As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 096 - Creepy Cryptids, October, and Road trip Stories - 10 True Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 21, 2023

Welcome to the chilling 96th episode of The ATRD Podcast! Today, we will step into the shadowy corners of reality, where everyday life takes an eerie twist & ordinary people experience the extraordinary. Today we will be diving into terrifying cryptid encounters, scary things that happened in October, and the horrors of the open road. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. Have a Story To Submit? ➤ https://www.astheravendreams.com Or Post to the Subreddit ➤ https://reddit.com/r/TheRavensDream Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in today's Video... Sleepless, Krissy J., ScarlettLibrarian, StevenHysteria, C.W., P. Jones, VBme4lyfm8, Calvin75, DudeWithTheBraces, CarahBear 'As The Raven Dreams' is a community where we explore the darker parts of human existence through true and harrowing stories. From sinister encounters with strangers and stalkers, to terrifying experiences that defy explanation and unsettling mysteries that linger in the shadows, I am here to tell you the most haunting narratives ever whispered. Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have a story you would like to hear featured on this podcast, please go to ashtheravendreams.com and click the button to submit your story. Also, if the platform you're listening on has the option to rate this podcast, please consider doing so. And thank you. Rees's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see. So, no, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Races, you did it.

You stumped this charming devil. My father's job had us traveling a lot, all over the world. This event took place while we were living abroad. I was still young, around 12 at the time, but I do consider myself lucky to be able to see such an amazing places so early in my life. I just wish that I hadn't experienced this. As mentioned, I was pretty young at the time.

time. The town I lived in was pretty small and close to my school, so a group of us boys would often walk home from school. Sometimes we would stop at a local store to window shop, or one of our favorite things, go hang out by the stream behind our neighborhood. It looked a little like this. Walking home from school, we took the main road. We would then branch off to an alley that came out to the other side behind a lot of houses and businesses. I was shown this place by one of my friends who I'm going to call John. Once you get out of the alley, there is a concrete wall lining the business. We would jump that wall, which is where the drainage pipe was, cross that, and go down a small grassy hill, then there was the stream.

We would walk along the stream until we found the larger body of water that it was connected. to. People fish and swim in there all the time. They're just usually on the other side of the lake, so it wasn't really weird for us to do it too. Our parents did know that we went down there, so they didn't worry about us not coming home directly after school. This was just our normal thing to do. We just had to be careful because we had school uniforms, and we had to make sure to not mess them up. So, this was one of those days, the day when we encountered this thing. John, Kai, and I decided to head out to the lake as the next day was a holiday, so there was

no school. We walked through the alley, over the drain, and towards the water, ready for a couple hours of fun. We started by looking around the nearby trees and rocks for the water, looking for bugs or other things that caught our attention. There were many times where we would find the things and take them home, especially fishing gear. There was a broken rod that we found, and we took it home and fixed it up.

We found some bobbers that were caught in trees or other vegetation, and we untangled them as well. I guess in a way we helped clean up the place, all while putting together our own little fishing rod that we all shared. After we were done exploring, or if we just weren't feeling it, we would take off our uniforms, toss them over a small light that was nearby, and jump in the water. We would just wade in the water, splash, and cooof around. But sometimes we would find things in the water, too.

Up to that day, it all seemed pretty fearless and lighthearted. We lived in a great neighborhood. there was little to no crime in our area, at least none than I was aware of, and so we never had a suspicious thought in our mind that we ever needed to be careful or to keep a lookout. As we enjoyed our time in the water, talking about school and other things,

the sun was beginning to set and the sky was now getting that dark orange color. We knew that we had to get going soon, but tried to use up every last minute a hard eye. until we started to get a whiff of a very strong and pungent fishy odor. It was normal at first. People fished there all the time, and we've smelled things similar. But this time the stench was worse and continued to get stronger. We tried joking about it at first, but it got so strong that it was making us gag. So we finally decided to get out and leave.

If we came home smelling just as bad, our parents would probably be upset. As we went back to our clothes and began dressing, something caught my attention that seemed to be moving near the water's edge, right where we were. John and Kai were already looking before I could motion to them to look, too. What we saw, I still have no real answers for. Right there at the start of the water by the large boulder, that... We had stood near just moments earlier. We saw a creature. It was standing on its back legs that looked human,

but they also looked reptilian. The legs looked to be a pale gray or green and scaly. They also looked very thin, like there was hardly anything to them. Its back was grotesquely round and warped, as though it had some kind of malformation on it. It also almost looked severely bloated. The head was small and looked just as scaly and pale as its legs.

It had what appeared to be hair, but there was very little. It was thin and stringy. I like to describe it as being similar to Gollum's hair from Lord of the Rings. It was in small patches, and thin, stringy like that. It seemed to be moving to hide behind the boulder, and when it finally moved, it ran towards the water. But the way that it walked was wholly unnatural. It kind of waddled,

but also seemed like it was in pain, or maybe didn't know or understand how to walk on two legs. I couldn't even begin to describe what it looked like. There aren't many creatures that I can think of that were in that country that were bipedal. and looked scaly or reptilian like that. It truly seemed otherworldly. We all stood in all as we watched to see what this thing was going to do.

After it reached the water and got in, it slowly sank deeper and deeper into the water, and then turned to face us. The water was up to where its nose should be, but it didn't have a nose. It was flat, with a small, small indentation and two holes for nostrils, and the eyes were dark and looked extremely sunken in.

It stared right at us, and it was as if time seemed to stop for that moment. None of us seemed to know what to do, so we stood completely motionless, until it turned back, and was completely submerged in the water. Once it was out of sight, we all looked at each other. with her eyes and said, What the hell was that? To add to the confusion, the strong fishy smell was even gone entirely.

But even after the creature and smell disappeared, something no longer felt right about that place. We hurriedly grabbed our backpacks and shoes, as we hadn't put them back on yet, and got as far away from there as we could. When we reached the intersection where we normally split to go home, home, we said our goodbyes, and I walked in the opposite direction of them.

The whole time, I felt that I had to keep looking over my shoulder, wondering if that thing knew where we were, where we were going, or was possibly following one of us. It seems silly now, most things just want to be left alone, I'm sure, but at the time, after seeing something that we couldn't possibly identify, it left quite an impression on me, and not in a good way. I got home and took a shower, which left me with my own thoughts even longer.

None of us mentioned if we should tell someone about it, so I debated telling my parents. Normally, when we saw a bug or caught a snake or lizard that I couldn't identify, my mom could tell me what it was. But for some reason, I feel like we weren't supposed to see that. I felt like if I told my parents I could be in trouble, but I was also raised knowing that I could go to them and talk to them about anything, no matter what it was.

So that's what I did. I explained what I saw, describing everything I remembered, and the look on my mom's face told me that I wasn't alone in my thoughts. She had no idea what I saw. I could tell that she was trying to provide a reasonable explanation while also not being dismissive, something I loved about my mother. When my father got home, she told me to explain it to him,

and he said that it definitely sounded bizarre, but also could not identify it. my mom was concerned about the size of the thing and explained how if our guts were telling us it wasn't safe or that something was wrong then it must have been true and asked me to avoid the area until and unless they find out more about this thing my friends talked about it several times

and we even told a few of our other friends who wanted to check it out John and I didn't want to go back there as I was told not to, and John was creeped out by it. But none of my friends have said they've seen it either, so I think it was just the right day to catch that thing. Over the years, the thought of it slowly moved to the back of our mind until it was no longer something we felt was relevant. But it was still there, always with us. I now live in the U.S., and I've kept in touch with Kai,

and we've talked about it on occasion as well. It came up recently as he invited me to his wedding, which would mean that I would be taking another trip overseas. We flirted with the idea of going back out to that lake to reminisce, and maybe see if that thing is still there, or possibly reproduced. I'm excited to see Kai and my old home, but I have mixed feelings about seeing that creature again. However, this time, if I do see it, maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch it on camera.

Lazzang sur-gillet, puissance-molyness-pointed for 15 minutes. We're saying that's the hour of dojo. Pre-a-joo! Live the pleasure with the hoot. The casino in-line that proposes the more recent machine-assed and games of casino in direct. Profite of 50 tours gratu on Big Bas Bonanza. Without exigance of misuse and with the payments instantane. Hey, I've got it.

Woo-hoo! Senture the pleasure. Play-O-Joh! 18-year-depos only, Excluent in Ontario. 50 tours gratuys on a machine-soubeck-baz-Bonanza. Depos minimum of $10.

Veil to show in a fashion responsible. The conditions apply. We'll say, in the phone, all the world can be a guy of the finance. Not to have a gross monger in art,

to play to golf or not be a pro of the crypto. Not even. In any way, you have always made a lot of things and the apply Nogistit-T-D

you add to renewing with your instinct of negotiation. With some support 24 hours per year, no amount of minimum, any fretsual. You're made for negotiate, and the appellee-negoti-tit-tit-T-D

is made for you help. Telecharge it right now. This was something that I experienced as a kid. Well, more so. My story is about my grandmother's experience, which, in turn, did affect me too. My grandparents lived in a cozy little house nestled in a quiet town,

in West Virginia. They owned a lot of acreage, and I loved spending time there and exploring their vast and open yard. I helped my granddad when he would mow the yard or rake the leaves, but I also loved finding cool-looking rocks or other trinkets in the dirt that were long lost and forgotten. I've even found a very small and ceramic cat, perfectly intact, and when I showed it to my grandkids,

Grandparents, they didn't recognize it. So, I got to keep it. It still sits on my shelf to this day. One thing I used to love about their house was the woods behind it. They had a well-maintained front and backyard, but the backyard was fenced off and covered with ivy. My granddad hated the idea of fencing because of just how big their yard was, but my grandma convinced him if the fencing was small and maybe in the house.

conspicuous. She worked hard to get the vines to grow all over the fence, and she planted her rose bushes along the back of it. It just made it all look more magical and inviting. But there was a reason that she wanted a fenced-off yard, which is also part of this story. As mentioned, there was a slight incline after the fencing where the trees start. They were tall, and they were tall. And I remember two specific trees that would have been perfect to climb

and create a makeshift treehouse out of them, something I always wanted to do. However, I wasn't allowed to go into those trees, no matter the circumstances, be it with my grandparents or another adult during the day. I was never allowed back there. That's why my grandma wanted the yard fenced off, to keep us grandkids and her little dog in the yard.

When I would ask, she was stern and declining, saying it was dangerous back there. I would ask her how it was dangerous, and she would say that there were things in the trees that were dangerous that we didn't know about. I was still pretty young at that point, so I didn't really understand what they meant by that. as kids do, when told by one adult,

I asked my dad about it, complaining that I really wanted to check out the trees. He just told me that grandma didn't like people going back there and left it at that. I never really got answers as a kid, so I was left to imagining what she could possibly be afraid of and dreaming of my perfect hideout. It wasn't until I was a bit older, around 16. I believe, that my grandma finally explained it to me.

I went to stay at their house when my parents had to go out of town due to something that happened to my mom's sister. My grandparents in this story were my paternal grandparents. They were going to be gone for about a week, and they didn't want me to stay at home all alone that long. At that point, I stayed inside more, watching TV or going to my friends. One night I was watching a movie with my grandma before bed, and we were actually watching something that involved a large forest.

It was satirical, but I made a joke to my grandma about that being the reason she didn't want me to go into the trees. The person ran through the woods like she was scared, but nothing scary actually happened, or the reason that she was running wasn't scary. I can't recall exactly what it was, but I made a joke with her, asking if that's why I wasn't allowed back there. She looked at me with her brow furrowed and again sternly said no. It was easy to sense the change of mood in the room, so I asked her, what exactly did you see back there that caused all this? Why don't you ever talk about it? And she reluctantly agreed to tell me.

She explained that it wasn't that she was afraid of just some bug or animal back there, but more so afraid of something that she couldn't explain. This was way before I played back there, while I was apparently still an infant. She had taken her little dog, Caesar, out back one more time before they went to bed. They didn't have the fencing in yet, so she went back there to watch him to make sure he didn't run off somewhere. After Caesar did his business, he walked around sniffing the ground until he stopped near the edge of the yard, by her rose bushes. She looked into the trees, and after standing there silently, it backed up slightly and started growling. My grandma has been watching him, and when he started

growling, she looked into the trees too. She didn't see anything at first. and assumed that he was just barking at movement of the trees, or maybe there was a small animal like a mouse or a stray cat. As Caesar kept barking, she again looked down at him, and he now had his tail tucked under him, but was continuing to bark. She was worried that he may run off into the trees to catch what he saw, so she bent down to grab him.

As she stood back up, a reflection caught her attention, and she looked back over to the trees. That's when she spotted why he had been barking. There was definitely someone or something standing there. At first, the figure appeared human-shaped, tall, imposing. But as she tried to focus on it, she realized that it was something more unnatural. Below what would be the torso, it seemed to flare out like it was wearing a robe. She couldn't distinguish if there were legs because of it, but the torso itself didn't really make sense to her.

It seemed like it was being squeezed and had ridges in it, explaining it as looking like an accordion. She thought at first that it must have been some kind of odd belt, and then she looked further up and it only got worse. She could see the long arms resting to its side. The arms were almost as long as its body, and the fingers were grotesquely elongated, with spindly, twig-like fingers that twitched. They looked eerie and unnatural, if the length of them alone didn't.

She thought maybe they were claws, but they still looked threatening. Then she got to look at the head and the face, kind of. Now, the only source of light was the floodlight from the porch, so it didn't do much to illuminate the trees. But what she described did not sound human, with or without the light helping. The head itself looked big. It was rounded and it seemed to come to a point.

She believed that it was some kind of hood at first, which also made sense with the flared out bottom or robe of the being. But the only other thing on its head or face that she was, she could make out, where the eyes. She saw by the slight reflection on the eyes and could tell but that they were massive, and that they had to have

made up most of this thing's head. Something about those eyes immediately made her feel like she needed to leave. Caesar was still barking at this point, in fearing that it might cause this thing to react, she told him to hush as she tried to cradle his face.

But as soon as she spoke, The thing's eyes changed to a bright glowing red. It was at that same time that my grandma's head began to pound. She said it felt as if she had been struck with a hammer on the top of her head, and it made her spin around to see who had hit her. But no one was there. It was still just her, Caesar, and this thing in the woods. At the moment, her unsettling feeling turned to full-blown terror,

and she ran as fast as she could to the house, locking all of the doors behind her. My granddad wasn't home at the time, so she had called him in hysterics telling him what had happened. He was at a friend's house, so they both drove over to their home and went and checked out the woods, armed. Of course, they didn't find anything, and when my grandma went back over with him what she saw, he chalked it up to someone trying to scare her. And maybe when she ran off, she scared them as well. However, my grandma is adamant that whatever that thing was, it was not human. It was abnormally tall and the overall build of it was not natural.

The weirdly long and bony or twig-like fingers, the eyes alone. How do you explain that? And she said the headache really got to her too. It came out of nowhere and it didn't go away until after she went to bed that night. She told my dad about the incident, too, but both him and my granddad didn't believe her. They thought that she was dramatizing it or was mistaken since it was dark. But I know my grandma. She's not the type to embellish a story just to make it sound better.

If she wanted my granddad to come home, all she would have had to have said was that there was someone out in the backyard. Why would she go that far with it? As she told me this story, I instantly believed her and everything that she said. There are things out there that we do not know of, and that we don't really have a name for. And it's only a matter of time before some average person may spot those things in the trees, underwater, in the sky, wherever. And I think we should be more open-minded to.

to that. But since then, I understood why she feared those woods, and why she didn't want anyone back there. I thought about going out there as an adult just to see if I might be able to find or see anything, but the story spoke to me enough that I don't want to go alone. Even now that I am much, much older, those trees are still unsettling to me. and I wonder if that thing is even still around. I'm kind of weird. I've always enjoyed road trips, but I've never been one that liked driving long distances.

It's like the open road does call to me, but when I get out on the open road, that call changes from the road to the next rest stop, so that I can get some coffee and go to the toilet. I'm the kind of person that has to stop twice, every couple of hours, because my bladder is about the size of a golf ball, I swear. Because of this, when I take my road trips, I either stay at a hotel, or if I'm feeling bold, I will sleep in the parking lot of a highway rest stop that has full-access restrooms, or possibly a 24-hour gas station.

If there is a station, I always clear it with the employees. They're typically fine with it, so long as I'm not. as I don't park in the front, which I never do. I also drive a large SUV, so while the gas mileage sucks when I'm out and about, it's decent when I'm at speed on the highway. And it's spacious enough that I can just put the back seats down and have a makeshift bed. I've got this system down to a science, too. A cozy sleeping bag, a stash of snacks, and my phone on super battery saver mode overnight.

What more could a gal need when she's on the road? Well, I guess a co-pilot could be helpful, but, nah, I'm a solo rider. On this particular road trip, I was only headed a few hundred miles to one of my high school girlfriend's houses. She was getting married in a month, and I wanted to come down and stay with her for a few days so we could party before she tied the knot, which was literally just going to be us going to a boys to men concert. We weren't going to go crazy. We just wanted to relive our high school years for a night, and then I'd be staying at her place for the rest of the time.

I decided that I wanted to drive the whole way instead of fly, because I wanted some time to myself. And, as it always happens, I was on the road at about 9.30 at night, and I started to get that slight pattern of yawn, shake my head, only to yawn again. I was watching the highway marker signs and looking for one that mentioned a rest stop. And a few minutes later, there was one that was indicated as being off the next exit. I pulled over onto the exit ramp, drove down the road to the rest stop.

It looked old, a bit worn down, and there was literally zitherly, and there was literally zipped. zero in ways of modern society, but it was going to do the trick. I parked a couple of spots away from the restrooms, went ahead and did what I needed to do, and then set up the back seat to be my camp for the night. There were a handful of lights on in the parking lot, and the ones on the building itself seemed pretty bright, so I wasn't too terribly concerned.

Plus, again, I drive a large SUV. Most people don't see my tank and think it's being driven by a smaller woman. When I got settled in, I took a moment to look out the windows and get a feel for the area. Admittedly, it did look a little sketchy. There were a lot of woods, and it was just a vast, empty parking lot. Well, as vast as a lot of a rest stop typically is. It was actually a slight bit chilling knowing that I was the only person here, and that I was going to be sleeping in the middle of nowhere,

the only human on this large plot of land. It's hard to explain, but it's just a bit of a weird feeling, I guess. I shrugged it off. I figured that it was what it was, taped up my curtains and put my head down for the night. Just as I was drifting off, I heard it. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate.

footsteps crunching on gravel outside of my car. I froze and my eyes snapped open. I slowly leaned up and lifted the curtain slightly to look out, but I couldn't see anything. No movement, no people. Just the oppressive darkness and the flickering lights in the lot. I told myself that it was nothing, probably just an animal or something, or maybe another traveler that had gone to the restroom. and I just didn't see their car right away.

I tried to convince myself of that, but honestly, something felt off. You know that feeling you get like your body is reacting to stimuli that you can't see, and you started to get that cold anxiety? Yeah, that was me at that moment, lying there in a sleeping bag trying to shake the unease that was crawling over me. I tried to close my eyes for a couple of seconds, until I heard the steps again. Then I felt this strong need to get out and see if I was just going crazy,

or if there was something out there. The not-knowing was eating me up inside, so I unzipped my bag, grabbed my pepper spray, and slowly opened my back door. When I stepped out, I noticed that there was another car in the lot parked under one of the lights way off, and that there was a third car that was running, and was slowly exiting the lot. My mind put the pieces together,

and I decided that it was likely that the steps I'd heard were from the person that was driving away, and probably just getting out to use the restroom before heading back out. They had just walked close to my car because of how close I was parked to the building, and there was nothing malicious going on. I let the adrenaline finally wear off, and I decided to go ahead and go back to start.

sleep. I hopped back in, and when I was able to calm down, I closed my eyes and passed clean out. I woke up to my alarm going off at around six in the morning. I was glad that nothing else had happened, and thankful that I was just creeped out by shadows, that it was just me freaking out over literally nothing. I got out of the car, did my quick stretch, and noticed that the other car was gone, and it was once again just me and the lot. I went to the restroom, splashed my face, got dressed and brushed my hair, preparing for the day ahead of me. I repacked my backpack back up and stepped out of the restroom, and I exited into a lovely sunrise.

That lovely sunrise, as refreshing as it was, it was enough to actually turn my entire morning from what a lovely start to what the absolute hell. As I was standing there, I glanced down at my car and I saw something sitting on the ground next to my tire,

but partially under the car. I tossed my bag in the back seat and then knelt down to look at whatever this thing was. And when it clicked, I felt a bit lightheaded. It was a small box, no longer than a bit of a bit,

business card holder. A bit thicker, though. On one side, it looked like there was once a magnet that was stuck to it with glue, or something, and on the other were three letters that told me exactly what I was staring at. GPS. This thing was a GPS tracker, and I knew for certain that it wasn't there when I'd parked the night

before. I looked up under my car, and sure enough, there were magnets on the underside of the wheel well. like it had been stuck there and just fallen off. Like the glue on the magnets was defective. And the unit just dropped off my car. The unit itself wasn't dirty. It was still shiny and looked to be brand new. The steps of the night before came back to my mind.

Had that person that walked by my car tagged it with a GPS unit while I was just lying there? Someone obviously had. and based on how it looked, it had to have happened that night, because there was no dirt or dust on the unit at all. I stared at this thing and my heart was racing. Why had they tagged my car like this? What were they planning? And who were they?

I took the unit and I walked into the restroom, and I tossed it straight into the trash can. Whoever was going to be tracking this thing was going to get to track it straight to the dump. I did it once over on all my other wheel wells to make sure there wasn't another one and there wasn't. I made sure all of my stuff was packed up and I got the hell out of there. I have no idea why this person had planted

a most likely very expensive GPS unit on my car, but I'm thankful that the glue had failed. and that the unit had fallen off in the parking lot, and that they weren't able to track me. Of course, now I have this annoying habit of checking under my car literally every time I park, to make sure that there's nothing there. And thankfully, there hasn't been again. The main thought in my mind as to why they would do that

is to possibly steal my car, or worse, get to me as a person for whatever. ever reason. Neither of these things are things that would be good. And I'm grateful that nothing ever came of it. However, it definitely made me a much more cautious person. Maybe even a bit paranoid. Reese's peanut butter cups are the greatest, but let me play devil's advocate here. Let's see.

So, no, that's a good thing. That's definitely not a problem. Reasons, you did it. You stumped this charming devil. This was something a couple of friends and I experienced just a few years ago. My friends, Devin, Sarah Vince, and I had made a tradition of going on a trip each summer together. It was typically around the end of August,

and it was usually something outdoorsy such as camping. That year was no different. We chose a spot that we were fairly familiar with, as we were booking everything pretty last minute due to some personal issues. We chose a remote spot in the mountains. We loved it out there. The campsite was near a nice lake surrounded by thick forests, and we were pretty secluded, too,

probably more likely to run into a bear before another person. We knew our way around the forest, and never really got lost, so we weren't worried about that either. Our plan was to camp for about three nights, and then we would go into the city and enjoy some drinks and whatever entertainment they had to offer nearby. Our first night went on without a hitch, too. We got all of our tents set up. Sarah and I shared a tent, that way the guys didn't tease us about needing help setting it up either. I love everything camping, but for the life of me, I can never get my tent set up with.

without help. So, after settling in, we swam in the lake and even rented two small boats just to see more of the water. It was beautiful, as the sun beamed down on it. But I was also glad that I had put on plenty of sunscreen. That night, we started our fire and had a small dinner of brots and chips, as we talked and laughed. I think we all slept pretty soundly that night too, as we were all awake and ready for another great day. The second day was as great as we expected as well.

It was that night that things kind of went downhill. We had our normal dinner and sat around the fire enjoying the night. It had cooled down a bit, so we became concerned that it might rain. But we were determined to step up. up until that happened, if it did. At some point, Devin announced that he was pretty tired and decided to turn in for the night, while the rest of us stayed up a little longer. The conversation started slowing down, and it became more chill, when we started hearing

what sounded like branches breaking and leave shuffling. It had become a bit windy, so I thought nothing of it, but the ambience of the outdoors, was trying to lull me to sleep. But then the cracking became more frequent. Even when the wind wasn't blowing. I started looking around casually like I was scanning the trees around us. I thought I was being pretty nonchalant about it. But then Sarah asked me,

You hearing that too? I looked over at her to see the look of suspicion as we both looked at Vince, who was obviously thinking the same thing. Vince said it was probably some wildlife nearby, and that we had no reason not to believe that either. So, we continued with our conversation as normal. But the crunching and breaking sounds continued. And unlike other times where I could ignore it,

this time I felt the urge to find the source of the sound. I tried to play it off at first, asking the others what they thought it was. A deer, most likely, possibly a rabbit, and just hopefully not a bear. Mint agreed that it was probably a deer, and with their nods in agreement, I said I wanted to go check it out.

If I saw a deer and possibly spoke it away from our camp, then at least the urge to investigate would be gone. The other two shrugged and decided to go along with me, and thank God they did. We all grabbed a flashlight and decided on a direction where we were hearing the sounds coming from. As we walked through the trees, watching the shadows jump from a nearby fire,

I started to get this uneasy feeling in my stomach. Something wasn't right. I started to slow my pace as the other two went a few steps ahead of me, but I could tell that they had to be feeling the same way as me. I could hear Vince's breath starting to shake, and Sarah was now holding her flashlight with both hands while tapping the handle, something she often did when she was nervous or upset. At this point, we were pretty deep in the trees,

and we couldn't see anything. I started telling them that we should forget it and just go back, but Vince quickly motioned for me to be quiet. I stood motionless, sweeping my flashlight low to the ground, expecting to see the legs of a deer that he may have spotted. I didn't see deer legs, but I don't know what I did see. There were four legs, but the fur on them was patchy at best, and very shiny, like it was oily. There were bare spots, like it had been shaven or bitten off. But then the front legs were so far from the back legs, as in its torso was the longest thing that I've ever seen.

If it stood on two legs, this thing would have had to have been eight or nine feet tall. The actual body of this thing looked severely bloated and round like it could burst any moment. But the worst part was, I moved my flashlight up more and saw just a pinkish, brown skin clinging to the skull. There was no fur around it. It was clean. You could even see the roundness of the top of the skull. But the glowing orange eyes and the snarl is what terrified me the most.

I know dears. I know what they look like. And I know that deers don't have pointed teeth and don't have a low guttural growl like that thing. I was frozen in fear, not knowing what to do. I didn't know what this thing was, and if it would try to attack us if we turned our back to it. But when the growl became louder, and Vince turned his light to the left, we saw more eyes, and we knew that we needed to get the hell out of there quickly. However, Sarah seemed to be way ahead of us.

The one directly in front of us shifted. which caused Sarah to scream, throw her flashlight at it, and run. It was as if I was watching in slow motion as it soared through the air, and it smacked that creature straight in the face, scaring it off, too. They both stopped growling,

and the one to the right ran off. You could hear the loud stompbs as it ran away, and the other one looked over towards it. We took this as our chance to run, so we both ran back through the trees until we were back at the fire with Sarah. We all stood there to compare what we had seen, and when it all matched, we knew that we couldn't have been mistaken. That thing was definitely something we had never seen or heard of before, but we did congratulate Sarah on her throwing skills, as it gave us a good opportunity.

Sarah and I didn't want to stay, and even though he still didn't want to admit it, I'm pretty sure Vince was just as freaked out. We checked to make sure that Devin was fine and Vince stayed in his tent, and Sarah and I stayed in the Jeep, behind metal and locked doors. The next day we checked around our camp and thankfully didn't spot any tracks, so we must have convinced them to stay away. or maybe they were just never interested in us. We told Devin about it the next day and he thought it was crazy,

but I think he was skeptical too. We didn't really care if he didn't believe us, or what either of the guys thought. We didn't want to stay there another night, worried those things that might come back, and maybe there could be more than two of them. We did settle on moving our setup closer to the entrance by a ranger post, so we at least had somewhere to turn. We didn't have any other run-ins on our last night, but it was pretty hard for us to fall asleep.

I felt a whole lot better after we left there and stayed in a hotel. We've been back there once since, but again, I didn't want to be around that same area, and, After it gets dark, I refuse to venture around those woods. So, there's the story of my friends and I being scared to death of this unknown creature, and my friend chucking her flashlight at it to save our lives. We do laugh about it now, but at the time, there was nothing funny about seeing those things, out in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night.

I have a thing that happened to me that I'm not really sure how to categorize, but I thought I would send it your way because I know you'll have a place for it. I used to work at a really old library in my small town. It was a quaint little building that had been updated and renovated so many times that it was pretty much a brand new building. You know that old saying about replacing parts of an old ship until it's a complete. new ship. Yeah, it was like that. It was a neat little place. When I was glad my town actually spent money on, because we were always busy. This was a long time ago before the internet was a

huge thing for everyone all the time, and we were one of the first public places here to actually have computers connected to the internet. Not really relevant, but it does give you a sense of place and time, I suppose. The thing about the library was that, while it was part of the town, it was built closer to the outskirts, so the building itself was sitting there at the end of a road, with a modest parking lot out front. But behind and beside it, it was nothing but woods. Come October, the entire place was absolutely gorgeous.

all the trees would turn at the same time and would paint this picturesque scene of an older-looking building in the autumn woods. This whole thing actually happened at the beginning of October. I know this because we had just set up a spooky stories display kind of thing in the kids section, which we did on the last day of September. On this day, my co-worker that helped me man the fort until close,

Susan had called in. So it was just me working the entire place until we closed at 9. Not really a complaint. It was a Monday, and I knew that we were going to be pretty slow, so I wasn't overly concerned with that fact. Around 8 p.m., I was in the main section resh shelving some books when some guy walked in. He looked kind of... Off?

Like, he seemed pretty normal at first glance, but... Then it kind of clicked that he looked like he was wired and breathing heavily. It looked like he'd been running to get here, like full-on sprint. But while wearing jeans and a button-down shirt that looked like it needed to go through the wash a couple of times to get rid of the pit stains. I eyed him as he walked in and looked around the library from the door, almost in a panic. I stopped what I was doing and slowly approached him, asking him if I could help. when it finally occurred to him that I was talking to him, and not someone else, which took a strangely long amount of time considering we were completely empty,

he cleared his throat and stood up straight like he was trying to act normal. And then he nodded with a smile. I remember he asked me for books on folklore and religious texts, which were two things that literally no one had ever asked me, for in my time working there. I motioned towards one of the back corner shelves and said that religious texts would be back there and that a few shelves forward should be the folklore books.

He thanked me and immediately made his way to the back corner. As he started walking there, I went ahead and informed him that we would be closing within the hour, so I was going to be doing a lot of sorting and cleaning, but if he had any questions to just holler out, since we were empty. Then, I went back to doing what I needed to do for closing and figured that that was that.

About 30 minutes later, he shouted out asking for me, and I went over to the front desk. This guy had seven or eight books on random folklore and copies of like four different religious texts. I made a joke about how he was going to be doing, a lot of reading over the next couple of weeks. And he just stared at me with the most serious of stairs and said, You don't understand what's lurking out there?

I need these for my protection. A bit heavy if you ask me, but I nodded and said, Hey, I get it. Faith can be a powerful thing. He nodded in agreement like what I had just said was the most profound thing he'd ever. heard. I finished scanning in the books, scanned his card, and printed off the slip for the due dates of the books. I also mentioned to him that if he needed any of them extended for an extra week, he could call us and we could go ahead and do so, since he had so many books.

He grabbed the books and looked me straight in the eyes for a moment. Then, without blinking, said, to me. So I want to warn you. Something is out there. It only comes out in October when the moon is hidden. I blinked a few times at him and smiled and then said, duly noted. I hope you have a great night and please stay safe out there. He nodded again and just walked away from the counter and out the door with this ridiculous stack of books. I chuckled to myself, nervously thinking, Wow, that was absolutely the weirdest five minutes of my life. But then got back to my end of shift duties.

Skip ahead the rest of the hour, and I was finished cleaning up and putting books away. I hit the lights and locked the door, and then headed to where my car was parked at the back of the lot. This is where it went from, this was a weird night, to, holy crap was the last. that dude being serious. As soon as I put my hand on the door handle to my car, I started to hear movement in the woods behind me. I turned to look, but when I did, whatever this was jumped down behind the tree line so I couldn't see it.

Now, I'm not trying to say that this was some kind of cryptid or something, but it was a weirdly shaped thing. It didn't really look like a person, but it also wasn't some kind of beast or monster. I don't know what it was. It almost seemed shapeless. As soon as I saw this thing move away from my line of sight, I got these terrible chills down my spine, like I was instinctually supposed to be afraid of it. I then glanced up at the sky, which was dumb, but when I did,

I realized that there was no moon. The sky was filled with clouds, and the moon wasn't visible. At that point, all rational thought would out the window. I jammed my key in my door and jumped into the seat and sped off like a bat out of hell. I sped home which wasn't exactly a far drive, and I ran into my house, locking the door immediately. It was the stupidest thing. there was no rationality to what the guy had said. There was no way that there was something sinister in the woods

that wasn't just a possum or a coyote. But there I was, running from some possibly supernatural entity that was lurking in the woods by the library, because some rando mentioned that there was something out there. Skipping ahead to the next day, when I got to work, I obviously mentioned the whole thing to Susan. who was back after having called in the day prior. She was as confused as I was.

About halfway through the shift, the man came in again, with his whole stack of books in hand. At first, I was thinking, is this going to be a regular thing? Like, is he going to end up being a stalker of some sort? But he walked up to the desk in a much calmer way. placed the books down, and simply said that he needed to return them. I joked and asked if he had changed his mind on needing the protection.

He smiled and said, Oh, no, I was up all night reading through them, and they worked. I took care of it. After the night prior, and what he had just said, I was done with this situation. So I just scanned them all back in, put them on the cart and told him that he was good to go. He thanked me and simply just walked out of the library. Strangely enough, I never saw him again,

and I never had any sort of experience with anything creepy outside of the library that wasn't just a random raccoon or possum. Now, I'm not saying that there was a thing that existed out there. I'm not saying that this guy was some kind of, demon or spirit hunter or something. But what I am saying is that this was the weirdest thing to have ever happened. And be it a prank, or just some dude on drugs, or maybe even a guy with mental issues. It was the scariest damn thing that I had ever dealt with in my time as a librarian.

I have a bit of a creepy story for you, Raven. one that you may be a bit surprised to find hits a bit close to home for you. No, I'm not a creep that's stalking you or anything. I just know that you live in Kansas, as you have mentioned it. And I happened to be on a job in the Kansas City area. I have to travel a lot for work doing network administration for the bank that I work for. And fun fact, the bank that I work for has a massive data center in a city. called Overland Park, just on the outskirts of Kansas City.

In October of 2021, I was sent out to head up a major server upgrade for the data center out there. One thing I was a bit surprised to find was just how cold and wet the month of October can be for you all in Kansas. I was born in the South, and while we do get some cold weather, we don't get the half rain, half snow that you guys are played with, just before Halloween. How do kids go trick-or-treating when it's so damn cold? Anyways, distracting tangents aside, the job was boring. That's not where things happened. I was back at my hotel one night, and it was, of course, raining and cold out.

I had the room temp up a little warmer than I should have, but not being used to the cold. I had to. I had wrapped up some reporting that I had to. had to deliver to my boss, so I shut off my laptop and just wanted to spend the night relaxing and doing a whole hell of a lot of nothing. So I sat up on the bed and grabbed the remote to flick through the channels. Nothing was really catching my attention, but after a bit, I landed on a documentary show about haunted places in the U.S.

Ironically, the episode that was on was about a place called Sally House, an act. In Atchison, Kansas. For those that don't know what Sally House is, it's apparently this notoriously haunted house in Atchison where a young girl named Sally died. It was in the early 1900s and she was being seen by a doctor in the house for pain in her abdomen. And they botched the appendectomy and it killed her. Ever since then, the house has been plagued by paranormal activity, a bunch of

reports of objects moving, noises, cold spots, and such. There have even been reports of physical attacks on the people that have occupied it. I was oddly drawn into this show. And maybe it's because the house was like 40 minutes away from where I was staying, but it was really interesting to me. Now, obviously watching this documentary isn't a scary story. That'd be silly. What was scary was.

the feeling I was getting while watching it. The whole time they were talking about the house, what happened, and walking around showing the rooms, I was getting this weird chill down my spine, and the hairs in my arm were standing up. It may sound weird, but I was feeling like I was connected to the house. Not like I knew anything about it, but like I was supposed to be seeing this episode. I'm not trying to say that this was like a past life thing or anything, but there was definitely something,

something, I guess, paranormal about the whole thing. During the episode, I was just immensely gripped by the story. They were showing stuff about EVPs, pictures that showed figures, and one of the people was even showing off a bruise they had seemingly randomly got while there. It was terrifying. One of the investigators even claimed to have seen Sally's spirit in the room upstairs, a little girl with a white dress that was stained in blood. He then mentioned that when he tried to get closer, she vanished.

And this is where I started to get freaked out. Because the second he said vanished, the TV in my room shut off. It wasn't like it was on a sleep timer or an inactivity, timer or anything, because it had only been about 20 minutes. But the TV just turned off. I jumped a bit, because it kind of freaked me out, given the circumstances, but I tried to turn it back on with the remote, only to find that it wasn't working. I was annoyed, obviously.

I was getting into the show, and as soon as it was getting good, this would happen. I got up from the bed to turn it back on with the button on the set. The second I reached out to touch the button, I felt this cold air rush across me. And I swear on everything in my life, I felt an icy hand grab the back of my neck. Like, I felt the fingers wrap around the back of my neck and just straight up grab me. I freaked out to the point that I literally fell on to the floor as I flung myself around, to see what had touched me. But, of course, there was nothing there.

I literally just sat on the floor for like five minutes, staring into an empty room, and feeling like I was freezing. At that point, I was done, so I stood up, changed into my pajamas, and jumped under the covers. Like, completely under the covers, including my head. I didn't even turn the light off. I did fall asleep after a bit, so at least I wasn't too freaked out.

The next morning, though, actually scared the hell out of me. When I got up and went to the bathroom to do what I needed to do for the day, I looked at myself in the mirror. Much to my surprise, there was a bruise on my neck, just on the side. It looked to be the side. in shape of two fingers. It was like someone had grabbed me really hard, or hit me with their hand on the side of my neck.

It wasn't a super ugly or dark bruise, but it was definitely a dark red with a blue hint, and it was very visible. Thankfully, I had a collared shirt that was able to cover it pretty well, but it was terrifying to know that whatever had touched me was real enough to bruise my head. skin. That was literally the only paranormal event I experienced in that hotel. Nothing else weird happened for the rest of the week that I had to stay, thankfully. I didn't watch any more TV

after that, though. If I wasn't on my laptop, I was sleeping. I didn't want to risk it. Anyways, that's my creepy story that I wanted to share with you, and I thought you would find it even more interesting being so close to you. I'm pretty new to your podcast, and I love it, so please do keep up the great work. Oh, and please do let us know if you ever get the chance to check out the Sally House. It sounds like a downright, creepy place. So, I want to start this story out by saying that I'm a fairly serious person. I never wanted to be a stiff, but as I've gotten into my late 20s, now early 30s,

I kind of shifted into this very serious person that was always busy with work and career ambitions. My friend, Sarah, on the other hand, has always been a very whimsical person that does everything based on how she feels in that moment. And she doesn't like to be tied down. You know that one meme with the two girls? We're ones wearing all black with black hair, and the other one's wearing tie-died clothes and has rainbow hair? Yeah, that's us. There's one thing that we have always agreed and have loved together, though,

and that's spooky month. We both have this strange love for October, the hollowed season, and all things scary. There's just something about the change in seasons where the air gets crisp and starts to sting a bit that can pull me out of my serious demeanor and brings Sarah a bit closer to my state of thinking. But Sarah is still the

let's do this crazy thing right here right now kind of person, and she's my best friend. So I'm more than willing to let her convince me to do something stupid, especially when she comes to me super excited about it. it was obviously her idea to investigate something that she'd heard about from her brother. On the outskirts of our town, there was, apparently, an old abandoned farm that had an old barn that was still standing. There was, as there always is, rumors about this farm. This one was actually pretty messed up, and true.

Apparently in the 60s, the patriarch of the house came home one day, and something made him snap. He murdered his whole family and then himself. She mentioned this, and the only thing I could think of was holy Amityville horror. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but she convinced me that we wouldn't be going into the house where the crimes happened. We would just do a quick walk through the barn to see what was there.

So, armed with a flashlight in a sense of daring, we set out one Friday night to explore the barn and perhaps get a bit of a scare in preparation for the rest of the spooky month. We got to the location, she parked off to the side of the road in a spot that was completely unnoticeable by anyone driving by, and we started walking on to the property. The barn was actually a pretty massive structure, much larger than I anticipated.

And, as we entered, Sarah had this brilliant idea. She pulled her phone out and placed it on a ledge and told me she was going to record to see if she could get any ghostly sounds. We continued on into the large wooden relic. The building was weathered for sure. Windows were boarded up. The paint was peeling away as if the walls were growing fingers

and trying to reach into the darkness. We walked through the main, I guess, hall. I'm not really sure what to call the area where the stalls are for the various animals, and I will say that I was feeling very uncomfortable within a few moments. It was unusually freezing in that building. The air was stale, and everything was layered in dust, which I knew was going to kill my allergies. Then Sarah stopped in the middle of the floor and put her hand back to stop me and said, Okay, did you see that?

I looked around. I hadn't seen anything, and I told her as such. She then pointed her flashlight up towards where the loft in the back was, saying that she thought she saw something moving up there. I figured she was just trying to creep me out a bit, and it was absolutely working. She glanced over at, me and asked if I wanted to go up there to check it out. I was very hesitant. I started to tell her

that I didn't want to, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I heard what sounded like someone talking. Not like a person that was nearby, but like something whispering something in the distance. Based on how pale Sarah got, I could tell that she heard it too. But she went a different route with her fear and started to chuckle uncontrollably. She jumped up excitedly and said that we needed to get up there asap to see what creepiness there was. She ran over to the ladder and started climbing it, leaving me with zero chance to tell her that I did not want to go up there, so I followed her.

Up in that loft was, well, it was genuinely unsettling. There were toys, a lot of them. All of them, older and dirty, like they'd been there for decades, probably because they had. As she swept the area with the flashlight, she pointed it towards what looked like a small bundle of blankets in the corner, and in the blankets was a doll, but not like a normal doll. This thing was clearly handmade. Poorly sewn together. the smile on its face almost felt malicious. It was sewn on at a weird angle.

The button eyes were partially broken, and the clothing on the doll was stained with God knows what. Sarah reached over and picked the doll up to look a bit closer at it. This is where things went from creepy to, well, creepier. I turned to look around the room a bit more, looking at the other toys, the various bits of clothing that were stacked in the corner, and after a few seconds, Sarah let out a chilled scream, and I turned just in time to watch her throw the doll down, and immediately dashed down the loft's ladder.

I followed her down to the main level, and she took off out of the barn. Thankfully, I remembered her phone and grabbed it before we left, only to see her, continuing her jogging. out to the car. When we got to the car, I could see that she was breathing heavily and her eyes were watering. This was a stark contrast to the excitement she'd shown

going up into the loft. I asked her what was wrong and what had happened as I handed her her phone, and she just shook her head and said, We can talk about it when we get home. I didn't push it.

She was clearly in a bad way, so I just put the car in reverse and took the roads back home. When we got back to my place, she finally settled down and told me what had happened. When she picked up the doll, she started to feel nauseous, like she was going to get sick. She said that I had turned away and she saw me looking over at the other things. And when she turned to look back at the doll, she saw a little girl's face just behind the doll in her hands. She told me that the face was grotesque, that she wasn't just a pretty little girl. She looked like she'd been severely beaten and injured.

And the look that she gave Sarah was one of rage, like she was mad that Sarah was holding the doll. That's when she let out the yelp, tossed the doll and ran away. That in and of itself was creepy, sure, but as we talked to her, but as we talked about the yelp, tossed the doll and ran away. As we talked through it, Sarah recalled the audio recording on her phone. She grabbed her phone and we listened to see if it caught anything, and there were two instances that sent chills up my spine. The first was not too long after we got to the barn, and she set up the phone. There was what clearly sounded like a little girl's voice saying,

She's pretty. I hope she'll play with me. It was whispery and quiet, but that's what I swear I heard. Then, the second bit was a bit later, and it was actually right before Sarah gave her yelp. You could hear us talking in a hushed tone, and then there's a really staticy sound, like the wind was blowing over the phone. And I swear there is an angered and slightly demonic-sounding voice saying, that's mine. And then you hear Sarah let out her scream and run out of the barn.

This would have aligned right with when she said she saw the girl's face. And I'm guessing that was the girl staking her claim on the doll, even from beyond the grave. The whole event was more than enough for me. I was properly terrified. We never went back to the barn, and we decided to not really talk. much about the whole event beyond that night. Thankfully, nothing attached itself to us, or followed us out of that barn, but I would be lying if I said I didn't think that was what was

going to happen. It was a terrifying experience, one that even now, a couple of years later, I can remember with vivid detail. I can recall the cold feeling, the overall unsettling aura that was about the place, and that look on Sarah's face after she threw that doll. Thankfully, she hasn't had the idea to go into any more abandoned buildings, but October is only a couple of weeks away, so I'll let you know if that changes this year. I have always been a fan of the open road. Give me a full tank of gas, a playlist on Spotify of some of my favorite tracks, and a destination that gets me as far away from the world I know as possible, and I'm a happy camper.

Well, not a camper. I don't like camping. I very much prefer hotels, but that's not really here nor there. So, when I got a chance to drive across the country for a temporary job relocation, I jumped at it. It wasn't a permanent move. it was going to be for a couple of months most likely, and then things would shift to me moving back to the home office. I was pretty psyched to be living in a new state,

even if it was only for a little while. The whole trip there was pretty smooth, for the most part. That is, until I was about halfway through the Midwest, and stopped at a random highway rest stop to take a break. It was a pretty basic rest stop. Nothing too crazy about it. It had a quaint little convenience store on one half, and then a restroom that was only accessible from the outside of the stop.

The store was pretty basic. Like a convenience store kind of place, just chips, soda, maybe a questionable hot dog if you're feeling particularly brave, which I wasn't. I went into the store first thinking I would grab my stuff and then head over to the restrooms. I got my snacks, my energy drink, and chatted briefly with the two employees behind the counter, about the area and where I was headed. They seemed friendly enough, just your average folks working the late shift at a highway rest stop. After that, I headed over to the restroom.

As mentioned, it was detached from the store. It was the same building, but the door to the convenience store was on the far left, and the restrooms were accessible on the far right. The restroom part was a bit unsettling at first glance. It was just basically cold concrete blocks put together to house a plumbing system. You know the restroom buildings that are typically at public parks? It was like that. My guess was that the restroom was built first in common.

and there was probably something else attached, but they had since made it a modern-looking convenience store instead. I went in, was happy that it was actually pretty clean, and went to the stall to take care of business. That's when I heard the door creak open, and someone walked into the stall next to me. The creaking in an otherwise silent restroom was a bit unsettling, but nothing about it was weird, really.

Probably just another traveler trying to get somewhere overnight like I was. A couple of seconds pass, and I hear this guy cough a bit, and then ask, Hey, you got a light? I was a little taken aback. Who asks for a lighter in a public restroom? Was he planning on smoking in the restroom like that with someone else in there? then, of course, was the question of smoking what. Uh, no, sorry, I don't smoke.

I replied, a bit direct with my tone, but if he was planning on smoking in an occupied restroom, then that was kind of rude of him. So it was warranted. He grunted at my response and then sighed, and then there was silence. A long, awkward silence that seemed to stretch on forever. The kind of awkward silence that came to be when a random person in a bathroom stall next to you talks to you. Just when I was about to write it off as some weird and random encounter, I heard what sounded like a splashing sound, like a liquid being poured on the floor.

My first and obvious thought was that this dude was peeing on the floor. But I was immediately corrected in my thoughts when I started. strong, acrid smell filled the air. Gasoline. My heart started to pound in my chest, and my stomach turned. This guy was pouring large amounts of gasoline in a public restroom. What the hell was he planning? I didn't want to stick around to find out.

I quickly finished up, flushed, and bolted out of the stall. I didn't even wash my hands. I just ran right back to the table. convenience store, yanked the door open, and almost incoherently shouted, Hey, there's some dude pouring gasoline in the restroom. The two employees looked at each other for a moment like, is this dude high? But I think the panic in my voice and the fact that we had just spoken a few moments ago, and I was completely normal, then lent itself to the validity of my statement.

One of them grabbed the phone to call the police, while the other sprang. printed towards the restrooms. A few tense moments later, he came back, his face pale. You weren't kidding. The place reeks of gas. Go ahead and call 911. By the time the police arrived, the guy was still in the restroom. He was just sitting there in the stall, completely drenched in gasoline.

It was like he was actually waiting for someone else to come in and give him that light that he'd requested, so he could set himself, and I guess the place ablaze. They got him out and in cuffs, and they had so many questions about the situation. They determined that there was a truck in the parking lot that belonged to him, and they got his information from running the tags. But the cab was completely empty, with the exception of a set of keys. It was like he had come to the rest stop with the intentions of doing what he was doing, and that's it.

The clerks didn't recognize him. I didn't know who he was. And overall, it was just a really weird and confusing and potentially deadly situation. Of course, by the end of this, I was taunted with a horrifying thought. What if I did, smoke? What would have gone down

if I had been carrying a lighter in my pocket and handed it to him under the stall. Would he have gone through with lighting himself on fire while I was still locked in my little stall next to him? Would I have just been collateral damage for him? I don't know, and I don't like to think about the fact that this was a lucky brush with potential death for me. Thankfully, after the cops left and everything was done, I was able to get back on the road. I felt bad for the employees. They were probably near the end of their shift,

and they were then thrown into a deep cleaning situation where they now had to remove the stench of gasoline from the men's restroom. I hope that that guy did get some help because he needed it, and I hope that those clerks never had to deal with anything like that again. Because, honestly, that was one of the scariest moments of my parents. my life. Biennue at board of Vyarai.

Embarked and profite. Embarked and relaxed. Cirotay. Bookiné. Oh, that also.

And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love that love that soccer, you could assist at a moment historic.

You could gain for the final of the Coupe of the World of the FIFA 2006 with

Visa. It's just to have a card of a credit Visa BMO for participate.

My buddy, Jakemobo.com, bar obliq, concourse. The reglements of the concourse sapplic. My buddy, Jake, and I have always been the adventurous types. We've been best buds since high school. We even went to college together. Our freshman year of college, we made a pact that, while we attended college, in the spring between semesters, we would go on a road trip to a place that we had never been.

Basically, we planned to go on four road trips together. And that way we would have memories together, and if life ended up pushing us in different directions, we would never forget the time we spent. Obviously, we treated each other more like brothers than just friends. Our last year of college, we decided that we would go towards the southwest, and had planned a destination that would be about as far as we could go without being, gone too long.

We had a pretty simple plan. Drive during the day, find a cool spot to camp at night. We had a tent, but we just kind of figured that we would end up sleeping in the car for convenience. There was a lot of driving where pretty much nothing had happened. We got some really great pictures, went to a few landmarks and all that. We got to Arizona, which was the end of our route. and after a long drive-through, we decided that we would find a secluded spot as we could in the desert. It was the last night out on the road, so we just wanted to enjoy the spring night out in the middle of nowhere.

We found a good spot, one that was wide open and the stars were visible in every direction. We parked the car, reclined the seats, and we started to drift off. After a little bit, the overwhelming silence was broken by what sounded like hushed voices, someone speaking in low tones, and the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the hard ground. Jake and I looked at each other at the same time, him asking, Yo, did you hear that? I nodded. We may put on a false bravado when we're at home, but we're city boys more than anything. and the wide open like this was foreign, a bit intimidating, if you will.

That, and I'm kind of a scrawny dude, so if someone was to try to overpower me with malicious intent, I'd be best off just letting them stab me. Being the guys that we were, we did get curious, and that curiosity got the best of us. We decided that we would go and take a quick walk around to make sure that we weren't in a, situation, basically. We quietly got out of the car with a couple of flashlights and started to walk out into the wilderness. It was wide open, so it wasn't like we wouldn't be able to see if there was someone just outside

the car, but there wasn't anyone there. That said, we both were still hearing voices, like they were disembodied, or were coming from a speaker with surround sound or something. I just kind of stood there staring off at the horizon thinking, Where is that coming from? When I noticed Jake walked past me and pointing over to a small hill, I think it's coming from over there, man. While we were curious and wanted to check it out,

we weren't dumb enough to walk. So, we got back in the car and Jake pulled forward slowly to check out the area where he thought the sounds were coming from. When we got over the hill, we parked and both got out to see if there was anything nearby, and what we found was seriously creepy as hell. On the other side of the hill was what looked like a large pit, larger than a grave but about that deep, dug straight into the earth. And inside the pit were dozens of animal carcasses,

all in varying states of decay. Some were freshly killed, their eyes were still open and staring in terror, and others were nothing but dirty bones. It was like this nasty, gruesome dumping ground. We were both horrified, both of us thinking, what the hell is this? We both turned to ask each other that same question, but as we turned, we both paused because we heard what sounded like a twig snapping. and when we went to look, we saw a person off in the distance, walking towards us. They weren't saying anything, they weren't hesitating, and they didn't look to be armed. But they were just a large and foreboding presence in the night walking straight toward us,

with a fairly intimidating gate. We jumped back in the car and we took off. As Jake was driving off, I kept my eyes on the rear of, view mirror and watched this person slowly walk towards the pit. Then they just stood over it as they watched us drive away. We didn't stick around to find out what this all was about. We drove non-stop to the next town over, where we went to talk to the cops. The officer that was on duty looked incredibly disinterested in what we were saying,

but said that he would look into it. Something about how he said it. made it seem like he genuinely didn't believe us. We left the station with our minds racing, trying to figure out what the hell we'd stumbled upon. To the best of my knowledge, it isn't a common thing for landowners to have mass graves for animals like that. And I'm pretty sure it's illegal to just kill random animals

for the sake of killing them and dumping them. Part of me assumed that the person walking up towards us was the person that was managing the pit. But who knows what he would have done to us if we tried to talk to him. Maybe we would have ended up in the pit with the other animals. A couple of mates and I decided to go on a road trip through the country towns of New South Wales, Australia. It was our first trip.

We wanted to go during schoolies years ago, but due to the pandemic, we had to stay home and wait until we could do it. With our schedules clear of both personal and professional commitments, and with the long weekend, we were finally able to make the trip. Whenever we drove through any of the towns, we would look to see what was on, show up, stay the night, and keep driving. We literally had no plans.

There was a small rustic cafe in the middle of the bush, with beautiful views going by what we saw on social media. We made the drive there through a rough road. My friends and I joked about my friend's car not surviving the journey. On either side of the road was farming land or part of one of the national parks. It was beautiful. We only saw maybe about four Utes at most on the road. I noticed something that was kind of unsettling.

There was smoke coming from one of the roads. There was some rain, and we all figured that they must have been back burning to prevent the drastic bushfires that Australia gets. We didn't see any signs or anything. Soon we saw the same thing on the other side of the road, and the anxiety of what could happen started to settle in. I imagine you're probably wondering why we didn't immediately turn around. One, we're idiots.

And two, the fires were small. We debated calling the fireies to warn them. The Utes and other off-road-style cars didn't seem phased by it. Either they were the resilient country types, or they were used to this. We kept going and made jokes about the Everything is Fine dog meme, the one where he's surrounded by fire in a house. There was more smoke than fire. As we kept driving along the road, we were going up a hill, and the fires looked larger,

and it wasn't just smoke anymore. We actually saw flames. Keep in mind, there was mild rain, and it wasn't a roaring blaze. We kept going, and we couldn't see much anymore. It was hard to decide whether to keep going or to cut our losses and leave. Every so often we would make our way out and the smoke would clear up. We saw someone by the side of the road in their Ute. My friend got out and asked what had happened.

We found out that yes, they were back burning to prepare for the fire season. My friend asked if we were safe to drive through and he said yes, but to do so cautiously. We definitely felt like city boys at this point. Unfortunately, the backburned. got out of control and the morning rain had long stopped driving through the road with fires on both sides is something i never want to do again the scariest part was when a burning tree fell on the road and we had to swerve in order to avoid hitting it since it was one of those small country roads it didn't leave much room on the other side and fortunately there were no cars going the other direction This was the closest we had come to any of the fires, and it was scary how quickly it had spread. The fire brigade had to be called,

and we were relieved when we saw the flashing lights and heard the sirens. We made our way out. The locals seemed mildly annoyed by it getting out of control, and the guy at the hotel said it wasn't that bad. Our story could have been a lot worse, and reading back through it, It doesn't sound as terrifying as some of the other stories. But I do have an increased respect for the fireies.

And I suppose it was better to burn like this than waiting until summer, and it being so much worse. I heard from the local townies that a couple of cars were hit by burning trees, and that someone's house had gone up in smoke because of the back burning going wrong. However, any of the injuries were, minor and no one had died either. I can only imagine what being in a bushfire would have been like, especially like the ones from a couple of years ago.

Those were bloody, deadly. Oh, yeah. The rest of the trip was fantastic. We got to see some really nice places and saw some historic pubs. Maybe I'll send in some more stories of what we got up to down the line. We got some awesome pictures, too. but I'm not really comfortable sharing them with people on the internet. You have an awesome channel, Raven.

And if you're ever down under, let me know. And we'll share a VB and have a yarn. Thank you. I have no idea what that means. Hey there, friends. I hope that you enjoyed this collection of scary stories on this episode of the As the Raven Dreams podcast. If you did, make sure that you follow the podcast on whatever platform that you're utilizing.

And if the platform you are on has a rate the podcast option, please consider doing so. Those ratings push the podcast into the algorithm, and we all know how the algorithm controls everything, so yeah. I also do have a Patreon. If you go to patreon.com slash as the Raven Dreams, you can support the channel further. For as little as a dollar a month, you can get early. access to all of my content in audio format. The content's a little different, as it's based on what I upload to my YouTube side, but it's the same stories, just in different collections of stories than how they're presented

here. Speaking of stories, if you have one you would like to submit to me, please go to ashtheravendreams.com and click the button in the middle of the screen that says submit your story. These stories are mostly sourced by listeners, so let's keep the podcast alive. If you've got one, I'd love to read it. Anyways, friends, I hope you're all having a beautiful day and a lovely week. And I hope I see you again very soon. But until then, remember you're loved, you're valid, you're important.

You're the best you that you can be, never forget it. And until next time, much love and sleep well.