As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 124 - Scary Gardening Stories & Other Scary Stories From You - 11 True Scary Stories
Episode Date: May 17, 2024Welcome to the chilling 124th 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 extraordin...ary. Today we will be diving into stories about the horrors of gardening as well as other true scary stories from listeners like you! 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... INSERTNAMESHERE As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. '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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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.
I worked for a lawn in landscaping company for several years.
I made some mistakes as a young adult, causing me to get my GED late, so finding a
good-paying job in my 20s
was difficult.
But this company took me in,
and I really felt like they gave me
a second chance.
And I will always be grateful for them.
However, we still
worked with the public, so we
definitely got a fair share of weird
and memorable customers.
This is a story
about one of them named
Larry.
Larry was a longtime customer
that we remembered because of one of his
weird requests.
He claimed to be satisfied with our services, except he wanted us to use his weed whacker only.
He claimed that the wiring he used was less damaging to his grass.
I don't think our boss believed it, but it was cheaper than the stuff that we used, so he
actually bought some that he installed on a few machines to specifically use at his place.
Once he showed him, he seemed satisfied, and we started using our own equipment.
We had a policy that we couldn't use a customer's equipment for safety reasons,
so at least the owner was willing to work with the customer.
Other than that specific demand, Larry was an all right guy.
He was friendly enough to all of us, but also stayed out of our way,
and his wife was old-fashioned and tried to offer us drinks all the time.
very kind people.
They would occasionally have yard games or kids' toys in the yard.
Typically, they picked those up before we got there,
but if we did find some,
Larry just asked us to toss them in a small shed in the back.
No big deal.
I had two very young kids of my own at the time,
and I knew that you could only ask them to do something so many times
before you had to just do it yourself or possibly forget it.
On this day, we started working,
on the yard, when I spotted a few toys in the back. I picked them up, and, per the norm, I started
walking them over to the shed. As I stood in front of the shed, before I opened it, I noticed that
it now had a padlock on it. However, it was only on the one handle and obviously unlocked. I noticed
it because Larry never had a lock on the door before. I just assumed that maybe he had issues with
trespassers or was worried about the kids getting in there by themselves.
It was one of those moments that I noticed, didn't think much of it because it wasn't any of
my business anyways, and proceeded to open the door.
But once I entered the shed, I was provided with a different site.
It was definitely a makeshift lab, but not for drugs, but explosives.
I saw wiring, weird pipe pieces.
metal scraps, and several packages of powder and bottles of liquids.
What the hell was I looking at?
Not to mention, I had already had a run-in with the law,
and I knew that I wanted no part of any of this,
so I calmed myself, tossed the toy in the shed,
and walked out, just humming a song.
I walked in humming and was trying to stay calm.
That all nearly crumbled when I saw Larry standing right outside the shed,
shed. He looked pissed. I wasn't expecting him to be standing there, so it made me jump. I tried to laugh
it off, but he asked me what I was doing in there. I just calmly pointed out the items in the yard
that I was putting away. He tried to argue with me that it was locked, but I pointed out the lock on
the handle and explained that it was already unlocked and open. I also tried to point out that this is
what we had always done, literally, per his instructions.
His demeanor changed.
It reminded me of the calm but obviously upset voice a parent would use on their child
when they wanted them to admit something they did.
I'm familiar with it because of my own parents and how I use it on my own kids.
He asked me what all I saw in the shed.
We both knew the answer to this.
He knew what I saw.
and I took this as him trying to intimidate or threaten me.
I tried to think fast to get myself out of the situation and back to my job,
so I could never think about it again.
So I tried to play dumb.
I acted kind of excited about it.
What, with the chemicals?
Yeah, it looks like you're making your own fertilizer, right?
I figured you would.
Your lawn is a lot greener than the rest of the block.
I then tried to BS something about using a certain enzyme to help with growth,
with the purpose of boring him, I hoped.
I was really trying to look naive, and to my surprise, it seemed to work.
His shoulders dropped, and his eyes softened.
He no longer looked on the defensive, so I thought I was successful.
He told me that that was correct, thanked me for my advice,
apologized about the toys and then dismissed me to get back to work.
I started walking away and finished my work, but the rest of the time there I felt his eyes on me.
I avoided talking to anyone that I worked with unless it was loud enough for him to hear,
so he knew that I wasn't talking about him.
I continued working or would make jokes, hoping to keep him off of my back too,
but he still watched me.
making me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
As we left, Larry was back to being his normal friendly self.
And when we were all back at the shop or home, I was still thinking about what I saw.
I knew there had to be something bad going on in that shed.
I contemplated on what I could do, if anything, for a few days.
I also tried to be reasonable.
Maybe all the chemicals were there for a completely harmless reason.
but I really couldn't think of any.
I knew what some of the things were that I saw.
I won't name them here for obvious reasons,
but from what I knew of them,
there was not a good reason to have them.
It didn't make sense,
and knowing he had at least one child and a wife,
I knew I needed to tell someone.
This was long enough ago that I drove to a gas station,
used a payphone on the side of the building,
and left an anonymous tip.
I told them that I was a neighbor,
but I didn't want to give my name,
and I explained what I saw in his shed.
I told them how they seemed very suspicious and secretive about the shed,
and that I was worried about the chemicals that he stored in there.
I think it may have helped that we were in a drought,
so the risk of a fire was pretty high.
I felt awful afterwards.
I worried that maybe I was,
I was just overreacting.
I worried that they would find out it was me, and then I would be punished.
By authorities, by Larry, by my work.
My work in my little family was all I had at the time, so I couldn't afford to lose my job.
But I also couldn't just keep my head down, especially if I would eventually have to go back there.
Luckily, I didn't have to do that.
it was about two weeks later that it was finally on the news,
not to mention talked about at my work.
Police went to Larry's home and said that they were given a tip that they were required to follow up on.
The thing is, at first, it was just a request.
They could have been told to come back with a warrant,
but part of the reason that it escalated and was in the news
was because Larry immediately went on the defense.
He apparently refused to even let them in the house, ended up locking himself inside the shed, and threatened to end his own life.
When they finally got to him, they found all the same things that I saw and confirmed my suspicions.
Something had happened with Larry's job. It wasn't specified, but he was angry about it.
He planned on blowing the office up and going out with it.
Thankfully, none of that occurred.
The news said that he was apprehended beforehand and was being tried for a bunch of things.
I don't remember the exact outcome, but I do know that they were trying to co with an insanity defense.
I was honestly shocked to find out what happened as I followed the story.
Larry was such a nice guy in the beginning.
He knew how things worked.
He talked to all of us like we were friends.
and then something happened to him, and I witnessed the beginnings of it.
Then it all spiraled downward for him.
Part of me still feels bad for calling it in, but at the same time,
I have to remember that I could have saved so many lives.
And that's what I stick with.
That's what I choose to hold on to.
And I instill in my kids, now in their teen years,
that if you see something, say something.
Tell someone you trust because you don't want to live with the regrets of not doing anything
after it's too late.
So at around 12 a.m. after I had gotten off work,
my boyfriend at the time and I were watching TV
and had just finished smoking some funky devil lettuce
when there's a knock at the door.
We both look at each other in confusion when a second round
of Knox goes off. He gets up off the couch, looks out the peephole, and recognizes that it's a
woman that had talked his head off when he was checking these apartments out before moving in.
She, as he describes, is probably in her 50s and very annoying. He sees her every morning when he goes
to work, and she always waits for him to leave first before driving off. He reluctantly opens the door,
as I take the paraphernalia out of sight.
I can hear her voice, but she's speaking incoherently,
until he decifers heat and not working.
To which he says,
You're peat's not working?
She says yes,
and asks him to look at it when our cat walks out the door,
so he closed it to pick her up.
The lady begins walking up the stairs,
so he brings the cat back in and follows.
He sees the woman standing there as he reaches the tops of the steps, and from her doorways she says,
Never mind, it's working.
But then notes that all the lights in her apartment were off.
It was pitch black.
She then says, you could still come in and take a look at it if you want.
He, finally, caning some wits, declined, and decides not to wait around for anything else weird to happen.
So he turns around and descends down the steps returning to our apartment,
where he sat in silence for five minutes,
trying to piece together what just happened,
before regaling me with the story I just told you.
After a bit, he heads to bed as he has to work early in the morning.
After about 30 minutes or so, it's now 1.30 to 2 a.m.
My boyfriend is dead asleep, as he's notorious for knocking out instantly.
When I hear steps coming down the stairs, and then, you guessed it, knocking, but faint this time.
I know it's not on my door, so I look out the eye hole and there she is again,
knocking on my neighbor's door, yelling more incoherent words for a solid five minutes.
Eventually she just walks away with no answer, but in the opposite direction of the stairs to her apartment.
She shuffles her way out of sight from my peephole into the darkness.
I hear her walk back upstairs maybe an hour later.
Strange.
Fast forward to 3 a.m., and she's at our door again, knocking.
To which, of course, she got no answer, but as I'm looking out the peephole,
I can see her mumbling to herself as she knocks.
She's definitely an older woman with dark gray hair and profound.
wrinkles on her face. Her hair is in disarray and her brow is furrowed, seemingly frustrated.
She walks away like before, the opposite way of the stairs, and I didn't hear her go back up for a while,
until she stomped her way up there, obviously very mad that no one is entertaining her 3 a.m. nonsense.
My boyfriend went to his car to go to work Monday morning and noticed a nail drove into the side of his tire.
I'm not saying it was her who did this out of rage or her unanswered knocks, but it was very convenient as he didn't drive all weekend, so there's no telling what had happened.
He did, however, call our complex about the knocking and yelling at all hours of the night.
It's Thursday, 1.46 a.m. almost a week later.
Remember how I said my boyfriend normally sees her every morning on his way to work?
He hasn't seen her once this entire week.
Her car has sat in the same spot as well.
Also, we haven't seen a single light from her apartment.
Not when he gets home at 8 p.m. nor when I get home at 11 p.m.
What has happened to this woman?
I have no clue, but I'm just glad that the knocking has stopped.
Our home was built on a cornfield, along with several blocks of homes just before a circling horse
fence, with several horses inside at the end of our neighborhood in 1958.
No other home had stood here before.
My parents purchased it new, and I live in it to this day, and I'm one of my parents'
two daughters.
When I was only four, my mother and sister and I had been cleaning an area where we kept
our toys and random things.
We straightened, organized, made up a bag for Goodwill, and threw out items.
vacuumed the bare concrete floor, and then mopped it and came back upstairs.
I hated steps at that age, and there were a set of ten steep steps, and I didn't want to be rushed.
So my mother led the way upstairs, followed by my older sister, who was nine and a half.
We trudged up, feeling that we had accomplished something.
Suddenly I felt someone pushed my foot from behind.
It nearly made me trip.
These steps had no backboard.
I was never a crier and it scared me and also made me mad.
My mother demanded what was wrong as she was almost to the top.
I said not even understanding that my sister had pushed me.
She said that she couldn't have because she was ahead of me.
I didn't know how, I said, but I knew my mother would never do it.
I didn't even know about ghosts, so it never could.
enter my mind. I cried being scared and feeling misunderstood and confused. Fast forward and I was
45. I was downstairs and walked up the steps in our ranch-style home. Suddenly I felt what seemed
to be a person pushed my foot, as if to trip me. I froze and my memory from being a kid flashed
back into my mind. Other things have happened. To condense events, I've heard. I've heard of
heard something like steel screws in a tray being looked through, or maybe rattling metal chains.
Saw one male outline, as if all made of shadow, heard a loud smash and thought as I'd heard
glass, it must have been a burglar, but we had sturdy glass block windows.
Looking everywhere, all doors and windows upstairs were intact, but we feared going downstairs
and had the door to our basement open, so I looked down the steps, seeing nothing.
Then, really loudly and suddenly, slammed that wood basement door and threw on the brass slidebar lock.
When it slammed, my sister and I heard what sounded like a man screaming out startled.
Like, ugh!
Then, I was sure it was a burglar.
We had old security doors that are deadbolts made of steel and tempered glass that, once deadbolted, barred exiting without a key.
We locked back in front so no one could escape.
We both recently got our concealed carry license, and my sister and I,
in long night shirts and bed socks,
and guns raised and fresh out of our baths,
left the house with our long hair, wet, streaming down our backs.
It was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
We live in Kentucky.
We had no pets then.
We stealthily walked all around every wall of our house.
a red brick ranch.
We had a flashlight, and it was strong.
Each window was highlighted and noted not to be broken,
and then each basement window on two sides,
which are tough glass blocks.
It was clear that no window, door, or basement block was breached,
nor anything we could see of our rooftop.
We knew that we had heard class breaking.
It wasn't until the next day that we even ventured down there,
and there was no sign of anything having fallen, broken glass, etc.
It was weird.
As well, all my life, I'd heard my father working on projects in our basement,
and often he would play music, or the radio as he worked.
This went on for many years.
If it was too loud and I was studying, I would ask him to please turn it down.
He would.
But one night he said that he didn't have any music on.
and I was trying hard to study and it was loud.
It made me mad, and I said something in frustration to him,
and he replied that he really had nothing on.
Suddenly I believed him.
Well, fast forward to when he was in his late 80s,
he had a caregiver in our home, as I was at my full-time job.
One part of the week was one lady in the middle to Friday was a second caregiver,
and then Saturday and Sunday the two alternates.
Each of them separately left me notes, asking where a radio was in our basement because it was way too loud town stairs.
I told them that there is no longer any radio down there, nor anything similar.
They all insisted that there was.
Finally, one day a friend of mine from work agreed to cover one weekend and also experienced this,
and I went over the whole basement finding no radio.
and said that it sounded like a very old radio show
where an announcer says the name of a whiny clarinet song.
I'd heard it for years myself coming up the furnace register,
but for years just assumed it was something my dad was playing.
But now he was confined to bed,
and no music could play as there was no radio, TV, or tape recorder there.
So my friend wrote a blessing prayer on a dry erase board there,
and I went down there and said to whatever that weird pressurized feeling was in our basement,
who I was, and that we owned the house, fair and square, and that it had been blessed upon moving in.
I said it all right and out loud.
I said as owner that they were to leave and never return, and that I was blessing the grounds, building,
airspace, attic, basement, and living floors in Jesus' name,
and shook holy water all over the home,
especially in that weird-feeling area of the basement.
It seemed to work.
I also posted a crucifix right near my friend's written blessing.
No one but me goes down there except the furnace maintenance man twice yearly.
So it was weird when the other day,
the entire dry erase board that was made up many years with my friend's basement prayer
was completely gone.
Just vanished.
But how?
Lazzang surgelled,
Pucance-Moyance-Moyerned
15 minutes.
We'd say that's the hour
Dojo.
Preet to enjoy?
Live the pleasure
with Leo Jo.
The casino in line
that proposes
the most recent
machine-a-sus
and games.
Profited to
50 tours
on Big Bas Bonanza.
Without exigance
of misgents
and with
payment instantane.
Hey!
I've gained!
Woo-hoo!
Scenture the pleasure
Play-O-Jo!
18-10 and plus,
1-Depo SOUC
in Ontario.
50 tours
My twin sister, Erin, had owned her home for quite some time now, but had recently gotten a divorce.
I won't go into those messy details, but because of his actions, and the settlement she got the house.
However, she had never been the gardening and yard work type.
Her, now, X, usually took care of that, and they had very little decor or even variety because of it.
However, once he was gone, it was all up to her.
Sometimes if I was free, I would go over and mow for her, but being a full-time dad and husband,
and not to mention working myself, I didn't have a lot of free time.
so she ended up looking up gardeners and landscapers for hire.
She started paying to have someone mow and de weed every other week.
She did have a small yard and was planning on having a small decorative garden put in,
like bushes and hardy plants,
things that she didn't have to worry about dying easily, knowing her.
One day, I had to drop something off for her,
and her gardener was there,
putting in the raised bed.
She introduced me to him.
I'll call him Jack.
And she explained how he was very thorough and had a deep knowledge of plants.
She said that she was thankful for him because he helped her choose what plants would be best for her yard,
based on how much sun it would get and the type of soil that she had.
He had on a collared shirt with a logo on it, and he was very polite, so at first glance,
he seemed professional and kind enough.
I mean, he was just helping with the yard and the plants,
thinking he can't really go wrong there, right?
The following week, I found myself ending up at Aaron's place a few times
because of things that brought us together.
I had to drop off something she was borrowing,
pick up her laptop and try to fix it.
She even watched my two kids when my wife and I took her mom to the hospital
for surgery.
Every time I was there, Jack was also present.
He was always out in the yard in the first few times.
Nothing seemed strange.
He was just working on the garden.
But by the third time, and me not seeing that much had changed, I asked Aaron about it.
She said that Jack had troubles finding the plants because the ones that he got were in poor shape,
or looked already dead, so it was delaying him.
As mentioned, she knew very little about plants, so I asked her if she saw the plants,
and if she was paying for them all because I was worried that he may have been doing it just to charge or more.
She claimed that she asked about that too, and he said that he wasn't,
that it was his fault for not checking them first.
So I just told her to keep track of how long it did.
took, worried that maybe he would try to charge more for the labor.
I know that that was probably wrong of me, I admit, but it was something that happens with
some small contractors, so it was a legit concern.
However, Aaron did not like to look helpless or naive, so I knew when it was time to let it go,
and that's what I did.
I didn't ask much about it after that, and just anticipated seeing her
garden once it was done, and seeing how happy my sister would be.
Anyway, after seeing Aaron several times that week, I didn't see nor talk to her much the
following week.
Sometimes we would text sporadically, but I had been really busy, so our chat fell pretty
silent.
However, I was working from home on Friday, and my wife went to a friend's for a playdate
with the kids, so I had the house all to myself.
After living with kids for six years, the house is way too quiet when they're gone,
so I decided I would surprise my sister with lunch.
She didn't work on Fridays, so I assumed that she would be home.
I called her, and when she didn't answer, I just decided to go over there first.
I sent her a text to let her know everything.
was on my way at least, and I headed out.
When I pulled up, I didn't see her car, but she did have a garage, so it could have been in there.
She typically parked in the garage unless she was in a rush.
I checked my phone before I got out and frowned when I saw that I had no missed calls and no reply to my text.
It was unusual for Aaron to go so long without responding, so I found it odd.
But maybe she was busy, or just didn't have her phone on her.
But when I approached the door, that's when my stomach dropped.
The door was sitting slightly ajar.
Aaron would never forget to close her door.
I knew that something was wrong, so I called 911, but I dropped my phone in my pocket.
I slowly walked in and looked around the dark and quiet room.
There was no movement.
but the air seemed tense.
I was immediately put in to fight or flight mode.
I walked partially to the right to check the kitchen, but it was empty.
So I started walking towards the hall to the back.
The hall led to stairs on the left that goes up to the bedrooms,
and to the right was a mudroom in office,
including a door that led to the backyard.
I slowly walked down the hall and leaned over to check in the mudroom,
and it was empty.
Lastly, I had to check upstairs.
As soon as I turned to go upstairs,
I looked up and saw a dark figure of a man staring down at me
from the top of the stairs.
I said something along the lines of,
oh, crap, and before I could process anything,
the man came running down the stairs at me,
full speed, like I was about to be charged.
My first reaction was to be on guard.
so I put myself in that stance.
The guy pushed me back, causing me to fall into the mudroom.
He nearly jumped over me and ran out the back door.
I yelled out to the man to stop and chased after him.
He'd gotten pretty far ahead, but I knew who it was as I watched him run away.
It was Jack, no doubts.
He was even in one of the same collared shirts.
I stood in place knowing that there was no.
way I would catch him until I heard Aaron yelling my name. I started walking back towards the
house where I saw Aaron standing in the doorway holding my phone to her ear. I had forgotten
that I even called 911 so she was talking to them and trying to ask me what was going on.
She had on sweatpants and an old shirt. Was she asleep? I wondered. I told her what had happened
and she handed the phone back to me for me to explain it to them.
I followed Aaron back to the front, where a cop was also standing, and asking her questions.
Everything kind of melded together at that point.
Aaron said that she had a migraine, so she went upstairs to take a nap.
She didn't wake up to my call, or text, until she heard me yelling downstairs.
I gave a full description of Jack, so did Aaron, and I confirmed that it was.
was him, without a doubt.
The color of Aaron's face was gone, as I explained what I saw.
She confirmed that not only did he not have any reason to be in her home, but he had no reason
to be there at all.
He had completed the work earlier that week.
I didn't want to think about what his intentions were.
Luckily, they were able to find him, and he was arrested.
You see, I was under the impression that Aaron had done research on the company or person she hired,
as in looked at reviews and such.
But, in actuality, she only did her review based on the conversation and quote she got from him at the time of the meeting.
After looking at the company itself, I learned a lot.
He was supposedly the owner of the small local company.
company. And many reviews I saw talked about how the guy seemed very nosy. He would ask to use
their bathroom, and when he didn't return for several minutes, he would be found looking around
their home. Some of them said that it was just suspicious. Some of them said that things went
missing, but they couldn't prove that it was him. After our experience, I could believe it.
this guy may not have adjusted his prices,
but it seemed like he just took what he wanted in return.
Thankfully, Aaron didn't find anything missing or out of order,
so I may have stopped him before he was able to take anything.
I just try not to think about what could have happened
if he saw her in the room alone.
From that day on, Aaron is a lot more cautious
when it comes to looking for hired help.
She now understands how crucial it is to do those checks and reviews before making a decision.
Now, I just have to get past the fear that something could be wrong when she doesn't respond to my calls or texts immediately.
Firstly, to start this story off, potential trigger warning as this includes an attempted essay encounter.
If you don't want to listen to anything involving that, I recommend skipping this story.
So, this might be a bit overdue to be told, and if you choose not to use it, I don't blame you.
Even to me, a lot of this story feels like some mix of a fever dream and a really, really bad acid trip.
A big part of me is reluctance to even tell it, but then something in my soul says that I should.
That being said, let's just do it quick, like a Band-Aid.
I am male, now 39, was 38 when this story occurred.
And last March, 2023 for posterity's sake,
the woman that I had been with for nearly five years
dragged me off to Kissimmee Florida to form a thruple with a guy we had been friends with for about two years.
Yeah, even I heard it as I'm typing it out.
Why would you ever do something that stupid, you ask?
Well, because I loved her, and I wanted her to be happy, even if it meant doing something
as stupid as going to a place like Osceola County, Florida.
But already I digress.
Once we actually made the 1,100-mile drive, the crap show began.
Immediately, I was iced out by my ex and her new boy toy.
And yeah, that's the nicest way that I'll ever address him.
and I found myself alone in a place that was kind of like my own personal hell.
Day four of being there and the ex and myself were at an Airbnb, hosted by an ex-crackhead,
when my ex decided that at 6.30 a.m., she wanted to start the stupidest domestic in the history of domestics.
Now, by this point, a lot of other stuff had been going on before we got to Florida,
and I'll summarize it as
I was exhausted mentally and physically.
I was sleep deprived
and in the middle of a bit of a mental health crisis
pertaining to the anniversary of my mother passing.
So this logic loop of an argument
stretched from 6.30 a.m. until 10.30 a.m.
I'm staying as calm as I can in the circumstances
while my ex was acting like a lunatic,
flailing and kicking the bed,
tearing at her hair while screeching that I was acting like a lunatic.
For me, it felt like reality was breaking.
I could barely think, and I had to get out of there and give us both a chance to calm down.
I told her that I was going for a walk and that I would be back later.
She screams that she would die before she let me leave.
Not a red flag at all.
And when I went towards the door, she grabbed my pants and yanked them to my knees.
I got them pulled up, and I left anyway.
I walked a few blocks away to a park, and sat chain-smoking cigarettes until I calmed down.
All I had was my wallet, and my last few cigarettes.
I didn't even have my cell phone as my ex had it and her phone both.
I was a mess.
My long hair disheveled and unbrushed, face red and tear-stained, wearing some raggedy old sleep pants.
I usually would have never worn those out of the house.
Clearly there were signs that I was in distress.
So I start walking back to the B&B when two Osceola County deputy cars rock up on me with lights and sirens going.
Either my ex or B&B host had called in that I was a danger to either myself or others,
and I was put into handcuffs for the first time in my life,
and then hauled into a crisis center on the Baker Act.
that's an involuntary 72-hour hold.
Now, this is where the encounter with a Hispanic fellow named Poblito happens.
Late in the afternoon of day two of my hold, I go into one of the bathrooms.
Apparently, the lock on the door was messed up because, as I finished my business,
the door just opened enough for Poblito to slip in.
Which, trigger warning here.
He grabbed me from behind and started saying some of the most.
disgusting things I've ever heard, and will not repeat.
And then he started trying to get handy.
Luckily, one of the staff had seen Poblito go into the bathroom before I had come out,
and the guy busts into the bathroom with two big Haitian orderlies.
I drove the back of my head into Poblito's face and got out the door,
and all I hear are the orderlies talking crap, as they proceed to boot my freaking assailant.
Pobolito leaves in handcuffs, looking like he just went 12 rounds with Iron Mike.
The rest of my time there passes and the next evening I'm released.
My ex and her boy toy pick me up and take me to the motel they had relocated to.
As I tell them the story, they both laugh.
Yes, you are not going crazy.
When I said that he grabbed me and started trying to grope me, they laughed.
I let that go and everyone goes to sleep.
The next morning the boy toy goes to work, and the ex and I go to have a talk, where she friends owned me after five years.
48 hours later, I was sleeping on bus benches around the Saralago Hotel for another two days,
before I was able to get a bus back to Missouri.
And that, Miraza, is the second most effed up story I could possibly tell you for my life experience.
Looking back on it, all I can think is
This is why you never go to Florida
Since I've been back, I heard at least three other stories
About people going to Florida in a couple
And one of them being dumped and in similar circumstances to me
So if your S.O. tries to talk you into a trip to Florida
Maybe start wondering what their motives are
Could be a new red flag to keep an eye out for
holds up sarcasm sign
Thanks Raven for being amazing for one and for taking the time to read this, even if you don't put it in a video.
Love you, love everyone hearing this, and remember, they screw you at the drive-through.
A few years ago, my partner Jay and I were living in Oregon.
There were hot springs that we wanted to go to for some time, about a two-hour drive from us up in the mountains.
In the late summer of 2021, we decided to drive up there, but it was forest fire season,
and in the Pacific Northwest, the sky gets choked with smoke almost every August and September,
even if you're hundreds of miles away from an active fire.
Unfortunately, as we increased in elevation towards the hot springs,
the air became so choked with smoke that we felt ill.
and we decided to turn back and go home disappointed.
The following spring, we decided to try again.
We made the drive out to the hot spring,
only to find that the road up there had been closed for a landslide a few days previously.
We were super frustrated and decided to just go for a hike nearby
since we had driven all that way, and then went home.
A few months later, we made plans again to try to get out to the hot springs with our
close friends, but they both bailed last minute, and we decided to not go.
By this point, getting to these hot springs began to feel like a vendetta, or a curse.
We would occasionally joke that we had to get to them eventually to either fulfill our
karmic purpose or die, mostly joking.
Finally, in February of 2023, we made plans with several friends from around the state
to rent a cabin next to the hot springs for two nights and go for a winter soak.
Hot springs in the snow are divine as hell, if you've never been.
Jay and I, and our friend Allie, drove down together and got to the cabin a few hours before anyone else was set to arrive.
Eventually, there would be seven of us total.
Now, my first impression of the cabin was excitement.
mixed with mild unease.
We were pretty far out in the woods, with two abandoned-looking cabins next to ours.
The cabin was built by the CCC in the 1930s, so it just had a classically old and creepy feeling.
We all agreed that it was a little spooky, but in a light-hearted way.
Since we were there before the other friends, we got to pick our beds first.
Ali was the only person coming who wasn't part of a couple.
She only knew Jay and I, and she was younger than everyone else.
So Jay and I felt like we wanted to stick close to her and make sure she was feeling comfortable.
Because of this, we decided to leave the two bedrooms downstairs for the two other couples,
and Jay, Allie, and I would take the loft, which had four single beds.
Sort of like a summer camp vibe.
We unpacked our stunts.
and decided to go to the hot springs for a few hours while we waited for the other friends to arrive.
We went to the hot springs, which was amazing, and then drove back at night through the snow to get back to the cabin.
By this time, everyone else had gotten there.
We greeted each other and had a very merry evening, made dinner, played games, and danced.
Before we went to bed, my friend Summer mentioned to me that when she and her partner,
got there, she'd heard footsteps upstairs.
She'd asked if we'd all been at the hot springs the whole time, which we had.
Spooky, but we all giggled about it.
We all went to bed late, and a little drunk.
That night, Jay and I pushed our twin beds together because we like to snuggle.
Normally we sleep together great, but being in the loft, it got unbearably hot.
Even in the middle of February, with only a little of February.
a wood stove. I had weird dreams because of the heat and did not feel well rested in the morning.
Regardless, the next day, we spent the whole day soaking at the springs and having a really
great time. In the evening, we returned to the cabin and made a big dinner and spent the evening
playing games, and occasionally stepping into the back porch for a cigarette. The back porch was
dimly lit with a single light bulb, and it opened up onto a backyard, rain, and it opened up onto a backyard,
by an old stone wall.
Behind the stone wall was a rushing river.
The yard was full of old scrap metal.
This will be relevant later.
Anyway, that night we went to bed late.
Jay and Allie and I in the loft once again.
As we were about to fall asleep,
Ali said anxiously,
Did anyone lock the door?
None of us had.
Jay, in character, said,
I'll go lock it.
Uncharacteristically, Ali sat straight upright and said,
No, I'll go do it.
Being the group baby, it seemed out of character for her to volunteer to get out of bed,
go all the way downstairs alone in a creepy cabin and lock the door.
But she did.
She came back up and got in bed and we all went to sleep, or attempted to.
Once again, it was boiling hot, and I really just had the hebi-jeebies.
I must have fallen asleep at some point because I woke up to the sound of someone tapping on the window.
It's just a branch, I told myself, over and over.
I drifted in and out of foggy nightmares, waking with a start at the slightest noise.
Somewhere in the night, I realized that Jay was awake, too.
I really had to pee, but was too scared to go downstairs alone,
so I tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he'd come down with me.
He was also feeling freaked out and had to go, so we co-dependently held hands down the stairs
and went to the bathroom together like scared little kids.
James is a fairly heavy smoker, and he wanted to have a smoke to calm himself down and help him sleep.
For some reason, I felt as though I couldn't let him go outside alone,
like something terrible would happen if I didn't go with him,
so I accompanied him through the kitchen.
when I saw the clock at red 3 a.m.
And we went out to the back porch where we both stood for a few minutes in silence
before getting mutually freaked out and rushing back inside.
I very paranoidly double-checked that the back door was locked after we came in.
We then went back upstairs and got back into bed.
I laid down and I'm immediately starting to have wild visions.
In my vision, I saw Jay get out of bed and walk out onto the back porch.
There he slipped on the wood, fell to the ground, and hit his head on a metal pole, which went through his skull and killed him.
This was so disturbing that I had to open my eyes.
But every time I closed my eyes again, I would see the same thing happen.
Back porch, slip, die.
Back porch, slip.
die. Eventually, I fell into a sweaty and fitful sleep. In the morning, we were gathered around
the kitchen table, and I mentioned that the night had just been terribly uneasy. Jay then
looked at me and said something that chilled me to the bone. After we came back from smoking
last night, I had this feeling like I was being drawn outside by something, like I couldn't stay in bed,
and I wanted to go back outside on the porch.
As I was falling asleep,
I had this incredibly vivid vision that I went out on to the back porch
and saw these piles of raw meat in the yard,
stacked up almost like a sacrifice,
and it really felt like it was human flesh.
It felt like something was trying to get me to go out there
so that it could eat me.
My mouth fell open.
I was about to tell him about my vision of his death,
on the back porch when Ali spoke up.
That's so weird, Jay.
Last night when you offered to go down to lock the door,
I felt like I had to stop you and go down there to lock it myself instead.
It felt like if you went down there by yourself,
you would have been lured outside by something.
I chimed in.
Ali, that was the exact feeling I had had too,
when I didn't want to let him go outside to smoke by himself.
I told them both about my vision of Jay slipping and dying.
We were all shaken as hell, and couldn't stop discussing it over breakfast.
We all agreed that whatever it was had very dark, feminine energy, in the vein of sirens or selkees,
and that it had latched on to Jay as a sacrifice.
We left the cabin after breakfast, and we got home just fine.
I can't help thinking about our running joke about our running joke about it.
the hot springs being cursed for us but maybe the hot springs were trying to warn jay to stay away
and maybe next time we'll listen when something rejects us three times in a row for years i liked to
visit my maternal grandmother on weekends my two male cousins and i a girl liked to ice skate
friday nights in october when the season began for the indoor rink we would then go to my grandmothers
and make an old chef-boyardee boxed pizza together
as we watched crazy Friday night broadcast TV.
When we'd eaten and gotten tired,
I shared a room with the two twin beds
with my grandma and one boy lay on the living room couch,
and one had a bed in the back room.
So that was the normal drill weekly.
Well, this week they weren't coming.
That was okay.
Grandma and I would talk a lot,
and then finally she would snow,
nor a little snore, and was soon up going to the bathroom a hundred times.
All the while, a black forest cuckoo clock her son had given her from his travels in the military,
went off again.
It was horrible.
It went off hourly, plus the swinging of the pendulum that ticked off the seconds.
She would awaken often.
I too was and am a night person, so we would talk some more, and I told her that it was the clock,
as to why she couldn't sleep.
But she didn't want to turn it off, as my dad had repaired it,
and she refused to risk messing it up again.
Soon she awakened again, and, well, I had never slept.
She had a little.
She went nearby to the bathroom,
and being the house was on a busy corner near a main street,
you would hear cars or see their lights through the drawn shades or around them.
Teens would sometimes stop at that corner and drink,
and then throw the bottles and cans in her side yard by that bedroom.
So, when I saw the car lights stopped, I watched warily.
We'd have to pick up the bottles tomorrow morning, I mused.
Then it remained.
A single light in a circular shape was in the corner.
It seemed to grow in width more and more.
And then suddenly a face with a moving mouth that looked horrible was in it.
I could still hear Grandma washing her hand.
and she was returning from that bathroom.
I was petrified and wanted to tell her to stay back.
It was grotesque and so scary as his ugly face moved.
I oddly thought that it was so strange that I could even see it without my glasses,
as I was very near-sighted.
I prayed and forced my eyes closed,
and told myself after that prayer I would open them again and did this,
now seeing the outline of Grandma returning to the bed.
I said, Grandma, look, it's 2.30 a.m. now by the Sony flip-flag numerals.
I said, I just want to tell you something weird tomorrow.
Not now.
I want you to verify that I'm perfectly awake and not dreaming.
I haven't slept at all with that clock, and I'll tell you tomorrow.
The next day, she verified that I had been fully awake.
At the time, there were no fancy video projectors that could have made that image, and it was just all so creepy.
About eight years ago, my now husband and I had finally bought our first house together.
I was 33, him 35, and I was excited to finally have a place to call our own.
We had always rented prior.
One of the things I was most excited about was having a decent year.
yard that I could decorate myself.
I had recently lost my grandmother, and she always loved gardening.
She ended up in a nursing home towards the end of her life, and one of the last things she
mentioned was how much she missed her garden.
So, now, with my own yard, I wanted to make a garden dedicated to her.
She loved lilacs and peonies, so I was going to plant lilacs along the house.
They smelled wonderful anyways.
And then I thought I would plant some peonies in a raised box towards the back.
I also planned on planting some butterfly bushes and wild flowers to help the bees and butterfly population.
But it seemed like some people had other ideas.
The first few months of us moving in involved more of getting to know the neighbors and getting unpacked.
We moved in in late autumn, and gardening was not on my mind at that point.
I wanted to have my home set up first.
So, we got to know the neighbors as you normally do, with them being nosy of the new people.
That's not me being mean either.
Most of our neighbors are actually really nice, and even reliable.
They would see us outside and holler to us, and then come over and introduce themselves.
One of the people that did this was our neighbor to the right, Dan.
Dan was a bit older, I think in his 60s, but he seemed to be a very by-the-book guy.
One thing that I should explain, our neighborhood was not part of an HOA, or homeowners' association.
I cannot stand the thought of that and how controlling it is, so it was something we looked into when we chose our home.
However, Dan seemed to want it to be part of an HOA, with his interest.
he gave almost like a rundown of how the neighborhood functioned.
Trash pickup is every Friday. Recycling every other Friday. We don't put our bins out until
Friday morning. Otherwise, it just looks trashy to have them sitting there all night. We have a
quarterly city council meeting that's open to anyone that wants to attend. I'm the lead
speaker, so if you have any concerns or questions, you can just tell me. I'm the one that runs
it all anyways.
I could instantly tell the type of guy that Dan was.
He tried to run that neighborhood.
Absolutely.
But while I thought he could definitely be a pain,
he couldn't enforce anything.
So I just braced myself to potentially have one of those types of difficult neighbors.
Ultimately, I was not going to let him get in the way of having my dream home.
As spring arrived, I began working.
on my yard and plotting out the gardens.
As I was marking the stakes, Dan popped his head over the little fence and asked what I was up to.
I started explaining my ideas in mid-sentence he interrupted me.
Lilacs get too tall.
And the wildflowers?
Those are an eyesore.
You'll be digging it all up when it's blooming when you start getting all those bees.
He said, laughing.
I've dealt with my fair share of judgmental folks, so.
I smiled politely and said that that was the point.
I wanted to attract the bees because they are important,
and the lilacs are important to my grandmother.
He laughed again and made some remark about me being some kind of hippie.
We both laughed, but not for the same reason,
and I continued working on my yard.
Dan watched for a while and then left.
Then the problems started occurring.
A few days later, I went out to start plotting my seeds, and I noticed my stakes had all been disturbed.
They looked to be walked over, pulled out, and trampled.
I was confused, but more so disappointed by it.
There were no clear prints from shoes, or a foot, so I assumed that something may have just gotten into our yard.
The front yard was open, but there was an arched gate to get to the back,
which was surrounded by a very old privacy fence.
It was falling apart in one of the back corners,
and we were planning on fixing it that year, or the next,
depending on our budget.
With how it sat, I thought that something could have crawled under the fence.
I just got over it.
Thankfully, I hadn't planted anything yet.
I was just outlining where everything was going to go,
so I just had to quickly redo it.
Then, it happened again.
This time I had already put in my bulbs and planted my lilac bushes.
When I went out there to look at it, there were holes in the ground.
And before anyone asks, these weren't from moles.
I had experienced those in my last home and was familiar with what they looked like.
These holes looked like they were done half-hazardly with a hand shovel.
Some of my bulbs looked damaged, like they'd been hit.
and some were even just sitting on top of the soil.
I just remember standing there,
trying to balance a lilac bush while fixing the soil around it,
when I heard Dan behind me, slurping his coffee.
He asked me what had happened,
and I told him that I had no clue.
I was upset, so I explained how I had planted everything
and that something was digging it up.
He immediately had an idea as to what was a little.
happening. According to him, a long time ago, the owner of my home went insane, and started
killing things from humans to animals and burying them in the yard. He claimed that that
brought bad omens to the house, and said that the previous owner moved out because of issues
with the house being haunted. He then said that that probably affects the yard, too, since I may be
disturbing remains.
The problem
with this theory was that
it was total BS.
My dad actually knew the previous
owners. They were
an older couple that moved
to be closer to their grandkids.
That was it.
Not to mention stuff like that has to be
on the details of the house.
Then there's also the fact
that I do not believe in ghosts.
I'm not a fan of paranormal
stories in the slightest.
because they never really bode true to me.
So when he finished his explanation, I laughed.
I made a joke about it, and Dan seemed annoyed.
Maybe he was offended or something else.
I wasn't sure, but he just eventually walked off and I went back to fixing my garden.
A few days later, I was leaving for work, and as I stepped outside,
I could smell something really bad.
It was almost sulfuric smelling, and I just remember it making me gag.
I just assumed, since it was trash day, maybe someone threw away something that was pretty rank,
and that it would be gone by the time I got home.
Unfortunately, it wasn't.
The stench was still there when I got home, and it was so bad that I couldn't even open my windows.
I didn't work on the yard at all that week, until the fall of the fall of the same.
weekend because of other things taking up my time.
But when I finally got back to it that weekend, I had a surprise waiting for me.
Everything had been planted at this point.
I just needed to clean up a few things and put it in my small fence to mark it off,
to make sure that we didn't hit anything with the mower.
But, once again, my seeds looked disturbed.
The dirt was scattered with a small hole on one side,
and a larger mound on the other.
I sat on the ground, ready to just even it all out,
and give up on the idea of having a neat row of flowers.
At that point, they were just going to be scattered, but it would be all right.
But as I moved the dirt, with my bare hands, mind you,
I touched something solid in the dirt.
Not thinking much of it, I grabbed it and pulled it out some,
and then realized it was a rabbit.
knowing that there was a dead rabbit in my garden and that I just touched it, I screamed.
My husband was in the shed, so he ran over to me as I wildly explained what I just found.
As we stood there observing the rabbit and wondering how it got there,
who would pop their ugly head up, but Dan.
He was just watching when I finally saw him in the corner of my vision.
He was looking around and asked what was wrong.
when my husband told him what I found.
The whole time, he didn't have a single look of concern or shock.
This man that thought the neighborhood revolved around him
wasn't disturbed that something or someone
had partially buried a rabbit in my yard.
With my suspicion growing,
I asked him if he knew anything about it,
and his response was,
well, you know, I told your wife about the yard being,
Haunted. The previous owner didn't like big gardens because he would bury people in it.
I was livid. I knew everything that had been happening had to have been him. He didn't like my plans
from the beginning. He tried everything he could other than flat out telling me not to do it,
probably because he had no leg to stand on. He had to have been the one to put the rabbit there too,
trying to scare me.
So I did what any sane person would have done.
I walked over and grabbed the rabbit, again with my bare hands,
walked it to the fence, and I chucked it right at Dan.
That's when he looked shocked.
He finally had emotion on his face.
I yelled at him about being a controlling creep.
I told him that if he trespassed again, I would call the cops,
and I went back inside.
A few days later, I put up a no trespassing sign and ordered a camera to watch the gate.
I wasn't worried about the yard itself, because he was older and larger and kind of wobbled at times,
so there was no way he was going to be jumping the fence.
He most likely was just opening the gate and walking right in.
Surprisingly, I didn't have any issues with my yard and my garden wasn't touch,
after that. Dan never talked to me again. He wouldn't even look at me. Sometimes he would say hi
or something to my husband, but never to me. I'm sure it went around the neighborhood that I was
crazy too. I know what I did was far from the most rational response, but at the time, I was too
upset. I was trying to make a simple memorial garden for my late grandmother, and all he wanted to do
was stop me, and for no real reason but to be a controlling dick. However, it did seem to solve the
problem of our neighbor's unhealthy obsession with controlling our yard. Quick disclaimer, I was not
under any influence during this event, and am of sound state of mind.
During my time at college, I picked up a few good and a few bad habits.
One of the bad habits was cigarette smoking.
My mom had recently been diagnosed with stage two breast cancer.
She was strong and fought through her treatment and survived the ordeal.
After which, my smoking habit made me more and more unhappy,
given the reality of cancer and the devastation it had caused my family.
If only temporary, given my family.
mom's treatment success. During this time, I became very self-loathing regarding my cigarette use.
The day of the event, I had steeped myself into a deep meditative state. The intention of the meditation
was to find inspiration to stop smoking. As someone with much experience meditating, I am often
able to reach deep states of meditation. Point being, this was a very much of
not an abnormal meditative session for me. When meditating, after reaching this deep state, I felt a human
hand on my right shoulder. The hand did not fully rest on my shoulder, but rather only the hand's
fingers, and presumably fingernail tips were on my shoulder. The hand slowly moved across my back
from right shoulder to left shoulder. I clearly recall being able to identify the five fingers
slightly running over my back, just as you would if you relax your hand and run it over yourself.
Once the hand had reached my left shoulder, while the hand was still in contact with me,
I heard a faint, feminine voice, just slightly louder than a whisper.
You're a good person.
Please understand that this event occurred over one to two seconds,
so it was very quick despite my lofty explanation.
I immediately broke my meditation and anxiously scanned the room that I was in for the individual who just touched and spoke to me.
There was no one.
At the time, I was a devout atheist, and I lived in a 100-year-old house, converted to a three-floor apartment building.
My atheist mind could not comprehend the experience, leaving the only rational explanation that I had either imagined it,
or that there were intelligences beyond the physical realm that we live.
The experience was so vivid and I so lucid that I was unable to accept the former
and was left with the latter.
This experience profoundly changed my perception of reality.
That day, I believe that I was touched from the beyond.
Embarked and celebrate.
Rigolet.
Publié.
Savour.
Admire.
And profite.
Via Ra'i, the voice that we am.
Raised Catholic,
we were told that each person has a guardian angel to protect them from harm.
As the Bible mentions, God is in the whispering of the wind.
A small voice, not a thunderous one.
So, one.
I was not even in kindergarten yet.
so I would say that I must have been four.
My sister, nine, and I shared a bedroom then with our parents' room across the hall from us.
The third bedroom was called the Music Room,
and it had a record player and a huge collection of old and new music on 78 RPM records,
33 and so on,
a TV, a radio, and a couch, and a little metal TV table,
that we would draw or color at and do all.
art. My dad was working and my mother went to answer the phone. It was her younger sister,
our aunt. I heard her say, Catherine, a storm is coming, so I'm not staying on here long.
Suddenly, my sister and I still recall vividly. We were silently and swiftly moving to the doorway
of that room and turned around completely to be facing into the room. We had been at that tiny metal table
working. She and I were placed gently into a standing position, now looking in the room.
We screamed in confusion and fright. Mother came running to us, and we could barely explain it,
but we both said it was a guardian angel that we couldn't see. A bolt of lightning struck,
and the thunder was deafening just after we were moved. Story two, later, when grown,
I was helping an elderly family friend.
We had been in and out, and winter weather had come in, making a dangerous freezing rain,
and thick ice coating trees and streets and power lines.
Kentucky gets these, and they're like a fairyland by day, but by night, it's black ice from hell.
I worried as I could barely walk over the stuff myself to his car, and gingerly hoisted him up on his feet.
He was in his 80s, and I prayed that I could get him into his front door safely.
I parked close, but at the same point, I knew we were in trouble.
That reeling on the porch was too far from us, and suddenly, I felt uplifting, gliding, or reverse magnetism, or something,
and effortlessly we went forward without any friction.
He grabbed the rail when he could, and we ascended the icy steps with caution.
He unlocked his door, and we went inside, slid.
slipping off our shoes and sat in perfect silence.
Then he broke it.
Did you feel that?
I said yes, I did.
I said, what was that?
And how?
He then said,
A guardian angel.
I prayed for help.
I said that I did too.
We could never forget this.
Story three.
I was walking across a store parking lot going towards my mother's car.
as I went to school on the public bus.
There she is, I noted.
I had a huge pile of books, as usual.
In a stride towards her car, a mental tiny voice said,
Stop right where you are, not one more step.
I thought it was weird, but I stopped.
Then some horrendous noise sounded loudly.
A giant section of pavement patch had been pulled up into the wheel well of the bus,
became stuck, and then catapulted to the side.
And as Mother watched me, she saw me walking, a huge flying rock hurdle into the air,
and then I just stopped in my stride.
It hit the pavement so hard and was less than a foot from the toe of my shoe.
Finally, entering her car, she kept saying,
What made you stop?
Story 4.
I was grocery shopping for our old neighbor slash friend.
and at Kroger.
I had gone two weeks prior and had been followed and intimidated by someone trying to rob me, I suppose.
Two weeks later I went to a different Kroger, and again, I was followed all around that store.
He didn't have any baskets, and he was huge tall, and I'm a five-foot-tall woman with a fully loaded basket leaving the store,
fully aware of him following me.
Now, I checked out, and in an eye,
While leaving, I heard that small voice.
Look over your left shoulder.
I turned my neck around while still briskly walking, but to my surprise he had accelerated so much
that he was in a definite collision course with me.
I sidestepped one big scissor step to my right, leaving the basket, and then bang.
The stalker rammed into the cart, and I stepped back to it as he hurried out, then
grabbing a cart and running back into the store.
When you hear the voice,
harden not your heart and buster move.
Story 5.
I was at Broadway downtown, at quarter past midnight.
At this point, I worked second shift
at a downtown hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.
I left the parking garage at midnight,
and the street was deserted that night,
and I was caught at Preston Street by a light and stopped.
Something in my mind said not to pull up to the crosswalk, but to stay a car length back.
And I had done it.
I looked over the six lanes, empty, quiet.
But I felt creepy.
Then a spooky-looking character pulled up and eyed me, but I wouldn't look over.
I knew better.
The voice said when the light changes, don't go for a couple of seconds.
The guy had tried to make eye contact, but pulled up more quickly, and since I was further back, he moved up.
I felt relief.
The light changed, and I waited.
He waited as if to go when I did, so I waited a second more.
He then gunned his throaty car forward, giving up on me and moving on.
When a car from the street crossing on my right, Preston Street, slammed into him as he moved forward,
throwing his heavy car across three lanes,
then way up on to the sidewalk only to land when hitting a big brick building.
So, yeah, always heed the little voice and never reason that it's just your imagination.
This took place about 15 years ago.
I, an adult male, entered into a restaurant that featured a pizza buffet,
where you can select slices from a variety of different pies.
There was also a pasta and salad bar as well.
I paid the buffet price and grabbed two plates,
then selected multiple slices of pizza and placed them on one of them.
Once that plate was full, I went and sat down at an available table.
As I sat, I set aside the empty plate on the table
with the intent of using it at the salad bar later.
I had been eating for a few minutes, when then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the empty plate start to move.
Instincts immediately took over, and I slammed my hand down on the plate with a loud bang.
I looked up and was staring into the face of one of the servers, female, probably in her late teens.
She stood there frozen with a look of complete shock on her face, still holding on to the plate.
I can't say for sure what my expression was,
but I'm guessing it was a blank stare
because I felt nothing but absolute calmness at that moment.
I then slowly whispered to her the words,
I'm not done with that.
The girl remained frozen for a few more seconds,
doing everything she could to keep from screaming before uttering,
you're not done with that?
I was still feeling completely calm, no anger.
rage, anxiety, or anything.
I then again whispered...
No, sorry.
She then cautiously released the plate and slinked away.
Now, was I aware of what I had just done?
Yes, I was.
However, my thinking at that moment was...
Well, she deserved that.
She shouldn't have been trying to steal stuff from my table.
Maybe next time she'll have the common courtesy to ask first.
But in the years that have followed...
I've come to realize that I was in the wrong, and she did not deserve any of that.
I sincerely hope that she's forgiven me by now, and was not scarred for life by my actions.
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.
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 as the ravendreams.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.
