As The Raven Dreams Podcast - 7 HOURS Of THE BEST Scary Stories of 2024 - Part 1 of 2

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

Today we have over 7 HOURS of true scary stories - this is a collection of some of my favorite stories from the first half of 2024 (This collection is the first part, and it goes through June) As this is a really long episode, I struggled with where to put the ads, but I decided on 2 ad spots in the first hour, then the other 6 hours are ad free. Ad spots at 23 Min and 48 Min I have a novel coming out soon! It's a psychological thriller, and I think you'll REALLY like it! It's titled "The Insomniac's Experiment" and it's available for digital preorder here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DLSK2XT8 Physical edition coming soon! Planned release date of January 10th, 2025. Want a Signed Poster? Check them out here! https://ko-fi.com/astheravendreams/shop The As The Raven Dreams Podcast is a community where we explore strange and scary parts of existence through spine-chilling tales from listeners. From bizarre glitch in the matrix experiences that defy explanation, to eerie paranormal encounters and horrifying scenarios with strangers and stalkers- I am here to tell you some of the scariest and strangest narratives ever typed. Submit your story for a change to be featured on the podcast ➤ https://www.AsTheRavenDreams.com Or Submit it to the subreddit ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream As The Raven Dreams Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Follow me on Twitter ➤ https://twitter.com/RavensDreamYT #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey there, friends, I hope you're doing well. Today's episode is a collection of some of the best stories of 2024, and this is the first half of set collection. I don't know how many stories are going to be in this exactly, but I can tell you it's going to be a fantastic collection of the first half of the year. I'm going to pick and choose some of my favorite stories from the year, and hopefully you all enjoy them. And hopefully a few of your favorites also make the cut.

These are in no particular order. It's just the first half of the year, so kind of scrambled them around to make it a little more interesting. Don't want to do too many stories collected into one group that are the same thing. Just wanted to make it a little more interesting, so. Hopefully you all enjoy. Hopefully you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and hope I see you again here very soon. But until then, my friends, much love, and sleep well. This happened a number of years ago.

but every time it comes up, I legit get chills down my spine and get sensory overload. Like, all of my senses. I had moved to a new city for a job. My work decided I needed to transfer to a new location. They paid for the move in the first two months of rent, but that was it. And, unfortunately, there were some logistics issues

that ended up with me not working for nearly four weeks. This kind of sucked, as not working meant not getting paid. It was confusing. I was supposed to be salary, but was still paid based on hours worked. It's not really relevant, so I'm not going to try and figure it out in this story. I don't work there anymore, and I would never recommend that company to anyone. I do still live here, and I found a new job since, but again, neither here nor there. Anyways, not working for those few weeks meant that I had very little money to my name.

They paid for rent, sure, but I still needed food, and I wasn't going to sit at home and do nothing for a month. I figured the quickest way to make some cash would be to do some gig work, and I had heard a friend once tell me about all the money he was making, working for people on Craigslist. I went to check it out, and I saw an ad for a guy that was offering $200 cash to help him do some lifting for a few hours that weekend. It seemed like easy money, and I was totally free, so I sent him a message asking if he still needed the help. He responded pretty much right away, saying that he did, and that since I was the first to respond, if I wanted it, he would send me the details and delete the post. and the job was mine. No questions asked.

I agreed. Basically said, Screw it, let's do this. And he texted me the information. That weekend, when I pulled up, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. I'd had the whole week to really think about the fact that I was walking into someone else's house to do work.

And they were offering a good chunk of money. Of course, my thoughts went to this being a scam, or worse, bait. And the house itself wasn't very well kept, so that just kept adding to my worst-case scenario thoughts. I figured I would gauge the situation based on who answered the door, get the job done quickly, and get the hell out of dodge. I knocked on the front door,

and this scraggly old dude in a greasy tank top answered. And I immediately decided that if he tried anything funny, I could probably take him. I don't know why that's where my mind went, but it was. He asked, Are you here for the moving gig? I nodded, and he led me into the house without another word. The place was pretty rank.

It had a stench that I couldn't place, and it was definitely heading in the direction of a hoarder's house. He then led me out to the backyard, which was just as bad. Overgrown, littered with garbage and old appliances. In the middle was a huge sofa, ironically, covered in one of those plastic dust covers. So it actually looked like it was in good condition. There was other furniture, boxes that looked old, plastic tubs, and just a lot of what looked like trash covered by a large blue tarp.

He pulls the tarp up and it's more of the same. He then motioned towards the clutter and says, I need to get all this stuff here and move it into the garage. It's been emptied out, so there's tons of space, but all of this needs to go in there. I walk over and look at the pile

and then over at the garage, which, yeah, was surprisingly emptied out. I shrugged, figured it would go quickly enough, and got to work. I grabbed some of the boxes off the top and move them into the garage. He kind of dictates where he wants them,

explains his organization process. It was a bit strange. He seemed to have a good idea of how he wanted things, but the state of everything in the yard and house made it seem like he struggled with keeping things organized. I spent a couple of hours moving and organizing a few things, doing a bit extra and helping him move some of the furniture and other items that weren't in the pile.

Not the plastic-covered couch, though. He said that it was a nice place to sit and look at it. the yard. We got near the end of it, and all that was left was a couple of plastic tubs, and another item that looked rather large, which was covered in its own tarp. Yes, a tarp-covered item underneath a tarp. It was odd, but I figured he just really wanted that to be protected. I grabbed the tarp to pull it off, and he calls out to me to leave it. I look back at him and mention that I don't mind moving it if he needed it moved. He stands up and walks over to me,

which was the first time he had done that all afternoon, and again tells me to go ahead and just leave that. I got a bit curious, and I asked him what it was. He just chuckled, saying noughts to worry about it, and then motion towards the other tubs. He then says that if I can get those taken care of, he'll go get my money and order a pizza for lunch. if I wanted to stay, saying that he was more than pleased with my work,

and that I at least deserved something to eat. I just sort of nodded and said that I appreciated it. He quickly hobbled off into the house, saying that he was going to call in for the pizza and that he'd be back in a few minutes. As soon as he disappears into the house, I decide that I need to know what was under that tarp, thinking it was going to be some sort of weird porn stash or something. and I wish that it were.

I lifted the tarp up, and, to my surprise, there's a damn coffin under this thing. A legitimate coffin, made of a nice, shiny mahogany, still in perfect condition. Now, this was weird, sure, but it wasn't too weird. I mean, you can just buy coffins, right? They're not illegal to own. and while they're expensive, I'm certain you can just go buy one and have it. And then I decided that I wanted to open it, thinking,

you know what, I've never seen what the inside of a coffin looks like. What I didn't expect was that this wooden box would have an occupant. I'm not going to get into details, but yes, there was a body in this coffin. Yes, it was real. And yes, it was just as disgusting and horrifying as one might think. I shut the lid and covered it all back up immediately. I very quickly turned to finish the rest of the tubs so that I could get out of their ASAP. When he came back out, he handed me the money and saw that I had finished the rest of the work, and thanked me.

I told him that, as much as I wanted to stay for the pizza, my mom had actually texted me saying that she needed me to come over, family emergency, and all that. He seemed to buy it, saying that he hoped everything was okay. I told him that I'm sure it would be fine, just that I needed to go, and quickly apologized for the timing. He said it was fine, that the pizza was going to get eaten either way, and he thanked me again for my help. I rushed myself out of there as quickly as I could, getting to my car and driving out of that neighborhood and away from that whole situation. When I got home, I struggled to decide if I should call 911 about the whole thing. I honestly didn't know the legalities, but I also didn't know if that body belonged to a loved one or a missing person.

So I did end up calling 911, and I have to say that as I explained it, It sounded ridiculous. I told them about why I was there, explained that there was a dead body in a coffin, and that I was certain that it was real. She assured me that they would check it out. I have no idea if they actually did or what they found, but I know that I haven't set foot in that part of town since then. I learned a lesson. Don't ask questions. Do the job.

and ignore the curiosity when it comes to large boxes under tarps. Hello, Raven, and Happy New Year. I commented the other day on YouTube about a story that you read, the one where the person heard someone breathing when they were going to sleep, and I said that I would write you as I too have had this experience. Please bear with me as this happened a long time ago, and tis a lengthy one. my whole life so far has been one long paranormal experience,

non-stop from my earliest memories, and I'm in my 50s now. Like a circle, I cannot tell you when it began. It's just my life. It's something to do with the blood, that's what they say in my part of the world anyway, that these things run in families. And it has certainly proved true in my case.

Some call it a gift. I don't always think of it as such, especially when you're a kid that's so frightened you dare not even get up to pee in the night. I'm at a stage now in my life, where I've overcome the fear, and either get annoyed at it all or actively ignore the nonsense.

I'm not even going to try to convince anyone that I'm telling the truth, because I know that I am, and that's enough for me. I don't need validation, and I'm too tired to massage the skeptics. I digress already, but only for a little backdrop to this particular occurrence. Like I said, I can't tell you when exactly the breather made its first appearance. I'm estimating pre-pubescence, around age 10 or 11.

It coincides with the nighttime visits from what I now know to be a hat man, but I don't know if they're connected or separate entities. All I can tell you is that they exist. I'm going back to the early 1980s now. No internet, no information in the very small public library, beyond the story of Borley Rectory and Arthur C. Clark's strange world. No journals or magazines or TV programs on the paranormal. At least not in my house.

So, no. These people who insist the Hatman is a phenomena born of creepypasta have got it wrong. Before I get to my experience of him, I will tell you a little of what was going on otherwise. I used to have frequent nightmares, and usually the same general theme, Darth Vader in various ways terrorizing me. Now, I was a Star Wars fan since my dad took me to the cinema to watch the very first movie when it was released. I think I was seven or eight. neither Darth Vader nor any other character upset me at the time, and it was surprising that it would be years later when these nightmares began.

It was always the same kind of thing. It was his breathing. He would just stare and breathe, and I would be paralyzed with fear. Anyone who's had a night terror will understand the indescribable and irrational fear of that type of energy. I would often wake up to my bedclothes. pulled up so high they were wrapped around my head, often suffocating, and they would be so tight. Like, not just up over my head, literally wrapped around it. One time they were tied around my throat, and I did panic a bit, because it took me a while to get free of them.

I wore night dresses back then, and they would always be pulled up to my armpits, too. I always felt like there was something in the room watching me after I was. woke up, a very uncomfortable and frightening thing. It would sometimes dissipate and sometimes hang around, just a quietly menacing presence. I would be petrified and unable to move at times. One night, I even tried to sleep in the built-in wardrobe just to feel secure and away from it. Strangely, I never mentioned these terrors to my parents. I was a considerate child, and I knew that they had their own worries, so it never occurred to me to add to them.

I was also raised to be somewhat stoic and resilient, so I didn't share problems easily. It wasn't apparent then, it's only in later life that I have wondered if this was the breather that I encountered later on, because the raspy way Darth would breathe was similar to what I would hear with my awake ears, years later. I had reached the age of 12 or 13 when I first remember the thing in the hat. My father liked to socialize regularly, but my mother hardly ever did. She didn't like alcohol and she was a little reserved in company, but I persuaded her to go one New Year's Eve to the club with Dad and enjoy herself. She didn't want to leave me in the house, but I convinced her that I was a big girl now and I would be fine.

And the club was only at the bottom of our road. And I was responsible enough to come get them if I needed to. So, reluctantly, she went. Turns out that she enjoyed herself playing bingo and would accompany Dad more often from then on. That's when the thing in the hat would turn up. And I would regret trying to socialize my mother. That first night I stayed up watching TV until it finished. Yes, I'm talking of the time when we had three channels, and they stopped broadcasting at midnight.

I would have gone to bed earlier, but I kept getting a creepy feeling from outside the room. And I thought that I kept hearing noises on the stairs. But every time I checked, there was nothing to see. I eventually dragged myself up them to the sanctuary of my room and went to bed. I didn't want my mom's first night out to be spoiled by seeing me scared when she came home. I told her not to worry about me, hadn't I? I had to prove myself. I was dropping into the haze of sleep.

I could see the light from the landing under my door. I heard my parents come home and my dad came up the stairs. I saw the shadow of his feet under my door. So I shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I wanted to show that I was responsible enough to get myself to bed on time. But Dad didn't come into my room. I waited and waited, and then I peeped and saw him in the open doorway. I don't remember hearing the door open.

He was in dark shadow. I couldn't see his features at all, and he seemed taller. I wondered why he had a hat on. pretty sure he didn't go out with a hat on. The only hat he had that resembled that shape was his uniform hat. He was an ambulance man, and in those days, they wore a kind of peaked broad hat. I don't know what the style is called. Kind of like an old bus conductor's hat.

And why would he wear that to go out in? My dad was a very smart man of his generation. Always wore a collar and a tie. Always fixed his hair even when staying in the house. This was not making sense. He just stood in the doorway, staring and not moving to the point where it creeped me out. My dad had never frightened me before, even when he was drunk.

He was a happy drunk. I was about to pluck up the courage to ask what he was doing when I heard the dog downstairs get excited, and my mom and dad came home. Mum asked Dad to come check on me if he was going upstairs to the bathroom. F.Y.I. I tried to get the dog to sleep in my room, but she absolutely would not stay. The next thing I remember, the dark shape was gone, and Dad came up the stairs, full of joy and beer and a good night out. There were more incidents like this to follow, and many others, ones besides, some far more frightening.

A darkness, bad luck, ill health, and hardship descended on our family. And I do see that as the turning point, but I want to tell you now more about the breather. So fast forward. I'm 25 years old. My mother had died not a year since, and my dad was ill in the hospital. I had traveled a very long way from one end of the country to the other to come home. It was late, and I was exhausted. The dog had passed not long after Mum, and I was alone in my old room in the cold, dark, empty house.

I flopped into bed, and was nodding off when I heard his breathing. At first, I thought it was me, or maybe the divay as it rose and fell. I tried to rationalize it every way possible. I was stressed, I was tired, I was imagining it, etc. The breathing was timed with mine, but just a split second behind. It was really weird, but at that point I was more curious than afraid. I stopped my breath to reassure myself that I was going insane, but the other breathing continued. It was undeniable that it was not me.

I was so tired and full of grief that I didn't feel the least bit afraid at that point. I was angry, and I shouted, Shut the F up, I need to sleep. And it breathed once more and then stopped. It was not the end of it, though. My dad came home and I cared for him until he passed away, not 16 months after Mom. In that time, we had all kinds of stuff happening,

and my dad always managed to find an explanation until one night the breather paid him a visit too. He still tried to rationalize it, but failed. I had a boyfriend stay over with me one night, and I hadn't told him about the breather. We were just settling down to sleep when it came by the side of the bed, with its raspy, labored, all-to-familiar old man-type breathing, always timing its inhalations and exhalations with mine. It was bloody strange. I didn't say anything and tried to ignore, it when the boyfriend said, Can you hear that?

So, again, confirming to me that it wasn't all in my imagination or a stress response. I have puzzled over this phenomena for years and never found an answer as to what it was or why it was bothering me. I always

wondered if it had a hand in my mother's death. She died in bed age 54 of no known cause, though they spent spent six weeks trying to find one. She was very susceptible to spirits, and this is where I get it from, and my children too.

We've always been pestered by them. Plenty more things happened in that house. And after Dad passed, things got really hairy. But I think I've rambled on for far too long already, so maybe I'll write again another time. Sorry this was so long-winded, I didn't think it made much sense without all the details.

I really hope that someone out there can tell me what the heck the breather is. And if it's cursed us, how to break that. Because I do feel at times like I am haunted, and it affects my whole family regardless of where we live. Thank you for reading this, Raven, and for providing a space to share. God bless and best of wishes for 2024. for. I'm a big fan of your channel, and I decided to share my story. I don't know if you'll be able to use it, as it doesn't really fit into the glitch in the matrix category, and it's not

scary. It is a true story about a UFO sighting my brother-in-law had about 10 years ago. I really loved your UFO narrations. We live in South Alabama, in an area that is very rural. In the two-mile stretch of road, that is my neighborhood, there are about ten houses spaced out with farming fields as far as you can see in between them. On one side, a 12-acre field separates my house from my neighbors. My backyard is essentially a two-acre grass field that joins my neighbor's backyard property, which is about an eight-acre field that ends at a woodline. On the other side of my house there is a 60-acre farm field which ends at the same woodline.

This field is always planted with either corn, soybeans, or peanuts. So naturally there is a lot of wildlife that will come and eat the crops that are planted. During the colder months, my brother-in-law, let's call him pee, would come over and sit at the edge of our property to watch the deer that would come out. He did this maybe three nights a week anywhere between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. There was a dirt mount covered with broom sage and a small cluster of trees and some brush at the very end of my property.

P.E would drive his truck out there and position it at an angle so that these trees would be in front of him and to his left, and he would be facing the woodline. It is relevant for you to know that when he would be deer watching from his tree, truck, P would cover all of his windows on the driver's side with those sunshade things that you put in the windshield to block out the sun on a hot day. He did that to block out the moonlight and the light from our outdoor security light. The whole purpose of that is so that his eyes would adjust to the dark, and he could better see the deer and use his binoculars.

The night that the incident occurred, he was out there like usual. I was on the couch watching TV, And it was about 1 a.m. I hear P knocking on my back door. I open it to see him wide-eyed and visibly shake, and I tell him to come in as clearly something happened. He says, let me tell you what just happened, what I saw. He then tells me. He was sitting in his truck, had the windows blacked out like always, looking toward the woodline for the deer when suddenly there's a bright light shining on him. Let me just say that our security light that I mentioned is not motion sensing.

It's the kind that is on a light pole and comes on by itself at certain times. So that is not what was shining on him. At first he thinks that me or my husband are shining him with a spotlight from the back porch. But then he realizes that the light is coming from above him, not behind him. He estimates that it was coming from a source about 30 feet off of the ground. But he couldn't tell what it was. Then the light goes out. He decides to stay where he is and see if the light comes back.

Fifteen minutes pass, no light. He's brushed it off and is back to deer watching. He catches movement in his periphery. He describes what he saw as a craft that was as big as his truck. He drove a Chevy S-10 at the time, so not a full-sized truck. It had a boxy-shaped. You could see through it, and it was dimly lit inside. It was silent.

This craft was floating about 12 feet off of the ground. He watched it slowly float out from behind that small cluster of trees, moving towards the open field. He grabbed his binoculars to try to get a better look. When he looked through them and tried to focus on the craft, it changed directions and floated back behind the trees. He said that whenever he wasn't looking through the binoculars, the craft would start to move back out into the open. He said it was like it was trying to hide itself, and like it knew when he was looking through the binoculars. He continues watching it for a few minutes, and then it disappeared. He said it was just there, and then it was gone.

That's when he made his way up to the house. I asked him, so you saw a floating see-through box? He said, yeah, and detailed it as, it wasn't clear, see-through, it had an opaqueness to it, but that he could see what was on the other side, but it was distorted.

And then he asked me for a piece of paper, and the shape that he drew gave me chills. It looked like one of those old wooden coffins, like the kind that vampires are depicted as sleeping, in. All that I said after that was, I believe you. He left our house that night, and he didn't resume his deer watching until the following winter. At the time of this incident, P had been my brother-in-law for ten years, and has been for twenty years now as I write this. He has never been a real excitable guy. I haven't ever seen him spooked like he was that night, before or since.

What truly solidified my belief was when P retold his account of what he saw to his mother, my mother-in-law. She was a no-nonsense woman of very few words. She was a smoker at the time, and when she was having trouble sleeping, she would have a cigarette out on her porch late at night. She said that she'd been outdoing just that one night around 2 a.m., and that she had seen the exact same craft as P. had described.

So, that's my story. I'm submitting it in hopes that you'll do another UFO collection of stories sometime soon. Maybe someday. And also because I really want to know if anyone else has seen a craft like this. I haven't really talked about this online, though my wife, then girlfriend, loves to share this story with anyone who will listen. Years ago, when we first met, my wife and I shared a love. of photography and exploration.

We called it ghost hunting, but it was more akin to visiting abandoned locations and taking photographs. I used a 35mm camera with Ilford HP5 Plus film, and she used a Canon Rebel digital camera. We would often scout locations online with plans to visit them and get some picks for our library.

This time it was an old abandoned fuel refinery slatch, storage depot, just off of a beach overlooking Lake Ontario. It would be tricky getting into the old refinery itself from the front, and so I used Google Maps to see if there was any other way that we could get in. It looked like a wall was blocking most of our way in, except for a small section just off the beach that had only a chain link fence. The beach itself looked extremely disheveled, like it had seen little use, so we hoped this would give us the privacy we needed to sneak in.

I mean, sneaking into an abandoned industrial structure isn't exactly legal, and we didn't want anyone calling the cops on us, so we packed our gear and headed out on our excursion. We had a hard time finding the entrance to the beach parking lot, but found it was blocked only by a loose chain that was laying on the ground, half buried in the dirt, as if someone had removed it long ago and just left it there. As we pulled into the parking area, there were no cars except for hours, which we noticed immediately. As we pull in and I park, my wife points and says, there's people here.

I look up and see several dozen people, all along the shoreline, and all staring out at the water at literally nothing. No ships, no planes, no boats of any kind. They're all just staring blankly. There was nothing particularly interesting about these people. They were all different age groups from young adults to elderly, though there were no children,

and all were dressed as you would expect people to dress. It was a warm sunny day, and though some were in shorts, I found it odd that others were in long pants with jackets. It was far too warm for a jacket. What really struck me, though, was the confusion of how they got there. No cars, no bikes, nothing. And no place to park up on the street for at least a few kilometers. No houses nearby either, so locals?

Maybe, but from where? Anyway, they're pretty much ignoring us as we sit in the car. contemplating whether to call the whole thing off, partially because of our need for privacy and partly because of how weird it was feeling. After a few minutes of deliberation, we decided to continue on with the plan, thinking that whatever they're doing, they're not interested in us. So we get out of the car grabbing the cameras. No sooner do we close and lock our doors,

then every head turns and looks at us. I mean, every one of them. And there's a couple dozen of them, still facing the water, but their heads have turned to look in our direction. We froze for a second, looked at each other just completely weirded out. It felt like a long time, but was probably only a minute or so, when they all just turned back to face the water, ignoring us again. At this point we got together and, in whispers, were discussing all. what to do, all the while we were watching these people who completely ignored us. Finally, after some back and forth, we decided to press on.

However, we'd been to some far-schetier places in the past, though this was a new one. We walked along the beach to the section of the wall where the fence was, and found a gap to enter. This is when I noticed they were looking at us again, every one of them. We paused and hesitated to enter. After a few minutes, they again turned away. So, trying to be sneaky, we ducked behind the wall to the fence. From where we were, I couldn't see all of them, but the half dozen or so that I did see had turned their heads toward us, not moving their bodies, just their heads.

It just seemed that every time we moved, that's when they would look at us. We were committed and decided to get in, take our picks quickly, and then get out. The time we spent in the refinery couldn't have been longer than 15 minutes. We'd planned for an hour or more originally, but the strangeness being what it was, we knew this had to be a short one. As we climbed back through the gap in the fence, the first thing that caught me was that there was nobody in sight. I stopped my wife and told her this as we hesitated before, passing the wall.

We looked out slowly, trying to not call attention to ourselves. As we passed the wall, the entire place was in view. Not a freaking person there. Nobody. Even stranger, it looked like nobody had ever even been there, at least for a long time. Now, I didn't make any close inspection of the area, but the sand looked undisturbed. There were footprints, but not enough for several dozen people. And they didn't look new.

You know how a beach's sand can look dry on the surface, but if you kick into it, darker wet sand underneath shows, there was none of that. Just a few small dunes of dry-blown sand. It was eerie as hell. The only noise were the distant cars on the road. After this, we hurried back to our car, not running really but definitely not taking time to enjoy a day at the beach.

Not that there was much to enjoy there. We will never forget that place, and how truly freaky it was. When I was 28, I was looking for a new place to live. I wasn't too happy with the apartment I was in anymore, and I wanted to find something with a bit more room, but still a reasonable price. I was paying too much for a one-bedroom apartment, so when I found a duplex with two bedrooms and a full basement for near, nearly the same price, I was pretty thrilled.

It was in a nicer neighborhood, and was pretty close to my work, which was a real winner for me. I moved in quickly and settled in even faster. I'd like to think that I'm a pretty outgoing person, so I became curious when I hadn't seen my neighbor once while I was moving in. Until one day I saw a middle-aged woman leaving the other duplex. She was in a suit skirt with a jacket. Obviously dressed for a nice office job, so I assumed she was probably just really busy and kept to herself. But the times that I started noticing her were pretty sporadic. It was only maybe two or three times a week, and sometimes I would see her arriving and other times leaving.

One of those times, I was just coming home myself as she was leaving. We made eye contact, so I stopped to say hi and to introduce myself. She was very nice, and she told me her name was Teresa, but she actually didn't live there. Her 80-year-old dad, Carol, did. She said she came to visit him a few times a week. She would get his groceries, take him to doctor's appointments, things like that. She also mentioned that he didn't get out much, so I probably wouldn't see him much, but that he would probably talk my ear off if I did see him.

After talking for a little bit, she left and I went about my business. From then, I would occasionally see him when he got his mail, or left with Teresa to go wherever. When we were outside at the same time, he would talk to me about pretty much anything on his mind. He was definitely a kind old man, and the fact that he pretty much kept to himself, it made me think he was going to continue to be a pretty great neighbor.

This was a few months into me living there at this point. I came home from work and saw Carol sitting out in the chair on his side of the patio in just his cargo shorts. He had a magazine that was rolled up, and he appeared to be swatting the air in an annoying manner. I approached him, and his face softened, and he jokingly said, Oh, how was work, dear? That was just who he was, and I didn't mind. We talked for a moment when he brought up how much he hated mosquitoes. I suggested bug spray and the little citronella candles.

As we talked, I mentioned how I used to have the teaky torches on my apartment balcony, so I could sit out there and not be bothered. He thanked me, and said that he would remind Teresa to pick some up when she went shopping for him next, and then we said goodbye. A few days later, I saw him outside again and watched from my window, as this man sprayed himself all over with the bug spray. He sprayed his legs, his arms, his torso, and even above him like he was misting himself. It definitely looked strange to me, but then I thought, maybe there was something about the bugs, like a phobia. Or maybe he had a fear of being bitten.

or maybe they were just really that much of an annoyance to him. It really wasn't my place to judge, so I left it alone as life continued on as normal. But it was the following night that I sat in my living room, eating my dinner, when I started smelling something funny. It was a strong chemical smell, but I couldn't quite tell what it was. I was worried that something may have caught on fire and started walking around my unit. My cat had been sitting next to me, so I knew that she didn't get into anything. I checked all the sockets, anything electrical that I could think of, including the heat lamp on my iguana's cage.

But everything seemed fine. But the smell still worried me. Was it in my head? Was there something wrong with me by chance? I decided to walk out front to get some fresh air and see if maybe I could still smell it out there. The answer was yes. I could definitely smell it. But I had also figured out what the source of the smell was.

It was Carol, once again spraying himself with the same bug spray, and I could now place that scent. We immediately started talking because he heard me open my door, of course. He claimed the bugs were getting worse, and were now getting inside his home. He talked about how he couldn't stand it so he sprayed all the vans. vents, the doorways, even his air filter. He doused it with the stuff.

I tried to get a better explanation at that point, wondering if he was still talking about mosquitoes, or something else. All he could tell me was that they were bugs, and that they were everywhere. I told him to be careful with the spray, trying not to sound mean and said that it could be harmful to ingest, and that maybe we should contact the rental office so that they can treat for them instead. He said that was probably a good idea, and I went back inside, opening some windows to air out my side of the place.

I made a mental note to myself, to let Teresa know the next time I saw her to do the same, and to not buy him more bug spray. I was able to let her know, but she said that she had only bought him the one can, and assumed that he probably ordered more online, as he did do that sometimes. Again, it wasn't my place to tell her what to do, but the amount that he was using was almost disturbing,

and to practically drench yourself in it was not good either. I saw my share of mosquitoes out there, but he made it seem like there was a swarm of them all over him at all times, and I can assure you that that was not happening. I just told her what I saw and that I was concerned with him spraying it so much, and she said that she would talk to him about it, and that was that. Unfortunately, the bug spray wasn't even the worst of it. While I was in bed, going in and out of sleep,

I had become pretty hot, and was almost irritable with how hot it was. I sat up in bed wondering if there was something wrong with the AC, and no sooner than when I got out of bed, the smoke alarms started going off. I panicked and ran out of my room to see flames from the living room window and tons of dark smoke coming in from the vents. I grabbed my cats and my iguana, scaring them both, I'm sure, and ran through the back door, running to the front yard. I had a button latch on my hatchback so I was able to open it and put them both in there.

thankfully they both get along too I had to put them up before I actually approached the cause of the flames because it was coming from Carol he was holding one of those teaky torches against the wall and was watching it as it slowly caught fire I screamed at him what the hell are you doing but when he turned around

that was a face I had never seen before he looked so angry and his eyes were so wide they looked like they were going to pop out. He said that he finally figured out a way to get rid of the damn bugs. He said that he made a fire on all of his vents, which also meant that our shared wall was on fire and was now torching the outside. I was so afraid to approach him, being a small woman,

but I did, and he surprisingly handed the torch over to me. But he continued to talk about what he had done. like it was some hobby or other harmless project that he was working on. I had my phone on me, and I had grabbed it as I was rounding up the pets, so I finally called 911 once I had my bearings. The whole time, Carol was just continuing to talk in the background. The fireman arrived quickly and put out the fire, and we both talked to the police about what had happened.

Thankfully, Carol did have Teresa's number memory, memorized. So we called her, and she was there pretty fast, too. It was the only time that I ever saw her not dressed up. That was an awful moment right there, and I think it really opened Teresa's eyes about what was happening. What did you do, Dad? She was pleading with him as he continued to talk about the bugs. It was terrifying, but I also felt so bad about the whole thing. I felt like it was my fault.

I shouldn't have brought up the spray or the torches or any of it. Once the smoke cleared, literally, they were able to go inside to assess the damage. Most of it was on our shared wall, and the outside wall, of course, and there were some burn spots on the carpet on Carroll's side. I had to move a lot of stuff out of my living room so that they could come in and repair it, but otherwise it was still a good, sturdy, building. I didn't see Carol much after that. Teresa had come by and got some of his stuff, but she told me that he was going to be living with her for the time being, and said that she should

have done that a lot sooner, joking that she would have saved gas anyways. I wished her well, and once all of his stuff was out, that was the last that I saw of them. After some repairs on the other side, I finally got some new neighbors. It was a young, younger lady with a baby, and so far they haven't been too bad. I still live there, so Carol lives rent-free in my mind. Sometimes I will randomly smell something funny, or I'll hear the neighbor's smoke alarm go off, and it sets me into a panic.

We've talked plenty of times, and she's mentioned how it goes off when she's cooking, so I know everything is okay, but my heart rate still jumps a bit when it happens. I do hope that Carol is doing better now, but since the fire was so close to home, it has kind of become a pretty big fear of mine. When I was a kid, I used to love playing in the snow.

In fact, I had always been a very active kid, always wanting to play outside and explore every nook and cranny I could find out there. But there was just something about snow days that were magical to my simple child's, Sure, you got to stay home from school, but it was more to me than that. I got to play outside all day with my friends without homework getting in the way. I was an only child. My dad worked a normal 9 to 5 job, and my mom worked from home, but just stayed in her office most of the day. So if I had a snow day or some random unexpected day off, I basically had to leave her alone until we had lunch, or

something. So, being expected to keep myself entertained didn't always work out. Thankfully, I had a few friends that lived in the neighborhood and my mom was more than willing to let me go hang out with them on those days off. Our snow days would typically consist of building a decent-sized snowman. We usually only dressed him up with the things that we found around the yard, or nothing at all, because we would then use it for target practice. We would throw snowballs or rocks at it, and then we would throw them at each other and plenty of other fun things like that. The story took place during one of those snow days. My friends and I had all been trying to build a makeshift snow fort.

I had walked down to Andy's house, which is where we met up. From there, Andy, Travis, Jackson, and I walked to the corner to hang out at what we referred to as our club. There used to be an old convenience store located there, but it burned down several years prior to this event. When that happened, they bulldozed what was left to the building and just left the concrete parking lot empty, with nothing ever being built there. This became the best blank canvas when it snowed, and we loved it.

This is where we would end up hanging out a lot. We pretty much knew the people in the neighborhood, so sometimes people would drive by and honk, and wave at us and just carry on. It wasn't a secret or anything. Our parents knew that we went there too. So this was where we started building a few snowman guards in the front, and then we started building our walls in the back.

It had been a really good snowfall with plenty more expected, so we got a little in over our heads. We wanted to try and build walls on at least three sides of the concrete, and try to make it as close to an enclosed place as we could. However, we were still kids and didn't quite understand the purpose of not having walls crooked or having supports to help hold them up, so it fell at times. But we were still determined. While we were working on this, there was one guy that we saw walking down the street,

but he didn't really stand out at all. He had on a long black coat that went past his knees. He was wearing sunglasses and a fedora as well. And he was wrapped up in a long, dark red scarf. To me, he just looked like some businessman, but like others had done, he stopped and stared at us for some time. We waved at him and he didn't wave back, keeping his hands in his pockets. So we just continued playing.

Shortly after, I looked up, still feeling like we were being watched, and I saw the guy was still standing there. He had walked to the corner and hit the button to cross, as I heard the beep, but I guess he never walked. It was pretty obvious at this point that he was just watching us. Being a kid, though, I didn't know if it even meant anything, and he wasn't doing anything other than just standing there, so I tried to just ignore him.

We all once again helped out, and before I knew it, I had forgotten about the guy, and when I looked a while later, he was gone. We'd been out there for most of the day, and we're told that we needed to be home before sundown. And so when the sky started turning pink and orange, we knew it was about time to go. All of us were starting to feel a bit hungry anyways. We began our trek back home, but right before we got to Andy's house, I realized I left my gloves back at the fort. I had taken them off because they were covered in snow and were no longer keeping my hands warm.

They were also new, and I knew that my mom would kill me if I left them, and possibly lost them. So I had to turn around. I told my friends to go on ahead that I would go by myself, not wanting anyone else to get in trouble for my mistake. I thought that I would just walk back down there, grab them real quick, and head back. No big deal. I got back to our spots, grabbed my gloves, and then spotted part of our wall that looked like it was going to collapse. We had spent so much time on it that I didn't want it to fall, so I took a moment to try and pack more snow into it. As I did this, I started getting that feeling of being watched again.

It reminded me of staying at Andes and having his little brother always peeking into the room. So I started to look around. To my surprise and curiosity, it was the man from before, in the long coat, standing at the corner and once again staring at me. This time, the man waved at me first, and being taught manners, I waved back. The man smiled and began walking towards me, and for some unexplained reason, I started to get this feeling like something was wrong, like I was in trouble. I stood up and started walking towards the street to leave, pretending like I didn't see him walking towards me. But then he shouted at me, which made me stop.

It was one of those times where, as a kid, they were an adult, so I felt like I needed to listen to them. My parents did instill stranger danger in me, and I knew not to go with strangers or whatever, but I still felt like I had to listen to what they had to say. I stopped in my place turning back around to face them as they approached me, and he began talking to me. Hey there, sweetie. Did you and your friends build that wall all by yourself?

He talked to me like I was a small child, not like you would to a 12-year-old boy. And the way he called me, sweetie, just felt off to me. I nodded, simply saying yes, when he stood up straight, putting his hands on his hands on his hips and said that it was very impressive of us. Then, he asked if I needed a ride home. I thought this was a weird question because every time we saw him, he was walking. He hadn't been in a car. Regardless, I knew not to accept a ride from a stranger, so I told him no, and said that I

lived right up the street, and then pointed to Andy's house. I was thinking he would leave me alone if he saw that my house was in clear view from where we were. Unfortunately, it did not. And he made a comment that sounded more like a threat. Well, you never know what could happen to a little girl walking alone by herself. I didn't like the way that he said that.

And also, I wasn't a girl. I did have longer hair as my parents let me choose what I wanted to do with it. And with my hat on, I suppose someone could have mistaken me for a girl. I told him that I was a boy, probably sounding a bit offended at the time, and he just had this evil-looking grin on his face the whole time. It again made me feel really uncomfortable, so I just said that I needed to get home and continued walking. I looked over my shoulder for a moment and saw the guy standing still, watching me walk off. The weird vibes he was giving would not let up, and my fighter flight started kicking in.

making me constantly look back. Thankfully I did, because the guy started walking behind me, following me, and obviously catching up. Something in my head told me that I needed to run, so, after stopping for a brief second to turn

like I was going to cross the street, I then took off running towards Andy's house. I could hear his feet shuffling behind me, obviously running with me. I started screaming, saying, anything that I could to get someone's attention, or maybe get him to leave me alone. I shouted things like, leave me alone. I don't know you. And somebody help. I finally reached Andy's door, and instead of knocking as I normally would, I immediately tried the door.

And thankfully, it was still unlocked, so I ran inside. I saw Andy sitting on the couch and his mom came out of the kitchen with a concerned look on her face. I quickly tried to tell them about the man that had followed me there, and Andy's mom yelled for his dad. When he came out, I relayed what had happened to him as well, and he immediately rushed outside looking for the guy. Andy's mom called the cops, and my parents as well, to let them know what was going on. When the cops showed up, I explained what happened, and then Andy and I gave them a description

of the same man to confirm, and they went out to look for him. My parents showed up as well, not willing to let me walk home, of course, and we waited for the cops to come back. Unfortunately, they never saw the guy again, so we went home. This also ruined some of our independence for a while. We weren't allowed to go anywhere alone. We weren't allowed to go down to our little spot, and I wasn't allowed to walk to Andes for a long time.

They would drop me off and pick me up or only allow me to walk if there was someone with me like if all of us boys were together. They took stuff like that very seriously in our neighborhood, which was a good thing. A lot of neighbors would look out for us and strangers and immediately report it, especially after this event.

I never did see that guy again, which is great, but I just hope that he would, was never successful with offering that ride. Or even better, hopefully he was caught somewhere else before he could offer one. That man emanated evil, and I could tell that there was nothing good to come out of that situation. So, this event started happening to me a few weeks ago. I work in construction, and I'm not really an outgoing person, so my idea of a good Friday night is sitting at home, ordering something for dinner and picking something up,

and just binging something on TV until I passed out. I might go see some friends or do something over the weekend, but Friday was usually my day to just be left alone and relax. On one of those nights, I was eating when I received a call from an area code I didn't recognize, Oklahoma. I live in Tennessee, and it said scam likely. I liked to waste their time, so I answered, but they didn't say anything and eventually hung up. So they were probably just confirming that this was a live number.

Whatever. But then they called back, same number, about an hour later. That time I answered again and didn't get a response, so I asked, Is anyone going to talk, or are we just going to sit here again? This time I heard someone laughing and they hung up. I was a little confused there. It was this really a scammer? Because if so, what was the point?

Could it have just been a prank call? Again, they're not really good because the number showed up. Granted, it could have been spoofed too, I suppose. But I also didn't get another call from them, so I let it go. The next week, I was on my couch. doing the same thing that I usually do. This time I had left over, so I didn't even have to go anywhere. Then I got another call.

This time it was scam likely coming out of Texas. I once again answered, and this time they asked if Country Boy was there, using my real name, of course. I confirmed and they said, cool, and then hung up. Again, it was weird, but I just went about my night. But the number

called again. I answered it. In that time they again sat silently. A little annoyed, I asked them, So you confirmed it was me. You obviously wanted to talk, so let's talk. The person again laughed and hung up. No more calls that night, so

someone was obviously trying to prank me. I don't know who or why, but I could move past it. I just didn't have to answer the call. But then, last week, I got another call. This time it was restricted. I was not going to entertain it, so I just didn't answer. I just kept on enjoying my night. Seven times, they called.

It was back to back. I even put my phone on silence so it wouldn't keep vibrating, hoping that it would be less distracting. But then I got a text from a number that I didn't recognize, and all it said was, answer the phone. Still annoyed, but wanting this nonsense to end, I answered. What do you want? I said annoyed. I can see you. The person said back in a teasing manner.

This voice was different from the previous calls that I got. This person sounded like a woman. Again, I took it as a prank. I was alone in my apartment that was on the second floor, so no one could obviously see me. So I just played along. Yep, sure you can. I see you. Sitting on your couch, with your sandwich and beer.

I was, in fact, doing just that. But big deal. Good guess, I thought to myself. Generic food item, generic drink, right? Then they said, Also, those boxers are not flattering and laughed. Again, I was sitting in my boxers. I was home alone, still weird, but I wasn't going to start freaking out.

I just told them not to call back and hung up. I mumbled something, calling them a name and tried to forget about it, but they then sent a text that said, I'm not an asshole. That's what I had said under my breath before hanging up. That got me thinking. How the hell did they know what I said? I could say maybe a good guess on the other things,

even though the boxer comments did kind of throw me off. But how did they know what I had said? I just sat on my couch not really knowing how to take all this. Why was this all happening right now, and why me? Neither of the voices sounded familiar to me. I didn't know anyone in over. Oklahoma, nor Texas. And the number that text me, after looking it up, was one of those internet phone numbers.

I couldn't find anyone tied to it. I tried calling it, but it said that it didn't accept phone calls, so I was at a loss. But then, the number called back, and I wanted answers, so I answered. I tried to keep up the bravado, to not let them think I was interested in their game, but I think that started to quickly fall. What do you want? I just wanted to talk. Oh, and you're almost out of dog food.

Don't make Penny mad. Now I was kind of freaked out. I do have a dog named Penny, and she was running low on food. I was actually going to stop to get more on my way home from work that day, but I had forgotten. I told them not to call back anymore, and I hung up. Unfortunately, the number was restricted, so I couldn't even block it.

I again sat in my living room for a while before I finally decided to call the only person I could even think about pulling something like this, my ex. Our split was amicable. We were pretty different people, and when we thought it would work at first, we realized it wasn't going to. We stayed decent friends, though. We were together for about a year, so I knew her voice, and I knew the caller wasn't her. I also know that she had no reason to really prank me like this because there was no resentment, no anger. But I also know that she had a key to my place, she knew my dog, and sometimes she also enjoyed a Friday night in with me so she knew what I did.

But when I called her, the background was really loud. So I knew that she was at work. She was a bartender. I told her about what was happening, and I recognized the sincerity and genuine confusion in her voice. It only confirmed that it wasn't her. I even asked if she gave out my number to anyone, and told anyone about my dog,

or anything, to someone that would try and mess with me, and, again, she sounded genuine when she said it. I let her go and continued on, with my confusing and frustrating nights. But they apparently were not done with me. I got one more texts that just said, knock, knock. I ignored it until I got two more texts with the same thing. I wasn't going to entertain it anymore,

so I ignored it and tried to play a game on my Xbox. But then there was a real knock on my door. I kept the game going, trying to keep the noise on and slowly approached the door to look out the hole. There was no one there. I slowly unlocked the door and flung it open and just saw a small box at my door. Like hell was I going to open it. I left it there, locked the door again, and continued playing my game.

It started to eat at me, though, because, like most people would, I wanted to know what it was. But I was also worried that something dangerous, could be in it. I didn't want to call the police. I didn't want to waste their time on me, whining about a prank call in a suspicious package. But then I thought about all of the other people in this building,

and then realized how selfish this could be. So I called the police. I told them about the calls in the suspicious package at my door, and they said they would come right over. I waited for some time until I started hearing footsteps outside my door. So I got up to check. I saw the cops, so I opened the door to them talking to each other. But when I opened the door, at their feet was the box.

But now it was sitting open, with a single bag of dog food in this box. One of the cops had a smirk on his face, like he thought the whole thing was funny. I reiterated what happened and explained that the box was closed. That's why I called them. however they said that it was open when they arrived. Did someone really come back in that short amount of time to open the box? For what? To prove that it was harmless?

I was irritated at this point, and when they asked me if I wanted it, I said no and told them to throw it in the dumpster out front. It matched the exact food that I got for Penny. I bought an expensive senior-specific food for her due to her, age and some health issues, one that I got from a specific store. So how would they know? But I also wasn't willing to risk her life to feed her that bag in case it had been tampered with. After that, I went to bed, fed up and angry.

I didn't get another call or text either. The next day I looked into the numbers that called me and came to a dead end pretty quickly, as they were both internet numbers too. Traced to no one so there was no way that I would ever get an answer to this. But I did buy a camera to put on my door. It's technically against my apartment lease, but at this point I really don't give a damn. I was mad.

I was freaked out, and I wanted to catch the asshole if they tried to do it again. Now, all I have to do is figure out how to check my place for Pott. possible hidden cameras, but the thought of even doing that makes me feel insane. And maybe that's what they were going for. But I'm honestly at a loss at this point. I just want to feel comfortable in my own place again, and until that happens, I guess that I just get to be paranoid.

These events started when I was a kid, but also, as recent as two years ago. I grew up in a very small town. The neighborhood I lived in was the largest one in the area, and on top of the houses, we had one grocery store and one gas station. Yes, it was that small. But we did have a firehouse that had a pop machine in front of it, then a lot of us kids liked to go, get a drink, and hang out. The firemen there were always very nice to us kids and pretty much watched over us.

There were another couple of people that cared for us kids, too. That was the Henderson's that lived close to the firehouse. We had to pass their home to get there. During spring and summer, we often saw them outside doing something in their yards. Miss Henderson, I think her first name was Diane, was usually cleaning up her garden beds near her windows. Mr. Henderson, or Gary, could be found riding around on his ancient-looking lunch, lawnmower or doing something on the side of the house, where his shed was.

I liked to go over there a lot as a kid. Diane made the best butterscotch cookies and would send me home with some. Gary seemed to be a nature enthusiast. He would always point out berries and leaves that were safe to eat, gave tips on how to identify them, and even showed me how to make a strong rope out of dried vines. I loved learning so many things. from him. But then I experienced death for the first time in my life. Mr. Henderson had passed away.

The neighborhood felt a bit emptier and a bit quieter without his presence. But it seemed even more empty by the fact that Ms. Henderson seemed to become more reclusive and withdrawn. She was rarely out in her yard, and when I did see her, she was never smiling. She never smiling. She never acknowledged me. She wouldn't look at me, or wave. I remember asking my parents about it, and they explained how she was probably still hurting, and then everyone coped with grief differently.

But the best thing to do was to give her space. Gary was important to me, but I didn't understand death quite so well as an adult, and why she was so sad. But I took my parents' advice and stopped trying to get her attention, when I passed by. But after a few months of much of the same, curiosity had gotten the best of me,

and I felt sorry for her. So I made her a card in school during our free time, and I wanted to give it to her hoping that it might cheer her up. Once I got off the bus, I walked backwards towards her house and knocked on the door. No one answered. I looked through the window by the door and noticed the house looked quite messy.

It was an unusual sight because, when I had been over, their home was always spotless, reminding me very much of my own grandparents' house. After standing there for some time, I thought I would try the backyard, thinking maybe she was out back. I walked through the gate and called out for Miss Henderson. No answer.

I walked towards her rose bushes when I saw something run past me. causing me to look over. What I saw scared me. It looked human. I didn't see fur, just pale skin. But they were also completely nude and running on all fours. When I looked over, they were just running behind the shed towards the back corner of the yard. I was pretty well freaked out being a young child,

and not knowing what I saw and probably a little embarrassed that this person was naked. I immediately ran back to the gate, still closing it, and I ran all the way home. Since my parents told me I should leave or be, I didn't tell them what I saw. I never did. I never tried to see Miss Henderson after that day. I found it hard to even look over at her home, afraid that I would see that thing again. Over time, I never heard people, including my parents, bring up the Henderson's ever again. it was like they just disappeared.

Years later, my family moved out of that town and somewhere with more schooling options. That was the summer before I would have started high school. Since we moved, I excelled in my high school, made some great friends, and really solidified what I wanted to do with my career. Honestly, the Hendersons in that town were in the past by now. But during a graduation party, A lot of us reminisced on our childhoods, and things that we missed or didn't quite understand. That's when I remembered what I experienced after Gary's passing. It stayed in the back of my mind until the party came to an end.

I wanted to see my old childhood home. I asked my girlfriend if she wanted to join me, and she excitedly agreed. So we drove to my neighborhood and stopped in front of our old home. Someone lived there at the time, as there were children's toys in the yard, and it had been painted a pale blue. It looked good and well taken care of. But then I was curious about the Henderson's home. At the party, I only told my friends about them and the things they did. I told them about Gary's passing and not seeing Diane after that, but I didn't tell them about seeing someone in the backyard.

We drove around the other side of the neighborhood where it bumped up against the dense trees. We parked on the side of the road next to an open field and walked through the trees. I wanted to get to the backyard. I don't know what compelled me to check out the yard instead of just the front of the house, like I did my own. We got to the woods, and I just looked over what I could see of the yards and the trees, reminiscing. Then I heard my girlfriend gasp and grab my arm. I looked over to where her focus was and saw something staring at us from a large pile of leaves, branches, and debris. It had to be human.

But again, their skin was a pale blue, or grayish color, and really leathery. There was no fur or hair, and even their head seemed to be in peasant. They were completely nude again and walking on both hands and feet. They had been watching us, until we probably startled them, and they walked to the pile to hide from us. We were both startled, but something was pulling me towards it. I slowly approached the pile, much to my girlfriend's dismay. Then, this thing jumped out from it, letting out this weird, growl, but I could almost make out words.

It said something like, get out. But it sounded warped, like someone who didn't quite know how to speak. They then took off in the other direction and hid in some of the bushes. It was evening, the sun was setting, but there was still light. And this thing was out there for anyone to see. I was pretty shaken up. my girlfriend obviously terrified. So we ran back through the trees,

got in my car, and drove directly to her place. Once we got there, we sat in my car in her driveway, and she asked me what the hell we had just seen. I told her I wasn't certain, but then explained to her what I saw as a kid. She looked at me like I had something growing off my face. She first asked me if I told anyone and then understood my reasoning.

What was I supposed to say? There was a naked old person walking around their backyard like a dog? Hell, I technically shouldn't have even been back there. And now, it could be considered trespassing, and I was an adult. I didn't know what to do. The fact that she saw it too, all these years later, and actually saw it first this time, confirmed that I was not imagining it.

but the worst part was that part of me feared that this thing was Ms. Henderson She'd become reclusive, and it was back there when I was a child. Could she have become feral for some reason? Did she lose Gary and then just snap? God, I didn't want to think about it, but could she have been involved with his death? If that was her, she had to be much older. They were close enough to my grandparents' age when I was a kid,

and at the time of this event, I was 18. How would she be able, in her fragile body, to walk like that, and to walk that fast, or do the things that we were witnessing? I talked to my parents about her, kind of, a couple of days later, saying that I was just thinking back of my childhood. I mentioned how she just kind of disappeared after Gary's death, and my parents basically confirmed that. They said they didn't have any kids,

and they assumed that a lot of their family either lived far away or had also passed because they rarely saw anyone over there. They also said that she had pretty much disappeared. Her immediate neighbor asked around and asked for a welfare check, But when the police went in, she was nowhere to be found. But the house was spotless, with no signs of foul play. Because of this, they didn't really do any further investigation. They claimed that she probably left, or moved in with a relative,

and her house sat as it was. I don't know how it ended up being sold. I finally told my parents about what I had seen both times, and while my dad didn't say much, my mom said that she probably had dementia when I saw her as a kid, but thinks that we may have been mistaking a sick dog or something. I dropped it, as there really was no point in arguing, but I know what I saw.

It was the same thing from my childhood. So now, I still think about it today about what happened to Miss Henderson. Is it possible? for someone to snap and become feral like that? What else could explain it? Could it really even be her? Or was it some other unknown creature that I saw?

Sometimes I want to go back and see if I can stop it, but I can't bring myself to... I don't want to remember her like that, if that is her. And I don't want to make her into a spectacle for others. I'm really just hoping that I saw a... some weird creature, and not, my sweet old neighbor lady. This is a story about my daughter, Madison.

Madison was our firstborn child, so everything that happened with her, we were experiencing for the first time. She was born healthy and just seemed like a very happy baby. One of the things I remember as a kid was when my dad laid on his back and held us in the air on his feet. We called it airplane, and we would make the sounds and everything. I loved it then, and I did it with Madison when she was a bit older, too. She was always full of laughter, and her eyes were wide with amazement as we did it. As she got older and could articulate things more, she would demand to wear a hat as we played airplane, and between the little gibberish and

the few words that she could speak, she would seem to try to have a whole conversation as she was flying. We just thought it was what babies did. When Maddie was about two, she would run all over the house with her arms out like she was an airplane. It was just something she liked to do. We both just thought that she enjoyed it because of us playing. But then, as she started talking and forming clearer sentences, she was saying things that didn't make sense for her age. One of her favorite things to say when she was scared or surprised was,

oh, golly gosh. The first time she said it, I wasn't home. It was just my wife. She thought it was funny as she had never heard it before and asked her where she learned to say it. She said that she looked at her confused and told her, I've always said that. And then continued to play.

When I got home and my wife told me what happened, I was shocked, because I had heard that before, but not for Maddie. It was something my grandfather said all the time. I never heard anyone else say it, not even someone in my family. My grandfather passed before my wife and I got together, so neither of them would have known that. There was no reason to even talk about him really, but I did ask my parents if they had mentioned him, or said that saying around Maddie, because they had watched her on occasion. But they said they hadn't. There was no reason to lie about it.

He wasn't a black sheep of the family or anything. He was well-loved and severely missed, but she was too young to even know about death. So there was no reason to bring him up. Overall, we just chalked it up to a weird situation and let it go, even if she continued to say it and it threw me off. Another significant event was when she was around four. I was looking at my wife's car in the garage after she was having some troubles with it. I am not a car guru, but I know some things that my dad taught me,

so I was testing things when Maddie walked in and... in her cute little voice, she asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was trying to fix mom's car, and she asked to see. She's always been a curious kid, so I lifted her up to stand

on the bumper and look into the car. She asked what happened. I tried to explain as simply as possible, because, well, you know, she's a child. She tried to put her arm down between parts, and I told her to stop because I didn't want to stop, didn't want her to get hurt.

She put her other hand out to stop me and said, I know what I'm doing, Mikey. I was taken aback for a couple of reasons. I had never heard her voice get so stern before. I'm her father, and she has always called me as such. My name is Michael, but not even my wife calls me Mikey. Very few people in my family do. One of those people was,

my grandfather. I just stared at her and watched as she struggled to reach into the car. She then pulled her arm out, exasperated, and said she couldn't reach it, but started explaining something down in the parts of the car. I put my hand in there and pulled out a clip that seemed to be warped and broken. She then explained, in a way that a child would, that it was a bad, broken part, and that it wasn't closing. I was confused, so I just thanked her, and she went back to her cute voice and walked out of the garage. I called my dad and explained to him what the car was doing, and he literally explained the exact thing that Maddie had, that the part was bad, and that it was causing an issue with the seal.

In other words, not closing. I replaced the part, and the car seemed to be back to normal. How would my four-year-old that had never worked on a car, obviously, even know that, and know the purpose of the part? It was such a strange event. But the biggest memory that really made me realize there was something more going on here was one fourth of July night. We just had a small thing at home with the three of us. It was getting late and we were picking up. up as Maddie was swinging.

She liked to swing pretty high and jump off the swing yelling, gear up. And then she would run around the yard like an airplane until she finally landed in the grass near us. Sprawl out, and then stare up at the sky. She giggled and then said,

Daddy, do you remember when I was a pilot? My wife and I just looked at each other confused. She'd never been on an airplane, or actually even seen one up close. My wife laughed and said, When would you have been a pilot, Maddie? She rolled over,

looked at my wife with this kind of duh look on her face, and said, In my old life, remember? I tried to tell her that she'd only had this life and asked her what she meant. She had so much confidence in her voice as she told us that we were wrong and that she had an old life just before she died.

we didn't really know what else to say, so we just let it go. Later that night, my wife and I talked about what she said, and tried to think of every possibility. We were always open with her and any questions she asked, because she just always seemed like a really curious type of kid. She was very curious, and she wanted to know how things worked, but it was also a lot more modern stuff. Like when we got a flat screen TV

She was Strangely amazed by the technology She was amazed by the computer When I tried to search How the bulky tube TVs differed from plasma flat screens But as we talked We couldn't think of any shows That we had watched about death or pilots

We weren't even really religious Not even our parents were outwardly religious So Reincarnation wasn't something that would have been talked about. Yet, here we were, and my young daughter was talking about having a past life. Now, my wife and I are very open-minded, though. Not that we expected this with our first child, so after dinner one night, we started watching

some unsolved mysteries, and there happened to be an episode about reincarnation. I nudged my wife to look at Maddie, as she had stopped her. drawing and was watching the TV very intently. When it went to commercials, I asked, Hey, Maddie, do you think that's what happened to you? She turned around surprised and said, Well, yeah, that's exactly what happened. I thought that I would try to see if she remembered anything else,

so I asked her if she remembered her name. She didn't hesitate when I asked, and she said Leo. I was shocked from Lowe. multiple reasons. It was crazy to hear her give a name, but she also gave the name of my grandfather. With her using his weird little catchphrase, knowing about cars and claiming she was a pilot, that all matched my grandfather. He was in the Air Force, and he was a highly regarded pilot.

When he retired, he had his own little car shop that he ran out of his garage, which was how my dad had learned as well. He was also one of the few people in my family that called me Mikey. While I didn't want to ask, because a young child should not know and understand death yet, I did ask her how he died. She got up from the floor and came over to me, putting her little hand on my knee and looked me in the eyes. She had a look of pity on me, and in a lower, softer tone, she just said,

I didn't kill myself, Mikey. It was my lungs. They just gave out. But I'm okay now. Then she went and sat back down to watch TV. I tried not to let my wife see, or even Maddie see, but my eyes were admittedly filled with tears. I had to leave the room to compose myself.

My grandfather had lung cancer. We all knew it. It was too far in for chemo to make a disease. difference, so they just gave him some medications to try to make him comfortable with however much time we had left. My grandmother came home from an appointment to find him slumped over in his chair next to an open pill bottle, and it was assumed that he had ended his own life. He talked about how he didn't want anyone to have to take care of him, and he didn't want them to suffer through it, so he said that he would pray that God would take him before then.

that made us all think that he did it out of guilt or grief. That thought had loomed over our family for years, all of us feeling guilty for leaving him alone with his thoughts. But here my daughter was, claiming to be Leo, and telling me that it was the cancer after all, and that it was just his time to go. I was an obvious wreck, and a mix of emotions. I finally calmed down and explained to my wife, and then I called my parents again to ask if they had mentioned him at all to Maddie.

They once again said no. I didn't tell them the whole thing, because, again, I didn't think they would believe it, and I really didn't want to upset my dad. But I held what she said very close to my heart, and it comforted me knowing that he didn't suffer and that he was okay. Maddie is now 26, and she remembers talking about it as a young child, but she said most of the memories are now gone. I think after she told us how he died, that it seemed he was finally able to move on, letting Maddie live her own life. Whether she really used to be my grandfather, or there was more to this, I will never know. But I will never forget it.

and I'm lucky to have such a wonderful daughter and that second chance at a final goodbye. Hey Raven, I saw your post about stories and I thought about this trip that I took with my friends back in 2019 and I thought you might be interested in it. Three of my friends, Mason, Andrew, and Phil, and myself all went camping during our spring break. We were all going to the same uni,

but we pretty much kept to our first. ourselves. We were far from the popular crowd, but we still liked to do crazy fun things and to get a little stupid. So this time, we wanted to go camping, drink, and let loose. We went to a state park that was a few hours away and found a good place deep in the trees, away from the people. We didn't want someone to report us for being too loud and disruptive, so we tried to stay away from others. Once we got there, then set up, all hell broke loose. We probably drank more than we should have, but we stayed at our camps, so I felt that

we were safe. We laughed, made fun of each other, vented about the dumb BS we were dealing with at uni. Really, this was a much-needed break for us. But at some point that night, I started hearing what sounded like someone whispering, or talking, just far off. I heard it, and when I noticed Phil cocking his head to the side, I asked if he was hearing it, too. He nodded and asked what it was.

I shrugged, not knowing what it was, but then we all got quiet. And by the look on their faces, Mason and Andrew must have heard it too. We were in the middle of the woods. We were all intoxicated, and there were still people around, somewhere so we didn't think anything else of it we just calmed down so we weren't as loud and let it go shortly after we all passed out peacefully the next morning I was thankful to wake up without the repercussions of the night priors drinking but we couldn't say the same for Andrew he was feeling it and was not ready to get up yet so while he told us to go on without him deciding to sleep in we decided to sleep in we decided decided to go for a hike. The three of us packed our hiking bags and headed off. We were probably about two miles away from our campsite.

We found a pretty tall rock formation that we climbed over and saw that there was more forest above. We all agreed to continue through it, wanting to see what we could find. Shortly after entering those trees, the atmosphere seemed to shift. It's hard to explain, and I wish that I had a way. word for it. It was like being wrapped in a blanket, bathing in the sunlight, and then someone just put a cold, dark, metal box over you. Not only was there a shift in temperature, but like being put in a metal box, I also became anxious, and was on edge. The density and amount of trees

had not changed. There was the same amount of sunlight, yet it felt colder. I looked back at Mason and Phil, and they agreed. Something was different, too. However, we wanted to continue on, determined to figure out the cause of the shift. As we walked deeper into the woods, we started hearing the familiar sounds from the night prior, the muffled talking. We figured we were probably close to some other campers. It seemed like a weird spot, and we became curious how they got there. Did they walk all that way and climb up here to camp? Was there a road somewhere that led up there and we were just oblivious? So we continued on. We walked a little further and the talking became clearer and clearer until we found the source. Through the trees, we spotted

not only people, but a whole damn village. But these people did not look normal, or at least not modern. They were an old-fashioned style clothing, think Little House on the Prairie style. The tall hats, bonnets, and all. We just stood by the trees, watching them from where we were. We could hear them talk better,

and while they were speaking English, it still sounded old, if that made sense. They were carrying buckets, wheelbarrows, and one of the women was even sitting in front of a small house. washing or doing something to some clothes. What were we witnessing? There were several houses there.

Did we just manage to stumble on a neighborhood? Maybe it bumped up to the back of the park. But with the shift in the atmosphere, something still was not sitting right to me. Part of me wanted to approach them and ask about it. But Mason's mouth works faster than my brain, and he very loudly made a comment about the word, weird-looking hats.

Phil and I cringed and looked at him, but then noticed how quiet it grew, and looked back at the village. To my embarrassment, they were all looking at us, but they looked at us like they were bewildered, or maybe even scared, I guess. If all you've ever seen were people dressed like you, and then you saw someone who looked so different,

maybe you would have the same reaction. Either way, Something was not right, and them being able to see us seemed to make the situation worse. I felt like we needed to get out of there sooner rather than later. I elbowed the other two so we could leave, and they finally agreed. We slowly walked back the way that we entered, climbed down the cliff, and went back to our camp. It didn't seem to take as long. Maybe because we walked a little faster, but once back, Andrew was awake, so we explained to him,

what we saw. He thought that it sounded interesting, and he wanted to see it too. So we all agreed to show him the next day. We were all hungry and tired at that point. The next day, we set off to find the place, this time with our phones with us, wanting to take a few pictures.

We typically left them at the camp because the signal was so shoddy. There was no point in carrying them, but once we got to the area, it was just trees. There was no sign of the village. We traced our steps almost to a tee. We climbed the same cliff.

We could even see the marks that we left in it. We walked through the same trees, making out the flattened part of the grass and fallen leaves, but when we got through the trees, there were nothing but large boulders and more trees. We circled around the area thinking maybe we were somehow off, but we never found it. and that change in the atmosphere wasn't there like last time either.

How could a whole village just disappear? Andrew thought we were screwing with him at first, trying to make him feel bad for staying behind, but after a little convincing and us all bringing up the same things, explaining things similarly, he believed us. We went back to our camp once again, completely stumped at what we experienced. After we left,

we tried doing some research on the place to see if there was anything about an old town that used to be there, or maybe some kind of show. But we found nothing. We all still bring this up and want to go back, but we haven't had the time since. I really want to know if we saw something we shouldn't have. Like we stepped into another place in time, but I can't even tie a community to this park. If anyone else has experienced something similar, I would love to be a place in time, but I would love to be able to be able to be able to be. love to hear about it. To quote Mr. Stack, maybe someone out there has an answer to our mystery.

I want to share what happened to me this summer, and I'm not sure where exactly to share it besides here, since I don't really know how to explain what I heard or felt. I started working on a cruise ship in Hawaii in February of 2023. I had a six-month contract to fulfill with an end date in the beginning of August. The ship sailed around all the islands with the same itinerary every week, and the ship would dock overnight on the islands of Maui and Ka'i every week, my two favorite islands, especially Ka'i. I had a week left in my contract, and I planned on staying a week in Maui when the contract ended. I had saved up a ton of money, and wanted to make time to really enjoy the islands instead of seeing them from the crew deck. After nearly six straight months of working seven days a week on a busy cruise ship, with lots of rude passengers, I was pretty over it.

But I was determined to finish my contract no matter what. We were docked in Maui, and were scheduled to set sail around 5.30 p.m. At the time I worked 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the bar on the pool deck with a break at 11 a.m. I woke up that day and had a strange feeling. I felt like I needed to get off the ship. It wasn't just an I don't want to go to work feeling. I don't know how to describe it. I got dressed and went to my shift,

but the feeling kept getting more intense. I left for my break and went back to my room to try to get a nap in, but when I got to my room a voice in my head, I mean a full voice, not a feeling, calmly but sternly said, Pack up, leave now, get off the ship, pack up, leave now and get off the ship. It wasn't necessarily threatening, nor did it feel spooked or in danger. It made me feel excited and full of energy,

and I actually started packing everything I had. I was going to jump ship, something I never thought I would do, as I always finish things that I start. I thought it was so dumb to not stick out the final week of work, but I felt so compelled to listen to this voice. I said goodbye to my friends on the ship, who were all shocked, since I never once hinted that I wanted to quit, and they tried to stop me, but I continued on. I spent the next week staying in beautiful hotels and resorts in and surrounding Lahaina. I spent time eating great food, meeting great people, and just generally.

generally taking advantage of everything the island had to offer that I could never do because I was too busy on the ship. I fell in love with Lahaina, the old buildings, the history, the feel of it all. At some times the tourists were a little overwhelming. Of course, I say this as a tourist there myself, but it was just beautiful. One of my Uber drivers told me to go to the Bonion tree before I leave for home and put my hand on it, to feel its energy and thank it. so I did. I placed my hand and head on its trunk,

and it's like this energy just turned on inside of my body. I couldn't hear the sounds of the crowds of tourists around me. I couldn't hear anything, actually. All I could feel was this connection that I never felt before. I can't describe what I felt, but something in that tree reassured me that I did the right thing. Then it told me it was time to go. Two days later, and I'm back on the east coast of the mainland, catching up with friends and family who I missed so much. When an alert from one of my news apps pops up on my phone.

Maui was on fire. Specifically, the hyena was on fire. I opened the app and saw pictures and videos of the courthouse, the Bonion tree, the restaurants where I ate, the hotels where I stayed, all transformed to rubble. I couldn't freaking believe it. All I could think of were all the people that I shared that week with. All the people who showed me the best time of my life, and how they may not be on this earth anymore.

I thought about the bartenders who served me, the shop owners who sold me their goods, the fishermen who caught the food that I ate, they could all be gone. It wasn't until one of my ship friends texted me asking, if I was alive until it hit me. I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to end my contract two days prior and stay in Maui.

I turned off the news and just broke down crying. I still cry sometimes thinking about it. I've never heard that voice in my head before, and I haven't heard it since. But whatever it was, thank you for saving me. I don't know what purpose I have on this earth, but I'm grateful that I still have a chance to figure it out. Thank you all for taking the time to read this and sharing your own stories.

Listening to everyone's experiences has helped me process this whole thing. I don't feel crazy anymore and I know that I'm not the only one who's heard it or something like it. Also, I'm glad that you're all still here. We all have a purpose, and I think that's cool as hell. I have a story that is probably one of the most disturbing things to have ever happened to my family. I say my family because it was more so my grandparents, but it's something that has been kind of held close to all of us since it happened. All of this happened on my grandparent's property, and my grandpa was even looked at as a suspect for a moment, but it was eventually cleared for the whole thing. Even still, this whole event was devastating for my grandfather, for reasons that will be obvious in a little while.

I do need to give a small bit of context, so bear with me while I detail a few things. This happened quite a long time ago. My dad was still in his teens when this took place, so it was way before my time. My grandparents lived in the northwestern part of the U.S., and they owned a time. decent amount of land there. It all belonged to my great-great-grandfather, and had been passed down twice at this point to my grandfather, Ronald. On the land that they owned, in the southern corner, complete opposite of my grandparents'

actual house, was a small cabin that, way back, was where the hired help on the land lived. By the time my grandfather got the land, the cabin was empty, and was used more for store. storage than anything. Still, they kept it up, and made sure that if anyone ever wanted or needed to stay in the cabin, they could. My grandfather kept the land around

it tidy, and kept it up on the maintenance of the building. It is important to mention that this cabin, being on the opposite end of the property, was nowhere near the house. In order to get to the cabin, you would have to get on the road,

circle around the property, until you hit the south end, and then pull up the driveway to get to it. In the fall of 1965, my grandfather's cousin, Walter, a man that helped raise my grandfather because they were separated by about 12 years, came to visit my grandpa, and asked him if he could stay in the cabin for a little while. Apparently, Walter had, in his words, fallen on hard times, and needed somewhere to stay for a couple of months. My grandfather didn't ask him any questions about what had happened, because Walter was family, and he said that Walter was welcome to stay for as long as he needed.

Obviously, my grandpa was suspicious that something was going on, that Walter had done something illegal or questionable, because he'd been in with some questionable people in the past, but again, he was family. and my grandpa never questioned family or left them in the cold. He was a man that didn't say much, but he was very loyal to those that he knew and loved, because that's how he was raised. A few weeks passed,

and Walter had set up his home in the cabin. My grandfather went over to visit with him a few times over the first week to see how he was doing. Walter seemed a bit nervous at first, but as the first month came and went, he seemed a lot more comfortable and less on edge. Again, red flags I know, but my grandfather was confident that Walter would be able to handle whatever it was. He did ask him if he should be worried for himself and his wife at one point, but Walter told him that everything was fine,

and that he would just be there a few months until things settled down, and then he would be out of his hair. Again, questionable comments being made there, but in the end, my grandpa just said that Walter was free to stay as long as he needed, told him where the ammo for the hunting rifle in the cabin was, then went back home to my grandmother and my father. A couple more weeks passed, and my grandpa hadn't heard much from Walter. And that Saturday, he decided he would take the trip around to see how he was,

and to ask if he wanted to help with some work that he needed to do. He pulled his truck up to the cabin and immediately felt like something was off. Walter's car wasn't in the driveway, but the door to the cabin was wide open. My grandpa thought initially that Walter had to take off in a hurry and left the door open. Obviously this bothered him, but it would have been the better alternative to what did end up happening. My grandpa walked up to the cabin and called out for his cousin, but there was no response. Then he walked in. He knew immediately that something horrible had happened.

My grandfather always described what he saw as a scene straight out of his worst nightmares. The furniture in the cabin was overturned and destroyed. One of the windows was shattered, with the glass on the inside of the cabin, meaning it had been broken in. and the air was thick with that coppery scent of blood. There was a massive dark stain on the carpet in the living room and a trail that led from there out the back door of the cabin, like the person that was bleeding had been dragged out of the cabin. Then he noticed the large, bloody knife that was stabbed into the cabinet,

pinning a piece of paper to it, and my grandfather's blood turned cold as ice when he read it. Sorry about your cabin, Ronald. This wasn't personal, and we have no beef with you. Don't bother trying to find him. We were told to take care of him and to make him disappear. So he did. My grandpa said that those words were like a cold hand around his heart,

that they made him feel sick to his stomach when he read them. He panicked and started shouting for Walter, but he knew deep down that there wasn't going to be a response. whoever Walter had messed with had taken care of business and that was the end of it Grandpa raced back home and called the authorities telling the cops that he thought that someone had been murdered in the cabin

Their investigation ended up yielding more questions than answers Of course, back then forensics wasn't exactly a super complex thing The only clue was the blood, the knife, and the note and Walter was never found, dead nor alive, a fact that hovered over my grandfather for probably the rest of his life. The cabin was a crime scene for a while, the officers and investigators coming through every once in a while to try to find clues,

or to ask my grandfather questions, but after a little while it was released back to him to do with as he pleased. My grandpa ended up moving all of his tools, and everything he needed out of the cabin. It burned everything else in it, and then boarded up the husk that he left behind. He wanted to demolish it, but he never did. I think that it haunted him too much to do so.

Like he wanted to, but then kept telling himself that maybe Walter would come back. The only time that I went out to that side of the property as a kid, my father told me the story of what happened. and I saw that the building had pretty much been destroyed by nature, overgrown, wood rotting out, and so forth. My uncle ended up taking over the land, as my father had moved out of state, so he offered it to him instead,

when both my grandparents had passed away. My uncle did end up demolishing the old cabin, so there's nothing left there now but the memories of what happened. As of today, Walter's story, case is obviously on ice. No evidence, no new leads, and everyone involved is probably gone by now. But whatever ended up happening to Walter, based on the state of that cabin, I have to imagine that it wasn't quick, nor painless. I am a female. When I was 16, I lived in the valley area of Los Angeles.

This was many years ago. As I explained in another story, at this time, the best part of my week was Saturday nights when I would meet my friends at our beloved under-21 nightclub to dance the night away. The vast majority of the time I'd have to get a ride there and back. I didn't have my own car until a couple of years later when I was in college. But occasionally, a family friend would be a family friend. would lend me his car, and on one of these Saturday nights, he did. I felt so independent and free to be able to take myself to the club,

and to be able to leave when I wanted. On the night of the story, I drove to the club and had a typically great time, dancing with my group of friends to music like Prince and Earthwind and Fire. At the end of the night, I got into my borrowed car and headed toward home. In case you don't know, the San Fernando Valley is made up of many suburban towns. None are really small, and some are very nice. And, as you would expect, some are less nice with higher crime. I lived with my family in a medium town in the northern part of the valley.

It was neither very nice nor very bad, with medium homes on mostly respectable, if not professionally, manicured lawns. And being the greater Los Angeles area, there were many differing routes I could take to get home, whether freeways, highways, or city streets. It was after midnight at this time, but most routes that I could take would still be bustling on a Saturday night. I'd had my fill of loud music, laughter, and chattering voices, so I opted for a quieter route home.

I took some busy streets and then veered into some quiet, neighborhoods that would take me home. If I drove through some quiet house-lined streets, I would get home a little faster and I was tired. GPS wasn't in use at this time, nor were cell phones, so I had to rely on maps or just knowing the chosen route. I had heard bad things about a town called Pekoyama, but I'd only been through it during the day, maybe once.

still, I knew how to get through to shave a few minutes off of my time, and besides, being someone used to walking or taking buses, I felt blissfully perfectly safe now in a well-running car with gas in the tank. I was safer at this moment than at almost any other time. At least, that's what I believed. Still, I was a teenage girl alone after midnight in an area that I was unfamiliar with, and, naive enough to think that nothing bad could happen to me in a locked car. I entered a residential street in Pekoyma, and only had to go a couple of blocks to get to the next town and then to my own. As I slowly drove down a dark, quiet avenue of modest homes,

there were streetlights illuminating the unknown. This also helped with my feeling of invincibility. As I smiled to myself at this, I started to notice a few people walking down the street toward me. At first I didn't give it much notice. My left turn out of Pocoma was coming up just ahead anyways. But as I got closer, I quickly realized it wasn't just a few people. It was a gang of approximately 12 to 15 men.

And they weren't casually walking down the sidewalk. They were aggressively running down the middle of the street, and right towards me. I suddenly had to slow to almost a stop so as to not hit anyone, and this is when they all got a real good look at me, looks which turned instantly more excited and animated as they realized I was just a young girl alone. Many exchanged smiling glances between them,

and others were whooping, whistling, and calling things out to me. Smoothly, effortlessly as if they had rehearsed ahead of time, and several of them stopped me completely by standing right in front of my car. Even putting hands on the hood as others walked around to my driver and passenger doors and pulled the handles to open the door. I didn't always lock the doors when I drove, and cars didn't have auto door locks back then, but I was thanking God that I had the foresight to do so on this night.

Of course, it all happened very fast, but in my shock and terror it felt like slow motion. so quickly adjusting my mind from carefree to possibly being abducted or worse by this large group of men, they had me trapped. I couldn't drive forward nor reverse out of there, because at this time, the car was completely surrounded by these men. And as a couple of guys picked up sticks or other objects to try to bust in my windows, I knew that I had to think clearly and act fast.

I did the only thing I could think of. I started driving forward. Having blocked my car completely, I could see the surprise in some of their faces, as they knew they had to move out of my way or risk being run over. I had immediately decided that if they didn't move, I would run them over. All of the men standing in front of my car quickly jumped out of the way, and I sped up as I took the left turn out of Pekoyma. I did make it home safely, but my heart didn't stop beating out of my chest for the rest of the night.

Of course, I thought about it for a long time after as well. I felt proud of the way I'd handled the situation, but I kept running through possibilities of what I could have done differently. What if they didn't get out of the way and I actually had to hit someone with my car? How would I have lived with myself? What if one of the men had pointed a gun at me? I'm very happy that it turned out the way that it did, but it could have turned out so much worse. So, I hope we all keep in mind that we're not quite invincible inside a car,

no matter how cozy, even heated leather seats may make us feel. Dark, quiet shortcuts are not a good idea, especially late at night, and always drive with your doors locked. so Pekoyma gang that tried to grab and do who knows what to a teenage girl, driving alone late one Saturday night. It's been a long time since then, and I'm very glad that I didn't meet any of you ever again. I used to be a pretty heavy user of social media pages like Insta, Facebook, and so forth. I'm part of the age group that has pretty much always known them.

When I was a very young kid, they were coming into popularity. So when I hit my adult years, I was well-versed on pretty much all of them. And I had these stupid delusions that I would one day be an influencer. So I had a page on every single one of these apps. I liked to make content for people to enjoy. I think it was more about the self-satisfaction. of getting the likes and comments, but I also had a personal side where I would keep up with my friends and family. They were two separate accounts, and never the twain shall meet, as they say.

I kept my personal life away from my influencer life, and vice versa. Unfortunately, I did break my own rule one time, and that was the worst decision I could have ever made, because it led to what I have to say is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. Before I start, I want to mention that when I say that I was an influencer, I mean that I was just a micro-celebrity on these platforms. I wasn't a huge name, and I did not have a massive following. I had enough of a following for it to be neat and to get that dopamine rush, but I wasn't shilling eyeglass brands or meal kits.

I barely even ever got paid for anything that I did. Nothing wrong with those that do. I say get that cash, but I never hit that point. Anyways, one day on my personal account, I got a friend request from a girl named Alara. It was a name that sounded familiar, but I wasn't 100% certain where I had seen it. I sat on it for a day or two, thinking that it sounded super familiar, so it was likely someone from high school or something.

And after that, I figured I would go ahead and accept it. I then got a direct message from her that said, Oh my God, I'm such a fan of your content, girl! You are such a blessing. At this point it clicked. This wasn't a friend. This was a fan of my other stuff. and she'd somehow found my personal page. I was always pretty careful with not putting out who I was on any of my influencer pages.

I never mentioned my real first name, never said my last name. I always referred to myself by a nickname that I'd been given a long time ago. How she found out my name, I do not know, but she did. And I had made the mistake of adding her on my personal page. Because I didn't want to be rude, I wanted to keep up that I was a nice person. I responded and said, Hey, thanks. This is my personal page, though.

I don't use it for that stuff, but I do appreciate it. Lara then replied with a heart and said that she was so happy that I added her because she wanted to be besties with me. I just kind of accepted it and thought, Okay, well, I guess I have a superfan. Hopefully this doesn't go south. It did. It did go south.

After a bit of talking back and forth, I thought that Lara was all right. But then she would message me in the middle of the night saying things like, I have a great idea for a video that you could do. Or, hey, you should go check out this brand of makeup. Maybe they'll sponsor you. Which would be fine. if they were just that, but she would send it and then send things like,

Hello? Within five minutes. And then would go on and on about how I wasn't talking to her. Again, this was the middle of the night. I was sleeping. But if I didn't reply to her, she would accuse me of being rude or ignoring her, and then would go on about how she was going to ruin my career and get me canceled. After a while, like two days, I got pretty well fed up with it.

So I messaged Alara back asking what was wrong with her and why she was being like this toward me. She then launched into a long-winded apology, saying that she had issues, and that she didn't mean to be rude to me, that she loved me and that she didn't have any friends. Stupid me bought into this. saying that it was okay as long as she understood that it was inappropriate, and that she needed to take a step back. She didn't, of course. Literally the next day she started sending me her ideas, and when I didn't reply to her immediately,

because I was at work, like my actual job, she started going on about how she was going to hurt herself because she had hurt me, and that I hated her and so forth. I finally messaged her again, saying that if she had all these great ideas, that she should start her own channel slash page. And that, unfortunately, the friendship was not going to work out, as I didn't have the energy to deal with her. After I sent this message, I unfriended her and then immediately blocked her. I figured that that would be the end of it, then she would get the hint and maybe get some help.

I really didn't need to deal with a really awkward parasycial relationship like that. And I wasn't going to, since I had the ability to block her. I wish that that was the end of it, but a couple of days later, I got a package at my apartment. It was marked as being from Amazon, so I thought nothing of it, thinking I probably ordered something and just forgot about it. I opened it, and inside was a stuffed cat, that looked exactly like my actual, in-real-life cat. It had one of those little gift tags that you can send with items on Amazon, and it said,

I'm so sorry, please forgive me. And it was signed as being from Alara. Two things about this. Obviously, I never gave her my address, nor is it on my Facebook anywhere. And to the best of my knowledge, my cat had never been in any of my photos on my Instagram. influencer page, nor my personal page.

I had only had her for a month, maybe two, and I hadn't taken pictures of her for my socials, mostly because that just wasn't something that I did. Yet, somehow, she knew what my cat looked like, and my home address. I honestly had no idea what I should do, so I called my dad about it and asked him for some advice. He mentioned that it was unsettling and told me to ask my apartment office if I could install one of those doorbell cameras. I thought it was a great idea, and I decided that I would do that ASAP, and of course, as soon as possible, was not soon enough. About three days after I got the package, I was at home making dinner for myself, and I got a knock on the door. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I was a bit confused, and I opened the door with the chain attached, thankfully.

On the other side, was a young woman that looked vaguely familiar, but it didn't click who it was at first. I asked her if I could help her, and she looked at me offended at first, and then followed that up with, You don't recognize me? It's me, Alara! Okay, at this point, I will say that inside, I was freaking the F out. But on the outside, I knew that I needed to be firm with her and tell her that she needed to leave me alone. So I did. She then started sobbing and then screaming at me, saying that she had driven all the way from Arizona to meet me. I know that I haven't mentioned where I lived in this story,

but let me just say that I am closer to New York than I am Arizona. Like, significantly closer. I really didn't know how to deal with this, so I just reiterated that she needed to leave me alone, that what she was doing was stalking, and that as much as I didn't want to hurt her, she needed to go home and forget that I ever existed. I then pushed the door shut and locked it,

which was immediately followed by her screaming loudly and banging on the door, and then kicking my door repeatedly and saying that she wasn't going to leave until I came out, and that when I came out, she would show me what she was capable of. I did call 911, and I told them to get an officer there as quickly as possible, that someone was trying to break into my apartment, And the whole time I was on the phone with dispatch, holding a damn kitchen knife, and standing in the middle of my living room thinking my door was going to give, she just kept kicking it over and over the entire time while I was waiting for officers to show up.

After what felt like forever, I finally heard a voice shout that she needed to get down and put her hands behind her head. I thought for sure that she was going to comply. not surely she wasn't crazy enough to do anything else and then I heard her shout you're gonna have to effing kill me shoot me followed by more shouting and then a screaming noise and an officer shouting

taser I kept my place in the middle of the living room just waiting for whatever was happening out there to clear up and about ten minutes after all of that one of the officers knocked on my door yeah that was a fun chat that we had. I mentioned that she was a stalker from the internet, and that I had no idea how she found where I lived. He then mentioned that it was a really good thing that I called, and that I didn't

open my door, because she had a knife on her, a rather large one, in her hands. Thankfully, they were able to take her down with a taser shot, and he mentioned that he was seriously worried that one of them was going to have to use lethal force, and he really didn't want to be that to happen. She was obviously charged with a handful of things, and I'm pretty sure she ended up in prison for a while.

This was the absolute end of my influencer career, as small as it was. I deleted my accounts, I opened new Facebook accounts that were fully locked down, and re-added only my family

and closest to friends, and my social media obsession was pretty much over. Alara obviously had some problems, and she needed help. And I'm very hopeful that she got the help that was necessary. But, honestly, as bad as it may make me sound, I'm glad that she went away for what she did. If I hadn't chained the door, I'd very likely had been dead.

If those officers had gone straight for their guns, she likely would have been dead. Thankfully, no one involved did die, but it's terrifying to think just how close it really was. I have a strange middle-of-nowhere kind of story that I wanted to send in, since you asked for them. Thank you. This happened in quite literally the middle of nowhere. The parts of the northern Midwest where it's just a highway, and a handful of huge farmhouses and random spots.

endless roads flanked with fields that hadn't seen a sharpened lawnmower blade probably ever the kind you have to have a CD to listen to, as antiquated as that may sound to some. I used to have to drive this way to get from my work's head office to one of our satellite locations. It wasn't in the middle of nowhere, but I had to go there every couple of months, and this was the quickest route by car. On this trip, I was driving thinking about where the next gas station was, thinking about grabbing coffee and filling up the tank, when I noticed what looked like a lot of flashing lights, reds and blues lighting up the early evening like a grim disco. My first thought was that there had been a massive accident. There were several emergency vehicles there, which meant it was pretty serious.

Of course, I started to think about how bad the injuries would have to be to have that many vehicles there. So, I slowed down, of course. That's what you do, right? You don't barrel through emergency situations like a madman. You take it slow so that you don't end up hitting a cop or something. As I slow down, I notice that there are even more vehicles up the way. It looked like an entrance road to a farm property. there were officers and fire trucks at the entrance, but I could make out some more flashing lights through the trees.

And as I got closer, I could see the officers all standing at the entrance, like they were setting up a perimeter or something. But they all looked kind of tense, more tense than you would expect. But here's where it goes from concerning to straight up horror. As I'm easing the car through this strange scene, trying to be respectfully slow, and maybe a little bit nosy, one of the officers locks eyes with me. It wasn't in a thanks for being considerate and slowing down kind of way. No, this guy sees me, pulls his firearm, and aims it straight at me. My heart obviously skips a beat and then decides to go for a spry, I throw my hands up and stop the car, thinking maybe he mistook me for someone else.

If an officer aims their weapon at you, you stop, right? You don't keep going, because that makes it look like you're running, and that makes the situation potentially deadly. But then, he shouts, keep driving, go, now! All the while he kept his weapon trained on me. So, what do you do in this situation? My mind was saying that I was supposed to stop, but he was screaming at me to go. So, I very quickly decided to just do what he was telling me and kept driving.

I slammed the gas pedal, not taking my eyes off the road ahead of me. As soon as I think I'm far enough, I glance at the rear view, and he's still standing there, gun in hand, and watching me drive off like he was making sure that I was really leaving. and just like that, the whole scene was behind me. Well, physically, at least. You don't just drive away from something like that unscathed. And I was still running on an adrenaline high. I had so many questions.

What were they dealing with that made it a better choice to threaten some rando on the road, than just let them slowly pass? Why did he escalate to drawing his weapon immediately? instead of just shouting at me to keep moving. What was so bad that seeing it meant I could not be allowed to stay. The rest of that drive, I was on autopilot, thinking that I was going to be pulled over and disappeared for something. My mind was stuck on the event, obviously,

because what the hell was that? Like, even if this was a major drug bust or takedown or something, you'd think they would just block it off and wave people through. And, like I mentioned, maybe yell at them to keep going in a stern but professional manner. Whatever it was, it very clearly had an officer shaken to his core to act like that. And I'm going to be honest here, no matter how much I want to know what it was, maybe some mysteries are best left unsolved. A few years ago, my partner Jay and I were living in Oregon.

There were hot springs that we wanted to go to for some time, about a two-hour drive from us up in the mountains. In the late summer of 2021, we decided to drive up there, but it was forest fire season, and in the Pacific Northwest, the sky gets choked with smoke almost every August and September, even if you're hundreds of miles away from an active fire. Unfortunately, as we increased an elevation towards the hot springs,

the air became so choked with smoke that we felt ill, and we decided to turn back and go home disappointed. The following spring, we decided to try again. We made the drive out to the hot spring, only to find that the road up there had been closed for a landslide a few days previously. We were super frustrated and decided to just go for a hike nearby since we had driven all that way, and then went home. A few months later, we made plans again to try to get out to the hot springs with our close friends. But they both bailed last minute, and we decided to not go.

By this point, getting to these hot springs began to feel like a vendetta, or a curse. We would occasionally joke that we had to get to them. eventually to either fulfill our karmic purpose or die mostly joking finally in February of 2023 we made plans with several friends from around the state to rent a cabin next to the hot springs for two nights and go for a winter soak hot springs in the snow are divine as hell if you've never been Jay and I and our friend Ali drove down together and got to the cabin a few hours before anyone else was set to arrive. Eventually, there would be seven of us total.

Now, my first impression of the cabin was excitement, mixed with mild unease. We were pretty far out in the woods, with two abandoned-looking cabins next to ours. The cabin was built by the CCC in the 1930s, so it just had a close. classically old and creepy feeling. We all agreed that it was a little spooky, but in a light-hearted way. Since we were there before the other friends, we got to pick our beds first. Allie was the only person coming who wasn't part of a couple. She only knew Jay and I, and she was younger than everyone else.

So Jay and I felt like we wanted to stick close to her and make sure she was feeling comfortable. Because of this, we decided to leave the two bedrooms. downstairs for the two other couples, and Jay, Allie, and I would take the loft, which had four single beds, sort of like a summer camp vibe. We unpacked

our stuff and decided to go to the hot springs for a few hours while we waited for the other friends to arrive. We went to the hot springs, which was amazing, and then drove back at night through the snow to get back to the cabin. By

this time, everyone else had gotten there. We greeted each other and had a very merry evening, made dinner, played games, and danced. Before we went to bed, my friend Summer mentioned to me that when she and her partner got there, she'd heard footsteps upstairs. She'd asked if we'd all been at the hot springs the whole time, which we had. Spooky, but we all giggled about it. We all went to bed late and a little drunk.

That night, Jay and I pushed our twin beds together because we like to snuggle. Normally we sleep together great, but being in the loft, it got unbearably hot, even in the middle of February with only a wood stove. I had weird dreams because of the heat and did not feel well rested in the morning. Regardless, the next day, we spent the whole day soaking at the springs, and having a really great time. In the evening, we returned to the cabin, and, made a big dinner and spent the evening playing games,

and occasionally stepping into the back porch for a cigarette. The back porch was dimly lit with a single light bulb, and it opened up onto a backyard, ringed by an old stone wall. Behind the stone wall was a rushing river. The yard was full of old scrap metal. This will be relevant later. Anyway, that night we went to bed late. Jay and Allie and I in the loft once again.

As we were about to fall asleep, Ali said anxiously, Did anyone lock the door? None of us had. Jay, in character, said, I'll go lock it. Uncharacteristically, Ali sat straight upright and said, No, I'll go do it.

Being the group baby, it seemed out of character for her to volunteer to get out of bed, go all the way downstairs alone in a creepy cabin and lock the door. But she did. She came back up and got in bed and we all went to sleep, or attempted to. Once again, it was boiling hot, and I really just had the hebi-jeebies. I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up to the sound of someone tapping on the window. It's just a branch, I told myself, over and over.

I drifted in and out of foggy, nightmares, waking with a start at the slightest noise. Somewhere in the night, I realized that Jay was awake, too. I really had to pee, but was too scared to go downstairs alone, so I tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he'd come down with me. He was also feeling freaked out and had to go, so we co-dependently held hands down the stairs and went to the bathroom together like scared little kids. James is a fairly heavy smoker, and he wanted to have a smoke to calm himself down and help him sleep.

For some reason, I felt as though I couldn't let him go outside alone. Like something terrible would happen if I didn't go with him. So I accompanied him through the kitchen. When I saw the clock, it read 3 a.m., and we went out to the back porch, where we both stood for a few minutes in silence, before getting mutually freaked out and rushing back inside. I, very paranoidly, double-checked that the back door was locked after we came in. We then went back upstairs and got back into bed. I laid down and I'm immediately starting to have wild visions.

In my vision, I saw Jay get out of bed and walk out onto the back porch. There he slipped on the wood, fell to the ground and hit his head on a metal pole, which went through his skull and killed him. This was so disturbing that I had to open my eyes. But every time I closed my eyes again, I would see the same thing happen. Back porch, slip, die. Back porch, slip, die. Eventually I fell into a sweaty and fitful sleep.

In the morning, we were gathered around the kitchen table, and I mentioned that the night had just been terribly uneasy. Jay then looked at me and said something that chilled me to the bone. After we came back from smoking last night, I had this feeling like I was being drawn outside by something. Like I couldn't stay in bed, and I wanted to go back outside on the porch. As I was falling asleep,

I had this incredibly vivid vision that I went out on to the back porch and saw these piles of raw meat in the yard. stacked up almost like a sacrifice, and it really felt like it was human flesh. It felt like something was trying to get me to go out there so that it could eat me. My mouth fell open. I was about to tell him about my vision of his death on the back porch

when Ali spoke up. That's so weird, Jay. Last night when you offered to go down to lock the door, I felt like I had to stop you and go down there to lock it myself instead. It felt like if you went down there by yourself, you would have been lured outside by something. I chimed in. Hallie, that was the exact feeling I had had, too, when I didn't want to let him go outside to smoke by himself. I told them both about my vision of J. slipping and dying.

We were all shaken as hell, and couldn't stop discussing it over breakfast. We all agreed that whatever it was had very dark, feminine energy. in the vein of sirens or selkees, and that it had latched on to Jay as a sacrifice. We left the cabin after breakfast, and we got home just fine. I can't help thinking about our running joke about the hot springs being cursed for us, but maybe the hot springs were trying to warn Jay to stay away. And maybe next time we'll listen when something rejects us three times in a row. Hey, Raven, I wanted to share a story that happened to me and my friends back in 2012.

My friends and I love exploring. The city we lived in used to be more of a factory town. The houses were old, and many of them used to be owned by the people that owned the old factory in the town as well. Many people that worked at the factory basically rented the homes from them. The idea of your landlord also being your boss is really weird to me. But that's beside the point. Nowadays, the houses are owned by individuals, such as my childhood home that my parents owned.

They never considered moving, even when they expressed their frustration with certain repairs. But I also understand that they owned that place since they married, and it meant a lot to them. But as a kid, sometimes it was the uncoolest place to hang out. And since there were a lot of... of empty and abandoned buildings around us, we always found a place to venture into. The story is about one of those places.

Right on the outskirts of the city, there was a pretty large building where a hardware store used to be. I remember going there with my dad as a kid, and it was pretty run down then. I believe when the owners passed, their kids just sold it, and that was the end of it. since then it had been sitting empty and abandoned my friends and I would drive by it and see an unmarked police car in the parking lot which only made it more interesting to us

if it was truly empty then why were police presence necessary then finally no one was there for two weeks straight we took the opportunity to finally check it out we parked at the gas station across the street and walked over to the building We went around back and my friend was able to pry the door open pretty easily.

Once inside, it was pretty obvious the place wasn't that empty. Most of the stock was gone, of course, but the shelves and racks were still standing like they just cleared out. There were signs about the last offers they had sitting at the registers, covered in dust. From somewhere above, there was some kind of airflow as you could hear the subtle creaks from the signs swaying, which was pretty eerie when that was pretty much the only sound in there. I knew what happened to the place, as my dad told me about it, but it was kind of odd to see the place left as it was. Why did the kids sell or get rid of the inventory, but leave literally everything else?

I like to just see these places as they are and leave them that way, but I know a lot of people that would gut something like this and scrap and sell it all. Maybe that was why the police were there, to prevent that. Anyways, we made our way to the back of the store where the employee area was. To my surprise, they had one of the literal punch-in time cards. There was even a stack of employee cards in the organizer nearby. We went through all the cards, just reading the names in their times. They were clearly many years old, but there was still something about it that was kind of stepping back in.

in time. Walking in at the age of eight, immediately smelling wood shavings and paint, now seeing the employee side of things, I quite enjoyed it. After we got our fill of the employee room, we walked out and towards the other side of the building. This was where all the small hardware stuff was like screws and bolts. There was actually a container that was filled with bolts, washers, nuts, just a bunch of random parts. Again, we just looked through all the little containers and display items on the wall, messing around and talking to each other. We'd been doing this for some time, so we were all pretty calm throughout this,

probably a little too relaxed, because my friend Faith decided to climb up one of the racks to see if she could get to the top. Oliver told her not to, I may have encouraged her. her, because if she could do it, I wanted to climb up there too. However, to our surprise, the shelves were not bolted down in any way, and it was almost like we watched it in slow motion as it started falling backwards towards Ollie and I. I didn't move quick enough and it fell back on me, as well as faith, while Ollie managed to get out from the other side.

I dropped to the ground, at least hoping to not be too injured, but also hoping to to make a soft landing for Faith. Her head did hit me, but that rack was heavy as hell, considering it held all the hardware that it did. It knocked the wind out of me, but thankfully, Faith responded too, so I knew that she was okay. The crash, however, was painfully loud, and it had to have been heard from the outside,

so we knew that we needed to get out quickly. Ollie called out to make sure that we were both conscious and okay and asked if we could move. Faith was able to get to her hands and knees, but I was pretty much pinned where I was. The racks had backings, so we couldn't exactly just stand between them and walk out. Ollie tried to pull it, but I could tell that he was struggling with it.

Faith tried pushing it with her back, and I with my arms, but we couldn't move it. We just weren't doing anything to it, while Ollie was at least able to move his corner some. Now was where we started to panic some. We didn't know how we were going to get out of this. Then, we all simultaneously stopped talking when we saw a dark shadow approaching from the opposite end of the standing rack. We were found out, and we were about to be in big trouble. He shined a flashlight at us.

all of us too afraid to talk when the stranger finally spoke. Looks like you could use some help. Ollie immediately said that we didn't want any trouble and said that we would leave when the guy started laughing. He stepped toward us more and shined a light on himself. Do I look like a cop to you? He said in a playful tone. He had long gray hair that was tied back,

as well as a beard that looked to be equally as long. wearing some old jeans and a denim jacket. He walked towards Ollie and started directing him to push with him. And with his help, they lifted it enough for both of us to crawl out from under the rack and between them. Once we were out, the man put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it as the three of us stood by and shyly thanked him for his help. He gave us a hard time, all in fun, about how we were the loudest explorers that he'd ever come across. He mentioned how he spotted us shortly after we came in, so that was pretty terrifying to me. This guy had been following us since we got in, and none of us saw him.

I liked to think that I was pretty aware of my surroundings, but that all went down the drain. At any point, this man could have grabbed one of us, and we may have never known. He explained that he had actually been living in the storage basement for the past few months. I didn't even know there was a basement in that building. He explained that he knew it existed because he used to work there, and he knew the old owner of the place. We sat on the now-fallen rack, listening to some of the things that he remembered about this place.

He talked about how it started going downhill when the kids began managing it. They wouldn't fix some of the safety issues, and there were more than one accident that happened that could have been avoided, if they fixed the highly dangerous issues. He even explained how someone lost part of their hand due to a safety switch in a saw not functioning. To be honest, some of the things he told us were pretty crazy

and scarier than what happened to us. After talking for some time, we decided that we should probably leave. We thanked him for his help, though, not knowing what we would have done if he didn't help us, gave him some of the cash and smokes we had on us and left through the back door. The last thing he said to us was, I didn't see you, you didn't see me, and nodded, shutting the door.

We made our way back to our car with no one noticing and went back to Ollie's to chill for a bit. The time there started out great. It was nice, reminiscing, but also seeing it abandoned and quiet was eerie. Then when the rack fell, I was pretty freaked out, knowing how loud it was that we were going to be found out and arrested, and none of us had ever been arrested. And when we saw this random figure approaching us while we were helpless, there were millions of scenarios running through my mind. But, thankfully, he was just a guy down on his luck, and decided to lend a hand instead of robbing us, or worse. We all still like to Irbex, but I think I'm a little more paranoid when it comes to checking my surroundings.

Because, who knows, if we'll get that lucky, again. I worked for a lawn and landscaping company for several years. I made some mistakes as a young adult, causing me to get my GED late, so finding a good paying job in my 20s was difficult. But this company took me in, and I really felt like they gave me a second chance. And I will always be grateful for them. However, we still worked with the public, so we definitely got a fair share of weird and memorable customers. This is a story about one of them named Larry. Larry was a longtime customer that we remembered because of one of his weird requests.

He claimed to be satisfied with our services, except he wanted us to use his weed whacker only. He claimed that the wiring he used was less damaging to his grass. I don't think our boss believed it, but it was cheaper than the stuff that we used, so he actually bought some that he installed on a few machines to specifically use at his place. Once he showed him, he seemed satisfied. And we started using our own equipment. We had a policy that we couldn't use a customer's equipment for safety reasons. So at least the owner was willing to work with the customer.

Other than that specific demand, Larry was an all right guy. He was friendly enough to all of us, but also stayed out of our way. And his wife was old-fashioned and tried to offer us drinks all the time. Very kind people. They would occasionally have yard games or kids. toys in the yard. Typically, they picked those up before we got there, but if we did find some, Larry just asked us to toss them in a small shed in the back. No big deal. I had two very young kids of my own at the time, and I knew that you could only ask them to do something so many

times before you had to just do it yourself, or possibly forget it. On this day, we started working on the yard, when I spotted a few toys in the back. I picked them up and, per the norm, I started walking them over to the shed. As I stood in front of the shed, before I opened it, I noticed that it now had a padlock on it. However, it was only on the one handle and obviously unlocked. I noticed it because Larry never had a lock on the door before. I just assumed that maybe he had issues with trespassers, or was worried about the kids getting in there by themselves. It was one of those moments that I noticed, didn't think much of it because it wasn't any of my business anyways, and proceeded to open the door. But once I entered the shed, I was provided

with a different site. It was definitely a makeshift lab, but not for drugs, but explosives. I saw wiring, weird pipe pieces, metal scraps, and several packages of powder and bottles of liquids. What the hell was I looking at? Not to mention, I had already had a run-in with the law, and I knew that I wanted no part of any of this. So I calmed myself, tossed the toy in the shed, and walked out, just humming a song. I walked in humming and was trying to stay calm. That all nearly crumbled when I saw Larry standing right outside the shed. He looked pissed.

I wasn't expecting him to be standing there, so it made me jump. I tried to laugh it off, but he asked me what I was doing in there. I just calmly pointed out the items in the yard that I was putting away. He tried to argue with me that it was locked, but I pointed out the lock on the handle and explained that it was already unlocked and open. I also tried to point out that this is what we had always done, literally, per his instructions. His demeanor changed. It reminded me of the calm but obviously upset voice a parent would use on their child

when they wanted them to admit something they did. I'm familiar with it because of my own parents and how I use it on my own kids. He asked me what all I saw in the shed. We both knew the answer to this. He knew what I saw, and I took this as him trying to intimidate or threaten me. I tried to think fast to get myself out of the situation and back to my job, so I could never think about it again. So I tried to play dumb.

I acted kind of excited about it. What, with the chemicals? Yeah, it looks like you're making your own fertilizer, right? I figured you would. Your lawn is a lot greener than the rest of the block. I then tried to BS something about using a certain enzyme to help with growth, with the purpose of boring him, I hoped. I was really trying to look naive, and to my surprise, it seemed to work.

His shoulders dropped, and his eyes softened. He no longer looked on the defensive, so I thought I was successful. He told me that that was correct, thanked me for my advice, apologized about the toys, and then dismissed me to get back to work. I started walking away and finished my work, but the rest of the time there I felt his eyes on me. I avoided talking to anyone that I worked with unless it was loud enough for him to hear, so he knew that I wasn't talking about him. I continued working, or would make jokes, hoping to keep him off of my back too.

But he still watched me. making me feel incredibly uncomfortable. As we left, Larry was back to being his normal friendly self. And when we were all back at the shop or home, I was still thinking about what I saw. I knew there had to be something bad going on in that shed. I contemplated on what I could do, if anything, for a few days. I also tried to be reasonable. Maybe all the chemicals were there for a completely harmless reason.

but I really couldn't think of any. I knew what some of the things were that I saw. I won't name them here for obvious reasons, but from what I knew of them, there was not a good reason to have them. It didn't make sense. And knowing he had at least one child and a wife, I knew I needed to tell someone.

This was long enough ago that I drove to a gas station, used a pay phone on the side of the building, and left an anonymous tip. I told them that I was a neighbor, but I didn't want to give my name, and I explained what I saw in his shed. I told them how they seemed very suspicious and secretive about the shed, and that I was worried about the chemicals that he stored in there.

I think it may have helped that we were in a drought, so the risk of a fire was pretty high. I felt awful afterwards. I worried that maybe I'm not. I was just overreacting. I worried that they would find out it was me, and then I would be punished. By authorities, by Larry, by my work. My work in my little family was all I had at the time, so I couldn't afford to lose my job.

But I also couldn't just keep my head down, especially if I would eventually have to go back there. Luckily, I didn't have to do that. it was about two weeks later that it was finally on the news, not to mention talked about at my work. Police went to Larry's home and said that they were given a tip that they were required to follow up on. The thing is, at first, it was just a request. They could have been told to come back with a warrant, but part of the reason that it escalated and was in the news

was because Larry immediately went on the defense. He apparently refused to even let them in the house, ended up locking himself inside the shed, and threatened to end his own life. When they finally got to him, they found all the same things that I saw and confirmed my suspicions. Something had happened with Larry's job. It wasn't specified, but he was angry about it. He planned on blowing the office up and going out with it. Thankfully, none of that occurred. The news said that he was apprehended beforehand and was being tried for a bunch of things. I don't remember the exact outcome, but I do know that they were trying to co with an insanity defense.

I was honestly shocked to find out what happened as I followed the story. Larry was such a nice guy in the beginning. He knew how things worked. He talked to all of us like we were friends. And then something happened to him, and I witnessed the beginnings of it. Then it all spiraled downward for him. Part of me still feels bad for calling it in, but at the same time, I have to remember that I could have saved so many lives.

And that's what I stick with. That's what I choose to hold on to. And I instill in my kids, now in their teen years, that if you see something, say something. Tell someone you trust because you don't want to live with the regrets of not doing anything after it's too late. The company that I work for used to have these extravagant parties for the anniversary of the company. It was started up by two siblings, and they still owned it, so every year they had a party that everyone was invited to, and it was always a blast.

It was really cool intermingling with the higher-ups, the VPs, and the chief officers. They always seemed pretty down to earth, and it really was a great morale booster. They stopped doing the parties in 2020 and instead sent everyone gift baskets, which was still fun. Last year was actually our first one since they stopped them, so I think if not everyone, then a majority, were actually looking forward to. to it. I was included in that group. The party was being hosted at a pretty swanky

hotel. They had a full-blown dining area, a large entertainment stage, and the pool was open to us. I know the dining area was reserved for us, but people staying at the hotel were also using the pool, which was fine, of course.

I, for one, wasn't interested in swimming. I drove downtown to the hotel, getting their early to avoid, traffic I walked around the dining area taking everything in and greeting others as they arrived I did a lot of work directly with my boss's boss who was a vice president so even though I was a few levels below them I knew several of them pretty well it was still a bit nerve-wracking talking to some of them but it was also pretty cool that they knew me by name as more people arrived the party became more alive many people drinking, some brought their kids and were playing at the pool. I spotted a few co-workers that I spoke to for a while, but then eventually I found myself gravitating towards Tessa,

the vice president that I knew and worked with. Tessa is a fantastic person. She had a wicked sense of humor, but also a no-nonsense attitude that I really admired. She was very professional and worked hard to get where she was, but she was also very approachable for anything you had concerns about. She has absolutely been a role model for me, as a fellow female trying to make it up the corporate ladder. There was a small gathering of us, as we all talked,

shared war stories of our dealings with other departments and silly requirements, and just led loose for the night. At one point, Tessa stood up to refill her drink when someone who worked at the hotel approached our group. She said that she was looking for someone named Tessa, and she confirmed that was her. The hotel employee mentioned someone was looking for her, so she told us that she would be right back, and walked away with her while the rest of us continued our conversation. We talked for some time, we watched one of the entertainers who did magic tricks,

and our group slowly dispersed and moved on with the other parts of the party. That's why it had been a few hours before I realized that I hadn't, seen Tessa come back. It was the thought that crossed my mind, but she was an important and popular person, so I figured she was just being pulled in different directions. I hoped that I would see her one more time before the end of the party. But if not, I would see her the following Monday. But then I had a few people ask me where she went. I was confused when one of the other VPs asked me where she went because she last saw her over with us. And we all said the same thing.

She walked away to see someone looking for her, and that was it. The party was winding down, and still, Tessa was nowhere to be found. We thought it was odd because she was an outgoing person, so it was hard to believe she would just hide away somewhere or leave without saying anything to anyone. She had a pretty young child that she didn't bring to the party, so it was possible that she left in an emergency without time to tell anyone. I had her number, as well as many others, but I felt it was out of place for me to ask her where she went. So I just texted her saying it was good to see her at the party. Others tried calling her, and one of them said that she didn't answer. Again, a family emergency was possible, but Tessa always found a way to respond to people.

She always put others first, so it was odd. That is when I started getting... this bad feeling. Most of the people were gone, and normally I would have left too, but the disappearance of Tessa was really digging at me. So, I asked Raymond, one of the other VPs, if he had heard from her and he said that he hadn't, and asked when I last saw her. I explained how someone was looking for her and an employee approached us, and I gave a description

of what the employee looked like. He walked away and I stayed behind. to see if anything would come of it. I saw Ray talking to someone at the front desk, and then the employee that approached Tessa came out and talked to Ray, and together they walked off. I ended up starting a conversation with someone else that was still there when we started hearing sirens getting louder and louder,

until they just stopped. We watched as the lights glowed through the front glass door, and the EMTs walked in pushing a stretcher. my stomach dropped they were here for someone and the odds of them being for someone from our party were pretty high and with Tessa missing

I just had this horrible feeling I watched and waited as they rolled to one of the open offices down one hallway the hotel had two large rooms to the left with a long table and whiteboard that could be used by guests to hold conferences and meetings

so what were they doing back there why would anyone be in there They're this late. Then they rolled the stretcher back out with Tessa lying on it. She had blood on her head, arms, and hands. Her hair was a mess, but her eyes fluttered, which at least told me that she was still alive. But what the hell had happened to her? Did someone do this?

And if so, why? I just couldn't see Tessa having any enemies. I tried to find someone to ask, but Ray actually followed the EMT's out. out, and I was stopped by a police officer. I couldn't ask any questions because I was being questioned. I had to tell them everything that happened that night. I had to try and remember everything Tessa said to us. Where she went, when I last saw her.

I was finally able to leave at around 1 a.m. By the time I got home, I was exhausted, but I couldn't sleep. I wanted to know what had happened to Tessa. news spread fast though and a friend from work texted me about what had happened someone had stabbed tessa and she was found in that office on the ground bleeding once we got back to work the atmosphere was tense and awkward then we got the emails about security concerns and the whole see something say something posts everywhere so what really happened after a few weeks it finally made its rounds. There was a girl that worked in project management that had been fired about a month before the party. She'd been fired because she was abusing the company credit card, using it as her own personal funds. And when they found out, she claimed it was fraud.

That all ended up coming back to bite her because the bank had proof that she'd made the purchases, and she was fired. The woman was under Tessa's group, so Tessa and the woman's direct manager were there when she was fired. She knew about the party because they have to get a headcount a few months in advance, and somehow managed to get in, claiming to be part of the party. Or maybe she claimed that she was a customer staying there. She was the one that was looking for Tessa, and asked an employee to bring her back to the room. No one is 100% sure after that what her true intentions were. Tessa was stabbed with the fork multiple times.

She probably got it from the party. I know that she was charged and did go to prison for it, but that's about all I know about what had happened. Tessa never outwardly spoke about it, and I never asked for more details. As I learned about all this, I couldn't help but feel guilty. I know that no one could have known where she was going, but what if I had asked the same employee where she went earlier? What if I told someone else earlier?

Could it have been avoided? And even worse, I hate to wonder what could have happened if I just went home and didn't mention this to anyone at all. How long would it have been before she was found? Like I said, Tessa is such a genuine person. She didn't deserve this. But I'm sure it had to be hard firing someone. So to have that psycho do that to her was just hard to believe. I still work for the same company, and Tessa still works there too.

I actually got a promotion, and now I work even closer with her. Thankfully, she is still the same person she's always been, too. I'm happy that the experience didn't change her. Everyone is more cautious as to events like parties or when there are visitors in the building, to make sure that nothing like this happens again. The anniversary party will be in August this year, and this time I will definitely be more vigilant.

I've put off writing this story for a very long time. But after going through therapy and trying to get past everything that happened, I think it's best to put this out into the world. I need to begin this story with a trigger warning. I guess, as it was very traumatic for me, and for others it may be too much. I apologize in advance, and I will try to not make this too graphic, but I feel there are details that I need to put into words to properly get them out of my head. This happened in the spring whenever I was 16 years old.

It was early April, I believe. My parents had gone out for the night because my mom's work had an office part, for Easter. I didn't want to go, and I was old enough to mostly take care of myself for the few hours while they were gone. We lived in a pretty unassuming neighborhood here in Minnesota, one where you would never expect anything to go wrong, really. The afternoon slash evening started off as anyone would expect. I got home and my dad was already home, and he told me about the office party they were going to. I mentioned wanting to stay home, and he said that that was fine. My mom got home and they dressed for the get-together. I made some pizza rolls for myself

for dinner because that's what I wanted. Come around 5.30, they told me to be good. That they would be home around 10.30 or so. That was that. After they left, I watched some TV and went upstairs to do my homework and called a friend of mine to ask him some questions about the assignment. Everything went perfectly normal, until around 7 p.m. or so, when I heard a thud from downstairs. Being a dumb kid, I didn't think much of it at first. I figured it was something falling off the pantry shelf in the kitchen or something. But then I heard the thud again, and then again. And then I heard the unmistakable sound of a door swinging open and slamming into the wall. It took me a second or two to understand what had just happened,

but it quickly clicked that someone had kicked the door downstairs open. My heart immediately dropped to my stomach, as it said in that someone had just broken into my house. I grabbed the home phone off of my desk, but when I hit the button, there was no dial tone. I hit it a few more times, just thinking that something was wrong with the phone itself. I now know that it wasn't working. because the guy that had broke in had cut the outside line. It was in a box that was on the side of the house and was easily accessible, and he had taken a knife to it.

This is when the panic really set in, because I didn't know what to do. I couldn't call 911, I couldn't call my parents, and I was upstairs away from pretty much every exit. I immediately thought about where I would be safest, and my brain was. told me that my parents' room had a lock on the door, and that that would be the best place to go. I slowly opened my door and then ran across the hall to their room, shutting and locking the door. I just stood there on the other side of the door for a moment, trying to breathe as quietly as I could, thinking that this would all be over soon. Until I heard the man's footsteps coming up the stairs.

I heard him open the door down the hall, the bathroom, my room, the closet, until he got to the door of my parents' room. He grabbed the handle and turned it, but the lock held it in place. I then heard him shout down the stairs. Hey, this one's locked, and then heard a voice respond. You said they weren't home. Is there someone in there? I guess that this was an epiphany for him,

because he jiggled the handle harder and said, Hey, if there's someone in there, you need to come out, and we won't hurt you. Yeah, because I was going to be going to be able to. to believe a man that had kicked in our front door. I just stood there panicking, thinking that he was going to break in and kill me, that I was going to die. This is the point where I looked around for anything to protect me,

and I saw my dad's gun. It was a standard Remington Model 7, one that I had actually fired before. While we had never actually gone hunting, my dad had taken me shooting before, and he taught me how to use it. He wasn't a gun enthusiast or anything, but he wanted to teach me how to handle a firearm,

training, which I now have to say probably saved my life. I grabbed the rifle and steadied myself, and then yelled, I have a gun, and I will shoot if you come through that door, in the most threatening way that a 16-year-old could. I was hoping that just hearing this would make him stop, that he would hear the word gun and leave. But it didn't work. I heard him kick the door once, trying to break it in,

and then a second time. And at that point, I knew what was about to happen. I hit the safety and took a deep breath. I could feel my eyes starting to fill with tears because I really did not want to be in this situation. I yelled again, Stop, I will shoot you. I could feel my eyes.

I saw myself trembling as he kicked the door third time the lock gave out. The next few moments felt like slow motion. The door swung open. I saw the silhouette of the man on the other side being lit by the hallway light, and as soon as I saw him, I pulled the trigger. I didn't want this to be what happened, but there was nothing more I could do to get out of this situation. I had to defend myself.

I've been told that a million times by a dozen different people, but I will never forget that moment. My aim and his stance in the door was, apparently, the perfect match-up. I shot this man in the neck, slightly left of center in the throat. I won't say that my intent was to kill him, but when you're aiming at a target that you really can't see, you aim as best as you can and pull the trigger when you're. you have the shot. I could see this man reach for his neck and immediately slump down lifeless. Like I mentioned, I won't go into too much detail, but with the amount of blood and damage

that the rifle did to him, there was literally no way that he would have survived. The sound he made when he fell was enough to make me want to vomit. I saw the color drain from him and his eyes go lifeless. This is an image that I have never been able to get him. get out of my head, because it's a constant reminder that I had ended a life, a life as dynamic and real as mine. This person had a childhood, probably had friends out there that were expecting to see him again someday.

For some reason, one thought that flashed into my mind that wouldn't leave was that he probably had a night just like this when he was a kid. He'd probably been left home at night while his parents went out, and, ate junk food and did his homework. And now he was dead, lying in my hallway. I had done that to him. Yes, he had broken in,

he'd been trying to get to me to do God knows what, but I was the one that pulled the trigger. I literally fell against the wall behind me and started crying, and I fell into that sitting position. It didn't even click at the time that there were two guys. The other guy apparently took off, when he heard the gun shot, though, so thankfully he wasn't a factor in this equation anymore. I just gripped the gun as hard as I could, and I sat there staring at that man's lifeless body for...

I don't even know how long. It felt like an eternity before I heard the police sirens, before I realized that there was an officer standing over me asking me to put the gun on the floor. The rest is, to be honest, a blur. I think that my brain cut a lot of it out. I remember both of my parents holding me, crying, telling me it was going to be okay. I remember officers talking to me, asking me what happened, and just mindlessly relaying the events that led up to me pulling the trigger,

telling them I did not want to shoot him, that I told him I had a gun, but he just kept trying to break in. I was obviously cleared. He'd forcibly broken into a gun, our home, and that was evident that he kicked the door into my parents' room as well, which indicated he had intent to do harm. So, while I wasn't criminally liable for the whole thing, it messed me up mentally. Those few moments have haunted me ever since.

I'm in my 40s now, and I have managed to live my life, but there are moments where it all still feels real and new. Therapy helped a lot. but after this many years, I felt that telling my story would do more for me to let it all go. It's been a very long time, and I need to be able to move on and understand that this was not my fault.

I took the actions, but he put himself in that position. He had a chance to leave when I shouted I had a gun. Him and his buddy could have just not broken into our house. He had all the opportunity, to not end up where he was, but he chose that fate. I am very sorry that I ended his life, but I'm not sorry that I defended myself,

and in the end, that has to be enough. So, please keep in mind that this happened to me, male 25, around one year ago while working as a second officer on a heavy lifting vessel during my watch. I was not tired or in any way intoxicated. Not possible. Zero Drugs Policy on board. I still cannot explain what I saw. So, here goes.

The scariest thing that I have encountered was during a routine night shift while passing the Atlantic Ocean. I was doing laps around the bridge console to get some exercise while on watch, second officer, from 00400 to 0400 hours, and to relax a bit. While passing the bridge windows, I saw someone walking from aft to forward on the starboard side, which was not unusual. Just the time at 0.130 was surprising.

The crew was allowed to go outside whenever they wanted, so I didn't mind it at first. When I passed by the window again after doing a full lap, I noticed that he was standing between the cargo hold number one and the windbreaker, with his back turned to me, looking forwards. I stopped to see what he was doing, and suddenly he turned around, looking straight at me, and started to wave with his hand while still standing perfectly still. This made me uneasy, because at this time I started to notice some weird things. For example, he was wearing a white overall, which is normal for officers, but at our company,

all overalls for officers and ratings is red, with silver reflective strips on the shoulders. Also, he was wearing an orange helmet, which could have been possible. We have some, but all crew has white helmets. Also, it should have been impossible to see me from forward. All lights on bridge were off and the deck lights were on, so reflecting when watching from below.

So all this, person is standing there waving, I walk over to the console and grab my radio and I try calling him. No response. He just kept waving, following me while walking around the bridge with his face. I saw him on the starboard side bridge

and the radio was on port side bridge, near the cart table. After calling him again, I went back to the light console to turn on the bridge spotlights, which flooded the deck with lights. I looked up from the console and he was gone. So I think to myself he might be hiding in the stairway to the paint store, or he's inside the passage to forward station, inside the windbreaker.

And I wait with the lights on. After 30 minutes or so, I decided to turn off the lights, but kept watching for some time and haven't seen him again. So the next morning I asked around if anyone was on decked during my watch, but everyone confirmed that they were sleeping during that time, which made sense to me. And it seemed like they were telling the truth. Also, no one owns white overalls, because again, our overalls are all red. Why would anyone walk around on deck at 0.130 hours? We have no safety round, and usually no additional lookout who is awake at this time. Usually it's only

me during my watch. Some guys thought it was a prank, but no one knew anything about anyone planning or doing anything like this, not even when I asked them to tell me the truth. I believed them because why would they lie about this? I mean, I wouldn't be mad about it. I'm not going to lie, they would have gotten me good, so I would have laughed together with the prankster. But none said anything like it, or admitted to it.

even months later. What really freaked me out about this is the stiff movement of this person, and the sudden staring while standing still. I can't explain what I saw and I have no reasonable explanation to this day, because no one admitted to pranking me, or going on deck at this time. Also, the sudden disappearance when turning on the floodlights is still unexplained. I also checked the spot where I saw the... person, and there was no evidence of him hiding anywhere.

The paint store stairway in the entrance to Bosen's door was locked every evening, and it was still locked when I checked it in the morning. So, yeah, this was the only weird experience I had while working at sea for the last five years. I still cannot explain what I saw. I don't believe it was some hallucination, because I saw him for at least five minutes, from walking to facing forward and standing in forward looking at me

and I turned away a few times to grab the radio or walk to the console. He only disappeared when I turned on the floodlights. But this was the only time that I saw anything like this. I'm working as a custodian at my old school. I know, really living the dream, right? Understaffed, overworked, and underpaid, just like everyone else is right now.

There are perks to this job, however. I live two minutes away. Great benefits. And if something comes up on a Friday, I can come in Saturday to make up for it without having to use any of my PTO or vacation days. One dreary Saturday morning, I was making up for the night before. Cold and rainy, just how I like it. My coworker was supposed to come in as well to set up for a basket.

basketball game, and to make some overtime, or so I thought. I show up and I'm the only one in the entire school. Now, it may be a small district, but our school is pretty big for such a small community. We have grade school, middle school, and high school all under one roof. I work in the middle school section of the building, smack dab in the center of the school. Middle school, get it? I was walking down to my custodial classroom. closet when I heard a toilet flush.

Now, this wouldn't be a big deal if the lights to the bathroom weren't motion sensors, as well as the toilets. I thought to myself, OK, I'm not even going to acknowledge that, and just kept walking. Being all alone in a building that big, your mind is sure to play tricks on you, although I'm sure I look weird on the security cameras constantly looking over my shoulder, or around corners. I get to the custodial closet, grab my carts and garbage can, and start on my normal routine. Two hours in, I have to go to the bathroom.

I use a private one behind the kitchen in one of our three boiler rooms. Each section of the building has its own boiler room where we keep additional supplies. This will be important later in the story. I go to the bathroom and have my AirPods in when I thought I heard someone walk in. I take them out, and I hear the sound of running water. I call out to see if someone else is in the bathroom with me, but I don't get a response. I finish up in the stall and open the door to see nobody there, but the sink is running scalding hot water.

Now, this is super weird, because this sink wasn't running when I walked in, and it takes forever for it to warm up, let alone get that hot. I washed my hands and noped out of there. Everything else went without incident up until my last two hours. We hold off on cleaning the restrooms for last, for obvious reasons. You don't want to clean them just to have someone come in and trash it again. I was restocking the paper towel dispensers when I realized I was out of paper towels to put in them, so I head over to the boiler room in the grade school section of the building.

As I unlock the magnetic doors to the grade school, I could have sworn that I heard someone slam the boiler room door closed. I thought to myself, I knew it was my co-worker messing around with me, and I walked over to the door that just slammed shut, only to open it and inside the lights were off. I turned the lights on and looked around. There was no sign of anybody being in there since last night. There is a door that leads outside to the district office with a small window in it. At this point, I'm on edge and praying that if I walk over to it, I'll see my coworker outside laughing at me. I inch my way over to the window and see nobody outside. As I'm looking out of the window pondering just what the hell is happening, I hear a loud bang behind me.

At this point, I'm kind of thinking about running out of. of the door, and just going home because something is clearly not happy that I'm here. I somehow muster up the courage to turn around, and again, nobody is there, but a whole case of Lysol is on the ground. Now, you're probably thinking, okay, so it's slid off, but no. This particular case of Lysol had mold or something growing on the side of it, and it was covered in dust from having been sitting there for 20-plus years. before one of our coworkers died from complications involving COVID.

We called it his case, but out of respect, I won't name their name. I inspect a little further on the top shelf to see if it did in fact slide off. There were no slide marks. It was like someone picked it up, held it over the edge of the shelf, and dropped it. I didn't even put it back before leaving the boiler room and the grade school to escape to my closet. it for a breather. Since then, I haven't had a single incident. I've stayed from 8.30 p.m. to 5.30 a.m. by myself and haven't experienced anything

weird, outside of the usual sound from something kicking on on the other side of the school. I listen to your podcast at work, Raven, and thanks for keeping me entertained. While I do boring, monotonous work for terrible pay. Well, thank you for sending your story in, because That was creepy. I have a story that isn't creepy by my standards, and I'm a 14-year-old boy who finds most stuff creepy, but is definitely mind-boggling.

Last year, on October, Friday the 13th, my school had this event afterwards that we do a few times during the year, which they call fun nights. Although this night was not going to be fun afterwards. I was having a few of my friends, friends over for a sleepover afterwards, and we were ready to get all sugared up and stay up super late. But when we got back to my house, the usual route we took was barricaded off. I could see some flashing blue and red lights at the corner of my block. We were a block away from my house, so I

could see the corner. But at the time, I didn't think much of it, because we get so much activity here that I was kind of used to it by now. I had one friend who hadn't gone to the fun night, so he had his dad drive him to my house. I called him because he had texted me that he was there. We weren't quite there yet, because we had the go around the block to get to my street. When my friend picked up, I had asked him what was going on and said it looked like something happened with a bus or something. When we pulled up to my house, we all got out of the car and looked at the corner.

When we talked to some of my neighbors, it sounded like someone got ran over by a bus. We kept watching until I realized that they were cleaning blood up off of the street. My neighbor down the street texted me asking if I was okay, because she had seen the person was roughly my size and was riding a scooter that looked a little bit like mine. I had told her that I was fine, and that I would talk to her later. When I told my friends about what she had told me, my friend, let's just call him H, looked like he was about to puke. When me and my friends asked him what was wrong,

he just looked up and said, My brother rides his scooter all over town. I had met his brother a few times, and I thought he was a really cool guy. And yes, I could confirm that he wrote his scooter all over. His brother was a year older than us, but we still had fun hanging out with him. When H got a call from his dad, his fears were confirmed. It was his brother. We waited with him until his dad came to pick him up.

When he finally did, he had talked to my parents quickly. When they came back in, they sat me down in the dining room and had told me that he had died on arrival. That's the first time I ever cried in front of my friends. but it certainly wasn't the last. Now, I'm not a religious person, but if a friend needed me to, I would pray for them. And that's what we did. The rest of the night, we decided not to mourn,

but to celebrate his life, by having the most fun that we could that night. We did all the things we were planning on doing that night, and it was amazing. Now, yes, I know what you're thinking. This isn't supernatural at all. but I'm not quite done. That night, when everyone else was asleep,

my friend, let's call this one C, told me that all he had wanted to do was talk to him one more time, referring to H's brother. I had told him that that would be the best, and then we went to sleep. The next morning, my friend had told me that he had talked to him. I was surprised at first, but I've always been a strong belief, and the paranormal and all that.

I asked him what they talked about. He said that he didn't remember exactly what they had talked about, but that it was a nice conversation. I was a little jealous at first that he got to talk to him, but I knew that my friend was the perfect person for H's brother

to talk to. Plus, I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. That would come later. I really hope you enjoyed the story, Raven, as I've been wanting to share it ever since I started listening to your podcast on Spotify about three weeks ago. Keep doing a great job.

Thank you. So, I used to be super skeptical when it came to paranormal or supernatural stuff. A hardened, non-believer of anything that wasn't right in front of my eyes on the regular. Obviously, that's not the case anymore, and I have a story to tell you that explains why I changed my perspective. I used to work for a rental company. I was contracted with them as a handyman doing basic fix-it work for their tenants. The company was a realty company that managed a few houses, some apartments and duplexes, things like that.

It was a great paying job being in a small town and all, and most of the tenants were great people that were just happy to see me. The specific job that I got called on was a minor, a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit. electrical issue at an old house that they were renting out on the edge of town. It was an older house, two-story, really nice on the outside. I knocked on the door and an older gentleman greeted me with a bit of a scowl asking what I wanted. When I told him I was there to look at the electrical issue, his whole demeanor changed, and he welcomed me in. He explained that he was having issues with one of the lights in the attic, and that it would flicker

every time the lights were on up there, but that he had changed the bulb and it didn't seem to fix the issue. He even said that he put in an LED, thinking that it was an issue with the bulbs. I told him I would go take a look and then see if I could fix it, or if we needed to get a full-on electrician.

I went up to the attic, and sure enough, he was right. There wasn't much room among the boxes, but I got into the attic, Set up my step ladder and checked out the housing where the flickering bulb was. It's not really importance to the story, but I did find an issue with one of the wires that was an easy fix. So I got to work splicing and capping. As I was doing so, I heard someone say something behind me.

Thinking it was the old man, I shouted back. Just a moment, I think I actually found the issue. But when I went back to work, I heard it again. This time it was more a whisperer than someone speaking regularly. I paused to listen to it, and it seriously sounded like someone was whispering in a different language. It was one dominant voice going on,

and it sounded like it was really close to me. It was creepy, but I just shook it off, thinking I was maybe hearing the TV downstairs, or just getting freaked out at the fact that I was standing in a dark, creepy, crammed attic. I finished replacing the wire and screwed the housing back into the ceiling when I dropped my screwdriver. I reached down to grab it, and when I did, I paused.

It occurred to me that the attic wasn't as dark as it should have been. I glanced over and noticed something glowing under an old and dusty sheet. The nosy part of me got the best of the situation, and I was curious as to what it was. So I stepped over and pulled the sheets to the side, only to find an old, big, tube TV. It was just on a static screen, because it obviously didn't have an antenna or anything, and I was just kind of amused at seeing a model that old. It was the kind that had the wooden frame around it, the really old ones, which you don't see

very often, especially not in the condition that this thing was in. As I was marveling over the TV, a thought clicked in my head. I mentioned a moment ago about how it wasn't as dark as it was supposed to be, because of the TV.

And it should have been dark because the power was off in the attic. I had flipped the breaker. There was no power going to anything up there. and, of course, when I grabbed the power cable on the back of the TV, it wasn't plugged into anything, meaning this TV had no electricity running to it, yet it was showing me a moving static visual somehow.

At that point, I was done. A haunted TV in a dark attic was the start to a horror movie, and I don't really like horror movies, so I went ahead and grabbed my tools and stepped down to flip the breaker back on and see if the light was fixed. It was, thankfully, and I went ahead and went down to tell the owner. He was satisfied, I was terrified but hiding it well, and everything was copacetic. So I told him to have a lovely night, and I left. That's probably the only time I've ever had something creepy happened on a job. and honestly it might not sound like much,

but an unpowered TV clicking on while you're working in a dark attic, it was enough to make me go from skeptic to maybe there is something more to this life. I haven't had any other paranormal encounters, and I'm pretty sure that if I had stuck around in that attic, I probably would have had something happen. Sure, that would have been a slightly more interesting story, but no thank you.

Hey, Raven, you asked for hospital stories, and I just so happened to have a story about something terrifying that happened while I was a nurse a long time ago. I retired from that job several years ago, but this story has always stuck with me, probably because it was the most, I guess, exciting thing to happen while I worked there.

I worked in the units where we had longer-term patients. ones that needed to be there for a few days to weeks, depending on what was really wrong with them. And among my charges was a man named Daniel. Daniel had a pretty bad case of pneumonia that had nearly taken him out. Like, completely taken him out, if you get me. He was a fighter, though, and he was on a good track in his recovery. He was a pretty quiet guy when he was finally able to stop.

start talking again, which I didn't blame him for. I don't think I would want to talk either if I'd almost died from pneumonia. On the third or so day of his stay, things took a pretty sharp turn into the unimaginable, and it wasn't even because of his infection. I was making my rounds, checking on my patients, and making sure everyone was feeling better. I got to Daniel and was checking on a few things, mostly his oxygen levels. making sure he was getting his meds and so on. When the door got shoved open hard enough for it to hit the wall,

and this woman burst into the room like a storm. She was breathless, like she had been running, and her eyes looked wild. I tried to come between her and Daniel, and I asked her if she was his wife. She replied with, No, I'm his girlfriend. Or at least I was until about an hour ago.

which was a weird way to phrase it, but I looked over at Daniel and I could see the fear on his face. I could tell that there was some major tension there, and I made an attempt to say something to her, but she cut me off and started yelling at Daniel. The whole time, his eyes wide and his heart rate spiking. She explained, very loudly, that she had gone to Daniel's house to surprise him, only to be met at the door by his wife. The confrontation that they had had apparently unearthed a sordid affair, and both women were now aware of the other.

I again tried to step in and calm her down, trying to tell her that this was a conversation best had when he wasn't fighting pneumonia in a hospital bed. But I was basically just background noise at that point. Her eyes were locked on him, and his eyes were looking around for an exit. She started screaming more about how he had lied to her, and how she loved him.

And I, in turn, grabbed the phone to call security. I had this gut feeling that it was going to get worse, that his already strained body was going to shut down, and he would end up coding or something. And that's when she pulled out a knife from her bag. The world seemed to slow down as she lunged for Daniel. There was nothing I was able to do to stop her at this point, as I was several steps away, at the phone on the wall, and she was moving at the speed of a woman scorned.

I started screaming for help, yelling that we needed someone in the room immediately, hoping that someone would notice all the commotion and figure out that something was wrong. And I watched as she plunged the knife straight into Daniel. Thankfully, though, he was... cognizant enough to turn, so the knife only went straight into his arm. If he had been any weaker, there was a high chance that she would have stabbed him straight in the chest. The next few seconds were loud and confusing. Several other nurses ran into the room, and together we were able to subdue her until security arrived and cuffed her for the police.

The relief of this argument not ending in tragedy was palpable, but, So was the shock. In my years at the hospital, I had seen the toll illness could take on people, and their relationships. But I've never had anything play out like that right in front of my eyes. Thankfully, Daniel was already in the right place to be treated for the new hole in his arm. It was pretty bad, but nothing fatal, and nothing that wouldn't heal over time. Obviously, I think the mental scars were much worse.

for the guy. Yes, cheating is reprehensible, but so is stabbing someone in a hospital bed while there are a few days back from the verge of death. The police did show up and take the girlfriend away, and it was really awkward when his wife arrived later. Thankfully, she was a bit more level-headed, though I'd be lying if I didn't mention the fact that we all watched her like a hawk to make sure nothing more happened. She was pretty devastated that he could do that to her, but she didn't bring anything sharp into the room.

We made sure of that. Daniel did get better physically, but I can only imagine how messed up he was mentally. Like I said, gross that he had an affair, but damn did I feel bad for him. Going from being unable to breathe, to having a psychotic girlfriend run in the room and shove a knife in his arm

in three days is quite the feat. I have no idea what happened in his marriage. I just hope that nothing else happens to him after he left our care. I want to start this story by saying that I'm a bit of a broody person. It's just who I've always been. I've always been a bit more comfortable in the night when the world is silent and everyone else is asleep. I like to enjoy the time to myself. I also struggle with self-image and anxiety,

so in order to keep myself active and healthy, I like to go for walks when it's pitch black outside, especially on nights where I'm struggling to sleep. On this particular night, I was feeling rather restless, and I decided that I would go out for a quick walk around the block. I grabbed my jacket, my headphones, and my flashlight, and headed out into a rather lovely night. As anticipated, there was nobody else outside, minus the occasional car that would drive by every here and there.

And it was a bit windy, so the leaves were blowing about, which made it that kind of magical night that I was hoping for. I was about 15 minutes into my walk, when I was hit with this intense feeling that I needed to pause. It was a bit of a strange sensation, but I seriously felt. felt like I just needed to stop for a moment. When I did, I noticed that one of the streetlights ahead of me was starting to flicker. I wasn't sure if it was flickering prior to me noticing it, but it was definitely flickering at the moment that I noticed it. After staring at it for a couple of seconds,

I heard what sounded like a person saying, Hey, from a bit of a distance. I was confused because I had my earphones. in and if there was someone that had said something from the distance it sounded like they were, I shouldn't have been able to hear them. I immediately took my earphones out and looked around, trying to see if I could see someone nearby that was calling out. When I turned back toward the street light that was flickering, it made a popping noise

and completely went out, which made me jump. I wasn't sure what to do, but thought that it was a popping noise and completely went out, which made me jump. I wasn't sure what to do, but thought that I should just keep going, right? It was just a light. Surely that was just a really good timing on my part to be looking at it when it went out.

I took a single step forward toward where the light was, and once again froze. A voice called out again with, Hey, come here. My first instinct was to turn around and take off back home. But then my curiosity

started to get the best of me. I know, stupid, but at the same time, this was too freaky to just turn away from and ignore. I grabbed my flashlight and turn it on and then slowly lifted it towards the darkness where the dead street light was. Much to my relief, there was nothing there. I actually chuckled to myself

thinking that I was just losing it and that I needed to get home and sleep. Just as I was about to turn off the flashlight and continue on, my eyes caught a glimpse of motion on the edge of the light, which shifted me from my relief back to terror. I watched as what looked like a shadow quickly darted away from my flashlight and over toward the wooded edge of the street. I tried to follow it, quickly shining to the left, but I couldn't see anything.

My heart skipped a beat as I stood there and just watched the tree line for what felt like several awkward moments. I just held the light, pointing it at the trees and waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, something did. I saw what, again, looked like a shadow, leaning slightly out from behind one of the trees. I was pointing my light directly at this thing, and yet it was still completely dark. As it leaned out, I once again heard that voice whisper. Hey, come here.

Please, come here. For a single fleeting second, I actually considered going towards it. But then my brain kicked back in, and I realized that that would be the dumbest thing I could possibly do. I had no idea what the hell this thing was. I had no idea what its intentions were, and I was pretty much defenseless. Once that thought occurred to me, I felt that wave of terror wash over me. My legs felt like jelly, but I knew that I needed to get out of there. I started to turn to head back home, but was interrupted by what really triggered my flight response.

That voice once again whispered at me, but this time, it said, I won't hurt you. Nothing that says I won't hurt you in the way that it did actually means it. I immediately turned and took off at a full sprint. I have never in my life run that fast, or for that long, but I made record time getting back to my front door. I fumbled with my keys, jumped in, unlocked the door, and then paused as I caught my breath and tried to slow my heart down. After a few moments of just standing against my front door in silence, I decided that I would go to bed. And thankfully, that was the entire experience.

The rest of the night was uneventful. and I haven't gone on a night walk down that road since. I thought about going back to see if I could find this thing again, but it kind of occurred to me that if I was that scared that night, there was a reason. It wasn't just because it was weird. It was instinctual. So, I've decided that whatever that thing was,

someone else out there can take the credit for finding it. I was working at this accounting firm a few years back. It was a nice little company, close-knits, and I really did enjoy working there. However, I had a great opportunity to start a small firm as a partnership with a friend of mine. They all congratulated me and were very supportive of my decision, which made it a little easier on me. They did ask me to give them an extra week, so three weeks total, That way they could get a replacement in for me.

That also meant that I would be helping with training them, which was also totally fine by me. Since I was going to be working with my friend and not a large corporation, I did have a little more flexibility. They knew my plans for some time now, so they were already in the hiring process and going through interviews. They hired a man named Greg, and when he was introduced to me by our mutual boss,

he seemed nice and well-mannered. He shook my hand, he had a warm smile, and the small talk seemed to come naturally. I thought that he felt like a good fit. But as the training went on and the days passed, I started to notice some weird behaviors about Greg. First, he carried around a small notepad and pen everywhere. When I would show him how to use certain software, he would whip out that little pad and start to write stuff down.

I assumed he was taking notes, little key points on things to click on where to look for X, Y, or Z, etc. I was impressed by this because he seemed really engaged, and he made me confident that they had found a good replacement. But then he was taking notes in weird places, such as while he was sitting on a bench in the lounge, room. People would walk by and he would watch them intently, like he was studying them and then he would write something down in his notepad. I saw him do this many times while I was in the lounge having lunch, but then I caught him standing outside the restrooms doing the same. Both restrooms were next to each other, and they had four stalls in each. Even on lunch breaks, the restrooms weren't busy enough that you had to wait outside, especially the men's.

so it kind of stood out to me. I was at the small kitchenette, which is where the vending machines, fridge and coffee maker were, when I saw him quickly walk in the direction of the restrooms. Being nosy, I poked my head out to see where he was going. As suspected, he was pacing near the restrooms. The kitchenette was also next to them, so I could hear him mumbling something.

I couldn't make out what he was saying, but it almost seemed like a full conversation. I could hear the upward inflections. I could make out the no, no, no, as he disagreed with himself. I watched him point his pen up like he had just remembered something, like an aha moment. As I continued watching, Pam walked out of the restroom and she smiled at him. In return, Greg seemed like he was startled or didn't anticipate running into someone,

and he sort of pulled his shoulders up and scurried away, like he'd been caught. It was really odd, and I didn't know what to think of it. The notes and mumbling continued. He would write things down as a woman left the restroom, and if someone tried to talk to him or acknowledge his presence, he would walk off. He wasn't doing anything else, but it was still really odd,

and I really wanted to know what on earth he could have been writing down. I know it was wrong of me to want to do this, but I even tried to see if I could see the notepad sitting on his desk, but he never left it alone, ever. It was always on him, no matter where he went, even when he went home. Other than the odd note-taking and mumbling, another thing I experienced was when I came in a little later than normal. I had a bit of a snafu at home, which made me run behind, so when I got in, I went to try and I went to. straight to my desk to set up. But as I rounded the corner, I saw Greg at my desk, gently shuffling through my items. I didn't want to become defensive or seem suspicious, even though I had every right to.

So I kept my normal chipper tone and said something like, Morning, Greg, did I forget to give you yesterday's forms? He quickly stood up straight, made eye contact with me for only a second, before looking away. I could see his eyes shifting wildly, obviously trying to come up with something. I've experienced the same thing from my eight-year-old. He softly mumbled something about trying to find a pen and walked away back to his desk. Our desks had their own little spaces with a divider between each of them. Our desks had us back to back.

So I watched him walk back to his own and pull out his notepad and his pen. so it was pretty obviously a lie. But then the question goes back to, why was he going through my desk? My drawers were locked, because it had confidential information in it, but my desk itself mostly had personal items. A small plant, a picture of my son and husband,

sticky notes and small trinkets, the stuff that you would normally see on a desk. So even if he did need a pen, they were pretty obviously sitting in the open, in my penholder. He avoided me for most of that day afterwards. The last event that I experienced was on the second to last day there. I was working late that night, trying to copy and import the last of my documents, my work and data to a drive for our VP,

as the next day I had to go over the last of it with her. I wanted to finish it that night, so that way I didn't. have to rush and stress on my last day there. I wanted it to go smoothly. That way the rest of my day could be a little more relaxed and I could just enjoy my last day with them. It was still kind of bittersweet for me. My desk was at the end of the row, closest to the window, by choice, so I typically didn't

notice people coming and going. I also had a small desk mirror than I kept on the side for that reason. I could see people coming up from behind me because certain people liked to sneak up on me. All in fun, though. That mirror was packed up, so I couldn't see what was going on unless I looked or heard something. I thought that I was alone. It was close to 8 p.m., and most people were long gone at that time, so I had music playing on my phone turned down so as to not be obnoxious with it. I guess I was pretty zoned out in my work, and the music,

that I didn't notice the sighing and typing until there was a break in the music between songs. I was curious who was still there, so I turned around and stood up to check. I could just barely see his shoulder, but it was Greg. I didn't know why he was still there, he didn't have a real project assigned to him yet, and definitely didn't have a deadline. so there was no reason for him to be there that late. Yes, it was probably more just me being nosy, but I wanted to see what he was up to.

I stood close to the divider and looked over it, being careful not to touch it and make it wiggle. Greg had his notepad sitting on his desk next to his left hand. The lights were off, so it was just the one emergency light that always stays on, but it was in the middle of the aisle, so it didn't really light up our table. desks. The light from his screen was doing most of the work. The only thing that I could make out on the notepad was a bunch of quickly and crudely scribbled words. Some things were crossed out,

and there were three things bulleted, but again, I couldn't quite read it. His screen, however, was in what looked like a word document, and it was all in the same paragraph. He scrolled up, and it just seemed to go on and on. I'm pretty sure I saw at least four page breaks. I knew his work duties. I was there when they were assigned to him by our VP because it was similar to what I was already doing. I never had to write up any kind of long report,

at least not like that in a word document. But the kind of, I guess, creepier part for me was what else was on the screen. He would switch over to another browser and the tabs were so small that you could tell there were tons of them. And every single tab seemed like a different stock photo of a woman in professional business attire. Women in pencil skirts and matching suit jackets. Women sitting in the chair with their legs crossed.

Women smiling at the camera. Arms crossed. Hair up in a bun or straight down resting on their shoulder. He would look at them like he was studying them for several seconds. Then he would mumble something and go back to the work. document. I was at a loss. What on earth was he doing? I'm not sure why, but it made me really uncomfortable. This was definitely a professional setting, business casual. Some ladies wore something similar, some of us leaned more onto the casual side, but regardless, why did he have all of

these pictures up? And why was he focusing so hard on them? To be on, honest, I was too freaked out to even confront him about it. I just adjusted in my seat so I could look back and forth between my screen and towards Greg's desk. I watched the copy progress and pleaded with it to finish up. After what felt like hours, it finally did. I had everything ready to go, my coat on, purse on my shoulder, phone in hand, ready to just eject the drive, lock my computer and take off. I even walked around the windows just to avoid walking around him. Some of us women felt Greg was a little odd.

I shared what I had witnessed these past few weeks, and others agreed that it was weird, but we also had no explanation for his actions. My only thought at that point was, I told them everything I saw and how it was strange. I was gone after that following day, so it was no longer my problem. If he didn't pay attention to what I taught him,

because of the weird stuff that he was doing, or if he did something worse, that's on them. They'd been warned. Fast forward a month or two later, I'm now in my new position, still there today actually, and I love it. But one day when I went to grab coffee,

I ran into one of my old co-workers. We started chatting. when she suddenly gasped and asked me if I had heard about Greg. I said no, and what she told me really creeped me out, and confirmed some of my suspicions about him. About two to three weeks after I left, he had been fired. One day, Greg was caught going into the women's restroom and pulling something out from under the sink.

He apparently didn't check if there was anyone in the same. stalls. But fortunately, and unfortunately, the CFO was in there as she had been working late that day as well. She watched him pull something off and walk out. She quickly followed him as he went back to his desk and was looking down, like at his lap, holding a device. She confronted him about it, and at first he denied it, as if she couldn't see him holding something and then he finally confessed. She demanded that he give it to her, and he finally did. She tried asking what he was doing, and all that he would say was that it wasn't a camera.

That's all he would say. She told him to go home, and the next day she spoke to the powers that be, and he was, of course, fired. It walked out that same day. The coworker was pretty close friends with the CFO, and she worked. in the HR department, so she pretty much knew firsthand what had happened. The CFO said that it actually wasn't a camera, but it was an audio recorder, which I guess that's better. I don't even want to think about what he was recording, or trying to record. It was creepy and gross.

No one knows what happened to him after that, and it creeps me out to think about. Who knows where he could be working now, and whether he's done that prior or is still trying to do it today. I guess I can only hope that that was the only time. I know that this story is going to sound crazy, and there will be a lot of questions of, how did you not know or whatever? But please, hear me out, because this is a doozy. I've actually read other stories that are similar to this in the past, or heard them on other channels like Let's Read,

which was scary in its own way, but to have something like this actually happen is, well, it's another level of horror. This actually happened to me a couple of years ago, in 2020. I live in a small house, rent it, actually, in a fairly quiet neighborhood. I have always felt safe here, but this event definitely challenged that notion. When this happened,

I had lived here for about a year and a half or so. Like I said, it was in 2020, and I had moved in in 2019. I was sitting in my bedroom, on my bed, just watching YouTube videos on my laptop before going to sleep, when I heard something coming from above me. Now, I do have an attic, and the attic is, well, an attic. It seems sealed off well enough, but in that year of living there,

I had already had one issue with squirrel's nesting after finding a small hole to get in, or chewing the hole himself. Who knows? I was sitting there, and I heard what sounded like a similar scratching. At first, I wasn't certain that I heard it. But then it happened again. and I was immediately annoyed. I decided that I would ignore it because, well, I was lazy,

and I didn't want to call an exterminator in the midst of COVID. That may sound stupid, but I'm a bit of a shut-in, and I don't like people. I figured that he would nest in the spot that he found, and that would be it. Life would go on. Then, after a couple of days, the noises started to get louder. It wasn't just scratching but thumps, and then what sounded like footsteps. I decided that I would go ahead and check the attic at the very least to see what I could find. The attic was dusty and cluttered, not just with my old stuff, but there were actually some boxes up there from the previous tenant.

I had never taken the time to organize it, and it was basically just storage. I stepped up the ladder and took a quick look around, literally a glance. Nothing looked out of place. The boxes were all where I thought they should be. There weren't any immediately visible holes in the wall, and nothing even really looked disturbed. I thought maybe it was nothing, that the noises were actually outside, or I was just being weirdly paranoid. Then came the next phase for the horror.

I had things go missing, or getting moved around in my house. The first thing I noticed missing was underwear, which, looking back, is creepy as hell. They would go missing, or I would find them in weird places, like on the floor in the hallway or in the kitchen. It was weird, and it definitely put me on high alert, but I couldn't really figure out a way to explain it. The doors were all locked.

The windows didn't open up. They opened with outward cranks. And it was near impossible to get in them from the outside. Then, one day, when I came home, I found my refrigerator open. As in wide open. The doors have a dumb lock hinge or something, so if you open it all the way out, you have to pull it to shut it, because it locks in place.

It was like someone had opened the door to get something and left it open. I ended up calling the police and talking with an officer that came out about the whole thing. I explained what I saw, and while he seemed to believe me, there was no evidence of intrusion. So he basically said he would make a report about a potential break-in, but that there wasn't much else to do without evidence. He recommended that I'd get a ring doorbell cam to see if someone had a key to my place, or something like that. If nothing else, it would offer a bit of security. I did, and there was literally nothing that it caught.

I was feeling confused, a bit paranoid. I was thinking that I had some kind of demon or poltergeist in my place that was making my life hell. Honestly, I was losing my life. mind, thinking I was just going crazy and that nothing was actually happening. Or I was sleepwalking and didn't realize it. I kept hearing the noises in the attic during the day. I kept noticing things out of place or missing altogether. But there was no evidence of someone breaking into my home, or proof that there was even anyone

there. Then, things came to a very abrupt and rather terrifying head. I got home from work as normal, thinking I was going to find my clothes or food in a new random place, but that's not quite what happened. What I did find, though, at the very least, justified all of my craziness and paranoia. I put my purse down, grabbed some water, and walked to my bedroom to get my laptop. When I opened the door, I nearly peed my pants. The room was completely...

destroyed, with insulation and plaster and sealing popcorn all over the place. And there, right in the middle of the disaster, was a man, completely unconscious, and, of course, above him was the hole that he had fallen through. I immediately shut the door, grabbed a knife from the kitchen in case this guy woke up, and called the cops. It's impossible to explain the feeling of, I guess, invasion of privacy, destruction of security? Anyways, it's hard to explain what I felt at that moment.

The cops showed up and they had to bring in a paramedic as well because the guy was pretty messed up. He'd fallen and smashed his head pretty hard against my dresser and apparently broken his shoulder as well. They got him out of my apartment and there were so many questions. Did I know the guy? had I ever seen him? How did he get in? Thankfully, one of the responding officers was the original one that helped me with the report

a few days prior. He and I walked up into the attic to kind of sort things through, and we figured it out. Like I mentioned before, the attic was a bit of a cluttered mess, and things didn't look disturbed because they really weren't.

He had slid a couple of boxes over, but not really gone through, or messed anything up. This was also the day that I learned that my attic had a small loft, or a little hidden room kind of thing on one side. There was a small wooden door that slid off to the side, and inside were a few blankets and pillows, a backpack, some of my clothing,

and a bunch of food wrappers and trash from food that he'd taken from my kitchen. This man had been living there, by the looks of it, for a little while. He would later confess that he'd been living there for around three months. And if he hadn't accidentally stepped on to a weak part of the ceiling, I probably wouldn't have known he was there. He eventually did tell the cops everything. He told him that he was homeless, and that he'd been living there without me knowing.

Apparently one day in the winter, it was snowing, and he was just looking for a place to stay warm. I, in my infinite wisdom, just so happened to leave my back door unlocked, and he had made his way in. He went up into the attic to find a place to hide and sleep for originally just the night, but he liked it, and he decided to stay for a while. He claimed that he would never have hurt me and that he didn't mean to scare me, which honestly wasn't much comfort, and that he was just going to stay for a while. a little while longer, and then leave.

It was also fun to explain to the owner of the house that I now had a large hole in my bedroom's ceiling. But, thankfully, there was a police report to explain that, and say that it wasn't caused by me, and their insurance covered the cost. I can tell you that I also organized the attic after this as well, tossing everything I didn't need or wasn't mine, and I've kept that little door on the last. loft open at all times. I also installed a few lights up there that I can turn on from the hallway, so it's brightly

lit, and I can see everything from the ladder. Obviously, nothing like this has happened again, and hopefully nothing ever will, but the fact that it happened at all was nothing shy of a nightmare. I have an online dating story that is, in my opinion, Weird and creepy. It's kind of more weird, though. It was just a really strange encounter with a guy that seemed okay at first. I'll try not to go on too long with this story, but my apologies if it does get a bit long-winded.

So, obviously, this happened at a point where I found myself in the endless sea of dating apps. Like many others, I was in search of something more. Having been single for a few years at this point, I was just trying to find someone that wasn't an absolute creep and that I could stand to spend some time with. And if it became something extra, then great. And, at one point, I matched with a guy that seemed okay. Let's call him Jamie for the sake of the story.

Jamie seemed like a pretty decent dude. His profile had that nerdy air about it, and was filled with humor that resonated with mine. Our conversations were mostly smooth. We seemed to have quite a bit to talk about, and we liked a lot of the same things, so it goes. We then decided to put all of that to the test and meet up in person. I was excited.

I was thinking that this could actually be a match that could lead somewhere. And like everyone else in our position, we decided to do a meetup at a local coffee shop. a neutral ground where if nothing else, we could enjoy a nice cup of coffee before never speaking to each other again. I got there first, and Jamie messaged me saying that he was on his way, but that he was running a couple minutes late. No big deal.

Things happen. I just sat there with my latte and scrolled to the conversations, chuckling at a few of the jokes that were made and thinking about what to talk about when he showed up. This is normally the part of these stories where I would say, he showed up and looked nothing like his picture. But it was quite the opposite. He actually looked exactly like he did in his picture. But there was something about him that bothered me.

And at the time, I just didn't realize it. I brushed it off. He ordered his coffee, and I already had mine, obviously. But I hadn't drank much of it. And we sat down at a comfortable table. The conversation continued to flow pretty soon. smoothly. We kind of picked up where we left off in our messages. But as it continued, Jamie started to ask a few questions that were weird. Mainly he seemed to be really interested in my daily routine, and the questions were awkwardly personal. He asked what time I walked my dog, if I ever got scared living alone, how much my rent was. Worse yet, each time I walked my dog. He asked, what time I walked my dog, if I ever got scared living alone, how much my rent was. worse yet, each time he asked one of these questions,

he would change the way that he was looking at me. He would go from a normal, casual look, to a wide-eyed, straight-on penetrating glare. It felt like he was trying to intimidate me, but only when he asked specific questions. I later learned that this was a supposed, quote-unquote, alpha male technique, to make women submissive, but it's not important, just funny to mention that people think this stuff works.

I tried to steer the conversation to safer waters, thinking that I could salvage this to some extent. But when I asked about his hobbies, or interests, or anything that was worthy of idle conversation, he would be vague, evade anything personal, and then further try to deflect, trying to turn it back around so that I had to answer his questions instead. It was pretty clear at this point that he was manipulative. I'd seen it before, and he was showing the telltale signs of being that kind of person. I don't remember specifically how we got on to the topic, but Jamie ended up talking about one of his exes.

He talked about how he used to watch her online activities, how he would show up randomly at her work to make sure that she was there, and he said it all with a hint of serendipity. He said that for the longest time he thought that she was the one, but that she, again, quote, couldn't handle him at his best. Which, yeah, there were way too many red flags going up during this conversation. The whole time he talked about it, there was no hint of remorse, or an understanding that he violated her privacy. He almost sounded amused.

The final straw came when Jamie made a joke about having used a fake profile to learn more about me before the date. He mentioned that when we matched a couple weeks prior, he had sent me a friend request under a secondary profile, and I accepted it without thinking, which, my bad. He then dug through my Facebook to learn everything about me, and then said that he'd even been around my block where I lived, which is where it hit me. Earlier, when I mentioned that something was off about him, it was because I had actually seen him in person before,

like the day before this date. When I'd left for work the morning prior, there was a guy just walking down the street, and he waved at me as I was leaving. It didn't hit me that it was him because I was tunnel-visioned on getting to work on time. He had, for lack of a bit of a bit of a bit of, better word stalked me shortly before our date.

The way that he said it made it seem like I should be flattered. I wasn't. I excused myself, mentioned that I had a lot to do that day, so I needed to cut the date short, because I needed to go do something with my mom. I don't think I even gave a specific excuse. I'm pretty sure I literally said, I need to go do something with my mom. my mom. Jamie was completely unfazed, asking if he could walk me to my car or go with me, and holding that same confident smile that he had while telling me about everything else.

I declined. I told him to enjoy his coffee and hurried out of the coffee shop, and drove off as quickly as I safely could. What wrapped this whole event in a lovely little bow? A few hours after the date, he sent me a text saying, I think that you and I had a real connection today, and I think that you have a real chance at making me happy. Tell me when you're available, and I'll take you somewhere way nicer than that coffee shop. I never texted him back.

I decided that ghosting him was the best way to handle it. I think that his ego and narcissism stopped him from messaging me again, because I didn't hear from him after that. Looking back, this experience is my chilling reminder that some people out there, not necessarily just men, are simply weird creeps. He seemed totally normal at first, but he was anything but. I have done a few more online dates since this, but there hasn't been anything substantial. And honestly, I'm grateful that most of them have just been forgettable and boring. Because I don't think I could handle another Jamie in my life.

I've never really bought into the whole idea of UFOs. There are people that watch the skies for a living, and I feel like we would have a lot more information on them if it was a real and constant thing. But I'm willing to admit that maybe I've been a bit too self-absorbed on those ideas, after having gone through the event that I went through. This actually happened very recently, and it sort of shocked me out of my non-believer ways,

and pushed me deeper into, maybe there is something out there, territory. I was driving home for my sister's place in rural Idaho, pretty much middle-of-nowhere territory, which really feels like a cliche at this point. It's a scenic route, barely any traffic, especially after dark. The only light on the road is the moonlight and the stars in the sky. And I guess the occasional passing car, but again, that's rare.

That night was a clear one, and I had my windows down enjoying the cool breeze. It was pretty much the main thing keeping me awake. Driving always makes me tired, and it was later in the evening. Somewhere between the endless fields and the silhouettes of the distant mountains, my radio started, well, I guess, skipping. It kind of sounded like I was listening to a CD on one of those old Walkman CD players, and that the lens was dirty,

if you know how that was. It would play, pause, play, pause, rinse, repeat. It did this for several moments to the point that it was starting to annoy the hell out of me. It was worse with the fact that I wasn't even listening to a seat. I was listening to my phone plugged in through an ox cable. Yes, I still have to use an ox cable. I went ahead and pulled over to the side of the road and hit my hazard lights,

deciding that I would take a moment to figure out what was going on with my music. I put the car in park and grabbed my phone from my cup holder, when the inside of my car was quickly lit up by a bright blue light. It was super quick, someone had turned on a spotlight and I kind of jumped when it happened. I glanced up to see what the hell was up there lighting up the inside of my car. I saw this thing. The best way to describe it really, it was up in the sky, shining a light down and then shifting it to left then right. The craft wasn't large. It wasn't much bigger than my car at the very least. It was

at that point that I realized that it wasn't just moving the spotlight. It was more like the craft itself was shifting to the left and to the right, zipping from point A to point B to C and so on. It wasn't a helicopter

or a drone. That much was clear. It was too agile and too silent. I just sat there, and I watched this thing as it lit up random spots on the ground, and then it once again shifted its light toward my car. I was seriously shaking, and I don't know why.

It was like an instinctual reaction. Like I knew that I needed to be terrified of this thing. I watched as it shifted again and then slowly started to, I guess, descend. It looked like it was getting closer to the ground. At this point, it clicked that I needed to get a picture or video of this thing. Something to prove that this was happening. I reached down to grab my phone and fumbled with it. My hands were clammy as hell.

And by the time I opened the camera app and looked back up, it was gone. I don't mean that it floated away. I mean it practically teleported. It was there. The car was lit up. I grabbed my phone and it was just gone. Just like that. It took a split second to go from just hovering near me to somewhere out in the ether.

Now, I know that not much happened here, but this was honestly enough to change me from not believing to thinking that maybe there is more out there. There is nothing on this planet that can move like this thing did. It was such sharp and quick jagged movement. I wish I could give a better description of how it looked, but the light was always. honestly blinding. And all I could tell was the size of it, and like I mentioned, it wasn't much larger than my car is. I've taken this road a hundred times prior to this, and I've never seen anything like this. But I kind of hope to see it again in the future, because I want to be better prepared for it.

I actually bought a dash cam, just in case it happens, so I can get footage of it. odds are it won't but I'm ready just in case I have a story about an event that I attended that was posted on Craigslist of all places which I guess should have been the biggest red flag about all of it I was actually reminded of this by my wife because of the whole Willy Wonka thing that recently happened in I think Glasgow We experienced something that was actually somewhat similar, but it didn't make the news or anything.

I think we all just wanted to forget that it happened afterwards. I was perusing Craigslist, trying to find something that I don't even recall anymore, when I saw an event post for a neighborhood Easter extravaganza. I was curious and I figured there was no harm in checking it out, since the wife and I didn't really have any plans for Easter for our two kiddos. The first thing I did was Google the address to see how close it was, and was surprised when it was only about 10 or so miles away,

which made it reasonable for us to go if we decided to. I remember the description was pretty basic. It just said that the extravaganza would be that Sunday, on Easter, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. that it would be fun for the whole family, and that they would have the biggest Easter egg hunt in town, with over 5,000 eggs to find. Each of them stuffed with different prizes,

candy, cash, and other goodies. They also claimed that they would have a magic show performed by the Easter Bunny himself, which I thought would be pretty fun as our girls were five and three at the time. So they would probably think that was great. Now, at the time, I was pretty well psyched, thinking that this would be a good time for the kids, and that we could enjoy the day together making some memories.

Looking back, it was definitely too good to be true. And I should have realized that when I found it on Craigslist, and not something like Facebook or whatever, but then I thought maybe they were just advertising it anywhere they could. Maybe it was on Facebook, and they had also posted it on Craigslist so it could reach more people. I talked it over with the wife, and after a bit of discussion and comments, like, I don't know, are you sure it's legit? We decided that we would, at the very least, drive by and see if it was worth the time.

When we arrived at the address, we parked in the lot and had to walk up to the location, and it was pretty clear that someone's expectations outstripped reality. The festivities were contained to one random yard, and attendance was, let's just say, almost non-existent. There were a few parents there with some antsy kids, and I could tell all of the adults had the same thought, thinking, what the hell were we doing there? There were a few streamers hanging from the trees, and the only real decoration was a hand-painted sign that said, happy Eatser. Yes, they misspelled Easter on the sign.

And it kind of looked like it was painted and dried mustard. There weren't any tables with food for the adults, like the ad had mentioned, and there was literally a single Easter basket with a couple dozen eggs in it, complete with the big prizes of a single Hershey kiss and a quarter. I know that it doesn't take much to make the kids excited, and both of my girls were super happy to have that 25 cents, so I guess kudos to them for that. After a couple of minutes of thinking that we were all going to have our organs harvested,

and laughing about this whole thing with another couple, one of the self-proclaimed organizers hollered, Hey, everyone, it's time for the Easter Bunny Magic Show. He seemed enthusiastic about it, so I thought that maybe, just maybe, This would actually make the time worth it. The whole thing was clearly the definition of over-promise under-deliver, but I figured that the girls would get to enjoy the fun of a man in a bunny fur suit,

performing some silly tricks. Then, this absolutely hammered dude dressed as the Easter Bunny stumbles out with his fur head lopsided, and the pants sagging slightly on one side. He sways back and forth a bit and puts his hands up yelling Happy Easter everyone and then fumbles around on a small table for his props

His first trick was what I think was supposed to be a card trick But he struggled with the deck in his big fluffy hands And he ended up dropping all the cards on the ground He struggled with trying to pick them up for a second but clearly couldn't maintain his balance, and then gave up after a moment or two. He then said, Sada!

Like him dropping the cards was the trick. He then turned back around to his box on the table and pulled out, I kid you not, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and proclaimed, Next I will make this whiskey disappear. Then, he attempted to drink. it with the bunny suit on, which made him miss his mouth and pour half of it all over the suit. This must have been the last straw for the guy, because he let out this strange, guttural grunting sound, and then fell flat on his side. You could hear a pin drop in that moment. All the kids were

staring wide-eyed, about to burst into tears. Us adults were all watching this train wreck with baited breaths, waiting for Ashton Coucher to pop out and tell us that we'd been punked. My oldest daughter looked up at me and said, Is the Easter Bunny dead? And I just had to look at her and shake my head slightly. Not sure if I was lying or not. After a couple more moments, the organizer ran up and shouted, Hey, show's over.

Everyone please back up a little bit. And then the other one shouted, I'm calling 911. My wife and I just kind of stared at each other. Eyes still wide. Completely in shock. All of us funneled out into the parking lot area and sort of just talked a bit

as we watched an ambulance pull up with the lights and sirens on, and the paramedics rush in to save the Bunny Man. We ended up leaving before they wheeled him out. The last thing I wanted was for my little girls to see the Easter Bunny wheeled out on a stretcher. or worse, possibly in a body bag. I don't think the guy was dead, but I honestly can't say for sure. We ended up just going to a restaurant for a brunch buffet that was actually pretty good,

and decently priced, so I guess silver linings and all that. The whole day was, for lack of a better word, a mess. It was awful, and part of me feels bad for the people that put it. it altogether. I feel like they wanted to make something magical, but on a budget of $20 and an owed favor, if that makes sense. Thankfully, my girls don't remember the day, other than my oldest does seem to have a memory of thinking that the Easter Bunny was dead. In the end, it may not have been the day that I wanted it to be for all of us, but it was definitely the most memorable eatzer celebration that I've ever been to.

When I was in high school, my English teacher took a group of students, approximately six to ten, myself included, to see the Crosset Ghostlight. Legend has it, this is the ghost of a railroad worker that was decapitated and is still searching for his head. Down a dirt road, over a hill past a small line of trees, in the deep dark of rural Arkansas, You summon this ghost by flashing your headlights three times and then sit quietly in the dark. There, the faint flicker among the trees, the green light swung back and forth. The ghostly lantern emerged onto the road and slowly swung towards our van. Closer and closer, the specter came and someone yelled, go. My teacher floored it.

The light vanished and we shot out of there, but not before I saw a shadowy figure. It seemed to be a man crouched or sitting by the trees. He appeared to be wearing a high-collar jacket. Now, you may be thinking, oh, he's obviously the person creating the spooky sightings, or he was carrying the lantern. First, when my teacher sped away, we had driven through where the lantern had been seconds before.

Second, the man slash shadowy figure did not have a head. For those curious, my teacher and I both saw the headless shadow man crouching by the trees. So, for any adventurous souls, if you go to see the cross at ghost, peer among the trees and maybe you will be lucky, or unlucky enough, to see the poor headless ghost too. Today, someone knocked at the door, and I opened thinking it was someone for my parents, and the whole experience was odd. There was a short, older, late-60s Hispanic woman, looking down holding some pamphlets,

and a tall 6'4 Hispanic man with sunglasses and a cap wearing a leather jacket. He seemed strange since it wasn't even a sunny day, and didn't even look at me when I opened the door. He stood a few feet back from the woman looking up at the siding. I looked back at the woman, who was now looking up at me. me, but still not saying anything. And then I noticed her eyes. They were light green slash gray, and the pupils were thin slits.

I couldn't stop staring. I was frozen, not comprehending what the heck I was looking at. My toddler ran over to say hello, and I felt afraid and instinctively closed the door with just my head peeking out. and she still hadn't said anything. Usually, Jehovah Witness people would have started talking by now.

Maybe she hesitated to speak as she saw that I was uncomfortable. After staring at each other for what seemed like forever, I forced myself to break eye contact and looked down at her hand to see what she was trying to peddle. They were brochures of pictures of Jesus, and she stuttered in Spanish, that she wanted to make an invitation, as she flipped through the brochures in her hands, but never actually handed one to me.

I would have taken it to be nice, but she didn't. So after a short pause, I politely said no thank you and closed the door. I looked out the window and didn't see them go to any other houses. They just disappeared. I thought it was strange that they would drive to my neighborhood, knock on my door and then drive away without trying the other houses. For all I know, she was probably just a normal old Jehovah's Witness lady, but I have never in my life seen or heard of anyone with eyes like that and was terrified.

Has anyone else seen someone with eyes like this? I googled it and came across Colaboma, but it looks nothing like what her eyes were like. They were literal thin slits. Contacts, maybe. But that's weird for a woman in her late 60s to be wearing cat or snake eye contacts. And just for the record, the location of this was in Washington State. To give some background information, I run a pod simply for fun or to bring awareness to the dangers of the world and people around us. But learning about weird occurrences and true crime has made me more of the world.

weary of people and behavior. I'm usually really good at chopping occurrences as people just being people. But I do work in an area known for sketchy behavior, drugs, abductions, and stuff like that. That being said, this happened while I was working the store alone. We have cameras, and I'm a fairly big person. I'm six foot and a heavyweight athlete. I'm female. though you really couldn't see that due to the amount of layers that I was wearing.

Around 12, my friend, who will call them A, came to keep me company and sat behind a trash can we have in the corner of the store next to a heater. A man pulls up in a black Lexus and is making wide-eyed contact with me the entire time, which kind of made me uncomfortable, but with my size and appearance, I'm used to men gawking at me. He kept up the staring for a couple of minutes, and then the short man slinked out of his car. I say, welcome in, which was met with him starting to swiftly walk around and behind the counter where I work. I was cutting an avocado for my lunch and had a knife in my hand.

I got a very strange feeling and told him sternly, If you need anything, I can help you over there. You cannot be back here. A looked up and coughed. The man whipped around looking at A and briefly said, I don't need anything, and speed walks out, which left A and me with a terrible feeling. So A eventually leaves, and I sit down and study on my break where we are pretty dead for at least the next hour, usually.

These three teens around my age, probably a year younger, come in, The one that started talking to me was visibly sweating and shaking with nerves. Which was strange, because it was freezing outside. Like, you could throw water and it would turn to ice cold. Thinking nothing of it, I asked what I could get them. He then blurts out, Can you give me an Uber? I said that I could order him one.

Which was met with, no, I have cash. Can you give me an Uber home? I said, no, I can't leave the store. And I was absolutely not going to be driving strangers on God knows where. He points at the phone in a charger that his friend was holding, and I said there's an outlet over there that you can use. He went to plug it in by my computer, which I said, hey man, use the one over there.

He walked all the way to the back to get right next to my stuff, which was a little weird, but... Whatever. The girl with the two guys pipes up as soon as they sat down. No, you can't say that. You'd weird her out. While the other guys said, just go ask her. And then continued to whisper something about their plans.

And, you know, I'm always happy to help, but I started feeling uneasy. Then they stand up, I kid you not, like five minutes after they sat down. They just get up and leave and say, Bye, thanks for the help. And the main guy pulls keys out of his pocket and continues to get into the car that's been parked in front of my store the entire time. Also, very uncomfortable feeling.

Luckily, my manager came in shortly after. It was all fairly strange. I thought I would post this here and see what you guys think. So I don't want to make this a novel, but a little background. This took place in early 2016. I was going through an incredibly tough time, emotionally and mentally. At the time, I lived in an illegal basement suite with my BFF. My bedroom wasn't a bedroom, really.

It was like a big storage room. On the left, when you walked in the door, was the laundry area, with a very thin wall separating it from my room. The wall didn't have a door, just... an opening about five foot wide with no lights inside, so it was always shadowy. To the right, when you walked in, was a larger area of the room, my bedroom. It had about an eight-foot ceiling, and right by the door was a support pole in the middle of the room. On the far right was my bed, and straight across from the door, and the pole was a built-in wooden shop desk.

So, I've always had vivid dreams, but this one goes beyond that. and even the lucid dreams that I have had. In the dreams, my BFF and I were sitting on my bed in my room, chatting. Everything was fine until I suddenly got a cold and terrifying sensation. I didn't want to look at my desk. As my friend was talking, I felt a pool keep telling me to look, even though I was afraid to. Eventually, I couldn't help myself and I looked over at my desk.

Crouched beside my desk on the floor was a girl. I don't remember much about her, besides she had long, stringy hair, but I was immediately drawn into her eyes. They were blank white, and unlike any eyes I've ever seen in real life. Like they were portals sucking me in. My friend, her voice, and the room around me faded until all I could see was this girl. and I felt this evil presence unlike anything I have ever felt. I was paralyzed from this darkness. It felt like it lasted forever, but at the same time, just a second or two before I woke up in my bed.

It was dark, and I was scared as hell. I've marked this asleep paralysis due to this next part. When I opened my eyes, there was light coming through my bedroom door for my BFF's nightlight in the hall, for seeing the bathroom. I could see a silhouette standing by the pole near my door. It was not the girl. It was a tall, skinny, and completely black figure, like a shadow that I couldn't see through.

It was almost absorbing the light instead of reflecting it normally. And it was tall and unnaturally thin. It seemed to be stooped down to fit in my room. Although I couldn't see a face, I knew that it had a mouth and eyes and was looking at me. I was scared witless, but somehow, very strangely, because I'm a wuss, instead of panicking, I thought to myself, screw this, and closed my eyes and fell right back to sleep.

The next day, I remembered it immediately, but had no ill effects or any other encounters like it after. Now, this all just sounds like a typical nightmare or sleep paralysis, And it probably was. But what makes me personally believe this was an evil entity that visited me are three things. One, I had never and have never since had sleep paralysis. Two, I was going through a very dark time, the darkest time so far in my life, and I believe I was very vulnerable emotionally and spiritually at that time.

And three, I have never been to be able to be able to be. more sure of seeing and feeling pure evil, as I felt when I looked at that girl. I have always believed in forcing negative energies away. Even if I don't always believe in them, I always tell spirits and ghosts, etc., to leave me alone. I don't need or want proof. I'm too scared. I think that's why she didn't attach to me, even though I was very vulnerable.

Obviously, this is just my takeaway from my own experience. I would love to hear other's thoughts on it, or maybe someone has had a similar story, and I would love to read it, and thank you. This story happened around 12 years or so ago, and it was kind of a nothing-happened sort of event, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't scary when it did happen. I used to have some friends that lived out in the middle of nowhere, and I would spend the weekend out at their place sometimes when the weather was nice. We used to do a lot of stupid stuff back then, when I was there,

and since they lived in a secluded area, we could be as dumb and loud as we wanted. Of course, because they lived so far out, I had to drive for a few hours, both ways, every time. It was worth it, though. But driving for that long, you're bound to eventually experience, something bizarre. I was about 25 minutes down the old Tulane Highway heading to my buddy's house on that Friday evening when I spotted something a bit up the way in my headlights.

Now, I would see trash and other random detritus on the side of the road pretty regularly, but this wasn't just a random piece of junk. It looked like a dress, like a full-on pink sun dress, hanging on to a tree branch over the road. like the wind had blown it upwards and it got caught. Normally this wouldn't have mattered to me. I would have just laughed at it and kept on. But I noticed that this pretty little dress was covered in what looked like red stains,

like blood. And it didn't really look old or browned. It was still fairly vividly red. I stopped the truck and got out to look and I was pretty well certain that whoever this dress belonged to had been attacked in some way. The fabric was torn or cut, but I couldn't tell if it was by a knife or claws,

and it was drenched in what I was 99% certain was blood. Unfortunately, the dress was too high up for me to get it down, and there was nothing I could do to get it. At this point, I was looking around to see. if there was someone that had been attacked by a bear or wolf or something and was bleeding out. But there was nobody around, and it was completely silent. I figured the best course of action was to call the police and report it, since this could be a serious situation.

I reached in to grab my phone and make the call, and my battery was completely dead. Being this far out, there's no service, so my battery would drain, because it was constantly looking for a tower to connect to, and of course I didn't have my charger in my truck. I cursed it myself for my lack of foresight and decided to just gun it to my friend's house and call the cops there.

So that's what I did. I went way too fast to get there, and I made it way quicker than I should have. When I got there, I frantically told him about what I'd seen, and he had the same thoughts that I had, that some poor girl had been attacked by a bear out in the woods, and was either bleeding out or beyond help. I ended up calling the cops and reporting what I had seen, and the approximate location,

and I told the dispatcher that we would drive back to where I found it, and they could meet us there. We drove out to the spot, and the dress was still hooked into the trees, thankfully. I didn't have to do too much explaining, other than tell them that I was driving and saw it, that I hadn't heard anyone in the area when I stopped earlier. They thanked me for reporting it because it was definitely odd. They also asked me for my information just in case they had any more questions. So I gave it to them and they took over from there. We got back to my buddy's house and it was honestly on my mind for the entire weekend.

Obviously they never did contact me, and I bugged my friend to see if there was any information. information. It was a small town area, and if anything happened, people talked. But there were never any updates. Whatever happened, pretty much remained a mystery. Obviously, it could have been nothing, but I'm damn near certain that dress was covered in actual blood, that was still fairly fresh. It was nowhere near Halloween, so I'm doubting it was a costume or anything. though I guess someone could have just wanted to do a horror photo shoot out in the woods and I guess maybe it got freaky and they lost their clothes or something.

I don't know. Like I said, I know that nothing really happened in the story but I honestly feel like this was the result of someone getting attacked by something or someone in the woods. And they just never found the body. I hope that's not the case, but I'm guessing that I'll never actually have the answer to whether or not it was. I'm a teacher, and I have been for about 23 years now. I've taught everywhere from kindergarten to freshman year high school. From teaching such a range of kids, they've all had their pros and their cons. The older they were, the more rebellious they were, or the more they talked back.

but it was also easier to explain things to them. Younger kids tend to listen better, but then you have to keep in mind that they are younger and less experienced, so sometimes you really have to break things down and even explain simple right and wrong scenarios. Overall, I don't think I had a favorite either way. However, the younger kids really did say the weirdest things. Some of them were funny or nonsensical.

Others were a bit more alarming. I wanted to share some of the experiences that I still very clearly remember. This occurred when I taught a kindergarten class. Our normal class routine included reading time, where, for an hour, I would read a book while they all sat around and listened. They typically got to choose or vote on the book that they wanted, but I had just bought a story pack of six books, so I was reading one from there. I don't remember the exact story.

It was one of the short stories in the first book, but there was a talking rabbit that accompanied a young child through a forest after getting lost. No, it wasn't Hallis in Wonderland. But now that I think of it, maybe it was a rip-off. Anyway, I tried to engage the kids in the story. by asking questions or letting them ask questions. So there were frequent pauses in reading time, which was fine. There was a boy named Aden, who was always a very curious child.

He asked so many questions, and I always thought that he was just a smart kid, and his curiosity, if he kept it up as he grew up, would take him far. But the questions and comments during this reading time were, a bit more morbid. He started by asking, Does Bunny die in this story? I thought it was a normal question. Some kids may have experienced death in their own pets,

maybe even relatives like grandparents. So I told him no. As I always go over stories before I read them to make sure there are no inappropriate topics in them. Then he asked if the bunny does die, would it go to heaven? I try to steer clear of religion in class for obvious reasons that I shouldn't have to explain. So I just told him that it was a great question, but that I didn't know,

and then suggested that he asked his parents. He seemed quite satisfied with the response. After the story was over, he asked, Do you have any stories where someone dies? I was taken aback by the question, but just, just told him no with a raised eyebrow. Reading time finished, and we went back to our normal class curriculum afterwards. Later on, during recess, I saw Aidan sitting in the rocks, not playing, and he seemed like he was holding his knee.

He wasn't crying or looking scared, but I was worried that he had injured himself, so I approached him. I asked him if he was okay or if he was hurt, but I noticed him. that his knee looked fine, but he looked deep in thought. So I asked him what he was thinking about. I can't wait to see what my bones look like. He said this in such a calm and dreamy-sounding voice, like it was a totally normal thing to say out loud. I tried asking him what he meant or why he wanted to see them,

and he just said something about how he likes to see plain bones, which is why he likes to eat chicken legs. Then he explained that looking at his knee was as close as he could get to seeing his bones. Surely it had to be innocent. Just a curious young kid, right? Either way, I tried my best to explain that he wouldn't see his own bones, because then that would be a bad thing. And I tried to offer some child-friendly skeleton book.

We had a few that went over the structure of the skeleton, of humans, as well as some animals. Aiden still said some pretty creepy things like that throughout the year, but thankfully he never took any actions to actually see his bones. Well, at least not in my class. There was another kid in my class named Abigail. It was always Abigail, never Abby. She seemed okay, but just seemed to have issues with making friends.

She was always really standoffish, watching others play. I approached her one time and asked her if she was okay and if she wanted to play with them. She said yes, but that her friend would get mad for leaving him. I smiled and told her that her friend was welcome to play too if they were out there. I began looking around, thinking that this friend must have been nearby, and possibly as equally shy as her. but I didn't see anyone else lingering like she would. So I asked her where her friend was.

She seemed to look past me and said, He's right there, it's the shadow man. I stood up and quickly turned around, but there was nobody there. Before I got to ask again, she looked down at the ground and said, He won't let me play with the other kids. He just tells me to do bad things. This thing was obviously causing her problems, whether it was her imaginary friend and she had the bad thoughts,

blaming it on them, or she actually had someone or something following her around. When it comes to the paranormal, I absolutely believe in it, and I believe that kids seem to be more in-tuned and sensitive to these kinds of things than we are. So I told her that, regardless of who it was, It sounded like a bully, and that if she didn't want to do what it said,

or if it made her feel uncomfortable, then she should just say no. A few days after that event, we had a storm, so recess was inside. We were all playing in the play area in the classroom, and I was at my desk, bouncing between paperwork and watching them. I happened to look up at the right time, and I saw Abigail holding a pair of scissors to the back, of another girl's head. Out of reflexes, I yelled Abigail's name,

which startled all of the kids, and the one that was about to get her haircut turned around to look at me and saw Abigail. I ran over to them and told them to continue playing, and then asked Abigail what she was doing. Her eyes just looked glossed over, and in her soft little voice she said, The Shadow Man told me to do it,

or he would take me away. to his world, where there's no sun, only darkness. What the hell? So I had a heart to heart with her, and again explained right from wrong and how she shouldn't listen to this shadow man. I ended up writing up a pretty extensive email to her parents about the situation too. They never responded back to me, but I did notice that slowly, Abigail seemed to turn into a pretty light-hearted and playful girl.

Maybe their parents knew more about this Shadow Man than what I knew was there. I have one last story that I'll share for now. There was this boy named Carson, who was in the same class as Abigail, actually. That class was a handful for more reasons than just these two kids. So, Carson seemed to be able to tell the future. I know that it sounds ridiculous. but I still have troubles with it myself. Carson would make these random comments,

and I just took it as him being dramatic. For example, he made something during art time and told me that it was for his grandma. I thought it was a sweet gesture, but then he said, she's going to fall and break her hip soon. I obviously didn't hear him correctly, and thought he had just said that she had fallen.

But no, he corrected. me. I said something, and he clarified. No, it hasn't happened yet, but when it does, I will be ready. Okay, a little weird, but I let it go. No point in arguing with a child. About two days or so later, his mom came and picked him up early, because her mom had fallen and had to be taken to the hospital. She was worried that she wouldn't be home to get him from the bus.

Okay, so Grandma did end up breaking her hip. Bizarre, but whatever. But then there were several more times where Carson would seemingly predict the future, and they came true. He mentioned their dog passing away after getting sick. He had seizures, and he died from it.

He said his mom was going to get into a car crash. Someone had ran a red lights and teaboned her. I became nervous talking to him, fearing that he would have a new prediction and that I would be on edge. We had a birthday party for another kid, and while everyone was enjoying their cupcake, I walked around to make sure all the kids were doing okay, needed a napkin, threw away their trash, and so forth.

I stopped by Carson's desk, asking for his trash, and saw him trying to wrap up his cupcake. I asked him what he was doing, if maybe he wasn't hungry, and he shook his head. head. No, I want to share it with my dad because he's going to die at work tomorrow. That one was pretty intense, as he said it, in a very matter-of-fact tone. I stayed calm and collected, and while they enjoyed the little party, I emailed his mom and told

her what he had said. We talked briefly as she picked him up that day about it, and she said that it was definitely strange, and that she had witnessed him saying similar things at home. But she always seemed to brush it off like it was just his imagination. I tried to match that with her, not wanting her to think the teacher was crazy, but come on. Not once did he predict correctly, but multiple times. I just prayed that one wouldn't come true. And thankfully, throughout the school year, Dad never died. Hopefully that one was just his imagination.

When I remember Carson, I often wonder if he still makes predictions like that. So there are a few kids that scared me as a grown adult. I love teaching and still do today, but sometimes kids can unintentionally be pretty unsettling. I just have to remember that they're kids, though. It's not like they're intentionally trying to scare me, right? I have plenty more stories about these things that kids have said are done. I'm fairly new to your channels, so if your audience likes them, I will happily write up some more for you. Back when I relied on dating apps, I matched with a girl named Caitlin.

Her pictures showcased her long, dark, blonde hair, bold green eyes, and a dazzling smile. She lived in the next city over and worked at a local hospital. That was actually something we shared. I was an RN at another hospital, so we shared some similar grievances and the parts that we loved in the field. After a few weeks and when our schedules finally lined up, we agreed to meet in person. We decided on a little brunch place, as we were both morning people, and I got there first to get us a good seat. I sat at the table and would occasionally look up for my phone, expecting to see her walk in at some point. I didn't see a pretty blonde that matched Caitlin's descriptions, so I was a bit startled when someone walked up and said my name.

I looked up to see someone that looked similar, but wasn't quite what I was expecting. The woman had shoulder length and very dark brown hair, freckles, and dark eyes. I probably stared at her longer than I should have been, then she held her arms out for a hug and said that she was Caitlin. I apologized and stood up to hug her and ushered her into the seat. I could tell by her facial features that this was the same person, same nose and eye shape. She even talked with the same cadence and personality,

but she was clearly different. I tried to let it go, thinking maybe she just never updated her photos from the ad, but the thoughts still lingered in my mind. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it, my mouth is faster than my brain, and I finally asked about it. I told her that her hair looked nice, but that it was different from the photos, joking that I almost didn't recognize her.

She laughed and casually brushed it off, explaining what I had assumed. She simply said it was an older photo, and that she read her. recently decided to change up her look out of boredom. I laughed with her and again complimented it, but something still didn't sit right with me. Yeah, she could have cut and dyed her hair, but how would she explain the different eye colors and freckles? Who would wear colored contacts on a first date on a whim? And her freckles were definitely real.

They weren't fake, so... Photoshop? To cover your freckles? It was just all strange to me, because... the woman now sitting in front of me was just as attractive. So why fake a profile photo? Regardless, I tried to not be an ass and dwell on it, and still give her a chance. But as our date progressed, she started acting odd.

She would go from being very talkative and giddy and then become very hands-on and flirtatious. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to see her so interested in me, I guess, but I couldn't figure out if it felt rehearsing. and faked. Or if she was just really excited. It was as if we knew each other and hadn't seen each other in some time. And once again, as the conversation slowed down, I took it as my chance to ask. I joked with her about how the date seemed to flow so easily. It was as if we were friends, and I then asked her if we really did know each other.

I was expecting her to laugh and smack my arm or something, but she broke eye contact with me and with a nervous laugh just said, Oh, um, not really, I don't think. And then quickly tried to change the subject to something else. That made me a bit suspicious. So I moved on but kept trying to place her somewhere in my earlier life. Once we were finished, we started heading out to the parking lot, and she again started getting really flirty and making suggestions.

We met up for brunch. I had no intentions of taking a girl home in the middle of the day. I had a few reasons, but it just seemed weird. So I just told her that I had fun and that I would love to see her again. It wasn't a lie. She seemed happy at first, but then I could see her disappointment. She made comments about how she wasn't good enough for me. I tried to comfort her, but wasn't sure what to say because I barely knew her.

Then she made a comment about how she knew I liked brunettes more, so she had tried to change. I was confused. How would she know what I liked? We had just met. I didn't mention that on my profile because it wasn't that big of a deal to me, so I asked her how she would know that, and then she turned to anger. She said, So you don't even recognize me?

That is so like you, Jason. What the hell was going on here? I felt like I was part of some joke that I wasn't let in on. I told her that I didn't recognize her and specifically mentioned how she didn't even look anything like her bio anymore. So she slapped me and walked off. I stood there dumbfounded by this whole thing. I thought I matched with some random blonde woman.

A dark-haired woman with freckles showed up and I was supposed to recognize her. Which one? I just went home thinking about it the whole time. I went back to her profile and really tried to study the way she looked, the words used in her bio, anything I could to figure out the answers to this test that I obviously failed. But I found nothing.

But to my surprise, Caitlin messaged me the next day. She apologized for how she reacted and said that it wasn't my fault, and that she would love to see me again. Yeah, I was a little hesitant on that one. I did apologize as well and said that I wouldn't mind the same, but that I needed to know who she really was. No more secrets. That was not the way to start a relationship.

She agreed, and after seeing the dots starting and stopping multiple times, she finally responded, and said that we went to school together, and that's why she was so excited to see me. but that she overreacted and that it wasn't a big deal. I thought, okay, high school was over 15 years ago, so forgive me for not remembering everyone I went to school with. But I did apologize for not recognizing her

and agreed on a second date. I assumed maybe she was willing to explain more anyways and we could just reminisce. I didn't mind possibly dating someone from my old school days. We set it up for the following weekend for dinner this time. I have an older sister by two years, and we'd been up talking one evening

when the subject of school came up. It reminded me of my date, and I started telling her about it, wondering if she maybe remembered someone named Caitlin. I didn't tell people about every date I went on, so this was the first time she'd heard about it. She said that she didn't recall the name at first, but then I described what she looked like.

She then mentioned how the dark hair and freckles sounded like my old high school girlfriend, but her name wasn't Caitlin. It was Mercedes. She wasn't wrong, though. Mercedes had dark hair and eyes and freckles, but surely it couldn't have been her. Why would she use a different name?

We broke up because we kind of just grew apart. We dated for part of our freshman year through our junior year. It wasn't anything crazy or dramatic. If I saw it was her on the site, I still probably would have said yes. We were adults now, and probably completely different people. My sister said that she would think about it more, pull out her yearbooks, and let me know if she figured anything out. In the meantime,

Caitlin and I chatted occasionally throughout the week, but she never gave me any other ideas of who she was. Then my sister called me back. She mentioned a girl that she saw in our yearbook, and it made her instantly think of Caitlin. Unfortunately, the person she's telling me about, I wanted to never have to deal with again. She, throughout my junior and part of my senior year,

was basically a stalker. She followed me around at the school, screaming how much she loved me. She would call my house all hours of the night. She followed me into the boy's restroom at school and even tried to tell my mom that I had gotten her pregnant. I never even really talked to this girl. We had one class together, and she always just stared at me. However, she had two classes with Mercedes, and she was always mean to her. but her name wasn't Caitlin

at least not her first name I started looking for her on Facebook and sure enough I found her profile but she was going by her middle name which was Caitlin my stalker had managed to match with me and I fell right into it and when she immediately spotted me

she must have changed her whole look to look like Mercedes Who does that? I knew that I couldn't let this go on. To me, she obviously hadn't changed, so I called it off. I sent her a message using her first name and told her that I didn't think it would be a good idea to continue. She came unglued. She confessed how much she loved me and always had, how I just needed to give her a chance,

how it was meant to be since I matched with her. I told her it was a mistake in how she kind of set me up. That did not go over well, and let's just say, that queued the stalking all over again. I ended up having to file a restraining order again to get her to leave me alone, and I became a bit more cautious with who I matched with online. However, after a while, I did actually reconnect with Mercedes after all this, and it's safe to say that we've become decent friends. again. I'd been single for quite a while when this took place. It didn't bother me any, either.

I was enjoying The Bachelor Life. I went on dates with some women that I met through apps, as well as some that I had mutual friends set me up with. That's actually how I met Cora. She worked with a friend of mine, Leslie. I met Cora at a business party that Leslie took me to as her plus one at the time. We'd been friends for a very long time. We tried dating, but we just didn't vibe that way. But we've always remained good friends. So, she took notice when I was looking at Cora.

Cora was very attractive. Long, blonde, curly hair, bright blue eyes, and very tall. Even better, she was very outgoing. She introduced herself and said that everyone called her. Barbie because of how she looked, too. We joked about it, and later on in the date, Leslie called me out on my glances, and there was no denying it. So, she said that she would play Matchmaker and ask Cora about it the next day they worked.

Lucky for me, Cora was also interested in me, and Leslie gave her my number. She messaged me immediately, and the conversation was easy for both of us. We talked about work and life and set up a date for the following weekend. The night of our date started out great. We actually met at a restaurant slash entertainment place, as in we had dinner, and then they had the whole arcade and bowling alley that we enjoyed together. She looked stunning in these shiny black pants and a top, and then she was wearing sneakers.

She joked about not looking at her feet, but she wanted to be comfortable, when we bowled. That night was fantastic, and while we both had a few drinks, her a little more than me, she became very flirtatious and suggestive. And I was all for it. After a few hours there, she invited me back to her place, and I didn't decline. She had taken an Uber, but I drove, so I offered to take us there. I knew that I had to drive, so I didn't drink that much.

When we got there, before she opened the door, she reminded me of her nickname at the office, and I confirmed that I remembered it. Then she said her looks were only part of the reason she liked being called Barbie, and that she was excited to show me. I was curious, but I was thinking, so she liked to collect dolls? Okay, no big deal. Everyone has their collection or hobbies, right? My sister still has a bunch of dolls that she's collected.

My brother and I still have boxes of baseball cards. Nothing to be worried about. But no. This was a little more than just a collection. She turned on the light, and her walls and shelves were filled with dolls, Barbies and other similar dolls, as well as a few porcelain dolls. I was surprised. She giggled and said that she loved them.

She loved to collect them, and she even sometimes bought broken ones and repaired them, saying that she had her own doctor's office slash workshop in her spare bedroom for them. She even talked about how she's made decent money repairing other people's dolls. Yeah, I wasn't expecting this, but I mean, it wasn't that bad. It was one hell of a hobby and, I guess, a side gig for her, but it's not a deal-breaker. Far from it for Cora.

But then she said that the ones that were truly special to her were in her workshop, and to make sure that they aren't hurt. She took me to the room, and, again, shelves lined the top of the walls, and they were all filled with porcelain dolls. She called these her family. She started naming them off.

Dolls named after her parents, her grandparents, her sister, her old teacher, and even two of her exes. She even showed me a picture that was hanging on the wall of her sister, comparing it to the doll, and it was uncanny how much they matched. Shoulder-length hair, curly, light brown, she had blue eyes and a mole above her left eye, and had on the same dress her sister was wearing in the photo. She said that her sister had thrown out the dress,

so she snagged it and made the dress for the doll out of it. She explained how she still cared for her exes, so she made them into dolls too. Then she giggled and mentioned how she couldn't wait to make a doll for me. I'm sure that she meant that to be light-hearted, and maybe even funny. It was obviously something she did, but it was actually kind of creepy to me.

It was like someone admitting to wanting a voodoo doll of you. I don't know how else to explain it, so I just let out a nervous laugh, and she led me out of the room and went back to the Cora that I knew from our date. She kissed me and said that her bedroom was the best place in the house, and then led me to the other room with the closed door. I just prayed that it didn't have any dolls in it. She opened the door, and to my surprise, there were no dolls in the walls, sitting on the dressers or the shelves.

So I felt that I could finally relax. I remember telling myself that I was just kind of being an ass about it. And while it may seem weird to me, it was something that she enjoyed. And, ultimately, I could live with that. Until I tried to lay on her bed, and then felt something under the blanket. As a person's normal reaction, I moved quickly. not wanting to hurt or damage whatever it was. Cora giggled and leaned over me to pull the blanket back

and revealed a nearly life-sized doll, laying in her bed, smiling. I'm a little over six feet, and that thing had to be about four or five feet easily. Cora began telling me who the doll was. She told me his name, some of his history, me, and then told me why he was in her bed in the first place. I'll let you fill in the blanks there. She even suggested that we could include it in our night's activities. I tried to remain as polite as possible, and told her that I just wasn't quite into that.

However, instead of being a little understanding, she became upset, saying that those dolls were her babies, her life, and if I wanted to be with her, that I had to be with her dolls, too. So, I left the room. I grabbed my stuff and walked out of her apartment, trying to figure out what the hell I had just experienced. She messaged me the next day, with a picture of herself and her bedroom doll, I guess, and said that I was welcome back if I ever changed my mind. I just couldn't picture doing literally anything in that place with a thousand eyes staring at me, watching every move I made.

I didn't check the bathroom, but I wouldn't doubt if she had some in there, too. Thankfully, Cora at least made the conversation with Leslie easy. Cora told her that we just didn't click, so I didn't have to share my experience either, and I don't think I will pass... telling you, a random person on the internet. So I hope you enjoyed my slightly creepy and very uncomfortable first date. I have always been a pretty reclusive kid growing up. I'm not much different now as an adult, but still, this event did not help me change.

Anyways, because I wasn't outgoing, I often stayed home when my parents would go out. So when they went to a friend's birthday party and I was invited to join them, I declined and decided to stay home and just have the plates to myself for a few hours. I was a 16-year-old boy, and I'd stayed home plenty of times before, so it was no big deal. The evening started fine. I was sitting in the living room, watching TV, probably eating some junk food, when someone knocked on the door. It was odd because it wasn't like anyone was expected over, and my friends don't ever just show up unannounced.

So I answered. It was a normal-looking guy, maybe in his 30s or so, except he was kind of fidgety and overly curious. I just looked at him and he asked if Alan lived here. I told him no. My name was not Alan, nor was it my dad or brother's name. He stared at me for a few seconds and then apologized saying he must have the wrong address and solemnly walked off. I closed the door thinking it was weird and just went back to my night.

A few hours later, I started playing a game on the computer in our living room when there was a knock on the door. Now, I was curious as well as annoyed. I answered again and this time it was a different guy, but he looked a bit more rough. This time he said, Hey, let me talk to Alan. What were the odds that two people would ask for the same person at the same house in the same night? I again told him there was no one here by that name,

and he tried to look past me into our house like he didn't believe me. Now, the guy was much bigger than me, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little intimidated by him, but I was going to try and stand my ground. So I started closing the door more, limiting his view, and again said that I knew no one by that name. That no one named Alan lived here, and I tried my best to give a bit of a big and scary face. He smirked and said that if he found out that he was in there and that I'd lied, that he would come back. And I'll just say that he said he would make me regret it.

I just said okay and shut the door. watching him walk away from the window. I didn't like that there were two guys now that showed up and one threatened me, so I called my parents and told them what happened. They told me they would try to get home soon, but told me to make sure that both doors are locked, and to keep the curtains closed, and also to not answer the door again.

So I hung up and went back to my night. I started getting tired, so I got off the computer and went back. to the couch, hoping to fall asleep. By this time it was dark out. I don't remember the exact time, and I was actually drifting off, when I damn near had a heart attack. Someone was banging very hard and very loudly on the front door, making me jump up. Except this time, the person was shouting that they were the police. They were demanding that I opened the door or they were going to force it down.

I was terrified and didn't know what to do. My parents had told me not to answer the door for anyone, but it was also the police. I grabbed the phone and called my parents again, but as I explained to them what had happened, I felt the urgency to open the door. So I did. They immediately ran in, one of them forcing me to the ground, making me drop the phone. Two more went in and started searching the house. The cop that stayed with me helped me up, leaving the phone behind,

and led me outside asking me a barrage of questions about who I was, and then put me in the back of his cruiser. I sat there freaking out. There were cops walking around my home. Why were they there, and why did they treat me like I was the bad guy? I was shaking from fear and being cold, as I was in just my pajamas, and it was a colder night down in New Mexico. I just hoped that my parents would be home soon, and that everything would get cleared up.

Thankfully, that sort of happened. I saw my parents show up, and my mom started arguing with another cop standing by the car that I was in, demanding that they let her see me. Then the cop that put me in the back came back out, and talked to my parents, then let me out. With them standing there, they asked us if we knew someone named Alan. Who the hell was Alan? I explained what happened that night, and my parents confirmed my story. The cops then said that they received a tip about him staying there at our house.

He said he was assumed to be armed and dangerous. They asked if anyone came over asking to stay there, and we told them no. But we did have the two people come looking for him. The cops said that was definitely alarming, and said that it could have been a friend that heard something similar, or even worse, someone he owed money to. They basically said that if they come back, to not answer the door,

and to call them immediately. That made me feel really good. I may have come face to face with someone with some very bad intentions. Overall, they obviously let me go, and we all got to go back inside, with minimal destruction having occurred. mostly all of the doors and lights were on and any place a person could hide they searched i was still pretty shaken up and then i had the fear of answering the door for a while my parents also didn't like me staying home alone after that but those guys never came back and we never ran into the now infamous allen however now when that name does come up my parents and i have a could laugh. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I have a couple of stories to relate.

One was a strange nightmare and the other I was in between sleep and awake, and I figured I would send these into you. The nightmare. I was walking across a sea of sand. The sky was a dark twilight purple. For some reason, the horizon was an electric blue that just highlighted the separation between land and sky. I was walking for a long time in this dream, and a feeling of dread was coming over me. I kept feeling that there was something watching me, or that I was on my way to something really bad. This feeling kept growing as I walked on, to the point that I was lingering in my steps.

I didn't want to confront what was coming. I'd come to the conclusion that I was heading towards a terrible thing. Dune after dune, I climbed. The dream made it seem like it was a very important. ages in travel. My steps felt like iron, slow plotting, and it was hard to pick up my feet again.

I do not know how many dunes I climbed. One looked much like the next, which made it hard to keep track of any sense of scale, time, or distance. The sky never changed, but the horizon was slowly shifting through colors, from a blue-green that made me think of the sea towards the yellow of a sunset.

Finally, as I crested the final dune in my slow-plodding way, there was sweat dripping from me from the effort to push on to the final step. I saw the source of my fear, that thing that I had been dreading. There hanging, unsupported in the sky, a stoplight. It menacingly shifted from red to green to yellow and then back to red. I was around ten or eleven years old having this change. dream. It was not like I was learning to drive. I have no idea why my brain conjured up a nightmare about a stoplight. It was such a strange dream, and it has stuck with me. This one was on the

border of sleep. I was lying in my bed having a hard time getting to sleep. I would often have bouts of insomnia, and still do. Sleep is something that eludes me often, but I've made my peace with that. I had learned a few tricks to simulate sleep. For me, they don't leave me as tired as flip-flopping over the mattress. I would take the time to still my mind, trying to block out all external noise. This would take a decent amount of time in the beginning, and after practice it got easier. From there, I would focus on the background static in my brain. I don't know if everyone else has this, but for me, it's like a poorly tuned radio. Just a white noise from the back of my consciousness.

I would then just listen to that, doing my best to not respond to any other stimuli. Again, this got easier with practice. It was much like meditation, as I learned. Often my brain would then make up conversations from the static, just like little vignettes to entertain me. Often this would be when I would fall asleep. Normally it would take about a couple of hours, stopping and restarting the process.

This time was a little different. I don't know what happened, but this scene went on for longer than normal. It was something like this. Interior of a familiar gas station that also made and sold fresh donuts. There were a couple of people behind the counter. One was a cashier, and the other was busy making donuts. They were talking about what types they needed to be made for their shift. In walked a police officer who grabbed a coffee and a donut.

Hi, Officer Wilkins, just coming on shift? The cashier asked. Yep, needem might pick me up. I hate these night shifts. The officer then handed over the money. Well, these ones are fresh. Tim just put these out. The cashier nodded towards the employee who was making the pastries.

My compliments, Tim. Fresh ones are the best. The officer said as he had taken a bite. I may hate working nights, but being able to get fresh donuts for my shift almost makes up for it. Have a good night, Deb. Thanks, Tim. The officer makes a small salute with the coffee cup and leaves. That was the end of it. No big things, no revelations, just a mundane slice of life scenario.

I'm pretty sure that I had drifted off to sleep. and that this was all the dream. At least, I thought so, until the next night. I knew trying to get to sleep this night was impossible, so I decided to go to the gas station for my dream the night before and see if they really made the pastries fresh at night. I had always assumed it would be in the morning when they made them. As I walked into the gas station, there was Deb and Tim.

They were in the same place they had been in my dream. They were talking between the two of them about what donuts needed to be made. It wasn't identical to my dream, but close enough that it was Erie. So I asked them on the spur of the moment if Officer Wilkins had been in last night. They said yes, and then I asked them about the conversation. I recounted my dream, and they told me that it was how they remembered that night going. Now, I don't know why my mind decided that the one and only time I astral project, it's to a donut-slinging gas station, all to listen in on a mundane conversation.

I had only been into this place a couple of times. It was across town from where I lived, so this wasn't even a place that I was at all the time, or even drove by. Those were two of the strangest dreams I have had. well, one may not have been a dream. I've attempted to replicate the static experience again, but to no avail. So, I hope at the very least these entertained everyone. Sorry about the flowery language on the first one.

I just wanted to try and capture the mysterious and fearful feelings I was having in that nightmare. Thank you, Raven, for taking the time to read this, and thank you to all of you for listening. Okay, so... This just happened to me and my buddy over the weekend, and I wanted to share this here. I'm 22 years old and have been living with my grandmaw since I was about 11. Now that I'm a bit older, I've been able to take care of her as her health has taken a downward slope. However, she is still able to get around on her own at home and is still fully there mentally,

so sometimes I go out with friends for the night just to kick it. and sometimes there are recreationals involved, but we stay out of trouble. I couldn't imagine doing something to disappoint the woman that has raised me. So, anyways, this was one of those nights where Curtis and I met up at our local spot to enjoy a night of no responsibilities and no one depending on us to do something. Our go-to spot was behind a building that had been abandoned some time ago. There was a narrow alleyway that connected it to some kind of doctor or dental office, but it closed at normal hours so there wasn't another person in sight.

We would sit back there to smoke and BS for hours before we would finally leave. That night, we got on the topic of food, and as it goes, and we started craving some of our favorite junk food. We made our way out through the alley into the nearest gas station, and once we were satisfied with our purchase, we went back to our spot. Walking through that alley was normal for us. We walked to that spot from his place since it was close, and that way, a parked car at an abandoned or closed building wouldn't alarm anyone. Being in that alley in the dark didn't scare us,

especially when we weren't alone. It may not have been the best place in town, but we knew how to take care of ourselves. Not to mention, it was an unwritten rule that, if you kept to yourself, minded your own business, no one would bother you or say anything to you. So, when we were walking through the alley and we saw a lanky and scruffy-looking old man, and we didn't think anything of it. And we kept our conversation low and did not make eye contact. As we passed to the guy, he let out a low, gravelly,

he so we slowed our pace but kept walking and looked back at the guy he held up his hand as if he was greeting us and asked if we had any smokes i've been there before so i stopped and pulled one out to give him he then lit it with a matchbook that he had thanked me and as we nodded we continued on pretty simple interaction that we thought nothing else of we got back to our spot and started talking and screwing off again, when we saw that same guy walking out of the alley towards us. We weren't really going to be able to hide what we were doing, or rather smoking,

so we just sat there, waiting to see how this would play out. The man approached and asked us if we had anything extra that he could smoke too. If it kept this guy from snitching on us, I guess I was happy to share, so I gave him what he asked for, he was actually pretty cool. He asked us some general and not to personal questions,

like if we hung out there a lot and how we found this place. He even told us some interesting stories that he knew about the building we were behind. He seemed totally fine while we were talking, but then he dropped his head like he was in deep thought. We sat in silence for a minute before Curtis and I started talking to each other again, going on like there wasn't a third person sitting there with us. Everyone has their own things they're trying to work out, so I felt it best to let him sit there and not interrupt him.

As we were talking, he started muttering to himself, but there was nothing that we could make out. After this continued for a bit, the guy slowly looked up and was staring right at me. Thinking he may have just had something to say, I looked back at him, and just said, What's up, boss?

You shouldn't be here. I was confused at first, partially annoyed, thinking we were about to get some dumb lecture from some random guy about wasting our lives. But then it turned to confusion when I started thinking about how he's been sitting here with us this whole time too. What exactly was his whole plan here? Curtis and I looked at each other and he asked the man,

What do you mean? this is a dangerous place. You never know what you might encounter. Still feeling annoyed and confused, I made a comment about him being here too, or something to that effect. That's when, without breaking eye contact, he smiled at me and said,

I know, I've seen bad things happen here. I know things you couldn't possibly understand. Curtis started talking about how he was, killing the mood, and I agreed with him. This was supposed to be our time away from everything else, and now we got this stranger in our self-proclaimed spot talking about things that made no sense. We made a motion to each other to just get up and leave, when the guy once again spoke. I know things about you, Isaiah.

Things you don't even understand about yourself. Now, when we're outdoing what we were there, that night, we rarely actually use each other's full names. It was either us calling each other C or I, or one of the nicknames we'd given each other, and I can guarantee you that night, we never set our names around this guy. So, how did he know my name? I stood up and asked him how he knew me, and again, without as much as a flinch, the guy looked up at me smiling and said,

it's easy when you have my eyes. Would you like to see into them too? I hadn't noticed before, as I had no reason to pay much attention to what he looked like. But as I stood over him, and the single light from above us lit up his face, I noticed his left eye was glossed over and still, unlike his right eye. It was a fake eye. Call me a jerk, but normally that stuff I wouldn't even take notice to or care about. But between his cryptic talking, knowing my name and the night now feeling incredibly tense,

I was pretty unnerved by this. Curtis looked at me in basically just motion that we should go, and I agreed. As we started walking away, he continued to sit in the same spot, not looking at us, and said, The knight will always find you. We picked up our pace and got the hell out of there. We went back to Curtis's house and tried to shake off the bad vibes. Our high already ruined. Shortly after I went home and went to bed,

hoping that guy was just off his rocker and that I would never see him again. Everything was fine the next day, and even most of the week until I was walking home from the gas station. It felt like I was being stared at, and typically I just got this annoyed feeling. You know, the kind when you want to be. went to look at someone like, you got a problem. But this time I was feeling more on edge.

My fighter flight was kicking in, and I started looking around, all over. That's when I saw him. On the other side of the street, standing next to a bus stop, it was that same man. I stopped walking and just stared at him as he was clearly already staring at me. I didn't do anything, but stood still. still until he lifted his arm to wave at me smiling.

I just picked up my pace to get home quickly, and thankfully he didn't follow. I told Curtis about it, too, so we've been avoiding our normal spot, not wanting to run into him again. So far, neither of us has seen him since, but I don't want to take any chances. I don't know if this guy had bad intentions, if he was just trying to scare us, or, Maybe he was crazy, but whatever it was, I did not like the vibes I got from that man. I'll send you an update if I do run into him again, but to be honest, I hope I don't have to. While I was attending an out-of-state university, I lived in one of their dorm rooms. It was cheaper than trying to find an apartment or roommate that I could get along with,

so I went with living in a dorm with someone hopefully I could tolerate. That worked out well enough when I was roomed with this guy that I'll call Mark. Mark was an all right guy. We weren't best friends. In fact, we had some pretty major differences, but we could agree to disagree and tolerated each other well enough. Sometimes we would talk, waiting for the time to pass. We'd pick up something from the gas station or food for each other,

so I guess we did all right. But Mark also seemed to be able to. to keep some things to himself, which was understandable. We all want some kind of privacy, right? Mark had a small safe that he kept under his bed. I'd watched him pull it out at times and open it with a key. It was one of those heavy, fireproof safes, but probably one of the smallest ones I'd ever seen.

I guess it did need to be small enough to hide in a dorm room. Like I said, he kept it under his bed. He always seemed to hover over it or shield it when I was in the room, pretty obviously not wanting me to see what was in it. So I just tried to be as respectful and look away or turn around, like that was my intention all along. So he felt like I wasn't being nosy. I absolutely was, but I wasn't going to act on anything.

I assumed he probably just kept money or maybe jewelry in it or something. something like that. Judging by the way that he dressed and the things that belonged to him in the room, I assumed that his family was pretty well off. But then Mark's demeanor began to change. He was rarely home, and when he was, he didn't stay along. I liked to go to this local pizza and wing place on Tuesdays, and we would both chip in. But two weeks in a row, he said he didn't want any. Fine, sometimes you get burned out on things, but it was the situation that made me raise an eyebrow. The first time I asked him, he looked like he wanted to say yes, but kept looking at his watch, almost contemplating the time. He didn't normally have anything to do on Tuesday nights,

no classes, and I know that he didn't have a job, which was another reason I assumed he was being supported by his parents or guardians. I suppose he could have just had something to do that night, but he didn't look normal, I guess. Like, when you're normally trying to decide if you have the time to do something, or trying to calculate how long this or that might take, you know, he looked more like he was nervous, like he had an importance deadline somewhere else, but was really torn about leaving. It's hard to explain. I just told him it was no big deal.

I would still get what he wanted that time, and he said thanks as he was rushing out the door. Weird, but no big deal. But the next week, he looked even more flustered. He didn't even seem to realize what day it was, but when it finally clicked, he declined and quickly left. Both times he was carrying his duffel bags,

so I assumed he probably started doing something better with his time instead of eating greasy pizza. So, I let it go, sometimes inviting another buddy over to split the cost. But then there were other more suspicious events that occurred involving Mark. When he was trying to get into his safe, he would ask me to leave the room. At first I looked at him confused, but he seemed suspicious, maybe even paranoid. It nearly became a full-blown argument, but I was fed up and just left. Several times it could be sitting at my desk doing work.

He would clear his throat, and even though I had no idea what he was even doing, I would have to go into the bathroom, or leave the dorm room. Quite frankly, it was pretty annoying. But again, I lived with it until he started getting way too possessive over anything on his desk or his duffel bag. He kept a padlock on his duffel bag. I assumed he just had his gym stuff in it. What the hell could be in it that was worth locking up?

One day, I had come back from class, and as I was entering the door, Mark was at his desk. He quickly shoved whatever he was riding into his drawer. I remember rolling my eyes, annoyed that he was all of the sudden so secretive and paranoid. I actually confronted him about it, and it turned. turned into a small argument. I just remember him looking at me with his eyes glossy and wide as he slowly shook his head. You have no idea who I am. You know nothing about me.

I would suggest that you stay in your lane, man. I scoffed and asked if that was a threat. And he said, no. Well, at least not one for me. I ended up leaving again to cool off, not wanting to deal with him. I just let what he said roll off and ignored it. Mark was a pretty small guy. I definitely wasn't afraid of him,

but I also didn't want to be involved in whatever he was doing. Something that was common at the uni that I went to was the illegal sales of a certain RX that's supposed to help you focus. I assumed that he was getting involved with that. I wasn't going to say anything. It was a known problem and staff and security were already looking into it, so I found no point in it. But I was not going to be treated like I was the problem,

so I did ask about changing dorms. Unfortunately, they were full, so they just put me on a wait list. I figured that I would just grin and bear it. But things escalated over something pretty innocent. There was an odor in our room that seemed to come out of nowhere. I thought maybe something went bad in the mini-fridge, so I cleaned it out, but the smell still lingered. For days, the smell stayed in our room. I opened the windows.

I went and bought a few air fresheners, and when those didn't work, I cleaned the whole room. I threw a lot out. I smelled all the bed sheets and blankets, but even though they didn't have the smell, I threw them in the trash bag and put them out in the hall, planning on taking them to the laundromat. One of the last things that I did was clean under the beds. If there's one thing my mom taught me, she was a housekeeper and a nanny, it was to clean from the top down. So it was last on my list.

I pulled a few things out from under my bed first, none of which were causing the smell. Then I hesitated when I went to Mark's bed. I knew that he at least kept his safe under there, and I feared if I started cleaning under it, he would just be able to make. show up and another fight would ensue. So I tried to see how much time I may have. I texted Mark asking

him if he was coming back right after class, and if so, if he could pick up some orange juice on his way back, explaining that I had to toss the one that we had, which wasn't a lie. He agreed to do so, which told me that I had a few hours before he would be home,

and I decided to go for it. I lifted his mattress, and the smell seemed to get stronger. I saw a few wrappers, a paper plate with something small stuck to it, but it was also not the source of the smell. However, I did lock on to that notorious duffel bag. I didn't realize it was under his bed. I thought Mark kept it on him without paranoid he had become, but I guess if it contained what I thought it did,

He probably didn't want to carry it out and risk being caught. But at that point, curiosity was taking over, and I wanted to know what the hell was in that bag. Why did Mark all of the sudden change? Why was he so secretive? And what was in that bag and his safe? The only problem was that the lock was still on the bag. It locked the two zippers together,

so after looking at it for a few seconds, I figured I could probably pull them part about an inch, and maybe finagle it enough to pull the zipper between the two and shine my phone light into it to see what it was. I grabbed my phone and crouched down, reaching for the zipper, when my phone went off. I was getting a call from an unknown number. Not that it was a number I didn't have saved,

but the number was unknown, blocked, anonymous, however you want to look at that. I wouldn't normally answer those, but in the situation I was in, it seemed too convenient. So I answered it. The voice was low and gruff. Leave it alone. It's none of your concern.

He told you that, didn't he? Then the line went dead. I had no idea who that was. Couldn't recall the voice at all, but that was the least of my concerns. My bigger problem was, was he referring to me messing with the bag? And if so, how the hell would they have known what I was doing? We did have a window, or two, actually, but they were higher up and wider, because they were above our beds and close to the ceiling.

The floor that we were on was kind of underground, so our windows were practically near the ground. Think like basement windows. so the only way someone would have been able to see me from the window would be to have been squatting or laying down by the window. No one was around the windows, and I also would have seen them or heard them approach. This was in the fall, so I would have heard the crunch of the leaves

as they walked by the window. I immediately threw the mattress back down, leaving everything where it was, the plates and the wrapper too. I sat on my bed thinking about what just happened, and I looked around the room. That's when I noticed that Mark's laptop was still sitting on his desk, open. The screen was dark, but I noticed that his webcam was open and the light was orange. I had the same model of laptop, and I knew that the light being orange meant that it was on. If I wasn't on edge before, I definitely was now.

Was I being watched? And by whom? Surely, if Mark was watching and saw that I was under his bed, he would have just called or texted me, right? But that was definitely not Mark's voice. All I knew was that I did not want to be any more involved than I already was, so I left. Like the disembodied voice said,

it's none of my concern, and I'm leaving it that way. I brought Mark's bedding back in and put it back on his bed to make it look like nothing was out of place. Then I packed a small bag of clothes and some necessities, grabbed my bedding outside, and I left. I called a friend from the laundromat and asked if I could crash on their couch for a few nights, because I sure as hell was not comfortable staying in my dorm anymore, and they agreed to let me. Once I got to his place, I explained what had happened, and he thought that it sounded a lot worse than just some pill sales. He suggested that he may have even been involved in some kind of dark web stuff, especially since the webcam may have been on and watching. He told me that I should really consider telling someone about it for Mark's safety, and reluctantly, I finally agreed.

I called security anonymously, and my friend did the talking. That way they wouldn't recognize my voice. He didn't go to the same school that I was in, and he told them about a bad smell coming from a specific room, and mentioned seeing someone matching Mark's description with a suspicious bag. They said they would look into it, and that was the end of it. I stayed with my friends for a few nights before trying to go back to the dorm. I did get a call while I was there, however, asking me if I had seen Mark, and if he had been acting strange.

I confirmed that he had been, but said that I had no idea why. But I did mention the smell. They said they didn't smell anything, so I went back to the room that night. To my surprise, the smell was gone, along with most of Mark's stuff. His computer was gone, the safe and bag under his bed were also gone. There was a jacket in the closet and a basket with some random clothing in it that he left, but that was it. After seeing this, they asked if he had mentioned anything about leaving, and I said no. They thanked me for my time and then left.

After everything, the room felt way too eerie, so I went back to my friend's house, unwilling to stay there. I don't know if it was worse when his stuff was there or after it was empty. But to make things worse, to add to everything that's already happened. I was stopped by campus security and a cop as I left one of my classes. They started asking me questions about Mark once again because not only did it look like he moved out of his dorm, but he had also missed a few classes. That's when I finally told them everything that I witnessed. I know, call me a coward for not telling anyone sooner,

but since he was still around, I didn't think it was any of my business to say anything. I also didn't want to be looked at as a suspect. But now that he seemed to be missing, I knew that I needed to buck up. They thanked me for my time, and that was the end of it. I kept the dorm as a way to store my stuff, since I had to pay for it anyways,

but I could not sleep there, or stay there longer than a few hours. It freaked me out too much. I never heard from or about Mark again after that, and I have no idea where he is. I hope wherever he went, it wasn't because of the shady stuff happening, but it's hard to imagine that he just got up and walked away from it all.

In the end, I honestly just hope that he's okay. I've been listening to your videos from him. a while now, and I'm one of your older viewers, I guess you could say. I thought that you might be interested in my story about my ex because she was probably the best and worst thing to happen to me, for reasons you will soon understand, as well as the cause for one of the scariest things to happen to me in my life. So, here goes. Ronda and I attended high school together and had an on and off relationship. Our time was tumultuous, swinging between great days and intense fights, sometimes leading to temporary breakups.

We were both young and immature, struggling to comprehend our emotions. Rhonda displayed controlling and, at times, abusive behavior, resorting to slapping and punching me when angry. Despite the physical aggression, I never retaliated. I only tried to restrain her. My communication skills were lacking, which I'm sure did not help our relationship. Then as graduation approached, we mutually agreed to end the roller coaster, parting ways and never crossing paths again, as if that chapter of our lives never existed. But then we had people trying to set up our 10-year high school reunion. I was working with my dad at his home repair and carpentry business,

and had inherited my grandparents' home by this time, so I was pretty comfortable with where I was in life. I went to the reunion expecting to reconnect with some old friends, but it was not anticipating rekindling old flames. Rhonda showed up as well, and she looked incredible. We started talking, and it was as if no time had passed. We connected immediately, and as we talked, we both seemed the same,

but had obviously grown up and matured. We agreed to meet up after the reunion, and the rest was history. After dating for about a year, I proposed to Rhonda and we had a fantastic life. We even had two little girls, Rebecca and Caitlin. Rhonda was working as a substitute teacher, and I was still working with my father. When we married, we moved into my house, of course, as she was living in a much smaller house. There was nothing but love between the two of us and our children,

raising them in a very loving and supportive home for many years. But then we could both tell that we were growing apart. Rhonda didn't seem to be happy with where she was occupation-wise. I encouraged her to do what made her happy. If she wanted to do something else, if she wanted to go back to school, whatever she wanted. Because it was my dad's business, I made great money and we were in no way struggling, so even if she didn't work and just focused on school, we would have been fine.

But nothing I suggested seemed to make her happy. However, she either refused to tell me what she really wanted, or she didn't know what she wanted, so we were always in this never-ending cycle of her being unhappy, and us not being able to come up with a solution. So, after a long and serious talk, we decided the best thing for everyone would be a divorce. Rhonda told me that while she still loved and cared for me, she felt like she settled down too fast, and there was still a lot that she wanted to do. She even mentioned how she loved our girls, but thinks that she became a parent too fast. It was heartbreaking, but I appreciated her.

being honest and up front instead of doing something behind my back and hurting me and our girls. But since part of this was her not wanting to be a full-time parent, and since the home was mine, we agreed that I would keep the girls with me and she could see them whenever she wanted, and they could go see her or stay with her whenever they wanted, as long as it didn't interfere with their schooling. At the time, Kate was six years old and Becca was four when we divorced. I didn't kick Rhonda out either. And, in fact, I offered to move down to the finished basement so that she could have our bedroom until she found her own place. I still loved her, and she was the mother of my kids, so I wouldn't feel right leaving her homeless.

She did end up moving out a few weeks after our divorce was final, but to my surprise, it was with another man. I was upset at first, thinking that she had moved on too quickly or maybe she found him while we were together, but I guess I'll never know the truth. But regardless of it all, life continued on and I did my best. The girls still had questions and at times expressed how they missed their mom, but I made sure they always had access to her, be it by phone or visiting with her. but one day while I was making dinner for us, I had a knock on my door and was served with custody papers. I was blindsided on this, not to mention confused and betrayed.

We had agreed that we would share custody, but that was apparently no longer acceptable. I tried calling her about this, but all she would say, or rather scream, was that she wanted her girls back and that she would do whatever it took to get them. them. Attending the hearings, I was told that in order for me to be able to consider custody, a social

worker would have to do random check-ins on my home and meet with the girls alone for interviews. All of this because Rhonda claimed my home was not safe, and even worse, said that I was an unfit father. For the first time and a long time, I was livid. I would never do anything to hurt my girls. and the home was always fine. They even had their own rooms with everything they could need, clothes that fit, a good bed, food, shower, and a solid roof over their head.

And I cannot stress it enough that I would never lay a finger on them. I would probably go to jail if I found out anyone had. So where did any of this come from? And why would she do this to me? But I played her games and followed all the rules. I got a lawyer and fought tooth and nail to prove all of her claims were false. The girls met with the workers and confirmed they were happy and that they liked their home. They even said they didn't want to move, but that they did want to see their mom more.

And I can't blame them for that. Ronda only seemed to want to see them on the weekend, and when they called her, she didn't talk long to them. I can't force her to do more than that, though. Overall, I won custody as she didn't even have a home for them. She was still living with her boyfriend, which was at his mom's house, so the girls would have to share her room, if anything.

She was awarded every other weekend with them, which technically made her lose time with them, but is what it is. I allowed her to have them any weekend she or the girls wanted. When all was said and done, I was pretty upset. I tried to do whatever I could to avoid putting our girls through that, to avoid them being asked awful questions,

but that's not what Rhonda wanted. But after it was over, we moved on to try and have the most normal life that we could. The girls were still happy. It's been a little over a year since our divorce, since all of our lives changed, but this was our new normal. I expected to have to split up weekends,

summers and holidays for the foreseeable future, until Becca was 16. So when they went to their moms for the weekend, the last weekend before school started for the year, I expected it to just be another trade-off. We had a normal meeting spot in times, so when I showed up and didn't see her, I called her. No answer. It was a bit strange, but I thought that she was just running late,

and maybe that was why she didn't answer. I tried the home phone that she gave me and her boyfriend answered. When I asked for Rhonda, he hung up. Confused and annoyed, I tried her cell phone again and it went straight to voicemail. I started to become alarmed. What was happening? Was she truly ignoring me maliciously?

Or did something happen to her? I called her sister to see if she knew anything. Her sister, Charlotte, was not as close to her as she used to be. Her sister actually testified during the custody battle, but she was on my side. She told me that she felt something was going on with Rhonda that she wasn't talking about,

and that she did not like her new guy. The odds that she knew anything was slim, but I needed to know what was going on. Unfortunately, she didn't know where she was either, but tried calling around too. I drove out to their home, but there were no cars in the driveway, and no one answered the door. I was starting to panic, and in the back of my mind, I feared that she had left with the girls. Would she really try to run away with them?

I know how she used to be in high school, but I thought that was left behind. Was the old Rhonda back? Would she really try to do something to them? The only thing I had left was to call the cops and report. them all missing. They checked the numbers that I had and the home with the same results. I had to show them proof of custody, and they then classified this as a kidnapping. My ex-wife was now being looked at for possible kidnapping. This was my life, and I was terrified. They put a Bolo out for her and her car, but that's all we could really do. I had to wait to see if they found

her and my kids. I drove around anywhere that I could try to find them with no luck. Three days. I went three whole days, not hearing from my girls or my ex-wife.

I didn't know if they left the state, if they were in danger, abandoned and left somewhere, or, God forbid, even dead on the side of the road. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I could do nothing but drive around or wait by the phone hoping to hear something, anything, to know that they were okay.

But then I got a phone call on my landline from an unrecognized number. I answered it, and I heard a familiar voice. It was Becca. She sounded scared and said that she remembered our phone number and that she wanted to come home. She told me they were in a hotel and that their mom wouldn't wake up. I clung to that phone as I helped her try to find something with an address on it. She was seven, so she knew her numbers and could identify the letters, and with helping to spell it out and filling in the blanks, I had a location.

Just as I feared. They were already two states away. I told her to stay on the phone, not wanting to lose her, and I called the cops on my cell phone. They were able to find the hotel in the room they were in. They got my girls, and after a quick check-up at the hospital, they were free to come back home to me. I took the next available flight that I could to get them, and Rhonda's sister actually drove out there to pick us up. The aftermath was just as messy.

Becca explained the best that she could what all happened that weekend. The day that I dropped them off, Rhonda told them they were going on a trip. From there, she drove them across Ohio, through Indiana, and Becca called me from a hotel in Illinois. She said that she was scared because her mom kept trying to get the girls to drink something, and she said that it smelled funny, but every time she refused, Rhonda would just become angrier. But when they were in the hotel, she said that she was really mad and yelled at them, and at the walls until she took some medicine, and they couldn't wake her up the next day.

They were in that room most of the day with no food, only had the water from the sink to drink, and that's when she tried to use the phone to call me. I was heartbroken. What was she trying to get them to drink? Rhonda did end up waking up, and she turned out okay, but she had apparently taken several sleeping pills, which is why the girls couldn't wake her.

She denied the whole funny smelling drink thing, though, and claimed that she had no idea what they were talking about. Ultimately, she was charged with violating a court order, but the kidnapping charges were dropped. Part of that was my choice. I didn't want to see her go to prison and the girls not be able to see their mom anymore. I know a lot of people, like my ex-sister-in-law, would call me stupid, but it's hard to explain if you don't have kids or haven't experienced something like that. She now gets supervised visitations, which is better than nothing. I know that she was also told that she had to go to therapy as part of the deal to see the girls.

So I hope that's helped. I still don't know what caused any of this. I could understand if she wasn't happy with the marriage, but to do this to our kids was unexpected and terrifying. It's been almost a decade since this happened, but thankfully neither of them seem to remember it, or at least, they don't seem to hold it against their mom. I just hope that they know how much they are loved

and how much I am willing to do to keep them safe. Hey, Raven, I wanted to start by saying that I love the stories that you tell, especially the paranormal and glitch ones. I actually have a haunting story about the house that my dad and stepmom live in, that I've wanted to send you for a bit now but just haven't had the chance. It's not really relevant, but it does help explain some things. I'm 17 and my parents are divorced. Me and my sister spend every other weekend and all summer at my dad's house.

And I have to say that that house is seriously haunted. I have a few experiences that I could share, quite a few actually, but here are just a couple of the ones that I think are the most interesting. One of the first events to mention, and is actually something that has happened more than once, is the weirdness with the front door security camera. We have a camera that's mounted and that watches the front door on the inside. And in part of the frame, you can actually see down into the basement area, specifically a door to what is the laundry room.

More than once, one of us has been watching the camera and seen someone else in the family walking out of the room and to the right. With how the camera is positioned, you can't see the full person but can see part of their head and shoulder for a second or two. The first time it happened, I had taken my sister and brother to get lunch. We walked to the McDonald's down the street. We'd been out for a little bit, finishing up our food, when my dad called me. I answered, and he asked me what my sister was doing in the laundry room.

I looked at her and laughed and said that we weren't even home, that we'd gone out to get lunch, and then asked her if she had gone into the laundry room at all today. My dad cut me off and said, no, just now. I just now watched her on the camera and she walked into the laundry room. I once again reiterated that we hadn't been home for about half an hour, and that she said she hadn't been in there. After a bit of confused back and forth, he told me that he was going to head home

and that, if we got there before he did, to not go inside. I think that he was thinking it was an intruder or something, but when we all got there and he walked through, there was no one there. The doors were all locked and there was nothing out of place. He showed us on the footage from the app that there was absolutely someone that looked like

sister walking into the laundry room. But something felt off about it. Like it wasn't solid, if that makes sense? This actually happened several more times last summer, but it wasn't just my sister. I saw my dad and stepmom walk in at different times. He saw me walking out of the room. My stepmom saw my dad. It was crazy that it happened so many times, and each time it was impossible for any of us to have actually gone into that room. In the end, we chalked it up to some kind of spirit that just liked to appear as people in the house. It seemed to never do anything malicious.

It just kind of randomly appeared and walked into the laundry room as random people in the family. The other thing that happens frequently is the strange voices that we all hear from time to time. I have no idea if these are connected to the... mimic spirit in the basement, but it would make sense since it seems to copy those of us that are here. On several occasions, we've all heard someone else in the family talking nearby when the person is nowhere near us. The first time it happened, I was 14, and it was actually my stepmom that

experienced it. She was in her room, sorting out laundry, when she heard me screaming, like in pain or completely terrified screaming. She threw the clothes down and ran into the living room hollering for me and then shouted to my dad asking where I was. He reminded her that I was on a mission trip with the church that weekend and asked what was wrong. She explained what she heard and he told her that he didn't hear it. And after just kind of looking around the house and asking my siblings,

my stepmom decided that she was just hearing things. then literally the next day it was around two in the morning and my dad said that he was having major trouble sleeping like he was having some serious insomnia and hadn't fallen asleep he decided to get up and go watch some TV in the living room to see if he could finally fall asleep and the second he walked into the living room he said that he heard me screaming for help

in a panic he ran to my room and threw the door open, but then remembered that I still wasn't home. He told my stepmom about it, and they both kind of just kept quiet about it, thinking that it would scare us kids. After that, I had a similar experience with hearing my dad calling for me when he wasn't home, my sister crying while she was asleep in her bedroom, and I've heard my little brother outside talking to me when he was down in the basement playing the PlayStation.

Again, I don't know if this is related to the other spirit, but it very well could be. And if so, I would say that this activity is a bit more malicious than just showing up on the camera. So that's my experience. And overall, I know that it isn't incredibly terrifying, but it's scary for those of us that stay there. and obviously my dad, stepmom, and younger brother, who lived there full time. It's been less and less over the last couple years, but when it was happening, it was pretty frequent. I'm curious if any of your listeners have anything similar to this, but if not, then hopefully they can get a bit of chill from my story, at the very least. Back when I, male, was about 16, I fell extremely ill.

It seemed to start as a stomach bug as I was nauseous. My head was splitting and there were other unpleasant symptoms. My parents let me stay home from school, and when I wasn't better the next day, they let me stay home again. But I only seemed to get worse. I stayed in my bed for three days, only briefly leaving to use the bathroom. if I needed to, which was rare, because I couldn't keep anything down, not even water. My parents would come in and check on me, and I would just say that I was about the same, thankful that I was at least still coherent.

The real problem, and story here, began on the fourth night of suffering through this. I woke up in the middle of the night really needing to use the restroom. The problem with this was that I was too weak to get there. The room was spinning, and keeping my eyes open longer than a few seconds would make me feel sick. So, I resorted to rolling out of my bed and crawling to the bathroom with my eyes closed. I could feel my way to my door, through the hallway and into the bathroom. I remembered getting to the toilet, but then being too incredibly weak to do anything else. I tried to pull myself up and only became sick.

The only energy I had left was now consumed by the dry heaving, and I collapsed on the welcoming cold bathroom floor. I don't know how long I was there, but at some point, I heard my mom say my name and ask if I was okay. All I could muster was a groan, and I felt her presence and rubbed my face. She mentioned that I was burning up, and I felt a cold rag rub my face and mouth. She then picked me up, and I felt the motions of her character,

marrying me and placing me back in my bed. She held a glass in front of me and said that I had to drink some of this, that it was very important. So as she held the straw to my mouth, I took a few large gulps and stopped. She then said that she was going to take me to the hospital in the morning, kissed the top of my head and left the room.

The next morning I heard my mom's voice once again, but this time she sounded a bit perkier. She asked me if I was feeling better With the light coming in from the window I kept my eyes closed and told her no She seemed confused And mentioned the glass of water that was half full And the rag on my head

I reminded her that she did that And had also brought me back to my room I also told her that she said she was going to take me to the hospital She didn't say anything else but shortly after my dad came into my room. He helped put a robe on me. I was just in my boxers and carried me to the car. My mom was taking me to the hospital just as she said she would.

I was in the hospital for another two days with very little memory of it. But from what my mom told me, after I was home and more coherent, it was a good thing that she did. I was severely dehydrated, and the doctor said that the water I drink that night probably gave me the strength I needed to stay conscious but that it could have been a lot worse if I wasn't brought in to get fluids in me. I forget what exactly I had, but yeah, it was pretty bad.

Anyways, we talked about something else, about when I was at home sick. That was the night that I collapsed in the bathroom. She had me explain everything again and just went pale. I figured it was because of what I told her, about crawling in there or something, and mentioned that it wasn't her fault because I probably didn't describe how I was feeling well enough. Boy, was I wrong.

The problem with what I said was that she said she didn't do any of that. She said that she didn't wake up at all that night. She didn't find me in the bathroom, and she certainly did not carry me back to my room. And that's where you're not. it really dawned on me. There was no way my mom carried me

to my room. I was taller and heavier than her. I was a teenage boy. I asked her if maybe she had dad carry me and she said no, that he was in bed all night too. She said that she also didn't clean me up.

She didn't bring me the water or the rag. But then she asked my younger brother about that night. He said that he heard a groaning sound that woke him up, because it scared him. He was too afraid to leave his room, but as he listened,

he did hear my mom's voice as well. And from there, he just assumed everything was fine and then went back to bed. So I talked to my mom that night. She helped me, and she carried me back to my room, and my brother also heard her.

But she claims that she did none of that. I could definitely believe the caring part because she could barely lift me off the ground. So then, who was it? Somebody had to have carried me to my room and cleaned me up, because I certainly didn't. I could believe that talking to her was a hallucination, with how ill and dehydrated I was,

but then who carried me? My parents keep saying that I must just not be remembering going back to bed, but it doesn't make sense to me. I remember passing out on the floor and waking up to her talking and physically feeling somebody pick me up. If I did do it, then that means that I would have had to have stood up to even grab myself that glass of water.

I still don't know what to believe about what happened that night. I knew that he was scared and that he was pretty young, but I wish that my brother would have opened his door. He would have at least seen me go to my room and possibly answered, some questions. All I know is that whoever or whatever carried me to my room and made me drink that water could have possibly saved my life. Hello.

I wanted to share something that, while it didn't directly happen to me, I was involved. And my part was pretty terrifying. I worked in a call center environment, but I typically made outbound calls. My job was to call the customer to confirm an issue they were having with our service, and to schedule an appointment with one of our texts to go out and try to troubleshoot, diagnose, and fix the problem in person. I was basically the last resort. If an escalated tech couldn't figure it out over the phone,

or it was determined that something had to be physically done, then it would be sent to me to double-check all of the steps. Then schedule that appointment. Pretty simple, really. Unless it was just requested because the customer refused to do any of the troubleshooting with us. My shift ended at 10 p.m. and we can only do call-outs as late as 8 p.m. the customer's time. So for the last two hours, I helped with the escalations. It was about 10 till 8, so I took one more call-out,

thinking that I could take my last break afterwards and then move on to the inbound call. leaving me with less than two hours to go. This was my normal routine day in and day out, so I was expecting to know where the call would go and how long it would take. Business, as usual. I dialed the number and waited for someone to answer, when I heard the voice of a sweet, frail, older lady answer. I gave my normal opening. Hi, this is Shauna from Internet Company. May I speak with Linda?

The voice on the other end answered in a quiet, calm tone. Oh, yeah, I've been expecting your call. There's been some strange stuff happening. I asked her to elaborate, thinking she meant with the equipment, since that's the whole reason for my call. I think someone's been watching me. I'm hearing whispers and seeing shadows in my home, but they move on their own.

It's not my shadow. My first thought was, Okay, great. We have a crazy customer. We have quite a few customers that call in only to accuse us of watching them through their modem, or wanting us to send a new one because they tore apart the other one looking for the microphone. So, as I tried again to question her and move the conversation forward, she began talking more, and something she said made me listen more. Her voice had a sense of unease to it, as she said,

They're not wearing your uniform. I probably shouldn't trust them, right? I asked her what she was talking about when I started hearing shuffling in the phone. I called out for her a few times and didn't get a response, until I finally heard heavy breathing, and she said, shh, I'm hiding. Hopefully they won't find me.

By now, everything she said so far is circling in my head. But when she mentioned the uniforms, I started getting these ideas. Was someone there? Is that what she meant by the shadows that she was seeing? But I knew that it couldn't have been anyone with us because I was calling her to make the appointment. And we don't do appointments that late either.

And when she mentioned hiding, I immediately became on high alert. I start thinking that someone is breaking into this woman's house. And maybe she thought that I was 911 calling her. or maybe she just got lucky with me calling before she had the chance to call them. I knew that I needed to try and confirm if this was real. First, I instinctually asked calmly and quietly if she was okay, where she was, and if someone was in her house.

She only confirmed my fears. She said that she was hiding in her closet from the two men that were at her door. I asked if she let them in or knew who they were, and she declined. both. She said that they had something long in their hands and started banging on her door, which caused her to hide. I told her to stay there and that I was going to call the police for her. Without hanging up, I messaged my manager to come see me ASAP, and she showed up quickly. I explained everything going on at that moment, as I heard the shaky breaths coming from Linda. She said that she would contact the police, and I messaged her the address to get started on it.

When she went back to her desk, I had to play the middleman of asking Linda questions and messaging my manager back the answers that the operator was asking. Then, as I listened to Linda's line, I heard a loud crashing sound, and Linda gasped. I was afraid to call out for her not wanting my line to give her away. I tried my best to whisper into the phone if she was okay, and after some more shaky breaths, she responded. I think they broke a window. I immediately told my boss that they were likely inside, and she came back over to my desk,

talking to the operator on her personal phone. Per the directions of the operator, I told her to remain quiet unless she needed to tell me something, and from there all we could do was listen to the sounds around her. I started hearing banging and tapping noises, thuds like things were being dropped and thrown. Then I could hear a scraping sound and loud thuds and grunts from a man. I was terrified. Terrified for Linda and just helpless.

All I could do was sit there and listen with her, praying that they didn't find her. That was the longest day of my life, waiting for someone to show up and help her. my manager was still standing by me, and she tapped my shoulder saying that the operator confirmed the police were there. I quietly relayed the information to Linda telling her not to come out until the police called for her. From there, I heard shouting and more shuffling sounds on the phone. I called out for Linda to make sure she wasn't involved, but she didn't respond.

Then, she finally responded, and said that one of the men ran into her room, the same room with the closet that she was in. But then I could hear the police calling out for her, and my manager relayed the same thing. I could hear the shuffling again from Linda's end, and with a creak, she responded to the police. I asked her if she was with them now when she said that she was,

and thanked me for the help. I remember her calm and happy tone as she thanked me. and she didn't sound like there was a single ounce of fear in her voice. It was incredible. I hung up the phone, as did my manager, and she hugged me saying that I did a great job, and told me that I could take an extended break, or just go home if I wanted to.

I didn't hesitate to take that offer. I felt like I was more shaken up than Linda was. If the police hadn't gotten there as fast as they did, would they have found her? They did get to the room, so the odds were pretty high. And that was terrifying to me. I just worked support for an ISP. I was not a 911 operator for obvious reasons.

I couldn't handle taking calls like that every day, and I commend those that do. My manager and I both wanted updates on Linda and what happened, so through means of still needing to schedule her appointment, I know probably a bit sneaky of us. She allowed me to mark her ticket as in process, so I would keep it, and I would try to contact her again.

A few days later, I was able to reach her, and I started the call out as normal, trying to emphasize, it's me, Shauna, again, hoping that she might recognize my name or voice. I could almost hear the light bulb go off when she said my name.

I knew that she remembered me. Oh, you're the young lady that helped me the other night, she said cheerfully. I confirmed that I was and asked if she was okay and how she was doing. She told me how she saw the shadows from them coming into her bay window, as the motion light in her driveway went off. That was about the time that I called. She closed her curtains, and as she began talking to me, she saw the men approach her door, and with whatever they had,

they started messing with her door. That's when she knew that she had to do something. Shortly after, they broke out her window and began rifling through her belongings. She explained that when the police arrived, she heard them shouting at one guy while the other ran into her room. Her room was towards the back of the house, so she thinks that he went there to get away. But the windows in her room were really old,

and people oftentimes didn't know how to open them. them. They had a crank lever. So there was no way that he could escape through the window. So he ran back out of the room. She told me that the police did catch them both. So while her house was a mess, she didn't lose anything. She said that she was still waiting for the window to be replaced and joked that her cable was the least of her concerns now. I told her that it wouldn't cost anything for us to come out, and she agreed, and we continued as normal from there. Afterwards, she thanked me again, and we said our goodbyes. I was incredibly thankful that I was able to take that call that night, no matter how terrifying it was.

I would like to think that, if I hadn't called, she would have called 911, but the way she was speaking so calmly at first, it seemed like it wasn't a big deal, and I worry that she may not have. We do have the customer date of births on file, so I knew that she was in her late 70s. So it was possible that she wasn't quite thinking straight. But I try not to think about that, and rather I focus on the fact that I truly made a difference in my silly job for that day. I don't work there anymore, but my manager, still does, and we do keep in touch. Thankfully, she said that they haven't had another call like that since.

Hello, Raven. Thank you for doing such great work. I hope you're having a great start to the year. I am, though. It's March, so I'm not sure if it's where the start anymore. I thought about sending you this story, but I needed to check my facts with my sister beforehand. This was in the early 90s, and I don't remember why my sister and I were home. alone. My sister was around 14 years old and I was 11. At this time, we lived in a small town

in the Pacific Northwest, and we were bored. We decided to take a walk. After leaving a note for my mom, we took off. Now, this town was about 20 houses at most. The only thing it had was a post office. There was an old school that was overgrown, but had a basketball hoop that was still standing. We walked past the school and made our way to an old rail crossing. The tracks had been removed, but it had not gotten overgrown yet.

We followed the old trail deeper into the woods and caught sight of a rock wall that looked easy to climb. So we decided to climb up and see what we could see. The climb was taller than we thought. It was only about a hundred feet or so, but it was steep.

I think it was. was a hill that the rail company had blasted out of the way. This left a rugged cliff that was pretty sheer. The old drill holes left us away to climb. They had rough edges that we could grab. This made the climb seem easier than it really was. As we were going up, my sister had knocked a rock loose that hit me in my face and knocked my glasses off.

I had wanted to stop then, to at least get my glasses. but my sister just said that we would get them on the way back. At the top of the hill, we realized that it was the edge of a plateau, I guess. It was a flat spot that had been cleared by logging. It's hard to explain. From below it looked like a small hill, and that we would get a good look of the valley. Instead, it was a foothill of a small mountain range,

this flat spot leading to mountains in the distance. There were no trees left standing. standing. All the trunks were grayed and decaying. The undergrowth had run rampant. Vines tried to catch your feet. Old sticks covered holes in the ground. It would have been so easy to turn an ankle or break a leg. We wandered for a while and noticed it was getting dark. We needed to get home. I think we were already late. Our mom was going to be worried. We hadn't marked our trails, so it took some time to find our way back to. where we came up. Looking around was hard for me. Without my glasses, anything outside of three feet was blurry.

When we made it back, I was trying to find a place to climb down, or at least where we climbed up. When we couldn't figure it out, my sister suggested jumping. Without my glasses, I couldn't tell if it was a really long way down or not, but I was not going to jump.

We stood there and argued for a time. I finally told her, Jump if you want. I'm going to find a house and ask to use the phone. I started to walk away afraid that my sister was going to jump. She was headstrong like that, but she followed. I had a hard time in the dark. Neither of us thought to bring flashlights.

Eventually we found a house with lights on. Apparently, either people went to bed early around here. or it was mostly vacation homes. I was almost ready to try to break into a house, just to use the phone. My sister took the lead and knocked on the door. A nice woman answered the door. She wouldn't let us inside because her daughter was sick with a fever, and she didn't want to pass it on to us.

So she brought out her phone. She even wiped it with alcohol before handing it over. My sister left a message from my mom. She was out looking for us. and handed the phone back. The woman asked if we were able to get a hold of our mom, and my sister said no. The lady asked us what we wanted to do,

and I said, if you can point us to our town, we'll start walking. I didn't think we could be that far from home since we walked here. When I told her what town we were from, she was shocked. Apparently going over the cliff and through the flat rise, took us, About 25 minutes, from our town by car.

The road back had to go around the rise and then double back to get to our house. When we said that we would start walking, she objected. She went back inside real quick and checked on her child, and she then told us that she would drive us home. The lady was so nice. She left her sick kid at home to drive us lost kids home. when we got home our car wasn't in the driveway

but not five seconds after our mom pulled up mom was so happy to see us apparently she'd been out driving the route we said we were going to use in our note from what she said she'd been driving on the shoulder at like five miles an hour trying to find us

not only that but our little lapdog Holly who was the size of a cat was sniffing the air and barking like she smelled us. My mom would stop the car and get out to let Holly try and find us. She'd been coming back every so often to check the phone or see if we made it home. So, when we were standing in the driveway, she rushed to hug us.

After exchanging some words with the lady and profusely thanking her, mom let the lady leave. The next day, we went to look for my glasses, because we couldn't afford to buy new ones. ones. When my sister saw the cliff and how high it was, she looked at me and said, I'm glad you talked to me out of jumping. When my mom heard this, she looked mortified. You thought about jumping down? That's like a hundred feet. In reality, it was only about half that, still enough to seriously damage or kill us. At the base of the cliff, we found my glasses, too. They only had a small scuff on the metal. where the rock had hit them.

Anyway, thank you for reading this Raven, and I'm a huge fan of your work. So, this story is about the weirdest night shift I ever had. Maybe not the creepiest, as I have certainly dealt with my share of creeps and people that were blazed out of their mind. Not looking down on people that deal with addiction, just saying they can do some terrifying things.

I've obviously had my fair share of weird people stumble through the door on my overnight shift at the station where I work. But this night takes the cake. It was one of those shifts that kind of started off crappy. I was the only one working because the other overnight attendant was out sick with COVID. But of course, instead of the boss scheduling someone else, he just told me to suck it up, and that things would be fine with just one person. He's kind of a cheap skate, obviously. Anyways, it's around 2 a.m.

When this random guy walks into the station. Average height, a bit hefty, but mostly nondescript. He's got longer greasy hair, but that doesn't mean much. Most of the customers on the overnight come in looking like they don't really believe in self-care. One thing I noted about him, though, was that he had an intense look on his face. Like he was there. with purpose. Now, I have been robbed before, and the guy had that same look.

But he immediately walked to the counter and told me to give him the cash. This guy had the look, but turned and asked me if we carried R.C. Cola. I told him that we did, two liters and single-serve bottles, and mentioned that it was right by the Dr. Pepper and the second door from the left. Yes, I have the stores layout memorized. He heads over, grabs three bottles of RC, and a bag of the TGI Friday's potato skin chips, and drops them on the counter. I ring him up and tell him his total.

He pulls a few bills from his pocket. He then starts fumbling around for a moment, and then mumbles an apology. That's when I notice he's about $2 and some change short on the purchase. I figure, based on this guy's intense frustration over the time, not having the cash, that he'd had one hell of a night already. So, I tell him, Hey man, I got two bucks on me. Don't sweat it.

I'll cover the rest. You just have a good rest of the night, all right? He starts to ask me if I'm sure, saying that he could just put something back, but I wave him off, saying it's cool and to just pay it forward in the future if he can. He then gives me the biggest grin I've seen someone give. Like, I literally,

just changed his life, and then he reaches into his pocket. Now, at first, I'm thinking this was a test. And this guy was going to give me $100 for being kind. A guy can dream, right? But then he slides a handgun out of the inner pocket of his jacket. Yeah, a gun. And I immediately think that I'm about to get robbed again. But the way he took the gun out didn't make sense for that to be his plan.

He didn't do so threateningly. He pulled it out almost carefully, respectfully even. He then gently placed it on the counter and slid it over to me. Here, he said with his voice low and quiet. Take this as my way of saying thanks. It'll save your life. Then, he gives me that same smile, a slight nod, and just walks out with his RC and potato chips.

So there I am, alone in a gas station at two-something in the morning, with a dirty handgun sitting on my counter. I'm thinking that this has to be a joke. There's no way that some dude just left a gun there as a payment for me covering $2. My second thought is that something worse is going to happen, and I'm about to die like it's some kind of messed up horror movie. But nothing happens. The guy is just gone. The gun is sitting there, and for several moments I'm just staring at it in silence. I grabbed some plastic gloves from under the counter.

There was no way I was touching that thing bare-handed, and put the gun in a plastic bag and then placed that on the floor behind me, and called the cops. The officers arrive, and they ask about a call they got saying that someone had found a gun in the store. I had to correct them. and explained that I didn't find the gun, that I was given the gun. And they both looked at me like I was crazy or telling an awful joke. I explained what happened, and they both have this same look of,

this guy's high on their face. But I assure them the whole thing played out just like I said. I even showed them the security footage of the guy putting it down and sliding it toward me. They take the gun, thank me and tell me they'll be in touch if they have any further questions, and then tell me to call them if I see the guy again. The rest of the shift, I was nervous, thinking that this guy may come back for his weapon,

realizing he gave it away to a stranger, but it was a relatively quiet night after that. I seriously felt crazy, like who gives a gun to a gas station attendant as a thank you for buying their damn potato chips for them. Here's where things got truly bizarre, though. About a week or so later, one of the officers come back while he's off duty to get some coffee. But he recognizes me, and he decides to fill me in on a bit of information.

Turns out, the gun was hot. It had been stolen, and potentially used in a homicide a little while back, about three blocks from my gas station. They were still trying to piece everything together, but they were still trying to piece everything together, this was a huge lead for them in that case, since they now had the weapon and the guy's fingerprints on it, as well as the footage from the store. So, in the end, him, I guess, gifting me this gun was a good thing, because it helped to potentially solve a robbery-slash-homicide from a while back. Of course, I have no idea why he thought I should have the gun, as if I wasn't going to call the police and give it to them.

but maybe he really thought I wouldn't. No clue. I worked that overnight shift for about six months after that, but I hit a point where I wanted to change things up, so I moved to days at the same station. Thankfully, nothing more like that has ever happened since, neither to me nor the poor souls that work the overnights there now. There have been other weird and creepy things for sure,

but nothing quite like that. This happened around 10 years ago, give or take, about a year. I just found out about this sub-reddit, and I thought that it was worth posting. My friend Craig and I made plans to go hang out with our friend, Jeremy, and his new girlfriend. Neither of us had to work the next day, so we grabbed some beers and made our way to Jeremy's mom's apartment complex,

where Jair was temporarily staying. When we got there, we went out into the woods behind the apartment complex to drink. This wasn't just a little patch of trees, but a good-sized patch of forest. For context, this was in New York State. It was a nice fall day, late afternoon, and the sun was still out. We finished the beers and decided to go get more. So we go to the store to get some more. and head back to the apartments and enter the woods.

This was autumn, and the light outside was right at that stage, where it starts to very quickly fade. We underestimated just how dark it would be once we were in the woods, and how fast the light was fading away. We planned on making a fire, but didn't really count in it being so dark when we got back. So we're walking into this sort of clearing area, from where we can choose to head off in a few days,

different directions. We're having a good time, laughing, talking, but something not too far in the distance catches my eye. It's too dark to tell, but I swear that I can see a very large figure. Not too big. It's probably a tree or just your eyes messing with you. So, as Jeremy is gabbing in the background, I ask Craig as an aside if he can see something standing up ahead.

and he's like No, where? Oh, wait, there. Oh, crap. We were still walking, and it was becoming clear than I wasn't seeing things. There was a very large person standing in the forest up ahead,

apparently facing us. So I tried to get Jeremy's attention without cluing the big guy in that we've noticed him. Just in case something sketchy is going on, which I get the serious feeling there is. We tell Jeremy that there's a person up ahead, but Jeremy is in a jovial no-chill state,

and he exclaims, Holy crap, is that Bigfoot? We humor him and laugh, but it's clear to Craig and I that this is actually creepy, and probably not a safe situation. And it's clear that Jeremy is not understanding that. It's hard to communicate the pacing of our approach onto the guy, but essentially we had gotten too close not to acknowledge him,

partially because it took us a moment to get Jeremy's attention, and partially because we weren't trying to just turn around and run like we were scared. There were four of us, and one of him after all. But this was a big guy. Not supernaturally big or anything, and not like he was jacked or anything like that. Just a naturally gigantic dude. Very tall and head.

without being particularly fat. And he was just standing there, in the middle of the forest, in the dark, alone. So as we approach this guy and just sort of say hello, Jeremy, the absolute fool that he was, gets way too close into this guy's personal space as he enthusiastically tells him about how scary he looks,

standing in the woods alone. We thought you were an alien or something, bro. I thought you were going to jump up and blah. Jeremy mimes an extra set of teeth coming out of his mouth like a xenomorph from the Alien versus Predators movie, all up in this guy's face. To be clear, Jeremy is not trying to be intimidating or a jerk in any way. He's trying to be friendly and joking around with the guy, but he is literally leaning into this dude and practically sticking his hands in his face,

with his impression of an alien. Did I mention that Jeremy was kind of a moron? Jeremy was kind of a moron. Love you, Jeremy, but you were kind of a moron. And Jeremy's poor girlfriend, who was a few years younger than us, and very shy, was clearly terrified, to which Jair was also oblivious. So Craig and I are both standing here,

kind of trying to brainstorm a way out of the situation, Jeremy is clearly too dense to get it if we say that we have to go. He'd be like, what? We just got here, aren't we having a fire? And we were trying to seem confident and in control of the situation. The big guy says, Oh, you guys are drinking. I got some drinks too.

And he walks over to the tree line where he has a bag laying beside a tree. He reaches into the bag, and while he grabs a beer with one hand, he sneakily sort of pulls something else out with his other hand and places it into his hoodie pocket. I'm convinced that it was a knife or a gun. Probably a knife in all honesty. He then re-approaches us and cracks open his beer.

I glance around casually and then I notice something else. Somebody else is out here. There's someone moving along the tree line to our left, a relatively good distance away, but somebody else is here, and they're circling around as if to come up behind us. Screw this. I need to leave now. So I go,

well, I got to work in the morning, and Craig's driving me home, so we gotta get out of here. Jeremy and his infinite wisdom responds with, what? You said you didn't have to work tomorrow. I face palms so hard on the inside. No, Jeremy, you're not. You must have misheard me. I said I do have to work tomorrow.

And Jeremy, proving there is no end to his wisdom, says, All right, guys. Well, it was nice hanging out with you. Get home safe. He wasn't leaving the woods with us. Craig and I started walking away, and I told him about the other person circling to get behind us, and that we needed to move.

We started trying to brainstorm away to get Jeremy and his girlfriend out of there, and decided to call him and tell him that his mom was out in the parking lot looking for him. Jeremy is terrified of his mom. Craig explains to me, and this should work. Because we clearly couldn't just call him and tell him the situation was not safe, without him blurting out. Oh, this guy isn't sketchy. I totally feel safe. Jeremy was maddered us for lying about his mom. I think his girlfriend appreciated it, though. I'm not sure what was going on there that night. I've talked to several people about it over the years, and there are a few different ideas.

Did they know we were coming back? Were they waiting for us? Or did we stumble into something that we weren't meant to? Almost everyone I tell about this has... You guys just accidentally interrupted a drug deal. But something about that just doesn't seem right. Who does a drug deal in the middle of the woods at night? I don't know.

Very possibly it was just a homeless dude with no ill intentions, and another homeless dude with no ill intentions as well. But it was a very creepy and scary situation, and I just thought I would share it. This actually happened to me only a couple of weeks ago. I work part-time in a clerical job. It's not an exciting job, and it really doesn't matter to the story. It just matters that I was working and that on that day, I had gotten out late due to there being extra work for me to do.

It was unfortunate that it was so late because I was hungry and didn't really want to stay up later to make something to eat, but I also have a bit of an aversion to fast food. Nothing against people who eat it, but any time I go to McDonald's or Wendy's, I end up getting really sick. Anyways, I decided that I would stop by the 24-hour supermarket on my way home, pick up something quick for tonight, and then get something that I could put in the slow cooker tomorrow morning, since tomorrow was likely going to be as late as today. I pulled in, the parking lot was pretty much empty, with the exception of a couple of cars here and there. I found a spot close to the entrance that was under one of the parking lot lights. As I got out and was walking towards the door, I heard another car pulling in, one that I couldn't help but pay attention to. It was making these awful popping and clanking sounds as it chugged into the lot.

It was an old rusty-looking sedan that had obviously seen better days, but hey, we've all been there, right? I watched as it crawled into the lot and around to an empty spot a few down from mine, and then watched an older gentleman wearing a green jacket and a baseball cap get out, and that was pretty much the end of it in my mind. As I was walking the aisles trying to think of something to make in the slow cooker, I turned and noticed that the green jacket man was in the same aisle as me. This wouldn't have been a big deal, except that when I looked back and saw him,

he did the whole avert your eyes so they don't think you're staring at them thing. except he was about as subtle as a drunk moose. He was staring at me wide-eyed, and very quickly turned his head to look at the shelf behind him. It was a bit weird, but I decided that he may have just been a bit of a creep and kept on, making my way out of the aisle and a few down to get away from him. I walked down the aisle and then out into the main opening towards the dairy section in the back, and, to no surprise, there, greenish, greener. Jack, it was, staring at me in a way that made my skin crawl. It wasn't just the whole stare.

It was this weird, creepy grin that he had while he stared. I know some people will say that it wasn't a big deal, that I should have just gotten over it, that he was just looking at me or thought that I was attractive, but it was skeevy, and my instincts were telling me that he had ill intent. I thought about confronting him, telling him to screw off but decided against it, and decided that it was best to just get my food and go. I walked through the aisle that I knew I needed to go through, grabbed something really quick, and turned to walk toward the registers. But when I turned to walk that way,

Greenjacket was standing in the middle of the aisle with that same purvey grin. Now, I'm normally a pretty reserved person. And the only reason I even considered confronting him earlier was because I didn't appreciate the look that he was giving me. But beyond that, I do not like confrontation. But part of me knew that I was going to have to face Green Jacket head on, and that he was not going to go away or leave me alone. So I started walking toward him and said very loudly,

Excuse me, I need to get through. I said it loud enough that anyone in the aisles nearby would have hurt me, hoping that at least making a scene like this would be enough to dissuade him. It did not. As soon as I said this and tried to push through, he put his arm out and seemed to try to hug me. I think that's what he was trying to do, but I'm not really sure. It was like he was trying to wrap his arms around me and put me into a hug.

I immediately jumped back and was able to get out of his attempted grab, and I asked him what the hell he was doing. He laughed and made a comment about how I looked like I wanted to have fun tonight. Which, I don't know if that was a comment on how I was dressed or something, but I was dressed as business casual, so no idea. I told him that I needed to get past him and that he needed to get out of my way and to not touch me. He once again laughed and said, What if I want to touch you? How are you going to stop me? That was probably the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said to me.

And the fact that this guy was willing to say this and make this scene in the middle of a grocery store, it was pretty telling. I reached down to my key ring that was in my pocket. I had a clip on pepper spray attached to them, and I pulled it up. as I did I yelled You need to leave me alone Or else I will pepper spray you I yelled it's loud

Loud loud enough that an employee walked over to see what was going on When he noticed that we were being watched He aggressively looked at me and said As soon as you step out into that parking lot You're done for And then turned to walk to the end of the aisle And out the front door The employee walked over and out the front door.

over and asked me if I was okay and what had happened. I explained that the guy was being a total creep, and what he had said, and then mentioned that he had threatened me at the end there. The employee told me that he wanted me to come up front and talk to the manager, and that they would call the police since he had threatened me like he did. I thanked him, asked if I could make my purchase, and he nodded saying that he would ring me up. We got to the front.

I bought my food, and then it was. explained to the manager what had happened. I told him what the guy had said, that he had attempted to grab me or hug me or whatever, and what he had said there at the end, and the manager agreed that I should stay inside, and that they would call the cops to make sure this guy wasn't outside waiting. I stood there and waited with them for what felt like forever,

thinking that this guy was probably gone by now. I started thinking that I should go ahead and go, that this guy's threats were empty, that he was just trying to get to me, but my thoughts were interrupted by a police officer shouting, Drop the gun, drop the gun, or I will shoot you. That pretty much dragged me right back to reality and put a lot into perspective about this situation. After a few moments of watching something happened through the glass, I couldn't see all of it because we were off to the side.

I watched the officers wrestle green jacket to the ground and put him in cuffs. So, to wrap this up a bit, they'd gotten the call about a suspicious man, and they were told that he mentioned he would be waiting for me in the parking lot. They started walking toward the building, and apparently they noticed this guy standing off to the side in the dark. And he was very clearly holding a gun in his hand. There was a brief fight with him, but he gave up pretty quick when he was outnumbered three officers to just him. so apparently Greenjacket was 100% waiting for me to leave he was hoping that I didn't take his threat literally and he was armed

I don't know if he was going to just shoot me and leave me for dead or if he was going to drag me to his car but I'm thankful that I took his threat seriously and that the employees were willing to listen to me there was a lot more talking to the police than I had ever wanted that night. But after talking to them, about what he had done in the store backed up by camera footage, everything was pretty well settled.

They could see this guy had intent to do something nefarious, and that he was planning to make good on his threat. They took him, and one of the officers walked me to my car and followed me home to make sure that nothing else happened, though I'm pretty sure none of us expected anything more to happen. Considering the time I didn't even bother eating dinner that night, I just went to bed. I'm thankful that nothing more happened, that I was more or less saved by the employee and the police, and that this random dude ended up in cuffs. Obviously, I've been a slight bit haunted by this ever since, and I've been a bit nervous to go out at night alone.

But hopefully, this is temporary, and I can get back to life here soon. Oh, and creep in the green jacket, I hope you get to serve some major time for your actions. And I hope that we never meet again. I used to work at a certain 24-hour diner that serves waffles, the house of waffles, if you will. And honestly, it was probably one of the best jobs that I've ever had. I worked the night shift, and the manager on that shift was super laid back. and as long as we kept the line clean and the customers happy, we were pretty well allowed to do whatever we wanted, within reason.

On the night where this happened, it was a rather busy and stressful night, which did happen from time to time. I had just come off my shift, so it was around 3 o'clock in the morning, I believe, and after having served about 150 waffles, I was pretty well ready to get home and go to bed. The employee parking lot was a small, cramped space off to the back of the diner. It was large enough for only a few cars, and if you worked a full shift, you usually had to park in the front of the building. I had gotten one of the closer spots in the back lot.

It was a bit tucked off at the side, and a bit darker than the rest of the lot, but it felt secure enough, plus it was the employee lot, so it was surely safer than being out in the main lot with everyone else. Right? Yeah, that was the night that I learned that that was completely wrong. As I approached my car, keys in hand, ready to hit the unlock button, hop in and head home, I noticed something odd. There was another car that was haphazardly parked in the employee lot, like they weren't parked in the lot, but off to the side and behind another person's car. I paused and sort of stared at it for a moment, thinking that it was struck.

As I was staring at it, I heard the engine turn over and the headlights kicked on. I just kind of thought that it was someone doing something they probably shouldn't have been, and they saw me and realized that they weren't as hidden as they thought. I shrugged it off, thinking they would just go ahead and leave and kept on towards my car. As I got to my car, I reached my hand in my pocket to grab my phone, only to realize I didn't have it. I had accidentally left it inside. I huffed a bit at my stupidity,

shut my door, and started back towards the back entrance of the restaurant. As I was walking back, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man getting out of the car that was now sitting there idling. I only saw him out of the corner of my eye, but I knew that he was there, and I knew that he was walking toward me, and I was now extremely nervous. I picked up my pace,

but the man started shouting for me to hold on that he wanted to talk to me. He was, unfortunately, faster than I was, and he caught up to me, grabbing my arm. As he grabbed me, I started to scream, and I reached out and banged on the back door as hard as I could, trying to pull away from his grip. I kept screaming and trying to hit or kick

the door to get anyone's attention. He kept pulling me away from the door and I was near certain that this was the end for me. This guy was going to get me in his car and drive off. Thankfully, that is not what happened. And me banging on the door was enough to catch the attention of our cook. To describe our cook is to describe the most intimidating man I have ever seen. Though knowing him, I know that he's also the most kind-hearted giant ever.

Andre was a six and a half foot tall man that had to be almost 300 pounds. And while Andre had a bit of fat on him from eating the food at our diner, he also liked to hit the weights. And under that slight

chubbiness, there was a ton of muscle. So when he threw the door open and was holding a hammer and came out shouting at the man that had a hold of me, we both jumped. The man took one look at Andre, let me go and made a mad dash back toward his car. Andre took off toward the car as the guy started to reverse out as fast as he could. I then witnessed what was probably the most terrifying thing I have ever seen. I watched as Andre pulled his arm back and threw the hammer at the windshield.

and I swear that hammer went through the damn glass and hit the guy in the face. It definitely broke the windshield, and I'm pretty sure it went all the way through. So he now had a massive crushed spot in the front of his car. The guy gunned it and took off out of the parking lot, leaving me standing there behind Andre, who I now considered my savior. He asked me if I was okay, took me back inside, and we contacted the police. This was the day that we all. learned that the cameras in the back lot, the employee lot, didn't actually work.

They had apparently stopped working at some point in the last year or two, and the owner never bothered to get them fixed. He did after this, but it was too little too late. I was given a few days off after this, and when I came back, I was told to park in the closest spot, and the manager implemented a new rule that no one was allowed to walk to their cars alone. Someone had to, at the very least, be at the door and watch them get into their car at the end of the shift. I don't work there anymore. Andre does, and he's officially my best friend at this point because that man most likely

saved my life. And watching him throw a claw hammer through a windshield was something else. I have no idea if they're not. caught the guy, but I never heard from them. If nothing else, hopefully Andre scared the hell out of him, and hopefully he learned his lesson.