movie, or a show, I can't remember.

But all I remember is that it was long. The walk up there was decent, and nothing creepy happened. But, hey, I'm walking out in the movie. middle of the night can be creepy, but I'm glad that I had someone with me. When we made it up there, we grabbed what we came up there for, which was a couple of sodas, and some chips. We paid for our snacks and left. That's simple, right? So, when we walked out of the 7-Eleven, there were a few ways that you could get to my house. The first was down the street, next to a church, which was initially a safe path to walk, I guess.

and the other was down a neighborhood that was just creepy, and I don't know why I did this, but I decided for us to take that path to go back home. After walking through the neighborhood, we walked past this elementary school. Now, I know this is weird, and it could be a guy just taking a midnight run, since I know some people actually do that,

but this guy wearing a blue shirt and black basketball shorts literally booked it like he was running for his life. Or, like, he was running away from someone. I could just tell. It was like a gut feeling. He disappeared into the dark elementary school and never returned. He probably just kept running or maybe was hiding from someone. I'm not sure, but after he ran off, there was this shady-looking car that just sat there for a moment and drove off.

Fast forward, my friend and I sat on a bench next to one of our local high schools. We sat there to sit for a moment and just talked about some things. I can't remember what. So here's the weirdest freaking thing. That shady-looking car from earlier apparently followed us, parked on the curb, and these three shady-as-hell-looking men opened the car doors and almost came out. They didn't see my friend until I jumped off the bench, and that's when they saw him. My friend is pretty tall and intimidating, so I guess when they saw him with me, they got back in their dinky-looking car and drove off.

I wish I was making this up, like some weird story, but no, this was a real encounter that did happen to me. We did make it home safe after all that happened, and vowed to never walk in the middle of the night to go anywhere. It was a better idea to have just went during the day, but I was pretty stupid. Again, I know this story sounds weird, but I'm telling the truth. I know it can be hard to take someone's word and trust them. I understand that a lot, but this was one creepy encounter I faced, and I'm glad I wasn't alone. If my friend wasn't there with me, I'm sure that I'd be dead, in a ditch, or worse.

Trafficking does happen often in my area, and I know that it happens in a lot of places. It's unfortunate. All right. Everybody with the knowledge of cryptids. I'm hunting for information on a cryptid that I'm not even sure has been marked down yet. There has been multiple sightings in my small town of Merrill, Michigan, something of which doesn't match a single cryptid I've read about yet, and I've read a lot. I personally have not seen it, so sorry for breaking that rule,

but I have three witnesses that I would put my life on, and I really wants to know about this thing. The first witness is my uncle, and he's the main reason that I'm on this hunt. When he was young, he used to take night walks in the neighbor's woods. Right before sunrise, as long as it was dark enough so no neighbors could see him. He would take a very dim flashlight with him on purpose, and if he thought anyone saw him or was following him,

he would put his hand over it and hide in the woods darkness. He claims that the main things that scared him were the raccoons and opossums. He never had problems with people on his walk, but he still knew the risks of trespassing. Though his story isn't very exciting, he got the best view of the creature out of all three witnesses, claiming that it only stood a few feet tall and had legs bent backwards with large, fly-like eyes, and the rest of it looked like a kangaroo and monkey hybrid. There are many cryptids that are close in visuals, but none of them have thick hair and big eyes like this one had.

I showed him drawings of other lookalike cryptids, and he's dismissed every one of them. He claimed that he was walking out of the woods, just as it was getting brighter. The sky was gray and the woods were still dark from the trees, but the road was almost visible the whole mile. On his way across the road, road back to the house, he saw that thing a little ways down the road. It's said to have crossed

the road in two steps, despite being short, and disappearing into the woods that my uncle had just exited. The second witness is deceased now. He was a natural conspiracist, so it came as no surprise when I heard his story years ago. Though his description was much less valuable, I have the belief that this was the same crypted. A couple miles away from the first incident, this man said that he had seen a small ape-like figure jump almost to

the top of the trees. This is the least resourceful sighting because I can't ask this man to answer anything he left out or to give any more information. This is all I have for his sighting. The third is my grandma's

good friend, Sylvia, from a state away. Every 4th of July they park a camper in my grandma's yard and stay for a week or two to visit all the friends and family they left behind when they moved out of state. And keep in mind, these folks have never even heard the stories of this creature, and for this story, I was in the house as it happened. Sylvia's husband had a few beers with my grandparents. There's a big tree on the side of a barely used road,

and he walked over to it to use the bathroom. As he was going on this tree, he noticed the same big, black, bug eyes that my uncle had seen. It was staring him down from the tree line across the road, and as soon as he focused on it, the cryptid backed up into the brush and was gone. Me and my uncle freaked out about this, as you would, because it had been six or so years since someone we knew spotted this. this thing. As crazy as it sounds, me and my whole family believe and know this creature. We've even narrowed down where it possibly calls home, based on how far the sightings go.

Sorry for the long and multiple paragraphs, but if you have any idea of what might be lurking around mid-Michigan, please leave a name of a cryptid or description or drawing. My family and I all want to know what so many of us have seen. Any ideas? I will say that there are more sightings. These are just the most reliable, believable, and descriptive. I have a really weird and creepy story from when I was a kid. And I really don't know what it was that I saw,

but whatever it was was not human. On top of that, I want to start this story with what I guess would be a trigger warning. This story is not a happy one. It does not involve a happy ending, but it does involve my childhood dog. If you choose to read this one, this should serve as a warning to your listeners that, if they can't stand things happening to dogs, it's recommended that they skip this story. So, this story happened back when I... was a kid. I believe that I was around 10 years old at the time, give or take a year. I'm in my

50s now, so it was a subjectively long time ago, to be honest. I'm sorry that I can't remember the exact year that this happened. At this time, I lived with my parents, my big brother, and my pet dog, Aries. Aries was a small dog, smaller than a retriever, but bigger than a Shizu. I don't remember what exactly he was, mostly because he was pretty much just a mutt. But he was a good dog, and he was very protective of me and my brother. When I say protective, I mean really protective. When my uncle came over, if he tried to give me or Brian a hug, Aries would bark and try to bite his leg.

That was actually why we called him Aries. He was like a little warlord. attacking anything that he didn't want near his family. Now, where we lived wasn't heavily populated, but I can't say that it was completely desolate, just that there weren't many houses in the area. There were a lot of woods, however, and with the woods come things like coyotes, foxes, and things like that.

I'd seen all that in my few years alive, and I knew what they were, how they looked, and what they sounded like when they cried. There were also claims of wolves and wildcats living in the woods near the house, too, though I had never seen any of those. This may all sound like I'm just rambling, but I'm trying to show that I knew what all these things were, and if what I saw was one of those,

I would have most likely been able to identify it. The first time that I saw this thing was one day when I was outside playing after school, It was the middle of autumn, and the leaves were starting to turn color, and it was starting to get a bit colder. I was out back, swinging a stick, probably pretending that I was a knight and battling for my made-up kingdom, when I heard what sounded like a person crying out behind my yard. This didn't sound like a child. It sounded like an adult was weeping out in the trees. Like they wanted to sob, but they were controlling themselves.

and holding it all in as best as they could. I remember that this caught me off guard, and my curiosity ended up getting the best of me. I needed to know why there was an adult out in the woods and why they were crying. I went over to the back of the fence, and I looked out into the woods, trying to see if I could find the person that was crying.

At first, I couldn't see anything. But after kind of glancing around the trees, I noticed that there was what looked like a man standing out in the woods near one of the trees, and I remember chuckling to myself because he looked like he was naked. Again, I was like nine or ten, so it was just kind of funny to me that this person was standing naked out in the woods like that. But as I kept staring, something about him felt wrong. He looked like he was too skinny to be alive, really. Like, his skin was the only thing blocking his skeleton from the wind.

And as quickly as I thought it was funny, I started feeling a bit scared. It was at this point that Aries started growling and barking at the person, and as soon as he did, this thing turned around to look at me. And I will never forget its face. It was flat, like there was no nose. His eyes were dark black. his mouth looked larger than a normal person's, and it looked like he had fangs,

or sharp and really cut teeth. I could see all of this from where I was standing, and he wasn't anywhere near me. That should tell you how much of an impact that visual had on me. I freaked out. I immediately ran back to the house. Ares was following me, but he was also stopping and barking at the back of the yard every few steps.

but after a few moments he ran with me back to the house. I had no idea what to really do with this event, so I just kind of sat in my room and had what I now know to be a panic attack. This thing was terrifying. It looked human, but it definitely wasn't. And it wasn't any of the aforementioned creatures. I remember my brother coming into my room and asking if I was okay, because he said he could hear me crying from his room,

which was a surprise to me, because I wasn't even aware that I was actually crying. I told him that I saw something in the woods that scared me, and when I tried to explain what it was, he said that it sounded weird, but that it probably wasn't a big deal, that it was just a sick animal or something. He was older than me,

so I assumed he was probably right, but deep down, I knew that that was wrong. Now, if that was the only time that I ever saw this thing, it would have been one too many times. But it wasn't. And the next time that I saw it was where things got worse. I want to add again that this second time is the disturbing event that I mentioned earlier, and this is your fair warning that things did not end well.

The second time that I saw it was about a week later. I was out back again, just sitting on my slide and staring out into the woods. After I saw that thing, I was actually scared to do much outside, but my parents were the type to tell me to go play outside all the time, so I would pretty much just sit there and stare out into the woods, seeing if this thing would come back. And, unfortunately, It did.

This time it was a lot closer. I was watching the trees, and I noticed that this thing was standing out in the woods, basically just crawling on its knuckles. This time, in a moment of stupidity and bravery, I actually shouted at it, telling it to go away. I don't know if I thought this thing would understand me or what, but that's what I did. When I shouted, this thing turned to face me.

and it started to do its weird crawl, walk motion in my direction towards the fence. Unfortunately, this was enough for Aries to freak out. He actually ran towards the fence and dug out the small spot in the corner and went under the fence out into the woods, barking aggressively and chasing this thing. The creature did start to run, I guess further into the woods, but Aries was unrelenting. and he kept chasing him. I started shouting for him, but he completely ignored me. I ran back to the house, and I shouted from my dad,

saying that Ares got out and was chasing something into the woods. I wanted to tell him that it was some kind of monster, some human-like beast, but the only word I could get out of my mind was something. I won't bore you with the conversation, and how he went out to call for him, beyond saying that my dad jumped the fence and went out into the woods looking for him while I stayed at the fence. After a while, he told me to go inside and get my mom, and to stay inside until they came back, which I did. I later found out that the reason he told me to get my mom and stay inside was because he did find Ares.

But what he found wasn't pleasant. They both explained to me that, Aries was unfortunately gone, and they then had to explain that things like this happened sometimes in nature. I tried to describe what the thing was that I saw, but they basically told me that it was likely something like a wolf that had gotten to him. I was insistent, but they just dismissed me and told me that they would bury him out in the woods and that it would be okay. Obviously, I was devastated. Aries was a good boy. He just wanted to protect me, and whatever the hell this monster was had killed him.

That was actually the last time that I saw this thing, and unfortunately my family just accepts that it was probably a wolf or something, and Aries just wasn't big enough to hold his own. But I know that's wrong. I know that this thing was some sort of humanoid monster, not a wolf. I hate that this whole thing was probably my fault. If I hadn't shouted at it,

it probably wouldn't have started approaching, and Aries probably wouldn't have gone after it. But I can't blame myself. Aries was trying to protect me from this thing, and he did his job, as it never did come back. I will always love and honor that pup as being the guardian that he was, and I will never forget what that thing was that I saw. That horrifying face and the disgusting frame that this thing had,

as it slowly approached me that day. A friend was recently telling me about his visit to the UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico. During the course of the conversation, I realized that he had never seen a UFO. So I told him about my first. It was late July or early early. August of 1978, a few miles west of Santa Rosa, California. I, my sister, and our two friends, who also happens to be sisters, were camping out on the back lawn and sleeping bags. Mom and my brother were out there with us as we were getting settled. I was at least 10,

probably closer to 11. This was beyond the suburbs, and there were only four houses within a hundred yards of our house, and only one who would have been in our range of sight in daylight. But the lights were off, and it was dark. We were talking and looking at the stars, and we noticed that one was moving on a vaguely northwest track. We figured it was a plane or a satellite. And then, it stopped. Planes and satellites don't just stop. It was pretty much overhead, too high to.

to be a helicopter, we couldn't think of what it could be. Now, I would say such a thing would be a drone, but this was 1978, so no drones. We joked that it was a UFO. It then moved again, a short distance southwest, at a right angle to its original path. Again, it paused still right overhead, and then it took off, just zip. It was gone, heading west. Weird, right? But wait, there's more.

After a bit, Mom and my brother went inside. Gradually, the talking slowed and we all drifted off to sleep. Sometime later, I was really groggy and trying to sleep, ignoring the headlights flashing behind the back fence from cars passing on the two-lane highway. Then, behind the fence, I saw a humanoid figure covered in tiny lights stepped from behind one tree trunk to behind another. The suit the figure was wearing was something like a reflective silver asbestos suit that my dad had from when he was on the crash crew in the Air Force,

complete with a draped helmet and a face shield, but it was also set all over with lights. Teeny, tiny lights, the size of rice greens. You shrug because you've seen lights this size all the time nowadays, but this was 1978. and the smallest Christmas tree lights for the size of your thumb. I only saw the figure once, and only for a moment. Eventually, the headlights behind the fence stopped swinging around, and it got quiet.

There had been some kind of vehicular noises back there, too. Gradually, I became more awake, and it occurred to me that there was an orchard, a hill, and a forest between us and the highway. It was a quarter mile away, and had very little traffic in broad daylight, much less the middle of the night. So, what were those headlights? And the figure? I'm going inside, I said.

Apparently we were all awake because, in moments and without discussion, we grabbed up our sleeping bags and we're heading in. Mom remembers the sound of us hitting the back door. She and my brother got up to see what was going on and hung around as we settled in the living room. I didn't say anything about what I'd seen. It was too crazy, too unreal. Just a dream, right? But wait, there's more. That camp out was the last hurrah before our big move.

Eight months later, and 2,000 miles away, halfway across the continent. My teacher was passing out the purchases that I and a classmate had made from the scholastic book order forms. One of my classmates had a book about UFOs that I had had. missed. I borrowed it in class and was reading, and then turned the page, and wham, not one, but two grainy black and white photos of figures like the ones in lights that I had seen behind the fence the summer before. I have no explanation. I talked to Mom about it the other day, and she's still stumped, too. Oh, and as a fun post-script, that friend that I was telling about this, the one who visited the UFO Museum in Roswell, he has a copy of that UFO book from

back then. It's not a huge surprise, as he's only three years younger than me, and he grew up 50 miles from my then-new school, but it's kind of a cool end to the story. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my experience, and if you have an explanation for either the UFO, the figure and lights, or what was happening behind the fence, please, do share. I'm still looking for explanations. Back when I got my first apartment, I was working at a retail store and I didn't make a lot of money. So I tried to get a lot of cheap, used stuff to furnish my place,

which meant a lot of thrift store shopping and Craigslist scrolling. I found several great buys on there, too. I got a practically new couch and chair, I got a kitchen set with pots and skillets, and even some window blinds. I had an older TV that my dad let me take from their place, since they didn't really use it. However, it had pretty bad screen burn.

It went from being rarely used to being used daily, and it was an older tube TV, so it was bound to happen. So I started browsing Craigslist again to see if I could find a cheap, flat screen. Even if it wasn't older or not in the best condition one, I thought it was better than nothing. After passing up several ads that were asking way too much or were too far away, I finally found one that was within my range.

The title said it was a 32-inch LG, and all they wanted for it was $50. They included a few pictures of it as well, and it appeared that there was nothing wrong with it, so I was trying to figure out what the catch was. I messaged them, inquiring about it, and their reasons made sense. They said they were moving out of states, so they were more so just trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff,

so that they didn't have to take it with them. I thought that this was a total win for me and started making plans to pick it up. I was planning to get it the next day because I still needed to get the cash, but they were adamant that I pick it up that day because they were going to be busy. No problem.

I just had to run over to the best. bank and drive out there, hopefully beating rush hour. I went and pulled out cash from an ATM to make it faster, but that meant that I would be giving them 60 instead of 50 since it couldn't do an odd amount. That was fine, though, since I was still getting this TV for a steal at the time. I then set up my GPS to the address given, and I made my way there. The place was about 40 minutes away in a city that I had rarely been to, so I was going to be heavily relying on my GPS.

When it said I had arrived, I had to go around the block as I had apparently driven right by it. By the third time, I finally slowed down and paid attention to the numbers on the surrounding houses to make sure I didn't miss it again. Then I realized that I was at the correct place, but why it was so easy to miss. It was because it was an abandoned house. There was a nice light blue house next to it, and then a smaller run-down home. One of the windows was boarded up, the front door looked like it was either missing or off the hinge because I couldn't see one. There was a driveway, but there were no cars in it, nor were their cars parked on the side of the road.

It may sound stupid, but I was trying to be reasonable in thinking that they did say they were moving. Maybe they were clearing out and renovating this place and they were getting rid of the stuff left behind. Or maybe the place was condemned but squatters were living there, and maybe authorities caught them and told them they had to leave. I was pretty much trying to convince myself any way that I could that this was reasonable, until I saw someone walk over and stand in the doorway. It was a dishevelled-looking woman. She had on some old, beat.

up looking hoodie with her hair in a bun. She then turned to look back in the house, and then looked back and pointed at my car. And that's when I saw the guy approach the door. This guy looked a little more intimidating. He was easily twice my size, also wearing a hoodie, but he had it pulled up so that I could barely make out his face. The guy started walking down the steps, this whole time while he was looking in my direction. Finally, my gut told me that I needed to get the hell out of there, so I burned out.

This didn't stop the guy from running towards my car as I drove away. I kept looking in my rear view the whole way home to make sure that I wasn't being followed. When I got back, I went to my computer and looked at the listing a little further. I zoomed in on one of the pictures, and the first thing that caught my attention was that it said the TV was an LG, yet the logo I saw had a V on it. So there wasn't even an LG TV. Then I noticed the window to the left of the TV. It was looking out to a street with the house across from it,

and the porch railing had snow on it. This all occurred in May, so there was no snow in sight, and there were no houses across from the one that I went to. It was an apartment complex and a few small shops. the house also didn't have a porch, let alone a railing. I obviously had some tunnel vision occurring, and I didn't really inspect or notice anything in the pictures beyond the TV. I don't know if this was a picture they took elsewhere,

or just one they took from the internet, or, hell, maybe even another listing on Craigslist. I was disappointed that I didn't get the TV, but even more disappointed in myself for almost falling, for what was obviously looking like a setup. I reported the listing and moved on. I ended up finding a TV at a local thrift store about a week or two later, and I pushed past the incident until I heard a story on the news.

They were talking about safety and precautions to take when meeting up with strangers, like from Craigslist and for sale offers and newspaper listings. Then they mentioned how there was another couple that was attacked after response. to an ad on Craigslist. They were meeting up to get something when they were robbed at gunpoint and one of them stole their car. Worse yet, their car

had their small child in it. This event took place in the same city that I went to for the TV. I was terrified and I thought that it could have easily been the same people that I saw and if I was stupid enough to get out

of the car, it could have been me. I know that they weren't too smart taking their child with them, let alone leaving them in the car, but they were all unharmed as they abandoned the car too, probably because it came with a small child. Don't worry, this definitely steered me away from this kind of stuff.

I still occasionally will get things listed on next door because at least I know the area, and typically only when I have one of my friends with me to help. just in case. Hello, Raven. I've been contemplating for a long time about telling this true story. Fifty years ago, I had a car accident with my wife, and she died. After 50 years, it's still tough to think about it,

but a lot of paranormal happenings happened because of it. If you want to use this on one of your paranormal videos, you can. Please tell me if you want to. I have no proof that this. happened except my words, so here's the story. This November 17th, 2023, will be the 50th anniversary of my wife dying in a car accident where I was the driver. I spent about a week in the hospital after the car rolled over me when I was thrown out of it. While I was in the hospital, family and friends would visit me.

one of the friends was Maria, who was a good friend with both Wendy and I. Later on, she told me that when she visited me in the hospital that day, something came over her and she started getting feelings for me that she had never had before. A few months later, we were at a mutual friend's house drinking alcohol, which I used to kill the pain of me losing Wendy for 30 years of chaos. We got to talking, and she made her to talk. and she made a move on me, and ended up at her trailer for the night. We went into her bedroom, laid on the bed, and all of a sudden, we start hearing a loud

heartbeat coming from the outside of the trailer. Boom, boom, boom. Then we started hearing scratching on the inside walls so loud that I thought Maria had a dog in her closet. I turned the light on, and there was no closet. I looked in the hallway where the bathroom was on the other side of the wall. I looked at it and it was empty. Well, that definitely ruined the night that we had planned on.

I kind of tried to stay away from Maria after that, but we hooked up a couple of weeks later. I was staying with my grandparents so I couldn't take her anywhere, so we hooked up at a friend's house. She was taking me home and a car started following us. I had wrecked my car, so I had wrecked my car, so. I was carless for a while, so she was driving. We drove around a little bit and the car kept following us. I told her to go back to Larry's, so I got out and looked at the car following her, and it was a dark car.

But for some reason, I couldn't see it. I couldn't clearly see it for some crazy reason with the streetlight right there at the house. She went to Larry's and ran into the house. Larry, Ricky and Maria heard the car pull up to Larry's house and heard somebody get out and the door close. Ricky grabbed the knife that he had at all times and ran to the door and opened it.

There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Well, I hate to tell you this, but I kind of started to stay away from Maria, and she came by one night to ask for help from me because she told me that Wendy was trying to possess her, to be with me. She told me when she looked at me in the hospital, she fell in love with me.

She never had those feelings for me before the accident. She asked for my help. I told her I would see what I could do. She drove me to Larry's house. I never stepped foot in her trailer again after the first night. We got over there and went into Larry's room to see what I could do. We sat on the bed, and all along the wall on the other side of the bed, blue sparks started to go back and forth along the wall.

I started saying, Wendy, you've died. And asking her to leave Maria alone. I looked at Maria and started to get turned on by her, but I felt the presence of Wendy, not Maria. I hate to tell you this, but I jumped up and had Larry take me home. I stayed away from her because it was too strange for me since I had just lost Wendy six months before that.

She caught up with me about a year later. Maria told me that she had a psychic helper out a few months after we saw each other. He told Maria the accident was so horrific. The car blew up that she didn't realize that she had died. He told Wendy to go to the light and gave Maria a necklace with garlic and sage to wear for five days, and it crazily worked. Years later, Wendy came to me after my grandpop crossed over, and she said that she saw my pops and my grandma together. She told me that she will be the first in line when I pass over.

All I could do was cry. I don't have any proof that this happened, but I would swear on my soul that this all happened to me, 50 years ago. We started having these thoughts a couple of years ago. What if when we dream, we travel to parallel universes? When my dreams were showing me stuff that my simple mind could not possibly make up on its own, lately when I've been dreaming, I believe I can travel to an alternate universe, but it's like the people around me can't see me,

but they can feel my presence, and they can hear me. I visited this place quite a few times in my dream. dreams. Everything is so vivid and I feel everything. In these dreams, when I'm in this universe, these agents are always trying to capture me. I hear them and I see them, but they can't see me and I'm super quiet when they're around. They look like FBI agents, honestly, but they have this kind of weird technology that picks up my frequency, I guess, because they always show up trying to capture me, and I have to hide with the other people who are guiding me where to hide from their government. Now, stay with me. I've always been told that I need to write a book or movies

with my dreams because they're so surreal detailed, and they have got to have some kind of meaning. So, when this alternate government tries to capture me, I always try to find a body of water, because if I can breathe under water, then I know that I'm dreaming and kind of put myself at ease. This morning, at 7.30 a.m. until 10.36, I dreamt of going to that universe. I was chatting with the people hanging out when the agents showed up. They had weapons, knives that they pulled up to the people's house that I was at.

They said, where's the being? We picked up her cell phone location. We immediately went to hide in some secret compartment inside the walls of the house. The government wouldn't leave. They barricaded the house and said that they are not leaving until they surrendered me. The people told me that, since I can't be seen, to run out the back door and hide in a nearby tent that grows vegetables. I did what they said, and then the agents came looking around everywhere,

poking every object with a knife. One agent actually glided the knife across my thigh through the tent, but said that he didn't smell any of my scent, so it was a cold trail. Sigh of relief. I told the people that I need to go back to my home because it's too dangerous there, because those agents were after me. So I jumped in a body of water. I tried to breathe underwater like I usually do, and I couldn't.

I immediately started freaking. out and swam to the surface. When I got to the surface, I saw the agent waving the little frequency thing around, and then he said, I got you now. We fell off the ocean, if that makes sense. And then I started falling, and he was falling with me still trying to locate me. As I'm falling, I could see the scenery changing erratically around me and under me. It was like my body was falling through different dimensions.

Anyways, as I'm falling, I keep squeezing my eyes shut as hard as I can to try to wake myself up. That's what usually helps me when I try to wake myself up, knowing that I'm dreaming. I feel my body trying to wake up, but I'm still falling and he's right behind me. Next thing you know, he slapped some kind of wristwatch on me and said finally. As the watch is ticking, I'm trying frantically to get it off of me as I'm falling, also trying to wake myself up. I finally got the watch off. He went into another dimension,

and I felt my soul drop back into my body, where I immediately woke up. Now, I've had many dreams like this, but only up until recently is when I've been visiting these places, and their government is trying to capture me. I'm so scared that if I get captured in my dream, than in this world I'll be deemed either dead or in a comatose state. Has anyone else ever had any experience like this?

I have had these very vivid surreal dreams since I was five, and I remember all of them, and could literally write a movie and countless books. I've dreamt where God has told me things I never knew, and I used to always have Satan on my back in my dreams until about a month ago. I literally killed him in my dreams, which I've never been able to do, and he's been messing with me since I was five. So, what does this all mean? It was Christmas time, and I remember that I had broken my ankle prior to this, so I was wearing my cast at this point.

The doctors gave me this shoe thing so I could walk without crutches. My cast was bright pink, which, looking back, why. Anyways, my parents and I were going Christmas shopping at Target, but we ended up literally buying some socks and shampoo. Not much. We didn't even get any gifts, so it was a waste of time. So we paid and we were leaving when I saw this mail just staring at our car.

We had parked in a semi-empty area. There were only a couple of cars. like he wasn't looking inside and snooping around the car he was just standing straight staring at the right side of the car now at that time we had this beige-brown color Ford Explorer it was a 2002 so I'm confused and we didn't have anything inside at all so I was even more creeped out

now I wanted to go back and get a security guard but My dad said that it was fine and he'll tell him to move and told me to get in the left side. I usually sit on the right side, so yeah. Now, we got there and this dude did not move. Even when my dad told him to move, he just stood and stared inside. My mom just said to get in the car quickly, and we did. We all got in and the man just stood there and kept staring inside. I felt his gaze on me because he was staring at the right side behind the driver's seat.

So since I got in, he was staring at me. But I didn't look. I just looked ahead of me, and at this point, I was kind of scared that my dad was going to hit him, because he was pretty close. So my dad backs up and is turning to get out of the parking lot. When we see the guy move and open the left side door, of the car. At that point, I screamed, and my dad just sped off. And when he did, the door closed because he turned, and my heart was pounding. As we sped off, we saw him just stand there and

start moving towards the entrance of targets. Now, I literally was having so many thoughts in my head, like, oh my God, what if he put a GPS tracker or something on our car? Because we didn't know how long he had just been standing there. But my parents were like, no, I don't think so, he was probably just some creep. That night I prayed, I was like, Lord, please don't let him track us

and stuff like that. I was terrified. Besides being scared and creeped out, we were fine. The next day, my parents had work, and they would usually take me since it was a Sunday. Well, to get there,

we had to pass the same target, and when we did we saw an empty parking lot with that same blonde long-haired white guy. When I say my heart stopped, I was terrified. Even my parents were shocked, and he was just there staring as we drove by. After that, we never saw him again. Now, this may have been six years ago, but, oh my God, that was so scary and creepy, and I never want to meet that guy again. And yes, we still go to that target, but we make sure to park where there are lots of cars.

I feel like this more so affected my mother instead of me, but being older now and also being a parent, I completely understand the fear and trauma that it would have caused her. This took place in a small rural town in Virginia. I won't say more than that out of respect for my mother, but if not for her, I would blast the head. hell out of the sky here. Anyways, my parents lived there as a kid with their parents, and I do remember the town because I remembered visiting my grandparents there often. But when I was about three or four, my parents moved out of there and into a larger,

more populated city, saying that they wanted more options for me when it came to schooling and friends, since the previous town was pretty secluded. As for school, I had always done well until I started high school. I struggled in history and algebra. I don't understand why, because I normally loved math, but for some reason, it was not clicking for me. The teacher was fine, but I can't say the same for history. They did nothing to help make anything interesting. He pretty much just made us read from this outdated textbook while he fell asleep.

sleep at his desk. My parents saw the struggle the whole way, because they had their own parent portal, and during one of the parent-teacher conferences, we all brainstormed some ideas. After some options were thrown around, we thought it would be best to get a tutor to help. Apparently, I wasn't the only one struggling in history, and until the board made changes, some students created a study group. It was basically just a group of students. students working together, and they saw improvements in their grade, so they asked me to try it.

I did like the idea, though, because it made me feel like I wasn't singled out. As for algebra, they did have tutor options through the school at no extra cost to my parents, so they suggested that I'd try that first. So, for history, they basically just told me to show up on Tuesdays in the library and let someone know that I was there for the study group, and then the algebra tutor was either a current or retired teacher that was volunteering. They tried to stay consistent as to whom

each student would work with to make it smoother, since everyone teaches differently. They told me that I would meet with the algebra tutor at the school as well on Thursdays. So, that following week, I went to the designated room and was introduced to Mr. Michaels. My algebra teacher told me that he was a retired teacher, but that he loved to help students, so he still volunteered for this,

or even subbed a few classes before. I think I remember seeing him in passing in the past, but I don't recall ever seeing him in one of my classes as a sub. So after a little talking between us and the teachers, and we finally got into the work. It was Mr. Michaels, myself, and about three or four other students. The first thing I remembered about him at that time was how patient he was,

and how much he actually seemed to listen to us. Granted, I had never been in trouble with school stuff before, so I was expecting to see some grumpy adult complaining how they didn't understand what we didn't understand, and that the work was easy, and then not actually help us. But instead, he broke down the equivalent. and really focused on the parts that we struggled with to help us understand it better. The more that I worked with him, the more confident I was feeling with my work and answers.

After maybe just a few weekly sessions, I was starting to see improvements, and my parents were really proud of me for sticking with it as well. They asked me how I was feeling about it, and I explained everything to them. I even told them about the tutor and how he was a retired teacher, but that I had never seen him before. As the sessions continued, I found myself just talking to Mr. Michaels more and more. The sessions would typically be about two to three hours,

but sometimes we would be escorted out of the school with security because we were staying so late. Sometimes there were other students that stayed behind with us, but usually it just ended with us in the room. So whenever it came close to the end of the first, semester, I wanted to do a pretty hefty review to make sure that I still understood everything, as well as fill out our little cheat sheet index card. We were all given one normal-sized index card that we could write whatever we wanted on, and have with us whenever we took our

midterm exams. I remember it was getting close to closing when I made a comment about it being easier if we just did this outside of school, like a library, or a cafe. Mr. Michaels didn't mind the idea either, so I went to use the phone that was in the room, cell phones weren't really a thing that many kids had at this point in time. My mom answered, and I explained to her what I was wanting to do. I could tell by the tone in her voice that she didn't really like this, and at the time, it kind of confused me. She was reluctant, but said that we could come home and continue working in the living room or kitchen if we wanted,

but she didn't want me to go anywhere else outside of the school. I was disappointed, but I told her I understood and hung up. I went and told Mr. Michaels about her response, and when I tried inviting him over, he said that he actually had things he needed to do as well, and he suggested that we just leave for the night and continue the session next week since we still had one more week left before the exams and when I went home that night

I was still upset and I explained to my mom as to why all she really told me was that since it was school related it was best to keep it at the school this was a weird statement to me some of us from the history studies group once met up at a local fast food place instead, and she was okay with it.

Why was she treating this so differently? Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately, I did mention that there were occasions where it ended up being just me and Mr. Michaels, and I felt bad that they weren't able to clean the room until we were gone, and that's why I wanted to go somewhere else. This immediately caused a switch to flip, and my mother, became visibly upset. She said, I thought you were there with other kids there with you.

How often do you end up alone with him? Is there anyone that ever goes in and checks on you all? I could tell that she was holding something back and not telling me, but since she was the parent, I wasn't going to push the matter. I just answered her questions honestly and watched as she became more and more visibly upset. She told me that I was not to meet with any adult alone ever again, and then told me that I needed to tell her or my dad immediately if it ever did happen. This obviously upset me as well. I was doing so much better, and I was so proud of the improvements that I had been making. But my mom couldn't seem to see that, and was instead getting upset about something that she suggested I do in the first place. I went to bed that night pretty mad and confused, and I hardly said anything to my parents before I left for school the next morning. Since I didn't see Mr. Michaels until the following week, I was in my normal happier mood at school and at home.

That next Thursday, though, all the emotions would come racing back when my mom surprised me with an early pickup from the tutor session. I would typically call her when I was done and she would pick me up as I waited outside. Mr. Michaels was pretty quick to leave after that, so he was never around by the time she got there. This time, however, she came into the school, and when she opened the door and made eye contact with all of us, all of the color drained from her face. She told me that we needed to leave right now and told me to pack up my stuff quickly. I was confused. She had never done this before, and this time we weren't even alone.

It was myself and Mr. Michaels, as well as another girl and a guy. Mr. Michaels stood up and just in a cold, non-personal tone said, see you later, and then turned his attention to the other two. He had been sitting by me at the time, so he had actually gotten up and walked closer to the others. I didn't understand any of this. When we got to the car, my mom's. took off quicker than I had ever seen her drive. And the first thing she said to me with a shaky voice was,

You are never to meet with Mr. Michaels again. Do you understand me? Not alone. Not with a group of people. Never. If you see him coming towards you, you walk in the opposite direction. I didn't understand what was going on at all. I kept asking her what was wrong and to explain to me because she was scaring me.

but I was also frustrated. Why was she doing this to me now? Again, as her voice cracked, I could tell that she was holding back tears as she said there are some things you just don't need to know about until you're older. I didn't even get the chance to really try and make any sense of this, nor would I ever be in a situation where I would possibly run into him again.

My parents kept me out of school for the rest of that week, and the next. Taking those exams were a pain, but at least I got it done. There were several meetings that my parents had with teachers and staff, but I was always left at home with my grandparents. At least we had the holiday break, so I didn't miss much school after that, but when I went back, I felt like I had so many eyes on me. Thankfully, my mom was already at the door waiting for me at the end of the day

because I didn't even like riding the bus anymore. after the school year was finished, we would move again and now even further from their hometown, hence the town in school that I had grown up in. It wasn't until I was older that I finally understood everything clearly. Mr. Michaels wasn't his real name, but it was just the name he went by at that school. I don't know if maybe he used his middle name or what.

However, he was actually a teacher at my mom's old high school from the first town. He was the type that tried to fit in with the kids and be cool and he succeeded at it. He got a lot of the kids to like him, including my mom.

Unfortunately, his intentions were a little more sinister. Over a period of a few months, he actually assaulted my mother, taking advantage of her when they were alone. It started when he gave her rights home and he was even brazening

enough to try that stuff at the school, all the while trying to convince my mom that it was for her own good so that she would pass. My mom ended up dropping out of high school because of this, and sadly her parents didn't believe her at first, until she talked to some other girls that confessed to being a victim as well. I'm not sure of all the legal details, but basically, he was never actually charged with anything because no one had the evidence. and then he fled.

He was pretty much nowhere to be found. Like, he just fell off the face of the earth, and of course, no one really cared. After my mom met my dad and had me, they wanted to move away due to all the bad memories of that town. They settled into a place, and that's where I grew up, and began going to school. I'm sure her experience was always in the back of her mind,

But she always went to the conferences and met any and all of my teachers and the staff to make sure that she was involved. Unfortunately, she never met the tutor, because there was never really an opportunity to do so. Not to mention, everything else at the school so far had been fine. I don't think anyone really expected the same creep to show up years later in a town and school several hours away under a different name. So, of course, it was quite the shock to my mom when she saw him in the room with me. Sadly, I assumed that he recognized my mom as well, because even with all the meetings and complaints she had with the school board, he was long gone. Again, no one saw him again, and apparently the contact information they had for him did not work anymore either. I don't know if he had any sinister plans with me or any of the other kids,

but it just makes me sick these days knowing that I was in the same room as him, and alone at that. Not to mention that now he's gone, he could literally go anywhere. I don't think it would be fair to call me paranoid either when I say it's never a bad idea to be suspicious of anyone, especially adults that are around children or other vulnerable people. And, most importantly, not only do I hope I never see him again, but I hope he never sees another child. The story is really reaching back to a time before all the dating sites were really a thing,

and way before smartphones and apps were the center of our lives. Back then, before everything was so simplified, I used to be a longtime member of a certain IRC. For the kids out there, that's internet relay chat room. These were chat rooms that were more or less embedded on websites, and they were pretty much anonymous in the fact that all you really had to have was a display name, and not much else. Hell, most of them had a feature that would let you join in as an unnamed guest, and the rooms would sometimes be filled with guests 04, 235, and such.

They were a lot of fun. And I kind of miss those days, but nowadays the internet is all about look at me specifically. So the idea of anonymity being a core concept is relegated to pretty much just the dark web. Now, despite the fact that there was this layer of anonymity with IRC chat rooms, it was actually quite common to, quote unquote, find love while chatting with these people. There was a direct messaging system, too, so you could have conversations one-on-one. And you could get to know the person on the other end pretty well, even if there was no way to confirm literally anything they told you or said.

I'm certain that some of the people I spoke with, what were interested in me, were probably 60-year-old guys pretending to be women in their 20s. And that's okay. I could safely say that this was a long time ago, Or that that was the old me. Now, there was one person that I spoke with in these chat rooms that I actually did have a bit of a relationship with, albeit only for a couple of months. Her username was the title to an evanescence song, with some X's and numbers thrown in the mix. But I can safely say that her actual name was Taylor.

Taylor was a year older than me at the time. I was 21 and she had just turned 22 when we met and had started speaking. I don't remember why we started talking one-on-one, but we did. And after a while, things seemed to get to a point where we both wanted to start a relationship. Now, long-distance relationships back then were a bit different than what they are in 2023. long-distance phone calls were expensive, and cell phones had set text and talk minutes, so it wasn't like you could be as close to the other person as you can in the current year. Because of this, we had our IRC conversations, and we also had emailed each other a few times.

And, before anybody mentions that Taylor was probably one of the 60-year-old men that liked to roleplay as a young woman, I actually knew that Taylor was legit. We had sent pictures to each other, including picks, to prove that we were real. This was essentially a picture with the date, time, and our username, written on our hands in Sharpie, and covering one of our eyes. Yes, things were that complex back then. You had to be creative to come up with something that was difficult to fake, to prove that you were who you said you were. Now, all of this is to say that Taylor was gorgeous. She was exactly what you would think of when I say,

22-year-old girl with an evanescence username that likes to talk in IRC rooms. Died black hair, bright blue eyes, liked the color black on everything, had a few face piercings, and let me tell you, I instantly fell in love with her. I even told her that she was literally the girl I was looking for in life, and she thought that that was the funniest thing ever. From there, we did say that we were dating, actually.

We would chat every night, send pictures of ourselves through email, and while things never went past PG-13, this was the happiest I had ever been in my life. We had our little relationship for almost three years, months on the dot, and everything seemed great, until there was a stretch of time that she just didn't log in. I didn't see her in our chat rooms, and I would email her, but she wouldn't reply. I was genuinely upset, thinking maybe something happened to her, maybe she wasn't really as interested in me as she had claimed. I was almost heartbroken, thinking I had messed this up,

and that this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing that I had just ruined. I kept emailing her every night just hoping she would see them or maybe send a response like, oh, my internet was out for a few days, sorry about that. Or I was out of town. I was basically holding out hope that she would say anything to bring it back together. And then I did get a response, but it was a rather strange one. It was just, hey, hop on IRC. It actually made me almost giddy to hear from her again,

so I did what she requested and logged in. Immediately she sent me a DM saying hello. I replied, asking how she was, and if she was okay, she completely ignored those messages and just said, What's your address? I want to send you something. I have to pause here to say that I was dumb. And I was in love with this girl, so I didn't hesitate at all in giving this random internet person my address.

Nowadays, I would be lambasted for doing something so stupid, and rightfully so, but back then, there really wasn't this concept of internet strangers are not your friend. So I responded to her, told her my address, thinking that this was maybe the start of us moving into something a little more. more serious. Of course, the response that I got back was not what I expected, nor what I wanted. The message that I got back from Taylor was clear as day, and I actually remember it word for word. This is Taylor's husband. Stop messaging my girl, or else you'll be next. And that was it.

What I would be next for was anybody's guest. but this was pretty clearly a threat. I mentioned that she never told me she was married, and then mentioned that she and I were really good friends, and if he was really her husband, I would respect that. After a few moments of silence, they logged out of the account, leaving me confused, devastated, and just overall feeling kind of betrayed.

That was the last time that I ever spoke with that account. They never logged back into the server, and Taylor never responded to any of my emails. So that was effectively the end of my relationship, but not the end of the story. About two weeks later, I actually got a package at my house. The return address just said, Taylor. There was no address or city or anything like that. It was just her name. I hesitated to opening it, thinking that it was going to be something messed up, and, well, it was.

When I opened the box and moved all the packing materials, there at the bottom of the box was a kitchen knife, and on the blade of the kitchen knife was a hard, crusty, brown-red substance, that I assume was blood. I immediately called the police, asking them to send an officer to my house, because I had gotten a package with a potential murder weapon. That was a really fun story to try to explain to the officer when he got there. Not going to lie. I had to tell him that I had met a girl on the internet and that we were dating, but then her real-life husband

had threatened me after I gave him my address, and then today the package showed up. I feel like if I had to tell this story to an officer this year, it would be less strange, but back to the case. but back in 2003, it was like explaining foreign concepts, and they had a lot of questions. I ended up having to go to the station to pretty much be interrogated, and after answering questions for about four hours,

they decided that I was probably telling the truth, and they took the knife, saying that they would look further into it. I don't know what they were looking into. All I had was her first name, online username and a picture of her. I have no idea if their investigation ever went anywhere, nor do I know if that blood was human.

But it was definitely sent to me as a threat, and it told me what he meant when he said I was next. All of this was 20 years ago. And looking back, I do kind of miss the old internet. Hopefully this can trigger some nostalgia for your older audience. and maybe educate your younger audience on how things used to be. Remember kids, don't tell strangers where you live, or you may end up with a bloody knife in your mailbox.

There was a time in my life when things were really bad. Like, I was homeless and living as a vagabond. Getting food from trash cans, begging people for change kind of bad. This was a long time ago. and I'm doing a lot better in my life now, but this point in my life was really low. And while some may say that I could have been hallucinating or seeing things, I was not a stereotypical hobo. I didn't do any sort of drugs.

I didn't drink. I just struggled to get through every day, and what led to me being homeless was out of my control. I'm not going to get into all that because it's, not really important. But I will say that I was basically living in a rust bucket with four wheels that barely ran. Back when this happened, most cities weren't really bothered by people sleeping in their cars like they seemed to be today. And so long as you were out of the way and not bothering anybody, you could pretty much just stay where you were for the night.

No one would really care. back then, because I was sleeping in my car, I typically tried to park it somewhere that was away from people and wouldn't be an issue for anybody. There was one spot that I liked specifically that was in a small suburban area that was only sort of incorporated. It was mostly residential, and there were woods that pretty much surrounded the streets.

Like, there were a good number of houses, but if you kept going, There was an area that was just a road with trees on both sides. I would go towards that area that didn't have the houses, and I would pull over and park on the side of the road as close to the trees as I could. And that's where I would essentially camp out. It almost felt like actually camping, to be honest with you, because it was surrounded by the trees.

And I was safe in my little car. So I just tried to hold on. to that optimism and make the most out of it. That is, until the event this story is about, happened. I had been camping there for a couple of weeks, just thankful that I had a bit of stability in my depressing circumstance. On that night, I had actually managed to get a few dollars together, so I had gotten a Big Mac for McDonald's and a small soda.

I was honestly happy as could be. It was around 9 p.m. and I was sitting there, savoring my meal, when I noticed what looked like a deer in a small clearing in the woods. I'd seen a few deer in this area before, so it wasn't really surprising, but I also really liked deer, so I was thinking that this was going to be an even better night.

When you're in a bad situation, the simple things can mean a lot, honestly. As the deer started walking through the woods and getting closer to where I was, I started to see that there was something wrong with it. At first I thought that it had some sort of parasite or something. I had read about those kinds of things, but I quickly realized that this was not a parasite.

Whatever was wrong with this thing was really wrong. As it got closer, I was able to see that it looked like the skin was actually falling off of its face. Like, I could see part of its jawbone from where its flesh was near literally melting off its face. It took me a minute to really realize what the hell I was seeing. I was trying to mentally piece together that maybe it had been attacked and was dying. But no, the skin wasn't falling off like it had been ripped into. It was melting.

And it wasn't just its face. It was all over its head, legs, midsection. Its antlers were sharp pointed and were, also broken, and it looked like they had some kind of skin hanging off of them, too. I was thinking that if this was a deer, it was really messed up from something. But after a few moments, I came to be certain that this was not a deer. As it stepped through the woods, this thing got towards a tree and slowly pulled itself up onto its hind legs and started scratching at the tree with its hooves.

though they weren't really hooves. They almost looked more like claws. The zambified deer monster thing was standing there, its flesh falling off the bone, and clawing at the base of the tree for God knows what reason. I genuinely have no idea what this thing was, but I immediately started my car and drove off. I was not going to deal with whatever the hell this monster was.

I had nothing to protect myself. or to fight this monster with if it decided it wanted to come and get me, and I was not going to die by some melting deer thing. I wish that I had a camera with me at the time, or that this was when camera phones were a common thing, because I cannot properly explain how disgustingly terrifying this thing really was, and if I had gotten a picture of it, then maybe I could get someone out there to hunt it and kill it, because this thing was not natural. If it was a deer, then the only word I can think to describe it is

zomified. And the fact that its hooves looked more like claws to me tells me that this thing was something else altogether. Obviously, I never went back to that area, ever. I never camped out there again, and I pretty much kept my car in parking lots when I was still sleeping in it. I thankfully did get through this hard time and things are better now, but I will never forget the night that I saw that horrifying beast, and I'm just glad that I have never

seen anything like it again. This took place in the little town close to the border of Alabama and Georgia. I've moved since then because there wasn't much in that area. To put it simply, for entertainment, you had the grocery store, a bowling alley, and town gossip. Even around my age of about 12 or so, the gossip was definitely more exciting. The older people with their stupid leagues pretty much took over the bowling alley anyways. My family lived in a small three-bedroom house with my parents, myself, my twin brother, and our older sister. We were never really the ones being talked about

unless something happened at my dad's job. He was a cop. Otherwise, we were typically the ones that people told everything too. Some stuff our parents tried to keep us out of, but we typically found out by overhearing them or from the rumors going on even at school. Seriously, that's all that we had going for us around here. This story involved a house

and a couple that lived about two houses down and across the street from us. It was a man and a woman. For the sake of simplicity, let's call them Bonnie and Bill. I'm not sure if they were married or just together, but thankfully I never saw any kids over there. I have never seen two people argue that much in my life. I think they've actually got Jerry Springer beat. The three of us kids would walk to the bus stop,

which was in their direction, and sometimes he would be leaving and you could hear them hollering as he left. Bill would usually proceed to burn out from the driveway, so my sister would always harp on us to make sure that we didn't walk too close to the street, not knowing what he could possibly do. While playing outside in the front yard, sometimes we would be interrupted as we could hear them screaming at each other. We would all run to the fence and watch,

and we weren't the only ones. When Ms. Sampson was outside in her garden, she would pause and walk over by the street to see what was going on too. Within a few moments, anybody that was outside was now looking down in that direction, waiting to see or hear something worth talking about for days.

One of the fights got pretty intense, as I had been riding my bike with one of my friends around the block, when I saw Bonnie angrily carrying handfuls of stuff, stuff and throwing it on the corner. We slowed down to see what it was, and noticed it was mostly clothing. I saw one of those plug-in razors

and a small portable radio that was smashed, like it had been thrown, dropped, or crushed. Bonnie noticed us looking and told us that we were free to take whatever we wanted, all while still talking to herself and just randomly screaming. We didn't dare touch any of it,

because, just as I expected, Bill came flying around the corner in his car and stormed over to grab his stuff and bring it back inside. Then the argument ensued again. This was pretty much the norm for these two. The cops were occasionally called, and I think most of them my dad ended up on. So we would always hear him talking to my mom about what had happened. They would argue about the silliest things from how dinner was made wrong, how he laughed at something that she didn't like. They thought the other one was having an affair, or maybe they just woke up in a bad mood. It was crazy, but I just figured it was two people that probably shouldn't be together,

and they would be better off working on themselves alone. And one day, I assumed that's what they finally did. And we heard them arguing again on our way to the bus stop. When we got home that afternoon, it was quiet and Bill's car was gone. Again, we just assumed that he had left to cool off. The next day, his car still wasn't there, and then the next day and the next. Rumors were that he finally got tired of her, or they got tired of each other, and they split. Bonnie even tried giving away some of Bill's stuff to random people.

When we were at the bus stop, she hollered for us, and said that we could have whatever we wanted. She had haphazardly thrown a bunch of stuff in the bed of her truck and told us to take whatever. We all politely declined, but then she tossed me a pack of baseball cards. I've collected them for years, and I was a kid, so it was pretty hard to say no to them. That night, I had started going through them and showed my dad what I had gotten, but he wasn't too thrilled with the idea of me having these cards.

so I reluctantly handed them over, and as far as I know, he gave them back to her. It was probably about two weeks or so, where it was pretty silent around the neighborhood. We rarely saw her, and she started putting stuff on the windows to block anyone or anything from seeing through it. She had newspapers and plain white paper all over, even on the small etched glass window on the door. Then there was a new car that showed up at the house, being driven by a slightly older lady. I, of course, didn't notice until we heard the familiar sounds of screaming. So, we did what any of us would do and went to check it out. The only thing I remember hearing from that conversation was Bonnie yelling things like,

Get off my property, leave me alone. Hence the new lady talking about calling the cops or reporting something. My dad went out there to see what exactly was going on, which resulted in the lady leaving, and Bonnie telling my dad to leave too, and then storming off back inside. Then, being nosy, we heard my dad talking to my mom and some of his friends about it a few days later. I guess the new lady was Bill's sister, and she hadn't heard from him in about two weeks. So she came over looking for him. from what he found out, they'd had an argument, he left, and then never returned.

She said that he called her once, saying that he was moving to Florida, didn't want any of his stuff, and would never be coming back, which is why she was just getting rid of all of his crap. That was really the last time we ever heard about him. Apparently, over time, his sister still came around looking for him and asking questions, but since he was an adult, and there were no obvious signs of foul play, they couldn't really do much. So, fast forward,

all three of us kids have graduated and moved out of that town. My parents still live there, but my dad has since retired a little earlier due to a bad accident messing up his back. We've all pretty much forgotten about the situation and moved on with our lives. It was probably around 2008. as kids were visiting my parents for a little get-together.

I think it was Labor Day weekend or something. At some point in time, we started seeing a few cop cars and detectives, according to my dad, showing up at Bonnie and Bill's old house. They hadn't seen Bonnie for around six months to a year, and it was assumed that the house was abandoned. Especially due to what we know as the housing crash around the same time, it was entirely possible. A new couple had actually bought the house,

and they considered themselves house flippers. We were all standing outside like old times, trying to see what was going on, and my dad decided to walk down there, Kane and all, to see if he could figure out what exactly happened. One of his friends was there and was more than willing to fill him in

since he was familiar with the previous owners. And, of course, now that we were adults, my dad was willing to share the details with us. The new owners of the house had gone to complete the basement since part of it was just dirt or loose gravel. There was a weird spot that had concrete pretty much poured over, but it wasn't leveled or smoothed out. So you could pretty much just stick your foot or hand under it and lift it right off the ground. This was exactly what the new owners had done. curious as to why that was there, with the soft ground underneath.

Then they kept digging, and, well, they got their answers. They found human remains. They immediately called the cops to report it and brought them all out to investigate. We wouldn't find out more until after us kids had left, but the local newspaper reported it, and they were able to identify them as Bill. My dad told us that the remains had a fractured jaw and skull, so now it's rumored that Bonnie was the cause of it all. The problem is, Bonnie is now gone,

and no one knows where she is, or hell if she's even still alive. So, while I didn't personally see or witness anything, I was living on the same block as a potential killer, the same block where a man died and was, left in a makeshift grave in his basement. I was even given some of his property. This creeped me out and still does. She never did anything violent towards any of us kids, but it was still a thought that was in my mind. We got close enough to her windows to see what she had covering

them, but would she have tried to do something to us if she had caught us? Would she have done something if the sister had pushed her luck. It was crazy. This is the stuff that you just hear about in the news, or on some true crime television show, but I actually lived it. So that's my small town story. I know this can happen in any town to any one,

but it's surreal when it's truly that close to home. So about a year or two ago, my best friend and I decided to stay at a moment, motel that is as close as we could get to the cemetery that we love to do EVP and investigations at. We have had ridiculous amounts of things happen at this cemetery. Now, it's important to understand that the cemetery is in the middle of the country, surrounded on all sides by farmland. It's a very old cemetery in Texas.

The motel is in a small town about seven to ten miles away. that's just a guess as I've never had to count the miles while doing this, but it's still the closest that we could get. So, we booked the room for two nights, and on the first night we went out there right as the sun went down, trying to get a feel of the vibe in the cemetery, which we learned long ago is super important to do. On our way back to the hotel on the country highway,

we see a beautiful blue-falling star, or what we think was a falling star, and it was so close to where we were passing the blue of it, it was shining into the car on the dashboard. We, of course, thought this was awesome, and kind of creepy, but we continued on our way to the motel. So we wait until about midnight or so, and we head back to the cemetery with all of our gear

to begin our EVP session and whatnot. This cemetery is not vast or sprawling in any way, but it is a decent size and has very large trees to shade it all the way around. It has a dirt road that circles the entire graveyard with graves on both sides of the road all the way around it. The entrance is slim and has a metal, pillar gate-type entrance. It's open to the public, so there's no door on it, so you just drive right in. It is the only entrance slash exit. So we like to circle the graveyard on the dirt road a couple of times and make sure there are no wild animals or grave robbers.

Yes, that is a thing that's happened to us, and yes, they were caught, or really just anything that we would need to worry about other than the supernatural. So we're driving very slowly in the back of the cemetery, and the road is straight for a bit until you have to turn to get back to the front of the cemetery. We're at the halfway point on the straight part of the road, and I can easily see when the road turns, and we're talking about coyotes,

because that's what we're watching for at this point. And then, the next thing I know, we're in the middle of the turn, and I can see a matching gate to the front entrance. I thought, oh, when did they put in that entrance? and since there is an oil rig pump on that side of the cemetery, as this is Texas, why would they put it there? Then, I realized that something isn't right,

because we're not on the side of the cemetery. We're at the front of the cemetery. The gate I was seeing was the entrance. Then, as if all sound returned in a rush, I could hear my best friend mumbling, as if she had been speaking and forgot what she was talking, about. Now, all of these revelations that are happening are in like a split second. So I look down at the clock on my dashboard, and I freak out. I slam on the brakes and I look at my best friend

who is looking very unsure of what is happening, and I tell her that something is very wrong. Then I start trying to figure out what was going on. I asked her what was the last thing she remembered us talking about. She thought for a moment, and then she told her, and then she told me she remembered us talking about coyotes. I, too, remember this, but neither of us could remember anything after that. We don't know how we got back to the front of the cemetery, what we were talking about, and on top of that, she was recording video on her phone to document anything that might happen, standard procedure for us when we arrive at the cemetery.

Only, the phone recorded our conversation up to the point of the coyotes, and then stopped recording, and it's all blank. There was no video recorded, just the audio. I looked at the clock right before this had happened, because we liked to mark our time for the video, and it was 21 after the hour. When we finally came to, I don't know what else to call it, it was 35 after the hour.

We were missing about 15 minutes of time. And this, of course, sent our minds reeling, and we tried to explain it away, but we literally can't. So we go back to the motel and just call it a night. The next day, in the afternoon, we decided to try our hand at Randanautica to see if there was really something to it like people say. We choose our intention in the radius, we figure it would be safer during the day to start out with, and we hit the roads following the map to the location.

Our intent was Supernatural Spot. I know not very clever but this was our first and only time using this app. And I'll be damned if it did not bring us to the exact spot we were at when I first came out of it.

The night before when we lost time. Thinking about this to this day, it gives me chills. And usually we were going to the cemetery in the motel at least twice a month. We've only been been back one other time and that was even worse, and we haven't been back since. We have also never done Randonautica ever again.

We thought of everything we could think of, like both of us having a mental episode at the same time, which is just stupid, all the way to aliens. I just don't know what happened, and it really bothers the two of us. Was something done to us? Were we somehow attacked and drug? I really can't see that, considering drugs like that would take a lot longer to wear off than 15 minutes. And also, how the hell did the Randonautica app know? This happened to me just earlier tonight, after I got off work for McDonald's.

I was sitting in the lobby enjoying a much-needed post-work meal, when suddenly a young, I would guess mid-20s man sitting at the table across from me, looked directly at me and piped up. I don't think you know me, but I know you. So naturally I'm extremely taken aback and wondering what the heck this man is on about. And just give him a bewildered look hoping that he'll explain himself. Noticing my confusion, he asked me, You work at Walmart, right?

Walmart is indeed my other workplace apart from McDonald's. So now things started making sense. Oh, yeah. I work both here and there, I replied. He then just nodded and smiled before remarking. I thought so. You gave me the best customer service ever. I know you probably don't remember all the customers you get, but I remember you.

You're really smart. You know all the ifs, hands and butts of the place. They should give you a promotion. Well, thank you very much. I'm glad I was able to provide you with such great customer service, and I'm glad that you found me so memorable. I felt the tone was lighthearted enough by this point that I could playfully call out his clumsy wording before, so I then remarked, but did you have to open up the way that you did?

I don't know you, but you know me. Pal, that was the creepiest possible thing you could have said. Like, it reminded me of a line from a stalker film. He laughed at himself along with me and apologized for his poor word choice, and we saw him. and we started making small talk for a few minutes. Now, if the encounter had ended there, I would be regarding it as more wholesome than creepy, but no such luck.

I noticed that during my conversation with him, a woman about his age who was seated at the table with him, and who I presumed to be his girlfriend, kept interjecting angry remarks at him. She would call him effing stupid, tell him to shut up and similar remarks. It happened several times. The first few times he and I both tried to ignore her, but after that, he just looked at me awkwardly and said,

She's mad. I don't know why. I just chuckled back at him with equal awkwardness and shrugged. Finally, she'd had enough. She leapt up from her seat, stomped over to him, grabbed his wrist and hissed, get in the car now! He sighed and gave in to her. He said his good to her. buys to me as she basically dragged him out the door.

Thinking all of that was over and that they had left, I just shook my head and went back to my meal. But mere moments later, both of them stormed back in and started arguing very loudly and profanely with one another in front of the whole restaurant. They physically grabbed each other's upper arms and just started repeatedly yelling insults and vulgarities in each other's face. Obviously this was very much to the point of disturbing the peace,

so my manager firmly told them to leave the building immediately. This caused them to turn around and start cussing out my co-workers in retaliation. So a whole group of them banded together to literally chase the two out the door, with my manager exclaiming that she was going to call the cops. This scared them off enough that they got in their vehicle and sped off. My manager still followed through on calling the cops, though, and a few minutes later an officer was outside speaking with her. My other co-workers had gone back to their duties by this time,

so I quickly finished up my food and started heading out. I wondered if the cop was going to want to talk to me too, but he seemed content to just continue speaking with my manager. So I continued making my way across the parking lots to Walgreens, where I had been planning to stop on my way home. While out there, I encountered an older couple who had witnessed the two troublemakers drive off angrily, and the husband told me that whoever was driving the vehicle backed it up into the curbs so hard that the bumper had fallen off. I in turn explained to them what had happened before that.

It was a lover's spat that very quickly turned into a disturbance of the piece. They asked me if anyone had gotten hurt, and I said thankfully not. We exchanged a few more words about the incident and a bit of friendly conversation, before cordially parting ways. Both my time at Walgreens and my trip home went off without further incident. I still feel a little uneasy knowing that these clearly unstable people know where I work, and apparently find me very recognizable. but hopefully whatever rage they have is solely directed at each other and not me. I know I don't usually do specific story content warnings,

but I will for this one, as it does contain mentions of sexual assault. None of it is detailed and none of it is aggressively described or an active thing. It's just a mention of it, so again, I know I don't usually do these warnings, but I figured I should for this because of that. So if you can't handle that or if that's not something you want to hear about, I recommend going to the description and skipping this story. The number and author of the story is in the top right corner of the screen. You can use that to skip the story in the description again, if you need to. This happened a long time ago, but it's a story that could happen. today. It was in the fall of 1979. It was a senior in high school and was 17 years old. I didn't

drive or have a driver's license at the time, so I took the school bus. Most of my peers either had cars or went to school with friends who had cars. My friends who did drive or have cars didn't live close enough to drive me, and nearly all of those on the bus were sophomores or juniors, and were younger than me. This guy on the bus was about the same age or a year younger. There was a guy on the bus who lived in a group home who apparently was troubled, very troubled. One day he came and sat with me on the bus. For a while it was okay as we would have normal conversations, and then he started to make me feel uncomfortable and touched my thigh. I asked him not to do this, and he complied,

looking at me like I had rejected him. The next day I sat in the front seat by the driver so that he wouldn't touch me. He didn't for a couple of days, and then he was all over me. I told him to stop. I slapped his hand away from my private area. He tried to touch me again, and I yelled out for him to stop. He complied but looked at me like he was sad that I had rejected him. No one came to my aid.

This guy did not care that other people were around. The bus driver the next day banished him to the back of the bus. Normally he got off before I did. This particular day he stayed on the bus as we had a substitute driver. He was in the back, but I had a bad feeling that he was going to get off at my stop. When I got off, I started to run as fast as I could. Near the bus stop was the home of a good foot. friend of my grandmother's, who I could have run to for help, but she was out. The car was gone.

So I started to run and started screaming for help. I turned around and saw him running, but then he turned around laughing like it was a joke. He got back on the bus. I was afraid that this guy would find out where I lived. I was also afraid that this guy was going to assault me. The next day, I knew that this was going to happen again. This time, my grandmother's friend was home. Her home was about 100 to 200 yards from the bus stop. I ran towards her house screaming for help with this guy running after me. The regular driver, who was a man, yelled at him that this wasn't his stop.

He turned around and got back on the bus. My grandmother's friend who had opened the door as the guy got back on the bus. This all happened within seconds. She offered to walk me home, which was about two short blocks, but I said I was okay. I told her what had happened. The next day, this guy was watched closely to make sure that he got off at his bus stop. It had come to the intention of the school that this guy had gotten off at other bus stops

and had chased other girls. He had also sexually harassed another classmate as well, touching them inappropriately. He didn't care if people were around either, and there were witnesses to his behavior. I later found out that a classmate had made the mistake of going out on a date with him. This guy tried to sexually assault her. She got away from him, and then she broke up with him. This guy then tried to break into the window of her bedroom, and police were called. He was taken away by police, and he never came back to school.

He was removed from the group home due to his behavior. Supposedly, he didn't sexually assault or attack anyone, but I really didn't sexually assault. or attack anyone, but I really do wonder about that. He had been seen peering into windows. He supposedly was sent to a place for treatment of his issues. Thankfully, I never saw him again, and I don't know what became of him. I can hope that he got the help that he needed, because this guy was most likely on the path to sexually assaulting some teen or woman,

if he hadn't already. very sad and scary story. My grandmother was told by her friend what had happened shortly after it happened. She asked her friend to watch out for me and let her know if it happened again. Later, she asked me why I didn't tell her about this. I didn't because I didn't think anything would be done about it. She then told me that someone had reported what he did to me and others to the school. This recently came up again with a group of friends, so I decided I would share it with more people.

About four years ago, I started dating a girl that I met online named Kendra. We matched, she messaged me first, and we actually hit it off pretty quickly. We started officially dating after the third date, and everything seemed fine. She was pretty fun to be around, even if we were. We were just chilling at home. She was very open about herself and her past, which was nice that she was open, but it also made me let my guard down at first.

I kind of felt bad for her. She explained how she didn't have a good childhood, as her mother was very abusive to her, and she didn't know her father, so she moved in with her boyfriend at the time when she was 16. She then explained how she got pregnant, and how her boyfriend didn't want the kid, and suffocated their baby at, like, two months old.

She seemed pretty happy, but obviously had some issues, but definitely nothing I thought was a deal-breaker or anything like that. But then, as the months went on, her stories became wilder and wilder. The stories that she would tell me were so bizarre that they were becoming hard to believe, especially when they were brought up in situations that would benefit her. Like, if I was planning on going somewhere with friends or family,

she would make me feel bad about her childhood trauma and say that she didn't want to be left alone. When I did suggest that she come along with me to take my dog to the park or something, she would decline saying that she couldn't walk or stand long due to her condition. She claimed that she'd had some kind of infection in her, her leg that permanently damaged the muscle or the bone, so she couldn't walk long distances. Yet, she dragged me to her friend's parties where she stood and danced for hours. She also claimed that she had to dye her hair black, she was a natural blonde,

because the light color absorbed too much sunlight and was giving her a brain tumor. She said that this was directly from her doctor, and that she could have surgery and have her head shaved, or just keep her. dying her hair. Look, I don't know why I stayed with her at this point, but I guess I just thought that maybe she still had things to work out from her childhood, and that I could help her move on. I had no reason to not believe her about her family or her baby either, so I guess I tried to just move past it. However, it started to take its toll on me as she was starting to have an excuse for literally everything, and it was kind of obvious.

And it was something she wasn't interested in or wanted to do. She had an excuse. And when I would tell her that I was still going without her, something would happen to try to stop me. For example, every Wednesday, me and a few of my friends would gather for game night. We were all off on Thursdays, so it was easier than on the weekends, and I never missed. I invited her to go, but she didn't want to. I told her that I would call her then whenever I left,

and she would call me halfway through complaining that she wasn't feeling well, and that she wanted me to pick something up for her, or that she needed me to take her to the ER because she'd had an accident, like cutting her finger or something. Even when I was with her and her friends, if I got into a conversation where we started having fun, and she would be very dramatic and grab her leg or stomach or something. And of course, everyone would turn to ask her if she was okay.

So now the attention was on her. Illnesses were a common tactic with her. I started to learn pretty quickly who she really was. The whole time that I was with her, she didn't even have a job. She pretty quickly started to leach on to me and my wallet, but I ignored it. believing that I was in love. When she didn't get her way, she threw a fit, and we would make up in the form of me buying her something.

I really started to put things together and grew more suspicious when she invited me with her and her sister to lunch and shopping, because she thought of me as her bank account. Along with telling me that she was abused, she also claimed to be an only child. When I mentioned this to her, she became angry and wouldn't give me a straight answer other than that I was obviously remembering things wrong.

I know for a fact that she told me she was an only child, because she used the sob story many times that she had no one because it was always just her with her abusive mother. So, being curious, I went with her to meet this mystery sister. To my surprise, they looked very much alike. I have siblings, too, and I know we all look similar, but these two looked like they could be twins.

And that's because they were. The only real difference was her sister had a darker blonde hair color and a mole above her eyebrow. Listening to them talk about things made me feel like a lot of the things Kendra had told me were a lie. There were things that her sister would even bring up and she would get upset and say that she didn't want to talk about it. I caught both of them looking over at me at times, so after that day, I went home with a lot

of questions, and I really debated on how to bring them up. Turns out, I wouldn't have to do much. As the next day, her sister's sister's sent me a message request on Facebook. She was kind, and it just started as a nice to meet you kind of thing. Then, after a few hours, she said that she had some questions for me.

She asked me if Kendra had mentioned their childhood to me, and I said yes. But, after us both beating around the bush some, it was finally revealed that she was never abused. In fact, Kendra was the abuser. They were actually twins, and they did have a younger sister.

Kendra would constantly attack both of them, and as a teenager, she had even hit her mom. Hell, her parents were married, and her dad was still alive. She was never kicked out, but rather she went to a juvenile detention due to threatening her little sister with a knife,

and she never had a kid. Her sister apologized as she knew that she was a habitual liar and wanted to know what all I knew, or at least what I was told. I thanked her for being honest, and I took the rest of the day to really think about what to do. I finally got up the courage and told her that we needed to talk. I asked her if I could come over. I figured it would be easier to leave her place than kicking her out of mine. I went over and told her that I wanted to talk to her about some things that she had told me,

and I confronted her about the lies. I told her that her sister had told me everything, and that I wanted to give her one last chance. I wanted to hear the truth from her, and I wanted to know why she would lie about any of it. Instead of coming clean, she just doubled down on the lies, and tried saying that that was her half-sister and that she was just trying to take me from her.

Her sister even told me that she would probably try that too. I told her that I'd had enough and that we were done. If she couldn't be honest with me, and this was not going to work out. I guess one thing that I didn't really take into consideration, though, was when her sister mentioned that Kendra was the abuser. So, when I turned around to grab my jacket and leave, she started screaming and ran towards me, jumping on my back.

We went back and forth like this, of me struggling to get her off of me. She had her legs wrapped around me and had a tight grip on my hair with one hand, while punching me in the head and shoulders with the other. I finally managed to throw myself backwards onto her kitchen floor, where she let go. but before I could get to my feet, I was hit in the head and knocked out cold. The next thing I remember were cops and an EMT standing over me in her house, asking me a bunch of random questions. Once they checked me out to make sure I was okay to stand,

I was placed in cuffs and thrown in the back of a squad car. After being taken back to the station, I was finally questioned and given the opportunity to explain my side of things. I told them why I was there, how I knew Kendra, what led to me being on the kitchen floor, but I didn't know how I actually got there. They asked me if I had physically harmed her. I explained that other than pretty much just dropping her on the floor, as well as myself, I hadn't touched her.

After a few hours, they finally let me go, but not before telling me how they got involved. Apparently, she hit me in the head with a meat tenderizing hammer, so they told me that I should still go to the hospital to check if I had a concussion afterwards. Then they were called by a neighbor as she was running up and down the street outside screaming for help. She told them that I had barged into her place in a fit of rage after she broke up with me, and that I had attacked her. They checked us both out and took pictures, and since I had multiple marks on my back, head, shoulders, and face, and she had, well, not a single scratch or bruise, they seemed to believe me. They suggested that I stay away from her, though, and I promised that I would do just that.

I went home and I talked to a few friends about what had happened, and even messaged her sister to let her know what she did. Kendra tried calling me a few times, but no, all to voicemail for her. She stopped trying pretty quickly, thank God, and I just moved on living to tell my crazy X tale. Well, that is, until this past Christmas, when she actually tried to add me on Facebook. No, immediate block. Back when I was a kid, there was a group of us kids that pretty much spent. every day of our childhood together.

For the most part, it was myself, Chuck, and Billy. The three of us were like brothers. We did everything together, camped in each other's backyards, spent way too many hours of our days off together. Billy ended up moving away sophomore year, but beyond that, we literally grew up together, from elementary school, all the way through the year where we all graduated. and Billy actually came back home so we could all have a party when he and Chuck finally finished high school.

My point is, we were inseparable best friends, and we're all still in touch with each other. Now, while the three of us were obviously really close, there was a fourth person in our group for a little while, and that was a little girl named Katie. Katie had lived on our block for a few years before we met, and the whole time that I knew her, it was just her and her dad that lived at the house. He was a single parent. None of us had actually met her mother.

Katie was my age, so a year older than the other two, and she was nothing short of a bit strange. Though we did end up figuring out why when all was said and done, and nowadays I actually feel bad for how we treated her for being weird. I met Katie when I was around eight. She was, to the best of my knowledge, the only girl in the neighborhood that was in our age range. So when we met, it was pretty obvious that she was going to latch on to our trio. We were eight and nine-year-old boys, so we were a bit annoyed that there was going to be a girl with us,

since we were still at that age where girls were a foreign concept. At first, Katie was fine with the three of us, though. She was interested in some of the things that we were, and she was willing to play our dumb games. We would sword fight with our toy swords, and she was willing to jump in and take a few hits, and she could actually hold her own. She was interested in animals,

so she was willing to help me dig up my yard to look for bugs. Basically, she was one of us, for the most part, except when she wasn't herself. Katie was fine probably 95% of the time, but then, sometimes, she would just be a bit out there. Like, she was a completely different person. Those times where she would be different, she would sometimes get violence, angry,

or just really, really strange. I know that that's vague. and I'm not going to get into all of the instances where things were wrong, but I'll describe at least one of them. The first event of note was one day while we were at Chucks taking turns playing the Super Nintendo. This was typically something we did once a week. We weren't allowed to stay cooped up in the house every day, so it was always super exciting for all of us. I think we were playing one of the Mario games. I'm not sure which one, and it was Katie's turn.

Katie wasn't great at that game, but she usually took her losses with grace and laughed about it each time she messed up. Not this time. This time, she was playing and she misjudged a jump and ended up dying. Obviously, when this happened, we all chuckled as we did when one of us made a mistake and died, but she didn't.

She had a flat stare, as she stood up, and by the time the game took us back to the level select screen, Katie had literally jumped up and stomped down on the Nintendo. She smashed it with all of her body weight, and while the console was mostly okay, they actually built those things with this possibility in mind, something I learned later in life, the game ended up bending and snapping in half.

Obviously, we all freaked out. and Chuck started bawling. The Super Nintendo was his pride and joy. Katie then looked over at Chuck and put her hands around his throat, literally choking him, and she was telling him to stop crying, that he needed to grow up, that he wasn't a baby,

and if he wanted to cry, she would give him something to cry about. Billy and I jumped into action and pulled her away from Chuck, leaving this whole situation a confusing disaster, and Chuck just sitting there looking terrified. Chuck's dad came in to figure out what had happened, and we had to explain to him what Katie had done. Strangely enough, Katie actually agreed with our statements,

and she was willing to own what happened. She said that she was angry, that she wanted to destroy it, so she did. She said that Chuck was crying over nothing and that he needed to grow up. I honestly don't know what really happened after that because Chuck's dad told us to go home. But I do know that Katie's dad bought him a new game, and Katie wasn't really allowed at Chuck's house anymore after that happened. In fact, I don't think Chuck and Katie really spent any time together after this,

and for good reason. I don't really want to get into all the events that Katie caused, because this story would go on for ages, but I do want to go over one of the last things that ended up happening, the thing that I think may have caused Katie to be odd. This was around a year after the whole thing with Chuck happened. I was on my own that day and went out into the woods that were behind our neighborhood. I was out there pretending that I was some kind of adventurer when,

who else would I see, but Kate. I went over to talk to her, but as I approached, I noticed something a bit weird. Katie was sitting on the ground, her back against a tree, and she was eating a sandwich while talking to no one in particular. I walked up to her to ask her who she was talking to, and when she noticed me, she jumped and screamed that I should not be there. I was obviously taken aback and a bit scared, and I asked her, what I had done wrong.

She then started going on about how I was upsetting her mother, how she was having dinner with her, and I wasn't invited. I kind of just looked around and mentioned that she was alone, that her mom wasn't there. She flipped out. She started screaming at me aggressively that her mother lived in the woods, that I wasn't allowed to be anywhere near her mother, and that I needed to go home before she hurt her. me. Again, I was confused, but I just said that I was sorry and that I didn't know. Strangely enough, Katie shifted from psychotic and ready to pounce to almost sympathetic.

She said it was okay, that if I was really sorry that she wouldn't be mad at me anymore and that I was welcome to sit with them. I hesitantly agreed with her, mostly because I will admit that at this time in our relationship, I did have a crush on her. So sitting with her was something I was more than willing to do. Yes, I had a crush on Katie, in spite of her random, strange behavior. I sat at one of the trees and just watched her eat her sandwich and talk. She was talking about school, about all the things that she was going through, what she was going to be doing that week.

She wasn't talking to me, though. It was like she was just talking to no one in particular, like she was basically telling her mother about her life. I was a bit curious, so I waited for an opening and then asked her where her mother was. This is where things turned to haunting. Katie looked at me and started crying, like full-on sobbing. I kind of freaked out. I didn't mean to make her cry, so I scooted over to her. her and I gave her a hug and asked her what was wrong.

Katie then pulled away and told me that her mother lived in the woods because one night, she and her father got into an argument and her dad hurt her. I will say that at this time we were ten, so this was a whole new thing to me. My parents were always happily married, so I didn't understand the concept of my dad hurt my mom. That idea was impossible to me. I asked how he hurt her, why he hurt her, and so forth, basically interrogating this poor crying girl. She stopped crying, pushed away from me,

and then told me something that makes my blood run cold to this day. She looked me in the eyes and said, My mom's not really living out here. She's dead. My dad killed her. He killed her and buried her out here in the woods. I saw him do it. He doesn't know that I saw it, though.

He doesn't know that I know what he did. He doesn't know that I watched him choke her until she died. He doesn't know that I watched him dig this hole, that I watched him bury her. I watched him do it. She kind of started just rambling all of this and shifting between crying and not crying and looking back. She was clearly traumatized. I honestly think that this is what caused her to be so strange and aggressive. She saw this horrifying event and didn't know how to process it.

Of course, I told my parents what she said. Being my age, I didn't know what else to do. But I told them what she said to me. Of course, my parents called the cops, and they reported what Katie had said, and all of it was this huge mess. The cops ended up doing an investigation. talking with Katie about everything, taking reports from her and her father, asking me about everything, and then they did the excavation.

This is where things went from weird to just absolutely devastating. They dug up the spot in the woods, and they actually did find the body of a woman. Katie wasn't lying or making any of it up. Her dad actually had killed her mother. and he actually did bury her in the woods, which tells me that she really did watch all of this happen. To wrap this up, Katie ended up leaving town to live with someone else in her family.

Her father was arrested, and all of this was my fault because she trusted me and I told my parents. Obviously, I did the right thing. Her mother deserved justice and looking back at it as an adult, not telling anyone would have been the worst thing to do. That said, I will never let go of the fact that I changed a huge portion of this girl's life. She was a bit weird, but she was my friend, and I did like her. And because I told my parents what she told me, her whole life changed direction.

And I never saw her again. That day where she told me about her. about what happened was the last time we actually ever spoke. I never got to say goodbye or anything. I do hope that her life went back to normal after this, or as normal as it could be. I hope that she found peace because she deserved it. And I hope that someday she and I can talk again,

so I can tell her that I'm sorry for all that she went through. Katie, if you ever read or hear this, story. Please know that I've never forgotten you, and I mention your name every single time that I pray. About ten or so years ago, I had a stint in my life where I was really lonely, though I think maybe desperate is the better word. I guess I should say that I've had a few serious relationships throughout my life, but I hit 30 in a major level of depression because the man that I thought was going to be my husband, decided that he wasn't ready for commitment,

and we had to go our separate ways. This was after a four-year relationship, mind you, and while he said it was a commitment issue, I'm pretty sure he was just wanting to see someone else. It is what it is, and sure I'm bitter about it, but I have to accept it and move on. He's not who the story is about, though,

so sorry for the tamas. Anyways, I was just out of that relationship, and then I turned 30 about two months later. And, as mentioned, I had a pretty deep low in my life. I was in that, I need companionship now mentality, and I immediately leaned into making a profile for one of the online dating sites back then. I don't remember which one. it was whichever one was most popular back in 2011, probably plenty of fish. I remember it being a bit confusing, that's, and it kept trying to match me with people that were nothing like me, nothing like reading a bio that it's suggested to you, and have it be the

polar opposite of yourself. I know that opposites tracked, but when it says, No tall women and no women that like Harry Potter, and my bio, literally mentions that I'm taller than average and a huge Potter fan, it almost feels like a joke. So, after scrolling through all the BS, matching with a couple of guys, messaging a few people, and really feeling like this was all a very hopeless venture, I finally found a guy named Dan. Dan was exactly what I was looking for in a man physically, and all of his interest seemed to line up with mine. He had long black hair, looked to be taller than me, which was nice, although never a deal-breaker. In all of his pictures had him wearing some pop culture referencing T-shirt that told me he was absolutely into the things that I was into.

I marked that I was interested, just hoping that he would mark the same on me. And much to my pleasure, he did. I instantly sent him a DM and started off with something quite. horny like, your hair is gorgeous. I wish I could get mine to be as shiny and straight as yours. I know, that sounds dumb, but I actually was kind of jealous. He responded almost immediately with some joke response about how he had made a deal with the devil to have hair like that.

His off-kilter humor was actually one of the things that made me really like him, and I was excited to get to know him. I may have been desperate, but something in my heart was telling me that Dan could be the one. Like, he could be exactly what I was looking for. And maybe we could have a future together. Having these thoughts after just a few conversations may not be healthy, but there was really just something about him. We ended up talking on the phone a few times, and I started liking him even more.

He had a beautiful singing voice. He told me that he used to be in a band that was kind of popular locally, but that they never went anywhere on the big stage. He told me that his last job was actually at an animal clinic, where he was tasked with keeping the animal's company if they had to stay overnight or needed to be taken care of outside of the normal medical work. The more that he told me, the more I absolutely adored this moment, man. And after a while, I started having this weird nagging feeling in my mind. Why was he single?

He was attractive, talented, entertaining, and he loved animals. He was overall a really great and interesting guy. So why had nobody scooped him up and put a ring on his finger? I actually brought this up to him, and he mentioned to me that things were complicated. I asked, how complicated, mostly because that wasn't really an answer that I was looking forward to. He responded by saying that he'd had a wife, and that things had recently gone sour, so he no longer had a wife. That kind of made sense to me. He was married and things went bad, so he was out looking for someone else to fill that gap in his life. I could relate.

We ended up talking about our past relationships, or more so I ended up talking about mine. He seemed a bit evasive, but I just assumed that he wasn't really feeling up to discussing it because it was so recent. I was okay with that. It was nice to vent out some of my frustrations, and he was really good at listening, and helping me see things more clearly. Then the big day arrived. We had agreed to meet up for coffee on a Saturday morning at a local coffee shop. I got there, and he was already seated in the back waiting for me. It was actually really nice to see him in person.

He looked just like his photos. He had the same personality. He was the same funny and entertaining guy that I had come to know over these past couple of weeks. This was actually a huge relief, because I was worried that I was going to get catfished. We enjoyed our coffee and companionship for a few hours, and then I had mentioned that it was getting to be midday, and then I should probably be getting home at some point. But I would absolutely love to meet up again and maybe have dinner or something. This is when he mentioned to me that he'd had a great time as well. Then he kind of shyly looked down at the floor, like something was wrong.

I asked if he was okay and he looked up and mentioned that he needed to ask me a favor. I said, of course. Not really thinking about what the favor could be, but he then mentioned that he actually needed me to give him a ride somewhere if I could. I realized that he was already there when I got in, so I hadn't seen him pull up. And he actually seemed rather embarrassed at this request, which was almost cute. At this point, I felt comfortable enough with him that having him in my car, driving him a few blocks or miles to his apartment, it really wasn't that big of a deal.

Plus, I was honestly thinking this could be a long-term thing if it kept up like it had, so I was more than willing to do so. I told him that was fine and just kind of mentioned that I didn't know that he didn't have a car and told him that, he didn't need to be embarrassed about it. He thanked me, and we headed out to my car and we went to get him home. As we were driving, and he was pointing out where to turn, he started telling me more about his past, and how things had been really rough recently. I asked if the divorce had been a bad one,

and he then dropped a bombshell. He mentioned that he and his wife actually hadn't gotten divorced. This killed me inside, and it kind of made things make more sense. He wasn't actually divorced. He was still married. Sure, they could have been separated, but if he wasn't divorced, then it was likely that they could get back together or try to fix things, and then there would be no room for myself in Dan's life.

I kind of shut down a bit after this, and I just listened to him tell me about how bad things were between him and his wife, not really paying attention to where he was telling me to go. Then he had me turn one more time, a turn into the parking lot of a police station. I parked and just kind of looked around confused. I asked why we were at the police station, and it was then that he went really quiet and just sort of looked at the building and away from me. This whole situation was really weird, and I was honestly starting to feel a bit freaked out.

This is when Dan looked over at me and said that he really enjoyed the short time that we had together, and said that I was a lovely lady, and that he was certain I would find somebody. He then said that he was about to go into the station and confess to doing something that was really, really bad, and that he was going to prison, most likely, for the rest of his life. He said that if things had gone differently, he would have loved to have spent more time with me. I asked what he had done and what he was talking about, and he just sighed and said that it was an accident,

that he never actually meant to hurt anyone, and then he pushed my door open and walked into the building. I just sat there watching him walk into the department, with his head held high and stop at the front desk. I watched the whole thing play out from right there in the lot, watched him talk to the desk clerk, watched an officer walk up to him cautiously, and then watched as the officer put him in cuffs and pulled him away from the desk.

A few minutes later, another officer actually walked out to my car and spoke with me. He asked me if I knew the man that I had just dropped off. How I knew him, if I knew what had happened, I told him that we had just met a couple of weeks ago and that we had actually gone on our first date that morning. I was more or less interrogated by this officer in the parking lot about Dan, and I told him all that I knew. He told me that Dan had just walked in and told them that he needed to confess to murdering his wife. I obviously didn't know anything about that. I thought he was divorced.

After a bit more talking, they gave me a card, took my info, and then let me leave. At this point, it was a little more clear to me how Dan had a wife, past tense, but wasn't divorced. And then it occurred to me that I had had coffee with a murderer, and I even drove him to the station to turn him self in. I really don't know if our date was just him trying to get free coffee and then a ride to the station, or if he was really interested in me. But either way, it was the most terrifying thing that

has ever happened to me, not because he was a creep to me, but because he was perfectly normal the whole time we spoke during our date. This man was a murderer, but he seemed like a calm and and complacent guy that was all there. That was just a normal person. This was the only time I ever went on a date with someone that I met online, and I actually shut down my account after that. I used to spend a lot of my summer vacation at my grandparents' house, which was essentially a small farm in the middle of nowhere.

And as much as I loved my grandparents, I used to also get really bored. I used to go out and explore some of their land and would oftentimes go out into the forest that lined their property, despite the fact that my grandma would tell me that I needed to stay close to the house. One year, I had ventured out and found what was basically a small cave near the property line, and I loved it. It was a really small cave, like large enough to fit me comfortably in it when I was about ten,

and that was about it. It was large enough for an adult to kind of crawl into, but it would be rather cramped and it would not be comfortable for anyone larger than a child to stay in for more than just a few minutes. I had actually painted one of the walls with my name and some other random things, just to pretty much mark it as mine. It was dumb, but it was my little home away from my grandparents' farmhouse. As I got into my older teenage years, I stopped going to my grandparents' house as frequently, mostly because my parents were more okay with me staying home alone. I hadn't been to the farmhouse for a few years by the time this all happened, as a matter of fact. About a decade ago, my grandfather passed away.

So I actually spent several days with my grandmother at the house to try to keep her company, and to make sure that she was doing okay. On one of the days while I was staying with her, I wanted to walk the property line and make sure things were okay, and after a little while, I remembered my little cave. I wanted to go see if it was still there, or if it had been taken over by nature. I headed out to the northern corner of the land,

jumped the fence, and headed out into the woods, right towards where the cave was. After a few moments of fumbling with the location, I actually found where the opening was, and was excited to see that it was still there. The next part was the difficult part, which was me trying to figure out if I could even get into the cave at all without getting stuck. After thinking it through, I decided that I could pretty much get half of my body in if I turned the right way, and from there I should be able to see if my name was still painted on the wall. I get down on the ground and I start to twist myself in,

and as soon as I get my head into the cave, I start to smell something putrid. It was pretty obvious that something had died there, which was disappointing, but I just assumed that it would be a possum or a raccoon or something that had scurried away to die inside the cave. It was gross, but it wasn't going to stop me from seeing if this was still my cave. I get my head in and what I saw was horrifying.

It wasn't just a small dead animal. It was numerous dead animals. Like dozens of carcasses were lined up on the back wall. There was also what looked like children's clothing piled off to the side and what looked like an old doll sitting on top of the clothes. At this point, I was out. I pushed myself out of the cave, not even caring if it was still marked

because something was staying in that cave, and I didn't want to know what the hell it was. As most scary stories go, though, it didn't just end with dead animals in the cave. As soon as I pushed myself out, I started hearing what sounded like, growling or hissing. I stood up and looked around, but I didn't see whatever it was that was so angry with me

until I looked up. I have no idea what the hell this thing was, but it was about 200 feet away from me, standing in one of the trees and angrily growling at me. It looked human-like, but it 100% was not human. I took off, thinking this creature was definitely going to chase me, but about halfway to the fence, I looked back and saw that this thing was actually crawling on the ground toward the cave, which made this all worse. That thing, whatever it was, it was living there, and it was storing its spare carcasses there.

I just kept running towards the house, and I decided that I would forget that this thing ever existed. I never mentioned it to my grandma, and unfortunately she passed away that same year. The estate was sold, so I have no way of going back to see if that thing was still there. And I never got the chance to go back with a camera or anything. I really do not know what I saw, but it looked like some kind of feral human-like monster. It wasn't quite large enough, though. It almost looked childlike. It was small enough to live in that cave.

It was nimble enough to climb and stand in the trees as it growled at me. It was seriously creepy as hell, and I hope that I never see anything like it again. And to be honest, I hope that whoever now owns that property never runs into that thing. When I was a kid, and through pretty much all of my time growing up, I used to live near a military base. My dad was in the military, and he was important, I guess. I honestly have not the slightest idea what it was that he actually did, but he was pretty much never home,

and I had practically no relationship with him up until the day that he died of cancer. My dad isn't the important part of this, but I think that the military base may be. I can't prove that this thing. had anything to do with the military, but would it really surprise anyone if they were out there doing some sort of experiments on humans and mixing them with animals? I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, and I guess I should probably go through the entire event that happened before I say that. I'm not going to say when exactly this was, nor where,

but I will say that I was in my early teens, probably 13 at most. We were living in our small two-bedroom house near the base, and really there was nothing special about it, other than it had a basement that could have doubled as a bomb shelter. The night that this happened, I was in my bed and struggling to fall asleep. I remember vividly that I was having a lot of problems sleeping around this time, because I was feeling like something was watching me in my room. I wasn't a paranoid kid, but for a few nights I was feeling like I was paranoid. It was like I was having major anxiety but didn't know why.

It didn't happen for very long, but it was something that I was dealing with for a couple of days prior to the actual event. On the night that I saw this thing, I was still having trouble sleeping, and I had pretty much given up on it. So I was sitting on my bed and reading something. While I was reading, I started hearing what sounded like raspy and deep,

breathing, like someone was struggling to get enough air. It's a hard sound to explain beyond just deep gasping. The sound wasn't coming from my room, though. It was definitely coming from outside, but it was loud enough that I could very clearly hear what it was. I went over to the window to see what was going on, but at first I couldn't see anything beyond the darkness of night. I kept focusing, trying to adjust my eyes to the dark, and it was then that I saw the thing that was struggling to breathe.

It was a man, or what looked like a man, but he was covered in what appeared to be really mangy fur. It almost looked like he should have been covered in fur, but someone took an electric razor and shaved close to 70% of the hair off his body. I couldn't see him at first because he was struggling to stand up from under my window. He was basically sitting there and trying to crawl away, while also trying to pull himself up to his feet. It was at this point that I realized that the sound of the gasping was definitely outlined in pain. This human-like thing was suffering, struggling to breathe,

and part of me assumed that it was dying. It made me think that I needed to be. to do something about it. Because I was still a kid, I decided that I needed to tell my mother. I went and woke her up, and I told her that there was a man outside my window that was choking. That was the only way that I could think to explain it to her. She told me to stay in her room and not come out until she came back, and she walked out.

I could then hear her get on the phone, and I heard her say my dad's name, and then tell whoever she was talking to which unit we were in. I wasn't sure who she was talking to, but I kind of assumed it was the police. After a few moments of waiting and listening to her talk, I actually left her room and went back to mine because I was genuinely curious what exactly was going on. I remember hearing my mom and then my dad talking, though they were talking in hushed tones, and I couldn't quite make out what they were actually saying. I could still hear the gasping and choking sound that this humanoid thing was making,

but it was quickly cut out by the sound of a large truck pulling up into our yard, which was followed with what sounded like other military men, shouting that they were there to help. As they approached, I started hearing the gasping getting louder and faster, almost like this thing was scared of the people that were approaching him. As soon as I started hearing this, I heard my mom and dad talking again and getting louder, which meant that they were coming upstairs. So I ran out of my room and into the hallway.

My mother was obviously mad at me for leaving her room, but I just told her that I had to go to the bathroom and she let it alone. I asked them what that was all about, and my dad just told me that it was a homeless man that was very sick, and that they were taking him to the hospital. The fact that my dad was home told me that this was more serious than just a sick homeless guy, but I wasn't going to poke him and ask for more information. That was the only time that anything like this ever happened, and my dad never told me any more info, nor has my mother. I don't know what this thing was, but I can tell you that it wasn't quite human.

Or if it was human, it was not fully human. I saw this thing. Something was sincerely wrong with it, or him, or whatever. I don't know if this would qualify as a cryptid really, but to me it was a creature that was unexplainable, which fits technically. Whatever it was, I could tell you that the military took care of it, and that was that. I'll hit the highlights to try to keep this shortish, but it took place. over the course of 35 years, so be warned. It started when my college roommate clipped a runner from one of the philodendrons in the student union,

and then stuck it in an empty jar with some water back in our dorm room. A few days later, she delightedly showed me the tiny rootlets sprouting from a joint and said, Look, my baby's teething, and that's how baby got its name. The first incident happened the next semester, and I didn't link it to baby until much later. I had a paper due and had to type it up. This was before the time of PCs, and I kept my electric typewriter in a narrow space between the head of my bed and the cinder block wall. But it wasn't there. I looked around at all the places that it could conceivably have been.

under the desk, on the desk, in the closet. Nope. There just weren't that many places that it could have been hiding in that tiny dorm room. I kept coming back to the space between the bed and the wall, because that's where it should have been. And I couldn't understand why it wasn't there. I even went out to my car thinking that I might have taken it home with me over the weekend, though I knew that I hadn't.

Nope. I went back to the room. room, again, looked where it was supposed to be, still an empty space with no typewriter or case. I sat down on my bed racking my brain for where it might possibly be. I had looked everywhere. I got up and again looked where it was supposed to be, and it was there. My roommate had been sitting at the other side of the desk the whole time working on her own assignment, watching my frantic search. When I pulled it out, Her jaw dropped.

And no, there was no way she could have had anything to do with its disappearance, nor reappearance. I didn't have time to puzzle it over. I had an assignment to get done in time to get some sleep. A couple of years later, my roommate changed universities, and I inherited Baby. The first incident I directly associated with Baby happened while I was living in a haunted dormer. room. So again, I didn't associate cause and effect with baby until later. My sweetmate had a helium balloon that went missing from her room. Somehow, it got through two locked doors and into my room where it was wedged between baby's hanging pot and the

window. We joked that baby liked balloons and let him keep it. Things disappearing and reappearing, sometimes in unlikely or too obvious places, it became a fact of life. Apparently, Baby had a shoe fetish because often it would be a single shoe that disappeared. But it could be anything. The most inconvenient of which were my keys or my driver's license. Usually I would shrug and wait for it to reappear because it always did. If it was something I needed in short order, or the disappearance became a hassle, I would buy baby a balloon.

The needed item would then reappear and things would calm down for a while. Time passed. Years. Decades. Space ensued. Different dorm rooms and apartments. Different cities. Different states.

I went through a variety of roommates and friend groups as well, and anyone who spent any significant time in my home came to know baby's kleptomaniac ways. and just accepted as a running joke. Until a few years later, when, during a series of moves in rapid secession and a great deal of stress, I neglected Baby, and it died. Despite my belated efforts, I could not revive it. You would think that this would be the end, but no.

When things get misplaced, I have to find them myself. I can't just offer Baby a propitatory balloon, and have the item reappear someplace obvious. And I find myself missing baby. Every time I see a philodendron, if it's the right shade, leaf size, and shape, and a variegated variety, I'm tempted to get a cutting. But would it be the same? Last summer, on my way to visit my folks, I drove through the town where I attended college.

I drove around the university and I'll do it again next summer. I'm sure that in 35 years, the student union has been redecorated and the plants are probably long gone. But I'm equally sure that any philodendron on campus that looks like baby is from the same cultivar lineage. Next summer, I will find one, and I will get a cutting. To answer any anticipated questions, no recreational pharmaceuticals were involved. Most of my friends didn't even drink. We found college to be a liminal experience on its own, without any mood-altering substances involved. No, this is not fiction.

Every part of it is true, and yes, I have submitted the story of the haunted dorm room. I've been flirting, if you will, with online dating for probably the last four or five years now. And before you start to feel bad for me, it wasn't consistent. I would go on a few dates that seemed fine, and then something would end up happening, or we just wouldn't click. So I would quit, get rid of the apps, and delete my profiles. I would then try again, and unfortunately the cycle would keep repeating.

But I wasn't willing to give up yet. I still wanted to find someone that I could spend the rest of my life with, so I cleaned myself up, and again updated my profiles, ready to start searching. This was early 2022. I guess I was feeling more confident about myself

and the state of the world as I went on another hiatus from mid-2020 until close to the end of 2021 for obvious reasons. I had a few matches, some that ended pretty quickly at the chatting part,

but others I was actually able to go out with. However, there was one girl that really drew me to her, and I thought I was the luckiest man around when she actually agreed to a date. This girl's name was Callie, telling me that it was short for Calliope. She had long, wavy hair that probably went about to her mid-back in a copper-blonde color. She had soft green eyes that complimented the freckles on her face. but her smile and her laugh was really what did it for me.

It was adorable. She had some kind of dumb joke on her profile too, which I had answered it correctly. It's already off to a good start when they don't take it too seriously. We talked for a bit, and then we even video chatted a few times before we actually went on a date. The first date went perfect. We had dinner, then we walked around a nice dog park and got ice cream nearby. It's normally here where I feel good about things,

but we'll then get a message through the dating site saying that it won't work and I would start over. However, Callie surprised me. She said that she would love to do something again. So eventually we had our second date, and we went to a movie and arcade, which was a lot of fun. We started learning that we had to be. had a lot in common, especially in the type of music that we listened to. So when she asked me if I wanted to go to a concert with her for a band that we both enjoyed, I agreed. I even offered to pay

for both tickets, or just mine, but she refused, saying that she had already bought them. Now, I had never really gotten this far in the process, so I don't know how long this normally took for others, but this all happened within the span of a month. So I dressed a little down from what I normally wore, picking a band shirt and jeans, and when I picked her up, she was wearing something similar, although it looked much better on her.

We decided to grab a few slices of pizza before the show and went to a local pizzeria that was probably about 45 minutes away from the venue. Unfortunately, as we were enjoying our pizza and each other's company, she got an email or a text about an electrical fire occurring at the venue. And until they knew it was safe, all shows would be cancelled, starting from that night forward, until further notice. We were both pretty disappointed, because I think we were both really looking forward to it.

After moping for a bit, I suggested that we still drive around the area, as we may have been able to find the band members at a local bar or something. However, she had better ideas and suggested that we just go back to my place. This was not something I would have ever offered nor have expected. The reasons should be obvious, but being a guy I never wanted to suggest anything and I really didn't have much self-esteem. But she insisted, saying that we should make the most of the night. So, after we finished eating, we left, stopping only to get some cheap wine at her recommendation, and headed back to my place.

Once we got there, I played some music from the same band that we were supposed to see, and I even put on a previous live performance of theirs on YouTube, trying to be funny or sweet, I guess. After we talked for a while, things heated up, so we ended our night in there. bedroom. That night was fantastic. And since we didn't work the next day, I was looking forward to spending the day with her. Yet, when I woke up that morning, the spot next to me was empty. I thought, no problem, maybe she just got up before me and was in the bathroom. Or even maybe she beat me to making breakfast.

So I got out of bed, walked past the bathroom to see the door. open. I went to the kitchen, and I noticed it was empty, too. I got a little discouraged at first, thinking maybe she had left, but her purse was still sitting on the coffee table. Then, I heard a loud crash and realized I didn't check the spare room, which I had made into my makeshift office. I quickly ran to the room, opening the door, and a flood of emotions ran through me as I saw Cali standing over what was my laptop, holding a hammer, and her face was a splotchy, crying mess. When I was finally able to talk, I blurted out, what the hell happened?

I know, I'm dumb. It was obvious, but for some reason I still didn't want to believe it. In a shaky voice, she made comments about me seeing other people behind her back. I was confused by this because I hadn't been, so I tried to figure out what exactly she was talking about. She said she noticed my dating profile where we met and saw that I had gone on other dates other than her. However, I guess what she failed to see was that

I hadn't gone on any other dates since I went on the first one with her. There were ones prior, yes. but I had two more lined up around the same time that we met, but I had cancelled them because I was into her. For some reason, none of this worked for her, or maybe it was just too late. I don't know, but she kept screaming about how I was a liar and how I was just using her.

I again tried to reason with her and calm her down, but nothing was working. She snapped, and she said that I was going to pay for hurting her, and she then charged at me with the hammer. I ran out of the room, holding the door shut behind me, hoping to just buy a little bit of time to think about what I needed to do. That's when I could tell that she was swinging the hammer at the door. I let go of the door and made a mad dash to the front door, running out of my apartment in only my boxers. I ran down the stairs and started banging on the door to another apartment. There was an older lady that answered, and my God, I still feel awful to this day for doing this,

but I ran in begging her to call the cops and trying to explain what happened. I think that she was already about to call 911 on me alone. I stayed by her front door, stopping myself from looking around her place, hoping that my pathetic self looked harmless to her until I heard the police knocking and calling out. I opened up the door, and I told them what happened, and I led them to my apartment. They made me stay outside so that they could get my side of things, while another cop went in to get her. After a short time, it was a small apartment, after all, I heard shouting in what I assumed to be people struggling. They finally came out with her in handcuffs.

She had on one of my t-shirts that she had slept in, but also the zip-up jacket that I had worn the night before. When she saw me, she instantly became enraged, and they had to calm her down again to get her into the car. They then had me walk through my place to see if anything was taken or if anything else was damaged. She ended up finding my cell phone and breaking that, and she ended up finding my cell phone and breaking that, and she also smashed a picture that I had in my living room of myself, my mom, and my sister. My dad died when I was young, so they were the only two people that were really significant to me. Oh, they also found her hanging off of my balcony, talking about how she was going to jump. I lived on the second floor, so she may have had some broken bones if she did, but that was about it.

not to mention it was grass below my patio, not concrete. After all, was said and done, I think I was just confused and disappointed more than anything. I didn't press charges, but she had actually bitten the officer that had detained her, so they had their own charges to file. I don't know what exactly changed or happened, nor will I probably ever know, but I felt bad for her more than anything. There was obviously something wrong, or maybe something traumatic had happened to her to cause her to be like that, but I think she probably could have used help more than charges.

In the end, I just got a cheap phone until tax season and replaced them both at that point. I don't really know whatever happened to Callie, as she never tried to contact me after that, but I really do hope that she's doing better. But, yeah, I'm also taking a break from dating again. I'll try to tell my story clearly, as I'm not that good typing very long posts, so bear with me here, since I am new. This story happened somewhere at the second semester in high school,

and I was waiting for the public bus to take to go home, since I didn't want to be cramped in a school bus with the narrow passageway any longer, and neither of my family members could pick me up most of the time, but there were some days that only my dad picked me up from school. A Hispanic guy comes over to me as I'm waiting for the public bus and starts a conversation with me. Also, side note, I am also Hispanic like he was. He tells me that he's a senior, he's in the JROTC,

and he told me his nationality, but I don't quite remember. I told him about myself in return, but not too much, including that I was actually 16 after he asked me about my age. I just simply told him that. He seemed surprised, and he straight up told me that he thought I was 13. Also note that I was a freshman back then. I would occasionally get comments that I look physically younger, despite my actual age.

So I merely brushed it aside, but he seemed interested in me despite the fact that I was a minor, and I'm very sure that he was either 18 or 19. I ended up exchanging my kick username a few days later, due to me assuming that he was just being nice. He was part of my then-boyfriends, now exes, friend group. He would spam me emojis all the time from that app,

and that got annoying, obviously. I told him off about that, but I stupidly ended up playing along with it thinking he was still playful towards me. I remember that I looked at him while sitting in the public bus, and he motioned for me to sit next to him, but I didn't want to.

Again, I stupidly accepted the invitation thinking that he just wanted my company as a friend when he wanted more than just that. He once put his hand on my waist, held me close to him, and called me Chula. For those who aren't Hispanic or Spanish speaking, it's Spanish slang meaning cute. Before I got off the public bus to make my way home on foot, since the bus stop is at the front of a middle school at an intersection. At this point, I should have told my then-boyfriend, but I was too embarrassed, too scared, and too ashamed to even do so. so, which was so idiotic of me.

The Hispanic senior guy even told me that he knew where I lived, but I didn't take that seriously, since it was clearly impossible to tell which apartment complex number I lived in, but I'm thinking now that he was referring to the apartment complex behind the middle school, which I still live there currently. I should have at least taken that seriously, but me being a dumb teenage girl yet again for the third time, I doubted him. Then there was the time that he told me he wanted me to be his wife, which completely caught me off guard.

And I was too stunned to reply back, but mind you, we had just met, and we hardly knew each other. That's a big red flag right there. I think I remember that I said no, and was uncomfortable with what he said. He said it so bold and in an assertive manner. manner. The last straw was when he insisted me to go attend some sort of J-R-O-T-C graduation ceremony rehearsal, since it was the end of the school year despite me saying no multiple times, but he wouldn't get the hints. I angrily told him off and finally blocked him on the kick-app.

I never saw him again afterwards. My only regret was not telling my then-boyfriend, or anyone at that matter, of what he was doing. But someday I'll see my ex-boyfriend in the future and tell him, just not right now. I lost contact with him, and I don't know his social media or his whereabouts. Also, I forgot to mention that sometime after I blocked him, I unblocked him just out of curiosity to see what he sent. As soon as I did, I was bombarded with over ten different text messages. of him desperately trying to reach out to me. I never replied back, and I blocked him again.

I have a strange story that occurred back when I was in middle school that I genuinely cannot explain. Back then, I didn't have many friends, but the friends that I did have were pretty close. We were a bit of a click, but when you don't have many people to talk to or do things with, That sort of thing does happen. My group of friends included three other guys.

We'll just call them J, T, and P. The four of us were super close all throughout elementary school, and we were more like a small band of brothers than just casual friends. This continued up to middle school as well. We had several classes together, so it worked out pretty well for us. In the second quarter of the second year of middle school, which would have made it the eighth grade, I think, we ended up adding a fifth person to our little group of friends, a boy named Mark. I'm using Mark's name because he's probably the most important person in this story,

as the event is about him specifically, and for other reasons that may make sense later. Mark had apparently gone to the same elementary school as us, though he wasn't in the same class as the four of us, and we had never met him. I remember when I asked him about it, he had mentioned that he was in my class in fourth and sixth grade, but I couldn't remember him being in the classroom. He knew the teacher's names, and he knew other kids in the classes, which told me that he probably wasn't lying. I felt bad, but I just couldn't recall him being there. Now, the reason that we added Mark to our friend group is kind of strange. He just sort of showed up one day during the morning, and at lunch, like he had always been there.

He acted like he had always been part of our group. He was talking to us, laughing about things that only we would have found funny. It was seriously as if he was one of us from day one. But he just kind of showed up and sat with us one day. I know that may not sound too weird to some people. Maybe he was just really charismatic. But it was weird. And it got weirder.

Not because he was there, but because of what happened after that second quarter. In between second and third quarter is winter break, which is basically that week and a half, or so when we don't have class because of Christmas and New Year's. During this time, I had to spend the entire week at my grandparents' house, at my parents' request. So I didn't get to spend any time with my group of friends. I was bummed out about it, and JT&P promised that they wouldn't do anything too stupid without me, as I was always the one getting into trouble.

I spent my time there, and then when it came time to go back to school, I noticed that Mark wasn't there on the first day back. I didn't think too much of it. People get sick when they have all their holiday get-togethers. Maybe he was just sick and going to be back the next day. Now, mind you, at this point, I didn't really mind Mark, but I didn't really feel like he was one of the boys, if that makes sense. I had an issue with him just kind of showing up thinking that we had to

accept him as one of us, but I didn't dislike him. He was an okay kid, and he was a pretty funny guy as well. Then the next day, I noticed that there was still no Mark. I ended up asking Jay if he had heard from him, and he asked me who I was talking about. T&P both said the same thing. They didn't know anybody named Mark. I thought they were just messing with me at first, and just trying to pull one over on me, and then when Mark came back, they would pretend like I was crazy, and that they never said anything about not knowing him. That was, until I asked our math teacher, the only class that I had with Mark. I asked her if Mark was just out sick, or if he was okay.

She had no idea who I was talking about. I described Mark, said his last name to her, told her he was the funny kid with the short dark hair and glasses that usually sat next to me. And she seriously looked at me like I was insane. She said that the person that sat next to me was a girl in class named Deborah, and that she would be back in class the next day, but there was never anyone named Mark who had sat next to me, and no one by that name in that class at all.

This set me on a really weird and confused. path. I actually went back to try to find Mark in any of my elementary school yearbooks, checked my seventh grade yearbook as well, and I couldn't find him at all. I checked my fourth and sixth grade books, and there was never anyone named Mark, last name starting with the G, in either one of those classes, or the other classes for those years. In fact, there were no marks at all, nor any students with last names starting with G's in the entire year. It was like he was just wiped from the face of the earth entirely, and I was the only one to remember him. It was really strange that this kid that showed up one day like he knew who we all

were and had always been our friend disappeared as quickly as he had integrated into our group. I really didn't know what to make of this, and I still don't. Like I said, I didn't mind the guy. He wasn't my best friend or anything, but to get to know someone over a couple of months, spend mornings and lunch with him and have math class with him, only to have him simply disappear without a trace. It made me feel like I was crazy. I know that this was not a hallucination,

as my other friends interacted with him, and it was seriously a couple of months. There's no way that I hallucinated a friend for that long. In the end, I just had to accept that this person did not exist and move on. Something I hated doing, but it didn't matter how much I talked about him because no one else knew who he was. I hope that nothing bad happens to him, and I hope that if he was from another time,

timeline or something, that he and I stayed friends. Unfortunately, in this reality, he just simply never existed. I'll preface this with, I have had many paranormal encounters since I was young, and many were also witnessed by the people I was living with, or confirmed by neighbors. We had fallen on some tough times financially, and the only real affordable housing where my son could remain at his current school he loved were some really old apartments. The complex was built in the 1950s and was run down. It was a two-by-two split floor plan.

My husband and I took the master bedroom with the bathroom inside the master, a separate room though. The bedroom was always freezing. I could never stay warm in there. Even though it's Texas, and being from Wisconsin, I know what real cold is. The other rooms in the apartment were normal temperature. I never felt comfortable being alone in the apartment, mostly because I never felt alone.

The living room wall with the TV on it was also our bedroom wall and door. We always kept the bedroom door shut. I was in the living room watching TV alone, and the spot I always sat in, I swear I could see in here the bedroom knob rattle. It was like a gust of wind had been blown at it. Our AC unit was at the other end of the apartment, and

there were no vents or windows anywhere near the bedroom door. There was a coat closet door adjacent to the bedroom door in the entryway, and it never did the same thing. Just the bedroom doornaub rattled. We lived on the second

floor of a two-story complex, so no one was above us. The people below us were incredibly quiet people. I never once heard them at all, let alone slamming doors or windows that could have affected us. Then I was again sitting on the couch facing the bedroom door, reading this time, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a human-sized black shadow. It crossed from the entryway past the coat closet door, and went right through the bedroom door, rattling the doorknob.

I took my glasses off and tried to refocus, thinking there must be a smear or something on my glasses. There was nothing. I got up and went into the bedroom, and nothing was there. About a week later, the same thing happened, but this time the shadow was only two or three feet high. Same path from the entryway, coat closet, and right through the bedroom door with the handle rattling again. I got up, I went into the bedroom, and nothing was there. A few days later, I caught it again out of the corner of my eye, but it was just standing there full size in the entryway like it had been watching me.

I only caught a glimpse of it this time before it disappeared, and this time I saw purple in its face, like purple eyes, although it could have been a scarf or a hat. I wasn't usually ever alone in the evenings, but my husband and son were both gone one night. I was watching TV in the living room and felt really anxious, like I wasn't alone. The bedroom door handle started rattling,

along with the door shaking some this time. I started getting pretty freaked out. I knew that I needed to go check things out. I got up enough courage knowing that I had to go into the bedroom, and that the light switches are in the room, not next to the door, and I needed to use our bathroom, which took going in to the dark rooms to get the lights turned on. I took some deep breaths and opened the bedroom door, and as I went straight to the bathroom door in the darkness, I opened it up, reached around the left to flip on the light switch.

What I felt instead in the dark was my hand going through some wet, substance. I can only compare it to gelo-ish, or like hair gel. I was shocked. I flipped on the light and went to grab the hand out off the rack, completely expecting my whole hand to be soaked in something, but it was dry as a bone. There was nothing different about the bedroom or bathroom yet again, and the sensation of the gel stuff on my hand was gone.

My middle daughter was over a few weeks later, sitting at my vanity in our bedroom, which was next to the bedroom door. I had told her of my experiences and others. She's sensitive to energies. I was getting dressed and she was putting on makeup because we were going out. She said, Mom, the shadow just walked through the door, passed me, and into the bathroom. It looked like an old woman. She was the only one who had ever seen it besides me.

We actually ended up swapping bedside. so that my son could have the larger master bedroom to have friends over to play video games. After we switched bedrooms, I never saw the shadow again, and the other bedroom was always reasonably warm. To this day, I'm not sure what I put my hand into that night. I have an idea, but without proof and being alone that night, they are only ideas. We moved a few months later, and I've never seen that black shadow again. I was dog sitting when I got home every day around 2.30 p.m., and I would take her out for a fairly long walk. I do think it's important to note that we took the same route at the same time every day.

Other important notes, it is winter in Canada, so it's pretty cold, and there were not, a large amount of people around. Mostly just other people walking their dogs, but also a few people on their way somewhere or walking for exercise or whatever. It was not standing around, hanging outside kind of weather. And she's a small dog who is extremely friendly and would offer zero protection against the attack of two men.

We took this walk through the park, which is really just a trail near my house. And while it's kind of isolated, for the most part, you're within shouting distance of houses. However, there is an optional section of the path which leads to a more secluded area. Imagine the path as a straight line and this section is a semicircle that connects to it on both ends, quite literally a detour. And while I am a naturally anxious and paranoid person,

the dog really enjoyed this part of the walk, I'm assuming because she could smell animals or wildlife, rabbits and deer mostly, and also it's mostly taken by people with dogs, and you know how much dogs love to mark their territory over places other dogs before them have done so. One day, while we're walking this section of the path, a man in a very distinctive blue jacket appears, and while he gives me bad vibes, there is no interaction between us, and he's headed in the opposite direction, so it's fairly unremarkable.

I've never seen this man before. The very next day, while we're headed to that area of the path, another man in a silver jacket passes us, but also is moving slower than normal. Because I have a dog, we stop every few feet to investigate, and are not moving at a regular pace. However, this man stays close enough that he remains in my line of sight, until he arrives at the bridge. The bridge is pretty much at the entrance of this detour.

At the bridge, he stops and is just kind of waiting there. I think he was also on his phone, though I'm not sure. This man also gives me that awful gut feeling, but I'm assuming that he's just waiting for someone, and I try not to worry about it. Weirdly as we approach the bridge, he turns and starts walking back towards us. I'm feeling creeped the hell out and also dealing with some nausea issues unrelated to this,

so we don't take the detour that day, because I just want to be lying down at home as soon as possible. As we continue on, I glance back and the man in the silver jacket is back on the bridge waiting, so I don't really know what the whole seeming like he was going to head back as we went across the bridge was, but whatever. As we're continuing on our way, we run into that man in the blue jacket again. I've never seen this guy before, and now here he is two days in a row, at the same time. He was looking at slash using his phone while walking.

Anyway, we just keep moving, and he's headed towards the man on the bridge. This pretty much concludes the first interaction with these men, and really it's easy to explain it all the way as me being over. overly paranoid, and them being normal people, not out looking to hurt or assault someone. I continue to walk the dog at the same time every day. However, we now always skip the detour just to make me feel safer, and we don't see the man in the blue coat again. However, a week or so later, maybe longer, maybe less, I'm not really good with time, but

at least several days. The dog and I are on our usual walk As we approach the bridge Who should appear but the man in the silver jacket Again, just kind of waiting by the bridge He appears from off the side of the path And quite frankly, I straight up turn around And head back the way we came

Shortly before the bridge the path has an offshoot That leads up behind my house And so we head that way instead This is probably fair obvious to the man in the silver jacket, as we had passed that off-shoot, and when we see him, we straight up just turn around. This day, the weather was objectively not good. It was really cold and also snowing, so there were even fewer people around than as typical,

and I wasn't willing to risk it. I firmly live by the motto, you only have to be wrong once to end up dead, and as such, I have no problem screwing politeness, which has maybe saved my hide a few times. Or I could simply be overly paranoid. Edit, I just went back and listened to my video where I mentioned the first encounter, and I was wrong here. Blue Jacket Guy was definitely on his phone. Silver Jacket Guy may have been, but I can't be sure. It's weird how unreliable memories can be sometimes.

I mean, it's a small detail that doesn't actually really change anything about the story, but I do want this to be as accurate as possible.