As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 156 - Scary Strange/Stalker Stories & National Parks Stories

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Today, on the 156th episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 15 True Chilling stories. These stories come from the shadowy corners of reality, where everyday life takes an eerie twist & ordinary people experience the extraordinary. Today we will be diving into some terrifying stalker/Stranger encounters, and some scary national park stories. Two Ad spots in this one- one at about 13 minutes, the other at about 57 minutes. 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... AlwaysMoving, TimTimTom, Boats-n-beasts, DrPepperEnjoyer69, ariabird, Lynn, Affectionate-Hotel27, Normal_Bread5914, CowboyL1keM3, UniversalSpyCrab, BananaHairFood, Great-Nectarine4528, vataga_, Fun_Persimmon7878 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

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on the machine-a-sou-Begas-B-B-Bonanza. DePos Minimimimum of $10. If you have a true scary story you'd like to share with the podcast, go to as the raven dreams.com and click the button to send it my way. Also, if the platform you're on has the option to rate the podcast or leave a comment, please consider doing so. And as always, thank you. I was 14 when I learned that monsters don't always look like monsters.

Sometimes they're so good at pretending to be normal, that only children and animals seem to be able to see right through them. This happened to myself, my mother, and my sister. But I'm going to be vague with the location and names because it was a pretty serious situation. And I don't want people to potentially try and look me up. However, I do like sharing it, even though, like, is an odd word to use here,

because it's a great reminder for others to truly trust your instincts, or the instincts of others for that matter. Back in the early 2000s, I think it was 2004, my mother planned a vacation for the three of us. My parents separated a few years prior, and because he was kind of a deadbeat, we moved in with our mom. We were living at my grandparents' house for about a year, and then my grandparents helped my mom get a small house for us. I know things were a little. tight at first, but it wasn't too bad. My dad never had a stable job. He would get fired or just quit saying he wasn't happy with it, but was never in a rush to find a new job. I may have been young,

but I could tell that it was a struggle for my mother. She worked long hours, trying to work extra just to get as much money as she could. Finally, after my mom had to bail my dad out for a DUI and resisting arrest, she left him. Having our own place was a relief. There were no fights, nothing being thrown and broken, and no scraping together money for food after having spent it all on alcohol. We were happy, and all were doing pretty well. My mom even had her glow coming back to her, and it made me happy.

So, after about a year in our new place, my mom had saved up enough for us to go on a family vacation, just three of us. We all enjoyed going to the park or going fishing together, so we agreed that a road trip to a national park would be perfect for us. We even went shopping for some good supplies and hiking clothes and shoes. We made plans to hike through this park, stopping at one of the gazebos for lunch and then continuing on. We even found out they had fishing pole rentals, so we could fish there too. We were all very excited for this. As I mentioned, it was myself, a 14-year-old female, my younger sister Bailey, who was 11, and my mom going on a trip.

We were at the entrance checking our packs, making sure we had everything when he approached. He was wearing what you would normally expect someone to wear at a large hiking park. He introduced himself as Dave, and asked if we were from a restaurant. here. My mom said no and explained that we were here on vacation. Dave explained how he was from the state, but that this was one of his favorite parks because of the views from the top of the cliffs. As he continued to talk, I could see my mom was intrigued by the guy. It was the look on her face when she got that male attention that made her feel special. I couldn't say that I understood at the time, but as an adult, I do now.

However, something about him made my skin crawl. I didn't know what it was. He seemed really nice. He said all the right things to my mom and to us, but when he looked at Bailey and I, his eyes just felt wrong. It wasn't simple eye contact, but more like a predator watching its prey.

Every time he glanced in our direction, my stomach would churn. He talked my mom into letting him walk with us, which I didn't approve of. I was already upset that this was now becoming less of our mother-daughter vacation, but it was because of this guy, of all people. He offered to show us a less traveled viewpoint, and my mom was intrigued. I tried squeezing my mom's hand to get her attention and tell her that I didn't want to, but she just looked at me, smiled and mouthed, it's okay.

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that as long as she was around, we were safe, but this guy was not right, and it was clouding my confidence and clouding my mother's judgment. For about an hour or so, we tracked along with this guy doing his damnedest to woo my mother. He was telling her the history of the park,

told her about his childhood and going there with his mother. The whole time, Bailey and I refused to leave each other's side. I could tell by her eyes that she didn't trust this man either. We both tried everything we could to express our discomfort to our mom, praying that she would telepathically understand, or at least sense how uncomfortable we were feeling, but nothing seemed to work. Dave just continued to smile at us and include us in the conversation.

no matter how much we ignored him. But then we had one last chance to convince our mom. We stopped at a shelter to have lunch when Dave mentioned another trail that had an amazing view of the mountain, but it was a short drive away. He offered to take us there, or said that we could follow him out there, claiming it was a view you had to see when you visited this state. I just remember how scared Bailey looked, and she shook her head at me.

I knew that I had to be the problem, child. I immediately cut them off to shout, No, Mom, this was supposed to be our trip. My mom looked at me surprised by my outburst. I told her that neither of us wanted to go anywhere with this guy. My mom grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and she apologized to Dave. She told him how important this trip was for us

and would talk it over with us first. Dave again smiled and said that he understood. He said that he would continue down the trail, but if we wanted to go, he would meet us at the entrance in about two hours. My mom agreed and said that we would meet him there. He waved at us and said that it was nice to meet us and then walked off. Once he was out of view, I told my mom how I felt.

I remember being almost in tears, told her how I felt about this guy. I would look over at Bailey for affirmation, and she just kept nodding in agreement. To my surprise, my mom nodded and said that she understood. She explained, as we ate, how she started getting an uneasy feeling herself, but had been fighting it, not wanting her trust issues to ruin a friendly interaction. She promised that she had no intentions on going with him outside the park, and there was such a huge relief when she said that.

She suggested that we eat fast, that way we could hurry back to the entrance before the two hours and leave before he got there. I never choked down a sandwich so fast in my life. We all walked the rest of the trail determined to get back quickly. We hardly stopped to look at our surroundings, which was disappointing, but I also understood. I just wanted to get out of there.

When we reached the parking lot, Mom told us to get in the car and lock the doors. I didn't know what she was doing, but I watched her walk to the building at the entrance. I remember going there when we first arrived. You could buy souvenirs and supplies there, so I thought it was odd that my mom chose to stop in there. I was nervous, constantly looking around,

hoping that Dave wouldn't show up. Finally, my mom came jogging back to the car, car. She smiled at us and said everything was fine and that we were out of there. I was happy when Dave finally walked away, but leaving that park without seeing him again lifted such a huge weight off of my shoulders. I honestly felt like there was something sinister about him, something that I had no proof of, but I knew that he was bad. Hang in with me here because this is relevant, I promise. Several years later, when I was 19, I was sitting at home with my mom on a day off.

Bailey was still in school. We'd been watching one of those true crime shows. I don't remember which one, but it was similar to America's Most Wanted. What I saw nearly sent me into a panic attack. I heard my mom make a sound and I looked up at the TV. There, on the screen, was Dave. Except his real name

wasn't Dave. He was wanted for the murders of a mother and her two daughters in a neighboring state. What's worse, the murders happened just two months after we met him. And to make it worse, they were on vacation, not from that state. Once that episode was over,

with no update on it, I ran to the computer to look him up by the name, given from the show. Since it had aired, he had been arrested and had confessed to the murders. I thought I was going to be sick. This man that walked with us

several years ago at that park, the man that offered to drive the three of us somewhere secluded, had killed a mother and her two young daughters. That, very easily, could have been us.

There were new articles from the state the women were from, and where they were found, detailing what happened, what evidence there was, and it was all just so eye-opening. I remember yelling at my mom about it. I wasn't exactly mad at her, but more so just scared about the entire situation. If my mom hadn't refused his offer, where would we be right now? And that off-feeling my sister and I had that whole time, there was a reason for it. We just didn't know at the time. I ended up calling some kind of non-emergency number for the state

that he was charged in to try and figure out where I could report our experience. I knew he was already locked up, but since he may have tried a very similar thing on us that he did with his victims, I wanted it on record. I was able to get a hold of somebody, and I told them everything we've remembered. remembered, but I never heard anything else from them, so I don't know if it made a difference. I also learned, at that time, that my mom had gone into that building to report to someone there,

that there was a strange man following us and trying to get us to leave with them. I'm still curious if they ever found him there, too. Hell, I'm curious if there were more victims that haven't been found, and that he hasn't mentioned. It's truly a terrifying thought, and the guilt of knowing we were lucky to get away from him, but couldn't do anything about it either, has been something that has always weighed heavily on my mind. Now that I'm an adult, I still go on walks or hikes with friends or my husband, but that experience has always stuck in my mind. Now, if I ever get that off feeling, I don't question those instincts.

There's a reason that it's telling me to run, and I would rather get out of that situation first, before I question it. Hi, so as the title says, I'm 21. I'm not sure if gender matters, but I'm female. Now, this might sound, maybe, a tad bit overdramatic since it's been years since this incident has happened, that caused this fear, but I just want to get it off. my chest as someone who doesn't really talk about it. I personally find this encounter super creepy, especially getting older and being able to look back on it. I've learned a lot from it, so maybe posting what happened could either guide others to stay alert that it could happen to them,

or know the signs. I live in rural Ohio, so there's not much going on here. We don't live in the best area either, with, Lots of druggies and predators. Just if you have kids, you really shouldn't live around here, basically. When I was younger, we didn't really worry much about anything happening to us, or questionable things, due to the fact that our family is known in this area. My grandpa was a known cop for many years and was extremely respected,

and people knew he would fight over us. So nobody really messed with us. We also lived around multiple other children our age. It wasn't uncommon to let your kids run around by themselves before nighttime, because our neighborhood essentially relied on each other and the other kids to keep each other safe. And it worked for the most part. We knew what people to stay away from, and they knew to stay away from us as well. When I was in middle school, the bus ran at 7 a.m.,

and we would have to be at the end of our long driveway by 7 a.m. to catch the bus on time. And this happened during winter, and our bus tended to be late sometimes, and would then reach us around 705 to 7.15 at the latest. But we made sure to be out at 7 a.m. in case they were there on time. It was me and my two cousins. One was four years older than me,

and the other was a year older. but we were in the same grade. The road is straight where our driveway is, so cars come by multiple times, and you would be able to see if a car was slowing down and such, and they would see us as well. We were always told not to stand by the end of the driveway, and to always keep a distance.

So if a drunk driver, or whatever, happens to swerve, we would be okay for the most part. We were at the age where me and my cousin, who was in the same grade as me, essentially babysat the younger cousin, and we didn't have an adult to accompany us at the end of the driveway anymore. It was super cold that day,

and the sun was just coming up, and we were annoyed because the bus was late while waiting in the cold. I noticed a car was coming, and again, this happened all the time, so it wasn't like I was checking it out or anything. I just noticed it and went back to listen, to music on my phone.

I hear a loud break sound as I look up, and the car in front of our driveway is now fully stopped. The man in his car was waving his hand towards us to signal us to come closer to him, and, of course, I refused, and was frozen in my spot, because this never happened before. He could tell that we were obviously shaken back by this, and said that he worked for a school, but that he was lost and he had just gotten hired.

He named a school that was an hour away. Mind you, it's past 7 a.m. at this point, and I immediately knew he was lying. It didn't make sense to me why he would be lost at a job he said he already got. Plus, it being this late, I would think he would already be at the school. No way would he be lost to the point that he's an hour away from the district, and signaling children to his car the way he did, if he was a teacher at all. It also made no sense to me logically how he would be lost from a job he obviously had to go in to get hired for. This was before Zoom and all those things, I'm pretty sure.

I immediately said that I'm going to get an adult, and he clearly panicked and said it wasn't necessary, that he just wanted us to get closer and show him where to go. I pointed straight. I truly don't know the direction to the district, but that was not my main focus, honestly. I told him to go straight, and he ignored me. My little cousin was moving towards his car,

and I grabbed him by his hair and kept him with me. I refused to let go of his head. I'm shaking and trying to not show that I'm scared because I don't know what's about to happen. The driveway is a long one as well. Like, I truly didn't feel, safe turning my back on him. I have my other hand on my phone and I'm shaking, so I'm struggling with gloves on, but I'm

able to call my mom and thank God she answers. She usually would ignore my calls and be on the phone with her boyfriend. The guy gets out of his car when he sees that I'm on the phone with someone, and I start immediately sobbing and telling my mom that there's a man out here, and that I think he's going to hurt us. She comes out running, and the second she gets closer and he sees her, he bolts back to his car and drives away. A car that was around the corner of the road also dashed away as well. Now looking back, it's even more scary since if it was just someone who needed to get past said car that was in the middle of the road by our driveway, they would

have either honked or gone in the other lane to pass them. They definitely aren't. They definitely also saw the entire thing, and didn't get out of their car to help us or anything. So it makes me think they were also in on this entire situation. I'm forced to go to school that day, and my mom calls the cops, and when I get home, I find out even more horrible news that just made me realize my gut feeling was correct. My mom told them the car and how it looked and such, and they found an abandoned car that matched her description just up the road. They found who it belonged to, and eventually found out that he wasn't a schoolteacher.

He worked on the barges. The cops said they thought it dealt with trafficking from the looks of it, and they didn't even catch him since they already left on the boat, or whatever. Who knows what would have happened if he got one of us? I'm assuming that we would have been on that boat, and horrible things would have happened. It still pisses me off that he was never caught, and possibly other kids were victims of his. It's truly terrifying, and to this day, I refuse to go near that road.

I still have recurring nightmares of it. I'm always on alert now, too, which I most definitely should have been more alert back then, but I was just a kid, and clearly didn't realize how it would have affected me in real time. To start off, I look physically female. So, this happened about a month ago while I was working in London. I had gone out on a date with a guy and decided to wear these heels. I had to test and see how good they would be for walking around the city. To no one's surprise, they were not comfortable at all.

So, by the time I get back to the station closest to where I was staying, my feet hurt like hell. So I was walking kind of slowly since there were blisters for days. As I'm leaving the station, I'm on the phone with my mom when this guy walks up to me and asks if I had been drinking. I had not been, but I suppose it looked like I could have been since my steps were a bit unsteady due to the uncomfortable dang shoes. So generic looking frat bro wannabe asks me if I'm okay. I tell him I'm sober and that my shoes are just uncomfortable. Now I think that's that and head towards the stairs that go down into my neighborhood. But as I'm walking, Captain Dip, uh, crap, decides to try and talk to me once more.

And I tell him that I'm on the phone and to go away, that I don't need help. Does he listen? Of course not. Now, something to know about me. I'm pushing six feet tall and with the heels on, I was definitely over six foot. So I am by no means a small person. So when I reach the base of the stairs, the idiot, of course, has walked down ahead of me. What does he do when I reach the base of the stairs? He shows me a video of a woman performing fallacious and tries to hint that I should do that for him.

But here is where this absolute dumbass made a mistake. I have dealt with far worse than some jackass on the street. and do have extensive combat experience. So my immediate response to this was to ask him if he had a death wish while giving him my best death stare. And I have a very good one. I then told him to F off, now,

and pointed towards the stairs to tell him to go back to the station. The guy was absolutely dumbfounded, but did indeed F right back off to the train station. So at least he had a good sense to leave me alone after that. And, keep in mind, this all happened while I was on the phone with my mom. It is absolutely astounding to me, the audacity of absolute eff wits like this. But needless to say, the jackass will probably think twice about harassing random women

near the train station now. It doesn't happen often, but I do take joy when I get to teach these creep shows a lesson, not to think so casually about harassing women. Stay safe, ladies, and remember, don't be polite to these creeps. Be loud. Make a scene. Act like an absolute crazy person. These A-holes are just looking for people who will be meek and quiet. Be bold, and know that you have just as much right to space as everyone else.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. As the Halloween season approaches, be the Eldrador's and spooky specters you are meant to be. I want to start this by saying that I have been camping and hiking since I was a child. It was something that I really bonded over with my father. With that said, I'm very familiar with wildlife, bears, moose, bucks, and even a wolverine once. I would not recommend startling them. I can identify most animals by their sounds and tracks, but what I saw a few years ago in this national park up north

still makes the hair stand up. And part of the reason is because I couldn't identify it. Once a year, I planned a solo trip for myself as a way to get back to nature and forget about anything else around me. It truly was one of the most relaxing times and I always looked forward to it. This was one of those trips.

It was late August, so the nights were getting cooler, and I had planned for that. I packed my sleeping bag, thin layers, so I could wear multiple pieces at night, and the other minimal items that I needed. I packed light. I knew that I also didn't get service in the mountains and trees, so I left my phone in the center console of my car. I also know that where I was staying was known for bear sightings, not to mention all the warning signs they had everywhere,

so I also did everything by the books to avoid encounters. I had a bear bag properly hung, kept my camp cleaned up, no food out in the open, and I even picked a spot that was pretty well open with good visibility. Most of the trip was fine. Up until that night, I got ready for bed. The first sign something was wrong came around 2 or 3 a.m. I'd finally dozed off while I was reading, but I woke to the sound of growling.

At first, I wasn't startled by this. It wasn't unusual to hear animals out there, especially at night. I recognized one voice immediately, the distinctive sound of a mountain lion. That throaty snarl that sounded like it was coming from something much bigger than it actually is. But the other sound was what piqued my curiosity. I didn't recognize it. It was almost like someone trying to imitate a growl, but it was wrong. It was like if you asked an AI to generate the sound of an animal that doesn't exist. It had this almost weird modulation to it, shifting pitches that shouldn't go together.

Sometimes it sounded human. Then it would drop really low, so low that my tent seemed to vibrate. But being who I am, I wanted to investigate it. I needed to know what was making these foreign sounds. So, against every horror movie rule and survival instinct, I had to look. I didn't grab my headlamp or any other light,

not wanting to draw attention to myself or spook the creature. I hoped the moon and reflection from the nearby stream would provide enough light. I got out of my tent and looked around and spotted some movements on the other side of the stream. I walked closer to the stream where I was able to make out that mountain lion confirming what I had heard. It looked to be a decent sized one too, definitely an adult. It was in a full defensive pond. posture, back arched, tail rigid, and ears flat. It was circling something, the way they do when they're sizing up or threatening something else.

That's when I tried to focus on what it was up against. The other creature was on all fours, at first. In the moonlight, I initially thought that it was a bear, but the proportions were all wrong. Its limbs were too long and thin. The joints bent at unnatural angles, Its head was massive compared to its body, but not in any way that made sense. How and why was its head so big? It also didn't seem to have a snout, like a bear.

It was flatter, like a human or maybe a cat. I seemed to zone everything out around me and was just focused on trying to figure out what this thing was. Then it stood up, throwing everything I thought and knew out the window. The only way I could describe it, it just unfolded, like someone doing origami in reverse. On two legs, it had to be almost nine feet tall. Its arms hung down past its knees. The mountain lion, this common and huge predator that people feared, now just looked like a large house cat in comparison.

But even with how large and unnatural the creature was, its movement was fluid and fast. I watched as it reached out and grabbed the lion's tail. The cat screamed and that's what made me lose it. Right then, I knew that cat was going to die if something didn't happen. I acted before anything and let out the loudest roar that I could muster. I know I probably sounded stupid, but I had to try something. Surprisingly, it worked.

The creature's head snapped toward me so fast that it looked like it would have broken its neck. Even through the darkness, I caught a glimpse of its eyes. They reflected like an animal's, but they were set in front of the face like a human's. At that moment, I felt sick, and this sense of dread engulfed me. I thought I was dead, for sure.

It made that wrong, growling sound again, but this time, I'm not exaggerating here, it sounded distorted, like it was coming through some kind of cheap speaker. It dropped the mountain lion which immediately bolted in the opposite direction through the trees. The creature stared at me for what felt like hours, but was probably just a few seconds. I was scared out of my mind, but I was also frozen in place. What was I supposed to do there anyways. Then, the creature dropped back on all fours, and slowly walked deeper into the trees behind where it stood, all in that same unsettling fluidity. I spent the rest of the night,

not sleeping. I wasn't comfortable with sleeping or staying in a tent where I couldn't see every position around me. I ended up starting my fire again and just sat there, waiting for the first sign of daylight. As soon as it showed up, I packed up and hiked out of there in record time for myself. I've tried researching what it was that I saw, but no dice. I've gone down every cryptozoology rabbit hole that I could find. I asked my dad and even a friend of the family that had been a park ranger for nearly two decades.

Nothing was matching. The closest thing I've found was some obscure legend about walkers, but I'm not. not even sure it fully fits those. Its long front legs or arms and its unnaturally large head was what threw me off. I still have no answers and to be honest, I'm too afraid to go back. I've gone hiking in that same park before, but I can't bring myself to stay there overnight. The mountain lion was obviously afraid of that thing, and that should tell you everything you need to know about it. I would rather never have an encounter with that thing ever again. Hi, Raven.

I've been binging on your podcast for a few months now, and I just want you to know that I'm hooked. It's my absolute favorite to listen to these days. Thank you. My story is about a knock on the door that honestly scarred me for life. I apologize for the length. To set the scene first, I don't mind telling you where we used to.

live as we don't live anywhere close to this town anymore. It was March of 2013. My husband at the time and I, we are now divorced, lived in Brunswick, which is a small town in Maryland. We rented a house on a fairly busy road through the town. On the right of our house was a hardware store, which sat on the corner of our street that opened at 7 a.m. and to the left was a fairly large house that had been turned into six. apartments inside. The house we were renting

was a two-story early 1900's home that had been renovated. When you walked in the front door, there was a hallway with stairs to the left. And on either side of the hallway and stairs was a living room. Yes, we had two living rooms. The left living room was our TV room. The right was more of a decorative second sitting area. You could walk through the sitting area on the right

to reach the kitchen, or you could go straight down the hallway. Connected to the kitchen was a small laundry room with a back door that led to our backyard. The back door was wood with the pained glass from midway to the top. And the backyard was fairly large, and there was an enormous deck outside our back door that we used for entertaining. Upstairs were the three bedrooms and a bathroom, but they aren't relevant to the story. The house was set a ways back from the sidewalk. probably about 30 or 40 feet.

So, approaching from either side of the street, you couldn't see the house until you were passing. You would just see the hardware store and the apartment complex. It looked like a large gap was between the buildings until you got closer, and you could see our house set back from the road. Unless you were standing in front of our house or directly in front of either building to the side, you couldn't see our home. The setup to the house doesn't really have anything to do with the story per se. I'm just trying to set the mental image for what's about to happen.

Living in our house was myself, my husband, and our dog named Snoopy. Snoopy was, for lack of a better word, a derpy dog. He was half Lab and half Bassett. Just imagine the body and feet of a Basset hound, with the head and coloring of a yellow lab, but the ears of a passet hound. That's exactly what he looked like, and he was a really funny-looking pooch.

Snoopy was a sweetheart hound, and not only would he never heard of fly, but despite being a hound, he never really barked either. I was heavily pregnant and expecting our first child to be born in April the next month. It was that time of year in Maryland,

when it's starting to warm up outside for springtime, but we had to warm up outside for springtime, but we had just had some snowfall a week or so before. My husband worked in Washington, D.C. as a police officer and would commute using the Amtrak train, which was walking distance from where we lived. I had just quit my job as a grocery store deli clerk a few weeks prior due to pregnancy concerns, and because we had planned on me being a stay-at-home mom for the first few years of our child's life.

It was a typical Tuesday. My husband woke up early at around 3 a.m. to get ready for work, and left about an hour later, around 4 a.m., to catch the train to Washington, D.C. Of course, myself being eight months pregnant and miserable, I watched him get ready for work and told him goodbye as he left the bathroom and headed downstairs. I rolled over and quickly fell back to sleep with Snoopy snoring at my feet. The next thing I know, I'm woken up by someone knocking on what sounds like the front door. Snoopy is still lying on the bed, but his head is perked up and his big old ears are at attention. I rolled over and glanced at the clock, noting that it's 6 a.m. I think to myself, oh hell no, not getting up for this.

With the hardware store on one side of us and the apartments on the other, not to mention being the time the hardware store opened, I immediately think that someone must have the wrong building, and I intend to ignore the knocker. I tell Snoopy to lay back down, and I roll back over trying to do the same. Of course, the knocking didn't stop. Oh, no, it got louder and harder.

This goes on for about three to five minutes, with the intensity of the knocking getting worse, At this point, I'm an angry eight-month pregnant, tired woman, and I don't appreciate being woken up at the crack of dawn for no good reason. Being so late in my pregnancy, I couldn't get comfortable at night, so a good night's sleep was impossible. I'm about to get out of bed to go yell at whoever it was outside that they have the wrong house. When I noticed that Snoopy is growling. I've never seen this dog growl in his whole four years on this earth.

Of course, I don't heed Snoopy's warning as I'm angry, half asleep, and exhausted. I drag myself out of bed, and Snoopy jumps down as well, immediately taking off downstairs, growling and barking. Again, this is unlike him, but in my delirium, I didn't think anything of it. In the meantime, the knocking has now turned into banging.

Loud, angry, banging. I make my way downstairs to the front door. Why I chose to do what I did next, I will never know. I attribute it to exhaustion and anger about being woken up, completely ignoring the red flags of the situation. What happened next was very fast. Like, in the span of less than ten years, minutes fast.

Now, we lived in a very safe town, so I didn't even think about peeping out the window to see who was on the porch. I know, I know. I unlocked the front door and turn the handle, preparing to open the door and inform whoever it is trying to knock my door down that they have the wrong house. Immediately, upon turning the doorknob, the front door shoves inward at me, hard. like the person on the other side is trying to push their way in. At the same time, Snoopy is at the door, snarling and barking.

My adrenaline kicks in and I realize that this person is trying to force their way into my home. Thankfully, I was standing in front of the door when I unlocked it, intending to just stick my head outside. I somehow managed to throw my body weight against the door and fight it shut, and then lock it again before the person could. could enter. Now, I'm wide awake and terrified. While Snoopy is at the door freaking out, I run to the sitting room and peek through the blinds to the front porch, where I see a man at my door. This guy looks to be in his early 40s, with unkempt shoulder-length greasy hair and a bushy,

graying beard. He's wearing torn-up jeans, very old, beat-up brown work shoes, a white t-shirt, and a black winter coat open in the front. He was dirty from head to toe with this look of anger etched on his face. He also had our snow shovel in his hands. Before, this man was just pounding on the door, but now he had grabbed our snow shovel from our front porch and was repeatedly bashing the shovel end against the front door as hard as he could. I was frozen for all of maybe 15 seconds, unsure of what to do.

I had left my phone upstairs and we didn't have a house phone. My body must have forgotten that I was pregnant thanks to the adrenaline because I ran up the stairs faster than I thought possible. My first thought was to check for my husband's service weapon. There had been times that he forgot it at home before and I was hoping today was one of those occasions. But of course, when I checked his bedside drawer, it was gone. quickly I grabbed my cell phone from my side of the bed, and I immediately dialed 911. I ran again back down the stairs to the front door where this man was still trying to break down the door.

I'm panicked, trying to relay what is happening to the woman who answered at the 911 center, with this man beating my door down in the process, and my dog is still losing his mind. When I'm on the phone with 911, I run to the kitchen and grab a large knife from the block just in case I need to defend myself. As I'm heading back to the front door, the sound of the shovel against the metal door stops. I peek out the window of the TV room in time to see the man disappear around the side of our house toward the backyard. At this point, the police are on their way, and should be arriving in just a few minutes. thank goodness for small towns. I walk through my house back to the kitchen, checking the windows,

watching as this man makes his way to my backyard. I enter the kitchen and look into the laundry room, and I see him standing outside my laundry room window looking right at me. My heart is beating out of my chest at this point. We lock eyes, and the man takes three steps backwards from my window, not breaking eye contact. He then turns away from me and continues around the corner of my house while I'm watching his progression through the windows, through the backyard,

and up on to the deck, to the back door. I move toward the laundry room and stand in the doorway and watching this man approach my back door. He tries the doorknob, locked. He looks up at me again through the glass of the back door. He looks down to my hand where I'm holding the knife. and then locks eyes with me as he makes a fist and punches a hole through one of the pains of the glass. I hear sirens coming in the distance, and I scream to the 911 operator that this man is at the back door staring at me,

and that he's just broken the glass. Snoopy comes rushing in from his guard post at the front door, up to the back door, and is snarling at this intruder trying to break in. The pain of glass the intruder broke first was the farthest away from the door, knob on the inside. Everything is slow motion for me at this point. Just as the man breaks the middle pane of glass, the operator tells me at the police have just pulled up out front.

I run down the hallway, unlock the front door and throw it open, screaming to the police, he just broke the glass in my back door trying to get in. The police immediately took off around the side of the house to the backyard. They had the man on the ground and handcuffed in just a minute or two. While I was out front yelling at the cops, he had managed to break two more panes of glass and unlock my back door. But thankfully, the police got to him before he was able to open it. I thanked the operator and hung up. I talked to the police and explained everything that had happened, and he was arrested.

The man was intoxicated and tried to tell the cops that this was his house, and that he didn't know anyone was inside. That was his excuse. Anyway, I learned from the cops that this guy was arrested several days prior for breaking into another person's basement through the window, supposedly trying to find somewhere to sleep. Of course, I called my husband afterwards, and he immediately caught the next train home to make sure I was okay. When I told my husband what happened, though, I left out the part about me opening the door because I didn't want to look like an idiot. There's a reason we aren't married anymore. After it happened, I often wondered what his intentions were if he got in.

What would have happened if I wasn't able to get the front door shut and locked again? I was visibly very pregnant. And even though he lied to the police, this man knew I was in the house. He tried to force the door open on me. He heard Snoopy going crazy, not to mention staring at me as he broke the glass out of my door to unlock it. these days I try not to think about it anymore. It's been almost 12 years since this happened, and I still can't handle the sound of knocking,

whether it be someone knocking on my door or my kids making a knocking sound while they're playing. The sound sends me into a panic attack. It's so bad that whenever I get deliveries, like Amazon or DoorDash, for example, I specifically state in the delivery instructions, Do not knock. If you're listening to this story,

please don't ever open the door without checking who is outside first. Even if it's 6 a.m., and you think nothing bad can happen during daylight hours. This story comes with a trigger warning for a pedo-slash-preditor-type person. So if that's something, you'd want to skip, I recommend skipping this story. When I was a kid, my two younger siblings and I stayed the weekend at our grandmother's house while our parents were out of town. My grandma's long-term boyfriend, let's call him Banks,

had moved in with her and would be staying the weekend with us as well. The moment I met him, he immediately gave me the creeps. I don't remember much from our first night there, so I assume nothing out of the ordinary happened. That quickly changed the following morning. My grandma announced that she would be leaving us at home with Banks for a bit so she could pick up groceries. As Grandma left, my brother, sister, and I sat in the living room couch watching TV. Shortly thereafter, I heard Banks emerge from his bedroom down the hall.

I listened closely to Banks' footsteps as he approached. and I noticed he was more so slowly creeping down the hallway as opposed to walking. I fixated on the doorway where he would inevitably appear, and when he did, he was crouched down, eyes wide and grinning with his hands positioned as if he was about to pounce toward us. He began running toward us on the couch, yelling, I'm the tickle monster, and then pounced on top of my younger sister, aggressively tickling her while kneeling over her on the couch.

couch. Banks is over six feet tall, muscular build, and my sister is below the age of 10. My sister repeatedly asked Banks to stop, exclaiming, I don't like it. Stop that. My sister let out a high-pitched scream and began to hysterically cry. At this point, I intervened. It sounded like Banks was hurting her, and I didn't like that he was continuing to tickle her while she screamed and cried. I tried inserting myself between my sister and Banks and told him to stop. He wouldn't remove his hands from my sister. I began slapping Banks' arm telling him to let her go, and once he released his grip, I screamed, run, to my brother and sister.

The only thing I remember feeling and thinking in this moment was to get the hell away from this man right now. I ran out of the living room down the hallway and into the first. bedroom. My sister followed behind me, and then my brother. And as I was closing the bedroom door, Banks caught up to us and shoved himself against the door to prevent me from locking it shut. Miraculously, I was able to lock it before he overpowered me. Once my siblings and I were locked in the bedroom, Banks continued to bang on the door while he repeatedly yelled, I'm the tickle monster, let me in. The tickle monster's coming to.

to get you. Both of my siblings are hysterically crying at this point. I'm now overcome with fear of what Banks will do if he manages to gain access to the bedroom. Although I didn't have a phone, I yelled back at him, if you don't stop, I'm going to call the police. Banks backed off, and I heard him retreat back to his bedroom down the hall and close the door. My siblings and I stayed in the bedroom with the door locked until my grandma returned. Banks remained in his bedroom for the rest of the night. The following morning, Banks left the house, and my grandma said he'd been gone for the day working. That afternoon, my grandma fell asleep on the living room couch, and for whatever reason, I decided to go in their bedroom to snoop around. I went into what appeared to be Banks' nightstand,

and I found his personal journal. For the most part, it was filled with nonsense and very detailed drawn depictions of sex. Some of the drawings had a bit of a satanic undertone, but at the time I was too young to recognize and understand what I was looking at. I began quickly flipping through it and landed on a page with big, bold, black, and red capital letters, which read, if you die a virgin do you go to hell? Below it was a drawing of a prepubescent nude girl.

There were two versions of the girl standing side by side. One where she appears happy and smiley, and the other her face is more distorted and confused. Typing this out and re-envisioning it, it makes me feel disgusting. I don't know how to emphasize how disturbing this was. I instantly went numb and dropped the journal, ran to the living room and demanded my grandma call my parents so I could go home immediately. My sister was ultimately covered in bruises from banks, quote, tickling her.

Strange and creepy dude. This is a story that I've been wanting to tell for a long time. It's raining heavily, so I decided to take advantage of that and tell this story. I have to admit that I feel very nervous as I write this. The year is 2020. At that time, I was still going to school, and at the same time, I was working. My sister was about 24 years old at the time. My best friend used to come to my place for the weekend,

and I always used it as an escape from work and school, and I loved spending time with him. My sister, although a little more serious, and a few years older than us, liked to spend time with us, and she also cooked while we played games, and it became a tradition. One day, a festival was held in our town,

so I arranged with that friend to meet in the town. I hang out with my sister all the time, so I took her here, and we met together with that friend. And so we visited the parks in the city and looked for a place to relax, but again it all soon became born. Near the church, I saw a house that looked kind of poor, but there was a lot of shoes there, as if the house was full. And then the friend told me that a psychic lives there, and charges for his service, and quote, heals people.

Of course, it immediately occurred to us to check what this was actually about. I wasn't a believer at the time, so even the thought of something like this was funny to me. We entered the house, and as soon as I stepped in, I smelled something wet, if I can call it that. Some people exited the room, and others were waiting for something. The house felt very cold. To the right of the entrance is the room where that man worked, and that's where we met him. In the middle of the room sat a man wearing a white suit. We greeted him, and without a word, he just pointed with his hand wearing.

to sit. After that, we had light conversation, nothing significant. After a few moments, he started doing what we came for. My sister was the first in line, and it seemed to me that, at one point, she fell into a trance, and I, the guy who only believes in science, explained it as hypnosis. She started to cry and laugh, and she does it all when he says to. When she came out of the trance, he said that he cast a curse, and that the only way to get rid of it was to be with him in marriage.

I immediately said that it was time to go, and that he was a drug addict and a lunatic. For three months or a little more, I planned a trip to another country together with my sister and parents, like music in the car and driving. As soon as we entered another country, the phone rang, at the same moment, and it was him. He immediately asked why we were going to another country,

if we were running away from him. We had an argument over the cell phone, and to this day I still don't know how he knew we were in another country or how he had our number. After that, pictures of my sister with strange padlocks on the picture started arriving at the address. There were dozens of pictures. And on each of them, there was a real padlock that pierced through the picture and was attached to the picture.

We were forced to call the police, but they couldn't do anything. There are still hateful messages from fake profiles, but the harassment has somehow stopped. Excuse my bad English, as I used Google Translate on some parts, but this story is 100% truth, and I feel really uneasy, typing it. I am always hesitant to share this story for reasons that may be obvious. But it's still the most bizarre and unsettling event that has ever happened to me. And worse yet, I still can't make sense of what happened or the conclusion of it.

I was hiking in a pretty popular national park in New Mexico back in 2007. I was in the state for a friend's wedding, and I wanted to stop here before I went back home. It was late September, cool enough in the morning for a light jacket, and warmed up enough to not overheat with it. I'd like to call myself a fairly experienced hiker and rock climber, so I've always kept an eye out for interesting detours, ones that others less experienced may not consider checking out. In about two miles into my trek, I noticed something that caught my attention. There was a cliff that hung over part of the trail I was on that had vines and leaves to grow up on one side. That told me that there had been some kind of water flow down the side which helped keep the vines alive.

I wanted to see the view from the top, and after circling around for a bit, I found a good place to climb. Once up there, I could see there was certainly a trail that I could follow along and decided to continue to follow it. As I continued along, I saw something else that caught my attention, a subtle path through the grass and fallen leaves, like someone had recently walked through it multiple times. Part of me said that I should stick to the marked trail, but at the same time, that was the type of thing I liked to explore. I wanted to take these other trails that probably weren't actual trails,

but others have taken them enough to make it happen. and there must be something there worth seeing for people to take it, right? So that's exactly what I did. I followed the pressed-down vegetation for about ten minutes, taking mental note of distinctive trees or similar to help guide my way back out. I didn't know where this path would take me or even how long it would be. But after about 15 to 20 minutes of walking, I finally found something along this path,

something that I would have never expected to see out there. There was a little girl, who couldn't have been more than seven or eight, sitting cross-legged on a dirty sleeping bag. She had several toys arranged in front of her. I remember seeing a dirty stuffed rabbit that was looking pretty worn out and lopsided. There was a doll missing an arm and other smaller toys. There was also a small red and blue lunchbox-looking thing next to her that had definitely gotten used quite a bit.

Her clothes were filthy, and didn't look like they fit her. In fact, the jacket that was slung over her shoulders looked like it was an adult woman's jacket. She didn't have shoes on, and I could tell that the bottom of her feet were dark, like they were obviously covered in dirt. Her hair looked like it could be light brown,

maybe blonde even, but was very dirty and matted, with leaves sticking out of it. of it. I remember making an audible sound, one of curiosity and sadness, which caused the girl to stand up and face me. At the time of this event, I was actually a preschool teacher and had experience with children. I knew what to do to calm them down, make them feel safe, not feel scared. But this was different. The fear in her eyes was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. This was like a feral animal seeing humans.

I knelt and said hello softly and she backed up, like she was ready to run. I put my hands out trying to get her to stay and see that I wasn't a threat. I told her my name and slowly pulled my backpack around front and pulled out the bag of trail mix that I always took with me. As soon as I pulled it out,

I noticed her attention was back on me. I held it out and she immediately approached and snatched it from my hands, opening it and digging in. I watched her eat a few handfuls until I spoke again, and I asked her if she was lost. She didn't answer. I asked her for her name, and she stopped long enough to shake her head and then continued eating. I asked her if she'd been out there alone, and she nodded. I asked her if she knew her name or anything about her parents and where she lived, and I got nothing.

She would just look at me and not answer. This girl had to have been out there for some time, and surely someone had to be looking for her, right? Maybe she'd gone missing here. Miraculously, she managed to survive on her own. I don't know where the toys or lunchbox had come from, but it had to have been the only thing keeping her going, with how she had them set up around her,

like a small child like that would do. Finally, I did my best to slowly explain to her that I wanted to take her to the Rangers. I tried to make the Rangers seem cool and helpful, and after some coaxing, I finally got her to agree. I watched her zip up her sleeping bag, toss all of her items into it, and drag it along behind her. I put my backpack back on and took the sleeping bag from her, and she walked beside me holding my hand. It was somehow soft, but ice cold. I've had kids hold my hand or hug me before, but something felt very different with her. The walk back felt ten times longer than normal.

I'm sure part of it was going back and forth between carrying the sleeping bag or her, as I didn't want her little feet to get hurt on rocks or sticks. We passed a handful of people that looked at us judgingly. I could tell these people probably thought I was just a bad parent with how she looked, but not a single one stopped to ask if we were okay or needed help. When we finally reached the main trail, I tried to explain to the girl what I was going to do, all while smiling to show her it was okay,

that this was a good thing for her. Once there, I quietly explained to someone there the situation about finding the girl. He looked skeptical, but then agreed to call for help. We sat on a bench in the front, and I even bought muffins from a nearby shop, which she inhaled, too. The police showed up, with a child caseworker, and I explained everything to them. Where I found her, what I saw, they asked me what all she said, but I told them that she wouldn't speak at all. Another hour or two, they took the girl away in an ambulance while I finished up my statement. I didn't get to tell the girl by, but she did keep my bag of trail mix.

The caseworker took my contact information and said that they would contact me if they had anything further. From there, everyone cleared out. And not having anything left to do, I returned to my car and went to find somewhere to eat by myself. It was such a bizarre experience, and now I had to drive the four hours to get home. I ended up calling my sister and my friend to tell them about what happened, and they also thought that it was both sad and bizarre. It would be one thing to find a child that may have been lost on the trail, but she had obviously been there for a while, weeks, hell, maybe even months.

And the fact that she didn't talk, made me wonder if it was just fear, or was she mute? Did she not know how to speak? Maybe she couldn't speak English. I had so many questions. But while this event was something itself, it's what followed that added to my confusion.

After a week past, I hadn't heard from the caseworker. They specifically said they would reach out to me, but never did. I wanted to contact them myself, but I realized I never got their information. They only had mine. So I tried calling the National Park first. I explained what happened, and the person that answered seemed to be confused.

They said they've been working there for years, but have never heard of anything like that being reported. I had to explain that it was something that I reported, not something I heard. They basically just told me that they didn't recall anything. thing like that and matter-of-factly said that the area was known for some dangerous terrain and wasn't suitable for amateur climbers, let alone children. Yeah, that's why this whole situation is so strange.

I just chalked it up to maybe he wasn't there that day and just refused to acknowledge it because he didn't witness it. I wasn't sure, so I tried a police station close to that national park. They also told me the same thing. They claimed they had no reports of a lost child being found in a park. I think I called four or five different stations and got the same response from all of them. How could no one have a record of this child? My last attempt was for some kind of CPS for that county, and they once again took my info and said they would look into it and call me back, but I never heard back.

I called back a week later, and that lady was very aggressive, telling me that they couldn't be. provide any information on any cases to people that were not authorized or not in the family. And then she told me never to call again. I understood not being able to tell me about the child specifically, but I was more so concerned about her well-being and to get an update on the situation. Did she get lost? Was she abandoned? What on earth happened to her? What did she go through? There was no way that not a single person there that day didn't remember what happened. It's not something that happened on a regular basis.

So, why was this being so seemingly covered up? That's all I could think, that people were told to stay quiet about this, and then it just adds to my curiosity. Who was that girl, and why did it become such a big secret? I'm a 29-year-old man from the Philippines, and even though this incident occurred back in 2013, over a decade ago, I still find myself haunted by it every time I return to my hometown. At the time, I was just an 18-year-old college student. It was the night of our department's socialization party, which had wrapped up around midnight.

As the only one among my friends with a car, I had always taken. on the role of the designated driver. After dropping my friends off at their homes, I was parking in my usual spot, just a few houses away from my own, due to the limited parking in our area. As I was about to exit the car, I noticed a girl standing near the entrance of the alleyway

leading to my house and several others, wearing a shirt with our department's logo. I assumed that she had just walked back from the party. In front of her, a man in his late twenties, clad in a hoodie, stood ominously, seemingly blocking her path. The girl locked eyes with me, and I immediately recognized her expression. It was a silent plea for help. Instinct kicked in. I grabbed my bag and stepped out of the car.

The man, noticing my presence, began to walk into the alleyway. When I reached the girl, he had vanished from sight. It felt as though whatever threatening situation had occurred moments before was over, and I was tempted to walk away. But then I caught sight of the strange man again. He was leaning against the wall of a nearby house, his gaze fixed on me. A chill ran down my spine, and just then, the girl called out from behind me. Her voice trembled with fear, and I saw her approach visibly shaken.

Can you walk with me to my apartment at the end of the alleyway? She asked, explaining that the man had been silently blocking her way. I glanced back at the man. He appeared intoxicated, perhaps drunk or on drugs. We began to walk. Our breaths were shallow as we passed him. After putting some distance between us, I glanced back. And to my horror, he was following us.

We had already passed my house at the house. that point, but I couldn't leave this girl to face him alone. As fear coursed through me, she suddenly broke into a full sprint, and I had no choice but to keep pace with her. We reached the gate to her apartment, and she hastily swung it open, slamming it shut behind us. We then dashed into the building where a second gate stood, this one smaller, likely designed to keep pets from escaping. She opened it, and we saw it.

slipped through just as the sound of the man approaching the first gate reached our ears. We bolted up the stairs, making our way to the third floor. Breathless, the girl knocked urgently but softly at her apartment door. After what felt like an eternity it swung open, revealing her friends, a guy and a girl around her age. They looked bewildered but quickly locked the door behind us and led us into the bedroom. They turned off the lights, and we just sat there silently with our hearts pounding. The girl broke down in tears, recounting the terrifying events to her friends.

She revealed that the man had been following her for 10 to 15 minutes, and she expressed relief at having seen me. Unsure of what to do next, I called my aunt who was staying at our house that night. Thankfully, she answered swiftly. I urged her to call the police. At this time, we could now hear the man pacing around the apartments, seemingly looking for us. He was mumbling something that we couldn't hear well from the other side of the door. A few minutes later, my phone rang with an unknown number. It was my uncle, a policeman, reassuring me that help was on the way.

What felt like hours dragged on and eventually the police arrived, My uncle instructed me via phone to come downstairs and recount the ordeal to the officers. They informed us that they had seen the man wandering around the gates and eventually into the far end of the alleyway. Once the police had finished their inquiries, they allowed me to go home. I recounted the entire story to my aunt who urged me to get some rest. Despite my exhaustion, sleep eluded me as my mind raced with thoughts of the strange man. What if he caught up with us, armed with a knife or some kind of weapon? I fought to dispel the terrifying images racing through my mind,

but I couldn't shake the feeling that he might be watching me in the dark, a knife glinting menacingly in his hand. So I'm new to this city for a concert that I'm going to go see. It's my first time traveling alone, so I feel like the safest spot for me is to just relax and read some manga, in the city library while I wait for my hotel check-in time to come. Well, I guess I picked a bad spot to read at because people kept trying to talk to me,

which is fine, but I'm too shy to just tell them to go away. One person sat at a table across from me and asked me where I'm from and who I came with. Obviously, I lied, even though I assumed this person was an older lady. They were wearing a hat and thick coat, so I really couldn't tell. I was nicer to them than I should have been, since I assumed this older lady was the chatty type, you know. She said that I looked young and have nice hair and stuff,

and then asked if I'm from around here and where my parents are. I'm an adult. Well, turns out, they're not a lady. As I got a closer look at them, as he came closer and he comes to sit next to me, he then asked me for my number, and stupidly I did give my actual number. He wrote his down and his name and asked me to write my name too.

I put a fake name. Then he gives me his phone to put in the info and compares the written to the one I put in his phone, real number and fake name. I can't bring myself to refuse since none of the librarians were looking our way, and he was rather big, so I didn't want to make him mad or something. Then he turns to leave and asks when he can call me,

and I'm like, oh, just whenever. Obviously, I blocked him when he tried to call later, so I hope he assumes my number was fake too. But as he left, he asked if I had a Facebook and I said no. And then he asked if he could take a photo of me. He's like, can I take some pictures of you? if you don't have a Facebook? And I nervously laughed and said,

um, no. Honestly, what? Anyway, I don't think I'll visit a big city library again. I'll go to Barnes & Noble next time or something. When I was 14, 15, I used to have absolutely no stranger danger awareness at all. I didn't mind being out at night on my own, not that I was much at that age.

But I'd go down the back streets on my own. Any basic safety techniques just didn't bother me because I thought I would always be fine. One day I was walking back from town and thought that I would take my usual shortcut down the alleyways, behind the high street. I'm quite happily walking when I round the corner into a guy who's loitering, and we lock eyes straight away. I thought the polite thing to do was to smile. and thankfully he smiled back. I decide that he's no threat, and I walk right by him. Then I hear him say something about my smile.

I shout thanks over my shoulder and carry on. I turn down another corner, so does he, now saying that he likes my trainers. So I yell another thanks, and he asks me where I got them from. I say that I don't know. Now I'm speeding up because this dude's definitely following me. I turn down onto the main road where I know there will be people, hoping this will deter him. No, and there he is, following behind, and still trying to get me to engage.

I come to a busy crossing and I know that he's about to catch up to me. As safely as I could, which probably wasn't that safe, I bolt across the road, leaving him waiting on the other side and still shouting something at me. I ran across another road, and I dived into a convenience store and called the person who was looking after me at the time, who told me to stay there, and that she was going to come get me. While I'm on the phone with her, I see the man round the corner looking around. He's even checking between cars and everything. Thankfully, he gave up pretty quickly and seemed to leave.

My careworker called the police, and two officers came, but they weren't overly concerned. I guess he hadn't technically done anything. Interestingly, they did seem to know from the description who it was likely to be, and said that they were in touch with the people who work with him and will feed it back. Anyway, about four days later, I go to a coffee place, that I used to read in, not far from there. It didn't even cross my mind that I might see him again. In my head, it was all sorted, done, dusted.

I took a seat near the toilets and started reading when the toilet door opens, and the big blue coat that I had described to the police a few days earlier emerges. I stare at him in fear. He briefly regards me and then carries on past. I have no idea if you recognize me or not. It didn't seem like it. Safe to say, I am a lot more careful now. Before I start, sorry about any typos.

I'm using my phone to write this. Hey, I'm an indigenous Australian from the Dengetti people, and I have some stories about a ghost called Charlie. There is a jail called Trial Bay Jail in the Aricoon National. Park in New South Wales. It has a lot of significance to my people, and we still do things there. I live in Victoria because of university studies, but every holiday, I travel up and spend time with the family.

Charlie is a ghost who was a German prisoner back in the 1900s. This was when the jail was still open. People of German descent were placed here during World War I. Not a lot of people knew that we had these. kind of camps in Australia, but we did. So about Charlie. I don't think anyone knows how he died or how he got there. There are several spirits who roam around, and I can't say that I've seen any of those,

but I think I had an encounter with old Charlie. I was out playing with some of my cousins, and I was dared by one of them, Gaz, to climb one of the trees. We spent a lot of time outdoors, playing in the bush, and learning about our heritage. Anyway, so I did. When I started climbing a tree, I got several meters up off the ground, and suddenly I was thrown off, falling down with Gaza and others laughing at me before helping me up. I told them that I had a good grip, but that it felt like something had pushed me.

I was dazed and confused, but wasn't physically. hurt. Gaza told me that old Charlie doesn't like me climbing his tree. I don't know if he just liked the tree or maybe he was hung from it. I asked who Charlie was, and he told me that it was a ghost. I asked some of my family and elders about him. They used to live inside the ruins during the 60s and 70s. They would tell me to keep an eye out for this Charlie fella. He hasn't directly threatened anyone other than what I'll say below. This part isn't my story, but one of my aunties who was camping late at night. Her and her friends were getting ready for bed when Charlie dragged her out of the tent.

I even heard that someone heard their toddler screaming and found them outside. I don't know that person personally. He's also known for tugging on people's clothing to get their attention, and women in the family were known to pin their clothes just in case. I don't think he's done anything creepy to anyone, but it is unsettling. He hasn't gone out of his way to hurt anyone, but he is a dick, and will roam the grounds. I haven't seen him, but I've felt him a couple of times. I'm not a spiritual person, so I don't think I can see ghosts,

but I know people who claim to have seen him. I've been on some of the tours through Arakou National Park, And if you want, you can come and see for yourself. I recommend seeing the ruins of the old jail, too. Some parts of it are pretty hard, so make sure you're fit, otherwise you're not going to have fun. I'm going back up there to visit family soon, so I'll let you know if I see or hear any more stories about it.

Also, thanks for taking the time to narrate stories that are set in Australia. Not a lot of horror narrators do so, so good on you mate. If you're ever out this way, I'd be happy to show you around. As a child, I traveled a lot with my mother to different tourist places in our country and abroad. We celebrated that New Year's Eve in Austria, and I was 12 years old at the time. That day, we were at the Cunthistaricious Museum, one of the most famous places in Vienna, especially for tourists like us. However, I remember that this rendezvous was very tiring for me.

While we were at the very bottom of the museum, my mom said that she wanted to go to the bathroom and asked me if I wanted to go to the store afterwards before leaving. I replied that I didn't and told her that I would wait for her at the bench in front of the wardrobe until she did her business. She was absent for a few minutes, when a very tall man with a creepy smile from one ear to the other,

and wild, wide-open eyes approached me when I was sitting there. He started talking to me, and I thought he asked me some questions, but he was speaking German, and I didn't understand what he was saying to me. I replied to him that I don't know the language, which infuriated him. He touched my shoulder and changed his voice from affectionate to aggressive. His English was so-so, as was mine, but he tried to convince me that I really do speak German and that I was trying to fool him. At this point, my mom came back and approached the man in surprise. He was clearly frightened, quickly waved at me and fastly walked out of the museum.

My mother asked what he wanted, but I didn't know what to say to her, for I understood nothing of his speech, except a complaint. that I didn't answer him in German. There was also an elderly couple who were around watching the encounter. I approached them and asked them what the man was trying to tell me. The woman just replied something that it doesn't really matter, that the man was very strange and that I should really be careful. Who knows what would have happened if my mom hadn't shown up on time.

The other day, I went to the clinic and parked in the parking lot dedicated, for the building. It was the afternoon, but still bright outside. There's always sketchy people and homeless people around the city, but I don't generally encounter dangerous things in this area. I walked to my car and sat in it for a bit calling my boyfriend with an update. The car was parked right beside a sidewalk. When I saw someone come up the driver's side area,

I really didn't think anything too sketchy of it. but when I turned my head, I noticed a lady peering into my car as she slowly walked by. She stopped a short distance from my car on the sidewalk and just stood there. There's no bus stop there. No reason I can think of to wait there either. Just on the sidewalk in front of my car. She was carrying a large backpack, another bag, and looked like she was listening to music. I noticed this lady glancing.

at me a few times while I was on my phone. I didn't think too much of it at the time. She then came walking back to my car slowly and looking in my car. This time she went behind my car and stood there with her back towards the car. She was pretty much standing in the middle of the parking lot. I peered in my rearview mirror and she was swaying back and forth and had big headphones on. I noted to my boyfriend the suspicious behavior. she glanced backwards into my rearview window approximately three times.

At this point, I figured this person was up to no good, and was worried that she was looking for an opportunity to rob me. When vehicles drove past her in the parking lot, she wouldn't even move for them. My boyfriend advised me to start the car and start backing up to see what she would do. The second I started the car, she turned around to look at me and then went back to, to the sidewalk and took off down the street. I don't know if this person was waiting for me to get out of the car to rob me, or was waiting for an opportunity to try and steal my car,

but the whole thing has made me feel super unsettled all day. When I was 16, I was walking to a store near my house. I was a huge pothead and would walk to the neighborhood nearby to get my stuff and then take a shortcut through said neighborhood to the store, to get wraps. I was walking through the abandoned apartment building, and a very nice-dressed man was walking through and asked how I was doing. I ignored him and kept walking.

In the area that I was walking, there's not really white men in suits, so I was thrown off. I get to the store, and I'm walking back, and a white truck is parked in the corner of the apartment building, so I opted to go the long way on the busy street. street. The truck drove up to me and the same man jumped out and picked me up so fast that I didn't even have time to think. I was only a hundred pounds at the time and wasn't nearly as strong as him. I tried to scream and hit him with my elbow, but no luck. A lady that's heavily on drugs that's

always walking around my city came running at us and yelling to put me down. He actually put me down and sped off. Almost ten years later, I always stopped to give the woman food and actually just paid for her to get rehab, so she's doing great now, reunited with her grandchildren, and working.

Not as creepy as the other stories on here, but definitely never walked alone again after that. Hey there, friends, I hope that you enjoyed this collection of scary stories on this episode of The As, The Raven Dreams Podcast. If the platform you're on has the option to follow podcast and you enjoyed my work, please do consider doing so.

Also, leaving ratings and reviews are super important for the algorithm to support the growth of the podcast. I'm just one guy doing this. I don't have a team. It's literally just me doing everything. So any support like that is greatly appreciated. Never expected, though. So if you go above and beyond with that, I do appreciate it.

It. Some platforms also allow you to leave comments, and if you feel inclined to do so, please do. I would appreciate that. I do have a Patreon in a merch store that you can also check out if you want to support a little further. The Patreon site of things get you early access to all of my content. It is formatted differently as it goes in line with what my YouTube channel is, but it is the same stories, just different collections. There is also a website as the ravendreams.com, where you can check out pretty much everything about me. me, my social media platforms, fiction stories I've written if you want to read those,

as well as submitting your own stories, which there's a big button on the front page, you click to do so. And those stories basically keep the podcast alive, to be honest with you. So, yeah. All that said, friends, I do hope that I see you again here very soon. Until then, remember that you are loved, that you are valid, that you are important. You're the best you that you can be. Don't forget it. And until next time, Much love, and sleep well.