As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 010 - Stories You May Have Missed - 30 True Scary Stories Told In The Rain (NO Midrolls!)

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

Hello and Welcome to the 10th episode of The ATRD Podcast! Today we have some intriguing and terrifying stories that were done on my channel at the beginning of 2021! This is a Compilation of True Scary Stories YOU May have missed! ➤ Want your story featured? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/Submit ➤ Want to know where to follow me on the internet? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/the-nevermore for all my links! ➤ You can also get EARLY ACCESS By joining my Patreon! https://patreon.com/astheravendreams Today's Video contains stories by a LOT of people. For more detailed credits, PLEASE See the Youtube video of a similar name on my channel! ➤ All stories within are used w/ Either direct permission from the author- or under some level of CC license (where noted) True Stories are not verified, and should all be considered 'supposedly true'.  And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey there, friends. I hope you're doing well on this beautiful January day. Today's video is going to be a little different. Today's video, we are going to go ahead and do something I'm going to call stories you may have missed. When I started last year, 2021, I had 1,800 subs. By the end of the year, I was pushing close to 7,000, so over the year, a lot of you showed up and found the channel. What that means is, some of you may not have seen stories that I posted back in the beginning of 2021. And I think that you should get a chance to listen to those. And I'm still feeling sick, and my voice is mostly gone, so I figured, why not do a compilation?

So this would be the first stories you may have missed compilation. Sit back, put this on, enjoy. Close your eyes, maybe fall asleep to it, your choice. But either way. Enjoy. So, this happened to me around four months ago. For some background, me and my fiancé went to Colorado for an anniversary getaway,

where I popped the question and asked her to marry me. We're from Kentucky, so it was going to be a 16-to-17-hour car ride. We get there, and it was beautiful, and great, and we got engaged and had a good time. So, come the day that we leave, we get on the road around 12, and drove through the night. We're about two and a half hours away from home in the back roads of Indiana. The GPS took us some questionable ways, and I'm driving the last leg of the trip while my fiancé slept a little. It's about 4 to 5 a.m. at this point, and the sun was just starting to show over the horizon. As I drove down a narrow, curvy road, I start to notice a car that has been following me for a nice while,

and I got just a tad weary, as I didn't have my firearm on me, and we were in Hickville. I thought I was just being paranoid and tried to ignore the car. So I see an extra curvy road is coming up, and the next thing I know, the car that was behind me gets right up on my bumper and flicks the brights on. Not but 30 seconds later after coming around the curve, I see four sets of tires sitting on the road. Kind of like a roadblock. I had no time to stop, and I didn't plan on it. I ran over the tires and felt a pretty heavy. smack and bump. And right as I turn the next corner, I try to speed up and get away from the car

that's still on my ass. I glance over and see about five to seven people crouching on the side of the road in some bushes. The sun was behind them and kind of lit them up. At this point, I know I'm in some type of danger and floor it. I start doing almost 100 miles per hour on this curvy back road. Seeing that I didn't stop and my tires didn't go flat, the car behind me slowed and eventually went out of sight. My fiancé slept through this whole thing, and when we went to the next gas station to fill up, I saw in all about five to six nails in all four of my tires, and a nice chunk of rubber missing. At this point, my fiancé was awake, and the last thing I wanted to do was ruined her and gate, trip by telling her what happened, so I never did. I took the car back to the rental office

and went on my way. I'm super thankful the car that I rented just had four brand new tires put on before we left because it was a cross-country trip. I still get chills thinking about what would have happened if my tires had gone flat that day. This is a story that happened to me when I was 10 or 11 years old. I've lived in the countryside for 10 years. That is to say that all around my village are fields, forests, and dirt roads. That's the background. Now, let's get down to the story. It was a day that I went to my best friend's house to watch TV and play. We used to do this quite often, because she lived only 50 meters from my house. Usually my mother would ask me to come home at 6 p.m. but that day I managed to stay out until 7 p.m.

I was very happy. It was time to leave when I say goodbye to my best friend's family and go home with them. Indeed, we used to accompany each other. That evening, we're walking in the streets and we're in the dark. There's only one street light that still works. I remember we were laughing on the way because of my friend laughing about being all alone in the dark. I was laughing nervously. I was always uncomfortable in the dark.

For a little explanation, my friend's street, at one point, splits onto my street at a right angle. So we come to that blind spot, and we look up, and there is a horror movie vision. We see in front of us, 30 meters away, a man with the bicycle. We couldn't see who this man was,

We looked at each other with my friend, and we sprinted around. I turned around after a few seconds of sprinting, and horrified, saw that the man started to walk down the street and was stopped looking in our direction. I told my friend, and she turned around, but when she did, there was nothing there. He had disappeared. After that, we agreed to take detours. As we walked, I regularly looked behind us to verify that the danger was gone. The detour was quite long. We passed by the fields, and this time it was pitch black.

We finally arrived on my street, and there was no one there, luckily. I came home telling my friend to be careful when she gets home. As soon as I got home, I told my parents about it, but they didn't really pay much attention, thinking that I was just making up a story. So now, I'm always uncomfortable when I come home at night, and I'm always personally on alert. This happened a couple of hours ago. I'm currently in bed trying to sleep off the bad feeling from this encounter.

At around 11, I was watching TV and playing on my phone, just waiting to feel tired. My boyfriend was upstairs asleep in bed. The lights were all off on the house. house, just a lamp on in the living room with me. Then, someone flicked my letterbox that was on the front door. It was loud, so I assumed that my partner would have heard it and come to see. We live in a pretty unsafe area, or a poor city, in England.

I've been followed, charged at by mental drug addicts. Attempted mugging, cat called, found a drunk man hiding in my back garden, found a man loitering in my front garden, etc. So I was instantly frightened. I went to look at the front door. It has textured glass panels, so I was able to make out two silhouettes

out by the door. I just stood and watched and saw that one of them was looking into our front room, trying to see what was inside. They must have been there 30 seconds, and then I flicked the hall light on, not wanting them to think the house was empty, and instantly they

scampered from looking out my front door into the street. A few seconds later, and they started knocking on my door. So I ran upstairs and had to wake up my partner because I did not want to open the door and was so scared that they might bash it in. I looked out the bedroom window, and there was a man on the street. He looked up at me and held eye contact without blinking or looking away even for a millisecond. He was speaking slowly. I mouthed what once or twice, hoping he would shout, but he didn't. Thinking back, I wonder if he was looking at me but talking to the other person that

he had with him. I rushed downstairs to confront them. My partner came down and started to put on some clothes. By the time I had grabbed my keys and opened the door, they were gone. No sign of them at all on the road. Now, this isn't the first time someone has tried our letter flap at night. Last time, I answered with my partner, and they had some BS reason, which seemed made up on the spot. So I'm now thinking that they're testing houses to see which ones are empty for robbing. But whatever the reason, the way the man looked at me was really creepy, and I really hope that he doesn't come back. I was about to go home, and it was still clear, since we're hours away from 6 p.m.

I intended to go home this early, and it's not because our house is far. I just didn't want to walk home once it got dark. Besides, there's this narrow and dark path. It was narrow because it's between two buildings facing away from each other that I had to take to reach my house. When it gets dark, I wouldn't be a... able to see things. This wasn't the first time that I went to a classmate's house without a guardian with me, so I didn't really expect weird things to take place. This time, I saw a man in a black

van driving towards me. I knew it was a man because I could see him clearly on the car's windshield. At first, it wasn't alarming to me because I thought he was only going to ask for directions. but he didn't. I was a bit relieved when he drove past me. Until I saw him, literally by my side, he's matching my walking pace so he could keep up with me. I get spooked real quick, and as an 11-year-old girl, what would you do?

I quickened my pace, and I stopped by another classmate's house. I didn't tell her everything. I just went on and asked about home. just so it wouldn't get suspicious on why I visited her without an early notice. I think I spent a few hours in her house. It was already a bit dark, and that time until her mother got home from work. I remember her asking me if that was my father outside. She said my father's probably waiting for me for hours in his black van.

My whole body literally went cold when she said that. I never wanted to tell anyone, but the feeling of terror prompted me to break down. I told her the reason why I stopped by here and that I was trying to go home earlier that day. She called the police right away, but the man nor the van were there any longer. I didn't have a phone at that time. That was seven years ago, and our financial status was declining, so we had to prioritize food. and I didn't have my mother's phone number with me. My classmates' mother escorted me to our house,

and she told my parents everything. I never went out of the house without a guardian again, and it really took a toll on me until now. What's bugging me is that I'm unsure if he was the only one in the car or not. Had I continued my walk to my house, I wouldn't have made it. Lazzang sur-gillet, Puccence

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This isn't your typical creep encounter, as those we encountered weren't creepy, but the events surrounding the situation were. This happened when I was about 13 or 14. I was spending the night at my friend's house, we'll call her B, and two other friends. Now, first, let me explain the layout. I'm not sure how the CDC is laid out. in other states, but in Georgia, it has a big field in front of the building. Along the sides of that field is a fence, and directly inside the fence is another fence that lines the inside. So there's basically like a fenced-in walking path inside that field. Well, my friend B's backyard shared a fence with the CDC. Like, if you were dumb enough to jump her feet,

fence, you would then be on the CDC's property in said walking path. Now, the sleepover holds zero meaning. Normal teen girl BS filled with watching hard candy, smoking until we felt like puking, and gossiping. We went to bed late and were beyond annoyed when we were woken at 8 a.m. to pounding on the front door. But that annoyance turned to fear as Bee's mother rushed us out the door before we could even change our pajamas. We were then driven to a park down the street where Bee's mom finally told us what had happened. Apparently, the CDC was evacuating the area. They had received a suspicious package with no explanation.

We spent about two hours wondering if we were exposed to some crazy stuff. We wondered if we were all about to get blown the hell up. I had so many scenarios going through my hypochondriac brain. Just what the hell could it be? After a couple hours, we finally found out what was in the package. It was a dead turtle. Someone left a dead turtle in a box in front of the CDC. I still wonder to this day,

why a dead turtle was enough to evacuate an area, but, man, I gotta tell you, we were shook. I never spent the night at her house again, as it solidified all my prior fears about being so close to that place. I'd look out her window and see goats in the CDC field and wonder if there were mosquitoes biting them and then biting me and giving me some crazy virus crap. I don't know.

I know that sounds stupid, but being evacuated like that by them was Hull I needed to be like, screw that house. For some background, my city gets huge numbers of university students who come from other provinces, mainly Ontario,

and they live in frat houses all around the universities. My dad was a professor, so we lived near them all. The students would go back in the school. summers but usually couldn't sublet their rooms, so many of the frat houses were empty over the summer, with the exception of a few students who stayed for the summer or managed to sublet their rooms. I'm from Nova Scotia, and in the summers, rickshaw drivers run around the city offering rides to people. One night, when I was about 19, my friends and I were leaving a club at like three in the morning.

We were really drunk and had a long way to go. We started chatting to a rickshaw driver outside of McDonald's where all the drunk people gathered. Turns out, he lived like five minutes from my house. He offered me and my two friends a ride, and he said, sure. The way home was basically one really long street called Spring Garden Road. It intersects with other major streets that thread throughout the road. the city. He dropped my first friend off at one intersection, and then my second friend maybe ten minutes later at another intersection. We were all chatting the whole time, but when my friends left,

a strange, awkward heaviness settled in the air, and there was no more talking. It was weird. He pulled into the gravel driveway of a huge frat house, and I got it. I got it. out. He stopped in front of me and casually said, you want to come inside and have sex. He had blonde hair that fell into his eyes. I couldn't speak. I just shook my head and walked backwards out to the sidewalk. I turned around and started walking, and when I looked back, he had moved to the end of the driveway, with his hands in the pocket of his shorts and watching me. My heart was literally thudding in my ears, and adrenaline was spiking all over me. I ran home convinced that I'd feel his hands grabbing me the whole way.

The next week, my mom called me at my friend's house to tell me to make sure that I got a ride home that night and didn't walk. When I asked why, she said apparently a girl had been raped at a frat house up the road. and she tried to escape, but was dragged back inside. She was found outside on the street, badly beaten up, and had been apparently curbed. I don't know if there's any connection between the events, but I don't think I've ever felt that kind of visceral fear before or since. So this isn't the typical creepy encounter. Maybe it is, but it's more terrifying than.

anything. This happened last night, and for context, I am very, very pregnant, and also happen to have severe anxiety, manic bipolar disorder, and severe panic attacks. So setting me off isn't hard, but now that I'm pregnant, the attacks are much, much worse. All of my mental illnesses are diagnosed by multiple doctors, by the way. No self-diagnosis. I swear. Last night, at around four in the morning, my boyfriend and I hear someone pound on my window, which jolts us awake. I threw the curtain open to see who the hell it was,

because, even though I'm pregnant, I'll still beat your head off for scaring me and interrupting my sleep. Pregnant women and their partners know how hard it is for us to actually sleep. Well, I see that it's someone I used to. to be friends with who, unfortunately, went down the wrong path. In essence, drugs and violent outbursts. Suffice to say, I'm genuinely terrified of him now. I see who it is, and I just scream that it's him, which completely wakes my boyfriend up,

who then sees that I'm absolutely terrified and trying to get as far away from the window as possible. I stared at it for a second and just ran out of the room to go tell my dad. I am an adult, but with COVID and being pregnant, we currently live with my parents. It's just easier. Well, my dad jumps up, pissed as hell, and grabs his cane. He rips the door open and starts screaming at this kid who was hiding on the side of our front door. And my boyfriend has come out to make sure if anything happens, he's there to help.

But this kid jumps out and spews excuses that he just wanted a cigarette and that he just got out of jail. My dad pretty much told him to get screwed and leave. He did, but I know him and he will be back. This is the third time in the last year that he's shown up unannounced, and he knows I'm scared of him. He gave me this smile when I screamed that it was him at the window. This scary, uneasy smile. He's pulled a knife on my best friend's co-worker, become affiliated with a bad group,

and just overall become a creep. I genuinely don't know what to think. He sent me into such an anxiety attack. I had tremors, and I haven't had those in forever. My boyfriend thought maybe I was colds I was shaking so much. I've never, ever... been so genuinely scared of someone or a situation like this. First start off, I live in a little city in SoCal with my roommate who happens to be my cousin.

During this coronavirus pandemic, however, I've been staying with my parents who live in a very small town in Northern California. Because of my time in SoCal, I really don't like staying in NorCal, and I would rather live back. at my apartment. The reason why I haven't done it is because my parents might think that I will get very lonely there since everything is closed down, and my roommate is not there, as he's also with his parents. However, since I had to go back for a specific reason, my parents wanted me to take their dog, Moka, so I wouldn't feel as lonely staying there. I loved her, so I didn't mind one bit. Moka is a small palm-chie dog that loves to play around with me and is usually by my side for most of the time.

She also loves to go on runs with me, so I occasionally do take her on jogs. On a Wednesday night, I decided to go running with her. Whenever I go on my runs, I go at night, because that's the time that I'm most energetic, and all the times I went running at night, I'd never had any types of encounters or occur. I put Moka on a leash and off we went. About 20 minutes into our run, I was running through this creek and where there was a park next to it and a bunch of trees surrounding it, with houses to the other side. The trail was pretty narrow and the street lamps were pretty dim, but still bright enough to help me see up ahead. As I'm running with music playing, my leash was tugged by Moka.

This usually happens when she wants to go to the bathroom, so I stopped to let her do her thing. But when I turned around, she was in her alert stance, looking straight behind where we had ran. I just assumed that maybe she'd hurt a squirrel or any small animal as she usually does this when she sees one. I was tugging on her leash, telling her, let's go, there's nothing there. She didn't oblige at first. She just kept looking behind us. It took me about four or five tugs before she finally came to me. I resumed playing my music, and we both went off running. I was almost out of the creek, and then I would meet a narrow sidewalk that went straight ahead.

The trail only had to take a few short turns. Probably a minute or two later, Moka tugged on the leash again, and went on her alert stance behind us. She did an aggressive bark and then started to grab. I stopped and was looking all around behind us. I was kind of freaked out because the trail had a couple turns and curves. This means that something was most likely following us. My first guess was a lost dog, which was unsettling because mocha is tiny. If it was a big dog, it could easily overpower her.

As I was looking around the dim area for a split second, I see a huge, humanoid figure about 15 yards away from me, right behind a bush next to a tree. I immediately turned my eyes to the opposite direction, and was pretending that I did not see him, but boy was my heart pounding. I didn't see any figures or his face. I just saw the outline of his upper body. I didn't have any weapons on me as a self-defense. If this guy is following me, my best solution was to run off without him trying to catch me. I tried to act cool and told Moka to let's go. The trail was going to end.

I just had to make a turn and it would be a straight sidewalk. That was about three to four hundred yards. There are fences on both sides of the sidewalk, so the only solution was to keep running forward. I went back to jogging, and right as I turned the corner, and made sure that I was out of view from the person. Then I went on to a full-on sprint as quietly as I could. The sidewalk was ahead of me, so I made sure to just keep on running.

I kept looking behind me to see if I was really being followed. About 70 yards away, I saw a person come into view from the turn, and then he went and sprinted as fast as he could towards me. As if I wasn't sprinting, I then sprinted as fast as I could. I've never sprinted that fast in my entire life. Looking back at it, I'm amazed at how fast I was running. Moka was keeping up with me about 100 yards ahead of me, sprinting, and I looked back. This guy was still running behind me. He had a dark hoodie on, sweatpants, and appeared to be six foot tall.

He was still in the same distance that I noticed him, which means that he was pretty fast as well. The sidewalk was going to end at about a hundred yards, and then it would lead into a neighborhood. I thought, I could lose him there. I was slowly getting out of breath, and my adrenaline was beginning to die down. I kept sprinting, hoping that I wouldn't get too tired too quickly. A hundred yards of me sprinting, and I finally made it into the neighborhood, out of breath. This neighborhood was pretty broad, so if I were to get it. keep running, the person would have spotted me right away, and at the pace he was running, it

didn't seem like a good idea. My best solution was to hide. I went straight to a random house and jumped over to their backyard, where I would be well hidden behind the fence. I basically threw Moka over and then myself. We were both panting, but I tried to keep quiet as I heard footsteps coming by. The guy had finished the trail and was now in the neighborhood. He stopped running, and I heard him panting. I was hearing him mutter as he was out of breath. He just kept saying, What the fuck?

I was holding mocha, scratching her, so she wouldn't bark or growl. About five minutes later, and I heard footsteps walking away, and then slowly fading. I waited about ten minutes in complete silence to be sure he wasn't close by. I peeked my head around the fence, and I was all. alone now. I got Moka and went to the opposite direction from where I heard the guy go. Even though I was tired, I tried to jog just so I could get home sooner. I kept looking around me. I was very paranoid that the guy would be here around somewhere. I made it back home with no problem, and I got to thank Moka for pretty much telling me that someone was behind me and

stalking us. I don't know how long he was following us or what he was playing us. Or what he was planning on doing. I just hope he didn't get a clear glimpse of my face because I don't want to run up to him ever again. The O.P. added a comment, edit. I live in Irvine, California, and I am a guy. If you know the area, then you can tell it's mostly peaceful and quiet. Almost nothing happened since I moved here about a year ago.

However, around there, there have been many crime reports. in Newport Beach and Oceanside since last summer. Occasionally, it's been robbery and break-ins. Men are known to become targets for these crimes. Last October, a man was leaving a bar at Newport alone at night, and while he was walking, he got robbed by someone and stabbed in the stomach. Luckily, he survived with no permanent injuries. The guy that got stabbed was 6'1 and lean-built.

I'm 5'7 and pretty lean. But due to these cases, fighting the guy or trying to talk tough would have been a dumb thing to do. During these situations, there's no time to think. Whatever goes on in your mind or gut, that's always the first thing you do. This happened whenever I was 12 or 13 years old. We were visiting our ex-neighors and took our two little dogs with us. At some point after lunch, our parents asked my friend and I to take the dogs out for a walk. While on our way back to the apartment, we saw a creepy dude walking in our direction.

His behavior was so weird. He was whistling very suspiciously, looking at the sky with a terrifying grin on his face. I knew it was bad the second my dogs were growled. and barking at him, way before he even got near us. They never do this. They're so nice and sweet. I suspect they would even greet a thief breaking into our house. We naturally ran away and got back home very quickly.

As it turns out, this guy was known in the neighborhood for being a pedophile and had several other mental health issues. So I'm a 13 male, and I live somewhere in Alabama with my family. My dog, Boomer, has some good genes in his blood, so he's a good dog. He's a Doberman mixed with some sort of hound, so he has a good guard dog jeans in him, and also hunting dog. So Boomer had different sounds for different things. He has a whiny bark for whenever he needs something, and he has his kind of deepish bark.

That's equivalent to, Hey, what's that? Then he also has an aggressive bark, when the thing he's barking at gets too close, and then there's the ghost howl, a chilling howl when he finds something. So I'm inside reading some stories on Reddit, when I hear Boomer switching between his whiny bark and his deep bark.

I go outside to check on him because, well, he might be stuck or he may see another dog. So I go outside, and Boomer is looking at the area behind him, while pacing back and forth, while looking at me and the field area. I get closer to Boomer and his ears go back, and the fur on his lower back stands up, and he starts barking aggressively. When I stupidly get too close to find out what he's barking at, and when I get out of Boomer's chain length, we keep him on a chain because he's too big for the inside,

and he breaks other bindings. A man then lunges at me, and, out of reflex, I jerk backwards back to Boomer. Boomer barks some more, but the guy doesn't get the hint and keeps coming at me. Boomer barks a final time before jumping up and biting his arm. The man screams in pain, alerting my grandma, who looks out the kitchen window and sees everything that's happening. She calls the police, when my grandpa comes outside with his gun ready, the man kicks at my dog and then runs off into the night.

The police never found the man, but he knows if he comes back. he's getting bits and then possibly shot who knows what would have happened if my dog wasn't a good guard dog my greyhound loves walkies he's an absolute fiend for them and will actually barget me to demand we go out to explore the neighborhood in the evenings this works well for me since i'm more of a night person by nature and often it's too hot to walk him during the day i'm feeling female, I'm on the shorter side, 5-3, or 160 centimeters, and I often get comments about how large my dog is compared to me. Greyhounds aren't known for being good attack dogs. They're really just friendly goofs, but I have found that many people just see a large black dog and assume that he's vicious. His black coat is actually a bit of a problem, since he becomes practically invisible in the dark, what I like to refer to as his stealth mode. So usually when I'm out walking him, I'm more concerned with cars not being able to see us,

rather than being attacked by a stranger. I even got a flashing collar, aka a disco collar, for him to wear at night, after he was nearly hit by a car while we were crossing the street. One night, back during the height of the pandemic, in our area, we were walking home from a local dog-friendly sports field, where he had been practicing some zoomies. It was only about 8.30 in the evening, but completely dark, and the whole area was empty due to restrictions and it being late autumn.

The disco caller was in need of a recharge and was barely visible by the time we were heading home. We were walking down a quiet residential street that we had been down at least a dozen times before. When I hear a car fast approaching behind us, going way too fast, only to slam on its brakes a short distance past us. Okay, creepy, but maybe they're just some idiot teenagers. They were driving erratically, like someone who's really bad at driving a clutch, and I'm pretty sure. sure they accidentally killed the engine when they stopped. I felt a little bit more relaxed when I saw them jerkily pull into a driveway, only to go on high alert again when I saw them turn around.

I decided to start walking towards a nearby house, hoping that if the person in the car wanted to harm me, they would think I was walking up to my own home. The house also had a short fence in front of the yard, and I wanted to put some barrier between me and the road, even if it was only one and a half foot high. I only intended to go into the yard a bit, since to this day I have no clue who lives in that house, but then I realized that this car was slowing down as it was approaching me. At this point, I start backing further into the front yard, keeping my eyes on the car,

as it cuts across the road so it can put me and my dog in its headlights. My heart stops when the car does this. It was diagonal, plucking the street with the front of the car angled towards us. I'm standing in the middle of some stranger's yard, fully convinced that someone is about to jump out of the car and try to grab me. And all I have to defend myself is a bag of dog poo. then the car just drives off down the road. They had to restart it because the idiots killed it again when they gave me the fright of my life,

but they just went away without saying or doing anything. It was only when they were almost out of view that it occurred to me to try to get the license plate, and I was so panicked. I couldn't tell you the color of the car for sure. I stood around for a few minutes to see if they would come back, but they didn't. I thought about calling the cops, but decided that I didn't want to wait around,

and it didn't occur to me until much later that I could have just given them a statement when I was somewhere safer. I then walked home, completely confused as to what just happened. As I was replaying things in my head, a thought occurred to me. Between the bad street lighting

and his disco caller running out of charge, Whoever was in that car, they wouldn't have been able to see my dog the first time they drove past. It wouldn't have been until I was in front of that yard, in the headlights of this vehicle, that the driver would have been able to see the 65-pound dog standing next to me. I can never know for sure, but I really believe that whatever that person wanted to do, seeing my good boy, made them decide against it. I live in a small town in South Africa. Near my town, there is a large patch of woods,

and since the outbreak of corona, I haven't been in the woods for a long time, until yesterday. So my friend called me and asked me if I wanted to join him and a few other mates to play a game of paintball in the woods, and, obviously, I was keen. I got my paintball gear and gun, and headed off to my mate's place. There were six of us, Chase, Liam, Matt, Joey, Stephen, and obviously me. We headed off to the woods but made a few stops to fill up on petrol and just get some gas for the paintball guns.

When we finally got to the woods, we parked the cars, got in our gear, and ventured out into the forest to find the perfect spot to play paintball. Eventually, we got deep enough and to an area with sufficient cover and space to play a good game of Capture the Flag. We played a couple of games, and since it's winter, it got dark really quick, but we planned for this and brought our flashlights and decided to play a couple of night games, which is extremely hard, especially in the forest we were in. During one match, Joey and I decided to sit out because we were both tired and just needed a quick breather, and the others continued to play from a significantly good distance away from us. While we were chilling, I was rolling up, yes, I'm a pothead, and Joey went to go take a piss a couple meters away from me. While I was busy rolling, I had the flashlight pointing towards myself, since there was no other light to allow me to see what I was doing, and around me. It was completely dark. I couldn't even see two meters ahead of myself because of how dark it was.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming my way, but I thought it was Joey, and I soon realized I couldn't see any light from his flashlight, so now I was more vigilant but still relaxed, thinking he was trying to play a prank on me or something, but the footsteps stopped a few meters away from me, so I lifted up. my flashlight and pointed it in the direction of where I heard the footsteps and scanned the area. I just saw bushes and trees, and I just thought it might be Joey hiding in the bushes or behind the tree, waiting to give me a jump scare, and then I heard footsteps coming in the opposite direction, and when I looked, I could see that it was Joey because he was holding his flashlight. That's when I stopped what I was doing, and picked up my flashlight and picked up my flashlight and

paintball gun, and when Joey reached me, I whispered Bro, I think there's someone over there. Joey obviously didn't believe me and just said to me to stop being a baby, but he soon regretted saying that

because I decided to do one last scan of where I heard the footsteps, and to my horror, I saw someone peeking and staring right at me from behind a tree, probably 10 to 11 meters away. I just shouted,

What the actual hell? And when Joey heard me say this, he looked at me, and then to where the man was, and instantly jumped up, picking up his paintball gun also. We stared at each other for at least two minutes, but it felt like forever,

until he stepped out from behind the tree. He was a large man, at least six foot. He was honestly filthy, like he hadn't taken a bath in years, He was wearing baggy ripped up jeans and just an old dirty zipped-up bomber jacket. Plus, we could see that he was on something or it was just bat-shick crazy. And he was holding something behind his back. He finally said,

What are you guys doing out here when it's so dark? We couldn't even answer him because of the shock we were in. Joey started with fear in his voice. Um, we're just leaving. But the man nodded his head in disagreement and said, No, you're not. Your friends are still playing the game. I felt a shiver down my spine.

How about we play a game of our own while we wait for your friends? And that is when he finally showed us what he was hiding behind his back. It was a large machete. That's when I knew we had to get out of there. So I aimed my paintball gun, and in the toughest way I could muster up, I told him, leave now, or I will shoot. Even though I only had about six or seven paintballs loaded, and Joey did the exact same thing,

aiming his gun at the man, even though he had no paintballs in his gun. But he didn't even flinch, but did something that honestly made my skin crawl. He just smiled and said, The game starts now. And suddenly, he just rushed at us. So I told Joey to run while I fired my last bullets at him, and luckily I shot him in his head, which caused him to fall, so that was our chance to book it and link up with our other friends.

As soon as we started running, we heard his footsteps again, and he was actually gaining on us. We could barely see, but we couldn't slow down, because we knew what would happen if we did. So we just carried on sprinting our hearts out until we heard other paintings. ball guns being fired, so we knew we were close. Joey started shouting to get everyone's attention, and all of a sudden, I heard a loud thud. Joey tripped and twisted his ankle. I turned around to help him up, and when I did, I could see the man running full sprint towards us.

In that moment, I thought it was going to be the end for us, but our friends heard our screams for help and rushed to us, and when they saw the man, they just started firing. on him, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to take us all on, so he decided to turn around and disappear into the forest. We helped Joey up, rushed to get our stuff, and then rushed

to the cars. When we got to my friend's place, we helped Joey treat his ankle, and I proceeded to tell my friends everything that happened, and they were all creeped out. It's safe to say that the next time I'm in those woods,

I will be much, much more vigilant. could be better. I'll start off by explaining the area, so you can get a good picture of where this occurred. We lived in a small neighborhood. All the surrounding streets were dead ends, into a half-circle park.

Behind the park are some woods and a railroad track. When we were younger, we all played in the front part of the woods. We never ventured too far back. This was our play area for years. We never had an issue or a scare. This area was pretty and well-lit, wooded area. Anyhow, one day, my brother Jimmy and my best friend Sarah,

and my brother's best friend Ian, were all building a dam in the middle of the small creek that ran through the park and the woods. The boys decided they were going to head back to Ian's house for some snacks. Sarah and I said we would stay to finish our camp. area. As we're moving the rocks around, I get a very odd feeling come over me. A strange feeling that we're being watched.

I immediately think it's the boys trying to scare us and just continue with what we are doing. Sarah and I load up some big rocks and head back to the creek and put them down at the dam. I get that feeling again, and as I stand up, I see something straight in front of me, about 30 feet away. I can't clearly make out what it is yet because it's behind a bush, but I do see that it is a pattern of red and blue. I know that's nothing the boys had on, so at this point I'm focusing on trying to figure out what it is. As I'm scanning up the bush, I start to realize it's a clown. I kid you not, my heart started pounding immediately. The clown, and my eyes lock.

He's wearing a blue and red hat with a reverse pattern red blue jumpsuit. I grabbed Sarah's shirt and immediately pull her upright, and she notices the man right away. He's smiling with a full face of makeup, and he has a huge knife. We both say nothing and start running as fast as our legs can take us. He begins to follow. We can hear twigs snapping and the ground crunching. but we are booking it. We run through the front of the woods,

through the side of the park, and up her dead-end street. Ian and Jimmy are two houses up from the end and see us running and are screaming what is going on. While running past, we scream that there's a clown, and they start laughing. We are still running,

screaming for our lives, and we finally make it to the middle of the street when Sarah's dad, Danny, is now running out the front door, because he hears us screaming. We meet Danny right at the beginning of the neighbor's house, and we're trying to explain what we saw, and he says,

girls, stop it now. This is ridiculous. What are you talking about? We try to catch our breath. By this time, Jimmy and Ian have caught up to us. We're crying and pointing and telling Danny again that we saw a clown and a knife. Jimmy and Ian are laughing, and Danny is asking,

if they played a prank on us. About this time, an old yellow, pinto type of car comes from the dead end at the park and pulls right up next to the sidewalk

of the yard we are in. Sure enough, plain as day, it is the freaking clown. No hat this time, but knife in hand and telling us to come here. Danny starts

shoving us all towards the house, and he himself is scared and running now. The car drives off down the street, we get inside and Danny calls the police. We had to give statements, and the police patrolled the neighborhood in the park for a few weeks. We were never allowed to go in the park again, and a few months after that, the city started to clear out the woods. They cut down many of the trees and made a walking area that you could see through all the way to the train tracks.

My friend and I used to talk about this many times up until her death. No one would believe us had they not seen it as well. It was just so scary. I think they only got to see him because, whoever it was, had to go down the dead end road to leave the neighborhood. Either way, this man was not afraid of us, nor the small group of people that gathered from our screaming. He, very, break up.

bravely stopped right in front of us as her father tried to comfort us and calm us down, all the while flashing his knife. We're lucky to be alive, I feel. Had it just been one of us left in the woods, which sometimes occurred, I don't think there would have been a group of four of us any longer. Sarah's dad stopped drinking that day, and we all have a fear of clowns. A few years ago, I went camping. for the first time in my life. It was about 11 or 12 when we headed out to a forest nearby our house. We were in Poland for the holidays, as every year, and right next to our house was a huge forest.

So, one day, we decided to take out my mom's old tent she still had from, like, the 90s, and just stay the night or two in between some wildlife. Good thing? The place we chose to sleep at, was only about 20, maybe 30 minutes away from the house. Bad thing? There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of wolves, foxes, and boars out in the forest. And honestly, I kind of regretted going there in the first place.

We set everything up at around 6 p.m. And my sister and I set up the campfire. My dad chopped down some of the smaller trees earlier with his oak axe, important for the later part of the story, and by now it had dried out enough to catch fire. We sat around it for quite some time, probably around four hours until it was dark, so we decided to just head to sleep then.

My two sisters and I, on one end of the tent, and my parents on the other. It was probably just the fear of getting eaten alive by some wolves, or homesickness, but I couldn't sleep. at all. I heard my dad tell my mom he was going out into the forest to get some wood for the morning, while it was still fairly dry, or it would have all soaked up the dew by then.

The thoughts of not having my dad around made it even worse for me to close my eyes for even a second. I'm not too good at telling what time it is by just staring at the sky, or trying to figure out how long it has been, so I'll just say it was around 12 or 1,000. in the morning. I was actually falling asleep when I heard some rattling outside the tent. My first thought,

Wolf. I was terrified, and so I just popped out my head through the little curtain that separated the two halves of the tent, basically a thin piece of fabric, just hanging on some threads, to see if my dad was back.

He was still gone, and it had been about an hour since he went. I lay back down and just tried to fall asleep, but when I turned myself on the side, I saw this faint human shadow outside the tent. I froze and let out a teeny squeak. The person seemed to be holding some sort of axe-shovel type thing in his hand, and so I thought it may have just been my dad coming back. The shadow walked towards the entrance of the tent. and just stood there at the zipped-up door for maybe 30 seconds. I began to wonder why he wasn't just coming inside.

Then the person finally ran off into the forest, but they dropped the axe. You could hear the footsteps fade into the distance, and a thump just happened along the way. Maybe a minute or two later, I hear my dad walking back from the opposite side of the forest and enter the tent all tired and just fell asleep. Seemed kind of sketchy and fishy and scary to me, but it was so late I couldn't even think anymore,

and I somehow fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up after my dad dropped his phone on his face, letting out an ouch. I peeped through the curtain at him, and he just smiled back while rubbing his nose. I needed some fresh air, because I was feeling a bit sick and maybe from the nerves in the morning

or homesickness I couldn't really tell. Both of us got out of the tent and we walked around for a while. We circled around the campsite for around 10 minutes until we came back to our tent. That is when I noticed something that ran the chills down my back.

A few meters from the tent in the corner of my eye, I managed to catch a glimpse of something something red. It took me a hot second to realize what I actually saw, and when I turned my head to see what it was, it was a red and black rubber axe. It was not there before. I knew it wasn't my dad's because his was by the pile of wood that he collected at night. For my dad's reaction, I probably turned pale because he started to freak out a little like I was about to pass out or something.

He turned his gaze to where I was looking, and we both just stared for a few seconds before he called out for the rest of the family to wake up and get moving. We were all packed up within the hour, and we rushed back home. I later told my dad what I saw that night, and he didn't believe me at first. I carried on with the story, and he finally realized I was telling the truth. To this day, I still have no idea who the hell that was. that was. But I'm just happy he didn't investigate our tent any further or any other animal out in that forest. So to the axe man who was outside my tent in the middle of the night, let's not meet.

And this is a bit long. Sorry. It also doesn't really directly involve a person, at least not one that I can identify. So if it doesn't belong here, I'm open to suggestions. on where to post it. So, I live in a different country from my family, and because of COVID, they were all in their respective homes over Christmas. As a result, opening gifts took all day because everyone is in a different house, in a different time zone. It's fine, but opening gifts does go on all day some years.

So, this day, I finally get to open my last gift. at about 9 p.m. my time. I was online with my sister, who was seven hours behind me, and then I realized I had one gift left that had no name on the tag. It had come from Amazon weeks earlier, and was in one of their gift bags. My sister assured me it wasn't from her, so I opened it with her on the line.

It was a set of knives. I had this set on my wish list, so it was a nice surprise, but I still had no idea who it came from. As I was hanging up with my sister, my other sister started FaceTiming her, so I asked her to check whether she had sent the gift, but we'd missed it in the chaos. My other sister has four kids,

so it's Bedlam when we all open gifts together at their house. Sister B confirms to Sister A that no, she didn't send them. so that's both sisters confirming that they did not send the gift. I believe both of them, no questions asked. I know that my brother is at my parents' house, so I message him to double check that neither he nor my parents sent them, and it was missed in our earlier conversations. He confirms that it definitely wasn't either of them. This basically leaves my significant other, a friend here in the UK, and a friend in Canada.

because of COVID, we all agreed to have a gift-free Christmas this year. There's really only these three left, as no one else knows about my Amazon wish list. As in, you would have to search for it if you weren't one of those who subscribed to it, if you follow. Significant other says no, he didn't order them, but confesses that he did buy me a small gift and that we'll swap once he finishes isolating from visiting his family. friend in the UK says that it wasn't her, even though that's exactly the kind of prank she'd pull, seeing as were true crime junkies, but she's pissed that she didn't think of it herself.

She would, without question, tell me if it was her, if she knew I was concerned, though, and categorically promised that she did not do it. My friend in Canada says it was not her because she didn't know about my wish list, and then asked me for the link. She actually went in, and then did buy some bits from it for me after Christmas.

So, I turn back to the gift. I check when it was sent, the first week of December. I ask Amazon if they can tell me who sent it so I can thank them, and as protected under data protection laws, they can't tell me who sent them. I recheck the tag and realize that it's been overwritten. This is the bit that is a little creepy slash sinister. the default Amazon gift card greeting is the quite jovial

Enjoy Your Gift. The tag had been overwritten to in all caps, not so jolly, Enjoy your gift, which is slightly more menacing, considering this is a knife block and a set of five kitchen knives. So, basically, I got a set of knives with a slightly, but definitely menacing message from someone who must know me. It can't be an accident.

It would take going into my wish list, selecting the gift, ticking for gift wrap, changing the text, reviewing the order, placing the order, and then paying. There's no way this was accidental. So, the only person I can think of is a person with whom I was friends with for over a decade. She's become quite anti-vax and is very abrasive, and I called her on it. And she didn't take it too well. We effectively ended our friendship about, about a week before the knives were sent.

She knew I had the wish list. Money isn't a huge issue to her, so spending $40 for a knife block wouldn't be problematic. I don't want to ask her, as the last two times we spoke, she tried to get me to argue with her for two days, and I have no interest in rekindling that fire. So I just wanted to get a little feedback, really. I know it's not family, or the earlier three friends.

they aren't the kind to hold on to a joke if they know it's disturbing me a bit. This other ex-friend, well, it would seem odd to pay good money for something that I clearly wanted, but then not take the credit. But then, I guess, she has the out that if I ask whether she sent them, she can always say, oh, I mustn't have filled out the gift card, even though it's clearly been overwritten. it's entirely possible that she moseyed onto my wish list as she's bought from it before and has access. That she picked the knives as a sort of, you'll need more knives all your old ones are in my back type of idea. If it is her, it's not got a nice meaning behind it, is what I'm saying.

It's not like this is a fluffy cushion or some slippers. It's an anonymously sent knife block, with a slightly menacing gift tag, and I'm finding it kind of creepy? Any thoughts? I believe I was between the ages of eight and eleven when this happened. Anyways, I was in party city with my aunt, and we were walking around. And, well, me being me, I decided to go my own way into the candy section, until suddenly I bumped into this old, sketchy-looking man,

between the ages of 45 and 50. And he says, Hello there, do you want some money for your school lunch? All you have to do is come with me to go give my granddaughter this balloon. She's right across this store. And before I could even say anything, he got a hold of my hand and started dragging me closer

to the entrance of Party City. And then, fortunately, my aunt was looking for me and saw what the man was trying to do. He immediately let go of me and walked out of the store in a hurry. My aunt, of course, started yelling at me for walking out of her sight. Anyways, I'm 15 years old now,

almost 16, and to this day, I don't know what other intentions he had with me, but it still gives me the creeps. To give this some context, I'm very young. I haven't made the best choices in life. I was at one point addicted to Xanax. I'm currently getting clean, and this happened about four months ago.

I couldn't find a good dealer. I was asking a few friends through certain messaging boards, anyone who could get me to it. One guy pulled through. He told me to meet him down at this little gas station downtown. Now, my city isn't big. It's decently sized, but it's a town that no one really cares about. I walked down to the gas station, dollar bills in my pocket, just looking for the guy. When I saw him, my blood ran cold.

This dude was terrifying. He was about 6'3, abnormally skinny, probably the heavy drug use, and his eyes were just sunken in. Yes, I realized that it was unsafe. to go out during COVID, but at the time, I really didn't care. Now me, I am around 5'5 with a chubby build. I have no muscle. If I needed to fight someone off, I would be unable. So I ask this guy if he has a mask that he can put on before I come near him.

He obliges, and put on his mask. Once I finally drew closer, this dude smelled of absolute death on him. I almost gagged. We walked just out of view of the store owner into the darkness. He hands me my pills. I hand him the money. This dude grabs my wrists, hard. And for a very skinny guy, I wasn't expecting that much force.

My city is having a big problem with drugs. A lot of people are either hardcore donors, or just full-blown drug addicts. I couldn't tell if he had taken something prior to meeting me, but the vibe was off from the beginning. You should come to my place. I simply declined, and I told him that I had to go home. His hands were like ice, to be honest. They were freezing.

I just wanted to go home. Once he got a little too close for comfort, I pulled away. He looked mildly disappointed, but this man was in his late 20s, and I'm still a teenager. I was very uncomfortable. He looked me up and down one last time and told me to get home safe. I didn't like the way that he said it. Something about it was off.

As I walked away, he asked if I lived close, and if I wanted him to walk me home. Obviously, I said no. He told me for a bit, until a cop drove by and that's when he split off. The cops here don't care if you're out at night, as long as you weren't stumbling around. around or disturbing anyone you're free to walk around. He split off, and I never saw him again. I never hit him up for drugs either. I used for a bit after that, but other than that, I'm clean.

All I have to say is, if your reliable dealer isn't available, I wouldn't meet some sketchy guy to get your fix. This could have ended much worse, and I'm lucky. some others aren't this event occurred about a year ago after completing a night shift at my job i decided to head over to a nearby gas station slash corner store to get myself a late-night snack because the night shift at my job as a waiter kept me busy i built up an appetite for junk food at two in the morning with that in mind i had into this corner store to search for all that unhealthy yet delicious snack food. Since the sodas and beer are located in the back, I'm over there deciding what to get, Coca-Cola or monster.

While I'm trying to decide, I hear the sliding doors open up, and a very tall, sketchy-looking guy enters the store. How did I know he was sketchy? Well, I saw his head looking around the room as if to see if anyone else was around. I'm short, so he didn't see me see him.

Anyways, I had a bad feeling about this, so I hid behind a counter while the guy continued to turn his head in every direction. Eventually, I hear him ask the woman, Uh, hey, you hear all alone? The way he said it was enough to send shivers down my spine. Uh, no, she isn't alone. I came out of hiding with all the snacks in hand. I eyed the man with caution since I'm a little wary. He could have a knife or a gun, so I'm constantly eyeing his abdomen

and trying to see if he has a concealed weapon. Annoyed by this, the man takes his leave by literally stomping his way out. Just in case he came back. I stayed for about an hour to chat with the worker to help her calm down. We called the cops, and they came to. take our statements. A sole car stayed behind just in case. With that out of the way, I began to walk home. On my walk towards my house, I hear the sound of footsteps right behind me. It didn't take me long to realize that I was being followed. Most people would pick up the pace or

confront the person, but I took my time walking since I've taken martial arts. I've been taught to stay calm even during dire times. Besides, I can only act in case my life is being threatened by the assailant. The footsteps behind me are growing near, as I hear the person picking up the pace. Knowing my life will be in danger, I quickly spin around to come face to face with the same guy who was at the corner store. Well, this guy practically lunged at me, so I sidestepped and nearly stumbled on to the floor. Now that I had a reason to act, I spun around with the best. bag that contained to Cocan, with enough force and momentum, I hit the guy across the face with

it. I didn't waste time to hit him again. That last shot is what knocked the guy out after being hit across the face with a very hard and heavy object. Without hesitation, I quickly run back to the safety of my home, locking myself in with the few weapons underneath my pillow. Next day, I go back to the same spot that I fought against the guy and there's no one around. Since that night, I've always made sure to leave the house with some sort of weapon. First of all, English is not my first language, and I'm on mobile, so pardon me for all the weird vocabulary usage and potential grammar mistakes. This happened around three years ago when I was doing my exchange study in Europe.

My school was located in a nice, safe country, with beautiful nature, so I often took one-day trip by train to different cities. Then came home late at night. Those times were memorable. I enjoyed life to the fullest, and I learned a lot, but just one incident made it quite creepy and scary whenever I look back. It was a beautiful March day. I just finished my trip and was sitting in the train station's waiting room. Due to an unexpected storm, the train was delayed for almost an hour, and it was already 9 p.m., so I was feeling pretty annoyed. I took out my favorite book to kill the time, as my phone was low on battery, and all the chargers were occupied by the people stuck there just like me.

I had finished around four to five pages, until a man came by and sat opposite. of me. Then he asked, What are you reading? I glanced at him. He looked nice and tidy enough, and he seemed tired. I thought he was just trying to pass the time as well by making small talk, so I showed him the book. He proceeded to say that it was also his favorite book, and made some compliments to me. I know this sounds stupid, but I was naive and young,

and I felt kind of proud getting compliments. They were okay. It wasn't really harassment. So I talked with him a little more. I made a mistake of telling him the city that I lived in. Otherwise, just some random exchanges about the weather. Then, he suddenly asks, Do you live alone?

Do you have someone waiting for you? At that time, I did live alone. My roommate had left for a trip, and most of my friends had finished the exchange and gone home. I had no relatives or family there. I was about to tell him the truth, but something inside stopped me right there. That was a stormy night, and by the time I arrived home, it would be after one in the morning. Since it's a small city, most stores would have been closed.

If something happened to me, nobody would have known until it was too late. The man looked at me and grinned. I suddenly felt so scared and wanted to run away, but all I could do was sit there frozen. By sheer luck, I remembered that I had a picture I took with my roommate's boyfriend. He was a guard at a bar, and by that time he was wearing a security uniform. He also was the same race as me. I reached for my phone and showed the man that picture.

Yeah, my brother's there, and I just feel so. so bad he has to wait. I saw something like irritation and anger in the man's eyes. It gave me a quick, is that so, and excuse himself to go out and get Starbucks.

Every Starbucks store near that station was already closed. I knew that for sure. I sat there feeling scared and vulnerable until I cut on the train. I kept looking back every time and I did not dare to sleep even though I was very tired.

when I got to my station I got into McDonald's and waited 30 minutes for the night bus home even though my house was just 10 minutes walk from the train station until now I'm not sure what that man's intentions were some people I've told the story to called me being over-traumatic

some said I was right to be cautious anyway it still feels creepy remembering that man when he grinned at me and I'm glad that I trusted my instincts. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter.

Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. This happened 15 years ago when I had just come home from college on winter break. Home, this time, it was not the house that I grew up in. My parents had just moved closer to our small city, so it just didn't feel the same to be in a different space. Maybe that's what triggered my worry. In my family, I'm always the one thinking of worst-case scenarios,

generally distrustful and mostly seeming like the annoying worrywart. Call it what you will, but it's also the gift of fear, am I right? One cold night, my parents had gone to bed upstairs and the dog had followed suit. I thought I'd watched TV in the living room for a bit before going to sleep and settled in on the couch. The living room was in the front of the house, and with the recent move, the shutters and the window weren't there at the time, only see-through curtains that weren't really drawn. I noted this, but was used to our rural settings when the only ones who could see were the neighbors that we knew so well.

I was watching the TV for about half an hour. When the screen cuts out, it just goes snowy. This was back in the days when you watched whatever your local channels brought you. I looked up from whatever it was I was doing, texting, maybe with the flip phone, and at first thinking, well, that sucks. But something felt off. I tried the remote. But no other channels worked, and so I was sitting there thinking about what I should do instead.

When my cat jumps onto the window sill and starts wailing. What the hell? This may seem innocuous, but anyone who knew my cat knew that this was not par for the course. He was pacing and wailing at the window. A feeling of dread washed through me, and I was frozen. That feeling of dread washed through me, and I was frozen. dread is so fiercely visceral. What the hell was going on, and what was out there?

I try to settle myself down in this unfamiliar dark house, and felt a bit better, because what are the chances? But then, there it was. I swear on all I have that this cold waft of air blew through, and that I heard the side door. I didn't realize that door was there at the time. I heard a door on the side of the house and felt cold air. I became unfrozen and I bolted. I run upstairs to wake my parents and slumbering dog,

and I frantically tell them that someone is trying to get in the house. They, I think, were annoyed. I'm a warrior, remember? Still, they get up and they think to try to placate me by looking around the house. They go check all the rooms, including the basement, while I'm scared and exasperated. They're sleepily roaming about in dark rooms, unarmed, when God knows who has probably made it inside already.

Well, they didn't find anything. They verbally patted me on the head and said good night, and I felt foolish. That is, until the next morning. I don't know what prompted my parents to call the police, but they showed up, and they asked me how I knew someone was out there. there. Well, hold up what? I start answering. Well, the cat was meowing a lot on the window sill,

and my voice trailed off, waiting for the reaction I usually get, which I got. The cop smirks. A cat, huh? Okay, get on with it. He goes on to say that someone cut the cable wires in the side of the house. That either the someone thought they were disabling some alarm, or they saw me sitting watching TV and wanted to mess with me. Muddy grounds give us the ability to see the fresh tracks right up to it. It didn't look like it had been fooled with, but I know what I heard, whatever it was. I knew it, I said to my parents. The triumphant feeling was short-lived when I started to mole.

What I was so sure about had been true. True, I did know someone was out there. I also knew I would always check that side door. and take some cues from the cats just to be safe. I live in Northern California, and where I live, there are quite a few ranches and grazing areas in the hills around town. Though I'm no more than five minutes walk away from downtown, I'm technically out of the city limits.

We have plenty of backroads that are full of blackberry bushes, even an abandoned house, but that isn't the creepy part. one day I had just finished my schoolwork and decided to take my dog for a walk on the back roads it's a usually scenic place with rolling yellow hills

a few trees and cattle though this day was a relatively thick fog so I really couldn't see more than 40 feet ahead I walked up to the steep road and then down again cars passing me by like

normal people even waving until I came to where a small pond was usually full during the summer, right on the side of the road, though it was nearly dry, and I couldn't see across the water to the other side. There is a gate next to it that leads to the property, and parked in front, was a truck. Now, when I walk, I usually talk to myself, or my dog, or even look at my phone a bit, but I expect myself to be alone, and that I won't sound crazy for talking to myself. As I'm passing the pond, I hear an almost human voice indistinctly, possibly female, and I stop for a second.

I don't really hear anything else, so I assumed I just imagined it and kept walking. But a minute after that, I decided that I should probably turn around, as I would have to get to work soon, and start again in the opposite direction. When I hear another noise across the pond, it's almost a grunt, as if someone was lifting something heavy, just finishing exercising, or was extremely cold. This time, I cry out, hello? Kind of inquisitively, and the noise goes silent. I could hear this noise clear as day, and I spoke.

purposefully loud, so I know that they heard me. We keep walking, and I hear it again. Now, though, it sounds like a man's voice, and I call out, Hello? Anyone there? And in response, I get sort of an acknowledgement. Egh. And then I go, are you all right?

And then the same sort of grunting again. My dog and I continue to walk. and as we approach and round the truck, I see him. Walking around, near stumbling, and almost over-gimatically rubbing his hands on his arms like he's shivering, there's a man. Most likely late-20s, staggering into view with a sweatshirt, jeans, and a short beard. Glad to see him and that he was okay. I just say, hi there. and sort of weighs his arm and continues to grunt and shiver.

Chokingly, I say, What did you do? Fall in? With a small chuckle. And he responded with the only words that I had heard him say. It's really cold. But not clearly. Just kind of garbled.

Now, this community is not totally small, but we are a fairly welcoming and prone to small talk. people walk by my house on these roads all the time, and they're wonderful people. And I figured that maybe he was a rancher checking on a calf, or fixing something across the pond, but even so, he still would have said something when I had called out. It wasn't terribly freezing either. I was wearing a sweater and pants, and I was fine. After that, I kind of half respond.

Yeah. And I turned my back to keep walking. Continuing his shiver, he walks towards the gate. He either vaults the gate or locks it. He opens his truck door and drives the other way. I understand that people sometimes are just having a bad day and don't want to talk, or have other things on their mind, but this guy was weird. And any other day, I know another rancher would have at least said hi.

I still wonder what he was doing across the pond and what I couldn't see. This all started back when I was in my first year of college, so around four or five years ago. And while it may not be the most terrifying story involving a stalker that exists, it's one of those things that happened to me that I genuinely will not get over. Honestly, I still sometimes get chills and anxiety thinking about this whole situation, and I know that sounds dramatic, but living it is a whole lot different than reading it. While I was a freshman at my college, I was also working as a junior admin assistant for a medium-sized corporation, basically doing whatever it was that the admins and their assistants asked of me.

In essence, I was an assistant to the assistants. So I was super low on the totem pole. It wasn't a bad job. Some of the people were a bit rude, but I kind of think that had more to do with the corporate environment than them as people. though they could also have just been A-holes, it's hard to say. One of my weekly duties was restocking what was essentially the office supply stand. This company had an open floor plan, and in the center of the third and top floor, was a cubicle segment that was filled with office supplies that people could freely take.

It was basically an honor system, though there was a camera directly above this cubicle. And one of my jobs was to get the supplies from the closet and make sure that the pens and post-its and whatnot were all full and ready for people. It wasn't a hard task, honestly. It was just meticulous and took a good amount of time. The week that this all started, I was stocking the supplies. and was approached by an employee that I didn't know. He looked a bit nerdy, had a bullcut, thick glasses, not trying to be rude or poke fun at nerdy people, just saying that he kind of fit the stereotype.

Anyways, he walked up to the cubicle and kind of just stared at me. After a moment, I realized that I was probably blocking whatever it was that he was trying to get to, and maybe he just really didn't want to talk to me. I apologized. I asked him what I could get for him and was just trying to be polite and keep my head down. He responds with,

I don't think I've seen you here. Are you new? I was a bit confused. I'd been there for around a month, but maybe he didn't get up to the third floor very often. I've been here almost a month. I'm a junior. Junior admin assistant. My name's Callie. Again, trying to be polite, but not overstepping.

I'm Peter. I work in desktop support. He put his hand out to shake mine, which felt kind of weird considering what I was occupied with, and how this conversation had started. But again, maybe he was just bad with people. It's very nice to meet you, Peter. Is there something I can help you with? I shook his hand quickly and turned back to finish my stalking. He kind of chuckled and mumbled something under his breath. I just let it go and went back to stalking. He stood there the entire time that I was putting things in the cubicle, which I obviously thought was a bit weird, but again, it was what it was.

As I finished up, I stepped out and put the remaining extras on the cart to put back into the closet. I told him it was very nice to chat with him, and that I hoped that he had a great day. He smiled and told me that he would see me around. Overall, I thought it was nothing. He was awkward, but harmless. I expected nothing to come of this situation beyond me

having to potentially say hi to him if I saw him again in the future. Then, the next to the next. next week rolled around. I was doing my supply stocking, and sure enough, Peter walked up to the cubicle, this time holding a box of donuts. I paused for a moment, and watched him walk up and open the box. The whole time he had this goofy grin on his face and was staring at me. I never thought a A man walking up to me with a box of donuts could manage to look creepy, but there we were, and there he was, looking incredibly creepy. He asked me if I wanted a donut, and I was polite, and took one, and I placed it on a post-it

note in the cubicle, because I had nothing else to put it on. I said thank you, and he just continued to stand there and stare at me without saying anything for several moments. So I did the worst thing I possibly could have done. I asked him how things were. In my mind, I was just being polite, trying to make small talk. Then, out of nowhere, he asks me what I'm doing that weekend. He didn't answer my question.

He just literally jumped into asking me out. I kind of laughed at him a bit when he asked. It was completely unintentional he just caught me off guard. I politely told him that I had a fiancé. His smile kind of fell into a half frown, but he kept his awkward stare. After a few moments of silence, he put the donuts down in the cubicle and turned to walk away. I honestly had no idea how to take any of this, so I just decided to move on and ignore it. The next day, I was at my desk trying to book a flight for one of our sea-level employees.

When I feel a hand on my shoulder, I literally jumped and damn near screamed when it happened. I turned to see who the hell it was, and to my surprise, it was Peter. Even more, to my surprise, he had gotten a haircut, and he didn't look quite as nerdy as he had been. He apologized for scaring me and said that he just wanted to apologize for how awkward he had been the day before. He said he didn't get out much, and that he was socially awkward, but he realized he had stepped out of line when he asked me out. His tone, his manner of speaking to me, and his overall demeanor was completely different, and he seemed sincere.

I told him it was fine and that we all have. have our awkward moments. He then tells me that he did have something for me, but it had nothing to do with the previous day's situation. He then pulls out a gift card to Red Lobster from his pocket and places it on my desk. He follows that up with saying, I promise this has nothing to do with yesterday. I got this for my birthday a couple weeks back, and I'm allergic to shellfish, so I'd rather it goes to someone who could use it.

It was a nice gesture, and I appreciated it, so I told him thank you, and then I told him that I was actually talking to my sister about wanting to go together to Red Lobster recently, and it was perfect timing. He kind of laughed it off and told me that he hoped I had a good time, and then left. This interaction was completely different from the other two times. The rest of the week goes by, and my sister and I actually made plans to go have lunch and then see a movie afterwards. We used the gift card and then went to the movies, and as we were leaving, who else did we run into, but Peter. At first, my mind was freaking out, thinking about how awkward he was and how much I didn't want to deal with it.

but then our last interaction came to mind and I thought the least I could do was thank him he saw me and walked over and we said hi I introduced him to my sister told her he was the co-worker that gave me the gift card that we had lunch on there were a couple moments of idle chit-chat and then we all went our separate ways it wasn't until we got into the car

that my sister pointed out that that Peter had the same haircut as my fiancé, and that he dressed the same as him. It was a bit out of nowhere. At first, I had to think about it, but I just told her that it wasn't an uncommon look for guys. Honestly, it wasn't too crazy to think that more than one guy could have the same look. She wasn't wrong, they both had their hair shaved on the sides and back, but longer on the top and pushed to one side. The clothing thing I couldn't really speak on because I didn't see it. I ignored it and moved on.

Over the next couple of weeks, a few more strange things happened that had me a little curious. I would be talking to my sister over Facebook Messenger about craving chocolate-covered strawberries. The next morning, Peter walked in with a box of chocolate-covered strawberries. He said they were for anyone that wanted them, but he wanted to see if I wanted some first. I was talking to her about Game of Thrones, and then Peter would bring up how much he loved Game of Thrones out of nowhere. I would read a story on Google News,

and Peter would casually mention something that was related to the story. As those two weeks pushed on, everything was just too strange, and I was kind of feeling like he was watching me, and waiting for me to do anything so he could bring it up and make it seem like he was also interested. Despite our few friendly chats, I pretty much just stopped talking to him and had fallen back into that

he's a bit of a creep mentality. Then I randomly got some text messages from him. It was Monday, and I was doing my stalking, just waiting for Peter to show up and make things weird again when my phone goes off. I looked to see what it was, and it was a text message that said, Hey, it's Peter. I just wanted to let you know. I won't be in today.

I'm not feeling too well. Not only did I not know how the hell he got a hold of my phone number, I didn't know why he was texting me. And I just simply responded with, Hey, this is Callie. I think you texted the wrong person. He replied saying that he meant to tell me because he didn't want me to worry. I just put my phone away and decided to not even bother replying.

He started texting me good morning every single day after that. I think I responded once or twice, but after that I just started to ignore him. Then another Monday rolls around. He walks up to the supply cubicle with a huge smile on his face. I sigh and brace myself for another conversation with this guy that was just not getting it. He then pulls a small jewelry box from his pocket and opens it. It has two earrings that look like they are legitimate, real pearls. and then asks me if I wanted them.

I asked why the hell he was trying to give me pearl earrings? And he responded saying, His mom bought them for his sister, but she didn't like them. So he said he would give them to someone that would like them. I just stood there and stared at him for several moments before my brain just snapped. I sat down on the desk of the cubicle and took a deep breath before basically telling Peter that he needed to back off and that while he was a nice guy, I was engaged and that he wasn't going to get anywhere with me. I'm sure I said more, and I'm sure I was a bit more aggressive, but that's the gist of it.

His smile faded, and he honestly looked like he was about to cry. He slammed the box closed and shoved it back in his pocket. He then stared at me straight in the eyes and said, What does Brian have that I don't? I look better than him. I have a better job than him. I can give you anything you want, and yet you still won't give me a chance.

I'm a nice guy. I don't know why you don't see that. He then turned around and stormed off. I had no idea how to take this. I had never told him my fiancé's name. He should have no idea what my fiancé did for a living, nor what he looked like. I know what some of you may be thinking. I mentioned Facebook earlier, so maybe he got on there and scraped that information off of it.

But that wouldn't really have been possible. I have my Facebook locked down to the point where you can't see anything or pretty much even find me, unless I add you as a friend. Brian's is locked down the same way, and there's no way he could have really found either of us. Then, a thought hit me. Peter was in desktop support, and he had full access to my work computer.

He seemed to know everything I was doing on that system, and he seemed to know everything I was talking about to people that I talked to on Facebook. To make a long story short, I called someone from the information security team up, and I explained the whole situation to him. I told him how Peter was acting creepy. I told him that he seemed to know everything I was doing on my system at all times, and about the situation that morning. At first, I'm not sure that he was interested. It wasn't until I told him about the Facebook conversations that he seemed to change to taking it seriously.

He asked me if I had ever logged in to my Facebook on my work computer. I unfortunately had to tell him that I had, and that I knew I wasn't supposed to. He said he didn't care about that. He asked me to open Facebook on my phone, and we went through to the spot in the security settings where you can see all of your open sessions. He told me to do the force logout of every session, so I did. After a few minutes, we refreshed it, and, and sure enough, there was a session that was connected that was not my phone.

He told me to grab my laptop and to come with him, which led to me having a meeting with the chief security officer about this whole situation. I was nervous as hell, but he clearly had an idea of what may have been going on. The end result of these conversations and a very brief investigation, Peter, being in desktop support, had managed to remotely install remote access software on my system, as well as a key logger.

When they went down to talk to him, they found that he had a browser open, and he was logged in to my Facebook account, because he had gotten my password. He had every single photo from my Facebook, downloaded and in a folder on the computer. He had the software up and running, was watching my screen and what I was doing on my work computer at all times.

He'd been watching the conversations, watching what I was searching, watching what I was just talking about, and he was apparently taking notes. Over a couple of months, Peter had almost literally started his own personality file on me, and he was doing everything he could to be someone that I would get with. He, of course, tried to tell them that what he was doing with the remote software was legitimate so that he could give tech support if needed.

But when they asked him about why he was logged into my personal Facebook, well, he didn't have an answer. Thankfully, Peter was fired. I worked there for another few months, but then decided that I wanted to move on to something else. Like I said, this was a few years ago, and thankfully, I haven't heard from Peter since. And I genuinely hope I never have to see his face again. This is one of those stories that, honestly, causes me a good amount of mental distress. But it's also one of those stories that I need to tell, either to an audience or a therapist,

to get out of my own head. This all happened back in high school. It was actually the second semester of my junior year. I was a bit of a loner back then and had never really had an actual girlfriend or relationship and was frequently teased by my friends for it. Like most high school guys, I had my crushes and girls that I wanted to get with,

but none of them showed any interest in me, until I met Cheryl. Cheryl was, in the best way I can think to describe her, the goth girl in her school that no one else really screwed with. She had a click of friends, and the popular kids would talk about her behind her back, but they never said anything to her face. She and I had spoken some before,

and she seemed like a pretty okay person, as far as previous experiences with her went. Maybe a bit abrasive, but easy to talk to. I'll never know how it initially happened, but someone gave Cheryl my Snapchat name. And I know this, because one night she randomly sent me a snap that was a picture of a dog, and it said something like, What's up, loser? I thought it was one of my friends at first, so I responded with the picture of my Xbox controller.

I said I was playing Halo and asked who it was. I remember the person had their name set to something like Cherry Black, instead of their real name. Immediately after, she sends me a picture of herself. I was legitimately confused. I had no idea why she was Snapchatting me. I think I replied with something like, Wow, you must be pretty damn bored to have to talk with me. and a pick of myself, just in case she thought I was someone else.

Then, she replies with, No, I actually wanted to talk to you. We had a decent conversation over Snap, until I was too tired to stay up. She threw in her aggressive quips, calling me a loser every once in a while, making jokes at my expense, but honestly, I didn't mind. It wasn't anything my group of childhood friends didn't already do, and she wasn't being malicious with it.

From there, we actually spoke a few times at school, sat together at lunch, and started sitting by each other during American history, which was the only class that we had together. Honestly, I wasn't a bit of awe, because she was actually a really cool person. and she became a really good friend over the couple of weeks that we had gotten to know each other. Then, one day, I got a text from her that said,

Hey, you're my boyfriend now. I laughed it off, and responded with, Oh, is there a guy that you're trying to let down easy and you need a stand in? I didn't expect it, but she responded with, No, I'm telling you that you're my boyfriend now, and I'm your girlfriend. We are dating now. It was kind of an odd way to do things, but I also wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She was telling me that she and I were together, and that was that.

Obviously, I thought that this was going to be some kind of messed up prank at first. But when I got to school the next day and saw her, she immediately started to make out with me, and I think it was then that I realized she was being serious. Again, she was obviously a bit more aggressive with it than I anticipated, but, hey, I had a girlfriend, and I was no longer a lonely loser. Things went pretty well for about a week. Nothing crazy happened, and I was pretty good. happy. Then the first red flag came into the picture. I posted a photo on my Snapchat story

of myself and my older sister. It was a completely innocent picture that I mostly posted for family and friends for the fun of it. About ten minutes after posting it, I get a text from Cheryl with a screenshot of my snap story, and my sister's face circled in red. It was like she loaded the picture into the editor on her phone and drew circles around her. The picture had a text with it that simply said, Who is she? I replied, that's my sister. She then responds, what's your sister's name?

I was a bit taken aback by how aggressive she was being about a snap with my sister, but I relented and told her. Her name is Amanda. About five minutes or so later, she responds with, okay, and a smiley emoji. That same night, I got a random text from my sister that said something to the effect of, Wow, your girlfriend is so cute. You should have told me that you were with her.

I asked how she knew, and she responded by telling me that Cheryl had added her on Facebook, and then messaged her asking her if she was, was actually my sister. RBC Training Ground has discovered potential in over 20,000 Canadian athletes and counting. Your story could be next. If you've got the drive, they'll help you find your path to the Olympics. Let's see what you've got.

Sign up for free at rbc trainingground.ca. Obviously, I had a bit of a problem with this. So the next day, I asked her why she had done that. She responds by saying, I had to make sure that you were serious about being with me. Plus, I'm your girlfriend. I should get to know your sister so maybe we can do stuff in the future. By the time this had happened,

we had been dating for around eight or nine days, and she was being that aggressive about a snap with my sister. Again, this was my first girlfriend, and I was 17, so while this was a bit odd to me, I'd just let it go, because maybe that's how relationships just were sometimes. Overall, things seemed to go all right for another few weeks. Then, there was one day where I was at lunch and talking with my cousin, Anne. Cheryl walked up to us and basically grabbed me and forced me into a kiss with her.

It was kind of strange, but I didn't do much to stop it. afterwards, I kind of just laughed at how awkward the whole thing must have been for Anne. I cleared my throat and then said, Um, Anne, this is my girlfriend, Cheryl. We've been together for almost a month. Cheryl just kind of stared at her, and then reached out to shake her hand, saying hi with a very stale tone. Anne could sense the animosity, and she excused her.

after which Cheryl shifted her angry stare to me and asked me who the hell Anne was. I explained that she and I had been friends since we were little kids, and that her mom had married my mom's brother, so she was my cousin by marriage. At first, Cheryl seemed to be accepting of my response. Then, after school, I got a text from her that said, I'd been thinking about it, and you're not going to talk to Anne anymore. I didn't respond. Fast forward another week, and Anne, my cousin that I wasn't supposed to be talking to, got a job at the sandwich shop that I was working at,

which is exactly what we had been talking about that day at lunch. My boss was a really cool manager, and I was able to talk him into hiring her, and I told him that I would train her. I'd been there for a few months, so I was basically assistant manager without the official title. That night was Anne's first shift, and after he got all of her onboard paperwork done, he told me good luck, and to call him if I needed anything. Then he left. We were about an hour and a half into the shift, and we were slow,

so I decided that I would sit down at one of the tables and talk to Anne about how the closing shifts worked, how to fill out the cleaning checklist and just the overall basics. We were talking for about five minutes before my phone went off. It was a text from Cheryl. I opened it, and it literally said, I thought I told you not to talk to her anymore. Obviously, I was confused. We were at work and working.

One, how did she know that I was talking to her? And two, was she really going to be so controlling that she didn't want me speaking with my own cousin, who was a co-worker, that I was tasked with training. I told Anne to take a few minutes for a break, grab a drink, and that I would be right back. I stepped out into the parking lot, and sure enough, Cheryl was sitting in her car, facing the restaurant. I went over to her car, and she rolled down her window. I asked her what the hell she was doing. She told me that she didn't want me talking to Anne anymore.

I told her that I didn't have a choice in that she was my cousin. After some back and forth, and a short argument, I just gave up on the conversation and went back inside. I thought that maybe this would be the end of this annoyance, but sure enough, it wasn't. The next shift that Anne and I worked, which was two days after that event, I walked in, and my manager asked me to come to his office.

I stepped in, and I could tell that he was upset with me for something, though I had no idea what it was. I asked him what was going on, and he told me that, apparently, Cheryl had called him and told him that he needed to get rid of Anne because she and I weren't supposed to be talking to each other. She told him some really messed up and elaborate story about how, when we were younger, I had sexually assaulted her and that I was controlling her, basically that I was grooming her since she was about a year younger than me.

I was appalled at this. I obviously told him it wasn't true, and that I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, and that I would be personally willing to sit in with Anne, and she could tell him that it was all a lie. He, honestly, seemed uncomfortable about this, which was really bizarre to me. He told me that he had temporarily suspended Anne, but that he hadn't told her the reason,

and that she would be coming back in two weeks, and that I needed to sort all of this out before then. I honestly had no idea what I was supposed to do to sort it out, but I agreed and just tried to get through my shift. I completely ignored Cheryl at school the next day. She tried to approach me, and I completely shut her down. After class, before I had to be at work, I met up with Anne and told her what was happening. She was just as shocked as I was about this, and asked what we should do. I basically told her that we needed to just ignore Cheryl, and that it would help if she could talk to our boss without me around,

and then explained the whole thing was a lie. A while after this conversation, when I was driving to work, I got a text from Cheryl. It said, I thought I had made it clear. I didn't want you talking to Anne. I'd had enough of this, so I called her. Conversation was quick, but it was pretty much me breaking up with her, telling her to back the hell off, and to just leave me alone. She then said something that actually gave me the creeps. She said,

You don't get to break up with me. I don't think you realize that I call the shots. I then told her that she was completely nuts and that she needed to get help. And then hung up on her. As I'm sure you can probably guess, especially when dealing with obsessively crazy people like Cheryl, This is where things started to get worse.

That night, while I was working at the sandwich shop, I kept getting weird looks from the customers as they walked in, and some customers that were walking towards the door would turn around and leave before they actually entered. Thankfully, one of my friends had decided to come by and get food. He got to the counter, and he asked me what the hell was going on with the lady outside. I asked what he was talking about.

He then proceeded to tell me probably the most horrific thing I had ever been told. Apparently, Cheryl was outside, and she was telling people that a rapist worked there and that no one should support a company that employed a rapist. She was literally telling people as they were walking up that I was a rapist and that I was free because no one would believe her. She had been standing outside the entire shift and was saying this to people as they walked up. I couldn't see her because she was just off to the side of the window.

I told my friend to hold on, and I stepped outside. Sure enough, she was standing there. I asked her what she was doing and why she was doing it, and she just started to scream, Hey, everyone, this is the rapist, this is the man that should be in jail. I told her to leave, and she just smirked at me and said, make me. So I did. I called the police and told them that she was trespassing, and I then called my manager to tell him what was going on.

The police showed up and told her that she needed to leave. They came in and asked for my information, and I gave it to them, then told me that she was advised not to return to the property, or she would be arrested for trespassing. Of course, just because she wasn't allowed on the property, didn't mean that she couldn't continue to do damage. It was a day or two later when my manager once again called me into his office, thinking that I had taken care of the situation with Cheryl,

I went in without really thinking anything of it. When I get in, he had my file on his desk and a paycheck in an envelope, as well as a Google review screen on his computer. He then proceeds to tell me he was advised by the regional manager that he needed to fire me. I asked him what was going on,

and he showed me the screen. The store's Google rating had been tanked, and there were a significant number of one-star reviews that mentioned the store was employing a rapist. and that no one should support this business until they fired me. Some of them even mentioned me by name. My boss basically told me that, while he really didn't believe the whole thing,

he didn't have a choice. It was bad press for the business, and his boss was telling him to let me go to fix this problem. In the end, I just signed the document, gave him my hat and apron and took my check. I think the hardest part of this whole thing was trying to explain to my parents why I had been fired. I had been working there for almost a year at this point and was probably the only person that had stuck around for so long.

So to have to tell my parents that I was fired honestly hurt me. I had to tell my own mother that I was. was being fired because my ex-girlfriend was claiming the store was protecting a rapist, and that I was being the one called out as such. I, of course, told her that it was all a lie, and that Cheryl and I were never even intimate, and that she was just trying to mess with me. Obviously, they weren't really sure what to do,

other than possibly call the police and have them sorted out, but really, I'm not even, even sure if she was committing an actual crime. None of the review bomb reviews had her name on them. She left the property when she was asked to do so, and unfortunately, there was a ton of plausible deniability on her side. My other thought was about whether or not she would be willing to lie to the police as well, and then have me arrested and drag all this out in a horrible legal battle.

In the end, I just told my parents I was sorry this happened and that I would try to find another job. Obviously, they were telling me not to be sorry, but I honestly felt like this whole thing was my fault. I went to bed and just kind of sank into a bit of a low mentality. The next morning, I woke up to my dad coming into my room and asking me if there was anything wrong with the car when I drove it from work. the night before. We shared the car since he worked an early shift, and he was home by the time I needed to go to work. I told him that everything was fine on the way home the night before, and then asked him what he was talking about. He told me to come outside and see. I went with him, and come to find, both tires on the driver's side were flat. I was just standing there, staring at the car,

thinking that Cheryl would have had to have done this. I obviously couldn't prove it was her, and there was no actual damage to the tires. The air was let out through the valve stem, but I had this hunch that this was just more of her trying to get back at me. I apologize to my dad, but I also told him that I had no idea because all four tires were fine when I was driving home the night before. He believed me, but I think my face was telling, and he thought that I had an idea of what had happened. A few more days go by, I'm basically just floating through the motions and trying to move forward with things. When out of nowhere, I get a call to the guidance counselor's office. I head in, and they sit me down.

Then the counselor tells me that they got an anonymous. anonymous report that I was suicidal, and that I had supposedly told one of my friends that I was going to bring a gun to school in order to do a suicide by cop. I, obviously, vehemently denied this. It was nowhere near true, and I would have never had said anything like that. He then told me that, even though I was a good student and didn't cause trouble, and even though I was vehemently denying, it. They would have to send me home for a few days on suspension, and that they would be required to go through my locker while I was gone, and after that, I would be required under policy to have my bag searched and walked through the metal detector every morning for an indefinite amount of time, basically until they believed that the threat was cleared.

Once again, I was in a position where I had to explain to my... my parents, what was going on, since my mom had to leave work to come pick me up from the guidance office. I told her that Cheryl was out to get me, and that she was doing everything in her power to quickly ruin my life. I think, at first, she was a bit iffy on believing me, but then I literally burst into tears, and I think that may have been what hid it home for her that something was. was going on.

I told her that while I was dating Cheryl, she was super controlling. I told her about all the red flags, how she flipped out on me for talking to my cousin, and how she freaked out when I had a picture of my sister on Snapchat. I told her about what she did at my work, how she was the one that filed the complaint with my boss, and most likely the one that had review bombed the store. I pretty much just unloaded everything on my mother because I had felt like my life had just fallen apart over a girl that I didn't even like before she decided that we were dating

around a month and a half ago. Looking back, it was all so stupid that it happened like it did, and it all happened so quickly. Going from friends to dating, to me feeling. like everything was ruined. I could see why I was so upset. My mom ended up telling me to take the time off and that she would talk to the counselor about what was going on.

She told me that I should take the rest of the week if I needed it and just have a mental health break. I agreed and decided I would just sit at home and do nothing for a few days. Just enjoying some time to myself. But first, for some reason, something in my mind told me that I needed to message Cheryl and just try to get her to leave me alone. So, I did. I literally text her and said, Look, I know that things got complicated between us.

I said things that upset you. But could you please just leave me alone and stop doing all of this? I get your point. You are in control. but please just let me be and move on. She replied pretty quickly, but it wasn't a good reply. She said something to the effect of, Okay, I'll move on to Anne then.

How's that sound? I immediately contacted Anne to tell her, and she told me she would keep a lookout. I really didn't know how far Cheryl would take it since, while she hadn't done anything violent or aggressive toward me, she had still managed to really screw things up for me in a relatively short amount of time. To be safe, I actually called my uncle and explained to him what she had done, and that she was now targeting Anne.

And, honestly, this was probably one of the best things I think I could have done. My uncle, my mom's brother and Anne's stepfather, is a bit of a security nerd. He has cameras all over his property, and he knows how to protect himself. My warning, actually put him on edge and might have led to what happened next. As expected, Cheryl started to go after Anne and trying to cause her problems. She started by trying to start a fight in school with her, by talking crap on me, Anne just told her that she wasn't listening to it and walked away.

When Cheryl tried to follow her, Anne made it a point to walk toward one of the security guards and stand there, knowing that Cheryl wouldn't do anything. There were a couple of other things that she tried, that I honestly cannot remember. But it's not really important. It's important to know that she spent a few days trying to make Anne's, life hell, and Anne wasn't letting it happen. Then, Cheryl made a huge mistake and decided to

escalate. The night it all ended, Cheryl had decided that she was going to try to throw a brick through the glass pane on the front door of Anne's house. Unfortunately for Cheryl, when she decided to do this, my uncle was in the garage, and in the garage, my uncle, my uncle was in the garage, has a large screen that connects to all of his security cameras. So, he saw her as she was walking up. He was already walking out the side door when Cheryl actually threw the brick. He watched her do it, and was less than 20 feet away from her when she did. My uncle, being the guy that he is, immediately drew his gun and told her to get on the ground.

He's not a police officer, but he is form. or military, and he's built with that kind of intimidating that you don't really want to mess around with. From what I was told, as soon as she saw the gun in my uncle's hand, she immediately fell to the ground and just stayed there. Apparently, he had scared the hell out of her, and she was honestly terrified that he was going to shoot. From there, Anne called the police, and they came.

My uncle told them what happened and showed them the camera feed. Cheryl was arrested and subsequently charged. I do wish that there was more of a happy ending for me, but there wasn't. I didn't get my job back. I went back to school and went through a month of being searched every single morning. After that, I moved on and just stuck to myself

and those that I knew were actually close, like Anne. Honestly, though, I didn't really mind that things didn't go back to perfect for me. Cheryl got caught doing something that was super illegal, probably got the scare of a lifetime from my uncle, and I honestly hope that this was the point where she decided to turn her life around. I have no idea what happened to her, and honestly, I don't want to know.

I just hope that Cheryl and I never meet again. This story didn't happen to me, and it isn't mine directly. It happened to my aunt back in the mid to late 90s when she was still a teenager. I asked her if I could share the story, and she said that she would prefer that I did, just in case it could help someone else avoid a similar situation. though I don't know if anyone would ever be in a similar situation in the current day and age. That said, I'm going to tell this from memory, so if some parts seem inconsistent or a bit confusing, I do apologize. Like I said, this was back when my aunt was a teenager.

She was a pretty well-liked young woman, she was a good kid, straight-a-student, and she was well known and held in a high regard throughout the neighborhood. She was known to be a dependable babysitter. She loved spending time with kids, kids loved her, and she had done a good amount of volunteer work over the summer with the daycare at our local church group. Basically, people in the area knew that if they needed someone to take care of their kids for a couple of hours, they could call her and not have to worry about anything. she ended up going into child care, and she actually owns a local daycare today, if that helps to explain how much she loved and loves working with children.

This specific situation happened when she got a call from a couple a few blocks away. It was the expected story. They wanted to have a date night and needed someone to watch their young daughter for a few hours. They said they would pay her $10 an hour to watch her from five hours. to 11. My aunt agreed, and everything seemed like it was pretty standard. Now, this was back in the 90s. Almost no one had a cell phone, the internet wasn't really a big thing, and a lot of people

just trusted people in their neighborhood, based solely on the fact that they were in the neighborhood. It was a totally different time from today, where we're way more protected in our everyday lives. My aunt and grandparents didn't know anything about this couple, which wasn't out of the ordinary at all. And while this situation didn't seem too crazy, things got strange pretty much right off the bat. My grandfather dropped my aunt off, and she knocked on the door.

But at first, nobody answered. She stood there for a few moments and knocked again. After a few more minutes, the man of the house was. did finally enter the door. He said that he apologized for not hearing her knock sooner, and that he was in the bathroom getting things ready. After that, my aunt said that she entered the house and noticed that it was incredibly clean, and also minimalist.

The living room was pretty much just an old couch, a chair, and a television. There was a lamp in the corner for light, but that was it. There were no pictures, no toys, nothing to indicate that this family had a young child or was even a family at all. She ignored this and thought maybe they just didn't have much in ways of money. And she turned to ask the man about the daughter, the basics really, name, emergency contact information, schedule, and any rules that she needed to abide by. She said that at first, the man had a look about his face that made it seem like he was nervous.

like he was trying to think of an answer to the questions right there on the spot. After a few moments, he cleared his throat and responded. Her name is Abigail. If there's an emergency, call my mother. Her phone number is on the fridge. Her name is Beth. Scheduling and rules won't really be an issue. Abigail's too young to do anything,

and she'll most likely be asleep the whole night in her crib. At this point, My aunt had a few things click for her. There weren't any toys because Abigail was still a newborn. This could also explain the lack of pictures on the wall of the family. She nodded and told him that she understood and asked if Abigail had a feeding schedule and asked if they were trying to keep things on a strict timeline. And she said at this point, the man just shook his head and told her not to bother Abigail

while she slept, and that if she didn't wake up crying to just let her start. sleep. Obviously, my aunt was a bit confused. When you have a baby that young, you typically don't just let them sleep. You keep them on a schedule and keep things consistent. But she was also doing this based on the parents' terms, so she didn't fight or argue about it. After a few moments of talking, the man said something that caught my aunt off guard. He said something along the lines of, I know you probably had a long day at school, and you'll probably want to take a shower at some point. If you do, the shower's upstairs. A second door on the left.

Feel free to please use it if you need to. So, how many weird red flags is this at this point? Three? Well, there was another that happened immediately after this comment. After insisting that she could take a shower, the man said that they needed to go and thanked her for her time watching their daughter. He then opened the front door, got in the car, and started to drive off, leaving my aunt there alone with Abigail. It may not be obvious what that red flag was in that situation, but my aunt immediately realized that something was off.

At no point did the mother of the child come out of any room in the house. she hadn't met her, and the man just left without her. At this point, it seems like maybe there wasn't a mother in this situation, but again, my aunt thought that maybe she didn't quite understand it. Maybe the man had to pick her up from work. Maybe they were meeting up somewhere, so she let it go and just sat on the couch to watch some TV. She sat there for a little while and just watched whatever was on.

But after a while, she said, says that something didn't feel right, which, yeah, obviously. She said that something in her told her that she should check on Abigail, even though the father said that she didn't need to. So she got up and started up the stairs and realized that she didn't know which room was Abigail's. There were two doors on the left and one on the right. She knew the second door on the left was the bathroom, so she checked the first one on the left. It was a small bedroom, but it looked like it could have been a bedroom, but there was no bed. She said the room was an absolute mess with trash everywhere,

and off to the side was a small desk with an old computer sitting on it. Since that wasn't the bedroom, she assumed that maybe Abigail's crib was in the master bedroom. She went over to the other room and opened the door, only to find nothing but a mattress and a box spring on the floor and a single dresser. She looked in that room. There was no crib. There was no indication of a small child, just the bed and the dresser. Much like the living room, and in complete contrast to the other room, it was completely clean.

It was at this point that a few things became a little more clear. One, this guy was a bit off his rocker, putting it lightly. Two, there was no daughter. Abigail did not exist, and she did not exist. she was babysitting a non-existent child. And three, this guy's insistence that she take a shower, it was all the more creepy by the fact that the first two things were true. She closed the door, and she went back downstairs.

Then she grabbed their phone and called her house. She explained to her dad that there was no baby there and told him about how weird the guy was being. My grandpa told her that he would drive over and park on the street and waited for the guy to get back to make sure that nothing else happened. About four or five hours later, the guy came back and his creepy vibes escalated. The first thing that he asked her was if she had taken the shower. She told him that she hadn't, and said that he seemed legitimately upset about the fact,

to the point where he actually asked her why she hadn't. She said that she just didn't need to, and moved on to telling him that Abigail was quiet all night, and that she needed to get going now that he was home. When she went to leave, she said that he stepped to the door and told her that she didn't need to rush out, and that the night was still young. She said he pretty much turned the skeeve up to 11 at this point, and was looking her up and down and telling her that she could make herself comfortable if she wanted to. She looked at him and told him directly that she had already called her dad and that he was just sitting outside, waiting for her to come out, and that he would likely

be coming up to the door if she didn't go. For a moment, he seemed to be sizing her up and trying to determine if she was lying, but eventually relented, saying something like, well, we wouldn't want to keep him waiting. He opened the door, my aunt walked out, and he quickly shut the door behind her. She took off over to my grandpa's car and got in quickly before she realized that in everything that had just happened, he didn't even pay her for her time. Honestly, the money didn't matter to her. She just wanted to get home. My aunt said that she explained everything to my grandfather and, while he believed that this guy was a creep,

and he said he hadn't technically done anything illegal or wrong. so there wasn't much that could be done. Even so, my aunt didn't babysit for anyone that wasn't an immediate neighbor or family member after that, and she holds on to the thought that, had my grandfather not already been parked outside and waiting, things would have gone much, much worse. This may not be a standard babysitting horror story, but it's still worth sharing.

And there are actually a few. few things that I want to share. I may send more over to you later if you want, but these are some of the worst. I've been working as a lead at a daycare for around 13 years now,

and it's almost entertaining how unfiltered kids are when you get them talking, and how much they imitate those that they're around frequently. What kind of sucks about this is that when a kid says something that's if,

fee or questionable, we have to contact CPS by law and report what happened. One instance of this happening actually happened pretty recently with a little boy that we'll call Jim. One day, during the morning, while the kids were playing, I was making coffee and Jim walked up to me. I was putting my creamer and sugar in the mug, and Jim asked me if I liked to smell. smell the sugar. I was a bit confused at first. Why would I smell sugar? I told him I wasn't sure what he was talking about.

And then he tells me that, sometimes, while he's at his uncle's house, his uncle likes to smell the sugar. I asked what he meant, and he tells me that his uncle likes to smell the sugar off of the table with a straw. Come to find out, while his uncle was watching him, he decided it would be okay to do cocaine in front of him and just tell him it's sugar. Another one that's worth talking about happened with a little girl in my group named Sasha. Sasha was a sweetheart. She was incredibly quiet and soft-spoken, but she was also one of the nicest little girls that I'd ever met. One day, her dad brought her in and she had a bruise on her face.

Obviously, my mind went to a dark place, and I told her dad that I had to legally ask what had happened. He tells me that he didn't know. She had the bruise when he had gotten home from work the night before, and she wouldn't tell him no matter how much he asked. He seemed sincere and said that he thinks that she fell or something when she had been. she was doing something she wasn't supposed to, and maybe she didn't want to get in trouble. I accepted his response, and we went on with the day. Around lunch, she said she wanted to tell me something and asked if I could keep a secret. I told her that I could, of course, and asked what was wrong.

She told me that she was sorry that she had lied to her dad about her bruise, but she didn't want him mad because his girlfriend had given it to her. Apparently, her dad's girlfriend was verbally abusive and had now become physically abusive to this little girl, and the dad was none the wiser. I, of course, told him, and I filled out my report to the protective services. I felt bad for the dad, but I had no choice in the matter. The last one is probably the saddest one for me, and it happened when I was still fairly new to working at a daycare. There was a little boy that attended our daycare named Adam. Adam was incredibly shy, but absolutely loved being in the daycare because of how much he got to socialize.

I know that sounds like opposites, but it was more like he was shy until he got to know you. Adam's father was a police officer for the city and was a fairly well-respected guy. Adam was very clearly proud of how much of a hero, his dad was, and he would talk about it a lot. Then, one day, while I was sitting at one of the tables, I heard Adams say something about how people are coming to get him. I asked him what he meant, and he said that, Daddy says that some of the bad people he arrested are going to come get us.

I was just kind of like, okay, and I said I wanted to hear more, And then he goes on to say that his dad had put duct tape over his windows and put a camera in his bedroom to watch him and make sure the bad guys didn't break in. I really didn't know what to do with this, and I probably shouldn't have, but I actually contacted his father about the situation.

I was asking him if everything was all right at home because Adam was saying things that didn't really make sense. His dad laughed and just said that Adam had a wild imagination. I agreed, said it was okay, and hung up. Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened after that, because Adam never came back to the daycare. His father had resigned, and apparently they moved away within the next week. I don't know if this was for protection, or if his dad was legitimately paranoid.

So, yeah, kids can say some crazy things, and I have more that I might send your way, but I just wanted to use this as an opportunity to say that kids do not have filters. If you tell your kids something, or if you do something in front of your kids, they will 100% repeat it, or they will happily go on telling someone else all about it. When I was in high school, I used to watch my two baby nephews, Ben and Sammy, a few times a week over at my brother Terrence's house. My brother was a pretty chill guy, and I loved spending time with my little nephews, so really it wasn't that big of a deal to me to lose a few nights every week. They were still pretty young, and were still in that age range where they could be easily entertained by SpongeBob and Chicken Nugget. while I messed around with my phone or my DS.

It was really just like I had a couple younger brothers that needed my attention every now and then, and I loved it. My brother had always been a good kid, but as he got a bit older, he ended up getting in with the wrong crowd, and fell in love with a woman that was a terrible influence on him, Kaylee. Kaylee was a user, and I mean of both people and some. substance. Unfortunately, Terrence wanted to see the best in her and decided that she was worth his time. They ended up getting together, but not married, and had two kids together, Ben and Sammy.

At some point after Sammy's first birthday, Kaylee got picked up for attempting to shoplift from a big box store, and then got her basic misdemeanor charge, escalated to a pretty hefty. felony when the police found a significant amount of methamphetamine in her purse. Like, enough for her to be charged with intent to distribute. All of this is important, because it's what left my brother in charge of two young boys as a single father, and is why I had to watch them several times a week while he worked his second job. Now, this ritual of him working nights and me watching them had been going on for around six

six months at this point, and without issue. And, with Kaylee in prison for years, I thought it would just keep going and being a smooth situation. I thought wrong. It was a pretty normal Tuesday night at Terrence's house. I was there, watching the boys, and they were watching some cartoons while I was making dinner. When I heard a knock on the front door, I wasn't expecting anyone, so... I thought maybe it was an Amazon package or something, just knocking to let us know that it was delivered.

I kept making dinner and I ignored it for a moment, and then I heard the doorbell ring. At this point, Ben walks in the room to tell me that Aunt Becca was at the door. Rebecca, or Aunt Becca, was Kaylee's sister, and she was just as bad as, if not worse, than Kaylee. On top of that, Terence had a no-contact order against her. She wasn't supposed to be there, and she wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the kids. I told Ben to take Sammy up into his room and to stay there, and that I would be up in a moment. Then I sent a quick message to Terrence that basically said, Rebecca is at the door, telling her to leave.

Then I unlock the door, but keep the chain connected, and open the door slightly, asking if I can help her. She stares at me for a second, then huffs and lets out a snide chuckle. I'm here to see my nephews. Where's Terrence? I tell her that Terence isn't there, and that she would need to come back another time

to talk to him about the situation. She tells me that I need to let her in and see her nephews right then and there. At this point, Terence is calling me, so I put the phone on speaker and tell him that I was just, just informing Rebecca that she needed to leave. She starts yelling at me and then at the phone,

saying that she has a right to see her family and that he can't keep them from her. He calmly but directly says, Rebecca, you need to leave. If you're not gone in three minutes, my brother will be calling the police and telling them that you're currently violating a restraining order. You aren't supposed to be anywhere near my sons,

and you aren't supposed to be on my property. Phil, if she's not gone in three minutes, call the cops. I agreed. He said to call him back and let him know what was going on and that he would be home soon. Then he hung up. At this point, Rebecca is screaming at me about how I'm ruining her life and calling me every single derogatory and racist name

that she can pull out of her mouth. I once again firmly tell her to leave and go to shut the door. She tries to push her hand in the gap to stop it from closing, but I wasn't having it. I kept pushing the door against her fingers. If she was going to try to force her way in, then I was going to use force to keep her out. After a few seconds of what I'm assuming was tremendous pain, she pulls her fingers back and I slammed the door, locking the deadbolt and the knob. She then starts yelling about how she's going to kill me and how I'm going to regret everything. I give her the full three minutes, and by the end of it, she's in her car and she is driving off.

So I text Terrence to let him know that she's gone, but that she was being incredibly violent with her words. He tells me again that if I see her or a car that looks like hers drive by at all, that I needed to call the cops immediately and tell them what happened. I agree, and we move on with the rest of the night. I give the boys their food, they're happy and full, and Ben asks if they can go play in their room. I tell them it was fine, and honestly, my mind was on the possibility of Rebecca coming back, so it was best that they were in their room just in case. After about an hour of me sitting and watching SpongeBob by myself,

and listening to the boys play upstairs, I get up to go and check on them, and no sooner than I stood up, I hear what sounds like a loud smack on the front door. Then, the sound of glass breaking. I duck and I freak out. I grab my phone and run upstairs into my nephew's room. I shut the door and I call 911 immediately. Honestly, a good portion of this is kind of a blur. I don't recall the phone call really.

I think a lot of what I said to them was pure instinct and, A lot of my action was just pure adrenaline. I thought that this crazy woman was seriously trying to break into the house to get to us, and I honestly thought that there was a high possibility I was going to be killed, and my nephew's kidnapped. After standing in the room with my back against the door for several moments and telling the 911 operator about the situation, she said the police would be there within a few minutes and to stay in the room.

What I hated the most about this was that my nephews were just looking at me. Sammy was too young to process what was going on beyond me being in the room to play with them, and Ben was just old enough to know that I was scared of something, but not know what. So I'm sitting there on the floor and just waiting, telling the boys to go back to playing.

They do, and I'm holding back tears just waiting for what felt like a little. an eternity for the police to arrive. In reality, it was nine minutes, but it felt like an hour. When I heard the police announce themselves, I told the boys to stay in the room and that I would be right back. I went out there, and there were two officers standing at the door with their guns drawn, and several more cars in front of the house with their spotlights shining around the area.

I let the officers in. They asked me if I was okay, and if anyone else was in that. house. I tell them that I was watching my nephews, and that the person that did this was likely their aunt. I explained the night to them, and they asked me that I contact Terrence and see if he could come home. Long story short, and to skip over the conversation with the police, Rebecca had come back and thrown a brick through the garage window, and through the bay window in the living room. Even creepier, she had thrown a dead squirrel at the front door, and that's what the initial thump was before the bricks came through the windows. This woman had lost her mind,

and was legitimately trying to show how crazy she was, and while I was scared enough to pretty much piss my pants, I was horrified at the thought that she would have been willing to throw a brick through the living room window, where one of her nephews seriously could have been sitting. She could have killed one of them easily, if they had been in the room. thankfully it was just me and they were upstairs playing the police took the statement and they put out a call for her

and they asked the neighbors if they'd seen anything and all that my brother bought security cameras for the windows after that night just in case but from what I recall she was picked up by the cops and won't be getting out anytime soon so Rebecca

the absolutely insane woman that happens to be my nephew's aunt, I hope you and I never meet again. This all happened back when I was 15 years old and was a bit of a socially awkward teen. I didn't have many friends, and I didn't really socialize a whole lot beyond the basic social media stuff,

so I would sometimes watch my cousins for a few bucks every now and then. That said, and because I had some experience watching kids, my dad's friend, Alex, asked him if I would be able to help out during the summer break. Alex was in his mid-30s and was now a single father to a six-year-old son named Max. His wife, Sherry, had passed away due to some sort of heart complication, something that wasn't diagnosed and took her very suddenly. Because of this, Alex was basically killing himself working two jobs, to keep food on the table and to keep the lights on.

When this all happened, summer break had just started. So Alex was in a situation where he needed someone to watch Max all day, but obviously didn't have the money to pay for any sort of child care for 12 plus hours a day, five to six days a week. This is where I came into the picture. My dad had mentioned to me that if I took up watching Max over the summer, he would pay me $50 a week. He knew that Alex couldn't afford it,

but we were well off enough that he could cover it for him. I was 15. Like I said, so $50 a week, $200 a month for the summer? You could bet that I was going to take that deal. Plus, I always thought Max was adorable, and I knew he was a good kid, so really? It was win-win. The first day that I was watching Max, I got there early and Alex hadn't yet left for work.

He was telling me all the basic rules, and that there were chicken nuggets for his lunch in the freezer, and basically all the things that you would expect from a parent. Then, he went into how much he appreciated me doing this for free, and that he was sorry that he was taking my summer from me. I explained to him that I really didn't have any plans and I loved Max, so it was really not a big deal to me. He then went into how his sister was watching him after school, but she basically told him that she wasn't willing to watch him for the entire day if he wasn't going to pay her. To me, that was a bit shocking. It was surprising to me that a family member wasn't willing to help out, especially,

with Alex's current situation. I reassured him that I was happy to help, and that I was sorry that he was going through all that he was. He left for work, and I sat on the couch and turned on the TV. Max was still asleep. He wasn't likely to wake up for a few hours, honestly. Watching Max for the first few days was pretty normal. My dad would drop me off in the morning.

I would doze off on the couch, watching TV, until Max woke up, and then I would make him breakfast. We'd watch some movies, play some games, and just have a good time until his dad got home. Honestly, I was really happy with it overall, and I thought it was going to just be a great summer. Then, at some point in the second week, I think, it was early in the morning, and I was still asleep on the couch, and I heard a crash come from the kitchen. I quickly sat up and saw Max in the kitchen, looking like he was absolutely petrified when he saw that I was awake.

He just stared at me with a bright red face. I saw him in his pajamas, cereal and milk on the floor and a bowl sitting upside down next to him. It was pretty clear what happened. But for some reason, Max screamed as loud as he could and ran through the hallway, into his room and then slammed the door while screeching in tears. He kept yelling that he was really sorry over and over and over again while shrieking in tears. I was legitimately confused.

I had no idea what was going on. He had spilled his cereal, and while he wasn't supposed to be getting his own breakfast like that for this very reason, I wasn't upset or anything, but he was screaming. like crazy. I got up and went back to his room and knocked in the door, asking him what was wrong. He was refusing to answer me, and he just kept yelling that he was sorry. I went in, and I knelt down to talk to him. I told him it was okay, and that we just needed to clean up the mess. I told him that it wasn't a big deal and that he didn't need to freak out. At first, he didn't seem like he trusted me, but he eventually took a deep breath, said okay, and we went out and cleaned up the mess.

We went through the rest of the day like normal. I didn't push it with him and thought maybe he was just in a weird mood. Then, about a week later, we were having fun and he wanted to paint. I thought that sounded like a good time, so I got his kid paints and paper set up in the kitchen. We were just, again, having fun, making me. random paintings when he accidentally spilled the water he was cleaning the brush with on the floor. Once again, his face turned red, and he went absolutely crazy with his crying and screaming, and then he tried to run to his room. It was literally the same situation as a few days prior,

but this time I was able to get a hold of him and stop him. The look in his eyes was legitimate horror as he was belting out his apologies at the top of his lungs with tears pouring out of his eyes I told him to calm down and that it wasn't a big deal and we would just go ahead and get it cleaned

up and finish our paintings once again he looked like he didn't trust me and like I was going to do something more than just clean up and move on I told him to breathe that he needed to calm down because everything was okay After a few moments, he nodded, took a deep breath, and told me that it was okay.

At this point, I felt like I needed to get to the bottom of this. Part of me was worried that maybe it was Alex doing something to make him act like this, but honestly, he seemed like such a good guy that I couldn't see him doing it. I sat him down on the couch, I knelt in front of him, and then I asked why he got so scared when he saw him. spilled the water. He told me it was because he had made a mess. I told him that it wasn't a big deal when he made a mess. We would just have to clean it up and be more careful. Then I asked why he thought it was such a big deal. At first, he didn't seem to want to tell me, but eventually

he started talking about it. He said that when he made a mess at Aunt Marie's house, he got punished. In my eyes, punishing a kid would be sending them to their room or taking away something for a period of time, but obviously something much worse was going on over at the aunt's house. I was a bit nervous, but I eventually asked him what his aunt would do when he got into trouble. What he told me, made me sick. Apparently, when he got in trouble over at his aunt's house, she was verbally abusive. She yelled at him and, she yelled at him. and he didn't like the yelling. When it got worse,

he told me that when he did something bad, after yelling at him, she would seriously shut him in the dryer. She would put him in the dryer and shut the door, holding it shut until he stopped crying. He said that when he made a mess while I was watching him, he thought I was going to put him in the dryer and shut him in, which is why he ran to his room,

and was telling me how sorry he was. I was shocked. I told him I would never do that, in that he didn't have to worry about that ever happening with me, to which he said that he liked me more than his aunt, and gave me a hug. I honestly wanted to cry when this happened, but I just told him it was okay, and we went back to painting.

When Alex got home, I asked him if I could talk to him. I explained what Max had told me about his aunt, and Alex was just as appalled as I was. He told me that he had no idea this was happening. He just thought Max didn't like it over there because his cousins were kind of brats. There was not much more to this story, honestly. I watched Max the whole summer, and then he came over to our house after school when we went back. Alex was able to get his life together, and he got remarried, and they're a happy family now.

Max is 11 now. And he's a smart kid, and I don't think he really remembers what happened back then. From what I know, Alex confronted his sister about the situation, and she claimed that it never happened. But I'm pretty confident that Alex believed his son. I certainly did. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn't spoken to Marie since he talked to her about it, and I don't blame him. I just hope that whatever Marie did doesn't. scar Max, and that he grows up to be a normal and happy person.

My camping story comes from a time when I was actually still a child, probably around 12 years old, the absolute oldest. Back when I was young, my dad wanted me to get into hunting. He was a hunter, his dad was a hunter, and so on. Me, I never really had the drive to kill an animal, even for food. while I understand that he was trying to instill a sense of survivalism in me and trying to teach me what I would have to do if society collapsed. I'm now 47, and society has yet to collapse.

At this point, if it did, I'd probably just accept it and live off cans of spam for a few months before I succumb to the elements. Completely irrelevant to the story, my apologies. Anyways, the story took place on a hunting trip that my dad had set up for myself and him. During the summer break of that year, he had planned to take me out to a hunting ground that he used to hunt on, and that his friend owned. The plan was that we would sit up there and find the hunting tower and just wait for the deer to come along to shoot them. Pretty standard hunting trip, really. We got all of our gear together, and we headed out early in the morning to get to the spot where he and I would be setting up the tents.

I packed more than I needed, mostly because I was the kind of kid that would throw a fit about having to wear the same pants for two days in a row, and we were supposed to be out for the whole weekend. After lugging everything into the truck, double-checking to make sure we had our tents and camping equipment, I got in the car and, to be completely honest with you, fell asleep as soon as the tires hit the asphalt. I know he drove for an hour or two, and then I woke up to the feeling of the truck going off the road and onto the gravel dirt paths. He pulled up to the spot where we were supposed to be at, and he asked if I was excited. I told him I was, despite the fact that I was barely cognizant. We grabbed our tents and all of our gear and whatnot, and then I asked him where we were supposed to set up the tents.

Much to my dismay, and he tells me that we would have to hike about ten minutes to get close to the lookout tower. I remember the look on my face when I stared, daggers at him, and he laughed his ass off. Then we started our trek into the woods. After about ten minutes or so, he pointed next to where the tablet. was and told me that that was where we would be in the next morning when we actually started hunting. Then he told me to set up the tents, plural. I asked what he was going to be doing, and he said that he was going to scout the area and see what was around. Then he dropped his tent and told me he'd be back in a little bit.

At first I was pissed, that he was making me do all the work, but I went to it. I set up his tent first to be nice, and then I started struggling with mine. After having a difficult time with it and saying words that my dad would have swatted me for, I finally got them both set up, and we got our gear in the respective tents. After that, I actually got into mine and went back to sleep. I wasn't asleep that long, probably 15 minutes or so, and I was woken up by my dad shouting my name close. spy. I quietly

responded saying, Yeah, Dad, I'm in my tent. And then put my head back down. Then I was shaken awake by my dad opening my tent and telling me that I needed to get up right now. I asked what was going on, thinking at first he was just messing with me.

But the look on his face told me very quickly that he wasn't joking. I got up, I exited my tent, and he told me that we needed to leave immediately. I told him that we had just gotten there and asked why we needed to go. He told me to come with him to the truck so we could leave. I asked about our camping gear, and he basically told me to shut up and do what he told me.

Being 12, I wasn't going to argue with him any more than I had. So at this point, my dad had dragged me away from the campground, left all of our gear there and was in a hurry. So the only thing that I could think to do was, again, ask what was wrong. He didn't respond at first, but when I asked a second time, he once again told me to stop asking questions and kept driving. Obviously, I was annoyed, but I just sat there and stared out the window and pouted. I got even more confused when he put.

pulled in to the police station and told me to stay in the car. I was going to ask why, but he was quick to get out and run up to the station before I could. I just continued to sit there and stare at nothing in particular. Then, after about ten minutes, he ran back out and we got back on the road. But this time, a cop cruiser was following us. Before I could ask anything, he literally told me to just... keep my mouth shut and not ask any more questions at all. He pulled back up to the spot where our gear was and told me to stay put.

Then he and the officer started off into the forest. Again, I was 12, and it was the late 80s. I was not about to just sit there and do nothing bored out of my mind. Honestly, though, I kind of wish I had. I waited for a few minutes, and then followed behind my dad and the officer, just far enough that I knew where they were, but distance enough that they probably wouldn't have noticed me. I followed them for a bit, and then they stopped, and my dad and the officer were standing

by a broken fence line. Basically, it looked like someone had knocked down the post to a barbed-wired fence, and it hadn't been replaced yet. I just stood there, and I heard my dad explaining things to the officer. He told them that we were there to hunt over the weekend, that he knew the owner of the land, and that he was just walking the perimeter to check things out. Then, he said that he noticed the damaged fence and went over to check it out, and said, I came over to check the damage so I could let him know about it,

and that's when I saw her. I may have been young, but I was able to put two and two together. Him freaking out, wanting to leave, getting the police, and it's exactly what you're thinking. Apparently, when he went ahead and checked out the area, he saw a woman's body lying in the brush. I later found out that it was actually a young woman, around 16, that had gone missing only a couple days prior,

and the cops had determined that her body was likely to have been dumped by whomever had taken her life. So, this was literally my one, and only hunting slash camping trip, and the only time that I ever did go camping. And I can technically say that I did go camping, because I slept in the tent for a little while, and that means it was camping. Jokes aside, this is the only time my dad took me out on one of these trips. And I don't think he even got together with his buddies to hunt after this.

Apparently, there's something about finding a dead body in the woods. that ruins camping for you, no matter how long you've been doing it. I'm 19, and I work for a church-based summer camp in the Midwest, as assistant head counselor. Basically, second in command. For privacy reasons, I won't give the name away. And even if I did, you probably wouldn't have heard of it. It's a fairly small community of churches that does the summer camp. Unlike other church camps, we don't really focus on religion during the camp.

It's more of an actual camping experience. Sure, there's a day or two where we do cover a number of parts of the Bible, but for six of the eight days, it's pretty much just enjoying nature, hiking, birdwatching, fishing, etc. The land that we set up on actually belongs to one of the pastors of the church. It's got a lot of woods, a small pond, and on one side is backed against a small cornfield. The whole thing is about 20 to 30 minutes away from society. My point in this is, despite the fact that it is an area for enjoying nature, if there were an emergency,

we wouldn't have to wait long for an ambulance or anything like that. In fact, you actually get a little bit of cell reception out in parts of the campground. For the most part, we managed to keep the kids in line, but sometimes they wander into the field or we find them taking impromptu hikes in the woods. Most the time, this is fine, but the story is about the one time that it really wasn't fine, and the kids that were there were probably scarred for life. We were about halfway through the eight-day trip. We had already gone through one of the two bioccurring. Bible study days, and right about then is when the kids start to get restless and want to wander off on their own. On this day, we had two or three boys do just that.

They wanted to go out and explore the cornfields on their own. I was dealing with the rest of the group and making sure everyone knew what activities they were supposed to be doing for the day, and when it came time for roll call, I realized that they weren't there. Not wanting to sound the alarm right away, I asked one of the other counselors to go check the bunks, and then asked my group if they had seen them. After a bit of interrogation, I finally got one of the kids to tell me that they had gone out into the field. Whenever this happens, we have to do a basic lockdown, get all the kids back in the buildings and guard the doors just in case. I called the other counselors in the Wauki

and advised them that I was about to go look in the cornfield for the missing boys. They came out and rounded up the kids, and I started towards the field. As I get there, I finally see the group of boys running back towards the camp. All of them looking absolutely terrified. I'm thinking that they're all panicking because they realize they're probably about to get into trouble. So, I take a deep breath and I calm myself. we're not supposed to reprimand the campers. We're supposed to talk to them as if we're negotiating or talking to an adult.

I raise my hand to get them to stop as they exit, and they beeline straight towards me. One of them looks like he's been crying, and two of them are screaming incoherent gibberish at me. I calmly tell them that we needed to talk, and that they should have told us that they were going out. When one of them finally squeezes out a word that I can understand, dead body I immediately drop my camp counselor act and ask what the hell happened one of the two boys was going off

finally takes a breath and he tells me we were out in the field and we saw a trailer so we decided to go see if it was locked when we got closer we noticed that it smelled bad we opened the door and there was a dead body

obviously I was a bit freaked out but I was also skeptical of their claim. I dropped the walkie, and I told the others that I had found the boys, but to keep everything locked down for the moment. Then I told the boys to take me to the trailer. They were hesitant at first, but I told them that I needed to make sure they weren't lying, and then we would need to report it to the police. They led me through the cornfields and in for a few minutes. And sure enough, as they had mentioned, there was an old silver camper in the field. It was a small camper trailer, like the kind that one person could comfortably sleep in, too, if you

didn't want any privacy. Seeing this kind of made me nervous. If they were telling the truth about the trailer, then I was worried that they were telling the truth about what was in it. I held my breath, I walked over to the door and I grabbed the handle, and I pulled the door open. The smell that hit me was intense, and I immediately slammed it back shut, pulling away and trying not to gag. I grabbed the radio again and told the others to call the police immediately. One of the counselors tried to prod me for more information, but I just repeated that they needed to call the cops. I took the boys back to the head counselor's office, and I asked them to sit outside, while I explained what had happened, and all of us waited for the officers to arrive.

When they got there, we told them what had happened, and I took them out to the trailer. They verified and they called in the corner and did everything they needed to do. I went back to my boss's office and just sat there with the boys. They were all petrified of this situation. They were probably thinking that they were in trouble and the cops were going to think they killed this guy, I explained to them that they were fine and they did a good thing since they told us about it, and the police would be able to figure out what happened, and that they weren't in any trouble.

I don't think it helped in any way. There's not much more to the story after this. They took the body, and they notified the owner of the property. When all was said and done, it was found that the man in the trailer was actually a member of the church, and he'd been missing for about two weeks. Come to find out, he had actually committed suicide in the trailer. They found a bottle of hard pain pills

and a large empty bottle of Jack Daniels. How he knew about the camper is beyond me, and the owner of the land had no idea either. He said that it was just an old trailer that he left out in the field for storing tools. Somehow, he knew. knew about the trailer and decided that it was a good place to follow through with his decisions. Honestly, I'm never going to forget that smell, and thinking about it still makes me want to gag.

But I really feel bad for those boys. I'm going to bet that they'll never forget this whole event, and they're going to need therapy to get past this. This happened several years ago, when a few high school buddies of mine and I decided that we wanted to get together and do our own kind of a ten-year reunion celebration. We were never the cool kids, so we kind of just thought that it would be a waste of time to even bother with the real reunion,

and decided that a camping trip would better fit our interests. We had all kind of dispersed around the Midwest, so it was difficult to get all of the logistics sorted out, but my buddy Ray had family that lived out west in pretty much the middle of nowhere, but in a really nice nature-laden part of the state. What was even better, they owned some remote land, and they were okay with us setting up our camp on their property so long as we didn't cause any damage to the natural formations.

So it was an absolute win on our part. and we set up the dates and times and decided that we would all go out the first weekend in May and spend some of the week out in a really nice area, just enjoying the weather and the surrounding nature. I was honestly super excited to go on this trip, as I hadn't seen a couple of the guys since we graduated, though we'd kept in touch over things like Facebook. The logistics went like this,

I was going to head out that way by car with my pal Joe. Ray and Mark were going to drive out together, and Brent was going to drive out with Dave. Basically, it was going to be a road trip with two of us per car, heading from different locations. And we had a hotel that we would be staying in for that first night. We were all going to meet up there, and then head out to the campgrounds,

as that would just make it easier for everyone to go at the same time. Like I said, I was pretty psyched, as this was probably the most exciting thing that I had done in a long time, and I loved road trips. The drive there goes about as expected, fairly uneventful,

with it pretty much just being a drive across part to the Midwest, though the mountainous region was obviously gorgeous. I was the one driving for the first, first half and Joe for the second. And we got there in pretty good time considering how far it was. We were the second group to make it to the hotel, and the other guys, Ray and Mark, pulled in a few hours later. We all spent the night at the local bar catching up, playing pool, and just having a great night. After spending a few hours out and enjoying ourselves, we opted to go ahead and call

in night and head back to our hotel rooms. When the morning rolled around, we had our fancy hotel breakfast of just add water eggs and microwaved bacon, then all headed back out onto the road. We followed Ray's car for about 45 minutes or so, and we ended up in an area that pretty much seemed like the middle of nowhere. He parked, and we all got out. Joe and I kind of gave him a look like, Are you sure we're supposed to be here?

But he reassured us that he knew the area from when he spent the summer with his aunt as a kid. In the end, all we could do was trust him. We parked the cars and got all of our camping gear out, walked a couple hundred yards away until we had all decided that the spot was perfect, and started setting up camp. After a bit of time, we all got our tents

set up, and we decided to set them up with the six-tenths in a semicircle facing towards where we had parked our cars. And once night started rolling in, we set up our small pit and lit a fire. Then we all sat around it and started reminiscing about our high school years. It was probably one of the best nights I've had in a very long time, just sitting there with my old pals from high school, talking about the days when we were young and, than catching up on random things in our lives. What made it all better was that the property owned by Ray's aunt

was legitimately in the middle of nowhere. There were only dirt roads. There were no streetlights and there was no cell reception. It was probably around 10 or so when Brent pointed out that there was a car driving down one of the dirt roads. We all kind of sat there and watched it pass. It was pretty far away from us. but it was the only car that we'd seen all night.

Ray laughed, and he said it was probably just one of the neighbors cutting through the backroads for whatever reason. He mentioned that the dirt roads over this way were pretty much used only by people that knew his aunt and by people that were running illegal goods, mostly because the cops never came this way. Dave asked about what kind of illegal goods, as if he was going to purchase some,

and as nonchalantly as he could be. Ray just says, oh, you know, drugs for the cartel. Obviously, we were all a bit shaken up by this. He didn't tell us that we were going to be sleeping on a cartel trail. He tells us that it's fine and that we didn't have to worry. His reasoning was pretty much that if they were running drugs across this area,

they weren't going to pay us any mind, because then it would look more suspicious. They would just pass on by and keep going, never giving us a second glance. All I could do at this point was trust him. After a couple more hours of chatting and drinking the beer that we had brought, we all decided that it would be a good idea to call it a night. We all got in our tents. And for some reason, I was struggling to fall asleep.

I was lying there for about an hour and a half, tossing and turning, and just generally feeling uncomfortable, when I noticed that there was a light shining in the direction of our tents. I sat up, and I watched it as it got brighter and closer for a few moments. Then, it just stopped moving. Within a few seconds, the silence of the small forest was interrupted, with the sound of a gunshot, and then an old man yelling for all of us to get out of our tents.

Inside, I was freaking out. I was obviously thinking something about the cartel coming to rob us or murder us for being on their turf. In my defense, I was tired and a bit buzzed. He started shouting again that if we didn't get out of our tents, then he would come in and get us out, and that he had plenty of zip cuffs to make that happen, which was more than enough for me to get my ass up and open the door to my tent. I think the other guys were just as freaked out, because everyone else exited their tent around the same time, except for Ray. We all got out, and in front of us was an old man holding a handgun in his right hand and a shotgun strapped to his back.

It was pretty clear that he was in control of this situation, and he was going to be ready to take on any threats. I remember him saying something along the lines of, I saw you boys out here a few hours ago. I gave you plenty of time to leave. Now we're going to have to do this the hard way. Before he unclipped his collection of zip cuffs, all of us were in a mild panic. But apparently I was the only one that thought that we should say something.

Wait, sir, we know who owns this land. We're not here to cause any trouble or anything. If we need to leave, we can find a new place to set up camp, or go back to the hotel or something. He paused for a moment and looked over at me. Then he asked me how we knew the owner. I tried to tell him that she was a family member of one of us, but he was still in the tent. At first he looked like he didn't believe me, but after I pointed to the only closed

tent and said he was in there, he motioned for me to open the tent and said, don't do anything stupid. You move wrong at all, and they'll be burying your ass out here. This statement made me all but piss my pants. But I moved over to the tent with my hands up, and then slowly unzipped it. I tried to wake Ray up by saying,

Ray, get up. There's a crazy dude with a gun out here. Of course, he had more to drink than I did, and he was less than responsive. I whispered shouted it again, and after a few seconds he finally opened his eyes. I told him that he needed to get outside immediately because we were all about to die. He slowly and grogly sits up and then stands to get out of the tent. After a few seconds of taking in the scene, he half-drunkenly says,

Oh, hey, Mr. Carls, what are you doing out here? The look on the old man's face changed completely. He went from murderous intent to looking like he just saw his own grandson for the first time. He quickly holstered his gun and stepped forward to give Ray a hug. After the tensions were a bit more settled and we were done having our panic attacks, we learned who this man was. Ray told us that Mr. Carls was his aunt's next-door neighbor and had been for a long time, and as long as they'd lived there, apparently,

and the last time they'd seen each other, Ray was around 12 years old. When we asked why he was creeping around Ray's aunt's property, ready to put a hole in anyone he saw, he responded by telling us that, apparently, Ray's aunt was out of town, and she had asked Mr. Carls to watch the property for trespassers, a job that the old man took very seriously.

Also, his aunt had apparently forgotten to mention to the old man that we would be coming up for our camping trip. So when he saw our camp, he thought we were going to be there for a little bit and leave, which was a common thing for drifters. When he saw that we were still there a few hours later, he apparently strapped up and decided that he was going to take us all in to the sheriff's department himself. Hence, the zip cuffs. In the end, we stayed the full week and enjoyed the time together. Mr. Carls even came out to have a beer with us a couple times and brought us some food that his wife had made. Not exactly the norm for camping cuisine, but it was quite nice.

I will say that, as much as I really did enjoy this trip and hanging out with some old friends, having a gun shot right outside my tent and then having the gun pointed at my face, because this old man thought we were trespassers really made it to where I don't think I want to go camping again. That was today's episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast. Thank you so very much for listening, and I really hope you enjoyed these scary stories. If you want to support the channel further,

please do consider checking out my YouTube channel. Just search As the Raven Dreams on YouTube and subscribing. You can also join the channel or go to my Patreon, for early access to all of my content, all of it's appreciated and never expected. But if it happens, thank you. All that said, friends, I will see you on the next episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast.

But of course, until then, sleep well.