As The Raven Dreams Podcast - ATRD Ep. 42 - 37 TRUE Scary Stories - Scary Story COMPILATION

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Today we have a compilation of TRUE Scary stories! This video is over 5 HOURS Long worth of true terrifying tales, and includes SOOOO Much Content! Including; Walmart Horror Stories, Scary Trucker Stories, Past Life Stories, Food Delivery Horror Stories, Stalker Stories, Creepy Gas Station Stories, Scary Small Town horror stories, Paranormal stories, and more! You may have heard some of these before as they are from 2021, but this compilation is, in my opinion, a Good one! ➤ Want your story featured? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/Submit ➤ Want to know where to follow me on the internet? Go to https://www.astheravendreams.com/the-nevermore for all my links! ➤ You can also get EARLY ACCESS By joining my Patreon! https://patreon.com/astheravendreams Today's Video contains stories by the following videos on my YT Channel... Ep. 166 - 4 Horrifying TRUE Walmart Stories Ep. 168 - 5 TRUE Terrifying Trucker Stories Ep. 170 - Chilling Ghost Stories - Horrifying Haunts Ep. 171 - 5 Eerie Past Life Stories Ep. 173 - 3 True Scary Stories - A Visitation and Scary Locations Ep. 174 - 4 TRUE Scary Food Delivery Stories Ep. 176 - 5 Reddit Creepy Encounter Stories Ep. 177 - 3 TRUE Scary Gas Station Horror Stories Ep. 180 - 4 TRUE Scary Small Town Horror Stories ➤ All stories within are used w/ Either direct permission from the author- or under some level of CC license (where noted) True Stories are not verified, and should all be considered 'supposedly true'.  And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/astheravendreams/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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podcast, please go to as the ravendreams.com and click the button to submit your story. Also, if the platform you're listening on has the option to rate this podcast, please consider doing so. And thank you. As a child, I was raised in a small, tight-knit town. I hated it. Everyone knew you and there was no such thing as a secret. If you tell one person, you'll hear it from someone else in two days' tops. I had a group of four or five friends, Max, that I might share things with, that I could actually trust.

Hell, some things, I couldn't even tell my little sister without getting something. on her. Otherwise, we would just use it as leverage on each other. That's what makes this situation even crazier to me. Our school classes were pretty normal in curriculum and size, in my opinion. We had maybe 10 to 15 of us in a classroom. No one outside of our town was interested in going to our school, and as soon as they were given the opportunity, kids in high school that had cars, would get to choose to go to school outside of our district to get out of here, or people would move out before then. I was not so lucky.

My family was far from wealthy, so we stayed in our town till I was old enough to move out. Anyways, back to the classes. Obviously, being a teenager, relationships are bound to happen. There weren't many to choose from, and some may have even been a year younger, or older than you. I dated a few different girls, but there was one that I was with for about two years.

For privacy reasons, I'll call her Macy. From the outside, Macy was a fun girl to be around. She was tall, had about shoulder-length dark hair, and dark brown eyes with freckles. She could talk to anyone.

She was definitely outgoing, and I never really saw a mean side to her. I think she would strive to be everyone's friend. She was just part of a group of friends for the longest time. She wore makeup and dressed more feminine, but also loved going down by the river with me and a few of our friends to catch things, destroy things, and maybe enjoy some drinking.

It was over the summer that I really got to know her more. I know her dad was a drunk and her mom wore. worked a lot, so she didn't see them much. She came over to our house a lot for dinner, and sometimes even slept in our living room. There was one time that she had gotten into an argument with her father. He had grabbed her and started choking her when her mother finally convinced him to let her go, but her mother told her it was best for her to leave for a while. She came over in tears, and I helped her calm down, and I think she was the best.

that really solidified our relationship in a weird way. I was angry. Now, my parents weren't perfect, but they never hurt us kids. How could a parent do that to their own child? It was worse when the cops showed up and did absolutely nothing. They showed up to their house, took him in, he said he was sorry, and was able to come home after sobering up. like that really changed anything, though.

She practically lived with us at times. She slept on the couch. Sometimes she'd fall asleep in my room, and I would sleep in the living room. We acted like a normal couple for the most part, hanging out with friends together, always walking to class together, things like that.

But after a while, I started seeing a different side of her. I noticed that some of the smallest things would set her off. If a friend teased her about something, like throwing a ball weird, and I didn't immediately defend her, she would be pissed. It started as her just ignoring me for the rest of the night, then she would complain to me in private about how she was embarrassed. But then, it started to become more.

public. She would call me out in front of our friends and even my parents, and then storm off. This was my first real relationship, so I didn't really know how to react to it. I'd go through the motions, apologize, and we'd make up and be fine. However, it always seemed to get worse. The more serious fights would happen when it was just us, She would kick things, punch things, scream if she could, and sometimes would even hit me. It was usually just punching me in the chest or smacking me in the face, but it was still unusual. I thought surely this had to do with her father being the person he was. Maybe this is what she did because she was used to it.

So I would do what I could to calm her down, but it stopped. working after a while. I would have to lock her out of my room, or I would leave until she calmed down. But of course, that's when the accusations would fly. She would start getting loud, and she would push me while at school, and it was embarrassing for me at that point, so I would just walk away. For some reason, when I did this, she thought I was trying to hide from my other girlfriend, She started accusing me of cheating on her, and she would always show up at the door of my classroom and wait and see if I walked out with another girl.

We had a group project in one of my classes, and I was paired with my friend Jeff and some girl that I didn't know too well. When I was leaving the room, she punched me in the face and started saying that she finally caught me. I remember the girl just looking horrified as she tried leaving without Macy noticing her. People were starting to gather, but she had her eyes locked on and then jumped on this girl's back and started slamming her around. I managed to get her off of the girl and told her that we were done. I remember calling her a psycho or something equally hurtful because the look in her eyes changed to sorrow and she raised. ran off. I, of course, got called to the office and had to explain what happened. Macy ended up being expelled. I told them it was my fault, hoping the other girl didn't get into any trouble, and then I ended up being suspended for the quarter.

I finished my suspension as awkward as it was, and returned to the school to be the center of discussion for everyone. I didn't get to hear much on what happened to Macy, except for what my friends knew, which, again, wasn't much until I returned. I heard her parents were forced to put her into therapy, and possibly some kind of school for troubled teens, but I never saw her again. That happened about 18 years ago. Right after high school, I left that town. I wanted to go somewhere that was a lot more lively and meet people that I hadn't known my whole life. My sister and I even inspired our parents to get out of there a few years ago. However, they still surprise me with the amount of information, news, and gossip they tell me about the people that live there.

That? Well, that's where it gets crazy. Around the time of our 10-year high school reunion, people started contacting me about getting together. I thought, why the hell not? And decided to start making plans to visit. However, a few weeks after that, I got a frantic call from my mom late at night,

telling me there had been a fire in our old town. She told me that it was Macy's house, and the terrifying part, her parents died in the fire. My father was good friends with one of the cops there, and he had told him that Macy was still living there on and off, but she was working the night that had happened, and they had to go pick her up.

After the investigation, they had determined that her dad had passed out with a cigarette. He was blitzed, of course, and her mom had actually taken sleeping pills. It was just a bad situation, and I felt sorry for her. I almost wanted to reach out to her, maybe to at least give my condolences,

but something told me not to. My mother went to the services, and she said that Macy was just a shell. She just sat in the front pew staring straight ahead until the services ended. Afterwards, she said she was nowhere to be found, so my mother left her car, card and with the other items, and left after that.

I never heard about Macy or her life again until last year. This time, my friend actually text me and sent a link to the local news for our old town. It started as a suspicious fire. Police were called to an old barn that was on fire behind one of the bars. Someone apparently walked out back, smelled the smoke, saw them. all the flames between the trees that separated the property and called 911. After they put out the fire, they found a man's body in there. He had been stabbed multiple times, bludgeoned with a shovel, and then doused in some

kind of oil and set on fire. They couldn't ID the guy because he didn't have anything on him. That was crazy enough, right? Not at all. Not for that place. Rumors started flying pretty quickly. People started talking, but not to the police. But that didn't stop them from finding out. That's when my friend started filling in the blanks where the story left off.

He still lives there. He actually took over his parents' truck store, so he gets just as much information. The guy ended up being identified as the old. owner of the bar. They figured this out because his wallet was found in the dumpster at his bar, but his cash was missing. Coincidentally, someone showed up at a different bar, flaunting cash, and buying everyone drinks, saying it was in this guy's honor.

Thing is, they hadn't publicly announced this guy's identity, so the police took note of this. The girl was picked up and questioned when she finally confessed to the murder. And odds are, you know where this is going. It was Macy. She was apparently dating the owner, or at least there was something going on between them. However, he was married. Rumors are that the wife found out. The owner tried to break it off with Macy and she wasn't having it.

Now that she is locked up for this, the rumors are coming back that she may have been involved in her parents' death. So, not only did I date a less than stable girl in high school, but she turned out to be a murderer. So I guess I got lucky at the time. But it does make me think what could have happened if I did reach out to her when her parents passed. What if we didn't move? Could I have been one of her victims? I also think if this was related to her childhood, and if that could have made a difference as well.

One thing I told my friend, though, is that he's going to have to come see me from now on because I do not want to step back in that place. So, So maybe a little naive and didn't run into many serious conflicts, so I didn't know how to react to some situations. But I quickly learned. Walmart makes you grow up pretty fast as an employee. I'm sure others will relate to that.

I bring this up because of these two memorable experiences that I encountered during my time working there. The first one was about a year into my working there. A young child around a year old in a neighboring city had gone missing. There was a lot of speculation about the whole situation, from the mother being suspicious and even cadaver dogs alerting authorities to specific spots in their home. But sadly, they never found anything on their property or any evidence to make any arrest at that time. This case was always fresh in my mind as I worked the early shift, and I heard about it on the news every morning before.

before I left for work. I was a cashier, and also worked at the customer service desk on occasions. I'd see a lot of people coming in with their kids, and most of the younger ones that are in the cart like to watch the big carousel as it spins. Sometimes they talk to me, and their parents always smile and try to be a part of the conversations as well, especially with smaller babies that can't talk,

but they can smile and laugh. So it makes for a good time. time. On one occasion, though, I had an older lady come in with a small infant. The woman looked old enough to be the grandparent to this child. Now, of course, this wasn't an unusual situation, but something just felt off. When she first pulled into my checkout lane, she was focused on this child, smiling. I greeted her, and she started putting stuff on the belt. She bought a lot of clothes, a baby mattress, diapers, formula, and toys. I thought it was a bit odd for the amount.

Now, I've seen grandparents, friends, aunts, etc., bring in a small child and buy them an outfit or a toy or something, but never a full wardrobe. So maybe the parents were a little down on their luck, and she was helping them out. But still, the kid was small, but she definitely looked too old. to still be on formula alone. But that was the only type of food she bought. Other than the items she bought, she didn't talk much and she would not take the child out of her sight. After sitting every item down, she would look up at the baby.

Once she pulled the cart up to the carousel, I looked over at her to see if maybe the kid looked upset or was being playful or something. But she just looked around and looked at me. You know that look infants get when they're confused or scared right before they burst out crying? That's what she looked like. She looked like she didn't know what was going on. The woman, now waiting on me to finish ringing everything up,

is staring at this child again, rubbing her head, smiling, but not saying anything to her. Once I finished wringing everything up, I tried to put the items back into her cart, and she stopped me quickly by saying, It's okay, I got it, don't worry about it. Which was a little weird. Rarely people stopped me from loading up their groceries,

but I let it go. She gave me a credit card to pay, and at the time, our machines did ask for ID if they used a credit card and the amount was over a certain amount. When I asked her for her ID, she became flustered and started looking around her purse for it. it. After a few seconds, she asked to just pay in cash, which she then pulled out a wad of bills. I completed the order, and she started leaving so quick that she almost forgot a bag and her receipt.

After she left, my line was empty again. It was around six or seven in the morning, so we were really slow at that time. When this happens, I start to straighten out my lane where all the impulse items are, including the magazines. And that is when I looked over at the magazine covers to see the face of the missing baby, when I realized why that encounter was so off to me. That baby looked just like the missing one that has been on the news lately. She had the bright green eyes and the light curly hair starting to grow. She was from a city less than 30 minutes from here, too.

The part that started worrying me more was that, this child looked confused. She didn't look like she was particularly happy or comforted by seeing this woman, but she also wasn't crying or screaming. Another thing was that the missing child had a birthmark on the back of her neck. Could that be why this woman didn't want me to go to the back of the cart and see the back of the baby's head? Obviously, this didn't dawn on me at the time, so I didn't even look at her to check. Then there was the fact that she was also worried about showing me her ID and wanted to leave so quickly.

Both were very suspicious. Lastly, the items that she bought were just too much to be used as a random gift. Of course, this is all me speculating, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I just let someone go that could have been related to this case. It's been ten years now since that case, and this child still... has not been found. I can only hope it was an unfortunate coincidence. Part of me still wonders. What could have happened if I had reported this?

The second experience was something that continued throughout the last year that I worked there. I will say that I am a female, 18 to 20 years old at the time, so it was a normal thing to have both men and women call me sweetie, hun, baby, etc. Most of the time it was fine. Usually the older people, so no harm done. Every once in a while, I would get an older guy that may call me beautiful, but I moved on. However, this guy was more persistent. The first time he came through my line, he says,

Well, good morning, beautiful. I smiled and said good morning back, asking him how he is, a normal, small talk stuff. This guy was older, too, like old enough to be my kid. grandfather. I know this not only by the way he looks, but he even makes the comment. He went as far to say something about, you wouldn't want to be with someone like me, not at my age. By the end of his purchase, I hand him his receipt and he holds out his hand to shake mine. Kind of weird, but I held it out. He put his other hand over mine, like he was cupping it as he looks at my name badge. He says something

about, it's a pleasure to meet you, Marie, see you next time. I again, smile and say, same to you, have a good day, and I move on with my day. No more than a few hours later, this guy is back and in my line. He's literally only buying a soda from one of the small cases right up front by the registers. I remembered this because I thought, why go to a Walmart for a single soda when you could have just gone to a gas station or something. When it was his turn, he said, Oh, we meet again. And I just smiled and made a comment about, miss me that much.

To my surprise, he said, yes, actually. It was awkward. And he tried to make small talk, but we were busy at that point, so he was trying to stand next to my register. talk while I'm still ringing up other customers. I think he finally took the hint that I couldn't really talk, so he just said, well, I'll let you get back to work. Good night, Marie.

And left. This guy was already making me feel weird when he said my name, but I did my best to ignore it. Sadly, this continued as mentioned for months. He would be there several times a week. He would always end up in my line, buying random things. He even tried to buy a box of Valentine candy for me afterwards, and as I handed him the bag, he said they were for me, for his Valentine. I, of course, refused them.

I told him I couldn't take gifts from customers, and I also was happily taken. This seemed to upset him a bit. He made a comment about how it was rude to not accept a gift in his religion, and that he wanted to speak to my manager to convince them to let me have it. I finally got a manager and they insisted that I could not take it. He finally accepted that answer, but said he wanted to just return it and get a refund. I remember him throwing a fit because he had to go to customer service instead of going through me to do so. So he just left with it.

At that point, I told my manager about the... this guy and how he made me feel so uncomfortable. They said if it's ever too much to call them over and they will switch me out so I don't have to ring him up. I thought that was fair, and I just left it at that. This night in particular my fiancé had to take me to work and pick me up because of car issues. As I was leaving the store for the night, my fiancé was actually walking in when I noticed the creepy guy was sitting on a bench by the carts. and of course he noticed me.

So as he started getting up, I was close enough that I did a fast walk to my fiancé and hugged him, making it very obvious to this guy. He saw this and just stared at me. So we walked around the store and I told him about the guy. He agreed that if he was going to start sitting out there or causing any more problems like that, that he will park and come in to watch.

me out to the car until we felt it was safe again. Sadly, this guy did not stop. I never saw him waiting around by the doors anymore, but he would continue to show up around the store and would try to get into my lane. He would make it there sometimes, and he was never short on questions to ask me about my personal life, but I never gave him any answers.

If anything, they were vague. But still, he didn't. did not stop. When they would switch me out, though, he would holler at me as I was walking away from the register, saying things like, where are you going? I miss you. Are they doing this to us on purpose? Like we were a thing or something.

It was awful, and he started making me dread coming to work. I even felt bad for one cashier as she was swapping out with me, and he was one behind to the current customer. He lost it. He started laying into this cashier, calling her so many awful names, and slamming the items down on the belt. I went and told the manager before I went and hid for a while,

and I think he was told to calm down, or he would be asked to leave. They rarely banned or kicked people out. It was always just empty threat. I was so happy when I finally transferred to customer service as I didn't hardly see him at all after that. I would see him passing by and wave at me, but at that point, I stopped caring,

and I wouldn't even acknowledge him. I don't know if I just blinked out that much, or if he moved on to someone else, but thankfully, I didn't see him the last few months that I worked there. Hi, everyone. So I'll jump right in. The story happened before lockdown, quite a while ago, but it made me paranoid for months afterward, and really opened my eyes to the

surprisingly subtle tactics that some of these creeps will use, even go as far to pretend to be gay to put women at ease as I suspect this man did. Also, sorry for the length of this story. In my city, there is a local dog park that is one, if not the, the only park that will let you take your dogs off the lead and is specifically for dogs and their owners. It's a short walk from my house and has plenty of local dog courses that happen there. Some free, some paid, and so on. I'd gotten a standard poodle puppy earlier that year and had been attending a variety of these classes and visiting the park for a while. And, as a little, and as a little, I'd gotten to know or at least recognize most of the regulars and their dogs.

I had also experienced a few creeps, but none really stood out or terrified me like this one man did. I arrived at the park around four after work and other obligations, like I usually did, and let my dogs off the lead, throwing some toys, practicing, some training, saying hello to the other regulars who are also starting to arrive. Typical stuff, you know. After a while of walking around, I sat down on one of the benches on a small hill overlooking the park, and my doggies came to sit with me to get some water. As I was giving them a drink, I noticed a man approaching us. He wasn't trying to sneak up on me or anything. And when he saw that I had noticed him, he smiled and waved greeting me from a distance, before he came up the hill.

He seemed friendly, and I thought he was just walking by. Plenty of people cut through the park to the gate at the top to avoid taking the longer route around the block. One of my dogs is a collie named Bell, and she immediately started growling and barking at him. but I dismissed this and shushed her, because she is a rescue who was treated terribly by her last owner, and this is usually how she reacts to anyone that she doesn't know. But rather than go quiet at my command like she usually does, she just transferred to a low growl.

The man finally came up to where I was sitting, but rather than continue past, he stopped and started talking to me. It was then that I noticed he spoke in a way typically associated with gay men. His gestures also implied this, and maybe it was me being biased, but this put me a little at ease and made me less suspicious. He was also dressing a little strangely. I remember it was humid, slightly windy,

but he was wearing jeans, a hat, like the peaky blinders. I don't know how else to describe it. Sorry. A large trench coat with what looked like layers underneath and a colorful scarf. He looked professional and well put together, with an expensive watch and shoes to boot. At least, I assume, expensive from what I saw.

He greeted me politely and complimented my dogs, and I returned his niceties. still wondering what he may have wanted. He then said that he had seen a dog by the entrance to the park, hadn't seen its owner, and was concerned. This immediately got more of my attention, and I asked what kind of dog it was. Although I was not especially concerned as it is an off-lead dog park,

after all, maybe it had just wondered a little way off and its owner was sitting on a bench or chatting to someone. The man explained it was a Maltese poodle, and he had hung around a bit but not seen anyone tending to it. At that point, an older lady walking behind us with her dogs overheard and came over to ask about it as well. He explained what he had seen to her as well, and while they were talking, I got up and left.

partly to check on the unattended dog, but also to give my dog bell some respite as she hadn't stopped growling and was getting more agitated with the little group forming. Her and my poodle pup followed after me happily as I made my way, not bothering to look back, and I went down to where the man said he had seen the dog. I saw it and immediately relaxed. I recognized it and knew that the owner of the dog wouldn't be far. Sure enough, when I glanced around, I spotted him climbing up the steps from the little parking lot of the park. He had a golf bag with him, which was mainly why he stood out enough for me to recognize him.

He would let his dog out to run up while he got his stuff, and then he would whack a few balls, which his little white poof would speed off to retrieve. It was honestly adorable. I then noticed the trench coat man appearing, and the woman he had been chatting to also arrived, and they went over and chatted to the golf bag guy, who seemed to confirm to them the dog was his. Trenchcoat guy glanced around, and when he noticed me, he immediately came over and told me the Maltese belonged to that man. I said that I know and explained a bit about him.

I figured that would be the end of our interaction. As I turned and went off to watch my pupper, now playing with some other dogs, while Bell watched quietly a little way off from me, but nope. This guy followed, falling into a stride next to me and introduced himself. I responded politely, but kept walking. He continued beside me now, suddenly chatting about how he was visiting from the berg, which made sense why I had not seen him before, and then started talking about his family.

He was gushing unprompted information at me, but I assumed he was just being friendly or an open person. Honestly, something about him just did not sit right with me, but I had no idea what. I had no reason to be suspicious, and I tried to be polite, which is why I didn't, just tell him to go F off, hoping he would put it together by my uninfused response. He started asking me questions. How long had I lived in the area? Or was I just visiting? Did I come

to the park often? Was my family also in the area? I answered vaguely, just because he was coughing up his life story didn't mean that I had to. My vague answers made him back off a bit, and he began gushing about himself again. telling me how his family were renting a house nearby, and going so far as to give me the actual address, before asking me, where do you live? Now, I'm not stupid enough to give my address out to random strangers. So I just said that I lived in the area and had been here for a while.

His response was silence, and when I looked at him, he was just staring at me. It gave me the creeps. However, my gut started to twist a bit when he began again, more about himself, followed by more probing questions about my life and details about where I lived. He was so casual and smooth about it that I was really questioning myself for having such a paranoid feeling. But I definitely felt uncomfortable, and I made an excuse of needing to be a feeling. to check on my dogs to literally run away from the man, and it worked for about three minutes

until, as I straightened up from petting my puppy and calling Bell over, I turned to see him standing right next to me again, that friendly, disarming smile on his face again. He complimented me on my dogs and said that he was sorry to bug me again. He said he hadn't seen a poodle before and asked to pet my fluffy little pup. I was hesitant, but he was so smooth, seemingly kind and polite. I couldn't think of an excuse, and I said yes. He bent down to pet him and started asking me questions about him while littering and some compliments.

It was disarming, and it made me feel a little bad. Like, maybe he wasn't such a creep, and I was just being paranoid. I relaxed a little, and I answered some of his questions, but a comment of his made my gut twist all over again. He said that he would love to bring his dog here, and I blinked. Why wasn't his dog here? In fact, who goes to a dog park without their dog? My brain tried to justify it, but I froze a little as a wave of unprompted unease washed over me. I called Bell again as the man stood from petting my pup, and I scooped him up and took out Bell's lead.

She came over, but when she noticed the man beside me, she lowered her head and hunched up her body growling, as she did a half circle around us and to the left of me. I agreed with her at that point. This guy put up a perfect front, but something about him was off, and my gut was telling me to leave. I walked up to her. I hooked her up, and I told him that I was leaving and promptly strode off. I felt much better, but as I was walking, Bell was acting funny again and twisting around. I refused to look back, I assured her verbally, and powered forward until I got to the stairs.

Then, Belle suddenly began growling again, and it felt like a cold, hard ball had dropped into my gut when trench coat guy fell in step beside me going down the stairs. He didn't say a word, and my brain tried to justify it as him just happening to leave at the same time as me, while my instinct screamed at me to get as far as I freaking could from this man ASAP. Whatever part of my brain had tried to justify the man leaving with me, it went to. Dead, quiet, when Trenchcoat Man proceeded to follow me through the parking lot, to my car. I panicked, and finally broke into a run, scrambling to get out my keys. I could hear a step speaking up behind me.

I leapt to my car and popped Bell and my Pup in, glancing up to see Trenchcoat Guy, now walking up to me and blocking my exit. The smile was gone from his face, and I was scrambling to get him. get into my car when my hero, a true gift from above, intervened. Trenchcoat guy froze when my hero, a car guard, who had rounded the corner after us and who must have noticed me running away from this creep, yelled out to him. He jogged up to us, and he put himself between myself and the trench coat guy, who backed up and dawned that smile again, that seemingly kind and innocent smile.

smile that now sent shivers through me. I wasted no time leaping into the seat of my car, still in full panic mode, and speeding out of there, while Trenchcoat Guy and the car guards seemed to be arguing. I wasn't going to stick around. I practically left flaming tire tracks as I sped off and home, the cold ball in my stomach growing heavier and heavier as I went over my interactions with the Trenchcoat guy. The way that he spoke to me made me feel at ease, seeming to be worried about a lost dog to endear himself to me,

willingly offering up personal information about himself to try to get me to open up to him, the probing questions, his overtly friendly and smooth demeanor, his strange clothes, my precious bells continued unease around the man, using my politeness to continue to stick around me, and finally my gut instinct telling me that something was off from almost the start. Whoever that man was, he was a predator.

And worse, he had been so discreet and subtle that he had made me question my instincts about him from the start. I had encountered plenty of flat-out creeps, some of which had attempted to follow me home, but this man and how he acted filled me with an unfathomed. sense of fear. He was unassuming, cunning, and intelligent in his approach, which showed a carefully thought-out plan to get to me or other women. This made that man by far the most terrifying creep I have ever encountered, and it was months before I felt comfortable enough to go back to the park,

now armed with a taser and pepper spray. The only upside to all this, The car guard who had intervened was there when I went back, and he approached me. I thanked him repeatedly, and he took my hand and said that, if I ever felt safe, he would have my back, and that I was to come to him or his colleagues, if anything like that ever happened again. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't cried a little. That man saved me, and he was alert enough to notice my distress.

he helped me feel more secure going back to the park that I loved that was almost entirely ruined by Trenchcoat Guy. I grew up in a small, local town. It's one of those that you would just pass through on your way to your destination. Hell, most people probably wouldn't even stop there nowadays. If it's not the lack of Wi-Fi, my parents still live there, and they use some crappy local service that gets like 5 megabits max, or the one hotel located there.

It's nothing fancy, and usually just the home of meth users and runaways, that it has to be the homely look of the rusty metal siding and abandoned-looking farmhouses with the really creepy child swing in the front yard that actually drive people away. I was born and raised here in the 90s. I was a kid, so I was really naive and didn't realize until I was older, how some things were actually weird and creepy about our town.

Growing up, it seemed normal. Both of my parents raised me in the home given to them by my paternal grandfather. I went to the public school there. I made friends with the people in my class as well as some old. older and younger, as I was an only child. Nothing was ever too weird at the time. My friends and I would ride our bikes to the fire station on occasion to get sodas from the machine there, but I do remember my parents always telling me to take a specific route,

to avoid that neighborhood. I always thought the people were just mean or didn't like kids. I learned as I got older that the block was just a bunch of people. of run down and condemned houses that meth users and squatters took over. There was always something illegal and dangerous going on, so they of course didn't want to take any chances. Fair enough reason for me, so as if I was on autopilot, that road didn't exist, and I always avoided it. Even now, when I go to visit my parents, I don't dare to walk or drive that way.

Now, some may call this good or bad, but because of how small our town was, everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew your business. That included this older lady that we called the neighborhood grandma. I called her grandma Carol. She was always such a sweet and forgiving soul. She would make so many sweets during the holiday and bring them to the church, and she would pass them out to us kids on our way to the bus stop or at home. I remember her even bringing me a handmade scarf one year for Christmas and having dinner with us.

She didn't have any kids and she was never married. She said she could never find a man that could keep up with her, but she did have a dog. I believe it was a Boston Terrier, the small dog that always looks old and has a long mustache. His name was Prince, and she spoiled the hell out of him. He always had on different sweaters in the winter that she made. I was so impressed by this that I actually went to her house once, so she could teach me how to crochet. I still have the doll dresses that she helped me make.

Carol was also very giving to our town. She was a lunch lady for a while, but she ended up retiring. She was also very active in the tiny church. there, as mentioned, by making sweets and other food items for parties and ceremonies. She also made what she called a care package, which included long-life food items like canned goods, boxed meals, juices, etc, as well as small necessities, like small travel bottles of soaps and band-aids. She always included a card with a different Bible passage on each one, and she would drive them over to the forbidden neighborhood and hand them out.

I remember my dad saying that she was crazy for it because they could easily overpower her and kill her, but she didn't see it that way. She brought them food and water and treated them like everyone else. They loved it. I remember one time my mom actually went with her and was telling me that when they saw Carol, one guy put out his cigarette, dusted off his shirt and hands so he could hug her. He even helped pass out the gift baskets.

My mom said that she even got worried at one point because one of them said something inappropriate, and the guy helping had this raging look in his eyes, and he just smacked him on the head and told him to apologize to them. But Carol never had a concern being around them. She was always fine with them, and even stayed and tried playing with the kids. Carol really made a difference to them, which makes this whole situation even stranger.

I was in middle school at the time. The school year was almost over, and next year I would be going to high school. I was planning on going to Carol's when I got home because she agreed to help me make treats for our school graduation that was going to be that Friday. I got home, grabbed some of the ingredients that we had bought, so not to use up hers. I told my mom I was going and headed over to her place. When I got there, I noticed that her gate was open. She had a beautiful front yard. She loved gnomes, and they were all over the place, and different poses, different sizes, and she was quite proud of it.

But I also know that she always kept the gate. closed, because she would let Prince run around while she was working on her yard. So I found that strange, but still a kid, so the thought didn't stay long. I got up to the door and knocked, and I waited as I looked around. When she didn't come to the door, I rang the doorbell. Maybe I was being impatient, but I remember it feeling like I waited forever. After a while I tried the door and it was locked, so I carefully walked to the back to make sure I didn't step on any flowers, and I noticed that the door was cracked open. I knew it wasn't okay to go into someone's house without permission, so I yelled for her.

I called for her a few times, and I even called for Prince because he always came running to the door. Now, even as a kid, this seemed very off, and I started getting scared. So I left all my supplies sitting on her porch, and I ran home to tell my mom. She thought maybe she was just in the bathroom or fell asleep and forgot to shut her door, so she called her. When she didn't answer, my mom and I drove back over there. She told me to stay on the front porch. porch and she went around the back. After several minutes, she came back to me with my supplies and told us that we needed to go home.

Once I was home, I wasn't really told much, but I do remember her telling me to go to the kitchen to make my treats. And that's about when the police showed up. My mom went outside to talk to them, and then they left. I found out after a while that... Carol was missing. My mom tried not to scare me, but at least tell me what was going on. She said when she went in there, neither Carol nor Prince were anywhere to be found, and she wanted to make sure that she was okay, so she called the police.

Not only our home, but the entire town was affected by this. It wasn't the same. There were many rumors, some hateful comments, and some flat-out crazy conspiracies. This was over 20 years ago, and Carol still has not been found. As I got older, my parents explained to me more as to what happened,

and I would get little bits of information from people still living there. My mom explained that, when she went in, her TV was on and the kitchen table still had a bowl of oatmeal sitting on it. Her medication was also, sitting next to her breakfast, but hadn't been taken for that day.

It was one of those weekly pillboxes. Now, I remind you, we noticed this after I got off of school, so around three or four, way past the time that she would have taken her meds and eaten breakfast. She said that Prince's food bowl was either empty or knocked over, which, that bowl was never empty, and that her purse was sitting open on her bed. My mom knew pretty quickly that something was wrong because she didn't leave home without her purse, and when she was home, it was always sitting on her kitchen table. The fact that it was in her bedroom and open was not right.

I heard from a lot of people that the police couldn't find any evidence, such as a break-in, no blood, nothing else seemed disturbed, but they definitely felt there was foul play. A lot of people accuse the addicts, including my father, which is possible. Maybe someone was high and thought they could get money out of her or something, but I didn't feel the same way. She was the only person that didn't see them as less of a person. She tried helping them, and they seemed like, like they had a lot of respect for her, too.

I get some people are just unstable and unpredictable, but I think they were just as shaken up. But that didn't stop them from being harassed and interrogated, I heard. The only thing that ever gave us hope, but also tore us down more, was a few years after her disappearance. My mom told me when I came home from high school, there was a group of women that got together to play bunco at night,

and as one of them was leaving, she heard barking. When she finally saw where it was coming from, she noticed it was a small gray dog that looked malnourished and in need of a bath. She brought the dog back inside the home when she started realizing he looked just like prince. Surprisingly, she confirmed it when she called him by his name and he responded. So here's Carol's dog, alive, covered in dirt, oil, and starving, but definitely alive. It had given us hope for a while that Carol may have been close and even alive, but then people feared that if Prince was alone, that would mean something bad had happened as she would never leave him.

It's still a mystery to our little town, but I had to move out. after graduating. Not only did I need to relocate in order to get any kind of career, but that was all anyone ever talked about. I miss her, as she was like a grandmother to me, but hearing about it day in and day out takes a toll on you. I hope we get closure one day, but I also don't want to hear that they found her in any condition other than happily making blankets and cookies in seclusion.

My experience with this entity took place roughly two years ago. The memories still shake me up to this day, if that's any indication of how terrifying these experiences were. I can't allow myself to think about it for too long out of fear that, well, I don't know, actually. It's not like thinking about this thing will conjure it. I'm fairly certain it's tethered to the place in which I encounter. encountered it. At the time, I was in my senior year of high school and living in an apartment on the school campus.

You might be scratching your head, so hang with me while I explain the context. This wasn't your traditional high school. To avoid giving away too many personal details, we'll call it a private school, because not just anyone is able to enroll. Another relevant detail, several deaths have occurred on the property where this school is located. Decades ago, three people were killed in a type of natural disaster that my state is known for. I now speculate that there were either more deaths from this event that no one talks about, or there was another tragic event in the school's history that I'm just not aware of. The campus included dormitories for students from other parts of the state,

as well as a small section dedicated to four apartment suites. Juniors and seniors got an opportunity to move into these suites for six to eight weeks. Basically, the only requirements were that, one, you weren't flunking your classes, and two, you were capable of carrying out tasks like shopping for groceries while staying on a budget, cleaning your apartment as needed, cooking your own meals, just the ordinary living on your own stuff. I should mention that students who didn't live on campus but met the above criteria were included in the apartment rotations. I was one of these students. Of course, I accepted when I was offered a spot. I was thrilled to have gotten into the last rotation of the year, because my group got two more weeks in the apartment.

apartments than most. However, the excitement turned out to be short-lived. I moved in in mid-March of 2019. My family wanted to accompany me to get a look at the place to make sure that I got settled in. I'd already seen the apartment, so I let them wander around while I lugged my bags into the bedroom and commenced unpacking. We then set our goodbyes. They left, and I abandoned my unpacking and invited myself to my best friend's apartment to see what she was up to. We'll call her A. Her apartment faced mine from across the hall, the other two being positioned the same way, but towards the front end of the hall leading to one of the main dorms.

Not only was I eager to see A, but I remember something felt off. like the air was too dense. This apartment was notorious for being haunted. One girl in my class later told me that when she stayed there, she felt like something was gradually draining the energy from her. She was so exhausted that she became very antisocial, although she wasn't a social butterfly to begin with. She would fall asleep early in the evening,

even if she wasn't tired, and slept through her morning alarms on a regular basis. Another classmate said that items would get moved around when there was no one in the apartment, but her. I tried to push these thoughts from my mind until whatever was here, if anything, gave me a reason to be concerned. I also didn't want to make a scene inquiring if I could switch sweets with someone. In retrospect, I really wish that I had. But we'll get to that soon enough. The first week passed, pretty uneventfully.

I had a lot going on at the time. I was taking a few college courses in addition to my high school workload, in a steady relationship, etc., etc. Needless to say, I was too occupied to consciously look for paranormal activity. I just felt that heaviness in the air, usually in the back of the apartment where my bedroom and the bathroom were. After the first week, the source of this energy must have grown restless and decided it was time to make some, ahem, I'm here and the rumors about this place are true statements.

I started seeing weird movements around my apartment, sometimes while friends were over, but usually while I was alone. I would see a foggy shadow with no definite shape, darting across open doorways that vanished as soon as it caught my eye. I would ask whomever was over, did you see that? And they'd say they didn't and ask what I was talking about. And after explaining it the first time, we laughed it off on subsequent occasions. This carried on for another week or two. I was honestly starting to believe I was sharing my apartment with the mischievous ghost with no ill intent.

But, hey, life would be boring without plot twists, right? Just as my worry began to ebb, things took a dark turn. I remember one evening I had just finished cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and was laying on my bed on the phone with my boyfriend. I'll explain the layout of the bedroom because that's where most of the disturbing stuff, stuff went down. When you walk in, the closet takes up most of the wall to the left. I always left it open because it's old, and the sliding wardrobe-like doors had a tendency

to stick. The head of the bed is against the right wall, so that when you lay down, you're looking toward the open closet. There's a dresser across from the door, a nightstand on one side of the bed, and a desk on the other. Anyways, I was on the phone with my boyfriend, and I saw the blurry shadow darting around again. This particular time was unsettling, because it was moving around the opening of the closet right in front of me, and didn't poof out of sight like the other times.

The energy emanating from it was hard to read, too. I couldn't tell if it was trying to be threatening or playful. My boyfriend sensed that I was uneasy. I told him I was currently watching the thing practically dancing around in front of me, and it wasn't going anywhere. I quickly left the room. Hell, I probably left the apartment. I don't remember.

Something just told me that I needed to get out. My sweetmate was nowhere to be seen for the rest of the night, but I could still feel its presence. when I returned. From that point on, I didn't feel like I was alone in my room. I mean, there had been a weird energy change all along, similar to how you can feel the air change when a storm is moving in. Now, it was like a person was in the room with me 24-7.

When night came, I would find excuses to avoid the bedroom for as long as possible. I'd go hang out with friends or invite them over, so I wouldn't be alone if the ghost tried anything on me. I would loiter in the kitchen, making tea and sit on the couch passing time, until I got up the nerve to go to bed. I pleaded with my boyfriend to stay on the phone with me until I was tired enough to fall asleep shortly after we hung up. Maybe I was overreacting, but this ghost no longer felt harmless,

like I had initially thought. My intuition has always been strong, and I couldn't have ignored it if I wanted to in this situation. This place set off serious warning bells inside of me. Unfortunately, my paranoia was justified when things escalated yet again. I had just hung up with my boyfriend who was waiting for sleep to set in. I was laying on my stomach, head turned to face the bedroom. door when insert crash noise here. My entire body jolted.

My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, and I dove under the covers like a child and tried to catch my breath. My first thought should have been, what the hell was that? But I somehow knew, with a paralyzing clarity, what had just happened without even having to see it. this ghost slash spirit was a young, blind boy. The darkness had disoriented him, causing him to stumble into my desk. I can't explain how or why I knew this.

The characteristics of this ghost being blind, male, and quite young, probably between nine and 13 years old, just materialized in my mind with utter certainty. I know it sounds crazy. Not only did the fact that I could pinpoint information about this entity freak me out, it also confused me. Is it even possible for a spirit to be blind? I guess we don't know what will happen to us when we die,

but lots of people believe were restored to perfect health in the afterlife, or just ceased to exist, so the whole thing, it didn't sit well with me. And no, there was no one else in the apartment with me. nor could anyone have gotten in because I always locked the doors at night, and I was the only one with a key. I was shaking really badly, but I managed to fish my phone out of the blanket and called my boyfriend, not wanting to be alone and knowing that he would still be awake. Again, I was so shaken that I don't remember much, besides getting out of the damn bedroom and turning on all of the lights as I walked through the apartment.

The next day, I told A and another friend, I'll refer to her as T, about the ghost boy. They didn't know whether or not to believe me, but they could tell how distressed I was nonetheless. I was more anxious than usual to go to bed after that. I started seeing it in the morning, too. its translucent shadow flickering at the threshold of the closet. I got the feeling that it was watching or listening to me, and it taunted me with that stupid disappearing act. There, one second, con the next.

Luckily for me, it was April by this time, and a band trip was approaching. The trip involved traveling out of state, meaning I would be able to escape the suffocating paranoia. that I was sadly growing accustomed to for about four days. I was still anxious to fall asleep the first night of the trip, but when I realized it hadn't followed me, I slept soundly for the first time in weeks. In case you're wondering, we went to Silver Dollar City that year,

and you can bet your ass I went on every roller coaster in the park, but I digress. Fast forward to the last day of the trip. Dread, flooded, threw me on the long drive home. I think I still had about three weeks left in the apartment. I was exhausted when I unlocked my door and dragged myself, and my overstuffed suitcase inside. But upon being hit with a wave of paranoia,

I started a load of laundry and escaped over to T's place. When I walked in, she and A were watching a show and digging into some jerky and outlandish flavors that she'd bought on the trip. She offered me some, but I declined. I have a TMJ disorder, a jaw condition, and I'm careful not to strain my jaw chewing tough foods like this. This is good to know for later. Skipping to some time in the middle of that week,

I was in bed and the room was dead quiet. I'm just lying there, teetering on the first phase of sleep, but still mostly coherent. And I hear a menacing click right next to my ear. My whole body went cold. My mind was screaming at me to leave the room, cover my head anything but just lay there like a statue. But I couldn't move.

The belligerence behind the action was so freaking intense that I was frozen in fear. It literally sounded like someone had come up beside the bed, leaned over me and snapped their teeth next to my ear. Now, I know that when you're on the verge of sleep, you can have involuntary movements like a jerk of the arm or leg, but I was alert enough that I would have felt my teeth clamped together, and I've never heard of that kind of involuntary movement happening.

I've tried to replicate the sound myself under the same circumstances, but to no avail. I mentioned earlier that I have a jaw disorder. Because of this, I sleep with appliances, aka mouthguards, on my top and bottom teeth, and it would have been impossible for me to make this sound. I lay there, terrified, and barely breathing for what felt like several minutes,

but in reality was probably 30 seconds or less. As my brain finally began to process, us what was going on, I lost it. I felt an overwhelming sense that I was in peril and I went into a full-blown panic attack, shaking, gasping for breath, feeling a mix of cold and numb all over. I grabbed things that were in close proximity, my phone, my pillow, a blanket, and I tore out of the room, slamming the door behind me. Beyond frantic, I stumbled out of that nightmarish apartment and into A's place. She thankfully

kept her door unlocked at night, which was safe because the campus was secure and she has some medical things that having easy access to the apartment would come in handy for should she have some kind of an emergency. I collapsed

in her living room, trying not to freak out too loudly so I wouldn't wake her up. I ended up falling asleep on her couch. It was too small for me to stretch. out all the way, but I didn't care. It wasn't the last time that I'd run to her either. I heard the teeth gnashing around five more times.

That's not something you can just get used to. A. and her apartment became my safe haven. Sometimes she was awake when I plowed into her living room. For those who aren't from the south or Central Plains, part of the U.S., where people say that, it means hauling ass, hurriedly carrying out an action. Other times, she would find me crashed out on her couch in the morning. To this day, I am so grateful that I had my best friend merely feet away throughout this whole ordeal. I honestly did not expect anything of this nature based on what classmates had told me.

This entity was clever. It tricked me into believing it was harmless when that couldn't be further from the truth. Had I stayed there much longer, I feel that. it would have hurt me physically. I have a few theories as to why the entity became so malicious. Maybe it was angry with itself for crashing into my desk and giving away its identity. Maybe it was trying to use echolocation. Maybe it wanted to trick me into a false sense of security, then scare the hell out of me for fun.

I really didn't think it was a prankster for a while. But the teeth gnashing thing and the overall energy as of late, it felt pretty sinister to me. I don't even know why it was so active around me in particular. Even if it meant no harm, which I highly doubt, I didn't find it the least bit amusing. And I'm glad I will never have a reason to step foot in that apartment ever again. I can't help but think back to my childhood

and see how insanely strange it all really was. As an actual child, it somehow never seemed very odd, but now, looking back, now it definitely does. Most of these were in the town of Elk City, Idaho, and some of these events seem very connected. It all started out when I was about one and a half years old to two years old. I was smart for a young kid. my parents always said, and I learned to talk at a very young age. My mom remembers me at that age crying and telling her that I didn't want to sleep in that room ever again, because the Eskimo baby doll looked at me and nodded.

She said that I then proceeded to do a nodding motion. She removed the doll from my room, but it still exists in storage in my other house. She finds it specifically strange because I was super honest, and toddlers that young don't typically lie whatsoever. I seemed genuinely shocked and terrified. The next strange experience were the dreams that I had around this time period as well. Strange, vivid dreams. People may say that I could have gotten these dreams from watching scary movies or things like,

like that, but it wasn't like that at all. I wasn't even allowed to watch Scooby-Doo until age seven. At that age, I was carefully raised and overprotected with what I was allowed to watch, mostly only Christian kids cartoons and Baby Einstein. These nightmares that I got were very strange and ended up becoming a recurring theme throughout my childhood, with the same dream character tormenting me. The dream started with my mom dropping me off at some sort of party. There's a ton of kids there and on stage.

It's revealed to be someone in a creepy pig costume, with an eerie, lazy eye, and a smile. It was picking up and kissing kids across the room. My mom kept asking me if I wanted to go up and kiss the costume. but I refused to and felt a sickening fear and sense of impending doom all throughout me. Eventually, she left, and I was forced to go up to the pig costume, but before I fully walked over, I stopped frozen and just stared. The longer I waited, the more it stared directly at me in a mocking way, in the dark distance. It felt like pure evil.

It just stared at me in a way that felt evil, but with the same lifeless, lazy eyes and smile. And these words entered my mind. This thing's name was Miss Molly. I then woke up. I had the same dream non-stop my entire childhood with the same pig costume. Another dream involving the costume was my parents forcing me to go to a huge opera theater where she would be on stage performing. The whole time, me being the only one knowing something was bad and wrong, and she always focused in dead on me. I even remember the smell in these dreams and what I smelt.

It was the smell of an old steakhouse in town at night. When I was older, I would get instant flashbacks to the smell and feel these dreams. Now that I know what animatronic restaurants were like, Pizza Time Theater seemed a lot like that in the dreams. Though I'd never even heard of such restaurants or been to one. I didn't even know what it was until I was in my teens. Around this same time as these dreams, my mom, my mom, said I would always not go into my room and tried to stay out with her as much as possible, and when she asked why, I would say,

Geofy is in my closet. I never explained to her what Geepie was, however. More incidents after, at around three to four years old, including me being terrorized by shadow hands, I remember staying at a hotel room during that time. I had just bought an electronic sponge-bob toy that talked when pressed on the hand, and I was sleeping with it that night. I remember it randomly talked without me pressing it,

saying a phrase that I hadn't heard before. This shocked me enough to throw it off the bed. Later that same night, I heard knocking on the hotel window. I looked out and through the curtain blinds, I saw the shadow of a long stretched-up arm reaching up into my hotel window and making the devil-horns sign with its hand. I remember that I then hid under the covers the rest of the night and fell asleep. I would have not known what that symbol meant at that age. That same hotel, I also remember having a painting that I avoided an entire bathroom over

and would have to go to the bathroom outside of the hotel instead, because it scared me so much. I remember nothing of what the painting was, only the true horror it invoked in me, and told me it wasn't safe to even look at it. As I got older, six to seven, the paranormal events started to back up a lot harder than ever. The shadow hands, they never went away. But now there were more. I started having more dreams of the pig costume that I dreamed of as a toddler, but in different scenarios. I dreamed one dream that the pig costume lured me into my grandmother's barn,

where they were cooking and boiling people alive, and torturing them in various ways. But this time, there were so many different costumes. I also dreamed that I entered my grandmother's butcher house in the business, pure dark at night and saw the same Miss Molly Pig costume on all fours, creepily sliding and crawling up to me in the dark, silently but fast. It's heavy, lazy eye gleaming in the dark. For some reason, I always knew that the costume was hollow inside. There was always a sense that there was no human inside the suit, like it was possessed. Another creepy costume, dream I had involved me walking into my classroom, where everyone was being very annoying.

Kids being gross, teasing me with snot and things. I left the classroom in the dream to find that time had completely warped, and somehow between walking in and out of the classroom, one second later, time had changed to after-school hours. I was locked inside the school. everything was dark. It had been completely abandoned. I remembered roaming the halls until I came across a tall, hollow duck costume in the distance. It had super long legs, and its long neck was bent backwards, staring directly at me

from between its legs with its huge black eyes. It said, in a creepy voice, I'm home. And then proceeded to come after me. I remember just curling into a ball on the floor accepting death in the dream and closing my eyes before waking up from it. I had too many creepy costume dreams to count, but those were some of the most memorable. Besides dreams, creepy encounters when I was alive happened constantly. I remember I had a whirly gig windmill toy that would spin and spin on its own at a certain time at night,

and a creepy tall giraffe toy that I would see blink at me. I also remember the strangest memory of my childhood, in which I woke up in the middle of the night to an entire scene being played on my curtains. It was like my curtains had been turned into a movie theater screen, playing some kind of vision. In this vision, it showed a super-destructive storm crashing everywhere, a huge sense of turmoil and panic and a huge sailboat in the distance.

On this sailboat, it was a puppet crying and screaming for help. He was looking at something in the distance in the huge ship deck that he was lying on, coming closer and closer to him as crates crashed everywhere. I didn't want to see what happened next. Everything in me told me not to see what happened next. I tried to look away, but... But everything that was dark in my room from the night, the scenes would begin playing on. Even when I closed my eyes, I wasn't safe of seeing the whole scene play out before my eyes.

I've never heard of any other experience like this. I then ran to the living room eventually. On my way, the walls were still playing the scene every time I glanced. I looked at the clock. and specifically remember it being 7 a.m. And feeling safe or knowing that I wouldn't have to sleep for long. It then stopped. I never experienced anything that wild again.

That is, until years later when my grandmother went missing and our technology-deprived hillbilly town in Idaho, and we were woken up in the middle of the night to help go search for her. The night will always be one of the strangest, that I've ever had or maybe the strangest. It's when I think I encountered some kind of demon. Everyone was searching for her, scared, and I had to stay back at the camp with some relatives.

I remember I saw this, I'll just call it a hallucination, that seemed to look like the character Lakito in Mario. He asked me if I wanted to make a contract with him, to work for him. I accepted. I remember how real he talked to me, how he felt. It felt much more real than any imaginary friend or something of the likes.

I acted as I worked for him and did silly tasks for him, but with time they got stranger and stranger. This hallucination stayed with me far after the search party found my grandmother and we returned home. For a full year he stayed. The more he stayed though, the more he started showing his darker side, revealing himself to be more and more manipulative, and basically a huge chirk. The time when I realized I wanted him out of my life and he became worse and worse to me,

I'll always remember because my mom said how I scared her. during this time period when we stayed looking after a friend's house while he was away and how I didn't behave as usual. She even asked others for help because I was out of character, violent and horrible. During this same time period, I remember the Lakidu turning on me the most and showing himself more and more visibly all around me, not leaving me alone, laughing at me, mocking me. I remember the more he stayed, the more his friends appeared. They looked like demons. I remember there being a red one who felt female

and had a strange sexual vibe to it that did overly disgusting acts that I won't get into, and other things. I remember once I was fed up with this Lakitu hallucination and the others with it. and I told him to leave me alone and never come back. I'll never forget seeing a stairway up to the sky appear, and them running up it, cackling and laughing, screaming, mocking me as they ascended. I never saw anything like that again.

A similar encounter, however, happened when the pig costume nightmares came to an unexpected stop, when I had a vivid dream in which a protective-type creature entered the dream, and told me that I will never have to see Miss Molly again. But, in order to never have to see her again, he would have to sacrifice his life for me, and I would never see this good entity again either. I accepted this, and I dreamed a long battle which ended in him giving me a giant hammer and crushing a shrunken-down version of the costume, killing it permanently.

I remember how disturbing it felt feeling all of it. its bones and organs crush and underneath the hammer. The protector spirit then died. I never dreamed of the pig costume that haunted my dreams for years and years as a kid ever since. Not even once. Even up until now. It actually worked somehow. Strange.

Weird nightmares still persisted, though. And more paranormal incidents, too. Too many to list, but some include. including me finding a Mario toy from a thrift shop that had a creepy depressing, heartbreaking vibe to it that I can't explain. Even my dad said that it felt creepy. I later on dreamed that this toy belonged to a kid that had died in a mysterious way, involving a manhole by the sewer, and in the dream they found the toy in a grocery store

and began crying. The toy had his initials on it. I also remember encountering something very creepy while playing alone with the toy. In rural Idaho, it was easy to get lost, and I remembered playing in the forest alone with it far away from the house. The silence felt very eerie and depressing. I remember finding some kind of gross flesh-looking substance in the ground. It was filled with holes, which the dog I was with with began trying to eat. eat. My blood ran cold and I felt to run and not look back, and I did. Later on, the dog's

owner said that she had also come back with a human fingerbone that was from the same woods, if that could be related. It felt more creepy knowing that I had brought that strange Mario toy with me during. The final creepy event that I will note here is my Skinwalker-type incident. I remember walking outside one night to let the dog out and saw a giant, shaggy creature being running around the other side of the house, where I was about to go. It looked like a dog, but more in lengths for a human. Too big to be a dog and no sound, strangely.

I remember it's carpety-like hair from what I saw. I got back inside immediately. Later on, I had a vivid nightmare that I heard the sound of a baby crying outside the walls of my cabin, so I dropped to the floor and began crawling out of my room and to the bathroom for safety. But the baby's crying sound continued, and he was screaming and crying, and he followed me to the bathroom from the outside. Everywhere I crawled in the dream, it followed me all the way to the door. It wasn't a baby crying,

and following me outside the house. I knew in my heart it was something mimicking a baby, trying to lure me to go out there and open the door. I'll never forget how horrifying it felt. It doesn't help as well the many other creepy encounters I've heard from the other people who lived in that same town of Elk City, Idaho. From UFO encounters, creepy life, hauntings,

noises, demonic activity, etc. I also heard creepy whistling noises that always sounded like they were trying to lure me into the woods. I saw a lot of things since I was allowed to play anywhere, even the forests away from my house. But these were just my personal childhood experiences. I'd love to know your guys' thoughts on this, and I may share more encounters or dreams in the future. Additional information, I found out later on that my parents have also experienced a lot of supernatural things more than most in their life. My dad has been known to see a second set of eyes on people before finding out that they've done something horrible not too long afterwards. My mom had an out-of-body experience during pregnancy, in which she could move around out of her body and see the others in the hospital.

hospital and at what they were saying before returning, as well as other out-of-body experiences. I'm not sure if these kinds of things are genetic, in a way. Also, the guy my dad saw the eyes on was someone who was friends with our family and at our house a lot. Me and him didn't interact much, as I was very young, but he was visiting a lot. A little bit after that, my mom had a vivid nightmare in which the same guy stood over my bed and opened his mouth,

as it unhinged inhumanly, letting all this dark energy and evil into me. After this, our family stopped seeing the guy. It was strange because he was very nice and never did anything bad to anyone or to me. But they just had a sense about him. He also had paranormal. encounters in the past, but he also claimed that he'd had an alien abduction.

It's strange, how everything seems to be connected in a really strange way. I've been working as a gas station attendant for quite a while, somewhere close to 10 years, mostly because I have a record, and I had some demons in my past that made me struggle with living a normal life. That said, I am clean and healthy again, but working at my local station has been almost therapeutic. It's not a terribly difficult job. It's not overly demanding. The pay is enough for what I need, and I get to talk to various people that I both want and don't want to know. That and I just get to do my job and not be bothered with too much.

And it's kind of tough to get fired. The more I talk about it, the more I realize I really do like this job, which may sound weird, but I'm kind of weird myself. Anyways, all that aside, I've been doing this for a long time, like I said, and I haven't had too much happen than, It's been too terribly crazy. We were robbed once, when I wasn't working, and the police were there within literal seconds. The guy got shot, but survived. And after that, we were pretty much never hit again. We actually still have a bullet hole in the back wall from where one of the officers' rounds hit.

It's a good conversation piece for the newbies at the very least. It's a good way to say to them, look, this isn't the safest job in the world, and stuff happens. But you're more likely to get attacked walking out in the streets than you are behind the thick plastic that we have between ourselves and the customers. So, all that aside, let's get into the one major event that made me dislike this job just a little bit. It's less of a scary story, and more like an un-needed. unsettling event slash situation to be put in. Plus, it kind of messed with my head, to be honest.

It all started on a Thursday night, which is not a busy night for our station. We usually get around 70% of our foot traffic Friday through Sunday, so I was pretty tired and bored with the night. Anyways, we get a customer that walks in the door, and I immediately knew it was going to be a problem. This guy looked incredibly familiar to me, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he recognized me. For most people, that wouldn't be an issue.

For me, that meant that he was probably a druggie and that I most likely knew him from back when I was a user. Based on his appearance, which I know you really shouldn't do, he was a user. When you work in retail, and when you know those kinds of people, you tend to watch them to make sure they aren't shoving things in their pockets. I was watching this guy like a hawk, keeping my eye on him and on the camera screens.

To my surprise, he didn't do anything bad. He didn't take anything. He just grabbed some chips, candy, a red bull, and a few other things. Then he walked up to the counter and gave me a mostly toothless smile. Being as polite as I could, I asked how he was that evening, just trying to make small talk and keep it shallow. He tells me that he's doing all right. I start scanning his items, and then I turn to tell him his total, and he smacks the counter with his hand, making me jump. As soon as he does, he shouts,

Wait a minute. Daniel, I knew I recognized you, Danny. How you been, man? Which, again, was something I was hoping wouldn't happen. I've been clean for a long time. I've avoided these kinds of people for years and have been trying to keep myself on the straight and narrow. I told him I was doing good,

and that I was just chugging along, keeping clean and working hard. He laughed and told me that he was trying to stay off the junk and that it was really hard. I agreed. I told him that it takes time and a lot of willpower, but it's worth it. I told him that ever since I stopped using, life became more clear, and I realized what kind of damage I was doing to myself. I knew it was probably preachy, but I was hopeful.

that I could get him to see that being clean was important. After a bit more of me trying to convince him that being clean was worth it, and even mentioning and giving him the name of a great rehab center in the area, he literally asks me if I know where he can score some heroin. I just paused, and I stared at him. My jaw clenched and my eyes half closed. He realized that he had just asked, someone that had been clean for years where to get drugs.

I know he realized this because he said he was sorry and out of line, which should have been enough, but honestly, he hit a nerve. I didn't say much more to him. I just finished bagging his stuff and told him to have a good night, in a manner that could be seen as cold. I felt bad, but at the same time, you don't ask a former addict, one that worked hard to get clean, if they can help you score a hit. You just don't do it.

After he left, I kind of just forgot about him. I moved on with my night. We had a few more customers, but overall, the night was pretty standard. I rang up everyone, stocked the shelves when I could, and, Pretty much just killed the hours, cleaning, and so forth. About four or five hours later, my second person came in for the end of my shift, so I could go ahead and start doing the outdoor cleaning, trash, pumps, and cleaning up the lot.

Anyways, Jay gets in, he clocks in, I run the count on the register and put it in the book in the back. I then inform him that I'm going to take out the trash, so he takes over the register. I get all the bags ready, and I head out to the back towards where the dumpster is. I throw the first bag in, and... The sound seems off. It sounded like there was something in the dumpster. It may sound really dumb, but after doing this for damn near a decade,

there are patterns and things like that that sort of click in your head. They empty the dumpster midday around here on Thursdays, so it should have been empty. And the trash bags usually make a decent thump in an empty dumpster. This time, it didn't. It sounded like it hits something soft at the bottom. My first thought was maybe they just didn't pick up the trash earlier. which would have been an issue as the owner pays extra for that service.

I sighed. I put my foot up on the rung and I hopped up to look in the dumpster. And then I see him. The guy that came in to the store a few hours prior. The guy that asked me where he could get some heroin was lying on the bottom of the dumpster and was clearly blitzed out of his mind. He even still had the... cloth around his arm.

I was livid. This guy had seriously jumped in our dumpster to shoot up. He seriously had the audacity to do this after everything I had said to him. I threw the second bag off to the side and went back into the store. I then told Jay to call the cops. I told him that some junkie had shot up in the dumpster and passed out, and that we needed the cops and probably a pair. paramedic. He called 911. I told him to wait out front for the cops and that I would take over the

store until then. He did as I asked. I called the boss to let them know what was going on, and he said he would be there in about 30 minutes. This whole time, I'm just fuming at the fact that I told this guy, this guy that I knew from back when I was hooked on drugs, all about how I got clean, how life was worth it, and how he should look into getting help. And I even gave him the name of the facility I went through, and then he felt it was okay to go get trashed in our trash. My anger was, best way to put it, short-lived when the paramedics showed up. I expected them to just pull him out, wheel him up on the stretcher, and get him to the ER.

Then, I noticed that, with the stretcher, they pulled out one of those plastic body bags. My rage immediately shifted to a deep sense of pity. Jay came back in with the boss and one of the officers, and they asked questions, obviously. I told them that he came in earlier and bought some stuff and that we chatted. I told them that I actually recognized him from back when I was. an addict, but that I was clean and hadn't seen him for at least ten years prior. They then informed me that they found the candy and a half-empty bag of chips on his person, along with a card that I had written the number for the rehab facility on.

They also informed me that he pretty much for certain died of an overdose, that he probably just overdid it and passed out, then didn't wake up. Honestly, this is a terrible situation. And while I was upset that he went and did that, I was just as depressed over the fact that I was probably the last person this guy talked to. I know that there was nothing more that I could have done, and I feel like had this guy woken up in the morning and saw the card with the number when he was sober, he might have gone and gotten help.

Of course, we'll never know, and it really does haunt me. me that had I not gotten clean when I did, that could have been me in that situation. I do feel bad that he passed away, but users all know the risk when they push that needle in. I really honestly do hope that he found peace on the other side. This isn't as much a small town horror story as it is a middle of nowhere horror story, or a horror story that took place just past a small town. But I think it still qualifies because it occurred on our way out of said small town. A few years ago, around the summer of 2018,

my girlfriend and I came into a bit of money, and we decided that we basically wanted to take a cross-country road trip. Basically, we would drive from Pittsburgh, all the way to Las Vegas. We'd spend a few days in Vegas and then drive back. The trip in both directions was going to take around 32 hours total. If we went straight across on I-70, and we would be tasked with driving from PA to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,

Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Utah, before finally getting to Nevada, and then our final destination. We plan to do this over a few, days and we wanted to stop in a few states to get pictures and just kind of enjoy the Midwest. I know that a lot of people will say that the Midwest is boring, but if you think too hard on it, every state is boring. I think they all have their own personal charm. So we plotted our whole route, decided on a few places to stop, and everything was going smoothly.

Most of the trip was just driving straight. We were making great time, and this event was really the only thing that stood out. There was one point where we had to stop to get gas, and my girlfriend said that she also wanted to stop and get something to eat. At this point, we were about two-thirds of the way through Kansas, and the next town was a small town called Ellis. Ellis, Kansas is a bit to the west of Hays, which is actually a decent-sized city for being in literally the middle of nowhere.

But Ellis, Ellis is pretty much the polar opposite. Small town vibe with pretty much nothing to do or see. But, again, it has its own rustic charm. We pulled into Ellis and we got gas. when I saw a menu for a restaurant that I decided we needed to try. It was a locally owned pizza and Mexican food combination, and I'm kind of a sucker for small-town pizza. I grabbed the menu and got back to where my girlfriend was finished filling the tank,

and I told her that we had to go. She agreed. It sounded interesting, if nothing else. So we left the station, and we found the small, building for this anomaly of a restaurant. Cutting out the details about the food, it was seriously good though. If you're ever in Ellis, check this place out. You'll find it. It's the only pizza and Mexican food place there is.

The visit seemed to be fine for the most part. I was enjoying my lunch, and I thought that she was as well, until I looked up and saw that she had a strange look on her face. kind of like she was a bit worried. I immediately asked her what was wrong, and she mentioned that there was a guy at a table at the other corner that was staring intently at us. At first, I didn't think much of it,

but then I looked back and, sure enough, he was staring. He didn't even make an attempt to look away when I checked. He nodded at me, basically confirming, that he knew I saw him. I quickly looked back to my girlfriend, and I tried to play it off. Maybe he knew we were tourists, and he didn't like the idea of outsiders. Maybe he thought she was pretty. Maybe he thought I was pretty.

Maybe he was just a very angry man by nature. She didn't really buy it. But my attention got pulled away from the situation when the waitress came to the table, asking how we were doing. I told her we were doing well, and then I started to tell her that we were actually from out of town and traveling across the country.

As I mentioned this, I tried to pull my girlfriend into the conversation in hopes to get her mind off of the creep in the corner. It sort of worked. The waitress seemed excited to talk to us about our trip. We explained that we were from Pennsylvania, and that we wanted to drive all the way to Vegas so that we could see the parts of the country that we otherwise wouldn't have.

The conversation between us, all three, was great. She mentioned one or two other places that we should check out. She started talking about the one time that she had gone to Vegas when she was younger. Really? It was just friendly small talk. When we finished talking and she walked away to go do what she had to do, my girlfriend looked back and told me that the guy was gone. Honestly, that was a relief. I was thinking that we could stop worrying about him

and she would calm down to finish her lunch. I really thought that was going to be the end of that situation, that we would leave, get back on the highway, and just continue driving for a few more hours before we checked into a hotel somewhere. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, that's not how things went. At least, not right away.

After lunch, we got back in the car and we hopped back up to I-70 and started out of town. It was less than a couple miles down the way when we spotted what looked like a minivan stopped in the middle of the road, long ways. It looked like they were in the middle of a U-turn on the highway and just stopped. or maybe their car had died. Either way, I slowed down as I approached, and I stopped the car a bit of a distance from the actual van,

a couple car lengths at most. After a few seconds of just sitting there, I noticed that there were two guys sitting in the van, one in the driver's seat and one in the passenger seat, and they looked like they were discussing something, nor arguing. It was hard to tell. Then, after a few more moments,

they look back at us and get out of the car. That's what my girlfriend said. That guy that just got out of the passenger side. That's the guy from the pizza place that kept staring at me. I thought maybe she was mistaken, and maybe she was just being a bit paranoid because she was freaked out by the whole thing. But then,

The guy walked around the van, same flannel shirt, blue baseball cap, and torn jeans as the weirdo from before. It was at that moment that it clicked what this was. Or more so what it likely was. These guys were looking to do something aggressive toward us. Obviously, I didn't know the specifics. I didn't know if they were going to rob us, steal our car, kidnap us. us, etc., but it wasn't going to be good. Everything seemed to be incredibly still and silent for a few seconds,

until I saw the pizza creep start to reach for something. I have no idea what it was, but as soon as I saw him reach, I told her to get down and I floored it. I pushed that pedal as hard as I could, and while I may have been driving in early 2000s Honda, that think jumped in speed quickly. I aimed the car straight for him, and toward the shoulder, basically playing chicken with this guy.

He was either going to get out of the way and let us pass, or be embarrassingly run over by my tiny ass sedan. Thankfully, for his sake, he jumped out of the way, and I got past them on the shoulder. We kept going at max speed until I thought it was safe to slow down. Honestly, it was really weird, and I realize now how dumb it was to do what I did. If he'd had a gun, he would have shot me and killed me while I was driving toward him. If he hadn't moved, I would have murdered him with my car, and, well, that would have been a whole other situation.

Alternatively, they could have chased us, and let me tell you that Ellis is one of the last small towns that have an actual presence until Colorado. It was a solid four hours to Denver, which was the next metropolitan, and I'm assuming that these guys wouldn't have been keen on letting us lead them for four hours without trying to ram us off the road. As lovely of a city as Ellis was, and as good as that pizza was, I don't think we're ever going to go back. On the way home, we actually took a different highway, just to avoid that part of Kansas altogether.

When I was about 16, in 2010, my family moved from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Williamsburg, Virginia, and we wound up in this strange neighborhood. I won't disclose this particular neighborhood or the coordinates of the exact place in question, though, I can find them very easily in Google Maps, and it's probably still there. This neighborhood gave me some really cursed vibes, like Children of the Corn stuff. And this house we were staying in seemed doubly eerie. We had just moved in, and I was always the adventurer and the goth kid. I liked to explore the woods surrounding the neighborhood. Back then, I was raised with having to entertain myself outside,

and this translated even to my current adulthood years. I really enjoy getting intentionally lost, and I've seen some deep stuff in the woods, and that gives me nightmares. However, this didn't give me nightmares, but the incident felt so strange and uncomfortable. I go into the woods, And about only 20 minutes in, there's a swamp in there.

Steam or smoke is rising out of it, and dead animal bones all around it. Instantly, I thought the swamp had to be toxic, except there were two swans on the water, dunking their heads in the water as swans do. I scoped it out and decided to go back another day. Second time I went, I decided a deer skull would look really cool in my room. I actually didn't learn my lesson from this. I still collect bones, only in different circumstances.

So I put one from the edge of the swamp in my bag, and I headed home. Something about that swamp just makes you feel like you're being drained. It feels like nihilistic depression, but as a place, And it was after these events that I also entered a very dark time in my life. As I headed out of the woods for home, everyone in the neighborhood on the way to my house was out on their front porch or lawn, just staring, like ventriloquist dummies. They all followed me with their gaze as I walked home.

The strangest thing? I felt like I shouldn't have taken the skull, as a polytheist and occultist later in life I learned to trust this feeling afterwards, but I put the skull on the dresser in my room. It's important to state that, this very same day, I heard the song Hamburger Lady by throbbing gristle, so it may have influenced things a bit. Also, I had somehow gotten poison ivy on me because my face broke out in hive.

but Poison Ivy and me were not too uncommonly acquainted. I just felt like it was a bad idea to have taken the skull, but I figured it was just my own fascination with the uncomfortable feeling of confronting mortality that made me fear it. The same fascination, however, caused me to cling to it. And so, on my dresser, it stayed. and sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling something was caressing my face

and sometimes I would hear a voice wake me up from a dead sleep and then after a week I could no longer sleep that's when the neighbors started showing up wanting to welcome my family to the neighborhood they brought cookies and came one family at a time once a day for a week They seemed very conservative and polite, but so was my family, and so was I. And every family that visited asked me the same thing,

since my parents made it a point to tell them that my now scarred up an oozing face was not acne, but poison ivy. They asked me, Oh, did you go to the swamp? And I would reply, Yeah, the one at the end of the street. and they would all say, Oh, did you see the swans?

At first, I thought it was cool that someone else knew about what I thought was my secret discovery in the woods, but then I started to realize, after the third time, they were saying it with increasing fervor and implication in their voice, something that my parents noticed even.

They asked me if I really did see any swans in the woods, and, I told them I had. They thought it was weird and shrugged. Of course, they always asked about the skull, but my family is interesting that way. They believe in old-school Lutheran Christianity, but they aren't in any way superstitious.

They didn't care if I brought home bones as long as I wasn't killing the animals unnecessarily. But I was heavily unnerved at this point, and slightly hallucinating due to the insomnia that I was experiencing. The feeling of something standing by me or over me became very real and very scary in my room, even while awake and even during the day. I did something a 16-year-old Christian kid wouldn't usually do.

I had a seance, in part because I was very lonely and hoped for a friend from beyond the veil, and in part because I wanted to try to smooth things over with whatever it was. A few Google searches later and in the dark of my room, with only a candle lit, I started to close my eyes and address the entity directly. The room got really cold, and as I spoke to it, the television in my room turned on to static. My radio turned on to static,

and the skull fell off of my dresser. I freaked out, and the next morning, I don't remember much between then and the next morning. I stuffed the skull back into the bag and went out to the swamp. The swans were there on the swamp still. I instantly placed the skull at the edge of the swamp and apologized to whatever entity was pissed that I took it. And, like a man hypnotized, some strange insanity. called me towards the center of the swamp, to a small peninsula in the middle of it where a tree grew. I tried to walk back from the tree. The grass gave way to mud, and I began to sink.

Though a giant six-foot teen boy that I was, I pulled myself out of the mud after quite a bit of struggle, though it had extended halfway up my waist, and then I walked home. The neighbors stared at me like they did when I took the skull as I walked home, muddied from the belly button down. I went into the house and my parents asked what happened. I told them I had stepped into deep mud in the swamp and sunk. The creepy stuff slowed, but the next week, the landlord exploded with anger at my family because he did not want to make repairs to the house

and then told us to leave. He didn't evict us. of course, because he couldn't legally do so. But he said he would not be making any of the repairs, and that he preferred that we leave. So he let my family out of the lease, and we moved from there. I was friends with a girl in the neighborhood who was incidentally the first person to ask about the swans.

We kept in touch until the day I moved out, and then she shut down her Facebook, and I never heard from her again. Last February, I planned to go back. I wanted to see if there were swans there still and bones, but with more fleshed-out knowledge of the occult and my own belief in the goddess of Bridget. I have wondered for a long time if the dead animals were offerings to the swamp, as ancient Celts used to do.

A pagan friend of mine in Pennsylvania liked to sink the bones of deer he caught in the swamp behind his house as well. My own belief is that there may be something akin to a god or a spirit there, and I'd like to make amends with whatever it was. However, I never got the chance.

The day before I headed to the swamp, Virginia enforced a mandatory quarantine, and so I headed back home and merely managed to make it after six flight changes. A few days later, they managed to cancel all the flight.

So, I'm not so sure if I want to go back. P.S. If the mods want confirmation about exactly where I'm talking about, proof I lived there, etc., feel free to message me. If anyone is a resident of Williamsburg, I will tell you where it is, but you have to agree to my terms when investigating first. I don't want anyone harmed on my account, nor do I want to risk angering the end. entity, if there is one, a second time. Nor do I want to bring bad press to the people that live there. I don't know anything for sure about their involvement.

Back in the early 2000s, I worked in a gas station slash rest stop that was off of a highway. It was one of those stops that was in the middle of nowhere, that you see as the single stop for the next 100 miles. So, it was quite the drive getting there and getting home, but it was also quiet, for the most part. You can get some weirdos crossing the state line, but it's always nice knowing you probably won't see the same person again. Outside truckers, maybe. Sometimes, my husband would come in on his day off and sit up in one of the boots, reading or something while I worked.

I remember this event happening in the summer because it was so hot, so I had the fans on near the front just to keep cool since I would be close to the doors. My husband wasn't feeling well, so he had stayed home, but there were two other people working. an older woman, Rosa, who worked in the kitchen area where we make the hot foods, and the other cashier, Evan. Rosa had left as we had closed the food station at 9, so it was just going to be the two of us. Again, with our location and it being as late as it was, we didn't get a lot of customers. More so, it would be people coming in to buy a phone charger, use the restroom and sleep in the parking lot. It wasn't uncommon to see cars parked, but we still kept an eye on them for our safety.

On this night, Evan had just walked away to get something to eat and take a short break. I was up front sitting behind the register, reading, when a few people had walked in. By this time, it was around 11, so the first couple to walk in looked exhausted. They were looking at energy drinks and donuts, and all I could do was chuckle to myself, knowing that they were going to crash soon.

While they were looking around, I saw another person walk in. Because the door makes a sound when it's opened, I looked over immediately to see them, and she turned her face away, quickly as she started fidgeting with her hair. It was a woman who appeared to be by herself, but she stood out to me, because she was wearing a hoodie in sweatpants. Like I mentioned, it was summer, and it was hot. The state I'm in is known for being hot and miserably humid. So, I thought it odd, especially because she didn't look cold.

In fact, it looked like she was sweating. So, maybe she was ill. She looked like she hadn't brushed her hair either, but was trying to run her fingers through it and pull it around her face. Again, we can get some oddballs, so I didn't think anything else of it, other than to just just watched to make sure that she didn't steal anything. After walking around a few aisles, she came up, and while trying to avoid eye contact, she asked where the restrooms were. I noticed when she approached that she didn't really look well. Her face was pale, lips dry and cracked, and she was, in fact, sweating. I asked her if she was okay, and she smiled

slightly, saying that she was just car sick. I let it go, as it was none of my business as long as she wasn't in any danger, or anything, and I pointed her to the restrooms. So, the restrooms are on the little diner slash food side, so she had to walk towards the other side to get there. We have one of those corner mirrors hanging so we could see people coming and going from that direction, though. I watched her walk over there and head down the hall with no issues. A couple of minutes later, the first couple walked up with like six different energy drinks, donuts and two puddles of water.

I remembered this because I teased them about the water-to-cafine ratio and convinced them to buy more water. I speak from experience, after all. We joked and talked for a bit, where they were. were from and headed, and how they mentioned they grossly underestimated how much they would spend on gas. They gave me a tent to put towards their gas, and they left. Shortly after, Evan came back up from break, and we started talking about the couple that

came in when the phone rang. There was a phone up front that was usually only used by us employees to call in, or when we needed to make a call. Management when they would ask or remind us to do something and, of course, emergencies. It was the manager, calling us, asking how it was going, and to check if Rosa turned off all the friars and oven, as she had forgotten a few times. I remembered this because the kitchen is creepy when it's closed, because it gets really dark and all you can hear is the AC slash heater blowers. or faint talking from the front. So what else does a lady do but ask the guy to go do it?

So I stayed there and I started reading again when Evan came back in one piece, thankfully, and we turned on the small TV that we had up there. It had been a few hours of us sitting, walking around, getting a customer here and there when we had one lady walk in and again ask for the rest, As she started walking in the back, I remembered the lady in the hoodie, because I never saw her leave. I started asking Evan if he had seen her when the woman had come running back to the front, saying that there was a baby in the restroom. I remember, I just paused for a second to register what she said when she clarified. There was a newborn in there.

alone. I immediately rushed to the restroom, and in the stall, was a newborn, in the toilet. It looked like someone tried to cover the poor thing with toilet paper and seat covers. I have a daughter. She's a teen now, but I remember when she was born in it being the best feeling in the world, so this made my heart drop. I immediately grabbed the baby and nobody. noticed that she wasn't breathing. She was cold and almost a purple color. I took her the sink

and tried my best to run some warm water on her and clean her up, and I did my best with CPR. I was so worried that I was going to hurt her or that I was too late, but she finally started crying. I was relieved, but still in shock, as I held this baby with no sign of her mother. I picked her up and immediately ran to the front, asking Evan to grab towels from the kitchen as I grabbed the phone to call 911. When Evan came back, he looked as confused as I did at first. I wrapped the baby up the best I could and got her to stop crying. The woman that found her said she just opened the stall and saw her in there, but there was no one else in sight. She was the only person that had asked for the restrooms since the one.

woman in the hoodie. That's when it dawned on me that she probably looked the way she did because she was going into labor. But if so, she left without me even seeing her and how long was she in there? We didn't even hear someone, and believe me, labor is not a silent thing. With our location, the ambulance didn't arrive fast, but it also felt like an eternity, holding this baby, trying to comfort her, knowing that one of the first faces she's seen, she may never see again. With the ambulance and the police there,

they took our statements, and that's when I really started feeling awful. We didn't even see the car she was in. We didn't know where she was coming from, or where she was going. She could have been in a completely different state by this time. We did have camera set up, so we had to give that to the police, but unfortunately, the one inside was the only one that recorded. The one of the parking lot was live and didn't save, so we didn't have car information.

Before they left, the paramedic did tell me that the baby seemed fine, and that I most likely saved her life. I don't know if they ever found the mom. but I hope the girl is doing okay. After that, I took a CPR class, and I paid more attention to my customers and their comings and goings. This actually happened to me a few years ago. I started working at a local gas station part-time after high school.

I figured, if I'm staying home, I might as well do something productive and make my own money, too. Most shifts were at night, so they were either dead or full of drunks. But I usually worked with one other person so it wasn't too bad, especially when we had people get out of hand. I actually like it for the most part. On the slow nights, I let the neat freak in me come out,

and I start organizing the shelves better, so that everything is lined up right, not scattered around and piled up. There was one guy, Mark, that usually worked the night with me, and he would play music on his phone. So it wasn't completely silent, which was nice. One downfall, though, was that I didn't have a car anymore, as mine finally died on me, so I had to rely on rides from my parents, friends, or sometimes an Uber to get to places. Still, it was manageable, because I only lived a few miles away from my homes, so I could even walk there if I had to. I believe it was late September when this happened, because it wasn't too hot, but it had started getting cooler overnight.

I decided to walk to work since it was nice out, and my parents weren't home to take me anyways. It was a normal shift. Except it was also football season, so we were a bit busier before the games started. We were dead while it was on, and then we would get a quick burst of people at the end. As I'm ringing people up, I looked up to see my line, and I noticed a guy in basketball shorts, socks with sandals on, and a shirt that said something about the gun show. Hyroll, am I right?

He was looking right at me and smiling, so... I just smiled back and continued working on the line. After a few, I looked back and noticed the line wasn't going down, so I called for Mark to come up and help. Sandel Guy was up next, and I noticed he had one of those tall cans of tea and nothing else. And he was still smiling, so I just said, I'm sorry you had to wait so long just for this.

Without taking his eyes off of me, He said, Oh, it's all right, sweetie, as long as I get to see your beautiful smile. I haven't really dated much, nor have I had much experience in flirting, so I didn't really know how to react. Not to mention he had to be close to my parents' age, so I just made some weird chuckle sound and didn't say another word. He paid with a card.

I handed him his receipt without saying, another word to him, and he said, "'Gan'n't, sweetie, as he walked out. I didn't have time to process what happened, as I had a few more people in line, so I just continued until we cleared out again. When I was done, I was about to ask Mark to help me with something when he said,

"'Oh, sure, sweetie.' He was a nice guy. We never had problems with each other, so I knew he was teasing, but it snapped me back to that when I started laughing and asked. See, you saw that, too? Was that not weird? He said he thought the dude was weird, but the flustered side of me was adorable.

Funny to him, I didn't know what to say, and the guy was just off, so none of that was enjoyable. Our night went back to normal for a while. He was in the back again, as he did some of the bookwork, while I was in front messing with the shelves. We were kind of shouting back and forth about something that we were both really involved in when someone came in. I started walking back around the counter when I noticed it was Sandel Guy again. He noticed me, and he waved, so I waved back. And he started walking towards the coolers in the back.

I quickly made a comment to Mark about him being there and just waited for the dreadful checkout. He walked up to the counter and said, I forgot to get gas. If that was the case, why did he walk to the back? I just smiled and rang him up. As I handed him in his receipt, he made sure to reach further in to touch my hand and said, I'm glad I decided to stop here tonight,

and smiled as he shook my hand. My hand was limp because I was not. interested in this at all. At this point, Mark had walked out from the back and said, Hey, Kate, my part's done. I'll take over. Thank God. I pulled my arm back real quick and dashed to the back and waited. I didn't hear another word from the guy, but I heard the bell on the door, and then Mark walked back to the back. He said when I turned around, the guy cocked his head like He was trying to look at my ass when he walked in front of his view. He said that when he noticed this, he grabbed his candy and dashed out the door.

Who does that right in front of people? Anyways, the rest of the night was okay. We had some lady come in singing and got Mark to sing, so that was funny. We were having a good time. It was getting close to closing, so Mark had taken the trash out back so we could smoke, and I was up front again, reading a magazine. To my surprise, Sandals walks in again. It had to show on my face that I was not okay with this,

but he again immediately smiled and was looking around quickly like he was trying to find something. That's when he grabbed another candy bar and said, For you, Catherine Lee, I can't stay away. Can I give you a ride home so we can talk? I was shocked. My name badge says Kate. I don't go by Catherine or my middle name, so how would he have known that?

I didn't know how to reply, so I just said, No, thanks, I have a ride. To which he said, but you walked here, right? How would he have known that? I just told him I had a ride, and he would not stop, saying he wanted to get to know me more and take care of me. I, remind you, was around 19 years old, and this guy could have been my father.

I tried cutting him off to ask him if he was going to purchase anything when he tried to reach for my hand again, and I pulled back. At this point, Mark walked back in right as he started pleading. Mark immediately walked over to the guy telling him that he needed to leave. He started shouting as he was being pushed out that he'll wait for me. Mark locked the door and made sure I was okay, but I was just more shaken up than anything. He had me doing some other things from there, like more organizing, stalking anything that was empty and mopping while he watched the door. He would unlock the door to let people in and then lock it again.

At closing, he was finishing the last things, so I had pulled out my phone and, opened up Facebook, when I noticed I had a friend request. It was Sandals Guy. That's when I figured out where he knew my name from, and also realized that my address was on there. I told Mark about this, and he suggested that he take me home. I didn't refuse, either. As we left, I was looking around to see if he was waiting,

but I never saw anyone. As he was driving, he tried to loosen up the tension, and joke with me, but I think we were both worried about it still. Once we got to my place, the lights were on, so I knew my parents were still up, thankfully, and I noticed Mark was still out there when I had gone in and locked the door. I thought it was just to make sure I got in okay. After I was in, I changed clothes and went to get something to eat, and there was a knock on the door. It was the cops.

They were explaining that there was a report of a suspicious person and gave a description and vehicle of the person. You know it, it was the same guy. So, I had to explain to my parents and the cops what happened. The cops said they would drive around a few times to make sure he didn't come back, and thankfully he didn't. But they did tell us that if he did come back, to call them again. and unfortunately there was little they could do since he hadn't actually done anything. The next time I worked, though, Mark explained what had happened. He said he noticed a car following us, but he didn't want to say anything and scare me.

After I got inside, he saw the truck turn the corner onto my road, so he got out of his car and noticed it was the same guy as he was driving by. He said he thinks he recognized him too as he started to speed up, so he had called the cops to report it for us. I was so incredibly thankful for what he did, too. Thankfully, we never saw the guy again, so hopefully he got the hint. But you can bet that I did a lot of cleanup on my Facebook as well. I was lucky enough to work at Walmart for four years. These are a few experiences I've had just from those few years.

I started working there in the evenings, usually noon to 9 p.m. or as late as 3 p.m. to midnight. The first one I recall was closer to when I started, which is why it was so memorable. I was a cashier, and eventually also worked in customer service. So I was all over the front end. It was my first job. so I took it seriously, and I was proud of it, too. I did a great job, at least according to my reviews. I was polite, friendly, and fast at ringing people up.

I got a few people that I would call my regulars, some of them that price matched, if that tells you how long ago this was, and extreme couponing. Some of them were definitely unbearable, the ones that are unorganized and nitpicky on the order you ring every, everything up and bag them, but I dealt with each one as best I could. One lady, though, made it to where I cringed any time someone pulled out their binder of coupons afterwards.

She came in probably every two weeks with a small child in the basket part of the cart, not in the front where you would normally see a kid. He was holding an old tablet that was not in good condition. The screen was spiderwebbing in one corner. It looked like the plastic frame was splitting apart too, but he was still watching or playing something on it, with the volume on full blast, too. He hardly looked up from it. His legs were pulled up towards him, probably because he didn't have room, as this did not stop his mom from filling the cart up with the items. Not just dry food, but raw meats and produce, too.

The lady was always very organized, as she laid down. her items on the belt, she made sure to tell people behind her she was going to be a while, and they usually just left my lane. If you reached over to grab a different item, she would flip. She would yell slightly to say, stop or don't, or give you some kind of lecture about doing items in order, but without ever making eye contact with you. She would keep looking down at the floor or her purse or something. So I learned, and I kept everything in order and bagged as she requested. I never really had any more of an issue, other than that, so my co-worker teased that I was her favorite.

However, that would soon change. She came in as normal, the kid is covered in food, playing on his tablet, mom is organizing the items on the belt. I picked up two packs of cookies and the coupon on it, that was a buy-one get one, when I noticed the coupon had expired by three days. When I looked up, I told the woman I wouldn't be able to accept it since it expired, and she yelled, What?

And immediately snatched it from my hand. She looked at it, told me I was wrong, and to try it again. I again, apologized, and told her there was nothing to try as it was expired, so we couldn't accept it. She began arguing about what day it was, telling me that my register obviously had the wrong date. I again had to explain that wasn't possible, and even showed her the date on my phone to prove it. From there, she lost it. She started screaming about how I was incompetent and a liar,

and that Walmart's brainwashing had finally gotten to me. At this point, I called for a manager. I'd only been there for around six months, but this was the most confrontation I had come across, and I didn't know how to handle it. Thankfully, the manager's podium was within my view, so they could see the look on my face and started coming over quickly. When they arrived, she immediately directed her anger to the manager saying I was refusing to take her coupon. I tried explaining the situation to the manager.

When this lady pulled a steak knife from her purse, My manager immediately called security on the walkies and tried calming her down. She was pointing it at us, screaming that we were just trying to ruin her and cause her to lose her kid. This whole time, I kid you not, this kid has not looked up once. He continued to play on his tablet. He was not phased at all, which, sadly, made me feel like he was used to this from her. At this point, the whole store seemed quiet. but her screaming and my manager trying to calm her down.

There were people all around recording and taking pictures, which only seemed to make her angrier. After what felt like forever, she tried to run towards my manager with the knife raised, when another customer saw this and bravely tackled her to the ground. The knife slid away from her and my manager put his shoe on it to hold it there. Thankfully, two cops walked in as this was occurring and quickly took up. over. This whole time, again, the kid has not looked up. The cop actually had to come up and grab the kid

out of the cart before he even looked up. The mom was already outside, but I would expect a kid like him to be crying or scared, but he didn't even ask for his mom. It was actually sad. I don't know what happened to her son, but I think CPS showed up to take the kid. These next two, for my late night shifts, maybe not necessarily dangerous people, but definitely ones that I wouldn't approach on my own. This first one is the lady my co-workers nicknamed Gucci Grandma. We called her that, because she always came in around midnight with the flashiest clothes on. Typically, it was a really tight pencil skirt, heels or knee-high boots, and some kind of shirt, and she had to have a dozen of those fuzzy half-jackets.

At this point, I swear, I've seen one in each color. Some with different patterns or sequins, and she had those giant sunglasses on. As I mentioned, it was midnight. Her hair was also a sight. It was shorter and gray, but it was usually pulled up in a tall bun, think beehive style.

Then she always had, bright red lipstick and very pink cheeks, like way too much blush. Then in the rare occasion she takes off her sunglasses, she also has eye shadow on to the extreme. So while her look is pretty out there, that's not the weirdest part. She always comes in with what looks like one of those cheap children's toy strollers, with something wrapped in blankets sitting in it. We couldn't tell if it was. was a real child at first until one of my friends in the fitting room area saw her swiftly shushing

something and grabbing it. When she lifted it up, it turned out to be a baby doll. But the baby doll was creepy as hell. It looked really old. Like it was covered in dirt or soot. Its hair was a mess entangled and it was definitely not making any noises. but she kept swinging it and shushing it like it was alive. My friend tried not to make eye contact and just kept working on her stuff when she walked up to her

and apologized for all the noise, saying, She gets cranky around this time. My friend said she didn't know what to do but smile and say it's okay. We saw her many times after this shopping, browsing aisles, talking to the doll, and even taking pictures with it. It became a normal thing, as weird as it looked, but the last time we could account for her, she came in looking rough.

Her hair was a mess. It wasn't in her normal bun, but was frizzy and standing up like she stuck a fork in a socket. Her jacket was really dirty. Her shirt was stained. Her skirt was torn on the side and she was barefoot. She still had her glasses on, but her lipstick was almost gone.

all this, but she still pushed her stroller with the baby doll. We just stared for a while when I decided to ask if she was okay. We may have teased in the past, but I actually felt bad at this point. When I approached her to ask, she shushed me, patted me on the head and whispered that everything would be all right. She left after buying a package of Band-Aids, and we never saw her again. I don't know whatever happened to her, but I do kind of miss seeing her, and I hope nothing bad happened. This last one was more odd than anything. We were just starting to switch over to the night shifts, so around 10,

and we had a ton of people in checkout all at once, so I was asked to stay a bit longer to help bring it down. I didn't pay much attention to the actual people in line, because I was just, ready to go, but noticed the customer stopped talking to me as well. I soon learned why as a cart pulled up and slammed down to huge boxes of diapers. It made me jump, and I looked to see who the jerk was when I saw some middle-aged balding guy in a trench coat putting stuff on the belt, with a full-grown woman sitting in the cart. Not only was she sitting there, But she had her hair and two side pigtails. She was wearing an adult diaper with a weird two-to-style skirt and a sports bra.

Not only this, but she also had a pacifier in her mouth. I didn't know what to say, or how to react, so I just kept ringing up their items, diapers, baby bottles, wipes, teething rings, and a camera. Those I remembered specifically. The woman just stared at me with empty eyes, and when he noticed me staring at her, he said something like, Isn't she precious? And rubbed her cheek. She didn't budge, didn't flinch, didn't smile, etc.

I had just continued with the purchase and gave him his receipt. As they strolled away, she smiled at me and he didn't even look back. That was creepy as hell. But thankfully, I never saw them again. So, I have to keep this very general, but I have to share it. It's a long post, and I'm a first-time poster, so please be kind. Also, please keep in mind that I was 22 years old, and not even out of grad school when all this went down.

I'm a therapist, and while I was in grad school, I began an internship that provided group and individual counseling to a halfway house. This halfway house was run by a church, and their well-meaning congregation, but was a bit of a mess. After several months of working with them, I got a call from the house parent that said none of the residents were willing to attend group sessions if their new housemate would be involved. evolved. The house parent made some comments about a typical house drama, so I wasn't too worried about it, and just told them to go ahead and bring the residence to the clinic, and that I would work with the new housemate privately to figure out what was going on. I met with the new housemate first, and they seemed a bit reserved and untrusting, but nice. When I asked about issues in the house, they gave a small, curved smile and raspy, chuckle, scoff.

I pushed them a bit further, but all they would say was that the others were scared. We ended our session, agreeing to meet weekly. I had the group session next, a new housemate not included, to get the feel with what was going on from the others. When I walked in, I could tell that there was something seriously wrong. Their faces looked terrified. Their general appearance were disheveled, and they were all looking anxiously around at each other. I asked what was going on and no one answered. They asked me what I thought of the new housemate, and I redirected back to them.

The anxious eye contact continued. I asked again and reminded them that change in growth could not occur without honesty. Finally, one of them started talking, and here is the story from that perspective. We were told that we were getting a new housemate, that we weren't supposed to have much interaction with, and that they wouldn't be there long. No one would give us any info about why the new housemate would be getting the only private bedroom or why they wouldn't be participating in class or group activities. They just told us to leave them be. This went on for two weeks.

Then they started letting the new housemate hang out and participate in things. They would make some strange comments that would make us uncomfortable, but we would just ignore them. They wouldn't sleep. They would always leave their bedroom after they'd. They thought everyone else was asleep and go into our rooms to check if we were actually asleep by holding their fingers under our nose. Then they would leave and walk through the backwoods. They would always be quiet in the morning and we would tell the house parent but would be

told to be quiet and not talk about this with anyone. One night, after dinner, we turned on the investigation discovery channel and new housemate was watching with us. A few minutes into the episode, they got up and walked into the woods. They usually did this super late at night. A few minutes later, we heard it. Their name on that episode. We couldn't be sure, so we went to the computer and checked,

and we saw that they had tortured and murdered several women. Now, there's more details to the story that I can't share. but needless to say, my new client was a convicted serial killer that raped, tortured, and murdered at least three women in our area. This person was being let out on a technicality that affected several of the murders they were charged with. So they got released early on the condition that they would live under supervision. This particular halfway house was being paid to hold this person. until a more appropriate structure was in place. After I had done my own research and confirmed,

I went to my supervisor and professor, and the contract with that particular church and halfway house was terminated. I sing on the cake. The next year of my life was absolute hell. As I was stalked, my home was invaded, my dogs injured my house and car vandalize, and survival items that didn't belong to me were found in my attic, that made it look like someone had been living there. I would come home, and the house would look different than the way that I left it.

The police came over to my house a dozen times throughout that year, and they did nothing. So, my family hired a security team and installed cameras. Six months later, a perpetrator was arrested on my property, and eyewitnesses and evidence linked him to the crimes. Perpetrator had been out of prison for just over a year on rape and kidnapping charges. Guess who was from the same small hometown as the man arrested? My client. An edit. Here are some answers to a lot of the questions.

This incident was just over ten years ago. and the stalker is still in jail. I had just bought the house the week prior to all this starting, so I couldn't move somewhere else. No money. Several friends offered to let me stay with them, but police and the psychiatrist believe that the stalker would follow me because he was already fixated on me.

I have no idea if that's how it worked, but I listened to them. My brother, dad, and several friends rotated, staying with me for several weeks. There was no evidence of a connection between the stalker and the serial killer, but my brain sometimes begs me not to believe that. I lived in that house alone for another three years, and then got married and lived there for two years after with my husband. I never felt at rest in that home, obviously. We were in a new home now, and with the help of lots of dogs, cameras, home security, and a really good therapist, I'm doing great, though I do have severe night terrors from the PTSD.

The reason I was told that they weren't stopping the serial killer from walking was because they were about to be transferred, and the house didn't want any big scenes or drama when the person was going to leave. whatever. In terms of who this person is, I left out and changed up a bit to major details that would be easily Googled to find out who they are. So, happy hunting.

This all started when my son was around seven. I remember one night we stopped somewhere to pick up dinner, and I let him choose where and what he wanted. When we got home and got situated to eat, eat. He thanked me for letting him choose, and then asked me if I remembered when I was a kid and getting to choose what was for dinner. I said yes, and mentioned that I usually chose what I

wanted for my birthday dinner, much like he got to choose last year. Then he asked me if I remembered when he was a grown-up and let his kid choose for dinner. I just chuckled, and said, you haven't been a grown-up yet, buddy, but you can definitely do the same when you are. He shook his head and told me I was wrong, though. He mentioned that he was a grown-up and that he let his son choose dinner. I didn't know how to respond, so I just stared at him for a minute. At that point, he said his name was Timothy and that his son's name was Jake, that he lived a long time ago. I was speechless.

I thought maybe he was just pretending and had this crazy story that he'd planned out, so I just dropped it from there and ate my dinner. We had more situations like this over time. I will say me and his mother split up, but we are on good terms. She is still in school to become a nurse, so I have full custody over him. She took him for about a week over summer vacation, and she had some questions when they were. turned. While he went to play, we were talking, and she asked me if I had watched ghost shows or

something with him in the room. I told her that there weren't any in particular that I could remember, and that I tried to avoid watching anything that could be potentially scary in front of him. She began telling me that something was brought up about what happens when you die, and he mentioned that not everyone becomes a ghost, and sometimes you get to be a new person. She then mentioned the names Timothy and Jake again. I was surprised, so I told her about the night that he mentioned it to me as well. We both thought it was odd, but we had no explanation for it. So we agreed to just heavily monitor what he watched or listened to,

to see if we could figure out where he may have gotten this from. From then on, as I'm watching all the shows that he would watch, They had no names similar to those and nothing about ghosts or reincarnation in them. I will say at one point, I had moved into an apartment and I didn't have cable or internet installed yet. Until then, my son just watched movies that we had or whatever was on the local channels. At least I had an antenna. While I was making breakfast for us, he asked to watch TV, so I told him that I would be right in to help him. As I wrap up what I'm doing, I walk into the living room to see he's already got it on,

and he's watching some old Western-style show. It was a Sunday, so I know there wasn't much on in ways of cartoons, but this is what he stopped on. Not to mention, he was fixated on it. Legs crossed, chin resting on his hands, just watching. I went and asked him, "'Nothing good on?' and he said, without looking over at me,

I love this show. I was confused, because we've never watched this before. I certainly haven't because I don't like those kinds of shows. So I called that out and said, You've never watched this before. To which he responded, I used to watch this all the time when I was Timothy.

I didn't know how to respond, so again I just stood there and watched him. When I finally came back to reality, I decided to test him and ask him what the show was about. He told me the name of the show and explained it as best as a seven-year-old can about what was happening. The character's names, all of it. I was surprised. I had no explanation as to why he would know all of this, but since he found this and since I have installed cable and internet, this is what he watches on Sundays. I was worried about him watching it with some of the typical violence,

but he didn't seem phased by it, and he never acted it out or even wanted toy guns. So his mom and I agreed to just let him watch it. One of the last occurrences that we came across was when we went to the park. He was going to his moms for the weekend, and I usually drop him off there. But she was running late, so we decided to go to the park while we waited. I pushed him on the swing some, helped him across the monkey bars, the usual. At one point, his mother called saying that she was on her way, so we started walking back to my car.

I was still on the phone, and I didn't notice at first that he had stopped holding my hand. I stopped and looked back to see him staring into the entrance of a cemetery. It was a small one, an older with not many headstones in it from what I could tell. I told his mom I would meet her at her place, hung up and went to my son and asked what was wrong. He said, I know this place. Again, he's not been to any funerals,

nor has he known anyone who's died. But we also didn't know anyone in the cemetery as it was by my new place. So I asked, what makes you think that? And he flat out said, I was buried here. What the hell? So, he started walking in, and I honestly wanted to stop him, but I also wanted to know what he was going to do, so I just followed him. He led me to an old headstone towards the back, and I froze.

Sure enough, the headstone said, Timothy, beloved son, father, brother. How? How would he have known any of this? As terrified as I was, though, I had to know. So I asked him, How did Timothy die, buddy? I shot myself. I picked him up, and as I carried him out of that cemetery, he began crying.

I didn't know what to say or do, so I think I just said something like, you're okay now, and I just hugged him tight. I was at a loss of words, but, On the way to his moms, we stopped for ice cream, and he started cheering up. I told his mom about it, too, letting her know what had happened, and she flipped out, of course. It took some convincing, but I think I finally got her to trust me that I didn't let him watch anything about suicide. Also, after this, he stopped mentioning his past life. I don't know if that was like Timothy accepting what had happened and passing on, but it's still...

confounds me. Out of curiosity, I did try to find a Timothy that lived within that time and found someone with a son named Jake, and that's where I stopped. I didn't want to find out any more information, and I'm leaving it at that. I hope my son has completely forgotten about it, too, and is not being haunted by this anymore, because hearing it from a child his age, that was gut-wrenching. This happened a few years ago. I'm a female in my late 30s now, and I love trucking.

My dad was a trucker when I was a kid, and I loved riding with him, and sitting in the cab, so I knew I wanted to do the same. I also loved the idea of being able to go across the country for my job, so it was always like a never-ending vacation. I'm married, with no children, And this was part of the reason. I don't see that working out for us, especially since my husband actually does this with me.

So this was perfect for us. On longer trips, we would take turns driving. He would drive at night and I during the day. He loved being able to watch the birds and other wildlife when driving, and the different sights along the way, but then also to be able to enjoy the night breeze while I slept. I'm also one of those people that listens to podcasts on murders, mysteries, and unexplained events, as well as things like forensic files.

So yes, I may be a bit paranoid about some people, but I think that also comes with being a smaller female. However, I also think that makes me more aware of my surroundings, and cautious of strangers. I've run into those truck stops where some of them are just really gross older guys that wants to hit on me or cat call, but I don't let it bother me. I always have a knife or my pepper spray for protection, and I'm lucky enough that my husband is right there with me if things were ever to get out of hand.

There was one instance in particular that did freak me out a bit, and I still think about it at times. As mentioned, it's normal to get hit on by random truckers, but this guy was by far the most memorable. I got out of the truck and stretched. It was during the day, so my husband was dozing in and out, so I just went in to the stop by myself, which is not unusual.

I noticed a couple of guys sitting at a table outside, side of the entrance talking. No big deal. I did notice, though, as I was walking to the door, that one of them kept staring at me. Whatever. I just keep walking. While I'm in the store browsing, I just felt like I was being watched. So I kept looking around, not seeing anything really.

Because I can't shake this feeling, I started heading to the restrooms. The place was set up with the entrance and exit doors on each end of the building, and the restrooms were towards the center and the back. So as I round the corner towards them, one of the guys sitting outside comes from the other side and causes me to jump a bit. Not to mention, his appearance screams danger. He was wearing overalls, an old stained and torn shirt, and had maybe... Eight teeth? He smirks. He puts his hands up and says,

Sorry to start, are you, missy? I smiled and said it's okay, and tried to go to the stall when he seriously leaned against the doorframe, blocking the damn doorknob. So I started to say, excuse me, or something, when he asked, where are you from? I definitely wasn't going to be honest, so I told him, I'm local, excuse me. Apparently, he didn't like that, because then he moved completely to block the door

and started questioning me like, I've never seen you around here before, who you contracting with. At this point, I was just annoyed, and his breath smelled like spoiled milk and feet. So I started turning around to walk away when he grabbed my arm. I turned back and he said, It's kind of rude of a lady to ignore a man that's talking to her. To which I said, Well, grabbing a lady's arm is not a way to get them to talk to you either. And shook my arm free.

I ended up not buying anything and started fast walking out the door. I noticed his friends were no longer sitting there, but I started reaching for my pepper spray just in case. As I'm walking back to my truck, I had to pass by the side of another truck when he came right up behind me and grabbed my hips like he was trying to pull me back or pick me up. Thankfully, he didn't have time to react to me turning around,

elbowing him, and spraying him in the face. He just screamed some expletives, at me as he tried to wipe his face, so I just made a mad dash to my truck. Thankfully, my husband heard the man screaming and woke up about that time, so he was starting to get out of the truck, but I motioned him to stay, and then I got it, and we took off. I told him what had happened, and he was upset that he wasn't there, but I wasn't mad at him, nor do I fault him for it. That was the worst it's ever gotten.

and the first and only time I've ever had to use the pepper spray. He does tell me to wake him up if he's sleeping, if I do have to stop anywhere, just to be safe, and I have no problems with that. Now, to make things worse about this situation, though, a few years later, we ended up making another delivery to a location near the stop. This is one that I cannot forget because of what happened, So every time I see that welcome to specific state sign, I shiver a bit.

We get to our destination and we went to a nearby diner to eat. While we were there, the TV was playing the local news and they mentioned that someone had been arrested or captured for a kidnapping. Something told me to pay attention to this, so I started watching it. and as I did, my stomach dropped. I saw a very familiar guy in the mugshot. It was the same guy. He had the creepy eyes, like they were just piercing me through that television. Apparently, he actually tried abducting a girl,

and as he tried pulling her into his truck, she managed to break free and was able to get help. I went to my phone really quick to get more info, and apparently his ex-wife was interviewed as well and mentioned that she left him because of his extremely abusive behavior. The kicker to all this was his ex-wife and the victim looked just like me. Small build, medium-length dark brown hair. I flipped. I told my husband about it and he agreed.

The similarities were way too close to be a coincidence. I'm so thankful it wasn't worse, but I'm also glad the other girl was able to get away. I also hope those were his only attempts, and that they got him so he couldn't be successful. Overall, just be careful, and stay aware of your surroundings because you just never know. To put you in the context, this story happened a couple months ago when I was on my way home. Typically, every day of the week, my mom or my dad, come pick me up from school. Yes, even if I'm 17, and I'm from France, so driving below 18 years old, which is the majority there is pretty much illegal. Sometimes my parents would go on a business trip or a vacation, and I would

have nobody to pick me up, and I would have to take the bus, which didn't a really, annoy me that much, I like to play music and think during the ride. Basically, when class ends, I would walk with my friends to a place where all the buses gather, and you can choose which one to take. I think everybody has a bus station in the city that they live in, but I don't know why that day I chose to do something different, to try a different trajectory from a different bus stop that would take me less time to go home.

To have access to that bus stop, you had to go through a narrow street at the end of which you would arrive to the parking lot of an old block of flats, with a lot of little shops beside them. You have to know that it's a very commercial and busy place by day with a lot of traffic. I had my headphones on, so I wasn't really paying attention, but I was walking by the pavement when a foreign blue car went straight toward me.

It took me a second to realize what was going on, and I took a step back and went the other way, quickly. I didn't really pay attention to what just happened, because, you know, I thought, I was a weird guy who drank a little too much for the afternoon. a piero as we say in France so it didn't surprise me so much I would just change the pavement and pursue my walk two minutes had passed and I started having a weird feeling like someone was looking at me or following me

and I didn't feel well but I pursued my walk because I had almost arrived to the bus stop Suddenly, I saw a blue car, which was running at a walking pace right by my side. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was the same blue car that had practically hit me a few minutes ago. Then, the window of the car rolled down, revealing the face of the blue car creep. I didn't really understand. I'm literally so clueless.

He aimed at me and said, Hello. I didn't answer and kept going as if I didn't hear him. I had finally arrived to the bus stop, and this creepy guy was gone. You know he's not gone, because otherwise I wouldn't write this. But I started to feel the exact same feeling I felt earlier when I was walking. I didn't really feel comfortable.

Once again, I had that odd feeling of someone looking at me. And I wasn't really reassured, but I told myself that it was okay and that it was just an impression. I would love to have the story end there, but it wasn't just an impression. When I saw the blue car park right in front of me, I immediately knew that I had to go somewhere else, somewhere where he could not harm me in public. I was thinking that I noticed a small bakery with lots of elderly moms and their children,

and I thought it would be a perfect hiding spot. So I went, and I pretended to wait in line. I scanned my field of vision to see if he was still there, but I didn't see him. Though I still had that bad feeling that someone was there somewhere hiding and waiting for me to come. come out of the bakery. So I kept looking, and I saw a big black truck next to the bus stop, and thought, he must be hiding behind it, waiting for me. And my instinct did not betray me. I could see the topmost of his head protruding from the truck. At this point, I couldn't really escape. If I chose to run, he would pursue me with his car, and I couldn't stay in the bakery forever.

So I thought of a plan. I knew that I had a bus at 12.07 p.m. and it was 12.05. I would wait in the bakery until I saw the bus arrive, and I would run to the bus, so he wouldn't have time to get to me. And that's what I did, and fortunately, I succeeded. But I did see him get into his car, and that was when I saw his face and body and entirely. He looked really skinny. A lot of teeth were missing. I know this, because he kept smiling at me with that creepy special face that only creeps know the secret of. He hadn't

much hair either, and he looked very filthy, and whatever he wanted to do with me, did not reassure me at all. I put my hoodie on and tried to look at the window of the bus to see if he was still there, but I didn't notice anything. Once again, I would love for the story to end there, but no, still not finished with this guy, apparently. I live near a hospital, and to have access to it, there is a climb and a traffic light just before. The bus I was in had already passed the traffic light and was at the top of the climb when I saw his car and his gaze at the traffic light. He was looking for me. I thought to myself, well, I'm in deep crap, and I really had to move my ass and find a good plan so that when I got off the bus, he wouldn't see me, follow me,

and get me. As soon as I got off the bus, I had to run, and I did, hugging the wall of fears that he would see me. I saw his car at the intersection of the bus stop, and I thought. I saw his car at the intersection of the bus stop, and I hid behind a four-wheel drive parked in front of me. I hid there while waiting to see where he was going, not seeing me. He must have told himself that I was still in the bus as he continued to follow the bus. I could see blue car creep pulling away in the distance following the bus. I ran home, and when I crossed my gate, I stood in front of my front door for more than ten minutes.

I was shocked by what just happened, and I asked myself the famous question of, if he had seen me behind the four-wheeler, what would have happened to me? His strategy was actually to follow the bus and watch everyone who got off in hopes that I was one of the people, so then he could block me with his car and get me.

This whole situation, it really scared the hell out of me, and now, each time I walk, by this bus stop area, I get chills down my spine. I always have the fear that this guy is going to reappear. I think I'm clearly traumatized by blue cars

at this point. Every time I see one, I just can't help but blench and stress. So, dear blue car creep, let's not meet ever again. This next story is actually two stories, but I'm going to go ahead and read them as if they were one because they're from the same person and kind of the same thing.

So here we go. So what I'm about to tell you is based off of my own experience and understanding of what I have been made to understand by these beings. My intentions are not meant to sway any beliefs you may have as our spiritual growth is a journey of self. During my first encounter, I was meditating in order to concede. with the energies around me, both in the earth and all around me. I was able to see the whole of my being form blue, white roots of energy,

and spread throughout the ground beneath me and connect to all living things around me. I could see their life energies surrounding them, being connected by webs of light between all things. I could feel my consciousness bleed out into the roots and webs, and I was able to connect to them and become one with them. I could feel their life within me and my life within them. I became one with all living things around me, and I wanted to connect with more than that of the earth.

So I stretched my consciousness out into the sky and let myself bleed out into the cosmos. Within seconds, I saw a white hole of energy open up in front of me. It was a circle of white light, light surrounded by a golden aura, and inside this I witnessed three beings standing in front of some sort of large, flowing metallic object. Whatever they were, everything was white. I could not see a floor, walls, or a ceiling.

It was just absolute white. I immediately had the sense of wanting to go inside this portal, for lack of a better word, but I didn't know how. In that moment, it seemed like they had heard me, because next, I could feel their arms and hands around me, and I could feel them separating my spiritual self from my physical self. When I was there with them, I had lost all sense of time. It felt as though there was a weird, disorienting sense of being somewhere

where you can't tell if it's day or night, and you don't know what time it is. These beings helped me to orient myself, and they made me feel more comfortable. They told me that they were the keepers. They were tall, wore elegant robes of gold and white with strange shoulder apparatuses. They had large bulbous heads with pointed chins.

They had large dark eyes, long arms, and long necks. They told me that I was in their dimension. which was higher in existence than ours, and are able to insert themselves into our realm through the object that I saw. It was large, silvery, metallic, and it looked like it was flowing. It had a strange colored light orb flowing, and it could react to those beings' movements like it was their own. I asked many questions, but these answers were the most important to me, and so I'd

feel like I should share them with you. What humans call God is the absolute consciousness of all sentient beings. Living through the past, present, and future, what we call life is accidental and therefore sacred. These beings know that, and they've been watching us since our beginning. They have introduced ideas to our ancestors in the hopes that they would use the knowledge to further our species evolution and to take the next step towards our true potential. There is no divine creator.

There is only the chaos of the universe itself on an endless cycle of birth and rebirth. The universe does not have a beginning or an end and will always die and be reborn. It always has and always will. Death is a human construct, used to help understand our cycle of being within this universe. When our bodies physically die, our consciousness then leaves our physical form and rejoins the source of all beings. And our pure form of consciousness can then choose another form to incarnate through space and time.

Based on the vibrational state of our physical being, our spiritual resonance at the time of our death, meaning if we were good or not, it determines whether we ascend or descend into our next cycle of life. And that's where the notion of heaven and hell throughout many of the world's religions comes from and have been completely misunderstood. They are simply higher and lower dimensions of existence.

This is a never-ending cycle of being for the sole purpose of gaining knowledge and understanding of self in order to achieve the highest level of consciousness. If anyone has had a similar experience, please let me know. I would love to discuss these things further. Despite hateful comments from the, hardcore skeptics, here I am, still posting my own experiences as I experience them. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, or change anyone's belief.

I am simply telling my experience, so take it with a grain of salt, like the kids say. This experience took place during the night and within my subconscious. Call it a dream, a vision, or whatever. This felt different. It started as I was sitting in my living room with my wife, and I don't remember how they appeared, but when they were here, they looked almost like a hologram, a light blue, semi-solid hologram. I slowly became extremely happy when they were here, almost like I was seeing an old friend for the first time in years, and they even matched my happiness. The tallest being looked down at me and began to smile at me, and I could definitely notice a visible relief of tension in their posture, almost as if they were worried how I would respond to their showing up, and now finally became relaxed and relieved. They were one of the same tall, long-necked, gray-skinned, wide-headed beings that I had met during one of my previous experiences.

There was even a second smaller being, barely taller than our coffee table, not even four foot tall. They looked like your typical gray, except I didn't get a good look at them. They looked like they had a large forehead with prominent eyes, but I was more focused on the taller being that I had met before. It definitely feels like one of the three beings I met last time. The main being was tall, almost two. our ceiling, and we have an eight-foot-tall ceiling. It had a long neck, skinny body, long arms, round eyes in an oval outer shape. Their eyes did not look like ours.

They had golden-brown speckle coloration in them. They weren't the dark color that I saw last time. They had pupils. The whites of their eyes, like we have, forget the name, and even saw their clothing. Their clothes looked like a tight-fitting. yet baggy jumpsuit robe type thing. I get the feeling that they looked brown, almost beige or tan-colored. Their skin was smooth with a rough-looking texture to it.

Their head was a little more of a rounded mantis shape with an angular chin. They had a human-like mouth, and they had teeth and a tongue. I saw them both when they smiled down at me. It was a very peaceful encounter, and I'm happy. Thank you very thankful it happened. If anyone has had anything similar happen to them, I'd love to share our experiences. Love and Light, my friends. I used to do overnight IT work for a handful of hospitals in a small town in the Midwest that,

if I mentioned it, you would have no idea where it was. That said, I'm just going to say that it was in Nebraska and leave it at that. It was contract work, and it was outsourced to a third-party company. I was just out of my two-year degrees, so I took the first job that I got offered. As previously stated, that first job happened to be a contract to hire a position doing the third shift help desk for a group of hospitals. Basically, I would be expected to be at one of the sites and answer support tickets for this main site. as well as the satellite offices if they came in, which they rarely did. For the most part, I would just spend all of my hours at the main hospital

and sit in the IT room from midnight to 8 in the morning, doing very little. There would be the occasional printer that I would have to reset or fix for the overnight nurses, but really, it was a simple job. Now, I shouldn't have to tell you this, but hospitals are typically haunted. And I don't mean like, oh, that's spooky haunted. No, I mean straight up haunted by the spirit to the people that died in those rooms and cannot pass on. Honestly, I could probably sit here and type a short novel of all the events that happened, but I think it's best to go with the ones that seriously spooky.

There was one night where I got a ticket for one of the aforementioned printers, which, honestly, were more hassle than they were worth. I got called down to help one of the station nurses connect her system to the main printer because it kept on giving her an error. I got down there, she tells me what exactly the printer is doing, and asks me how long it'll take. I tell her that it'll just be a few moments, and she informs me that she needs to go use the restroom. I tell her that would be fine and that I should have it done by the time she gets back. She walks away, and I get to work. After a few moments, I get that weird feeling that someone is staring at me. You know the feeling, that spine chill.

I shrug it off and keep trying to get that. get the drivers installed for the printer, when I hear someone faintly say, Excuse me. I look up and I see an elderly patient standing in the doorway to their room and staring at me, which honestly wasn't that big of a deal.

I was sitting at the nurse station, and I was the only person there. I looked up and, as politely as I could, said, my apologies, I'm just here to help with the computer. The nurse on duty just went to the restroom and we'll be right back. I'll let her know that you need help as soon as she gets back. I say this.

She smiles at me with her wrinkly, beaming smile, and I think everything is copacetic between us. I sit back down and start back into getting the hunk of junk back to a functional state. After a few moments of me working with it, I get it to connect, and it starts spinning up as the spooler pulls the jobs. I patted myself on the back for another successful night and leaned back in the chair. I glanced back up to where the elderly lady was and saw that she had closed her door. As soon as I noticed this, the nurse on duty comes back.

I stand up, and I let her know that everything is working again, and that it looked like it wasn't going to cause her any more to. trouble. I then motioned toward the room where the patient was and informed her that the lovely lady needed some assistance. When I said this, her face literally went pale, and she asked me which room. I pointed to the room with the door closed and told her that one. She then asked me to describe the old woman. I laughed and told her that she had glasses, short white hair, looked to be in her 80s. As soon as I tell her this, she then shows me what it was that she was printing. It was paperwork that she needed to fill out for a recently deceased patient.

The picture of the patient was the woman that was standing in the doorway. She then tells me that this patient had passed away earlier that evening and that they had just cleared her room. Obviously, I thought she was pulling one over on me with the patient, and playfully told her to knock it off. She stared at me with a deadpan stare and then walked over to the room, opened the door and motioned for me to look inside. I reluctantly did,

and sure enough, it was empty. The room was sanitized, everything was clean, and the board was completely blank. Honestly, that kind of just ruined my night. I grabbed my laptop and went back to the, the IT closet. I didn't really want to deal with people after that one. Beyond that, and probably one of the other nights that scared the hell out of me, there was one evening where I was in the closet with one of my new co-workers that I was training. This was about a year later, after I had been

hired on full time, and I was actually training this person to be under me. I had already explained how things worked and he was just sitting there going through the HR video training. I was probably on Facebook, just waiting for a ticket to come in, so we had something to do. We were literally just sitting there in the quiet hum of the servers, when out of nowhere, the lights in the server room shut off. My mind immediately went into worst-case IT scenario. I thought the server room had lost power. which would have been bad.

The server room losing power means that the servers may shut off, and we have to manually check them all to make sure they turn back on with the emergency power, and that there are no errors. I look around and see that the server rack still has green lights on it, which meant that they were all good to go. I told the new guy to wait there, and I got up to go and see if the rest of the hospital had possibly lost power. When I got to the door, the light switch was off, like someone had legitimately turned it off.

I shrugged it off and flipped the switch back to on. The newbie asks me if everything is okay, and as soon as I start telling him that it was nothing, the lights seriously flip back off. I slowly turn around, turn them back on, and start to walk backwards toward the desk. and I seriously watched the light switch slowly move from the on position to the off position. It was like a really weak person was slowly pushing it down with one finger, just nudging it slightly until it was off. That was enough for me.

I told the new guy that we were taking lunch. He laughed and asked what was going on, and I told him that, at that exact moment, we were going to leave the server room and go down to the cafeteria to take a lunch. I had no idea what the hell kind of spirit was having fun with us that night, but I was not going to agitate it any further. And I just decided to let it have its way. We went down and we had lunch, then went back up to the server room.

When we got there, the lights were back on, and they didn't turn themselves off after that. And while that may not be creepy to some people, it seriously freaked me out, mostly because I was well aware of how haunted that hospital really was. I mentioned this story in a comment and was told that I should do a full write-up. So, here we go.

Sorry in advance if I'm not the best writer. All of this happened to, during my junior year of high school in New Mexico, USA, 2006-2007. My older brother had graduated the previous year and was still living with us as I started my junior year. My mom had met a man at some point, I don't remember exactly when,

and during the first few months of my junior year, she eloped with him. While she was eloping to her dream, beach wedding in Texas. The man was Texan with a thick accent. This will be important later. My brother assaulted me. I was tinkering with a dead computer tower.

He comes downstairs to see this and starts beating me. I get away and run upstairs with him trailing me. He pulled on and ripped my shirt while I was trying to get away from him. Somehow I did, and I barricaded myself. in my room. I called my boyfriend at the time who lived four hours away. He was immediately ready with guns and friends and on the road. I called my mom to tell her what happened and that I was leaving. I still had a few hours to wait, though, and I was terrified. I started calling friends to see who I could hang out with until my boyfriend arrived. I found a friend to help me for those few hours.

I don't remember how I got out of the house, nor do I remember the rest of that night. This started a trend of me missing a lot of school, and spending a lot of time with my boyfriend, avoiding my brother, and eventually my stepdad, who we will call Jim. A lot of the time between the assault from my brother and that next big event is really blurry.

I don't remember a lot and come to find out from my therapist later in life. This is because I apparently disassociate and didn't even know it. It's an additional defense mechanism to fight, flight, freeze. My brain is good at blocking out trauma. I don't remember much before the age of 13, and I've come to terms with not knowing why. Anyways, I digress. I do recall one piece of information. My mom spent weeks tracking down a shotgun that Jim had sold out of desperation.

It was a family heirloom or something. She tracked it down, bought it at a pawn shop, and gave it to him for Christmas of 2006. He cried when he opened it. He also ended up putting it against my mom's head, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Sometime in the spring semester, I was at my boyfriend's house, four hours away, when I get a call from my mom. She says that she knows I'm heading home soon, but to not come home because she's staying at a hotel. She explains that Jim assaulted her in front of his family, threw his phone at her head, which needed stitches, and held the shotgun to her head. He was arrested at the house, but his parents who witnessed the whole thing bailed him out.

So my mom went into hiding. I get home, well, to the hotel in a nearby town, and this is where my mom explains further that the assaults have been happening for a while. And it always happened when I was at my boyfriend's house and that she hid it. She also told me that Jim's sister stayed in the hotel with her for a day, or two. Not sure why. My mom and I planned to stay there for a bit until, I'm not really sure anymore. We told nobody where we were or what was going on. This was my mom's idea. My grades were suffering. Counselors had no idea what was happening with us, and I now realize how freaking stupid this was.

One night in the hotel, we were hanging out on our respective beds, watching TV, when the room phone between us rings. My mom mutes the TV, and we watch it ring, glancing at each other. We didn't answer. Instead, we let it finish, and my mom calls the front desk. The room was so quiet. I could hear the whole conversation, and I will never forget it. The front desk said,

Hello, how can I help you? My mom said, did I just get a phone call? Yes, you did. Was it from a man? Yes. Did he have a Texan accent? Yes. My mom then visibly shaken said,

Where did the call come from? To which front desk replied, another room in the hotel. My mom paused before saying, Call the police. Call the police? Yes, please, call the police. I don't remember exactly what happened after that phone call,

but I do remember hiding between the two beds on the floor with our old cat. We were on the first floor with our cars right outside the window. My mom said that this was to keep an eye on the door. them, but I now think this was also a dumb idea. We had no idea if he still had the shotgun or not, so we were just hoping he didn't know where we were. After what felt like forever, the police knocked on the door. The knock was so startling, but so relieving when they announced that they were the cops.

He was arrested at the hotel, and we proceeded to find out a lot of things. He was trying to find us. He hunted for us. The hotel had an internal balcony, so the second floor could look down and see the first. He was apparently just above us in a room or two over. He was calling the front desk complaining about our cat, with no valid complaint,

to see what room the front desk would go to. Apparently he was also texting my mom during the whole thing from his parents' phone, since he broke his on my mom's head. He was saying how dumb we were for leaving our cars outside, how he knew where we were, how he would hunt us down and kill the mother lion and her cub. Demented shit.

He even said some of this in a voicemail that my mom never let me listen to. We left the hotel for another, further from home. We couldn't sleep and around 3 a.m., I left to go back to the safety of my boyfriend. Eventually, I came back to my hometown, but still did not go home. This time, we were staying with the family friend. Legal things were starting, and I went with my mom at one point in case they needed my statement, but they didn't. While we were staying with this family friend, my paternal grandmother passed from a heart attack.

To say the least, my junior year was the most stressful year. After some time, my mom went back to Jim. He assaulted her multiple more times and even tried to kill our cats. Eventually, she moved away from him, but was technically married to him from 2006 to 2014-2015. Me now, I'm happy. I have a regular therapist, a supportive partner, and his family who loves me unconditionally. The trauma that I live with is a daily battle, but I'm in such a great place now. I no longer have contact with my mother, and it's the best decision I ever made.

She later married another abusive man once her paperwork was done with Jim. I couldn't let her traumatize me further. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I've run into some really weird, funny, and even some pretty, pretty creepy situations over the years. It's not as easy as driving an SUV because some people don't know how to respect the spacing of big rigs, which alone can cause stress. Then, there are the times that you can end up in some strange places that you're not familiar with,

and possibly some really weird people, especially nowadays. People are unpredictable. That being said, I can usually handle the people being strange. It's the unexplained that really racks my brain and puts me in a frenzy. Yes, I believe in a lot of cryptids and paranormal because we can't really explore that kind of thing, and there are still tons of things out there that haven't been discovered and identified. So it's entirely possible that they exist, right? and that being said, I do watch and follow a lot of podcasts, and I make notes of the ones that are about the area that I may be driving through as a way to check it out myself.

Doesn't mean I'm not going to be a tad bit freaked out going to see them, though. Here are the few that I have come across that were some of the creepiest for me. I had a delivery in West Virginia, and with how I drive, I tend to be earlier than needed. With that being said, I can't really do anything until then but sleep. So instead of wasting what free time I was going to have, I decided to find somewhere to sit down and eat instead of fast food. I ended up finding a little barbecue place,

so I sat in, tried seeing if there were any places of interest nearby, but didn't look into too much as I was already getting tired. I decided to go ahead and leave so I could find a place to stop overnight and try looking around the next day. Apparently, my truck didn't agree and something ended up breaking on it not even an hour into my drive. I pulled over to check out what happened. Thankfully, it wasn't too major.

However, I didn't have the tools to fix it, so... I called Dispatch who got into contact with our insurance company, who was going to send someone out to help. Unfortunately, they were an hour out, so I had some time to kill. Since it was going to be a while, I started laying out the reflective triangles behind my truck, and while I was doing this, I started hearing talking. It was very faint, but enough to make me look around. I didn't see anyone, though, but it would start and stop again several times. As I looked around, I noticed the fencing on the opposite side of the road with some interesting-looking trees.

Something was different about them. They looked old, unkempt, and like they had a story to tell. So I pulled out my phone and I started taking pictures of them. As I did so, I did so, I... I noticed what looked like a person standing under one of the trees. My phone wasn't the best, so when I tried zooming in, I couldn't see much. So I got into my truck to grab my actual camera. As mentioned, I liked going to so-called haunted places when I can, so I got myself a decent camera.

As I went back to take more pictures, the person was gone. This got me a little more curious, so I crossed the road. and I approached the fence line. Once there, I started getting some more pictures when I saw that person under the tree again. They were just watching me. Something definitely felt off, but I'm stupid enough,

so I walked the fence line to get closer. As I did, I started hearing laughing. Children laughing. I again was looking around to see if I could see anything, but there were no children in sight. But this figure was still under that tree and had moved to now face me. Getting a bit closer, I could tell it was a person. A small child, to be exact.

She was wearing a dress with long straight hair. I took a few more pictures when I heard the laughing even closer, still seeing nothing. The fact that the laughing was getting closer, even though I was moving, did throw me off. I took one more look at the kid under the tree and tried calling out to it. I think I said something like, Do you need help?

Or something like that. When it turned to face away from me. At that time, the laughing sounded like it was right next to me, as I felt a tug at my leg. At that point, I'd seen all I needed and I started sprinting back to my. truck as fast as I could. Once there, I locked my doors and started looking at the pictures I took. To no surprise, there were no kids in the photos, but a lot of lights or orbs surrounding the tree.

That was enough for me to feel uneasy, so I tried doing something else to occupy my mind till the help arrived. I ended up dozing off and woke up to a tapping on the passenger window. I thought it was the help, but to my horror, it was the face of a child. It was a boy. He looked wet. His face almost looked like it was waterlogged. I may have yelled expletives and threw something at the window.

After catching my breath and calming down, I opened up my door to look around when someone started pulling up behind me. Thankfully, it was the roadside assistance. so they helped me out and I left as soon as I could. That night, I found a well-lit stop and stayed there, but I don't think I slept much. I called my brother the next day and told him about what happened, as he loves this stuff too, and he started looking into the place to find out more information.

Turns out, I wasn't too far from an abandoned amusement park that had several kids die there. One boy had actually drowned in the lake there that had boat rides. After learning this, it creeped me out even more. But now we're making plans to go back to visit the entire site to find out more about the place. Another experience doesn't have a good background, but is equally terrifying. I had arrived at the drop-off location a few hours before they were open, so I decided to sleep while waiting.

While sleeping, I started hearing barking, thinking it was just someone walking by with a dog. I waited for it to taper off. But after a while, it wasn't stopping, and it was actually getting closer. So, maybe it was a stray dog in the area. It got annoying, so I thought I would open the door real fast, yell at it and scare it off. However, when I opened the door, I didn't see a dog. I looked around, and I saw a few feet in front of my truck the source of the barking. This thing, it didn't look like a dog.

This thing looked like a human, standing on all fours and barking. But the spine was so arched that it looked too long to be a human or a dog. That's when the barking stopped, and it started standing straight up. It was easily nine foot tall. maybe more. I jumped back into the truck to turn the lights on, just so I could see it better, when it jumped out of the light and appeared to climb alongside the building. I've never seen anything like that, and it scared the hell out of me. That one, I don't care to look into, because that was not a ghost.

And it was bigger than me, so I think I'll leave that one alone. My daughter is weird. I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. She does normal kid things and plays weird made-up games and has nonsensical jokes. I love her to death and the things that she comes up with, but sometimes it's hard to know when she's serious or still playing around. One morning, she woke me up and said someone was tassive.

on her window, and she looked scared. I thought she was joking around at first, until I started focusing and realizing how serious she looked. So I got up to go look, and she had a stupid wind-up toy that flaps its arms like it's flying, sitting next to the window, making it tap it. The grin on her face when she saw me turn around with it in my hand was enough to make me laugh, too. This is just to show you how playful she can be, and why this really alarmed me. So, she started to come up with imaginary friends.

I say imaginary because it's your normal stuff. I see her playing in her room, and she talks like someone else is in the room with her. Our rooms are right across from each other, so while I was in my room putting laundry away and getting ready for bed, I heard her play into the conversation. It got weird. One of her dolls died, I guess, and she grabbed another one saying something about getting it to live again.

So, as I'm listening, she's explaining to her friend that she lets her dolls relive since she got to do the same. She then said that her old name was Rebecca, and that she didn't like her old mommy, but she forgave her. I thought this was weird. Maybe it was a weird game, but I walked into her room and asked her who she was talking to. She said it was her friend, Lily.

And I tried playing dumb and said, Oh, I thought you said Rebecca. She just kind of looked down shyly and said, no. So I draw up. stopped it for then, thinking it was just a make-believe thing. A few days later, I picked her up early from school for a doctor's appointment. Afterwards, I had a few errands to run myself, and since she was so patient and helpful, we decided to stop for ice cream, since she had already had lunch at school.

As we were leaving the parking lot and I was helping her buckle in, she hugged my neck and said thank you. It just warms me when she gives me random hugs like that, so I got her all situated and got into the car myself. As I'm driving home, she said something that confused me at first. She said, you're my favorite mommy. Without thinking much about it, I responded with, Oh, yeah? Well, I think I'm your only, mommy.

And that's when she said, No, but first mommy wasn't very nice, but I know it wasn't her fault. At this point, I looked up at her in the mirror, and she was looking right at me, and she looked sad. So I tried pushing a bit more on this, thinking it was some kind of weird game still. I asked her, what mommy is this, and why wasn't she nice? She honestly looked scared to tell me, like she was going to get in trouble. So I told her that it was okay and that she could tell me anything and I wouldn't get mad. Part of me was glad that I asked, and part of me regretted it.

She would get mad at me for things that you let me do, like play with my friend Lily. So I asked her what she meant by that. She would call me names. and yell at me and punish me. Now, my daughter goes to a public school. I haven't had any issues with them before, and she's never mentioned anything to me about being punished, nor have I ever had reports from them about her being in trouble.

The only person that is around her on occasion is my mother, who she does not call mommy or anything like that. So I tried to ask her more about who this other person, person was and how they punish her. But she said she didn't want to talk about it anymore. This scared me, as my first thought was, is there something going on at the school that I need to know about? So that night, I tried to see if there were any marks or bruises on her just to be sure, and there weren't any, but I decided I would talk to the school the next day just to double check. So I brought her to the school.

She's just as excited to get in as she always is, and she doesn't steer clear from anyone there either. I did get to speak to the teacher, who said that she doesn't have any issues with her. She's not shy, and she's kind to all the other kids, which makes sense. I told the teacher that she had just said something that caught my attention and that I wanted to double check.

I didn't need her calling someone on me or anything, so I let it go for the time being. Sometime that week, she was playing in the living room while I was making dinner, and she was playing and talking to Lily again. And then she mentioned her first mommy again, so I started listening more. She said, I couldn't hold my breath that long, so I got a new mommy. Something set me off with that one. so I went in there again and asked her about it. I again tried prying who she meant by this first mommy,

and I told her that she can trust me, that I won't tell or she won't get in trouble. She started whispering to the air and then looked at me and said, Lily said I should tell you, so I will. She explained to me that when she would play with her imaginary friend, she would be called names and would be locked in a closet, and that it was very dark and she would be hungry. She also told me something that broke my heart.

She said one time that she was caught talking to her friend, and her first mommy shoved her in the bath to clean her, and that she couldn't hold her breath that long, but she forgave her because she knew that she was sick too, and now she's got a new name and a new mommy that lets her play with her friends. I just started crying, and I hugged her tight. I told her that she would never be punished for that by me, and she told me not to cry because she was happy now.

So, after that, we had dinner, and when she went to bed I was up because I couldn't sleep. I started going through the shows we watch and the games and things that she had on her tablet to see if there was something that could be related to this, just to see if she was copying something she heard or that she read. However, I found nothing at all. So the only other thing I could do is look up the name Rebecca.

I did change this for the family's privacy, for a little girl that may have died. To my horror, I found one, where the mother drowned the family's privacy, the daughter thinking that she was a witch, which explains why she went crazy over her talking to herself or her imaginary friends. This also happened before she was even born. I'm not a religious person, but that night, I prayed. I asked if Rebecca could hear this that my daughter has now accepted what happened and forgave her mother and that she could move on. It's been a few years now,

and she barely mentions Rebecca's life. I don't know how to explain it or how to handle it at times, but she usually just brings up the good things that she remembers. We typically leave it alone, though. However, Lily is still around, so now I'm no longer thinking that it's just an imaginary friend, and I'm going to wait to look into that one. So, thinking back, I actually have a story from back when I was a delivery driver for a certain sandwich shop that pretty much doesn't exist anymore.

And while there are certainly people out there that won't think of this as creepy, it was certainly messed up and skeevy. It's one of those stupid memories that you wish you could get out of your head, but will not leave. and when you least expect it, bam, instant re-visualization of the situation. And it was not a situation that I want to be reminded of frequently. So, as stated, I worked at a certain sandwich shop that was known for making their sandwiches toasty, as they would put it. Unfortunately, they don't really exist anymore,

or at least nowhere near how they used to, I was 18 when I worked there and was basically the second in command to the manager, mostly because I'd been there for two years, which made me the longest employee at the time, aside from him. Unfortunately, being what was basically the assistant manager meant that when corporate told us we were going to do something experimental, I got put on the lead for it. In this instance, we were told that we were told that we were,

were going to start doing deliveries during what was essentially the dinner hours. Because of this, we would need a delivery driver, and he said he intended to hire one, but until then I had to do the deliveries during my shift, and he would do them on the days that I was off. I was honestly not happy with this, but since it was so new and wasn't even being advertised yet, it was most likely going to just be people that knew about the location and regulars. Because of that, I was a little more okay with it, but still annoyed. Anyways, after a couple of weeks doing deliveries, it became pretty clear that the manager was in no rush to hire a real delivery driver.

So, I was going to be stuck doing it, and I pretty much just accepted that it was my job at that point. And again, most of them were fine. That is, until my manager decided that we didn't have enough deliveries and put flyers on every car in his apartment rental complex and every car in the parking lot of our shared strip mall. Basically, he went hardcore on advertising the deliveries as much as he could. And it resulted in us having more than we could handle, and in places that we had never gone. This was obviously a mess, and it really pissed me off, but it's also what led to this delivery that, I guess, stuck with me.

The delivery started just like every other one that I'd gone on, except it was to the rental complex where my manager lived, which was basically the absolute farthest we would ever go for a delivery. The delivery comes in, I roll my eyes angrily and I make the sandwich. Then I tell the other two co-workers that I would be back in about half an hour, and if another delivery called in, tell them it would be a while. I get in my car, and I drive out to what is probably one of the darkest rental complexes I have literally ever been to. I spend several minutes trying to figure out which townhome this guy lives.

lives in until I managed to spot his number on what is probably the darkest corner of the entire property. To add to this, he didn't have his porch light on, and it didn't look like there were any lights on inside. I hesitantly park my car in front of his building and just sit there, staring. The main thought going through my mind being that I was about to be robbed. It was way too dark and desolate looking for this to go normal. After a couple of seconds, I just sighed and got out of my car, and then I walked up to his door and knocked. After knocking, I turned to look back out into the parking lot to make sure there's no one

sneaking up on me. I just kind of stood there awkwardly and stared off into the nearly empty lot for longer than I was comfortable with, before knocking a second time. This time there was a response to my knocking. I heard a guy's voice say, Who is it? To which I said, I'm with the sandwich place,

you ordered food for delivery? He then responds, asking, How old are you? This question was weird. I just responded saying that I was there to deliver his food and that was all. He pushed again and asked if I was at least over. 18. I really wanted out of this situation, so I just said yes, hoping he would move on. Then he replies with, oh, come on in then, which is not something I expected nor wanted to hear.

I politely informed him that I just needed him to take the order since he had already paid for it, and I would be good to go. He then again says that I should just come on in so he didn't have to get up. It was at this point that I was legitimately livid. I wasn't going to risk my life and blindly walk into someone else's house just so this guy could be lazy and not get off his ass for a damn sandwich. I respond as firmly as I could without being rude, that I could not enter his home and that I needed to get back to the store. I then said that if he did not want to get up, I could leave the bag on the porch for him to get at his leisure, but I would not be entering his home.

Within a second of me saying this, the door opens and it got worse. The guy that answered was standing there and staring at me with a big grin on his face and was completely naked, wearing nothing but a baseball cap and his socks. Obviously, I jumped. I didn't expect to see some dude in the buff come to the door for his sandwich, much less one with such a creepy stare on his face.

I turned to look away, and I pushed his food order for him to just take it so he could end the ordeal as quickly as possible. This guy then reaches out and seriously caresses my hand with his and then says, Oh, come on. No need to be shy. You sure you don't want to come on in? I seriously almost puked as soon as he said this. I more or less shoved the bag at him and turned, making a mad dash to my car. When I started my car and my headlights kicked on, all I could see was him in all of his horrifying glory,

standing in the doorframe and laughing at me. I pulled out and I drove back. to the store as quickly as I could. As I was driving, it hit me even harder about how pushy he was for me to come inside. The whole thing just made my skin crawl. When I got back to the store, I called my manager and I informed him of the situation. I expected him to be livid that this happened, much more so that the fact that this guy was practically his neighbor.

Much to my surprise, I got nothing more than, well, if he didn't hurt you, then we can't do anything about it. I then asked that he be blacklisted from the deliveries, seeing as how he had pretty much attempted to do something, and if nothing else, this was indecent exposure. To that, he said, I can't really blacklist him, so just be more careful next time. And as soon as he told me that I needed to be more careful,

I told him to find another assistant manager and that I quit. I hung up, put my hat, apron, and store keys on the desk in the back, and I left. I only went back to get my last check, and I didn't even say anything extra to the manager. I was genuinely disgusted that this happened, and also angry and hurt that my manager did not seem to care. It just pains me to think that if I were a little more naive, a year younger, maybe a bit less observant of my surroundings, I may have thought that it was okay to go into this guy's house. And then, who knows what would have happened to me?

Since being very young, my brother Jamie would often do or say strange things. There are many instances, but these are the ones that I remember most clearly. He was, and remains, a very thoughtful and intelligent child, often deep in thought. I first noticed that you could be cooing and playing with him, and suddenly he would cloud over with a deadpan expression, and it would take minutes to get his attention again. As he started stringing sentences together,

he sat down with my mom and told her, Do you remember before, Mommy? She said, before when? To which he replied, before, when I had a different mommy. My mom simply told him that she was his only mommy, and he didn't say anything anymore. He then spoke to me, and he told me he remembered that when I came out of mommy's tummy. I told him that he can't remember it, because he wasn't born yet. He got pretty irate with me, and said,

Not when I was born this time, before. I asked what he meant. Before, when I wasn't your brother, when I was mommy's brother a long time ago. This left me pretty shook. As in 2004, over a decade before my brother was born, my uncle, my mom's brother, who was also named Jamie, passed away. Due to the suddenness and trauma caused by his death, it is an extremely sore subject and is rarely ever.

discussed. So, there was absolutely no way he could have known about him. Then, one day, on the way home from the park, around three years old, Jamie, asked me, you know when you die? I was taken aback by it, but I said, do you mean what happens after? He said, I've been thinking about it, because I think it's really dark forever, and you you can't see anything. I explained to him in a child-friendly way the different beliefs that people have. Example, heaven, hell, nothing, ghosts, reincarnation. When I told him about reincarnation, he nodded.

Yes, it sounds nice, but it takes so long. When I died the last time, I had to stay the same for ages before I was a baby again. Honestly, I was so spooked. Jamie is now six. He still will speak about things he really shouldn't understand, but does. People often remark how knowledgeable he is about the world around him. Maybe that's just the way he is, or maybe it's because he's seen it all before. I suppose I'll never know, but all the comments he made, and even his mannerisms and behavior,

we've all thought that perhaps Jamie is Uncle Jamie. So, I just discovered this sub and have my own creepy encounter that I think you guys will like. It's quite a long story, so grab a drink and enjoy. I used to deliver pizzas for a pizzeria in Cape Town, South Africa, when I was in university to make some extra cash. I used to deliver to the same house quite often. Incidentally, this place is quite close to where I lived at the time. There was nothing overtly strange about this place, except that whoever would receive the pizza

would normally take quite a long time to come to the door and would always ask me to pass the pizza through the security gate instead of unlocking it and making it easier for everyone involved. One quiet night, a call comes through for this house and I collect the pizzas and gets to the house reasonably quick. This time a lady who I have never seen at this house before opens the door and lets me in. Not entirely uncommon to be let in to a customer's house, so I don't think anything of it. She points me towards the kitchen, which is down quite a long corridor, and asks me to drop the pizzas there. She follows me all the way, still nothing weird.

The passage opened up into an open-planned dining room and lounge area. Through this area is the kitchen through a door on the left. As I was passing through the dining room slash lounge area, I saw something that sticker with me to this day. An old looking dentist chair, with a person lying on it. Whether this guy

was alive or not, I still don't know. He had a sheet covering his whole body except the very top of his head and his feet, which were duct taped together. I couldn't tell if he was breathing or not. The lady

that opened the door was still right behind me, and she said, absolutely nothing. We went into the kitchen, and she paid me for the pizzas. At this point, I was either expecting to be attacked by this lady, or someone else hiding somewhere, or to be scared by the guy under the sheet as some part of sick joke. Not wanting to give anything away, I didn't say anything, and I prepared myself to either defend myself, or not be frightened should it be a joke.

I walked out towards the front door, double-checking to see what I saw was correct and not just my imagination. The lady was still behind me the whole way, and she closed the door behind me as I left and said nothing. To this day, I still have no idea what was happening in that house. It could have been some joke, but I really don't think it was. The presence of a dentist chair still makes no sense. I didn't see anything else that would suggest the residents of the house collected weird paraphernalia. I drive past that house quite often and still wonder if I was actually in any danger. I got a job at Walmart in 2019, working as a cashier.

I was laid off, and I decided to get what I could at the time just to get some extra money, so my husband wasn't the only one working. It was all right for the most part. In 2020, I started helping more at the doors, with counting how many people were coming and going, and to make sure they were wearing their masks. As I said, it was all right for the most part. You got an occasional person that would lose their mind when you offered sanitizer, or a mask, but it was tolerable.

However, I did see people do that. some crazy things while just walking around on my lunch or my breaks. At one point, when people started freaking out about the toilet paper issues and thinking we were going to be locked down for months, things started to be too much. The store was a mess, shelves were already empty, and people were losing their minds. There was one night in particular. I remember walking to the back to go on break. when I was walking past the toilet paper and paper towel aisles.

There was one lady that was crying as she pushed a cart with a single gallon of milk in it, and a kid in the front of it licking the cart handle, touching the shelves, and sticking his hands in his mouth. I overheard a couple debating if they should try to using paper towels instead or go someplace else first. I saw people fighting over sanitized. and the kid next to them screaming at their parents to stop. These were all upsetting to see, but it didn't stop there.

One night, I was talking to my friend that was stalking the shelves after I was off work. They were stocking toilet paper, of all things. There was a guy that came in from the other end of the aisle and slowly made his way towards us as he looked at the shelves. He eventually got right. next to my friend, like within arm's length. I motioned with my head to my friend that he was right behind him, so he stood up and asked if there was something he could help with. This guy went off.

He started getting angry, claiming we were holding back inventory on purpose to make people like him suffer. My friend and I were equally confused since he was literally stalking the shelves at that time. He tried calming him down, but the guy must have seen the box cutter sitting on the palate, and he snapped. He stepped backwards and pulled out a switchblade, saying, Let's have a real knife fight. My friend grabbed the box cutter, so this guy didn't try to grab it,

and we walked backwards as we tried to calm the guy down. He didn't really pay much attention to me, so I was able to pull out my phone and call 911. Someone else that worked there must have heard what was going on, and they rushed over to help us out. Somehow, we finally got the guy to put the knife away, but the police still came and arrested him. I know 2020 has been one hell of a year, but some people just snapped. I quit shortly after this, because I couldn't risk any more weird occurrences like that. All I can say, though, is be safe out of that. there, watch your surroundings, and be kind to others. This is a family and completely true story.

When my sister was 18, she decided to be independent and randomly left for Texas. She's prone to this kind of decision. When she was 21, she moved back home, married and with a two-year-old, or something like that. Nothing weird so far When she returned I was just leaving for college to another city And I met her new family briefly She her husband

And her child stayed with my parents While they figured things out A month went by and suddenly her husband 20 plus years old Died from a heart attack It seems like he had some genetic Undiagnosed heart disease and just dropped dead.

My sister was obviously devastated, and basically relayed the care of her child to my mom and she again left to another city, but visited frequently. One day while speaking to my mom, I heard my nephew say, There's the man. I asked my mom about this,

and she said that my nephew was always talking about this man in the house, that no one else could see. Even when they left the house, the child would say goodbye to this man, as babies do with numerous bye-bye sirs. My mother told me that they sometimes saw a shadow, but nothing bad had happened, so they didn't pay any mind to it.

This went on for years. The child was always talking and interacting with this man, who nobody else. saw. Meanwhile, my sister was really depressed and never talked about her husband. No one really did. We didn't know the guy and everything was so quick that we didn't interact with him. We didn't have any pictures of him or anything. And nobody aside from her had any attachment to him. Also, this was like 2006. Cell phones had cameras, but not a lot of memory. So we really didn't have any pictures. of him. I'm stressing this so you can see that my nephew had no way of knowing his dad. Sure, he

saw him until he was two, but now he was six when suddenly his father's brother decided to send an email with a photo of my sister's late husband, a photo that was saved and forgotten in the computer. The family computer had this screensaver that was a gallery of all the photos saved in the system, and that's where my nephew saw it, and instantly shouted, that's the man. I remember it clearly, because by that time, we all knew the man. Nobody saw him, but if something happened in the house or there was a weird shadow, we said, oh, it's the man, and we all said bye to him when we left, and hello when we arrived. It was already part of the family.

So we went to the computer and showed the kid all of the pictures there, and when the photo of his dad appeared, he was like, that's the man that visits me at night. We were freaked out. He was elated. For a week, he asked again and again to see the picture, and my mother decided, against my sister's wishes, to tell him that was his father. Since then, he would talk about the man less and less until he stopped talking about him completely. Now, as a teenager, my nephew doesn't remember anything. Around the time my nephew found the photo,

my sister remarried and took him with her. I think he was just looking after his child, and when he had a stable life, he left. But who knows? I've been a nurse at our local hospital, for the last eight years. If you're here long enough, you will come across a few ghost stories,

maybe even experience one yourself. I definitely had my share since being there. I can name a few that were especially memorable. I will start by saying that it doesn't help that the hospital used to be an orphanage many, many years ago as well. So the main one we hear about is the children of death. We call them this, because when a patient sees one of these kids, they end up passing

away soon after. A couple of examples was one gentleman that another nurse walked in on as he was talking to someone, but there was no one in the room. The nurse asked who he was talking to, and he said the young girl that had just left. He said that she had brought in a card, and he pointed at it. The nurse said she looked at the card and it looked like a young child's drawing of a person surrounded by flowers and people crying. We had no idea where it came from as he hadn't had any visitors that day. We even checked the logs and his son came to see him the day prior, but no one that day, and his son didn't have any kids. A few days later, the man passed away in his sleep. He was there due to a heart attack, but he seemed to be improving. Another instance

was an old lady that was there after breaking her hip. She said she was a medium, so she was always entertaining us nurses on duty. She gave us all readings and told us some interesting stories of past readings that she had done. Every once in a while, she might ask to pass condolences on to someone there that recently lost someone, be it another patient, or even our head nurse once. Her father had died suddenly, and we, the nurses,

didn't really talk much about it, but this lady had brought it up. I thought she must have heard someone mention it. However, there was one instance where we received a nurse call to her room, and upon entering, she asked that we check on the woman across the hall. She claimed that she saw her walk out of the room holding the hand of a little girl.

This was in the geriatric ward, so the patients didn't have a heart monitor attached, and she was bedridden, because she was very frail and couldn't get up on her own. We dashed over to her room to see that she had passed. We were shocked, because while we were expecting that she would pass soon, we had no idea when, nor did we know how this other patient would have known. She couldn't have left her room and there were no kids on this floor. So, of course, we had to go back and ask her about it. She said the lady looked spry and happy

and believed that the little girl was helping her move on to the afterlife. We thought at first maybe it was one of the children other patients have seen, but she said she was wearing modern clothing. a pink flowery dress with a huge flower in her hair. We thought it was a crazy situation, but we let it go. Later on, after the older woman's daughter came in to get her mother's belongings, the medium was being wheeled back to a room by another nurse when she stopped this daughter to speak to her.

After giving her condolences for her mother's passing, she brought up that she saw her as she passed over and began asking her, the daughter, about her own daughter. She started crying, and she was shocked that she had brought it up. Apparently, her daughter died after being hit by a car while riding her bike a few years prior. She said she was buried in her favorite pink, floral dress with a matching flower clip. She also said that her daughter and her mom became very close as she was her first grandkid, and when they lost her, it broke her heart.

I thought, maybe she recognized this woman from the news or something, but how could she have known what she was wearing when she was buried? I don't believe much in mediums, but the fact that this little girl this woman appeared to be walking out of the room with matched her granddaughter, and made me just a little less skeptical. This was actually about a kid I used to babysit. He had a wild imagination, between all these made-up games that he played,

stories he would tell me and the likes. So, at first, it was hard to take this seriously. One time, I was watching him in the evening, so I was making popcorn for us. They had a gas stove, so it was always a trick to get it to light. While I was starting it, he came running in to the game. kitchen, so I told him to slow down and watch out, so he didn't catch his hair on fire. He responded with, Oh, I know, fire hurts.

I died in one, and had these huge eyes as he told me. I just kind of snickered, thinking he just said something incorrectly, and then said something like, then you know you shouldn't be close to the stove. So he smiled and walked away. Weird. A few days later, I was over there again and we were watching some kids' shows. I don't remember what it was called, but they always did some kind of simple learning or science thing, and they would always go through a safety part, like don't run with scissors,

always use the crosswalk, look both ways, things like that. This time it was about how to escape from a fire and to stop, drop, and roll. They showed if you were in a building to keep low and to put a damp towel on your head, if possible, and then crawl to the exit. This boy pops up and says, Sometimes you can't. I just said, what do you mean? We didn't have towels downstairs, and it's hard to crawl upstairs.

Once I finally figured out what to say, I asked him if his old house caught on fire, though I didn't recall his parents ever mentioning one. So he explained more. He said his old house did, but he couldn't get out. What he was supposed to say to that? I just asked, did someone have to save you then? He looked annoyed like I wasn't understanding, and I guess I wasn't.

Then he said, no, I died. And just stared at me. I just said okay and left it at that. I asked his parents that evening about a house fire, and they said they've never been in one, and he certainly hadn't. I told them what he said, and they thought it was weird too, but assumed it was just something he watched, so I let it go, even though I still thought it was odd.

They ended up going on vacation, so I didn't babysit for two weeks, but when I came back, he was right back at it. We were playing something like superheroes, and I ended up being killed by the bad guy. As I laid on the ground, he came up to me, rubbed my face, and whispered, Be alive again. So I got up and pretended to be a zombie,

and he told me, No, you get a real life again, like me. I thought we were playing still, so I mentioned that. he hadn't died yet. He then tried to explain to me again that he got a new real life after the fire. I know it's useless arguing with the child, but I said, Your mom and dad told me you guys didn't have a fire, though.

That's when he must have gotten tired of repeating himself, so he explained it as he walked pack and forth. He said it was his old self in his old home with his old mom, dad, and big brother. He said he was in the basement, in his brother's room where he fell asleep, and he woke up feeling hot. He said the last thing he remembered was yelling for his brother, in the stairs being too hot to climb. This whole time that he's telling me this, he doesn't seem sad, but more so relieved, especially as he said, but it's okay. They were able to get out, and they had a party for me.

Not going to lie, that freaked me out. But just to check, I had asked him, So, did this happen to you, or did you see this in a movie? He got mad at me, like I didn't believe him, so I had to apologize, and I told him that I was happy that he was okay now. I tried asking if he remembered what his home or family looked like, but he said all he could remember was the yellow house. This time, I didn't tell his parents.

He seemed so matter-of-fact and detailed for such a young child that I left it alone. But now, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in looking up house fires. Does anyone know how to tell someone who lost a child that they've moved on and they're happy again? I was a trucker for about 15 years. As the years go on, it really starts to take a toll on your body. Literally you sit in the same spot for hours on end, maybe even 24.

The only thing you can do is eat. There isn't much in ways of exercise that you can do, so your back is usually bothering you, and you're too out of shape to do anything about it anyways. Sometimes, it can even mess you up mentally. with irregular times to sleep and other things that may not be explainable. I've had weird occurrences in some cities, where the locals tell you to avoid these certain truck stops or gas stations due to high theft.

I'm looking at you, Detroit, or paranormal sightings at others. I'm not a believer in that crap, so I usually just hear them out for a little. little entertainment and move on. Sometimes I may actually stop in those places just for giggles, and to tell my wife as she seems to get a kick out of those. She loves watching all those ghost hunter shows, and wanted to go with me on some of them to see if she could experience something herself. Luckily for her, she never did, at least.

There was one time, though, that scared the head. hell out of me, and still does thinking about it to this day. I was headed to Arizona, and I was already up longer than I was supposed to be, but I wanted to try to shave off some time, so I could get back home a little earlier for our anniversary. I ended up stopping in some desert area to sleep. I figured it would work since it was right past a truck stop, so people would be there instead and I wouldn't get woken up by others coming and going, headlights, sounds, etc. I'm not a heavy sleeper, especially since starting this job, so it doesn't take much to wake me, but it gets harder to fall back asleep. To solve this, I just find it easier to

sleep outside of the normal stops. So I pull to the side, get out to stretch and eat whatever jerky or trail mix I may have as I walk around my truck. I do this to be able to get up and move and make sure there's nothing dangling from it or broken. At this point, I remember looking around to see absolutely nothing, other than the exit ramp with the single light above it in the distance. It is dead, silent, not even a breeze. And I felt wiped, so I felt. figured I'd be able to sleep pretty well.

I climbed back in my truck, took off my shoes and belt, went to the cab, locked all the doors, and passed out pretty damn quick. I remember that much. I don't feel like it was very long, maybe a few hours, when I was awoken by a blood-curdling scream. I kid you not, I have never jumped up from my sleep so damn fast in my life. I waited to see if it was in my dream when I heard it again, but this time they screamed, Help.

It sounded like a woman, so I jumped up and darted out of the truck before I even put my shoes and belt back on, looking around for this voice. Yet, I saw nothing. There was not a single car or person in sight. It was still dark, and I called out. Where are you? to see if I would get a response, but nothing. I stood there looking around, waiting, when I heard it once more,

but it sounded like it was right behind me. I don't think I ever jumped so high in my life. I ran back to the driver's side, got in, and locked all the doors. I turned on the cabin light, and I just sat there looking around, trying to process what the hell just happened. There was no way that I was going back to sleep at this point. I turned on the radio to keep me awake, but, thinking back, I don't think I would have needed the help. I didn't sleep anymore that night.

As soon as I started seeing the sunrise, I booked it as fast as I could from there. I went to a nearby diner to grab some coffee and watched the news to see if there was any reports last night, or this morning about something that could have been related, but there was nothing. I haven't told anyone about this other than my wife and a few close friends that now like to tease me about it, but that scared the living piss out of me. My wife thinks it may have been someone that died or was killed there in the past, but whatever it was, be it a prank or a ghost, I didn't care for it. I will say though

I think it made me believe a bit more in other worldly beings I have a story that happened a few years back when I was 19 and I was a delivery driver for a certain pizza place I won't give the name of the actual restaurant but I think you can figure it out

if I call it pizza house This happened in what I would call a fairly small town that resided in these suburbs of a much larger city. And I thought it was a pretty safe area up until this point. What happened could have happened to anyone really, but it happened to me because I happened to be the delivery driver that got sent on this delivery. It was a pretty normal night at the pizza house. We were fairly busy, but we weren't busy. being slammed too bad. I was one of three drivers that were on the clock that night,

and we were busy enough that we didn't get to relax between drives. I remember I was on a double delivery when this took place, and for those of you that don't know, a double delivery is literally what it sounds like. You're tasked with taking two deliveries at the same time. You basically drive to the closest location, then to the furthest location and back. It's an incredible pain in the ass because you usually end up late to the second delivery

and the customers get angry. So, as I said, I had to take a double delivery and both of them were pretty far from the store. In fact, they were actually on the outer ring of our deliveries. When it came in, I grabbed the bags, put the light signer. thing for Pizza House on top of my car, which was a requirement, and headed off to my first location. Everything was going normal. I was talking to my girlfriend while the GPS told me which way to go. I was most of the way to the first location when I pulled up to a red light and stopped, like I had to. I was complaining to my girlfriend about how much I genuinely disliked being the pizza

boy when I glanced over and saw a couple of guys crossing the road. I made eye contact with one of them and pretty much just kept talking about random nothingness. As I was watching the one cross the road, I noticed that the other guy walked a little closer to the lane I was in, and my mind immediately clicked that something bad was about to happen. I was just sitting there, defenseless, at the line. the red light, chatting about literally nothing with my girlfriend on the phone, and it didn't occur to me until it was too late that these guys were up to no good. By the time it seriously clicked, the guy that was in the lane was pulling on my door handle

and shouting that I needed to unlock the door. I thought about slamming my gas pedal and driving off. I thought about just running the light to get the hell away from this, but... Then I saw that the first guy was standing in front of my car and pointing a gun at me. I was literally sitting there, staring down the barrel of some handgun on some street that I didn't know with two guys about to carjack me. Well, that's what I thought they were going to do. I thought they were seriously about to rob me, carjack me, steal all the stores cash, and leave me on the side of the road. I even said that to my girlfriend.

I told her to stay on the phone but not say anything, and that I was being robbed. She quickly stopped talking and did exactly as I asked. I looked back over to the guy at my passenger door, and he was shouting at me to unlock the door. I slowly did as he asked, and reached down to hit the unlock button. As soon as I did, he pulled open the door,

grabbed the two delivery bags with the pizza, then slammed the door and the two of them just ran off. I literally just sat there with my heart pounding and my blood pressure seriously spiking hard as I watched these two men seriously run off with food and nothing else. These guys had me at gunpoint for pizza. Pizza. They didn't take my money. They didn't take my phone, my car, nothing.

They just stole around $85 worth of pizza. I even told my girlfriend between adrenaline-fueled tears that I was just robbed, but they only took the pizza. I remember her asking if I was serious and then even laughing slightly. I told her I needed to call the store and tell them. I hung up from the call and I called my manager directly. I told him that I was robbed, and he at first asked if I was okay. But when I told him that they just stole the pizza,

he seemed a bit less serious about the situation. Obviously, I was terrified. I was seriously thinking that I was going to be hurt or lose my livelihood. I'm actually thankful that these guys just wanted the first. and decided not to take anything else. This is actually something that happened to my father while he was a tow truck driver. He did this for a few years. As far back as I can remember because I was quite young at the time.

He worked all different hours, including on call or overnight. Depending on the time, or if I was awake, sometimes he would let me, my sister and my mom ride with him. It was actually a lot of fun. Riding back to the tow lot where they dropped off the vehicles they kept was always a blast, too. There was an older lady that worked there, and she always had snacks open to us. They also had two junkyard dogs that were sweet as can be. Sometimes I would stay up later, when allowed, just to try to go with him.

We got to watch him load up the vehicles, and he told us what the different buttons and switches did. Sometimes we even got to go if there was a mild accident, like someone hitting a light pole or something like that. Of course, he's also been called on some pretty bad accidents too, like when cars flip, or when there are severe injuries or even fatal ones. These, of course, we were never allowed to go on, and I'm thankful for that now.

As I got older, I was talking to him, about his experience working there, and asked him about some of the worst ones he remembers going to. This one, though, still creeps me out. He said he even remembers telling me and my mom that we couldn't go with because of the situation. There was a convertible, speeding and swerving between the lanes on a highway. It was like a main road and highway, because it still had stoplights on it. it was also next to an open field, blocked off by the guardrail and barbed wiring. Of course, the highway also has warning lights a few miles back to tell you when the light is red,

to warn you to start slowing down. Apparently, this guy didn't see those, didn't care or something, and thought he would try to run it. My dad said he doesn't remember if he was racing someone else or just speeding. Sadly, there was a small decline before the intersection, and there was a semi already at the light. This convertible must have hit the decline, got a little air, and before they had time to react or break, probably because the car was partially airbound, they went under the semi, causing the underside of the semi to act like sandpaper. The scene was not pretty.

and they were already in the process of the cleanup by the time my dad arrived. However, he said they were just pulling out the body, and, from the looks of the accident, he could piece it altogether. He remembered this one, of course, because of the gruesome details, but also what he saw while trying to load up the vehicle. He mentioned it was taking longer than normal because they had to try to get the car out from underneath the semi, and then get the car on to the tow truck.

Towards the end, as he was loading up the car, he felt like he was being watched, so he looked around to see the cops and the other people weren't nearby, and no one was trying to get his attention. Then he looked over towards the field. From there, he saw a figure standing by a tree that appeared to just be watching him. He just stared at him for a minute to see if,

He was maybe just a bystander, trying to watch what was going on. Unfortunately, you get people like that, going to these scenes to try to get pictures or something. However, my dad noticed he wasn't holding a camera or anything, just standing, hands to his side. Once he finished loading up the car, he started walking towards them to see what he was doing. As he got closer, he noticed the person looked like a younger kid. maybe in their teens. He took note of the clothing he was wearing in case it came up in the future, like missing person, someone fleeing from the scene or family, etc.

As he continued walking, he says that he got a page, if that tells you how long ago this was, and when he looked up from the pager, the kid was gone. He looked around to see if he ran off, but he didn't see him anywhere, so he went back to his truck, finished up what he needed to with the authority. authorities and left. A few days later, he said he heard additional information about the crash and saw a picture of the

kid from the accident. To his surprise, the kid he saw in the field looked just like him. He said even the hairstyle and shirt he was wearing was identical. Of course, my mom said he probably saw his ghost who was trying to piece together what just happened before he moved on, and that's when he left this world. My dad, of course, doesn't believe in any of that, so he claims he probably just saw the kid as they were pulling him out and saw what he was wearing and chalked it up to him being tired. I don't know, though. Those scenes have to be gruesome and maybe even scar some people that would see them, but I'm thinking it was the kid passing over.

He had some other more creepy calls that maybe I can ask him about, but this was one that I specifically. specifically remembered. I still think about this encounter as an adult. When I was about 10, I'm 25 now, I was downstairs watching TV late at night with my mom and my sisters. Everyone decided to head off to bed, and I was left alone downstairs. I started drifting off, and all of a sudden,

someone started banging on our door, hard. I'm talking let me the F in hard. I was so scared that I just sat there frozen staring at the door, like my life depended on it. My dog was laying right next to me and also just stared. He never barked or moved an inch, which was odd because he always barked at the door. The banging never stopped for what seemed like a solid five minutes, but in reality was probably only a minute.

I looked at my dog and I think because I finally moved, my dog snapped out of his trance. He looked at me for a split second and jumped up and ran towards the door. He still didn't bark, but instead started turning his head like he was confused. I finally got the courage to get up and opened the blinds to see what was going. going on, and this young woman, maybe around 20 to 25, was standing there, holding her chest in her hand. It was still attached to her, but it seemed like she was trying to hold them up to keep them from being out there, I guess. She had blonde hair, white skin, and she was covered in

blood. Her shirt was ripped and her hair was a mess. I remember thinking that she might be have gotten beat up or was in a car crash. Either way, I immediately went to go open the door. As soon as I went to unlock it, my mom out of nowhere slammed her hand on the door and relocked it. I had no idea that she had even come down the stairs, let alone walked up behind me. I was so focused on the door and on this woman that, when she slammed her hand, it was almost as if it knocked me back to reality. Reality of not opening the door for strangers in the middle of the night. I looked up at her, and I could feel my eyes were wide,

and I think I even started crying. She put her hand on my shoulder and moved me away from the door. She yelled, Who is it? Through the door. And the girl yelled back that her boyfriend had beat her up, and they lived in the apartments across the street from us. Mind you, we lived in a townhouse in a cul-de-sac.

Our unit was all the way in the back where you would start to turn. We were the first unit in the row, but where she pointed out, her and her boyfriend's place was at, was quite a ways from that. You'll see how I know that in a minute. My mom asked her name, and she said something that sounded like,

Like something, Annie? Maybe Bethany or Stephanie or something like that. I saw my mom hesitate to open the door, but after she yelled, please help me, my mom opened the door, stepped out and pulled it closed to shut, but not completely shut. I cracked the door behind her to make sure she was okay and also to see what was going on.

The woman that will call Bethany kept, thanking my mom and asking to come in because she was scared her boyfriend was going to come after her. My mom refused and explained that she couldn't let her in because of the safety of her four kids, but said she would sit out there with her. My mom yelled at me to grab the phone and call the police, so I did. My mom started asking her what happened and what specific unit she lived in. She pointed toward her specific one and told my mom the building number in her unit, B. A silver SUV pulled up a little later, and she ran towards it yelling,

That's my sister, and then just jumped in. The car sped off without another word from her or a single word from the sister. My mom looked back at me confused and came back inside, and shut and locked the door. We just stood there and looked at each other. I asked my mom, what about the police, and she said she would wait for them downstairs if I wanted to go to bed. I was too scared to leave her, so I waited with her.

Once they arrived, my mom explained what happened, and the officer said she did the right thing by not letting her inside. The weird thing? my dog never barked once until the cops knocked on the door. They also explained that they had been receiving similar calls like this in the area recently. Even worse, we all packed up to go to the grocery store, and as we passed that building, you could tell the apartment was empty, like no one had been living in it.

Maybe they just didn't have any furniture, but it was still weird. He never came after her that night, and we never saw her or the SUV again. So, Bethany, Stephanie, I hope you're okay, if this was real. But also, if it's not, don't ever knock on my door again. I've been a driver for the same company for several years now, and I've definitely had some weird run-ins between people, locations, and, maybe even the unexplained. Here are a few that stand out for me.

When I have to stop to sleep, I'll try to stop in an open or empty parking lot instead of an actual truck stop. Usually, in those of businesses that have been closed, so there's no chance of traffic blocking me in or making it difficult for me to leave. Word of advice, if you see a semi-parked in back of a lot, don't be an ass and park next to them. Like I said, it just makes it easier and

there's less traffic in those. Also, doing this, I don't normally have to worry about people coming up to my truck. So, on one trip, I pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be an old circuit city building and prepared to sleep for the night. I had just called my wife to tell her that I was going to sleep and headed to the back for the night. I fell asleep as normal, but the waking up part was when it got weird. As I started waking up, I was hearing cars driving by, which was odd since I was in a lot, and they sounded like they were going pretty fast instead of just passing through slowly. So I got up, I looked out the window, and realized I was on the side of the road, not in a parking lot. I got out of my truck and noticed there were a few cop cars around me too.

They came up kind of smirking and asking if I was okay. To which I responded that I was, but just confused as to where I was. I was worried at first thinking, did I sleep drive or something? But they did explain to me what had happened. Apparently, while I was sleeping in the back, someone decided to take my rig for a spin. I had left the doors unlocked because it's never been an issue before, but they got in, and they started driving off. Two problems with this, though.

Apparently, the guy didn't know how to drive a manual, so the truck wasn't moving too fast, and a cop that was behind me noticed it was drifting into another lane, so he tried pulling it over. Another thing to note was that I snore, a lot, and loudly. The guy heard me and started freaking out even more, so he tried to stop the truck and take off out the passenger side in an attempt to confuse the police. They did catch him, and he explained all of this, but they didn't even know that he wasn't the owner until I got out of the truck.

My wife likes to tease me about my snoring now, but I also say that it probably saved my life. Now I make sure to lock my doors, no matter where I stay. Another time, something had broken on my truck, and I had to get it fixed, and quickly. Unfortunately, the closest place wouldn't have the part for a few days, unless I went to a local mechanic that didn't sell the parts individually, as they had to be the ones to install it, making me have to pay for the parts and the labor.

I didn't have the money for something like that, and I had expressed this to the person at the shop who said that was the only option that they could give me. I told them I would think it over, and I start heading back out to my truck. As I'm walking back, there was a lady that was hollering at me, so I stopped to see what she wanted.

I noticed that she was in the shop at the same time as me, so maybe she overheard our conversation and had a suggestion. She confirmed this, and I explained that I could replace the part myself. I just needed to buy it. She said she had ways to get a little extra money to those in need like this. I know the price of the part in labor was going to probably be twice, if not triple the amount I was expecting to pay, so I would not expect charity from a stranger for that amount.

so I started to tell her it was okay and that I would figure something out. Then she stopped me and said, Really, it's no big deal. Anyone can do it and it's nothing illegal. So I thought, fine, let me see what she is suggesting. Maybe she has a job or something I can do real quick. Then, she asked me if I had two kidneys. I'm sure the look on my face had to see.

say it all as she giggled slightly and said, I'm serious, you can get good money for it, like donating blood. I asked her out of confusion if there was a hospital nearby that was just openly taking kidneys or something, and she said, not a hospital, but we do have a facility that can have you in and out pretty quickly. This freaked me out, so I just said no thanks. I think I figured something out. or something along those lines,

and I briskly walked back to my truck. I sat in the truck for a bit and called my wife to try to figure out what to do, and I noticed this chick had not left yet. It had been at least an hour, and she was still there. It started freaking me out a bit, so I did something I probably shouldn't have, and rigged the part up to work enough to get me to the next city that had the part that I needed. My wife called a few places for me to find it as I drove so I could get out of there,

because who knows if she was serious and if she was serious enough to try and get one of my kidneys by force. I didn't know that was a thing that people just tried to solicit around here, but, well, now I know. It never fails to amaze me how brave some people are in public, especially, towards other people, such as myself. I started working at Walmart a few years out of high school, so I was barely 21. I definitely ran into some jerks before, but the creepy old guys were the kicker. What's worse is how they didn't seem to care who else was around to witness this. I started working in the fitting rooms and we saw plenty of people attempt to do inappropriate things,

in them. Those are stories for another day. I eventually transferred to customer service, because I was tired of being the one to call maintenance into the fitting rooms. Before Walmart had the specific money service centers, we did all that at customer service. So money orders, money transfers, and even some utility payments. We started getting this one guy that just looked slimy as hell. He always wore jeans and a nasty tank top. His hair was really long and stringy, like he washed it twice a year,

but usually pulled it back into a ponytail. He would hit on all the younger girls and treat the older ones like dirt, if he couldn't just avoid them. He started coming up to customer service to be rang up when the lines were too long because he learned we wouldn't turn people down. When it was just me there, he would always be leaning over the counter, smirking, and he would always call me babe, which alone was creepy and made me feel gross.

Unfortunately, he had more reasons to go to customer service because he started doing money transfers too. Those started becoming really suspicious, too, and he could tell that I was on to him. They were always even amounts, always under the amount that we had to report, and he always made it out to people, and the names were never the same. I tried to play dumb once, since he had sent well over ten grand within a week, and I acted concerned for him saying, Do you know the people you're sending money to? And I mentioned how there have been a lot of scammers. He smirked, and he said,

Yeah, they're my employees. This is the fastest way I can pay them. I thought, well, not really, but hey, it was none of my business, so I dropped it. However, he continued coming in and continued being a creep, and I was getting fed up with it. I mentioned it to someone else that worked there about how the money transfers were really suss, but she just shrugged it off. The problem with at least the store I worked at was that nobody seemed to care.

If it didn't directly affect them, they didn't bother with anything. So I figured out how to file a report myself on the money transfers, and I did. In the meantime, he continued to show up there. However, things got worse. We all wore name tags so he could see our first name but not our last. yet one time he came in to do another money transfer. He started handing me the paper. He took his sunglasses off and then said,

Let's do this without the small talk today, Ms. Anderson. How the hell did he know my last name? I just stared at him for a second before continuing. It was obvious at this point to him that he was correct. I completed it without another word to him and continued on. with my day. I again told my co-worker when they came in, and he said he probably just saw it somewhere or overheard someone else say it. I didn't believe this, because I had no reason to use my last name, but could do nothing about it. From then on, he would come in and make more

gross comments to me. Call me, babe, make kissing faces even at me. At one point, I was already having a bad day when I saw him in line, so I called up my manager and told them that they needed to ring him up because I was no longer comfortable doing it. Their idea of doing that was to look over the form, check his ID, and then hand it to me telling me to do it. Furiously, I did so, as he leaned against the counter and chuckled. He then said that I was too smart and too pretty to be working there, and that he could get me a good paying job with my looks. I looked him straight in the eyes and said no thanks, and didn't say another word to him. That night, as I was walking to my car to leave, I noticed an envelope on my windshield.

As stupid as it was, I looked around, got in my car, and opened it. It was a card, saying happy birthday with a hotel card in it, with a room number written on it. The card said something like, In case you change your mind. The part that freaked me out the most was that my birthday was the next day. Granted, I had no proof, but I knew it had to be this guy. Not only did he know my full name,

but he also knew what I drove and my birthday. I started crying in my car. I lived alone, so I had no one to turn to or talk to about this other than my mom. She suggested that I call the police, but I had no evidence it was even this guy, and besides, he hadn't done anything specifically to me, so I knew they wouldn't do much. I did start having this guy that did carts walk me to my car just in case. He was one of the few people there that I liked and believed me.

I quit shortly after, and I started working with my mom because I didn't want to see this guy ever again. I hope he got caught, because I never want to see him again, and I hope he didn't put anyone else through this. This is about my younger sister, who had many visions about her past life. My parents always called her weird or claimed that she just had a vivid imagination, so she only ever talks to me about them now. One of the first times she mentioned this to me was when we were playing house or superheroes. We always made up names for these games, but she always chose the same name, Charlotte. I didn't think much of it at first, but I usually swapped between the same two or three names, unless I learned a new name that I liked.

But she always chose Charlotte. One day, we decided to have a picnic in our backyard, so we gathered stuff to make peanut butter sandwiches and some chips and then had it out. One thing I will mention is that when it came to P.B.N. J., it could never be grape jelly. I was okay with it, but my sister would not eat it. My parents always said or thought that she just didn't like grapes, so we always got something else. Anyways, when we sat down to finally eat, she asked me, so do you remember many different lives? I was confused by this question, so she tried to explain more.

She mentioned, since I used multiple names, she was curious if I remembered the past lives of multiple people. I told her no, that I just liked the names. But she went on to explain that she used to be named Charlotte. She explained that she used to live somewhere hotter and near a beach, and that she was allergic to grapes, which is why she avoided them now. I thought, in a way, it made sense, but she wouldn't eat them so we would have no idea

if she's allergic to them now. Later that night during dinner, I asked my parents if we knew someone named Charlotte. They thought about it for a while, but then said no and asked me why. My sister was looking at me curiously, and I explained to them that she used to be Charlotte. I remember my mom mentioning that was a good imagination,

while my dad chuckled but said nothing else about it. From then on, my sister continued telling me more stories of her past life, but it was later that year we went on vacation in Texas, where it became more real. We were going to a friend of my mom's house when we got talked to, turned around in a cul-de-sac. My sister pointed out one of the houses excitedly and said, That was my old house.

Well, it used to be my parents, but I inherited it when they died. My dad was driving and looked up at us in the back seat, while my mom looked back in confusion. She said, what are you talking about? My sister went on to explain that she knew that was the one because of the front deck. It had an awning and was screened in with an old swinging seat hanging from the roof. She said she used to sit there and drink coffee, while she read, especially whenever it was raining. My dad said nothing, well, my mom just stared at my sister and then turned back around to face forward.

I remember it was awkward for a few seconds when my sister said, I had a bad reaction to the juice I was drinking, and I couldn't breathe. breathe. This caused my mom to snap and say something like, Enough. She started asking us what we watched to learn all that, and even asked my dad what he was watching with us. We all said nothing, and my sister went quiet. From then on, she never mentioned anything to my parents about her past life, but I still asked her about it. I was absolutely curious about all this, and at that, at that, At that age, I didn't know what reincarnation was. She explained to me a bit more about what she looked like. Long golden-brown hair with green eyes, light freckles, and fair skin.

She said she was never married. She had a gray cat named Milo, and she was sad that she died and didn't know what happened to him when she was gone. She told me different stories over time about her past life, and I had no reason to her. to not believe her. As we got older, we didn't talk about it on a normal basis, but it did come up on occasions. We're now in our 30s, and we got together for lunch one time and something occurred that caused us to talk about it. She went into more detail about that time how Charlotte had died. She said the juice she had contained grape juice, and it caused her to go into anaphylactic shock, and then she died from it.

And this is why she avoids grapes. I asked if she ever had an allergy test to see if she was still allergic to them, and she said she thought about it, but she said she remembered her death so vividly, and that she didn't want to risk it. We were curious about how close she was with all this information, so we actually tried looking for Charlottes that had passed away in Texas, and for house records. Surprisingly, we did find that house, and I actually found a way to contact the current owners

to ask about the history of it. I told them I had grown up in the area and was trying to remember the name of an old friend that lived there. To my surprise, they were glad to help, and from the real estate, they bought the house from, we were able to track down the records and found a Charlotte that lived there and her parents that owned it before her. We found pictures of her, and she matched the description that my sister gave.

It was crazy to actually put physical proof to what she told us all these years. We haven't said anything to our parents, since they don't seem to believe any of it. We're still trying to figure out if we can find out her cause of death, but the house and her description in time that she lived was proof enough for us.

I've been delivering good. food for one of those popular gig companies that you all know and love, the ones that will charge you way too much to have McDonald's Mac delivered to your house. Since I've been doing it for quite a while, I've seen a lot of strange and creepy things, and I've dealt with what I would consider the most terrifying people out there. Some of my favorites, are the ones where the people that you're delivering to come to the door smelling like death or not wearing enough clothing. To add to that aside, please, when you order food from a pizza place

through Uber or DoorDash or whatever, please wear clothing and please wear enough clothes to cover yourself. I can't tell you how many naked people I've seen. seen through the open curtains, or when they opened the door to get their no-contact order. Anyways, moving past my complaints about people having no modesty, one of the other things we tend to run into are crazy people. Sometimes you get people that have pretty clear mental issues, and I understand that a lot of them cannot control their mannerisms,

and maybe that's what was wrong with this lady, but honestly, this situation scared the absolute hell out of me. This all happened last year during the C-19 situation, and as stated, I was a driver for one of the companies that delivered food to people from random restaurants. This was near the beginning, when we were still able to hand you your food, but then we also had the option to do the no-contact delivery. When we do the no-contact, we were still expected to make sure that the customer got their food.

Basically, we were supposed to drop the order on the porch, ring the bell and step away to around six to ten feet away, and wait a moment for the customer. I was very specific with how I did things. I wasn't one to just drop the food. food and run back to my car. This order was a decent-sized order from a bar and grill, which was fine. I drove to the restaurant, got the food, and then headed out toward the customer's house.

I was heading down the street and approaching the destination, when I noticed the overall appearance of the neighborhood was starting to decrease. By this, I mean that the houses went from pretty new. normal suburban homes to a bit run down all the way to some of the houses looking really bad. I would go as far as saying trashy. I was driving to the end of the road and was trying to find the house that I needed to deliver to and was honestly starting to get one of those pits in my stomach. The last couple of houses went as such.

One house looked kind of meh. One house was completely and totally trashed and looked like a drug house, and the last one looked decent. Looking at these three, I was honestly scared that the drug house was going to be where I had to deliver. So, imagine my surprise when it wasn't, and the number matched the cleanest of the three houses. Anyways, I parked my car in front of the house and grabbed the food, making my way up to the porch. As expected, I dropped the order on the porch, and then I rang the bell, and then I stood back and waited for the customer. Within a few seconds of my ringing the bell, I hear the door next door, the door at the drug-looking house,

fling open hard and smack against the siding. Obviously this caught my attention, so I looked over to see what was going on, and I really wish I hadn't. Out of the door comes a woman that had a look about her that was nothing shy of horrifying. She looked like she was genuinely pissed off at the world, and like she wanted to hurt someone. And at that point in time, the only person nearby, and the only person making eye contact, was me. Out of nowhere, she yells, What the f-are you doing and what do you want? I immediately looked back to the customer's door to wait for them to answer and tried to move on from the situation.

I reached forward and rang the doorbell a second time and once again stepped back to my waiting position. Then, out of nowhere, I get this incredibly sharp pain in my life. leg. I didn't think much of it at first, but when I looked down, I see this literal screwdriver handle sticking out of my leg, and this crazy woman standing there and staring at me like I was literally the cause of every problem she's ever had, and the only solution was to stab me with the rusty screwdriver from her junk pile. I honestly cannot overstate how awkward the situation was. Yes, I had a screwdriver sticking out of my leg, and yes, I was starting to bleed, and yes, she had

seriously just stabbed me, but something about the moment of silence between us was just awkward. What exactly do you say to some crazy woman that had just stabbed you with a screwdriver while you were trying to deliver chilies to their neighbor? After a few seconds of silence, the customer opened the door and reached for their food, and almost grabbed it to go back in, until he saw me, the neighbor, and the screwdriver. He dropped his food and ran out to the yard and basically stepped forward to get between me and his neighbor. I don't really remember much between that moment and when the whole thing came to an end. I know that the neighbor was screaming that she had just,

stopped me from robbing him, and then the customer was screaming about something else. I just remember feeling woozy and asking them to call an ambulance, and for some reason, randomly thinking about how I wasn't going to be able to mark my delivery as finished. If anyone is curious, yes, the cops came, and yes, I ended up going up to the hospital. Getting stabbed with a rusted and weathered screwdriver is something that they typically want you to go get checked out for. I'm pretty sure she got arrested for this situation, but I

don't really know because the officers never spoke to me about this situation. I did go back to delivering when I could. I just now have a bit of a limp and a nice circular scar where she stabbed me. The town that I grew up in

is considered to be a fairly small town overall. It's basically made up of continuations of previous generations. And while they may have recently gotten a Sonics drive-in and a dollar general, it is still and forever will be a super small town in north central Colorado. Most people think of Denver when you mention the area, but we're actually a solid hour, hour and a half away.

I spent most of my life in the arms of what was basically the middle of nowhere, But unlike the rest of my graduating class of 30, I ended up moving out further west when I hit 20. So, I know both sides of life, this tiny town that no one's heard of, and the big cities out on the coast. What's weird? Life in the small town is actually more terrifying, in my opinion. Sure, living in Cali, you may get robbed or accosted by someone on some sort of substance, but at least you can expect it. For some reason, learning about the horrors of your hometown tends to blindside you.

Or at least it did me. I don't know. Maybe not all small towns have secrets that they hold on to like mine does. Or maybe they do. My hometown actually had a few things that everyone knew about, but nobody spoke about. Some of them happened in my grandparents' time, some of them in my parents, but they were some of the best kept secrets around, honestly. The one thing I learned was that I apparently had an aunt at one time. Back when I was around 15, my grandma accidentally slipped up and called me name.

My name is certainly not Nance, Nancy, or any variation of that. I asked her who Nance was, and I remember when I asked, she looked like she was about to seriously burst into tears. She said that she couldn't tell me, but that I should talk to my father about it. I honestly had no idea who they were, nor did I expect what my dad told me. Apparently, Nancy, lovingly referred to as Nance by my grandmother, was my aunt, my father's older sister. This took me by surprise, as I never knew that I had a paternal aunt. I thought my father was an only child, mostly because I had never seen a photo of this woman, never heard her name mentioned, and I had never spoken to her. Obviously, I was curious about who she was, where she was, and why she hadn't been around.

And I wish that I would have quelled that curiosity, because it was pretty horrible. I was informed that back when my father was 12 and my aunt Nancy was 14, she had apparently gone missing. There was one night back then that she went out with her friends and she just never. came home. At first, my grandma thought it wasn't a huge deal. She was just out there and being stupid. But then, by morning, it was apparent to her that something had to have gone wrong. He told me that my aunt was a straight-A student and would have likely graduated valedictorian,

but that night she seemingly vanished. This was obviously creepy to me. I had never expected to have a little bit. an aunt that was a missing person. Then, he told me that she was not a missing person. She was murdered. He went on to tell me that, when she went missing, the whole town went into what was essentially a small town lockdown.

They put a curfew into effect, and every adult was on the lookout for Nancy. They seriously combed every inch of the city and spoke to everyone they could to see if anyone had known of her whereabouts. It spoke to the friends that my aunt had gone out with, and they all told the same story. They were out, basically loitering wherever, and a police officer pulled up with his lights on.

They said that the officer rolled down the window and called out to Nancy, and that she ran over to speak to the officer. Apparently, she then turned around, yelled to them that she needed to go and got in the car, and that was it. The biggest issue with this is that not a single one of her friends had seen his face. None of them could describe him at all, and there were no extra details in the car that made it stand out, and none of them had gotten a license plate.

A year after she had disappeared, everyone had pretty much given up on ever finding her alive. when someone actually ended up finding what looked like a shallow grave in a creek bed that had receded. The police came out and they dug it up and, as you can probably guess, they found the body of my aunt. Based on how she was buried, they assumed that she was sexually assaulted, and the cause of death was determined to be strangulation. At this point, the only thing anyone knew was that the last,

Last person to see her alive was a police officer, but there was literally no information on who it was. Then, he explained that, not long after they found her body, two police officers resigned from the force. One of them had a daughter of his own and was married, and the other was just the opposite. Single, no kids. The one with the family left town. No one has any idea where he was. went. The other officer actually became the physical education teacher at the high school that I graduated from, and was also the football coach. I saw this man almost every day for four years, and every single day after learning this, I had to think that he may have seriously assaulted and murdered my aunt.

The worst part, there's no way that we'll ever know what actually happened to her, mostly because of her. of how much damage had been done to her body over the year. There was no physical evidence, no DNA that they could find, no prints or anything like that, just a dead girl and silent suspicions. Apparently, the entire town, for lack of a better word, knew that these two were involved. The timing was too suspicious,

and it was apparently believed that their higher-ups may have, been aware of the situation. But, like I said, nothing ever happened to them. One is gone, and the other still teaches high school gym class. Honestly, it was just one more reason to get the hell out of there when I got the chance to do so.