As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 224 - 13 True Scary Stories (Vacation Rental, Middle Of Nowhere, & Other Scary stories)

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

Today, on the 224th episode of the As The Raven Dreams podcast, we have 13 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 The Terrors of vacation rentals (like Air BNB), scary things in the middle of nowhere, and other scary stories from listeners! Hey There! Would you like to participate in the postcard exchange? It comes with a free ATRD Sticker! Just Send a post card to the following... Lucas PO BOX 8198 Rochester, MN 55903 If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your on supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube Thank you to all of the authors that have stories in todays episode... SonOfaBeach, JudyAndPaul, TeacherTeachingTeachers, GarrettWithAMountainView, Stephen, Just another small town girl, Wade, Rabbit Rabbit , Kisu, Ray Ray, louise, Jane F, Tricia M As Well As Any Author That Has Requested Anonymity. TimeStamps… Ad breaks after Story 1 & Story 5 1 ➤ 1:07 2 ➤ 9:49 3 ➤ 19:54 4 ➤ 28:39 5 ➤ 35:06 6 ➤ 43:56 7 ➤ 46:07 8 ➤ 55:22 9 ➤ 58:18 10 ➤ 1:02:30 11 ➤ 1:14:57 12 ➤ 1:18:13 13 ➤ 1:24:47 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey there, friends. Good afternoon. Hope you're doing well. Today we have a collection of scary stories that includes things like Middle of Nowhere stories, vacation rental stories, not Airbnb, vacation rental. And true scary stories, just kind of a variation of all types. So good mix today, good mix. And hopefully you enjoy them. But before we get into them, I wanted to mention that I do have a merch store. I don't talk about it too terribly often.

Mostly because I completely understand that money is tight. for a lot of people, and I do not push it or expect sales or anything like that, nor am I asking anyone to buy anything. I'm only mentioning it because I change the URL. It's a shorter, it's atr-d-shop now. So,

ATR-D dot shop, like, as the Raven Dreams, a-T-R-D dot shop. Easy to remember. I changed it, so I wanted to mention it because I did stuff. Enjoy the stories. I've always loved reading about creepy encounter stories and such, which is why I like channels like yours, but sometimes I think to myself,

no way, I would have done X, Y, Z instead. Until you are in one of those situations, and you don't know how to react. That's exactly what happened to me, and it humbled me really quick. At the time of this story, my best friend Chloe had been dumped by her boyfriend, slash fiancé of eight years. It was one of those completely blindsided, I need to find myself types of breakups. They were engaged and it wasn't one of those,

hey, let's get married things. He proposed to her, but something then changed in him and he left. She was clearly and completely shattered by it. So I was the one that was there for her for most of it. I decided to do something nice for her, and I booked us a little getaway. I called it a healing retreat with just the two of us.

I rented a nice little Airbnb about three hours outside the city. It was a cute little renovated farmhouse surrounded by a lot of trees. There was even a small play area to the side for the guests with kids, which I thought was pretty thoughtful. I figured that we could go out of town, unplug for the weekend, and just enjoy what nature had to offer. That, and I booked us a much-needed spa day for the both of us, on our last night there, but that was supposed to be a surprise for her. When we got there, there were instructions with the passcode to get the key from the box.

We got the key, went in and started unpacking some things. The first night we stayed in, we found a mom-and-pop-style diner for dinner, and then went back and chilled for the evening. We're both big into macramay, so we bought some supplies to work on while watching some movies that were there. To be honest, there's something healing about watching old movies from your childhood with a friend, doing something crafty. We laughed, we sang the songs, it was just a great night. The next day went as normal. We stopped at a pizza place on our way back to the house and stayed in with it. That's when we had our heart to.

heart. We each had a glass of wine and were now sitting in the living room talking, Chloe sobbing with our music playing low in the background. She was letting out her thoughts, her fears, and I was there consoling her. Then we heard the sound. It wasn't like a floorboard creaking or the house settling. This was the very familiar sound of a heavy door swinging open on an unhoiled hinge. The click followed by that slow creek. We both froze mid-sentence and looked at the front door first, but that's not where the sound came from.

It was coming from behind us. Between the kitchen and the living room, the tall bookshelf started moving out. Chloe and I made eye contact with that, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Stare. A section of the wall, what we thought was just a normal wall with a bookshelf against it was now moving, opening.

Then, a man stepped out. He looked like some middle-aged man with unkempt short hair standing in all directions. He was wearing an old t-shirt and no pants, just a pair of gray, saggy boxers and slippers. He didn't seem to notice us at first as he was facing the kitchen, scratching his head, looking completely casual as he walked in there until he did a double take and noticed us sitting on the couch. When our eyes met, Chloe lit out a high-pitched WTF. I scrambled backwards, grabbing the bottle of wine like a weapon.

The man nearly jumped when Chloe screamed. He didn't run away and he didn't try to approach or attack us. He just stopped and stared at us with his eyes wide open. And then, in a nearly, completely casual voice, he says, Oh, oh, geez, I'm so sorry. I thought you guys were asleep. Finally, finding my voice, I asked who the hell he was, and told Chloe to call the police.

He held his hands up, and he said that he was Richard and that he was the owner or host of the house that we were in. From there, the whole thing spiraled into something I never would have expected. We were yelling, demanding to know why the hell he was in the house. All the while, I was trying to look into the room that he had come from. From what I could see, the room almost looked like a small studio. There was a twin bed, a dresser with a laptop and monitor sitting on it, and a small fridge against the wall.

He explained that he converted part of the living room into a small room so that he could stay in it. He said that he had just forgotten to grab it. orange juice from the main fridge and thought we were already in bed. I'm not going to lie. I was pretty angry and scared at the time, so I told him that we were calling the cops and leaving. He looked a bit confused and defeated, but he shrugged and went toward the fridge. I grabbed my keys from the table by the door, and we locked ourselves in my car as we waited for the cops.

I couldn't prove that he was the owner or his intentions, and I wasn't going to walk close just to get to the room and pack our stuff. Once the police arrived, we explained them what happened, and then they went in to find the guy. After several minutes of nothing happening, we got out and approached the door, and I could see the man talking to one of the cops, now wearing pants at least. The other cop came out to talk to us before we went back in. He did confirm that the guy owned the place. He said that he lives there, but stayed.

in the small room when it's rented out so that he doesn't have to get a hotel or something. The cop even chuckled as he explained that it was cheaper and that he got more money out of the place since it was just him. He mentioned the security camera he had pointing at the driveway. That way he knew when we came and went so it was safe to exit. I was mortified at the time. It wasn't long, but we still stayed there with a strange man living in the same house as us. We didn't know his intentions.

And seeing the camera outside, I'm sure we've all heard some creepy stories about hidden cameras. There was no way we were going to still stay there after that. The cops stayed there as we packed our stuff up and we left. We went and found a hotel not far from the spa that I had planned for the following day. It was a little more than I expected to spend, but at least we had our peace of mind. staying there. After our spa session, we really calmed down and to be honest, we laughed about it. We were having a full-on meltdown that night, getting everything off our chest, and then out of

nowhere we heard the creek and a bookshelf opening up to this old guy in his underwear, just trying to get some orange juice. It was a bizarre night, and while I hope that never happens again, I don't hold any ill will toward the man anymore. In fact, I got a partial refund and didn't leave a bad review. However, it could be dangerous to all involved, especially if someone staying there is armed. So I did report it to Airbnb. I told them the guy was honest with us when we got there, but that he should list that. So, that was the craziest thing I've experienced while on vacation.

And I hope, of all the places I've stayed since then, that nothing similar was going on, because I certainly haven't noticed. And I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I wanted to share a story about something that happened to me as I was in the process of moving. To be honest, moving is an understanding. At the time I was living in Virginia and I was moving to Colorado. My family was originally from Colorado, and we moved to Virginia when I was about 12. I never seemed to settle in there. I knew Colorado. I knew the area and all my friends. Hell,

everything was there. I didn't like the area that we lived in back in Virginia. I didn't have a lot of friends there. It just was wasn't the same. It was only made worse when my parents split two years later, and instead of even considering custody or what we may have wanted, my mom packed her stuff, moved away and left me and my two siblings with my dad. She called us on our birthdays, but that was about it. I was upset about it, and when my dad met someone knew, I took that as a chance to rebel. Life kind of just spiraled from there, and I won't bore you with my sad story. What I will say is after being sick of feeling sorry for myself, I decided, at the age of 29, I was capable of making my own decisions and decided I would move back to Colorado. My mom's mom was still alive, and while mom still didn't talk to us much or her own mother, she always tried to keep in contact with us. She very much loved and missed us.

When I discussed my plans with her, she told me I was welcome to come stay with her until I found a job or my own place. So I took what little I had and I could fit in my old crappy car and took off. The drive alone, knowing I was going to be back home soon, was such a heavy weight off of my shoulders. But I told myself that I should take in as much as I could.

Experience the road trip as I had never really been on one to this level, since the move to Virginia. I made several stops along the way to places that looked interesting. I had been saving up money and sleeping in my car, so I didn't have to get a hotel room. One of the stops I made was in some rural area in southern Missouri. There was a billboard talking about some famous trail or something to the likes that caught my attention. I knew I wasn't going to make it much further, and I was going to have to stop for food anyways, so I figured I would check it out and give myself a reason to stretch and walk around for a bit. I reached the trailhead, which was really just a wider patch of dirt,

and based on the old faded signs, it would take me about an hour to walk it. which, by the way, I was expecting a little more when I got here based on how exciting they made it seem on the sign. It was actually just a naturally made path. There was no cement trail, no placards or anything along the way to tell you anything about it. But it was still a nice trail, so I was taking it. The hike was really nice, if not a bit eerie, too, to be honest. The woods were dense, and because it was mid-October, the ground was already covered in dry, crunchy leaves.

Every step that I took seemed much louder than needed to be. But I continued my walk. I looked at some oddly shaped trees and even watched some dears grazing in the distance. It was serene, and definitely helped with grounding me in that moment. I think I was about halfway. through when I noticed that hush in the woods. The kind where the birds stop singing and the insects go silent. The sound of crunching leaves seemed to intensify by the rest of the silence in the woods.

And in that moment, there was this sense of aloneness around me. Like, I realized just how alone I was, in this random forest, in the middle of nowhere. I didn't tell anyone I had stopped. I had a crappy, outdated phone with no signal in there anyways. So I started to pick up my pace. I had no real reason to do this, or no reason to actually be afraid, but I felt like something was pushing me to get out of there.

I continued onward and saw a small break in the trees, with the sun shining through in the distance. It looked like it kind of cut some of the path, and I was thinking that I could take it and get out of there just a little quicker. I started walking through the trees, being cautious of the forest floor, since there could be dips, roots, branches, really anything around there, since it wasn't part of the path. What I was not expecting to find was a bear trap. It was closed, like it had already been triggered and there was nothing in it, but. But looking at it, it had clearly been used, and it had caught something in it before. Now, I'm no expert on hunting or even hiking, but I'm pretty sure those two things don't normally

happen that close to one another, right? Especially trail that was pretty well known, I think. Or at least, bear traps shouldn't be used, right? Either way, finding that did not make me feel any about where I was. What if it was opened and I had stepped in it? No one would have been able to save me. With a fire now under me, I wanted to get the hell out of there. I wanted to run, but I was terrified of finding another possibly active trap. I tried to veer to the right where the trail was, hoping that I could be safer there, but as I walked, I heard more crunching out of sync with my steps. Someone or something was out there walking along the ground, and I didn't know if it was the bear or whoever had set the trap.

I sped up, still looking at the ground until I found the trail again. Back on the trail I started into a slight jog, looking around still, and as I ran, I approached a tree in the distance with what looked like vines dangling down from the tree. But as I got closer, I realized, it wasn't vines, but a rope, frayed at the end like it had been cut. What the hell was happening in these woods? From there, I ran the best I could. Have you ever experienced trying to run for your life but having to be cautious of the ground the entire time?

It's not easy, and quite honestly, I almost tripped over my own damn feet a few times. Finally I broke through and saw the parking lot. I sprinted, hoping to God that I didn't catch a trap on the last leg there, but I made it through. Now standing in the lot, I took a moment to catch my breath. And standing there and staring at my car, I then started to hear that crunching again. I wasn't moving. I turned around and standing there a little to the side of where I came out was a man. He was wearing nothing but a pair of old and dirty-looking briefs and rain boots.

He had a Polaroid camera up to his face, and then, click, he took a picture of me. Then he lowered the camera, and all I saw was this excited, predatory-looking grin on his face. I was a 29-year-old dude, and that freaked me the hell out. I made a dash to my car patting down my pockets, praying that I didn't drop my keys. I pulled them out, got in my car, and I didn't even look around as I burned out of there. Once I was back on the road, I was checking behind me to make sure that I wasn't being followed. Then I was finally able to breathe and think back on everything that had just happened. I was in some random woods on a trail, so it wasn't like this was too obscure.

But that same trail had bear traps on the ground and rope in the trees, and some random old white guy in his underwear happily taking pictures of a terrified little me. It still didn't make any sense to me. What I did understand was that if something were to happen to me in there, no one would likely ever have known, because I don't think that man was there to help. I didn't do anything with this information either. I didn't know who I could report it to

or what they could even really do about it, so I just left. I didn't even tell my grandma about it because I didn't want her to worry. I made it back to Colorado without anything else weird happening, and I've honestly flourished since I've been back. But if I ever take another road trip to the east, I will not be stopping in Missouri ever again.

This is not typically a story that I share with anyone, but your glitch stories video from January 27th sounded like you wanted to get more scary stories submitted by your viewers, so I thought why not. I will preface this by letting every other. everyone know that I don't drink alcohol and I don't do drugs. I don't take any medications and there is no history of mental illness in my family. I would also like to point out that I do believe in the supernatural and paranormal, but only after I can't find logical or rational explanations for something first. That said, prior to this story, I had never had any strange paranormal

or supernatural encounters of any kind. The story took place in 2008. At the time, I was living in Southeast Asia with my wife. We lived in a high-rise apartment building. The building was 15 floors tall and a three-level parking garage underneath it. This becomes relevant later on. The floor plan of the apartment was a bit different. When entering the apartment, there was one door to the left, our storage room,

and one door to the right, our bedroom. Then a very long hallway extended forward until it opened up into one large room. This open space was on the right-hand side and served as the living area, kitchen, and dining area all in one. There was no way to go from the bedroom or storage room to the kitchen or vice versa

without traversing the long hallway that connected the two ends of the apartment. The apartment had one bathroom, and it was connected to the bedroom. One day my wife and I came home from grocery shopping. We came in the door, walked straight ahead down the length of the long hallway to the kitchen, and began unpacking our groceries. I suddenly felt an urgent need to use the toilets,

so I told my wife that I had to go and rushed back down the hallway toward the bathroom. As I lightly jogged up to the open bathroom door, I saw my wife on one knee digging through the bathroom trash. I was shocked. I couldn't understand how she could have gotten to the bathroom ahead of me without me seeing her. The only route was the same hallway that I was currently standing in, and I would have definitely noticed her rush past me if she had. I opened my mouth to speak intending to ask her how she got there so quickly,

but before a word left my mouth, she jumped up as if startled by my presence. She quickly stood up and, get this, ran through the wall, as if trying to escape. I was dumbfounded. I called out to my wife, and she responded to me from the kitchen, where I had last seen her. She quickly ran up to me, and I told her what I had just witnessed. To my surprise, she wasn't very shocked.

She said, yeah, it was probably an elf. It was likely digging through the trash in search of some menstrual blood. It's that time of the month. We should probably bag up the trash and throw it out. I was still in shock from what I had seen, and now had trouble believing that she even had an explanation. I couldn't believe that she had reacted as if it were normal. I questioned her about the name that she gave it.

An elf? She laughed and said, Not like elves in movies. This isn't Lord of the Rings or Santa's helper. We call them elves here. They're very small, usually green, but they can shape-shift to look like anybody they want to look like. They feed on blood.

Many people in my country summon them and offer blood from their wife or daughter as payment. In return, the elves will steal money from somebody else and give it to them. A lot of people use these beings when they're in need of money because an elf can get past security measures like saves. Many times people will open their safe and all their money will be gone. This sounded like pure fiction to me. I was born and raised in a different country, where a story like that would be considered crazy. Yet, in her country, it was completely normal.

Over the coming days and weeks, we discussed the event with various people we met. To my surprise, they absolutely believed the story, and many of them had similar stories of their own. I wish the strange events had ended there, but more odd things took place in that apartment. The door to our bedroom was a bit warped, so it wouldn't open or close smoothly.

The door was a very tight fit in the door frame. To open it, I literally had to slam my entire body into the door, and I had to do the same thing to close it. Once it was closed, it was closed. I'm a light sleeper, and when my wife left for work, it was impossible for her not to wake me while trying to open or close the door. One morning after she left for work I helped her get the door shut. I then went back to bed for a little bit to get some more sleep.

When I woke up, the door was wide open. I never heard it open and she wasn't home to do it herself. In fact, being very tiny, she needed me to open and close it more often than not. Another time, she was in the storage room while I was in the kitchen preparing a meal. I heard her shout my name in a very urgent tone. I dropped what I was doing and ran down the long hallway. At the exact same time, she came running out of the storage room toward me shouting, I'm coming, I'm coming, are you okay?

We both stopped in the middle of the hallway. I was confused about why she came running toward me asking if I was okay. She told me that she had heard me shout her name in an urgent tone and thought that I had been hurt. I told her that I hadn't shouted her name. She then told me that she never shouted mine either. We had each heard the other person calling out, but neither of us had done so.

I'll end this account with one last story, though there are many more that I could tell about this specific location. This final story may have been nothing, but I had taken many photographs of the apartment with my phone. While reviewing them, I noticed a very bright ball of light in one photograph. I assumed it was just a reflection on the glass until my wife and some of our friends looked at it more closely. It was pointed out to me that the ball of light appeared partially on the glass of a window, and partially past the wall on the inside.

What struck me most was that outside that window was a concrete wall belonging to the next. neighboring apartment. There were no lights visible from that specific window, and we were on the 15th floor, so it wasn't like someone could have been walking past outside. I also didn't see any lights while taking the photograph. The light appeared only in one photo, even though there were multiple photos taken from the same angle with the same glass, and nothing appeared in the others. This may not be a very scary story, especially when told like this. However, living there often felt creepy. Some of the other experiences were less dramatic, like the sound of someone kicking the bathroom door extremely hard, the sliding lock on the bathroom door locking and unlocking

itself repeatedly, very rapidly, or the doorknob being ice cold in the summer heat, when we didn't even have air conditioning. Still, living there definitely felt unsettling. I'm sure some of what I described could be explained away or shrugged off. Perhaps my wife and I collectively imagine the same things. I don't know. I suppose anything is possible. It's hard to be fully objective about a situation while you're living it.

At the time, these events felt very spooky. Perhaps someone else has experienced an elf in Southeast Asia. or perhaps we imagined it all. Either way, it was a strange year living there, and I'm glad that we eventually moved out. This happened to me in 2013 or so. To understand this experience better, I need to tell you first about the layout of my bedroom

where this incident took place. My bed was a wide 120-centimeter bed, and I couldn't even sleep in a bed any more narrow than that, because I'm a restless sleeper. The bed's head was pushed against a wall that had a door leading out from my bedroom on the right-hand side, just next to the bed. There was barely enough space for a little nightstand to be placed between my bed and the door. On the left-hand side of the bed, there was a window without a balcony or ladders.

This bedroom was on the fourth floor of a five-story building. No possible intruders can get in because they would need to get inside through the window with some kind of grapple hook. or somehow managed to break into a big building from a heavy front door that is always locked, and then somehow make their way to my particular apartment and break through three different doors. I also wasn't sick, mentally ill, on medication or under any substances. I don't even drink coffee. I had gone to bed normally and fallen asleep without any issues that night. The house was quiet, and I was happy with neighbors upstairs.

that had been quiet too, with their big family, as I'm a light sleeper and will wake up to any disturbances. When I lived with a flatmate, it took me a year and a half to get used to her leaving for work in the morning without me waking up. I would wake up as soon as her room's door handle pressed down, and it was on the other side of the apartment. So let me tell you that I'm extremely jealous of anyone

who can fall asleep easily and sleep through anything. Anyway, as I said, I had gone to bed normally and fallen asleep as expected. As I am a restless sleeper, I toss and turn a lot, waking up in the mornings with my bed sheets half rolled off from the bed, me spreading on the bed like a starfish, even if I had fallen asleep on my side. Even today I have to fix my bed sheets every morning because pillows are coming out from their pillowcases,

and the bed sheet is halfway on the floor when I wake up. At some point in the night, I didn't check the time, I woke up. Nothing unusual there. I do wake up multiple times each night and go to the bathroom a few times as well. Normally when I wake up, I'm always sleeping on my back with legs spread and arms above my head. But this night, for the first time ever in my life, I wake up at the side of my bed from the fetal position. I was teetering just at the edge of the bed's side, my body and head facing towards the closed bedroom door. I was squeezed into such a narrow space that when I woke up even more, I realized that my body was aching from that weird sleeping position.

I didn't understand what was going on. As I was wondering why on earth am I sleeping just at the edge of my bed, as this has never happened in my 30 years of existence, I felt the mattress move behind me. It rose up slowly, just like when someone sleeping next to you sits up and gets up from the bed. I immediately thought with relief, oh, good, it just left. I can roll around to sleep on my stomach. That's what I did. I rolled around with my eyes open to sleep on my stomach, stretching as far as I could on the bed to ease up the muscle ache.

I fell asleep quickly, and it wasn't until the next morning that I realized that some someone or something had been in the bed with me. When I rolled from my right side on my back and around to my stomach, I didn't see anyone in the room. I didn't hear anyone in the room, but someone or something had been there. I felt it. The craziest part in this is that I don't know if it was a human spirit or something else,

because I called this thing an it. In my native language there's only one gender pronoun, which is it. And this pronoun covers everything that exists. So I'm it, you're it, everyone listening to this is it, God is it, the president is it, my parents are it, stones are it, etc. Thus, it's impossible to determine what or who was with me that night. It still bothers me to this day. I wish I could say that I had sensed.

a clear presence. Female, male, good or bad, but the only thing I felt was the relief that it left, and that I could get my whole bed back. What I can say, though, is that its movements were of a human. It wasn't moving like a past pet coming to visit me or anything similar. It sat up, it stood up, just like a humanoid entity does.

I've never had nightly visitors like that before this particular night, after it. I don't know what prompted this visit. What strikes me the most chilling is that, while I don't have a memory of this, this entity and I clearly had had a conversation regarding our sleeping positions, where I have agreed to take this narrow, itsy-bitsy side of my bed to sleep on, while it hogged most of the bed. I have also agreed that this is a good idea without remembering doing so. I was clearly annoyed. to sleep in such a narrow space, and I had been there for a good while because, like I said, my body was aching from that position, and I was nothing but relieved to get my whole bed back.

I wonder if we talked about other things. Did I make a deal with something or someone beyond with this sleeping arrangement? Why did it want to sleep on my bed? Where did it come from? and why did it come to me? For this one, I don't think I will ever get any answers. Hi, Raven. It's your friend out here in Colorado again with another story.

The story goes back to when I believe I was 21 years old and in college. There was a girl that I met in school that I really liked, but unfortunately she moved back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We kept in contact at the time, and she invited me to come down and party with her and her friends for the weekend. I had never done a road trip alone, but New Mexico is so close to Colorado, and I thought it sounded fun. And she was a gorgeous girl, of course, so I'm going. I packed up my stuff and headed out the next day. I've always been the spontaneous type, so a road trip alone kind of sounded fun.

Live in the moment is how I feel. I remember that the date this happened, as it was the same weekend as my parents' wedding anniversary, which is Valentine's Day 2006. My parents were in San Diego, and since I was going on a spur of the moment trip, I didn't mention to anyone that I was going to New Mexico for the weekend. I didn't think anything would happen, so didn't really think much of it. The day started bad, snowstorm. Of course. However, I looked up the weather in Colorado, and the southern part of the state didn't really have any sun at all. The storm was essentially just in my city.

So, I made the decision to still make the drive. As expected, once out of my city, the weather was fine, very bright sunny weather, actually, for most of the drive. I should have listened to the signs with that storm, though. There was one more chance I had. one more sign to turn around and I made the bad decision to overlook it again. Hey, the ladies were calling. I couldn't back down at this point, you know. When I drove through Pueblo, Colorado, I saw a hitchhiker on the side of the road.

I just drove by him as most people obviously would. Back then it was a bit more common to pick up someone, but yeah, that's not something I would chance. However, as soon as I drove by that man, in my head, I immediately thought out of nowhere, what if that was me? What if I break down in New Mexico? I immediately became very uneasy, and this feeling didn't settle down much for my drive. I made a stop very early in New Mexico in a city named Rattan. I picked up some snacks, filled up the tank, and just kind of tried to get my composure back.

I considered turning around and going home, however. I was about three hours into my drive. That's about halfway from my home to Albuquerque. Either way, I have to drive the distance, finish my drive, and get to where I'm going, because it made the most sense. I get back in my car and continue on my quest. About another hour passes,

and my anxiety at this point was through the roof. I couldn't shake the feeling of turning around, but I was getting closer and closer to my destination and further and further away from home. I just kept going. I'm now out in the middle of nowhere in the New Mexico desert. If you've never been to New Mexico, it's nothing like other states as far as traffic on some of their highways.

I was in an area where you maybe would see a car every few minutes or so. So not like no cars, but definitely not a lot for being on a highway. Well, I finally in my mind convinced myself that I was fine, as I saw a sign that said that I was about, I want to say, 140 miles from Albuquerque. At the speed that I'm at, that was about two hours away. I felt relieved, and just happy for a minute. And when I say minutes that might be stretching it, it might have been closer to about 30 seconds. As soon as that good feeling hit me, and suddenly I... I hit the gas pedal on my car and nothing happened.

My car was losing power and fast. I just think, oh, God, no, what do I do? I saw ahead that there was an exit, so I took it. I didn't know if it was anything, and sure enough, all it was was an exit to turn around, or just keep going the same way. My car then breaks down and I'm under an overpass for the highway. So now any car is driving by can't even see my car to know,

know that I broke down, and I'm literally in the middle of nowhere. I tried to start the car, but it was my timing belt that broke. This wasn't going anywhere. I pull out my cell phone from Virgin Mobile, this is where I worked at the time. I had no service, and even 911 mode didn't seem to work. Even worse, my phone was now eating up the battery and was likely going to die. So I do, really, what was my only option? I walked on the side of the highway with my thumb up and started walking in the direction of my home in the nearest town.

I had no clue of the nearest town, but I thought it was maybe 30 miles away. And I live in Colorado. That walk would have taken me forever. I was just hoping that I could get somewhere to make some calls and hopefully get a ride home. I could deal with a car another time. Well, an angel must have been watching out for me this day. after being out there walking and hitchhiking maybe a couple of hours, a trucker stops and picks me up.

I'll never forget the terror I felt when I got into his truck. Nothing against truckers, but let's be real. I'm alone. I'm not a super big guy and in another state, with no cell service on the side of the road, and now I'm getting picked up by a trucker and a huge semi. But what other options did I have? I had one bottle of water and a bag of the...

beef jerky. It was very hot and very windy that day. So I got on the truck. The first thing I hear is this little dog barking. He's sitting on this guy's lap and I hear the man then say, settle down, rascal, you don't mind him. He don't like strangers in the truck. I thought to myself, this might not be a good idea, but I'm going for it. The truck ride was about six hours, and we had one stop to fill up his gas tank. The man was. from western Texas. I remember him saying that, and he had a super thick Texan-sounding voice. Initially, I was pretty terrified to be inside this man's truck, but after a while I felt pretty at ease. He was a nice guy, just wanted some company, I'm sure, for the road. He coincidentally

was driving to Denver. That's about an hour from my town, so he ended up dropping me off maybe five miles from my house. That was still a bit of a journey. He dropped me off on the side of the highway and it was snowing, but at least I was in my city. I was able to then get a ride home. That day was terrifying. I cannot emphasize how scary it is to break down in another state, nowhere near a city. Barely any cars, no cell phone service.

And the only person that knew that I was in New Mexico was that girl, that didn't know my family or my close friends. This was also before Facebook, and I think even before my space, before I had one at least. My parents were also out of state, so I could have vanished and no one would have known where I was, and likely not noticed that I was even missing for a few days. It was scary.

But that trucker saved me. I will forever be thankful for him, because had he not picked me up, What would have happened? I ended up having my car towed to the closest town, Watrous New Mexico, owned by Watrous himself and towed to Wattress Toeing. My car was toast,

so I ultimately let them keep the car and eventually came back for my belongings was all. New Mexico will never be the same to me after this, and I have one more interesting story that I will submit soon for my most recent trip there. Thank you for reading my story. I hope you enjoyed it, and until next time. Hi, Raven.

I'm a new listener to your podcast and wanted to send you a very short but strange story. First, I apologize for my English, as I'm listening all the way from France and English is not my native language. That is super awesome, thank you. This story happened a few years ago. I was about 14, and had gone grocery shopping with my mom. During the shopping trip, I grabbed a massive. massive jar of pickles. I'm talking a full kilo or about two pounds of delicious sweet and sour pickles. I came home and put the heavy pickle jar in the middle of the table. It was at least

10 inches away from the edge of the table. I'm a very clumsy person and I always make sure that I don't put anything near the edge of a table or I will eventually bump into it and drop it. If I forget, my mom will always pass right at. after me to put things into place. It was the middle of spring, sunny, warm, but a little windy, so the door was open. I was on the couch, and suddenly I hear the jar drag on the wooden table and absolutely crash on the floor. How could a two-pound jar of pickles that was at least ten inches from the edge fall like

this? Me and my mom were obviously stunned, as she can also confirm. that the jar was quite far from the edge. And what made it drag on the table like that could not have been the wind. It barely moved the curtains. This is a story that I still think about. I'm an agnostic when it comes to paranormal, but it's not like my house was lived in and spirits still remain.

We had the house built, and are still the only people who have lived in it. Strange but funny story that is still sometimes talked about with my mom. Hope my story was enjoyable, and have a great day. I've got kind of an interesting story with a bit of a lesson to tell. My wife and I own a decent amount of land that she inherited in a rural part of the state. We decided to fix up her late aunt's house and moved in. We loved the seclusion and being away from the city.

It was practically surrounded by trees and trails. It was a lot of land for the two of us and our two dogs, so we decided to make the most out of it. We built a smaller cottage-like home in the distance with all the amenities, and we rented it out on a site similar to Airbnb. Think of it like the little cottage snow white found in the woods, but a lot prettier, modernized, and you were legally allowed to be. be there. I just didn't have all the animals and Disney magic. Sorry. Anyway, we had a lot of guests that stayed there and a lot of great reviews, too. We could see it in the distance from our own home, but it was still far enough away to get the seclusion and privacy feeling. Then we had this couple that booked it for a week in early

spring. It seemed pretty normal. Maybe a spring break vacation. I'll refer to them as Jack and Sally. The first two days were completely normal. We showed them the place, gave them the keys, and they stayed in most of the time. We didn't have the place completely stocked with food, however, mostly just some snack items, drinks, and canned or jarred items. So if we had guests there for a long stay,

they would ask us about the grocery stores, and it was no surprise when we ran into them at one. Jack recognized us first and waved at us. We were passing aisles, so we stopped and said hi and talked for a bit. He even casually mentioned how they were thinking about staying the whole month and asked what that would look like. I thought that was pretty cool at the time. That was the longest we'd had a guest, so I told him that I would have to check the calendar and make sure we didn't have any other reservations filled first, and if not,

we could figure out how to extend it through the site. He nodded, but then asked if he could just pay in cash for the month. instead, wanting to pay for just the place and skip the insurance and fees. That was a little weird, but I could also kind of understand. If we did go with cash, we would also get more out of it, because they wouldn't be taking a percentage of it. But I'd also never been asked that, so I didn't know how that would work, by marking the place as reserved or not available, so I told him that I would have to look into it first.

He accepted my reasoning and we walked off waving goodbye. It wasn't until we were back in the car that my wife made some good points too. Something I always loved about her was how open and honest she was. She flat out told me that she didn't like Jack. I asked her why, and she explained how weird he acted when Sally tried to talk to her. My wife is really big on skin care, so she keeps the bathroom stocked with different lotions, perfumes, etc. She tried asking her if she had tried it,

but Jack would talk over her or finish her sentences. I did notice it, but it didn't come off as weird to me at first. But then she explained how Sally looked nervous and disinterested in the conversation. She also noticed that Jack had a hold of her the entire time. They were holding hands, then he had his arm over her shoulder, on her hip, but she didn't seem receptive to it. I suggested maybe they'd had an argument, and she was still upset.

She did say it was possible, but she said that she still didn't like Jack and wasn't sure about extending their time. I accepted that. I wasn't too keen on doing it under the table, because I felt like that would be too much work anyways. That night, my wife called me over to the kitchen window. She had noticed something at the cabin. The bathroom light was flickering. There was a window that was higher up and frosted over so you couldn't see in or out, but we wanted to put one in for some daylight.

My first thought was the bulb was going out, but then my wife told me to watch the pattern. Three short, three long, three short. We stood there at the window watching this for several seconds. The pattern continued. Neither of us said it out loud at first, but then the light went dark and stayed dark. That was a coincidence, right? The look on my wife's face told me that I was wrong. She suggested that we go check on them, and I was hesitant at first.

You're not supposed to normally bother the guests and check in on them, even if it's a hospitality thing. Some people find it annoying, so I would. was trying to reason with myself and my wife. What would I say if nothing was wrong? That I was just watching the house and noticed the lights? But then, what if something was happening and I did nothing? Ultimately, I knew my wife was right when the light started flickering again, in the same pattern.

We both hopped on an ATV and drove to the cabin. By the time we got there, the light had stopped for. flicking again and we could hear them before we even got to the door. Him yelling, her screaming and crying, that specific kind of crying out of fear. I didn't knock. I unlocked the door and ran towards the noise through the cabin, toward the bathroom. He was dragging her by the leg out of the bathroom as she screamed and grabbed the doorframe. I don't remember thinking, just reacting. I grabbed him from the back and pulled him toward me yelling to let her go.

We fell backwards, and that's when I saw his face. He was beat red and furious. He swung at me, caught me right in the jaw. He went to swing again as my wife ran up to us and tased him. She carries it with her everywhere, and that was the first time she had ever used it. He dropped to the ground, just like that. I was impressed. I told my wife to take Sally outside,

and call 911 while I stayed in and held Jack down. To my surprise, I didn't have to do much. He stayed on the floor most of the time. He tried to get up once, and I shoved him back down. My wife gave me her taser, so I pushed the opposite end to his back and told him that I would shoot it if he moved again. He must have believed that I had a gun because he didn't move. Since we did live in a secluded area, it took them about 18 minutes to get out.

there. We got a lot of answers once he was in the back of a cruiser. Sally was actually 21 and Jack was 34. I will say, she looked younger, but I would not have guessed that she was that young. They had been dating since she was 17. He was apparently a friend of her family who convinced her that they were meant to be together. Her family tried to get her to end it because of his behavior. Apparently he's always been this aggressive and abusive. And when her entire family confronted them, they basically skipped town and chose our cabin as a getaway. That's why he wanted to pay in cash, so they couldn't be located.

They had initially used her card to pay for the stay. Sally, however, did not want it to go that far. She wanted to go home, and when she mentioned going back, he flew off the handle at her. After the first bout, she went to the bathroom, and that's when she started signaling, hoping that we could see it, and that we would come to help her. Thank God my wife had the instincts that she did. We heard some of this that day that she was talking to the police and more of it through the courts. We had to be there as we were witnesses.

He was charged with the lot, including kidnapping and assault, so he went away for quite a while. We still rent our place, but I listen to my wife a lot more. Trust me. I always trusted her and her opinion, but I never really knew how well her instincts were for other people. I'm still thankful for her every day, because she very well could have saved that girl's life. And for that, I am beyond proud of her. Hello, Raven. I just have to say that I absolutely love your narrations.

There's something so comforting about your voice and humility. Thank you very much for that. The range of stories always has me tuning in multiple times a week while I work. It keeps me going, so thank you so much. I have a short story about a road rage incident that happened a couple of years ago. I live in Massachusetts, and we can be known to be mass holes on the road. I'm a 37-year-old woman who's been in Boston the last 10 years, and I'm definitely guilty of my own road rage.

But I can absolutely say in this instance, I was just driving along on the highway minding my own business. At a reasonable speed, in the middle lane. All of a sudden, this crazy girl in a white jeep starts instigating a road altercation. She tailgated me going way too fast, and then weaved around me and slammed on her brakes. I was driving with my boyfriend at the time. We're no longer together, but in this instance he did his due diligence and I'll get to that.

This went on with her acting absolutely out of her mind trying to get me to crash or whatever for probably only 30 to 60 seconds or so. But it felt like time had slowed down, if you know what I mean. The adrenaline was pumping. fearing for our lives. I had no idea what to do. I was literally just going to take the next exit, but she wouldn't let me move over.

She backed off, and it appeared like she was going to ram my car from my passenger side. My then-boyfriend grabs a glass kombucha bottle that was mostly empty and asks me if he can chuck it at her. I just scream, yes, go for it.

He rolls down the window and bam, it hits her driver's side door square on and it explodes. She must have gotten shaken back into reality because she backed off and ended up taking the exit herself. Maybe she thought we had a firearm. I don't know, but literally it was the most random, dangerous driving incident that I've ever been a part of. This really taught me not to engage in any kind of road rage if possible, because you never know what kind of crazy is behind the wheel. This girl must have been on something or having a mental breakdown.

I don't even know. But thank God for that kombucha bottle and my ex's quick thinking. Thanks again for everything you do, Raven, and drive safe out there, everyone. I grew up on a cattle ranch in northern Montana along the high line, an area stretching across Browning Montana to North Dakota along the Montana-Canadian border. This was a place of high winds and extreme cold.

At night I would listen to the winds scream through our windbreak, trees that protect the house from high winds, and help prevent snowdrifts, and imagine it to be the raging of angry spirits that were out for vengeance. I would keep my curtains tightly closed, not for privacy, because there was no one out there. But the darkness and howling winds were spooky to me as a child. I was about eight years old when the Twilight Zone the movie came out.

This was an oh-so modern remake of some classic Twilight Zone episodes from the late 50s to mid-60s. Like any good wholesome 80s family fun night, we piled into the car with my dad driving to go see it in our small town theater. One of the episodes we made was about a passenger on an airplane. The original starred good old William Shatner, and this 83 remake starred John Lithgow. The passenger was being tormented as the plane flew through a terrible storm, and he could see there was a monster on the outside of the plane, tearing the plane apart. The other passengers were terrified by the turbulence as the plane flew through the storm. John Lithgow's character shouted about the horrible monster that only he noticed,

sentencing the plane to high altitude malfunction as it chaotically ripped pieces of the wing an engine apart. Because he was causing such an uproar, the stewardesses were trying to calm him down and close the window shutters on his window, so he would stop seeing the monster and scaring the other passengers. They also gave him some Valium to calm him down, which I came to learn as an adult wasn't something Airlines offered. Lithgow's character calmed down with the assistance of the Valium, the flight attendant had given him, but he stared at that closed window shutter just knowing that the monster was out there. He knew he shouldn't do it, but he had to.

He had to open that window shutter. We see his hand shakely near the shutter to open it. We see his face horrified, but he has to open it. He does so, and reveals the monster menacingly glaring into his window. gloating at him in his terror, jump-scaring everyone in the theater, and at that moment it's all burned into my young brain. Driving home on the dark, dark small highway and dirt road to our farm, my dad is teasing us about the monster that he could see on the side of the car tearing it apart.

I am not buying it, but was still thinking of that monster on the airplane window. We get back to the farm and I leap from the car and run to my bedroom. room. The curtains are drawn tight. It's middle of nowhere dark outside. I'm thinking of the monster on the window and I hear rustling outside of my window. I listen carefully, and yeah, there is definitely rustling outside of my window. I know deep down inside that if I pull apart the curtain, I'm going to see something really scary, a face. I just know it. I remember looking at my hands. It was just like watching Lithgow's hands nearing the window shutter. My little pudgy eight-year-old hands are shaking as I near the curtains. I take a deep breath

and pull them apart. And there's a face. It's black eyes glistening, mouth chewing, ears twitching, as a cow stared placidly at me, wondering why there's a small human on the other side of the glass screaming her poor head off. I was traveling abroad back in 2014, and I was pretty much a pro at finding places to stay that were a lot cheaper. I was still a student at the time, traveling on break, partially related to my work, partially to kind of find myself, if you will. Because I wasn't making a lot of money, I did my best to find places that were still relatively safe and clean, but cheaper than some fancy hotel. I used an app that was similar to Airbnb to find places that were specifically for the province I was staying in.

This app is more than just an empty house or condo. This included even something as simple as a room. I've stayed in places with people similar in age that were renting out their spare room to make some extra cash. If I meet the person and they seem cool, I will stay. I've only ever turned down one that I requested because when I went there, the room was not cleaned whatsoever. So my record has been pretty good and I had no reason to be skeptical about this time either. I reserved a room in a house that was hosted by an older woman. The ad showed the room on the second floor with a bathroom next to it in a small kitchenette.

There was a microwave and toaster oven as well as a small fridge and breakfast nook. To be honest, that was probably more than I needed, but it was a really good price. I met Eileen, the homeowner, when I arrived. She was probably in her 60s, I would say, but seemed very well put together. She explained the rules, which were the usual things, nothing illegal, no extra people since I said it was just me and to clean up after myself. She even showed me to the room and explained the lock that she had installed on the door. It was a code lock, and she gave me the code.

She said that she treats that room like a hotel in the sense that it has its own lock so that I could be confident that my stuff was safe at her home. The front entryway had a long hallway that led to the first level area, and there was a set of stairs right at the entry that took you straight upstairs, where I would be staying. She explained that she lived on the bottom floor and rented out the upstairs and just asked if I was out or up late to keep quiet. It was all understandable, and I wasn't there to go out partying, so it was pretty easy to follow the rules. I dropped all of my stuff off in the room and then headed out to enjoy what was left of the day. I had a workshop that I had to attend for one of my classes the next day, so I knew that I wouldn't have much free time. I hadn't been in this area before, so I did however want to explore a bit.

After a few hours out, I grabbed some takeout and headed back to the house. I prepped my bag for the next day so I could just grab it and go, and then I crashed. I was pretty wiped from the day and the flight in. But there was one moment in the night that was pretty weird. I had what I thought was a dream at the time, about somebody watching me sleep. I remember just adjusting and hearing what sounded like the creak of a door, opening. I looked over at the door and saw someone standing in the doorway. I remember how I just stared at the figure not moving for several seconds until I said, hello? The figure still didn't move,

and I was clearly not awake or functioning, so I think I told myself that I was just tired or dreaming and fell back asleep, not thinking anything else of it. Not until I woke up at around 5 a.m. needing to use the restroom. My alarm was supposed to go off at 5.30, so I was trying to wait, but I could no longer hold it. You know those nights. So I got

up, walked to the door, and pulled on the door handle. It didn't move. Okay, stupid, you need to unlock the door, duh. I twisted the lock on the handle and tried it again. The handle now moved, but the door wouldn't budge.

I tried pushing the door, thinking maybe I was mistaken. Nothing. Why wasn't the door opening? I was pulling as hard as I could, and it was not working, but I could turn the handle. It was the deadbolt that seemed to be engaged, but the problem with that statement is that there was no deadbolt on my side of the lock.

I was locked in. I waited by the door in my half-awake stupor trying to figure out how to get out of this. I went back to the bed and sat on the edge to think. I grabbed my phone to message Eileen through the app to explain how I needed help, and as I was typing the message, I heard someone walking by the door, thinking it was her, I called out for her asking for help, explaining that I think I got locked in the room.

I was really hoping to hear something along the lines of, oh, sorry, I can help you. but instead after I said hello twice she said who are you in a very aggressive tone i told her my name and that i was the guy that she was renting her room for three nights i then explained that i locked in and her only response was i know i did that i asked her what she meant and she said that she didn't know me so she had locked me in the room At this point, I still had to use the bathroom, but I was also confused and becoming irritated. I had paid to stay there. I told her this, and I went back to my phone, finished my message, and sent it, explaining to her that I was a paying guest and that she needed to let me out.

She refused. She told me that she didn't know who I was and that I was going to stay there until the police arrived. Now I was just angry. I probably didn't help my case, but I banged on the door and demanded that she let me out. I even said that I would leave, but that I would be asking for a refund. She stopped responding, so I'm pretty sure that she walked away at that point. I didn't know what else to do. I was on the second floor.

It's not like I could easily jump out of a window. I sat back down on the bed and just waited. I got ready for the day and waited some more. I ate one of my protein bars and then waited again. Two hours came and went, and I didn't hear from Eileen or any sign of the police showing up. I had my workshop that I had to attend, the whole reason I was there, which started at 8 a.m. And there was no way that I was going to make it in time at that point. Not to mention, I still had to use the bathroom.

I was fed up, and I didn't even know if Eileen really had called the cops or if she forgot to do that, too. I told myself that I needed to do something. I checked both windows for some kind of route. I decided I could try one where there was railing, that I could possibly climb down. It just wasn't going to be easy. The windows were old and practically seized, but I got it open.

I climbed out, did a bit of a shimmy down to the pillar, and did an awful job trying to climb down it. It's nothing like the movies. It isn't an even slide-down. down, especially on an old rickety thing like that. I slid down gently and had several splinters instantly in my hand and leg. I let go in reaction to the pain, fell the rest of the way, and landed on my ankle. I felt that roll, and then I just crumpled on the ground.

After I regained myself, I stood up, pulled what I could out of my hand right there and walked around to the front. Thankfully, the front door wasn't locked, so I walked around. ride in and angrily back up the stairs. After I used the bathroom, I went to the bedroom and unlocked the door using the code that she gave me, and that's when I realized that lock was the deadbolt,

and there was no other way to unlock it, at least from the other side. I thought it was for my safety, to keep me and my stuff protected. It just protected Eileen. I couldn't lug around my suitcase in the workshop, so I didn't

have a choice but to leave it there. I packed everything up because I was not going to stay there and shoved it under the bed, and then I grabbed my backpack and walked back to the door to leave. I shoved the chair against the door so that she couldn't close it on me while I was packing. As I was walking back down the stairs, there was Eileen, now standing in front of the front door, holding what looked like a firepoker. I told her that she needed to let me leave before I called the cops. and before I could finish, she charged at me.

I don't know where all this strength came from. This was your normal-looking old lady. How the hell was she swinging that thing at me like she was? I managed to push her back and ran out the front door. Thankfully, no one was outside to see that because I don't know how I would have explained it. But I ran all the way to the station and got to my workshop class. I was late and the instructor was pretty mad, but I at least made it.

Afterwards, instead of going straight back, I found a police station and asked for their help. They seemed skeptical at first, but thankfully they did agree to help me. We drove back to the house, and when we entered, Eileen was nowhere in sight. I explained where she spent her time, but that I needed to get my stuff from upstairs. I grabbed my suitcase, and as I was coming back down, I heard Eileen back in her sweet voice. Oh, what's going on? Was she really acting like she had no idea why the police were there? And yes, she certainly didn't seem to understand why they were there.

It's pretty obvious at this point that she had some memory issues. She claimed to remember me and renting the room to me, but couldn't recall going into the room the night prior. locking me in or chasing me with the poker. Since she didn't have a problem with me now, we both agreed the police were no longer needed, and they left. They probably got a hoot out of me, a young guy calling the cops on this random old lady.

Anyways, Eileen apologized for any wrongdoings and even said that she seems to have these memory slips but that she's never had complaints from people that stayed there. She actually offered to make me lunch, but I declined. I didn't want to take the chance of her forgetting me and then coming after me with a skillet. I feel bad about it now, but at the time, I was a little too filled with adrenaline still. I told her that I was just going to go ahead and leave. She again apologized, but seemed to understand.

I grabbed my stuff and left and ended up at a cheap hotel. ironically, not nearly as safe or clean looking as Eileen's place. I didn't have the heart to leave a bad review, but I did request a refund under the explanation of canceling the reservation. I did check back on that property occasionally, a few months after this event, and eventually it was removed. I don't know if they did get complaints and removed her or if maybe she stopped doing it due to her condition, but I am a little relieved. I hope no one else had the same experience that I did, but I also hope that she had someone around to help her out because it could have been very dangerous for both parties. Hi, Raven. I've listened to stories through decades on various listening devices as a sleep aide.

I'm delighted to have recently discovered your channel. Your voice, content, and tempo were perfect for lulling me to sleep, and that's a compliment for sure. Thank you very much for that. The story is such an incredible coincidence that I feel that it has that glitch quality of meant to be. In 2021, aside from closed forest fire areas, I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail as a flip-lop, meaning I started hiking north from a midway point near Lassen Park

and hiked to the Canadian border and then flew back to that central point to walk south. I was in Yosemite National Park for an outpost for resupply southbound. In this area, PCT hikers and John Moore Trail hikers are on the same route. There were groceries available at this stop, a seasonal burger and sandwich shop type of restaurant, picnic tables, and a nearby simple campground. There's also a hot spring with defunct infrastructure around it, but accessible. Travelers can also arrive by car and walk to a nearby waterfall,

so it was a fairly busy watering hole for hikers coming and going and sightseers. I was resting a sore foot and struck up an acquaintance with another older hiker who was waiting for his daughter and son-in-law to show up, and they would continue on hiking altogether. We hung out for a few days until his family arrived and we set off to the restaurant. At the only somewhat available picnic table, there was a solo older man, so we asked if we could join him. He seemed a bit preoccupied, but he motioned for us to sit. The son-in-law is the kind of person who puts people at ease right away, naturally inquisitive and sincerely friendly.

He asked all the right questions, and within minutes, this man was beaming. What I didn't know was that my acquaintance, had a brother, who is a well-known polar explorer and led a trans-Antarctica expedition for scientific study, the result of which were presented to Congress to show evidence of climate change. That was some 30 years ago. It turned out, the picnic table guy had been the pilot for this expedition. He knew the names of the dogs, moments that were stormy and intense and all about the nature of the study. My friend called his brother, and he and the pilot had a lively conversation after so many years.

How was it possible in a wilderness area at that very moment, with just the right inquiry, can an encounter like this take place? Of all the gorgeous, miraculous things I experienced on the Pacific Crest Trail, this stands out as a highlight. In the fall of 2012, I was driving. driving through the Nebraska Panhandle headed toward Wyoming. If you've never been through that stretch, it's a place of high winds and a kind of emptiness that makes you feel like you're the only person left on the planet. It was getting toward 11 p.m., and the hush of the planes had set in. I saw a sign for a primitive, old-style rest stop,

the kind that just has a single toilet and a buzzing street lamp, the kind where creepy things happened. My eyes were burning from the road, though, so I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and pull in. There were no other cars when I pulled in, though. The parking lot was completely empty, just the middle of nowhere dark outside of my windshield. I headed into the small concrete restroom building. The silence was heavy, broken only by the wind that was screaming through the vents in the eaves. Again, it seemed like something creepy was bound to happen.

But, Sel Avie, I suppose. When I finished and stepped back out into the night, I started hearing this metallic clinking noise. My heart did a slow roll in my chest. I looked toward my car, parked under the only streetlight in the lot that worked, and there was a man there. He was crouched near my rear driver's side tire. He had a heavy lug wrench, a tire iron, and he was mid-swing loosening the nuts on one of my wheels.

He wasn't rushing or doing it quickly or looking panicked. He looked like he'd been working on his own car in his own driveway, not messing with mine. I shouted at him, hey, what are you doing? I tried to hide the panic in my voice, knowing it was just, me and him out here. I probably cracked whenever I said it, but the man didn't jump. He didn't run. He just sighed, slowly stood up with the tire iron hanging from his hand.

He was wearing an old grease-stained jumpsuit. The kind an old-school mechanic would actually wear if they were working. He looked at me with an expression that wasn't angry but was intensely focused. Just kind of like, really, you're asking me what I'm doing? Then he responded, It's the vibrations, man. His voice was raspy like he hadn't used it in days. They don't like the way you're humming up through the road.

You're waking him up. I froze. My hands were shaking and I was just standing there, staring at this man saying complete nonsense. I was a grown man. but I felt like I was a kid again, staring out at some stranger that was bound to try to kidnap me. I don't know what you're talking about, dude. Just could you get away from my car? He ignored me and looked down at my tire again.

Nah, man, it's too loose. If it comes off, you'll have to stop. You can't stop through here. You have to decide if you want to arrive. Again, the sentence didn't make much sense. That may not have been verbatim what he said, but it was close enough. Then, he did something even weirder. He knelt back down. Instead of taking the nuts off, he started tightening them. He cranked them down with a terrifying amount of strength, grunt breathing with every turn.

I continued just standing there paralyzed. wondering if I should run back into the bathroom or make a dash for the driver's seat. I didn't have a good phone at the time, and service kind of sucked back in 2012, and I was totally alone. He finished the last nut, stood up, and wiped his forehead with a dirty sleeve. Then he came around the car and started walking toward me, close enough that the wind carried the smell of B.O. and old oil from him to my nostrils. Well, they're tight now.

They won't hear you coming anymore. I'd drive fast if I were you because you don't want them to find you. Then, he turned and just straight up walked into the darkness behind the restroom. Again, there were no other cars out there. He just vanished into the darkness behind the rest stop. I didn't wait to see if he was coming back. I ran over to the tire to make sure he hadn't removed. the lug nuts.

They were all there. They looked tight enough, so I jumped into the car, locked the doors, and I tore out of that gravel lot so fast that I thought my tires were going to fall off anyways. I didn't stop until I hit a bright, busy truck stop 60, 70 miles away. I actually stopped at a small mechanic on the way to my destination, just to see if they could tell me if he had done anything to my car

or what was going on. The mechanic said that the lug nuts were so tight that they struggled to get them off with the pneumatic wrench thing. He said the guy had used enough force to nearly strip the bolts. I explained to them the entire situation about how it was awkward and creepy and in the middle of nowhere, and he did a full look over on the wheel and everything else, and it was good to go.

Like I said, it was back in 2012, so I don't think people were planting GPS units on cars back then, but mine checked out, so. I didn't really have an answer for what this was all about. I just kept thinking about what the guy said about me needing to go fast and them not liking what they were hearing. I did make it to Wyoming, but I didn't stop anywhere near that rest stop ever again.

Okay, Raven, here goes. I don't know how many instances I'll be able to write about tonight, but I'm getting it started anyways. I love what you do for us, so I figure it's high time for me to do something for you. Well, thank you, Trisha. So where do I start? Let's go with my days as a CNA. I worked at an assisted living facility. It was small.

An old farmhouse renovated into a six-person care facility. I worked the night shift by myself, getting the clients their baths, and it was small. into bed. Then I would do cleaning, laundry, cooking for the next day, charting and passing meds if needed. One night I was down in the laundry room around 2 o'clock, washing, drying, and folding clothes. I was in my own little world of thought when somebody or something grabbed me firmly by the shoulder. Since I was the only one there besides the people who were sleeping, and none of them were able to walk by themselves, this made me just about jumping. This made me just about jumping. out of my skin.

I quickly turned around thinking it was possibly the boss, Kathy, one of my besties from high school, coming to check on things. When I turned around, I thought I would see her standing there, laughing her arsoff at me. But there was nobody there. I ran up the stairs thinking I might catch somebody playing a practical joke. There was nobody there.

Just me and six sleeping residents. I was freaked out. That was only the beginning, though. Incident number two, I was able to take my daughter with me to work, which was very convenient for me, seeing as how she was six years old at the time. While I was working, she would sleep on the living room couch. And everything went fine until one night, it didn't. It was 3.30 a.m.

I know because I looked at the clock afterwards. Anyways, I'm cooking. and she comes in from the living room, where she had been sleeping not 20 feet away from me. She was half asleep and spitting. By the look on her face, I could tell that something was horribly wrong. I asked her what was going on, and she couldn't talk.

Then she starts pulling stuff out of her mouth. I took it from her and realized it was three-inch pieces of fishing line. I ended up pulling probably 50 pieces of her. of this out of her mouth. I was so mad, and I knew that it was paranormal activity, so I yelled out that it could pull its crap on me, but it was not to lay a finger on my daughter ever. Just to be safe, I only brought my kid to work with me a few more times, when I had to. Then there was incident number three.

One of those times was on the 4th of July. On this night, there were only three residents at the house. The other three went with their relatives. Well, everyone was asleep when the fireworks started, so my daughter and I stepped outside to watch the neighborhood show. There was a bedroom window right above us, and all of a sudden it slammed shut. It was a slider window, and because of the 4th of July holiday, nobody was staying up there. It was empty. I didn't want to, but I had to go upstairs to check it out.

When I got up there, I tried the window to see how easily it closed. It took some effort to open and close it. So I know that it didn't just slide by itself. Incident number four. We got a new resident who was suffering from dementia. I was taking her to room for bed when she stopped in her tracks as we entered the living room. She asked me what was going on and why there was a party. I told her that I didn't have my glasses so I couldn't see well,

and I asked her how many people were there. She told me that there must have been 20 or so, eating chips, drinking, and dancing. Although I was freaked out, I led her through the living room to her bedroom and got her tucked in. I just tried to tell myself it was the dementia and carried on with my work. Incident number five. One of my clients was in bed for the night when I heard, kitty, kitty, kitty, come here, kitty.

That's what she called me when she needed something. I went to her room and asked her what she needed. She told me that little boy over there in the corner, the one in the yellow raincoat, was making too much noise and she couldn't sleep. She wanted me to get him out of her room. Without thinking about what I was doing, I told him to come with me and let her get some sleep.

I didn't hear another peep from her that night. This story has another part to it, which I'll fill you in on at the end of my facility stories. Incident number six. I don't know if this is paranormal or not, but it sure is very strange indeed. We had a new resident who was younger, but he suffered from manic depression, schizophrenia, and he was bipolar. A little context before I tell you this story. Ten years prior, my best friend from grade school came down with these exact same. issues when we turned 19.

She ended up in a mental institution for a while, and I went to visit her and she told me that God told her in a dream how everyone she knows is going to die. She asked if I wanted to know how I die. I told her no, that I didn't want to know, but she told me anyways. She said that she saw me hanging upside down dead on a cross. Yeah, that freaked me out a bit. But then my resident, who didn't know my friend, and they lived like, two hours away from each other, came downstairs one morning as I was cooking breakfast,

and he told me that he had a dream about me. I asked him what it was about. He said that he saw me hanging upside down dead on a cross. Can anybody tell me what that was about as I would love to hear your thoughts? Incident number seven. After almost three years of dealing with ghosts, this is the one that made me quit my job. I was in a room with a resident changing a colostomy back. Anyone who has done this knows that you can't just leave in the middle of what you're doing.

While I was doing this, another resident started yelling, help from the adjoining room. He was an old guy who would do this all day until one of us would go to him. When we got there, he would show us as junk. Yeah, he was a dirty old man. So when he started yelling, I thought that it was yet another one of these instances. I yelled back telling him that I was in the middle of something and that I would be right there. As soon as I finished up, I went to his room, and I found him lying on the floor. It had just been Easter the Sunday prior, so when I saw what looked to be something brown smeared all over his face,

I thought he had snuck over to his chocolate and was eating it in bed. I quickly got him up off the floor and back into bed. I then turned on the light and was horrified to see that it was. wasn't chocolate. It was blood, and it was all over him. In shock, I asked him what had happened. Where did all the blood come from? Was he okay? I grabbed the phone and was dialing 911 as he told me that a boy came into his room, dragged him out of bed, and beat the heck out of him. I said, what? How? When? I was in the room next door. A thin wall separated the rooms, and I had heard nothing. All the doors were locked.

I always checked them. He said that the boy came in through the window. I checked them and they were all also locked. When the ambulance and the police showed up, the cops had me in the kitchen asking me all kinds of questions and looking at my hands to see if I had done it. I couldn't believe I was a suspect, but it was definitely happening.

They asked the lady I was helping if she had seen or heard anything, and she told them that I was helping her in the case. she hadn't heard anything either except for him yelling, help. The man kept telling the cops that I didn't do it. It was a boy. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, they asked him who had done this to him. He kept saying it was a boy. They asked if it was me and he told them, no, it was a boy.

He actually died from his injuries on the way to the hospital. That was it. Something tried to frame me for murder. I'd had enough, and I gave a one-week notice. There was something evil in that house, and I wanted nothing more to do with it. Okay, so the thing about the little boy in the room that I told to come with me and let the lady get some sleep, well, fast forward a few years, and I'm between houses and staying at my dad's. I worked a side job delivering newspapers seven nights a week.

My dad had a friend that lived Caddy Corner to us, and would sometimes be a job delivering newspapers seven nights a week. and would sometimes ride along with me at night. Well, one night we were on the road, and the subject of the paranormal came up. I had never told her about my experiences. She started telling me about one night when she was at Dad's. When she was getting ready to leave, she glanced down the hallway and saw a little boy in a yellow raincoat,

and he was transparent. I was in shock. I then told her about the incident, at the assisted living place. When I told the boy in the yellow raincoat to come with me, I guess he took it literally. I don't know if he's still with me. I told him to go to the light,

and I hope he did. So, Raven, that was a few of my stories. I have many more and we'll send them when I get a few minutes to write them. Please do. I hope you know that you are very much loved by your fans. You're a special person and you light up our worlds. You have an amazing gift for storytelling and a soothing voice. I usually listen to stories at night to fall asleep,

but I don't use yours for that purpose because I want to actually hear your stories. Never stop being you. Thank you very much. And I promise, I won't ever stop being me. Because I don't know anyone else I could be, so. Hello there, friends, Raven here. Welcome to the end of this episode of As the Raven Dreams.

I hope that you genuinely enjoyed this collection of scary stories, as I enjoyed putting them together for you. If the platform you're on has the option to follow the podcast or leave ratings, reviews, please do consider doing so as it helps the podcast grow. Of course, if you enjoy the content, that is. If you didn't enjoy it, then feel free to also leave a rating as honesty is important, and I take all feedback seriously. Also, I do have a YouTube channel.

It's a lot of the same content, but we do live stream. on Saturday is around 6 p.m. Central, so if you're free one Saturday night and want to come over and say hi, I would love to have you there. We just kind of have a good time doing whatever we want for the few hours that I'm online. You can also join the Patreon, patreon.com slash as the Raven dreams for early access to all this content. Check out the website, astherravendreams.com for information and where you can listen to the podcast, find all my social media links, find the merch store and send in your own stories to keep the podcast going as it pretty much exists on crowdsourced content at this point. All of you really do keep the show going, so a huge thank you for that.

Also on the website is information about the book that I wrote, titled The Insomniacs Experiment by Raven Adams. It's a psychological thriller, and I think it's pretty good. You might actually like it. Check it out. It's available on Amazon. Or if you want a signed copy, you can email me to see if I have any left, and I will absolutely oblige if I do. All that said, friends, I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. I hope I see you again here very soon. But until then, remember that you are loved, you are valid, you are important, and the world is a better place with you in it.

Don't forget that. Until next time, much love, and sleep well.