As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 047 - Creepy Fall/Autumn & Stalker Stories - 10 True Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

Hello and Welcome to the ##th episode of The ATRD Podcast! Today we have some intriguing and terrifying stories submitted by everyday people. In Today's Episode we will have stories about the horrors that take place in the autumnal season, as well as some creepy stalker and Stranger stories! ➤ 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 the following Authors... Jenna, Blaine, Cheryl M., Trash_Panda_2365, LT, AnandaPriestessLove, Mikey, I_shat69, And authors that requested anonymity.  ➤ 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

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If you have a story you would like to hear featured on this podcast, please go to as the ravendreams.com and click the button to submit your story. Also, if the platform you're listening on, has the option to rate this podcast, please consider doing so. And thank you. I live in one of the northern states, where temperatures start dropping fast in the fall. Because of this, and since we had a fireplace, we typically had it on instead of the heat. As an adult now, I've learned how much it can really save on heating bills. My parents would usually buy logs and bulk, but we did have a lot of acreage, so just to pad the supply, my dad would cut down some trees or branches around the

property. Of course, being around 14 or 15 at the time, I would have to help my dad collect it and bring it back. I never had a problem with it, though. I enjoyed the fall and winter as well, as the time that I got to spend alone with my dad. We usually just pushed a wheelbarrow around or a small trailer attached to an ATV to lug it all back to the house, depending on the weather. Another normal occurrence when we were out there was the wildlife. We would see birds, rabbits, squirrels, and even deers. We pretty much coexisted with them all.

It may come as a surprise to some, but my family was not a bunch of hunters. They didn't like the idea of killing them, and, in fact, my dad hated the hunting season, because we could hear the gun shots all over. He didn't even own a gun. They were both weirdo, hippie, country folk, but I can appreciate that. Even as an adult hunting does not interest me. Anyways, so when we're out, sometimes, we would name off the birds that we saw, or other animals, and based on what they were doing or how they looked, we would make.

stories about them. We would even give them a name, a backstory, and sometimes even where they were heading. But when we did come across coyotes, fox, and even one terrifying time, a mountain lion, we stayed back and avoided them as much as possible. Besides, we were the ones that were more out of place than them. Sorry for rambling, just wanted to share a bit of backstory of my family, and to possibly explain why we reacted. the way that we did to the following events.

So, one fall day, I had to help my dad cut down a tree that was in way of some of the fencing he was putting up. We had to stop to go get a part for the wheelbarrow because one of the legs had broken or something in the middle of me bringing it over. As one simple task normally does, it ended up taking us all day to finish it. I don't remember exactly what all happened, but it's a little bit. It was probably the normal, multiple trips and errands to run, and then by the time we got home and fixed the damn thing,

my mother had dinner started and said that I needed to do my homework before anything else. So we decided to wait until after I finished and we had dinner before we went back out there. I think we were both feeling pretty worn out, and since it was getting late, my dad suggested that we just take the ATV instead to make the trip, easier. So we got back to the tree and started loading up the trailer with the smaller stuff. While doing so, I started feeling like I was being watched.

As mentioned, it was normal to see animals and have some of them just stare, but this feeling was kind of putting me on edge. I started looking around everywhere when I spotted something between the trees, on the other side of the house. At first, it had the shape of a dog, so I thought it was either a stray or maybe a coyote. But the more that I looked at it, the more uneasy I felt. My dad must have noticed me stop and asked what I was looking at, so I pointed it out to him. He stopped as well and stared at the thing.

I remember asking him what he thought it was, and after hesitating for several moments, he finally just said, it looks like a rough-looking dog. I could tell in his voice that he didn't really like this either. Usually, when we ran into potentially dangerous animals, my dad was calm and suggested we move on. However, he would not look away from this thing. I asked him if he was feeling creeped out too,

and surprisingly he said, yeah. So I started telling him how I was feeling as well. That's when he told me that something just wasn't right about that creature. We both just stood there completely still and watched this thing until it finally moved. It started walking along the trees, but the way it was walking was even more unnatural. It had four legs, but it wasn't bending them at the knee. The movement was very stiff. Imagine how a doll would walk without the knee joints, or when you walk your fingers like legs.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense, but it's kind of hard to explain. So, when I saw it walking, I became even more alarmed. I mentioned it to my dad, but he just continued watching it. The thing started walking towards us, which meant that the trees were thinning out and shedding more light on it. That's when we could see more details. This thing was definitely bigger than a coyote, but it was definitely bigger. looked disheveled. Its fur was dirty and almost patchy looking. While it seemed to look dark and have an even darker aura around it, it had bright, glowing, orange-looking eyes. As it got closer,

we also started smelling something like rotting. Again, we saw a lot of wildlife, some alive and some dead, so I knew the smell. We didn't smell it until we noticed this creature. As it walked closer, we could make out a moaning sound that almost didn't sound natural. It didn't sound like a person, but it also didn't sound like an animal in pain. This was when the feeling of dread really started to overwhelm me. But before I could mention it to my dad, without taking his sights off of this thing, he told me to run towards the house as fast as I could. When I heard him shout, run, I took off.

only to look back once to see my dad right behind me. He nearly shoved me into the house as he ran in behind me, closing and locking the door. My mom and two little siblings were all watching a movie in the living rooms, so she was instantly startled and asked what had happened. My dad lit out a little laugh and said that we saw a coyote that was looking pretty aggressive, so we decided to run home. She seemed a bit suspicious,

but accepted his response, and we went to clean up. I wasn't about to call my dad out. I assumed that he did it since my siblings were there, and he also probably didn't want to scare my mom. He probably would have done the same to me if I hadn't witnessed it. We didn't talk about it again that night, and we went and finished gathering the wood the next day, when it was nice and bright out.

I actually asked him about it then if he really thought it was a coyote, and he told me honestly no. He said he didn't know what it was, but he knew it was not a normal animal, and that it wasn't friendly. I asked him what he thought it was, and he didn't answer me for a while. Then, he finally spoke up, and the only thing he said was, it's something we should never think about or talk about again. My dad was not easily frightened, but the tone and his response was enough to make me think that he was serious, and I never brought it up again. Now that I'm older, and after seeing many stories of cryptids and talking to friends that believe in that kind of stuff, I'm pretty sure this thing was a skinwalker. Regardless, it was a terrifying sight, and those out there trying to find one to witness themselves, I would,

suggest stopping now. It's really not worth it. Back when I was younger, I used to be kind of stupid, specifically when it came to talking to people online. This happened back when I was around 14. I'm 28 now, so that would have been back in 2008. I had some issues with myself at the time. I was overweight and struggling with it. I didn't have many real friends, and I didn't really feel like my parents cared about me back then, being the youngest of four kids. I know that may sound like a pity story, but it's where my mind was at the time. And at the time, my parents had a desktop computer that they let me use.

They didn't really do much to watch or limit what I did, so I kind of used it to find fill that void in my life. There was a certain website that I used to visit that had an entire section for local chat rooms, and it was typically full of people that were younger, or at least claimed to be younger. I loved chatting in the local rooms because the people there were really nice, and it was almost as if I had a group of friends that lived near me, even though they were only as local as the same state. The site had a whole biosystem where you could put information about yourself.

I had put that I was 18 and that my name was Cheryl, which it is. For the most part, everyone was pretty chill when we spoke, and a few of them were really friendly with me as we spoke about what we liked to do. One day, I went into the chat rooms and did my normal chat introductions as I always did. I immediately got a direct message, request from a guy that had the username Mike D. It was a bit odd, but at the same time, I figured it wouldn't do any harm to message him back. I said hi, and he immediately went into the conversation talking about how he was looking to chat with

girls his age, because he was feeling lonely. Obviously, this was fine by me. I didn't have any luck with guys, and it kind of felt nice to be singled out like this. So, we chatted for a while about things that he liked to do, his hobbies, and who he was. Then he started asking me about who I was. I wasn't really sure what to say at first, but I did tell him about some of my hobbies. At one point I slipped up and mentioned that I was still in school, and he asked if I was in college. That was when it occurred to me that my account said that I was.

was 18. For some dumb reason, I asked him if it was okay with him if I was actually younger than I said that I was. And he asked how young I was. I told him that I was 14, and he said that that was fine because he was actually 16. I was relieved because I didn't know how he would take it, and for him to only be two years older than me, it was nice to have a friend that I could talk to. He and I ended up talking for a while about everything, and over a couple of weeks we became pretty close friends. I felt like I was telling him a lot about myself over the time that we spoke, and I even mentioned that I wanted to know more about him. He told me that he was pretty boring, and that he wanted to know as much as possible, and then said that he wanted to confess that he had a crush on me. I was obviously over the moon.

This was a boy that liked me for me. After we talked through that for a little bit, he asked me if I wanted to meet up with him at some point so we could make things official. I agreed, and we ended up saying that we would meet at the local mall that weekend. We agreed to meet at the food court outside of a very specific restaurant. Obviously, I was super excited. and I asked my mom if I could go to the mall on that day.

She wasn't okay with me going alone, so I had to go with my older sister, who was 16 at the time, and one of her friends. I was totally okay with this, because I was going to meet this guy that liked me for me, and I was so happy about that. On the day of, when we got to the mall, I actually told my sister that I was supposed to be meeting a boy there,

And she was excited for me. We got to the food court at the time that was promised, and... Well, let's just say that I was nothing shy of disgusted and disappointed. At the table that we agreed to was a man, but it was not a 16-year-old boy. He was a much older and much more overweight man that was very clearly looking around for somebody. When I saw the man, I knew what had happened. This creep was pretending to be a teenage boy to pick up teenage girls and do God-knows-what with them. I managed to tell my sister that I thought that the creep at the table was the person that asked to meet me.

And she kind of laughed at me. She asked me his name and then said that she would go find out. She went over to the table and audibly asked if his name was Mike. He excitedly looked at her and asked if she was Cheryl, and she said no, but then said that he was a creep and that he shouldn't be trying to meet up with young girls on the internet, and that the girl that he was trying to get alone at the mall was a minor. She said this incredibly loud, basically shouting it at him, which my guess was that this was to try to expose him and make sure he didn't try anything.

After shouting at him like that, he stood up and started walking away as quickly as he could. The whole time my sister was shouting at him and calling him a purve and a creep. After that was all over, she walked back over to me and basically gave me a lecture about how I shouldn't speak to people on the internet because things like this were going to happen. Obviously, I was very upset with the whole thing, but also thankful that she was with me. as she was most likely the reason that nothing bad happened. Her being willing to make a scene like that was enough to scare him off, but my mind always wanders to the possibilities.

What was he planning to do if we had met alone? What was his long-term goal with all this? My guess, he was considering kidnapping me when we met, which scares the hell out of me. Of course, my sister told me that we need. needed to talk to my parents about all this when we got home, and they weren't exactly happy with me. I was banned from using the computer after that for a couple of years, which was probably for the best. It was a lesson learned. Don't trust random people on the internet. Use your best judgment when it comes to things like this,

and if you're an adult, meeting with another adult, never go alone. My mom has told me an alarmingly high number of creepy stories from her younger days, but this one in particular is the reason I triple-checked my windows and doors before bed every night. This started when she, 23, female, first moved out of her parents' house into a garden-floor apartment back in the early 80s. She grew up in Palatine, Illinois, northern suburb of Chicago, and was working as a bank teller. She was five foot, maybe weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She was this cute girl excited to start this next chapter in her life,

and, admittedly, a little naive. Like any job, she became familiar with her co-workers, her regular customers, and other workers who worked in the area that she would often see. She told me about a cute guy who would want, walk by the bank that she saw almost every shift. Her and the other bank girls would always chatter about how gorgeous he was, and, one day, to my mom's delight, he came into the bank and asked her to dinner.

Let's call him Tom. Tom offers to pick her up, she gives her address, and they agree to 7 p.m. for that upcoming Saturday. The date went fine. She described him as awkward and nervous with the lack of anything to talk about. He dropped her off a few hours later. She told him thanks, but when he asked her out for a second date, she politely declined and said that she saw them more as friends.

She went to work on Monday, gossiped with the girls a bit on the topic. They stopped seeing Tom walk by the bank. Hence, my mom thought that that would be the end of it. sadly it was just the beginning after that they stopped seeing tom walk by the bank my mom forgot about him and she met my dad at a local dive bar a few weeks later house bar and bank all within walking distance from each other two months go by since her date with tom and one night she gets home from work to find that her apartment had been broken into front door is wide open but all that was taken were some of her panties. Nothing else was touched aside from her underwear drawer. Weird, but she thinks this happens. It was a crummy lock, so her dad comes over the next day and puts a deadbolt on the front and back door.

The back door is a garden unit, mind you. This door is actually attached to the laundry room of the building, and that laundry room is directly accessible from the back door. yard without a key. A week goes by, and one morning she sees her upstairs neighbor, Janet, who is a bartender, 50-ish, female. She sees her in the main hallway. Janet tells my mom that the night before when she came home from work, she saw a man at my mom's

front door messing with the handle. Janet heard the fumbling and actually had my mom's spare key, which was the only reason she even walked down the stairs to the garden area, was because she thought my mom may have been locked out. Obviously, this wasn't the case. She asked the man what he was doing, and he just ran up the stairs and darted out of the building. Mom, luckily, slept at my dad's that night.

Nothing happened for another month. My mom tells me stories of how that month she always had a gut feeling that someone was watching her. But she never saw anything, so she chalked it up to her being paranoid, given what had happened. Then, one stormy Friday night, my mom went to bed early because she had the morning shift at the bank. Lights were out by 10 p.m., and her fan was on full blast.

She fell asleep right away. She wakes up around 2 a.m. to the faint sound of drilling. She thought it was odd, but it'll be a.m. but it only lasted a couple of minutes, so she'd shrugged it off, thinking maybe the neighbor was making a late-night snack? She tries falling back asleep, but all of a sudden her fan turns off, and she realizes the power is out. She gets out of bed and sees that the houses across the street still all had their porch lights on,

odd that only her building was out. She's now getting really bad vibes, and is standing in her living room where both the front and back door are, standing in the complete dark. She starts hearing banging coming from the shared laundry room area. My mom described being literally frozen, just staring at the door, when she suddenly sees the doorknob turn and a hand come in trying to undo the safety chain. She screams, and she bolts out the front door and up to Janet's door,

bangs on the door, and Janet lets her in. My mom was hysterical, and Janet was comforting her while her husband, Ray, goes to check everything out and ask a neighbor to call the police since they didn't have the power to do so. The police checked the perimeter, see nothing, and say that they'll come back in the morning once they can see what's going on in the daylight. My mom then sleeps at Janet's. The next morning, they come to find that someone had drilled a hole in the back door in order to bypass the dead bolt. They had cut the phone lines and the power to the building.

Sawdust was literally sitting in piles in the laundry room, along with two peepholes that see directly into her living room and bedroom. Someone had been watching her, and they thought the night of the storm was the night to make the move. just creepy. She moves back home, and they have zero leads on the case, until Tom pops back up at the bank, asking if my mom was around. She was actually away on a road trip with my dad

for two weeks after the incident. The only reason he was caught was because he asked the other bank girls if my mom had quit and moved after her break-in. Nothing was ever put. posted in the newspapers, so there was zero way he would have known that even occurred. The police go to interrogate him, and they find my mom's panties along with a necklace that she didn't even realize was missing. This guy has been in and out of prison.

We're just happy that he didn't get to her that night, because who knows what would have happened. I attended a local university in 2006. and also lived on campus in one of the dorms. I actually lucked out and had my own dorm at first, but when they started construction on the older building, which was the dorm I stayed in, I had to move, putting me in a room with someone else.

This is where the story began. I was now rooming with a guy named Scott. Scott was cool most of the time that we shared a dorm. he seemed like your normal college guy too. He did all his homework, went to all of his classes, and he even played baseball. Hell, sometimes he would skip class when he had a hard day at practice. We got along pretty well, too. We tolerated each other's mannerisms, but also respected our rules, property, and boundaries.

However, Scott did dabble in recreational substances. He never did it in the dorm, thankfully, but sometimes it was in the back of the building where security and the other staff typically never went. But things started changing when he decided to experiment with other stuff. When he started falling behind in class, he started taking, we'll call it, enhancements to help with focus. He had told me before that his parents were very uptight,

and strict. He wanted to play baseball. It truly was his passion, and he was good at it. But his parents told him it was a waste of time, and if he was going to try to make a career of it, then he would at least have to go to college so he had something to fall back on. Very supportive parents. Anyways, so when his grades started slipping,

his parents threatened to not pay for the baseball fees, pull him out, and bring him back home to go to a local community college where they could keep a close eye on him. With this thought in mind, he knew he needed to do something, so he started taking the pills. He definitely improved his grades, but it just didn't feel right. He talked about how well it worked for him and even offered me one when I was stressing over a project. I'm pretty against anything like that, and I very firmly said no. no thank you. And he never offered again, but he did continue to use them. Eventually, though,

Scott started to change. He would have these bursts of energy, have me or someone else turn in his work, and then crash and be out of school for days. I don't know how he was able to miss so much class, yet still do the makeup work and homework, without any trouble understanding. When we would hang out in the dorms, watching TV or playing something, he would ask me some pretty mysterious questions. He asked me if I ever considered making money outside of my job. I thought it was a conversation, so I remember laughing and saying, well, yeah, but I barely have enough time to work, go to class, and eat and sleep now. He then tried clarifying by saying something like,

what if it would be passive and it wouldn't interfere with what you're already doing again i thought this was all hypothetical and i decided to make a joke about if it was what he was doing then i wasn't interested because i didn't want to miss that much class compounding all the work at once was just not my thing he laughed and said yeah you're right and dropped it and we just continued what we were doing. He had also asked about what I would do if someone stole something from me. Would my answer change if it was something dear to me, something family-related, something expensive, or maybe something I wasn't supposed to have in the first place? These questions were all being prompted while we were at some hole-in-the-wall bar and grill.

It started as just random questions, but as the subject of... of the item changed, he started becoming more and more serious. So I asked him if something happened, or if he lost something, and we kind of went back to joking. Then I started noticing the real character changes. While we were in our dorm, I was playing something and he was at his desk when I heard him let out a really long sigh. I asked him what was up, and he asked him, me if I ever felt like I was being followed.

I told him no. Why would someone follow me anyways? And he just said that he didn't know. So I asked him the same thing. He paused for quite some time before finally saying, Nah, I don't think so. He said no, yet he was starting to look more and more paranoid. He started wearing a hoodie, pulled up.

tight when he left the dorm, yet he would only leave the dorm to make an appearance in classrooms. If he wanted something from the store, he would give me cash and ask me to get it. He also stopped going to his two classes that were in the north building. You had to either walk, which is what he typically did, or drive over to it, which was across from the grounds. The central building was just across the street from the dorms, so it was a much shorter walk. I still feel really bad for this, but one night, I was ready to go to bed for the night, when he asked me to get something from the gas station.

It was also across the street, so I got mad and just told him to get it himself. And I just remember the look of fear in his eyes when he said, I can't. I asked him what the hell was going to be. going on and unloaded on the guy about a lot of things. I was delivering his work back and forth, running his errands, and not to mention all the questions people were asking me about him, and the questions that he was asking about everyone else. He'd even broken up with his girlfriend, Luna, who he had been with for a few years.

He wouldn't answer the door when she came by, and he always told her to leave, so she always asked me about him and vice versa. I told him I was tired of being a messenger and whatever crap he was in, he needed to figure it out and get his damn life together. He sat quietly for a while and then just apologized, so I went to sleep. The next day, I apologized to him and said that I was just under a lot of stress and that I would go to the store for him. I tried to make light of the situation by just saying that he could tell me anything if he needed someone to talk to,

but that I would not be a witness on the stand. He laughed and thanked me, and I left for school as normal. Things did not get better, and in fact, he became more and more withdrawn. We had one small window, which he had completely covered in cardboard and duct tape. He only left to go to the showers and toilets if I was home, and I had no idea what he did when I wasn't. And he freaked out any time someone knocked on the door. He also stopped showing up to all of his classes,

and a few of the teachers even refused to give me the work, saying that he needed to show up. It was about time for the first semester finals, and he was not going to be able to take it home. I told them I had tried multiple times to get him to come in, even if I had to stand by him the whole time, but he would refuse, and seemed to have a panic attack at the idea of going out.

When I told him about this, he seemed more defeated than ever. I again probed and asked what was going on, and that we could figure it out, no matter what it was. All he said was, it's too late, cops wouldn't want my help either. He wouldn't explain or say anything else about it. The day of our finals was in mid-November.

I helped gather his stuff. He had his hoodie on and we left the building together. I walked him to the first class and then I went to mine. I went back to his class when I was done to make sure that he got to the next one, but he was already gone. I figured that maybe he got the courage and went on without me, so I continued to my other classes on my own. I checked one more time in his last class, and he wasn't there.

So I went to the gas station, grabbed his favorite sandwich, and went back to the dorms to hopefully celebrate. Unfortunately, that would never happen. The door was unlocked, and it looked like our dorm had been ransacked. Stuff was everywhere. Both our beds had been tossed around, books were laying all over the floor, and even a cup of water was knocked over. I tried to pick up stuff the best that I could, and when I was fixing my bed, I heard my pillow crunch. I checked inside where I found a folded up piece of paper. It was a note from Scott that said,

I'm sorry for what I put you through. I didn't want any of this. I just needed some help and my parents wouldn't. I can't blame them either, as it was all my fault. I'm doing this on my own free will. Please tell Luna she did nothing wrong either, and I will always love her. Please, don't try to find me, for your safety. I was freaked out.

He never really mentioned feeling threatened or like he was in danger, just the feeling like he was being watched part. I told Luna about it first, and she agreed that we should tell security. We did, and they called the cops, who filed a report. They let me keep the note, and they basically closed it off as a runaway

since the note sounded like it. They did pretty much no kind of investigation, they didn't even dust for prints or take pictures. I even found out that he didn't attend any other classes after the first one. It's been years, and I still have no idea what happened to him. I tried finding his parents or other family online, but I've found nothing. To this day, I still think about it, and I hope that he's safe, but I don't know what to believe. Hell, with the cryptic questions that he always asked, his note, and the disappearance,

I'm actually afraid to get involved. But if he's out there, and he happens to read or hear this, I do hope you're okay. And my number hasn't changed, so please, reach out. A few years ago, when I was about 17, I decided I wanted to go ahead and start looking for an easy job that could net me a bit of spending money. I was still in school, obviously, but I was nearing the midway point of my senior year and was about to turn 18 in less than three months.

So I figured I could find, at the very least, a decent retail job that would suffice. Given the time of year, late September, and the things that I'm personally into, scary, macabre horror things, I figured why not try to work at one of those temporary Halloween stores to get some experience. There were a few of them around my area, and I ended up getting hired at one that's pretty well known for taking over empty shopping centers.

Honestly, I loved the job from the first minute that I clocked in. The store was decorated with some of the spookiest things I'd seen, The manager was all about leaning into the scary season, and when October rolled around, she encouraged us to dress as creepy or horrifying as we could, within reason. Basically no weapons or masks, but if we wanted to come in dressed up, we were allowed to.

We still had to wear the orange aprons, but that was fine by me. Getting ready for work was actually fun for me, and working was something I was actually looking forward. forward to. I didn't dress up every day, obviously, but I did on several occasions and I absolutely loved it. I could honestly sit here and type out how much I loved this job and everything about it all day, but the story is actually about the one thing that completely ruined it for me and for many others. Because I was one of the younger people that worked there, and the others all had family,

families and lives outside of just going to school. I actually talked with my manager at the start of working there about being a closer for the store. Being a closer meant cleaning up the shelves were necessary, sweeping, basically the normal retail closing checklist. She didn't mind. As long as we were out of the store by 11, she was entirely fine with it. We closed at 9.30 during the week, so... It was definitely doable. One more tidbit of information before I get into what happened,

the layout of the store. I'll keep it brief. For the most part, the entirety of the stock was on the outer walls with a few shelves that we could see through to minimize the possibility of theft. There was only really one blind spot in the store, and that was the giant, inflatable Grim Reaper that was dead center. It was one of those huge nine or ten foot tall inflatables, and my manager had built a little diorama-like thing around it.

So there was a small area that we couldn't see past. It wasn't a huge deal, and the decoration was really neat. When I was cleaning the store, I would actually do it in two parts, the front half, which was everything in front of the Reaper, and then the back half. I feel like it made things go a little faster with just a little bit of structure, but that's probably just me. On the night in question, we were really busy from the time I got there to the time we closed. It was in the latter half of October at this point, so people were pretty much going into Halloween overdrive. Thus, at this point, we were pretty much only getting out at 11.

between closing duties and cleaning, we were going to the last minute. I always felt bad keeping my manager at the store so late trying to finish up, but she was typically pretty understanding. So, on this night, I was cleaning up the store, putting things back, and then I moved on to sweeping and mopping. I was done with the front half and was cleaning up the back half. I was sweeping up the dirt from under and around the Reaper when I noticed what looked like headlights shining through the front of the store.

My mind immediately went to Some person thinks that we're still open and is looking at our hours. And because I didn't want them to see me and try to ask us why we were closed or something, I stood there behind the Grim Reaper just waiting for them to go away. Much to my surprise, I heard what sounded like somebody pulling on the door and trying to open it. Now, mind you, the door was obviously locked. The lights were all off, the sign on the door said closed,

and the hours posted said that we closed at 9.30 most nights. Nothing about this door looked like it was open, at all. So, again, I was just standing there and. rolling my eyes about the fact that this person clearly had zero situational awareness. After standing there for a few moments, I was actually starting to get annoyed with the fact that they weren't leaving. I could still see their headlights shining in the front, and then the unexpected happened. While I was standing there, I heard the sound of an engine revving, saw the lights moving slightly, and then I heard the sound of glass shattering, as they literally

drove their SUV through the front of the store. They smashed through the front, and they stopped just shy of the Grim Reaper, meaning that they were less than a few feet away from driving in to where I was standing. I know for a fact that I screamed and shouted a couple expletives, and I immediately ran to the back office. Fortunately for me, my manager had saw what happened on the security camera, and she pulled me in and then shut and locked the door. She then told me that she was already on the phone with the police.

My heart was racing like crazy while I just sat there. I watched the camera screen as these people ran around the store, grabbed as much merchandise as they could, and shoved it into their car, and then tried to drive off. I was actually able to see on the footage how close they came to me, and they seriously stopped at the inflatable. So if they hadn't stopped at that moment,

they likely would have pinned me between their car and one of the shelves. I'm not sure I would have survived that. They grabbed all the stuff, drove off, and then were pretty quickly caught by the cops. I had to guess that they thought nobody was in the store, so they figured they would have time to get away, but we were there, and that definitely caused a wrinkle in that plan. In my opinion, the plan was pretty stupid to begin with. To go through with a smash-and-grab on a Halloween store

where everything would be nearly half-off in a couple of weeks anyway, it just sounds dumb even as I'm typing it. But it was what they planned to do, and it's what they were all arrested for. Unfortunately, this kind of damage wasn't exactly something that could be fixed in time for the season to end, so the store had to close. I got to work a couple more shifts

helping get all the stock packed up and ready to be transferred and getting the store broken down, which was neat, but it was still a sad ending to what will always be the best job that I've ever worked, even if it was only for a month.

I have a story about an ex of mine that turned out to be a genuine creep and caused a lot of problems from me and my family. Some obviously needed context. I'm currently in my late 20s, but when this happened, I was 18, and my ex, who were going to refer to as Shane,

was 20. He and I met because he worked at a local Starbucks, and because he was working there and I had gone there a few times. We'd spoken several times, and after a while, he ended up asking me for my number, From there, we went on a few dates, and I thought that we had a good thing going for about four months. At the four-month mark, I found out that Shane had actually been hooking up with another girl behind my back, and I really wasn't about that, so I ended it.

To say that Shane was distraught is either an understatement or a misstatement about him in this scenario. When we broke up, he started acting hysterical. We'd met up at the Starbucks where he worked, and I told him that I knew about his other girlfriend, and that I was done with the relationship since he obviously wasn't serious about it. He exploded. He literally started screaming and crying at me, telling me that I was the only one he needed in his life,

and of course saying that he would have to end his life if he couldn't be with me forever. I basically told him that I was done. His cheating was enough for me, and I didn't want to do this anymore. He seriously then got on his knees and pulled a ring that he had on his hand off of his finger and screamed at me that I needed to marry him because that would prove that we were a forever thing. It was incredibly awkward, and the fact that he was screaming and bawling in public, Something I would have never expected him to ever do based on the four months that we were together. He seemed like a decent guy, and he seemed mentally stable.

So this man was not the shame that I had fallen for the few months prior. Anyways, to wrap that part up, I told him no and that I really hoped he had a great life, and that that was the end of it for me. I walked out of the Starbucks, and I just kind of left him there, which, yes, I did feel bad for him, even though I really shouldn't have. Obviously, this was not the end of it. This was just what set up the part where things went south really hard. About two days later, I was at work all day, and when I got home, no one else was there. It was a bit weird.

Usually, my younger sister was home. She was 15 at the time, and she was on summer break. Normally, my mother would tell me if she went out with a friend or something, but I assumed that she had just forgotten and moved on. Then, a couple of hours later, my mom got home, and when she asked me where my sister was, I told her that I had no idea, and I told her that she wasn't home when I got home from work.

There was a moment of panic, obviously, but then I paused and thought logically. I should just call her. I pulled out my cell phone and pushed the button to dial her number, and she answers. I immediately asked her where she was, and what she said, made my blood run cold. She told me that Shane had showed up in the middle of the day looking for me, and when she told him that I wasn't home, he asked if she said. she wanted to go to the mall. She was with my ex, at the mall.

This 20-year-old guy had showed up, and more or less kidnapped my 15-year-old sister. Yes, I'm using kidnapped in a loose way, but that's pretty much what it was. A 20-year-old man has no business talking to a 15-year-old girl that he is not family with, much less taking her away from her home and going anywhere with her.

He had more or less violated the trust that she had in him, because she knew that he and I were dating, and we had only broken up a couple of days before this, so it wasn't like I was telling everyone that we weren't together anymore. I asked her to put him on the phone, and she did. I laid into him right away about how he needed to get her home immediately, and how messed up it was that he would take her, anywhere at all. He seriously laughed at me when I said this. He then told me that he wanted me to know

how serious he was about us, and that he wanted to spend time with my family. I asked him where they were, and told him that I would come to get her right then, and that if he left or did anything, I would be showing up with the cops. At this point, I was screaming at him, and I was seriously holding back tears. He told me that they were just up the street at the Dairy Queen having ice cream, and that they weren't going to go anywhere. I don't think I have ever driven that fast in my entire life, and I'm glad that there weren't any speed traps in the few blocks between my house and there. I pulled up, and they were standing outside. I practically jumped out of the car and shouted at my sister to get in the car right then. and she was pretty clearly confused, but she did what I asked.

I went up to Shane, and I was so very close to hitting him, but I ended up just telling him that if he ever tried anything like this again, they wouldn't have anything left to bury. He seriously ignored what I said. He then got down on his knee and pulled a ring out, asking me to marry him again. I slapped him, hard. and I told him to screw himself. Then I got back in my car and took off.

I then had to have a very awkward conversation with my sister as to why I rejected his proposal and why I smacked him. And I had to tell her that he had kidnapped her and that Shane and I broke up a few days ago. I'm pretty sure that I soured her day tremendously because while I was explaining it, she went pale. I'm thankful that he hadn't done anything to her, but the fact that he had gone this far scared the living hell out of me.

I should have told her that we had broken up, but I'd been working and we hadn't really spoken too much about anything these past couple days. Maybe I should have called the cops about this, but the other part of my brain was telling me that he didn't technically do anything illegal. She went willingly. She knew who he was, and he didn't coerce or forcibly take her. I, of course, explained this all to my mom and dad,

and let me tell you that my dad was ready to follow through on the threat that I had made to Shane. I haven't seen Shane since this all happened, and I'm hopeful that he never did anything like this with anybody else. Back when I was young, I used to live in a small suburb outside of a decent-sized town. that was pretty quiet. For the most part, I don't recall anything about it being creepy, or my parents ever telling me to avoid any people that lived there or anything like that. They taught me all about stranger danger and such,

but very rarely did I ever feel uncomfortable about the people that we were around. The event that this story is about was probably the only time anything ever happened that made me scared of people, and that's probably why it's so burned into my brain. At the time this happened, I was around 10 years old. The walk from my house to the school took me somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes every morning, but it was a fairly straight shot.

I would take my road to the end, go left, and then take the road the rest of the way to the actual school. Like I mentioned, the suburb was incredibly quiet, so my parents never really had a problem with me walking, and along the way I would typically run into a friend or two, and we would just walk the rest of the way. On this particular morning, for whatever reason, there didn't seem to be anyone else out on my morning route, which was unfortunate, but not something that was incredibly unusual. I was about ten minutes into my walk

when I noticed a truck that had been pulling up behind me slowly. At first I thought it might have been our neighbor because it was the same kind of truck that they drove, so I turned to wave hello and be polite. But when I looked, it wasn't him. I had no earthly idea who this guy was. As soon as I realized it wasn't my neighbor, I took a slight step back, but then the guy leaned over to the passenger side and started talking to me.

I remember he asked me if I had seen a dog running around that street. I responded and told him that I hadn't. He then asked me if I was sure, and he was really pushy and adamant that the dog was around there. I once again told him that I hadn't seen any dogs on my walk at all. He then reached his hand over, and he was really pushy and he was. pushed the door open and smiled. Then he asked me if I would come and help him find his dog. I told him that I had to go to school and that I was sorry.

I wasn't really sorry. There were definitely alarm bells going off in my head at this point, even being ten. I then said that I had to go and told him good luck on finding his dog. As soon as I said this and turned to keep walking, the man pulled up Mort, to match my pace and looked over at me with a much angrier look and then said, I need your help finding him, please. He's my best friend, and I really need to find him. I really think that you could help me find him. Please, Michael, get in the truck and I'll take you to school afterwards. At this point, I was really confused because I had no idea who this guy was, but he somehow knew my name.

It could have been a guess, sure, but it was a lucky guess if so. Part of me actually thought about getting in the car because he knew my name, but, thankfully, I paused and thought about it for an extra second. And I think my instincts were telling me the truth about the situation. Basically, my brain was saying, Do not get in that truck. I just told him again that I needed to get to school and that I hoped he found his dog. and as soon as I said that, I started running towards the school.

I heard him yell something aggressive toward me, but I kept going. After a few moments, I got to school, and when I got in, I was pretty clearly out of breath, having run most of the way. One of the teachers asked me if I was okay, and I ended up telling her about the guy in the truck. But she basically told me that I probably misunderstood the situation, and that it wasn't that big of a deal. After that, I kind of forgot about it,

mostly because I was a kid and had to deal with class, so it wasn't really on my mind for most of the day. When school got out and I went to walk home, I noticed that the truck from that morning was parked in the lot out front. As soon as I saw it, I immediately went back into the school and asked the office if I could call my parents because I needed to ask them to come get me.

At first she didn't seem like she wanted to let me, but then I started talking about feeling sick. I told her that I thought I was going to throw up, and she pretty quickly changed her tune. I ended up calling my mom and asked her if she could come pick me up. She ended up coming to get me, and on the way home, she asked if I was okay, because this was very unlike me.

I ended up explaining the whole situation to her. I told her about what happened that morning with the truck, that the man kept telling me he needed my help, and that he knew my name. I will always remember the look on my mom's face when I told her about this. She mentioned that I did the right thing by not trusting the man, and she told me that no adult would ever ask a child for help like that.

they would always ask another adult, and that this man probably had bad intentions. She also told me that she was upset that I didn't call her when I got to the school to tell her, and I mentioned that I had told the lady at the school, but she just told me that I had misunderstood the situation. After this all happened, I wasn't allowed to walk to school alone anymore, and my mom worked with the few other parents in our neighborhood to create a group of kids that walked together every day.

She also went in and spoke with the principal and told him about the whole thing, and they took things like this a lot more serious. Not that there were many more events that were reported, but any time something was reported, letters were sent home with the description of the person, vehicle, and any other pertinent information. Honestly, I know that there wasn't much that happened in this story, but I'm glad that it actually got the process for the school to change.

And I was pretty proud when my mom told me that I did the right thing. I don't recall ever seeing that truck again, nor that man, and I kept an eye out for it every morning that we all walked to school. This might not be scary to other people, but to me, like I said, it was terrifying. And I think a good lesson to take from this for everyone out there. there, make sure your kids know what is and isn't normal for an adult to do when speaking to them, and always be on alert when they're out in public, especially when they're alone. When I was a kid, I met a boy that was the same age as me. We became friends, but he was

always very quiet and shy. Over time, he confessed that he had a crush on me, although I never reciprocated his feelings. I was never interested in boys my age because they were so immature and childish, and he was a great example of a guy who didn't have maturity and control of his actions. When I said that I didn't feel the same way about him, he accused me of deluding him.

I used to be nice and kind to him, so he thought that I was in love with him, which was obviously wrong. After that time, we drifted apart for years. We'd recently started talking again. I was 18 and he was 19. I'd been going through hard times for a few months, and I needed a friend. That's when I decided to give our friendship another chance,

hoping he would be more mature and capable to keep a friendship without taking it to the romantic side. He delivered a huge bouquet of roses and flowers to my house, house, with an anonymous note. Soon after he confessed it was him. He lives in another city. It's an hour away from where I live, so my parents and I invited him to come and spend a weekend in our city.

Maybe get out of the house and have some company with me, and it would be good. After all, I'm an only child, and I constantly do feel alone, and since I moved to this new city, it's been difficult for me to meet other people. In the end, we decided that he would stay at our house, but from the day he arrived, he started acting strange. He was no longer the same boy that I knew years ago. It changed a lot. At times, he would start talking to himself.

He would whisper softly and laugh. I would try to talk to him about some topic, and he would just say, What does it matter? In a mocking tone. As if he was making fun of me. He would constantly push or slap me for no reason. There was this moment when I was drinking a glass of juice, and he just slapped me on the head.

He almost made me choke on the juice. I was getting annoyed. Sometimes he would just try to touch me and caress me, and I would walk away. He would notice my discomfort. and get angry. Before you ask, my parents were with us the entire time, and they were as uncomfortable with him as I was. But he was far from his house, so we would have to wait until the next day to be able to take him to his house.

We all sat on the couch watching a movie. The main character was a woman, and I was forced to hear him talking the whole movie about how women were useless, stupid, how they deserved to die. Obviously these comments bothered everyone present there, and he didn't stop. He kept talking about his sense of who should live and who should die. He constantly treated my mother with disrespect, and it made me very angry, to the point where I just started to ignore his presence. When he realized my contempt for him, he would start his self-pity and say that the whole world hated him, and people treated him badly for nothing.

At night, he went to sleep in my room with the door closed, and I went to sleep with my mother in the other room. My father works night shifts as a doorman for a company, so my mother and I were alone with that boy. My mother and I talked for a few minutes about his aggressive behavior and how much he had changed. What was once a quiet and polite boy was now a completely different person.

Then she confessed that she was scared and that she feared for our safety. I ended up falling asleep because I was very tired, but my mother was awake most of the night just lying down and trying to sleep. The events that took place that night were only told to me days later, and soon you'll understand why. My mother told me that, that night, she saw him standing at our door looking in my direction, and then as soon as she made a slight movement, he pulled away and quickly left.

She was startled and paralyzed. The next morning, we took him to his house, and he constantly sent me messages disturbing me and my mother. Just a few days after that, my mom decided to tell me what she saw. I've been considering the possibility that he may have some psychological, disorder, or he's just a big obsessive a-hole. I ended up deleting him from all of my social media, and I decided to get away from him for good.

It's something else here now, something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time, and we still don't know. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home.

From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. I, 15 female, was camping with the family friend, 58 female, for a little over a week. One day we ran out of clean clothes, so we went driving to look for a laundromat. We couldn't find it, so I ended up having to get out of the truck and ask someone for directions. This is where I made the mistake of asking Toby. He looked around my age and looked harmless, so I went up to Toby and asked for directions. He happily pointed out where it was, and I thanked him and made my way back towards the

truck. But it felt like he was staring at me. As I was stepping into the truck, he was standing and facing towards me just staring. So, as a teenage girl, I'm obviously a little creeped out by him, but I gave him a smile and a wave as we drove off. Fast forward to the laundromat, I got bored while me and the family friend were waiting on the clothes, so I decided to walk around. While I walked, I passed by Toby and his two little brothers who were running around. I decided to walk back to the laundromat to check on the clothes, and while walking back, I passed around four to six recycling bins.

This is important. I get back and the clothes still have around ten minutes left, so I sit outside waiting. I was enjoying the piece until Toby approached me out of nowhere with a pop can. He asked if there were any recycling bins around, acting like he didn't just walk by five of them, I offered to take it and throw it away for him, which he allowed. I thought that would be it, but he just continued talking to me,

trying to keep conversation. Keep in mind I'm 5'9 and he's 6 too, so I can't easily tell him off without being scared. While I'm talking to Toby, he asks how old I am, which I respond with 15. His eyes went wide and he looked me up and down in disbelief, which is when I asked him for his age. He said that he was 18, turning 19, but still proceeded on talking to me saying how I looked 18 at least, which I really don't, and then saying how I was so mature.

I just nodded my head, hoping he would go away and take a hint, but no. Finally, the clothes were done, and I had. began heading back into the truck before he yells at me for my Snapchat. Now, in that moment, I was still oblivious to his creepiness, so I gave it to him, and we shook hands. I get back to the camper at around 10 p.m., and he adds me, which is when I accepted. The first thing he told me to do, yes, told me, not asked, was turn on my location, which, hell no. I made up some BS excuse and he then wanted to try to convince me to go out with him alone somewhere.

Like I was about to do that. I ended up blocking him and that was that. This is an experience that I had when I was 16, during the summer of 1995. I was a junior in high school, and I was a theater nerd and hung out with my two besties, Stella and Chris a lot. Chris was short for Chrissy. At night, we usually picked up a few friends, bought beer and smokes at the local liquor store

with one of our fake IDs, and then headed up to the reservoir, or a local park, to enjoy our illicitly obtained goods. This particular Friday night, I was driving my dad's 1976 Mercedes 450SL. I was buying it from him with payments over time. It was in decent shape and it ran strong, but it was 19 years old. So it had a few minor issues.

One was that the passenger's side door could only be rarely locked automatically using the lock from the driver's side. Relevant later. I picked up Stella, Chrissy and Ted around 8 p.m. We were feeling good and extra happy because it was. Friday. Ted had to sit in the front seat because he was 6-1, and the back seat would barely allow two small people, Stella and Chris, to sit there. We drove to our favorite liquor store, just down the road from the reservoir, and Ted and Stella got out to get siggies and beer while Chris and I stayed in the car chatting. About a minute after our friends walked into the liquor

store, an old Chevy van pulled up right behind me, blocking me in. At first I thought it was just a drunk townie being dumb. Then, a thin, pale woman with shoulder-length brown hair came around to my passenger side window

and tried to start up a conversation with me and Chris. The woman's eyes were dilated, and she said something about how she and her friends were amateur movie makers, and she was looking to cast us in their next gig. Chris and I exchanged a look and we were both on the same page of what the

hell is this woman talking about. I had a bad feeling at a very strong sense that this woman was going to try to get in my car. So I suddenly started hitting the lock button hoping that it would take. The woman was just babbling at this point and she put her hand on my passenger's side door handle but literally the second before she tried opening the door, my sweet little Mercedes freaking finally obeyed my frantic tapping, and locked the door with a loud click. The woman looked confused for a second. She tried the handle again, but my car was locked.

Now I was scared and pissed. I knew the curb weight of a 76-450 SL was about 4K. the Chevy van behind me may have been blocking me and had a curb weight up on me, but he was top-heavy. I'd bet that I could do a lot of damage to it if I slammed into it with my foot on the floor, especially if I did so repeatedly.

So, I very loudly said, Lady, take your hands off my effing car. Step the hell away. You go tell your friends they need to move their van now because I'm going to floor it in reverse and tear into your crap van like it's a piece of tinfoil. I turned my key, and I revved my engine. It purred like the sweet little gas-sucking powerhouse it was, and my car swayed back and forth with each rev.

I was not bluffing, and I think the woman saw it. The woman's eyes got wide, and she ran back to the van, screaming, Go, go, move! As she was running back to the van, I saw a thin dude with long stringy hair running out of the liquor store towards the van too. He jumped in the back and the van peeled out, leaving a shower of gravel and gray exhaust in its wake.

About ten seconds later, my friends Ted and Stella came walking out of the liquor store. My adrenaline was super flowing and I was relieved to see them. Chris and I told them what happened, and they shared their experience. They said the guy who went into the liquor store had just walked up past them and started rambling about some random weird Jesus and Bible stuff to the clerk.

He also said something to my friends about them looking open-minded and gave Stella major creeps when he looked her over. The guy at the counter had just listened for a few minutes while my friends waited patiently to buy smokes. Then, the guy heard the revving and screaming and bolted out the door. The clerk asked my friend if the man was with them, and they said heck no. He said he thought they were all together, or he would have told the guy to leave because he sounded crazy. So, my friends bought the beer and smokes and walked out.

We all thought that was pretty weird. To this day, I am so grateful that my door locked. whatever that woman and her friends wanted, it wasn't good. Hey there, friends. That was today's episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast, and I really hope that you all enjoyed this collection of scary stories. If you did, please do consider checking out my YouTube channel where I do these same stories, but a little bit earlier than I do them here on the podcast form.

and also in slightly different collections. If you really enjoy the podcast, please do consider giving it a rating of any sort if the platform you're listening on has ratings. Any honest rating is appreciated by me, be it five star, one star, however you want to do it. Just know that rating the podcast helps tremendously. And if you would like to support further,

I do have a Patreon and channel memberships if you'd like to do things on the YouTube side, where for as little as a dollar a month they get early access to my content. Never ever expected, but always appreciated. That said, friends, I hope that I do see you on the next episode of this podcast. And of course, until then, sleep well.