As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Vol 46 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Today we have 23 More true scary stories with a late night ambience. Scary Stories For Dark Dreams is a collection of older stories, remastered and put together in a long form episode. This Collection includes A mix of true scary stories over all topics from Sept 2022, July 2023 & Aug 2023. So, turn down the lights, tune in, and let the haunting tales of everyday people take you down that dark and creepy road. Remember, these aren't just stories... these are true experiences that remind us that our world can truly be scarier than fiction. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like or rate the podcast, and leave me a comment with your thoughts if the platform your own supports it! I upload episodes every 3 days, so there are 2 days between new uploads. The podcast consists of new scary story collections, Glitch in the matrix collections, and also what I call the "Dark Dreams" collections (which are older stories, remastered and layered with rain sounds). If you have a story to submit, would like to find where to listen to the podcast, or want to find me on social media platforms, all of that info can be found at https://www.astheravendreams.com You can also send stories into my subreddit (r/theravensdream) or email them to me at [e-mail] Want to check out some ATRD Podcast Merch? ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Or for signed merch ➤ https://ko-fi.com/AsTheRavenDreams I wrote a novel, "The Insomniac's Experiment" by Raven Adams! Check it out on amazon (Or you can email me for a signed copy!) Join Patreon to get early access and support the Podcast! ➤ https://www.patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Check out my gaming channel with my pal Ghost_Ink ➤ @superNefariousBros On YouTube TIMESTAMPS One Ad After the First Story, No ads after that Story 1: 0:24 Story 2: 9:44 Story 3: 13:53 Story 4: 21:47 Story 5: 26:29 Story 6: 30:51 Story 7: 34:39 Story 8: 40:13 Story 9: 1:02:05 Story 10: 1:07:42 Story 11: 1:16:35 Story 12: 1:21:39 Story 13: 1:28:31 Story 14: 1:36:44 Story 15: 1:44:41 Story 16: 1:51:13 Story 17: 1:55:32 Story 18: 1:59:43 Story 19: 2:01:09 Story 20: 2:07:12 Story 21: 2:12:29 Story 22: 2:15:12 Story 23: 2:19:47 ----- Disclaimer ➤ Episodes include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Listener discretion is always advised. ALL Audio and visuals on this podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format. Bless This Mess. None of my audio is AI Generated, I am a real person reading real stories into a real microphone. Note: The podcast nor the host endorses any advertisements played during the podcast, ads are not chosen by ATRD or Raven Adams, they are chosen automatically by the advertisement systems by the platforms that host the podcast. I do not endorse, support, or promote any opinions or statements made in any adverts played during the show. #ScaryStories #UnexplainedMysteries #GlitchInTheMatrix ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet, from rolling countryside to cobblestone streets. Begin your next chapter. Book your seat at westjet.com or call your travel agent. WestJet, where your story takes off. Welcome to via Rai. Embarked and enjoy. Embarque and celebrate.

Rigolet. Publié. Savourer. Admire. And enjoy. and profite. Via Raille, the voice that we love.

If you have a true scary story you'd like to share with the podcast, go to as the ravendreams.com and click the button to send it my way. Also, if the platform you're on has the option to rate the podcast or leave a comment, please consider doing so.

And as always, thank you. Hey, Raven. I want to start out by saying that you are my favorite narrator on YouTube. Thank you. Don't get me wrong. there are a lot of excellent narrators that I frequently listen to, same, but you definitely are my favorite. I have two experiences that I would like to share with you, starting with one that happened back in April,

when I was on my way back from the NASCAR Dirt Track Race Night, in Bristol, Tennessee with my husband, my father-in-law, and my husband's cousin. As I stated above, it was a night race, which means we didn't get on the road to have head back home to Indiana until after 11 p.m. that night. My husband's cousin was the one driving, so he put our destination into his phone's GPS for the quickest way back, as three out of the four of us had to work the next day. Thankfully, we all worked second shift.

Anyways, for whatever reason, the GPS took us through Virginia. I'm assuming it cut off some of the travel time, but I'm not sure because I did end up. falling asleep sometime after the strange incident occurred. It was around 2.30 to 3 a.m., and we were on the same very back country roads in the middle of nowhere Virginia. I was still a little pumped up, as it was my first time going to a NASCAR race, so my husband and I were chatting in the back seat while my cousin and father-in-law chattered in the front. We were the only ones on the road, as it was a very late science.

Sunday night. The speed limit was 55 or 60, I don't remember exactly, but his cousin was obeying the speed limit. So when we see headlights come up flying behind us out of nowhere, we were a little surprised. We all started making jokes about how we were in Backwoods, Virginia, and that that was probably the welcome wagon. Now, this road was very curvy at times, but the stretch that we were on at that point, particular moment was a straightaway. So, we could see a fair distance in front of and behind us, and we could see a vehicle approaching. Fast. I also need to mention that this was only a two-lane road. When the vehicle got close enough, we could see that it was an ambulance. It didn't have its

sirens or emergency lights on, but whoever was driving it was going way over the speed limit. They rode our bumper for a few minutes before erratically swerving over into the opposite lane to pass us. We had a clear view of the inside as it passed, and we could see that all the lights in the cab were on, as if they were transporting someone. But there was no one back there. Not an EMT? Nobody. We could see the black gurney in the upright position, but no one was on it.

I remember thinking that it was strange and trying to get a look at the driver because, one, he was driving kind of recklessly, and two, why would the lights be on in the back if there were no patience back there? But I couldn't see a driver. I couldn't see anyone. Once it passed, it took off like a bad out of, you know, where. About three-quarters of a mile up the road, it began to get very curvy again. But then, straightened to back out after.

a little bit. We should have seen the ambulance again, and we should have been able to at least see it in the distance on the part of the road that straightened back out, because there's no way an ambulance could have taken those curves at the speed that it was going. I would say that it had to be going at least 85 to 90 miles an hour. There were no intersections or turnoffs.

We were on a country highway in the sticks with no residential homes, nor businesses. If the ambulance had crashed, we would have seen some evidence of a crash. Even if it flipped and landed off the road out of sight,

we would have seen damage to the trees and brush that lined the highway. Just something. But there was nothing. And we did look because we all thought that it was just so weird. My father-in-law asked if anybody got a good look at the driver,

and I examined. explained that I tried but wasn't able to. I'm not really sure if it was because of the glare of the lights that I couldn't see a driver, but nobody else saw one either. After that, we referred to it as the ghost ambulance. The second experience happened to me at work earlier tonight, and has actually happened three times in the past week, all at work. So I really enjoy all of the stories you read,

the glitch in the Matrix ones are my favorite. I listen mostly at my place of employment because it keeps me from being bored to tears while I work. Thank you for that. I need to explain my job and its boring details in order for my story to make sense, so I apologize. I'm a machine operator at a plastics factory. Basically, the company I work for makes headlights and turn signal casings for cars and trucks. Most of the parts that I work with have a left and a right part. My job is to take them off the belt as they come down,

cut the parts off of what is called the sprue, the little plastic pieces the parts are connected to when the machine spits them out, and pack them into their respective totes or boxes for shipping. The packaging has individual slots for each part to fit into nicely and neatly. Also, the parts are identical. Most nights, I'm operating, two machines and you have to find what I call your groove in order to keep up with whatever machine you're responsible for.

Otherwise, you'll have parts piling up under the conveyor belt and you don't want that. The parts come down the belt, attached to the sprue. This is called a shot. So to be clear, each shot contains a left and a right part. What works for me is to clear the belt, which is anywhere between three to six shots. stack them on the table, and then cut each left part, pack them, and then repeat for the right. Now for the weird stuff. The incident that happened last Thursday was actually the weirdest, which was the second time this happened.

I had about three parts left before the set I was working on was full. So I finished the process that I just described, put my last three parts in each tote, rights and lefts, grab the lids and put them on the tote. There were no parts on the table, just empty spruce that I had not yet thrown away. However, when I was getting ready to take the full totes over to the skids, I glanced back down at my workstation and there were six parts still attached to the spruce, just laying there on the table, like I had cut the rights and packed them. I did a double take and quickly took the lid off of the left part's tote, and it was completely full. confused, I checked the rights, tote, but it was as it should be as well. I checked the floor and the waste bin to see if there were six right parts that had somehow fallen.

Maybe I'd cut them and forgot, but there was nothing. And why would I cut six extra parts, when I knew I only had three slots to fill? And then why only the rights? It just didn't make sense. for this particular part it is very easy to spot if you put it in the wrong tote a left in the right or vice versa

and the slots of the totes are just the right size for one individual part so you can't put two parts in one slot there is no reason there should have been any parts on the table because if one part is bad and you have to throw it out

you also have to throw out the opposite side automatically to keep things even. And besides, I haven't even had any bad parts in that machine that night. So where did the extra parts come from? As I said, I've had two other similar experiences at work, but that one was the most detailed instance. Also, I remember right before it happened, my feet and legs felt a little strange, like I was wading through warm water. Afterwards, I thought to myself, that must be what it feels like walking through dimensions. Because that, definitely, felt very glitchy.

This story is mine, sort of. But it's more my dad's. So, the entire thing is based on what he's told me. I was there. I was just strapped into my little car seat in the back, and was obviously way too young to remember any of it. He told me about this way later on in life, and honestly it was terrifying. It's probably why my dad has always been so protective of me,

and emphasized being alert and aware of your surroundings. Hell, when I turned 17, and I got my license, he always told me to take the main roads and to avoid back roads. From what my dad had told me, it was a pretty normal morning. He needed to go run some errands, so he would, was taking me to my grandmother's house. I was just sitting in my car seat and watching the back window, as I always did, completely unaware of anything.

He was driving down a relatively quiet road with trees on both sides. My grandma lived on the edge of a suburb, so there were a few spots that you had to go through that weren't heavily incorporated. He was there, just cruising at speed, when a man jumped out of the woods and ran in front of my dad's car, flailing his arms wildly. Naturally, my dad slammed his brake, barely avoiding to hit this guy. He said that he could see that this guy looked terrified, like he was running from something or some one.

But something about it didn't seem right. Something about the situation was off. His instincts were screaming at him, that this guy just wasn't some random dude running across the road. The guy didn't say anything to my dad He just limped over to the side of the car And made the motion of rolling down the window My dad, curious as to what this guy's explanation was

Cracked the window and asked if he was okay The man didn't respond The two of them just stared at each other eye to eye for several silent seconds My dad said that his heart was pounding And like his mind was saying Nah get the hell out of that He was prepared to drive off at the first sign of trouble, and, sure enough, trouble arrived. As soon as he turned to look back at the road, out of the corner of his eye,

he saw two other figures starting to emerge from the undergrowth of the woods on the other side. Without hesitation, my dad stomped on the gas. The car lurched forward, leaving the three strangers standing there in the middle of a dust cloud that he'd kicked up. He said that he could see them in the rear view, and all three of them just stood there watching as he drove away. He didn't stop driving until we reached my grandmother's house, where he said that he called the cops to report the incident. He wasn't sure what they were planning, but he gave them the description of the man and the location. But the details were sparse outside of that. We never did find out what happened in that situation, or what all that was.

The police never called us back with any details, and my dad didn't press the issue. He was just happy to have avoided what was undoubtedly heading towards a dangerous situation. Even today, years later, my dad sweats every time he tells this story, which really tells me how much it does scare him. My dad is a good guy. He'll stop and help people on the side of the road, but this was definitely a sobering reminder. that some people will take advantage of those willing to stop. It's important to trust your instincts and be hyper-vigilant about your surroundings. Hi, me, my sister, and my mom have been trying to make sense of this for the past couple of hours,

and the facts get less comforting the more we compare our experiences of that night. So, last Friday night, I, 17, male, was home alone while my family, besides my sister, who's 21, who was at work, stayed in their cabin a few kilometers away. I'm used to staying home, as this exact scenario is very common in the summertime, especially while I'm working and can't travel from the cabin and back. I'm not usually jumpy or afraid while home alone anymore, and I'm used to the odd creaks and settling noises of our old house. I was especially comforted by the fact that my sister's dog was also in the house with me that night, and most noises could be attributed to him. And if anything were to happen, he would act as a guard dog of sorts to alert me of anything odd.

At the same time, however, he is the type of dog to bark at any noise or person walking past the door or window. So, I'm used to hearing him bark or growl at night. Even so, this past Friday, the sound of his barks at nearly 12 a.m. were disconcerting, to say the least. Despite my comfort with staying home alone, I'm still terrified of the premise of a break-in, or, some other uninvited human interaction at midnight. I let him bark for a few seconds, telling myself it was just someone walking past our glass door in the adjacent hallway, and that he would quiet down once they passed. Needless to say, that is not what happened.

He kept barking and growling for a few moments too long, and I finally got out of bed, I sleep in the basement, and walked upstairs to check it out. As I'd suspected, he was standing alert at the glass door. I was comforted for a moment until I walked over, ready to close the curtain and go back to sleep, and then saw the door open about two or three inches. I froze.

I had let Bosco, the dog, out earlier that night, but I know that I closed the door. I have never left this door open. I'm a paranoid person with bad anxiety, especially concerning break-ins and the like. So I would never, while home alone, forget to close the door. I am 100% certain. But, at the time,

I didn't let myself think about these facts or even acknowledge that I could not have left the door open, because I knew that it would send me into a spiral, possibly even an anxiety or panic attack, if I didn't explain this away. I closed and locked the door, double-checking that it was certainly locked. Using the flashlight on my phone,

the lights were all off, I looked around the entire second floor of my three-floor house, including closets, and other reasonable hiding-skirts, spots just to put my mind at ease. And upon finding nothing, I went back downstairs to my room. As I was down there, trying to push away the fear, I could hear Bosco walking around on the floor that doubles as my bedroom's roof.

I thought I was overthinking it when it started to sound like human footsteps, accompanied by Bosco's footsteps. He walks around for about ten minutes before I put it. in my earphones, and I talk myself down until I can fall asleep. At 2 a.m. that same night, my sister comes home from work. I woke up a few minutes before this to Bosco in the basement, which he never does. There's even a gate to stop him from getting in the basement, and he was whining at my bedroom door.

When I got up to let him out, my sister walked in, and we let him out the front door, rather than the glass patio door, letting him back in the same way. We talked for a while before I went back downstairs, and my sister went to the bathroom. I forgot about the door, busy with work for the next few days, and I forgot to mention it to anyone until tonight. My sister and mom were home with me for a movie night, while my dad and brothers stayed at the cabin. I remembered the door situation when we were picking out horror, but we were picking out horror movies to watch. I was sharing it as a

creepy, almost funny story before my sister spoke up, saying that that same night, an hour or so after they got home, the door was open again. The same door that was locked from the inside

and not opened since earlier that night. My stomach dropped, and I started shaking the second this was revealed. We first started trying to explain it away. Maybe she had let Boss go out and forgot to close it, until we both recalled that we had used the front door.

Then we were trying to justify a reason someone would break in to not steal anything and proceed to stay for two hours before leaving. Ultimately, I realized that I quite possibly locked someone in the house with me, and then forced them to hide upstairs while I searched the second level of our house. Then this hypothetical person would be trapped up there knowing that this house, that appears empty with the rest of my family gone and all the lights off, was not empty. And there was a dog who would bark if they showed themselves again, alerting me to their presence. Then, when I was in the basement and my sister was in the bathroom,

They ran out the glass door, which is timed perfectly to when they found the door opened once more, much wider than when I found it as though they were only in a hurry on the way out. Perhaps they left it open the first time for a quick escape, or to stop the loud sound of it meeting the door frame. Either way, it ties together too perfectly for me to reasonably brush it off. I know that it's unlikely, especially with it. nothing missing, but in this small town, there have been many reports of break-ins with nothing missing, vandalized, or just breaking and entrings, many, many times. So it's not as unlikely

as it may be in a bigger city. I can't make sense of this, and I'm kind of shaken up thinking of the possibility of someone being in my house while I was asleep, alone in the basement. There's a part of me that doesn't believe it, but I can't shake the too many coincidences that all tie together to make this as concerning as it is. Hello, Raven. I'm a huge fan of your reading and love that you encourage people to share their strange and unexplainable stories. I've been listening for about a year now, and I thought it might be time to share my own experience. Since I can't remember, I've had dreams that later come to free. fruition, or end up affecting my awake life in some way.

These are just a couple of examples of such dreams. I graduated high school in June of 1998, and gave birth to my first born in September of 1999. Shortly after graduation, but prior to getting pregnant, I began having a recurring dream that I had not graduated. In my dreams, I always found myself back. in school, lost, and trying to figure out my class schedule. I would be wandering that semi-familiar hallway, and telling each faceless student that I came across that I didn't belong there, because I'd already graduated. I would wake up feeling strange, but just chalked it up to the pressure put on me by my parents

to get my high school diploma. Fast forward, 17 years, and my oldest child graduates high school a year early. The school let everyone know that although they were still waiting for the scores from the final test, they were going to go ahead with the graduation ceremony. One day in July, my kiddo was watching a softball game and happened to run into her principal. He told her that the test results were finally in, and unfortunately she had failed by just two points. She would be required to return to the school next year,

and remain in attendance until she could retake the test and pass it. So, my dream had actually come true, only not in a way that I ever could have imagined. I am happy to say that she did pass the retake, and only spent about two weeks there before she was done for good. Not once have I had that dream since. The last thing I want to add is that this dream phenomena has been a thing that my mom has experienced forever.

She's had dreams of people passing away, and they always do within a few weeks. Sometimes it's even people who aren't sickly or expected to pass. We're of indigenous descent, and I'm not sure if that contributes at all. I really would love to learn more about any special gifts that I may have been given, but I don't really know where to start.

Story 2 is about a possible abduction. On the night of July 9, 2003, I had a dream that I was in a hospital setting and appeared to be getting prepped for some sort of procedure. Allstaff had their faces completely covered, and I don't recall any of them speaking. I was the only one to actually say anything. I somehow felt or got the impression that they were about to insert an IV, so I told them about the scar tissue and the crooks of my arm from years of plasma donations. I explained that I usually have to get IVs in the back of my hand.

I remember there being three people in the room, and they all exchanged a quick glance before I felt the IV going in, and that was it. I also recall not being able to see any features of their faces, not even the eyes. They all had masks and goggles on, and the goggles seemed to be reflecting the bright, sterile lights in such a manner so as to keep me from seeing their eyes. I woke up what felt like hours later.

After a bit, I thought back to my dream and looked at my right hand. And I just so happened to see what looked to be a scab from an IV right on a vein, exactly like I've had so many times before when actually being in the hospital. I can't explain it, and my boyfriend chooses to believe that my cat must have scratched me during the night. I don't feel like that makes sense since it wasn't a scratch, but rather a tiny puncture wound. This happened back in 1986,

when I was working for a bank in the bookkeeping department in Richmond, Virginia. Where I worked in bookkeeping was called statement rendering. We kept all the personal and corporate checks filed there. On the first and second of each month, we had to mail out, by hand, all of the corporate statements. Everyone in the department, no matter your regular job, had to help that day. And we sometimes didn't get out until eight or nine that night. Usually, we got an hour for lunch, but on those days, days, we got 30 minutes.

I can't remember the exact day the story takes place, but it was in 1986, right after we bombed Libya, so I'm thinking April or May. My friend, M, and I were discussing what to do for lunch, because, as I stated before, we only had 30 minutes that day. We decided on going to Popeyes because it wasn't too far away, and I thought we could make it in 30 minutes. So, that's what we did. My friend was driving because I didn't have a car at the time,

and I took the bus everywhere. The bus system in Richmond was really good. We got to Popeye's and got in line to order. As we were standing there, a guy came in and got right behind us in line. He was staring a hole through me. I turned back and stared straight ahead. M and I kind of looked at each other with a, what's wrong with this guy, look.

We got our food and went to sit down. M sat down across from me and whispered that when I was going to sit down, that guy's eyes followed me the whole time I was walking back to the table. That's when I started to get worried. He came and sat down at the table behind ours, and I was facing him. The whole time he just,

sat there and stared at me. I would try to sit so M's head was blocking his view of me, but he would just move over and continue to stare. We had to sit there and wait until he finally got up and left. After he got up and left, we laughed about it, but the laughter didn't last long. He didn't leave. He was waiting for us in the parking lot in his car. As I stated before, this was right after we had bombed Libya.

And he looked Middle Eastern, and I started thinking we were going to be kidnapped. We decided to walk back to where the arcade games were just to see if we were being paranoid, and we weren't. He drove over to where he knew we were. Now we started panicking. Our time for lunch was running out, and we didn't want this guy following us back to work. So we went to the pay phone there, this was before cell phones, and we called our office to let them know what was going on. Our boss was at lunch, so we had to leave a message,

and after that we stood there trying to decide what to do to lose this guy. The parking lot just had one row of spaces, and there was an entrance out to the main street, and another one in the back going out to a parking lot where there was a back way to work. By this time, he had pulled his car out and was facing the front entrance to the main road. I told my friend to back up and go out the other way through that parking lot, and we can go the back way to work.

That's what we did. We saw him zoom out the front way and try to find out which way we went, but he never did. We got back to work late and told them what happened. They all burst out laughing. They said it sounded like something out of Miami Vice, and then I burst out crying. My friend yelled at them that there were.

was nothing funny about this. But that's my creepy encounter story. Thank you for listening. So, part of this was what my mom had told me, that sleepwalking and breaking arm stuff, at least. My dad says he doesn't remember much of it besides sleepwalking, so I may not be 100% on those details, but the dreams are real. So this was back in 1996-ish when I first started walking.

I used to sleepwalk, as my parents called it. Even with sleeping in my crib, I would make my way out of it, and they would find me randomly around my grandparents' house. We lived in the same house as my grandparents, so it was them, my mom and dad, and my three other siblings. We lived in a smaller area, but not in a small. super secluded part. Well, at one point, I was found crying in my crib, and I had a broken, or fractured arm.

They couldn't figure out why or how it had happened. A couple of weeks later, it happened again. Same arm. But the cast was also broken and torn apart. Again, nothing came of it, and seeing how I was two to three years old, I couldn't really talk or explain it. However, I remember having the same dream over and over again. As I got older, I can't remember any other dreams while living at their house. I would wake up seeing a light outside my window,

and it was so bright that it was blinding. I would try to hide at first, but it would get so intense that I would leave my room, and the light would follow through each window or whatever room I was in. Eventually I would make my way to the front door and I would open it, and the light would be gone. I'd start feeling afraid, so I would run to my trampoline, which was in the middle of our yard, and I would hide under it and grab one of the legs. Suddenly, I would see the bright light again, but it was above me this time. I would look up, and I could make out nine smaller lights in a circle,

and then a giant one would light up, and it would start to open, and then everything would go black, and that's all I can remember. I remember feeling so afraid. Even thinking back on it makes me start to panic, and I have to remind myself that I'm safe. But this went on for years, as well as the sleepwalking. My parents even installed a deadbolt and placed it where it was out of my reach, and I would still manage to open the door and walk outside. One night, they actually woke up to a horn blaring.

I was in the middle of the road and was almost hit by a car, and they could not understand how I kept escaping. When we did finally move out of the house, the dreams suddenly stopped. Even now at 28, I haven't had that dream or any dreams about UFOs or aliens like that one. I used to chalk it up to just coincidental. until I told an old friend about it, who was away into aliens and such, and he told me that I was most likely abducted.

Like I said, though, I don't remember sleepwalking or breaking my arms or anything. I just remember the dreams, and it still scares me to think about it. Everyone loves a good movie once in a while. My friend and I, when we were 15, we weren't an exception. So, one warm summer evening we set out to spend a night at the cinema. I studied in a town far away from my family, and I lived in a dorm just like my friend Anna. Unrelated, but later she became a police officer.

The movie was a light rom-com, shopaholic. It was Anna's choice. and we enjoyed it. Despite being a tough and principled police officer, Anna has always been sentimental and romantic. Both of us had an easy laugh, and after the movie ended, as we were going past agitated,

smartly dressed youth in the direction of our wretched dorm, we just couldn't stop laughing at some ridiculous random thing from the movie. Part of our way lay through a less popular, area, which involved a small bridge, at one side of which were a set of houses on the hill and a restaurant, and on another, our college on the way to our dorms. By the time we reached the bridge, I was folded in two from laughing my ass off at shopaholic's green scarf-related jokes, and neither my friend nor myself knew what we were really laughing at so hard. It was dark, and there was absolutely no one around.

Besides this old lady on the hill trying to lock her house, perching awkwardly on the side of the hill, and seemingly having a hard time adjusting something. Being a very considerate and sensitive person, I remember thinking, hopefully she doesn't assume we're laughing at her. As I was almost touching the asphalt with my face covered with tears of joy, and letting everyone in a range of a few kilometers know that some of this stuff was funny.

We stopped there for a minute so I could compose myself, and then we moved on. A little ways further, seconds later, already on the bridge, I felt compelled to look behind me. And to my amazement, there was that old lady just a couple of steps away, walking in an energized manner. It was absolutely impossible for her to go down the hill in split seconds and reach us on the bridge, especially considering how slow and awkward she looked before. Something seriously astonished me, though.

I will never forget that look of hatred that she had, staring directly at me as I looked back. We were only divided by a couple of steps, and it felt too intimate because they're not. literally was no one else on the streets. Then, what I saw in her hands, I absolutely could not believe. Much to my horror, she was holding a large butcher's knife. I'm not sure whether I should count on my eyes or not, so I told my friend Anna to look back, and after a couple of endless moments, she said that she saw the gigantic knife, too. At this instant, we stepped up, and whatever we did,

we could not lose the old lady. The streets looked empty and unwelcoming, and not even cars went by, and the yellow illumination seemed cold, cruel, and somewhat dead. We hastily crossed one of the roads in the direction of our dorm, but still had to make quite a few turns. And on passing the first one, going around the corner of a little store, we felt free to run. I guess we didn't want to provoke her early. as I am a slow runner. To our amazement, the old hag was easily gaining on us just by walking.

It felt like we were escaping a supernaturally unstoppable Jason Voorhees. Later, I explained it through the phenomenon of people in psychosis. They're often ten times stronger and maybe faster than ordinary people because they lose psychological breaks. seeing her follow us turn by turn in completely dark blocks near our dorm left no room for the feeble hope that she was just coying about her business panting and scared we reached the dorm safely and I immediately shared the story with my roommates while having a hard time believing that I didn't imagine it

and even to this very day it does not look credulous to my own mind maybe because of complete irrationality of the crazy old bad's actions. I sometimes remember her whenever I become hateful or resentful, because it takes a very unhappy and defeated person to go after teens with a knife just over them laughing. The moral is, at night, by any means, travel in larger groups, and don't forget a bear spray or something. And please, have a safe time.

when visiting your local cinemas. Hey, guys. I'm a long-time listener, and I finally came around to having time to send my story to you. I wanted to share this to help out younger generations, to realize that things are not always as innocent as they seem. Also, to be more aware of authoritative figures that may have more nefarious means

than our young child naivety may or may not recognize. I truly hope that this helps someone, just as your podcast has helped me. So, thank you for that. Anyways, here goes. I'm a female, born and raised in New Jersey, who grew up in the 90s. I was born in 88. The story happened when I was 11 years old, and in seventh grade. I was young from my class, and I actually started.

started high school when I was 13. One weekend night, I was having a sleepover at my house with three of my friends. Everyone got dropped off at my house, and then we decided how much fun it would be to go to the new Walmart that was just built a town over from us. You know, because Walmart is so cool and all. This was different, because we were all used to stores being all together in a mall indoors. In this new Walmart was a strip mall, having some other stores down the length of the newly built property. There was a beauty product store, a chocolatier, then a shoe store.

So it was a pre-teen girl's dream area. Yes, they had strip malls back then too, but they were usually businesses and convenience stores, not shops that a bunch of pre-teen girls would want to visit. This is important later on. So, my dad being the awesome parent he always has been, dropped us off at around 6 p.m. at Walmart, and said he would come pick us up when we were ready, but it had to be by 9 p.m. When most stores would be closed or closing, and it was getting late. I had my brick of a Samsung cell phone to call him when we were ready, and we lived about 15 to 20 minutes away.

So, we were all set. We all proceed to get out of the car, Kelly, Alex, Christy, and myself. We said goodbye and waved while my dad waited to make sure that we got into the store okay. I know this may seem weird to some people, or irresponsible of my dad to just drop us off alone, but this was the norm back then for many of my friends and myself. He knew where we were. Their parents knew what we were doing,

We had cell phones to call if we needed anything, and we were trusted. This I cannot emphasize enough. We were good kids, so what was the problem, right? Other people. Other, creepy, terrible adults were the problem. So, we were all giggling and making jokes amongst ourselves, walking around this huge new store that we had never seen nor been in before. To be honest, it was awesome.

The four of us meandered through the beauty aisles, talking about stuff preteen girls love to talk about, all the while screwing around harmlessly. Maybe chasing and messing with each other for an aisle or two, but that's it. The only thing that could be considered bad would be when Alex grabbed one of the latex rubber gloves that were dispersed throughout the store on the structural poles, that were there for the employees to use for cleaning and sanitizing purposes.

She grabbed one of the gloves out of the box that was opened and blew it up like a balloon. We all smacked each other a bit with it and tried to keep it off the ground for another aisle or so. We weren't destroying anything or being too disruptive, besides the giggling and joking around having a grand old time together. Mind you, it was getting later. near the store's closing time, and less and less people were walking around in the Walmart. If we saw anyone in the aisles, we were always respectful kids, and would stop screwing around.

Except for the giggling. It was cool to feel the freedom of being an adult, getting to walk around the store and buy things with our own money, that our parents may or may not have given us still, but we hadn't to care in the world. and decided to buy some snacks and nail polish to go along with the movies we were planning on renting from the in-town VHS store, when my dad came and got us later. We proceeded to the register as it was about 8 p.m. And we still wanted to check out the beauty store, the chocolatier, and maybe if we had time, the pay less shoe store at the end of the strip.

This was going to be an awesome night, and I was pumped to have them. my friends sleeping over without a care in the world. We get to the register, and I offer to pay for anything since we were sleeping over at my house, and my dad gave me the money for just that reason. Everyone respectfully declined, because their parents had given them money, too. Alex went first, bought the nail polish and some lip gloss. Kelly paid next and bought some lotion and body sprays. Christy bought some Oreos and Chip.

and then it was my turn. I bought some hair twisties and a bunch of candy. While I was gathering my items and my purse, everyone had started to proceed to the exit, assuming the next was behind them and ready to head down to the next stores outside along the strip mall. Before I could leave the register,

there was an older woman who was in line next to me. I noticed her standing behind me, but besides a quick backwards glance, and a smile towards her, I was blissfully unaware of anything else. Right as I was gathering my items that I'd bought, and placing my plastic Walmart shopping bag into my purse, she grabbed my forearm gently

and leaned in to say something to me. I was thrown off for a second as she whispered into my ear. Honey, please be careful. Those two men behind me have been following you girls all throughout the store. Every time I've seen you for, they were there too, watching you girls. I looked at her speechless, and I looked behind her seeing two men in their late twenties to mid-30s, standing behind her, watching our whole interaction carefully. They both looked clean cut, had short hair, buttoned up colored shirts and slacks, and one had glasses on. I said,

Oh my gosh, thank you. Quietly and walked quickly to catch up with my friends who had already gotten almost to the exit in the time that the woman had stopped me. I caught up to them and told them in a scared voice quickly what the woman had said, and we all instinctively looked back. While the woman was still at the register paying,

the men were behind her. Our line of sight connected, and the two men put down whatever BS item they were quote-unquote buying, barreled past the woman who had stopped me and started briskly walking towards us. Kelly yelled, and we all instinctively started to run fast. All scared and not understanding the true gravity of the situation

we were now unwillingly in. I yelled, run to the next store, guys. And as we got through Walmart's exit, we went right to head to. toward the rest of the stores in the strip. It was that, or the somewhat-lit parking lot with few cars, and even fewer people left in it,

and nowhere for us to go, nor escape. My gut told me to get into a store where there were people, and to hurry. We tried the beauty supply store, but we saw it was closed. Then the chocolatier was also closed. We finally saw the lights on the Payless Shoe Store, shining bright like a beacon, beckoning us into safety. We ran in there, all yelling and crying, not knowing why these men were chasing four preteen girls.

The woman in the store seemed shocked when we all barged through the doors, all yelling and speaking loudly. Please help us. These men are chasing us. We began to say what the woman who had stopped me had just said. The Pales worker seemed to be alone. and was in the midst of closing out the register when we had barged in. The woman that was shorter than some of us listened to our pleas and quickly said,

Okay, girls, get behind me. As we all watched in horror as the two men ran into the store. She said to the men calmly, Can I help you? The man with the glasses spoke and said, We need to take these girls back with us to Walmart right now. She asked them what for? They wouldn't answer her and started to move forward trying to get past her,

as she had both of her arms outstretched, blocking us safely behind her small, petite frame. She said, What do you need these young girls for? Glasses then reached around her side and grabbed Kelly's purse out of her hand while saying, They stole something, and we need to take them back there now. I yelled, no we didn't. He's lying. The lady slightly turned her head to the right while backing us up behind her and asked us, Girls, is that true? Did anyone take something without paying?

We all collectively yelled, No! As we proceeded to pull out receipts and our bags with our fully paid items. None of us had taken anything. None of us were like that, especially not at that age. Glasses, being the only man out of the two that spoke, gave Kelly her purse back, mind you, without even looking in it, and then started ripping the rest of our purses out of our hands.

He kept Christie's in his hands now as he dropped mine and Alex is on the floor in front of him. He then proceeded to rifle through Christie's bag nonsensically. The woman clearly noticing this, and feeling something was wrong, asked, What exactly did they steal then? Glasses, still doing all the talking, proceeded to suddenly drop Christy's bag and pick mine up off the floor next. Glasses then took out my makeup pouch out of my purse.

All that was in there was some used hair ties, butterfly clips, lip gloss, and an eye shadow palette. The new pack of hair ties that I had just bought was still in my shopping bag. Mind you, neither man ever took my shopping bag out of my hand. only my purse. In fact, we all had our shopping bags still in our hands from when we tried to show our receipts to them

when they first accused us. Mind you, the men never once looked at our receipts or our purchased items in our Walmart plastic shopping bags. Probably the first thing you would do as a loss prevention worker accusing said customer of theft, right? Well, they never did. Glasses proceeded to rifle through my makeup bag, grabbed my bright frosty blue eye shadow,

which was big in the early 2000s, and looked banging, to be honest. And he said, Aha, what's this here? My big mouth could not take the disrespect anymore. Being from New Jersey, yeah, we're big on that here. And I said, That's not new.

Are you kidding me? Look at it. It's clearly been used multiple times. The woman looked at me and then back at the men and said, Sir, that doesn't look brand new to me at all. There's no way she could have just stolen that. This whole time, the four of us girls were intermittently yelling out that we didn't do anything, and that we were clearly being wrongfully accused.

The men both then looked at each other, as glasses dropped my purse and walked back towards the other man, who was standing there quietly watching us the whole. whole time, blocking the exit-slash-entrance door. Glasses leaned in, and the silent man whispered something in his ear as glasses nodded in agreement while looking back at us, as we stood behind this brave and wonderful woman, who had become four young girls' protector with neither hesitation nor question. While they were conferring with each other quietly, our second woman protector of the night spoke

up. How about I see some ID? You men must have some work identification if you're lost prevention for Walmart, right? They looked at her sharply, and the quiet man whispered something else to glasses. Glasses then said, we don't have to show you anything. They are in the wrong here, and they need to come with us, or we're calling the police and their parents. The woman then said assuredly, Okay, what if I walk them back over there with you? Glasses quickly and emphatically said, No, we will take them. You've done enough to impede our work tonight.

Our protector said, Okay, then how about I call the police and they can come meet us here, and we'll figure out what's really going on? This is the one and only time the quiet man spoke. And he said, Hmm, no need, ma'am. We'll just let these girls off with a warning, and tell them that this is their one and only get-out-of-jail-free card.

The woman, realizing that something was not right again, asked them for some identification in their names. They quietly looked at one another, and then just left the store. We all started bursting out into hugs of gratitude and thank-y-yused to this kind woman who had defended our honor and saved us from being wrongfully accused. The woman then briskly walked towards the exits, slash entrance and locked it, whilst telling us to call our parents.

I quickly called my dad and told him what had happened, and he told us to stay put and said he would be right there. You know how I said we lived 15, 20 minutes away? Yeah, he got there in less than 10. And once I saw him pull up out in front of the payless, the woman unlocked the door and walked us outside. She helped us into my dad's expedition and told him what had happened. He got out of the car to speak to her more, thoroughly and privately,

I believe because they both realized how scared and confused we all were. My dad then thanked our protector and got back into the car. He then proceeded to pull around and park right in front of the Walmart in the offload area right in front of the store. He got out and told me to lock the doors and not open them until he came back. mind you, my dad played baseball professionally for over a decade, and is jacked and six foot four. He's where my siblings and I have gotten the mentality of no one screws with our family,

our loved ones and people that can't defend themselves. He was in there for maybe 20 minutes, and when he exited, I could tell that he was upset and furious. He got in the car quietly and said to the four of us, girls what exactly happened we then told him again more calmly this time he sat there quietly as attentive as i've ever seen him and when we finished he then spoke girls no one is working for walmart tonight that looks as you described and their only loss prevention manager is a woman who's not even here tonight he told us that he went in and asked for

the manager, and after the threat of a lawsuit, they gathered every employee who was working there at that time to come up to the front. None of them were even close to resembling these men. He also said that he lit the store manager up like a Christmas tree about how they could let something like this happen to four children on their premises. I do feel somewhat bad that he yelled at someone who really had nothing to do with the situation, but he was livid. and clearly he needed to blame someone for what had happened.

He then told me next time to call him right away, and that besides that we did the right thing and that he was sorry that this happened to us and that he wasn't able to protect us. He then tried to change the subject and asked us about sports and school ongoings. We became distracted for the remainder of the right home and still stopped to get our rented VHS tapes for the night. When we got back to my house, we talked about it amongst ourselves, and none of us had stolen anything. Seriously, no one did.

If someone had, they would have come clean for sure by then. Looking back, I'm not quite sure why we didn't call the police. My dad probably realized that there was nothing that they would be able to do. Besides, maybe looking at Walmart's cameras, which may have helped in all honesty, I don't know why we never called the police nor filed a report. Looking back, it kind of seems crazy that we didn't. It just wasn't something that you did back then, I guess. I think my dad just wanted to get us out of there safely,

and realized more so than we did how dire of a situation we had narrowly escaped. Looking back, this memory is much more sinister than I initially thought. I always told myself that they were probably, lying and didn't want to get in trouble at Walmart, and that they were scared of my dad. But, to be honest, I don't think that was the case at all. First of all, I worked in retail for some years, and employees slash loss prevention cannot follow people out of the store, even with proof that they stole something. They're just instructed to call the police immediately.

I actually had a store manager when I worked at Lowe's get fired because he chased out someone who stole upwards of $3,000 worth of copper pipes and fittings that they had actually hid in a bathtub's cardboard box. The manager was fired for this. Come to find out, it's a safety precaution because the companies are liable if said employee gets attacked or hurt from the thief on company property. Also, these men were both extremely clean-cut and younger, inconspicuous-looking men.

They did not stand out, nor grab one's attention. I mean, us four pre-teen girls didn't notice them following us throughout the Walmart the majority of the time we were there. Nowadays, human trafficking is much more in the forefront of people's minds. After hearing many others' recollections, I remembered this experience and began to look at it more closely with my adult brain. These men did not work for Walmart.

They were clearly trying to lure us away. And if it were not for the two angel women who, in all actuality, saved us that night, who knows what could have happened. So, if you're out there and you hear this, and you were the woman who stopped me after I paid and put yourself between those two, men and us girls, I sincerely thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you were the woman who worked at Pales that bravely and fiercely stood up for us, and didn't fall for those scumbags lies, I sincerely am forever grateful to you. To Glasses and the Quiet Man, I truly hope that you both effed around and found out, and were stopped from doing this ever again to anyone. And, for both of your sakes, let's not meet. To those that run this podcast, thank you for all that you do, keeping these life events fresh in people's minds, and keeping us safe and aware.

I sincerely thank you. And, Bukibu, I sincerely thank you for allowing me to tell your story. Me and my friend, both 17, were on holiday at a resort in my... Norwich, which was situated in a pretty large forest. I'd been there once before about five or so years ago, and on that trip I discovered a small dirt path that led into uninhabited parts of the wood. I was too scared to go very far down it when I first discovered it, and I sort of forgot about it.

Fast forward to about three days ago, me and my friend are bored and have like an hour to kill. It's about nine at this point, and I decide that it would be fun to go on an evening cycle in the woods. My friend is a very skeptical and logical person who isn't a fan of taking risks, so she needed some convincing. But eventually, we went. The path took us deep into the forest,

so far that we could no longer see any of the lights from the houses around us. It also bordered some kind of field. However, this field was blocked off by tall metal fences that were topped with barbed wire. We decided to turn back after about 30 minutes of cycling, because it was getting dark and we had no torches. When we returned, we were buzzing and decided that we had to do that again, but next time explore more of the path.

Two days later, we decided it was a good time to explore more of the path. The sun was beginning to set, and it seemed like the perfect time to set off. We began cycling, however this time things felt a bit different. My friend was getting quite antsy,

and further down the path we went, and even I began to get a bit freaked out. something feels wrong, but we decide to carry on. Eventually, we come to an unexplored area. By this point, night had fallen and it was pitch black, and we come across some kind of wooden electricity box. We stared at it for a second. I tried to see what was inside, but decided it was futile, and we carried on.

As soon as we passed that box, the off-feeling became much worse, and I came to a stop. I asked my friend if we should play some music from a well-known TV show that we both like, as the soundtrack would match the vibe of biking through unknown woods at night. You can probably guess what TV show it is, but anyways, she says yes. So I begin to try to get the music up on my Spotify. I had no signal, but that's... shouldn't have been an issue since I had the album downloaded, but it just would not load.

I was very absorbed in trying to get it to work, but after a minute my friend says in a nervous voice, is that coming from your phone? Confused, I go silent, and then I hear it too. I can very faintly hear a song playing. The song is one that recently blew up because it was used on the the TV show, and not only that but the part of the song that is playing is the chorus, which is not at the start of the song. Me and my friend both check our phones, but neither are playing anything. We both then book it back on our bikes. When we reach the edge of the woods, we both feel the bad vibes wash away instantly.

When we got home, we both immediately checked if there was any possible way the music had come from our phones. We both asked our series to play that album, but they both said, I need you to give me access to your Spotify, or something like that. We also checked multiple other things, but nothing gave us an answer.

We were both thoroughly freaked out, especially my friend, who was a skeptic, and always disproved the many ghost stories and horror movies that I would tell her about. I'm a big horror, fan. We went back to the path the next day, and even went back to the exact spot, and the vibes were completely gone, and we could find no trace that any other person had been there.

Also, some additional information, it was about 9.30-ish when we heard the music. It was completely dark out, so if someone was there, we wouldn't have been able to see them. However, we probably would have heard the footsteps. The resort itself is close to an R-A-F base of some kind. The music itself sounded quite reverby, and it stopped pretty much as soon as we began booking it back, I think. And if anyone has any kind of explanation, scientific or paranormal, that would be awesome.

We looked into folklore, etc., but we couldn't find any explanation of what it could. Could be. To start, the person who submitted this story did include a trigger warning tag, and as such, I will go ahead include it especially considering what it is. They put trigger warning animal sacrifice. So if that's not something you want to hear about, I recommend going to the next story. All timestamps are down below. Apologies for this story being so long.

My dad and I flip houses for a living. We do everything, so house renovations can take anywhere from a couple of months to a year and up. Here is what happened to us in a 100-plus-year-old farmhouse in northwest New Jersey, USA, about three years ago. This old farmhouse was beautiful, but extremely run down. It had sat vacant, private. to our purchasing it for 15 years. Also, there was evidence that squatters had been there at one point. The house had good bones, as they say.

So it wasn't worth it to tear it down and start from scratch. The first part of our job is the cleanup and demo. I've noticed that every house has its own vibe and energy. However, the old farmhouse was different. It was four floors, including basement and attic. Anytime you were downstairs on the main floor, kitchen, living room, and office, it felt fine, normal even. When you went upstairs, it was different. There was a heaviness up there.

I would announce every time I came in the house, hey, it's just me. Is it cool if I come up and do such and such? I also would announce myself any time I came in the house downstairs with a, Hey, how are you all doing today? My dad would look at me like I was crazy, because I never did this anywhere else, ever. I don't know why I did it here. I just felt the need to.

Like a deep itch in my brain pleading me to say it, so I did. Each and every time. Within the first few days of the first few days of the first few days, clean out and demo, my dad found something disturbing. In the master bedroom upstairs, there was a small closet with a light in it. Hanging on the inside of the closet door, on a coat hook, it was a bloody dog collar. There were weird symbols spray painted only in this closet. Something looked like it had been burned in a pile on the floor of the closet.

I refused to touch it, and got extremely upset at the side of the dog collar. furious, even. Who the hell would do something to a poor animal like this? I was so bothered that my dad told me to go home for the day, and I did. It still makes me sick thinking about the sick people who did whatever to have something like that there. My dad and the other co-workers cleaned it out. Also, the light in that closet, we never got it to work. We do minor electrical repair and couldn't figure it out.

We had a master electrician come, and he couldn't get it to work either. New light fixtures, new wiring, new everything. And nothing worked. When we had finished cleaning out the living room quarters, we decided to work on the attic and basement. Basement was okay. Honestly, the bottom half of the house, basement and second floor kitchen office living room,

Felt fine. Neutral, even. The attic was terrible. I could not bring myself to go up there, not once. To not be an a-hole, I worked on the other floors of the house. My dad understood without me even having to explain which speaks volumes, because he is a real skeptic. One day, I had to hold the flashlight for my dad while he was in the attic.

I stood on the stairs with only my head and upper torso sticking into the attic space. The lights never would work up there either. The attic had one of those pull down from the ceiling, foldable ladders. It was located in the hallway between the master bedroom, second bedroom, and only bathroom. The second we opened it, a rink smell hit us hard in the face. Death, for sure. Something must. must have died up there, we thought.

There were those large black flies that seemed to swarm to rot and death everywhere. To say it was an infestation of flies, that's an understatement. I stood on the ladder almost falling multiple times from ferociously swatting these demon bugs away. My dad looked everywhere for the cause of the flies for days and couldn't find anything. Before we sold the house, we finally got the flies to go away. away. This was after months of trying, by the way. However, when the new owner

chose to rent the house out, the flies kept coming back. To this day, almost three years later, exterminators and pest control have been called, and the flies still come back. The master bedroom had something else

happened after the closet was cleaned up. I talked my dad into burying the dog collar, by the way. There were four windows in the master bedroom, two windows on the north wall and two on the west. The north wall windows one day suddenly had two bats on them. They were somehow wedged between the glass and the screen of the old window. We needed to replace all the old windows, so we tried everything to free the bats without hurting them. We worked during the day, so bats being nocturnal, we figured it explained why they never moved during the day.

When we would come the next day, they seemed to have moved overnight, so we knew that they were alive. These poor bats had me seriously fretting. Any dead bugs I found during the cleanup, I would put into this window sill hoping that they would eat. I know that that's weird, but I don't care. I'm a die-hard animal lover. It appeared that they were stuck, and it was killing me to see them like that. It made no logical sense as to how they got it. in there either. Also, it was early summer, so they weren't hibernating either. My dad and I decided

to get a ladder and try from the outside of the house. He finally got it so that the bats could undoubtedly get out. The bats never moved from that window screen for weeks. Then, one day, they were gone. I thought for a long time that my dad had discovered they were dead and disposed of them so as to not upset me, but he promises me he did not do this, and that after weeks of them moving barely inches, they had indeed left of their own volition. We finished the house and did sell it. The new owner rented it out to tenants, tenants would move in, stay for a month or two, and then break their leases to move out. This has happened four times since we finished it. After each move out, we were contracted to come in and do a fresh.

coat of paint, deep clean, patch up a hole, or any other fix needed. The feelings in that house, they never changed. Also, I wanted to add that we told the new owner about all the weirdness prior to them purchasing. My dad is a skeptical guy and has no explanation for any of this stuff. My dad also now announces himself any time we go into that house. We've met every tenant that lived there at some point in their rental time, and they all seemed like normal people, and not the type to just break their leases for no reason. I feel like the house needs a cleansing or something, I don't know. But to whoever did that poor dog and the house dirty, may you reap what you sow.

This happened in April. My boyfriend had a business trip to a city four hours away from me, and I decided to visit him. We're in a long-distance relationship. Since my decision to visit was spontaneous, we couldn't book a hotel room in advance for the two of us, and the hotel room that my boyfriend was staying at was being paid for by his company, and they had a policy for not allowing guests to stay over or visit. So, we had to look for a new hotel at night. And since it was a popular area, all the hotels were booked except for one.

It was an okay-looking two- or three-star hotel, but I was okay with staying there because we had no other options, and it was a safe area. Plus, my boyfriend is a tough guy, so I wasn't worried about anything. We got checked in, and the atmosphere of the hotel was, well, strange. I couldn't see a single woman there except for me. I didn't really care about it that much, because I was happy about being with my man after so long. We were staying there for three nights and two days, but my boyfriend had to leave at seven in the morning, and he would return late night by 12 a.m. And there wasn't anything we could do because he's a senior director and writer who had to manage the shoots.

So, on the third day, my boyfriend was off to work and I was taking a nap in the afternoon. I dreamt that I was alone in the hotel room, and some hotel staffed dude came in to deliver breakfast and started to pull me off of the bed by my legs. I immediately woke up and got a little freaked out, because I was a little freaked out, because I was all alone, and there weren't any other women in this hotel that I had seen. I calmed myself down, and I watched some television. Two hours later, around 6 p.m.,

I was ready to get into the shower because my boyfriend and I were going to the beach for a date night. He was going to directly pick me up, but I was procrastinating and postponing my shower. This is when the last night. lock-beep thing on the room's door starts to go off. It's when you try to open the room with a key card. I was startled, and I could not move as this man opens the door and walks in and looks at me

sitting on the bed. He stares at me up and down and then closes the door. I didn't understand what was going on. He closed the door, and he rang the bell. I then opened the door, and he had to be. and he had the most random explanation in the world. I was just checking whether the AC remote and TV remote were in the room. I was shook.

I knew that he was lying. I ordered food and other stuff a few times that day, and the staff probably knew that my boyfriend left pretty early in the morning and wouldn't come back until late. They knew that I was alone all day long. I asked him, How can you just barge into someone's room like that? He then said,

I didn't know there was someone in here, which was another lie because they have a freaking register. I locked the room. It wouldn't be of any use because he had the master card, and I called my boyfriend. I was so, so thankful that I wasn't naked. I don't know what could have happened. I told him everything, and he immediately came over to get me,

and he screwed the hotel staff up. My boyfriend is in the news media, so he threatened to expose their behavior. They apologized and said they would give us a $6.28-cent discount. He told him to screw off, and while we were leaving, the man-slash-manager who barged into my room, gave me the most creepy look ever. The strangest thing is how this incident happened exactly two hours after I dreamt of the same thing.

There was also some urine in the bathroom pot that same day. It couldn't be me because I was sleeping, and no one would use it except for me. I couldn't figure out who had used it and didn't flush. I asked my boyfriend whether it was him, and he just said it wasn't him. thinking about this and the dream part, it really creeps me out to this day.

Thank God I was saved. Hello, Raven. You recently asked for stories, so here are a few from when I worked in a convenience store in Portland, Oregon. This was my second time living in Portland. This time I lived with my brother in Oregon City. I rode a bike back and forth to work.

The way there was a steep hill. When I first started, I had to walk partway. By the end, I was able to ride up it at speed. This means I was in good shape. I worked at a small store near Clackamas Community College. The neighborhood was nice, little to no crime that I experienced. In fact, in the time that I worked there, I'd only had three incidents. The first is small, and means little to me.

A co-worker got drunk and screamed at me, while he was off the clock. What I didn't know was that he was living out of his truck, and I had taken a shift from him when I was hired. I had no control over that. It was the manager that did that. I didn't yell back. I just waited until he was done and told him to talk to the manager. Later that manager called me and asked if I was all right,

and yes, I was. and she wanted to know if I wanted him fired or something. I said no. Then I just didn't want to have to deal with him if he'd been drinking. She thought that was fair enough and left it at that. The second incident was a group of teenagers that tried to do a beer run. If you don't know what that is, I shall explain. A beer run is where you and your friends try to grab as much beer as you can

and bolt out the door without paying. Now, these guys backed a truck up to the parking spot at the front door, and jumped out. There were three of them, and they all went for the display near the front doors. I had told the manager that it was stupid to put a giant beer display so close to the door, so I'd been expecting this. I had locked one of the double doors when I came on. This was standard procedure for the graveyard shift. I also had a can of soup behind the counter,

that had yet to be put back on the shelf. Watching these guys grab the beer and run to the door, I threw the soup at the first guy. This caused him to go sideways a bit and block the door. This caused the other two to run into him. They freaked out and left the beer, running to the truck and taking off. The last incident is a lot more serious.

It was an attempted robbery. Now, as I said, I worked the graveyard shift, the most dangerous shift for convenience stores. I need to set the stage. We had a step behind the counter for shorter people, and I always had to move it. I was too tall to use the step and see the customers through the overhead storage that we had. So everyone thought I was shorter than I was. Two, I had cleared most of the counter of extra crap at my boss's request. This left an area where people could put their items and wait next in line.

Now, I don't know if any of you have ever seen a person work themselves up to rob a place, but it goes something like this. They wander around the store, grabbing items and putting them back, pacing in an aisle, talking to themselves. generally they announce what they're going to do. At least, that's what this guy did. My adrenaline was pumping up before he stepped up, but I froze. What I had missed was the gun, the gun that was now in my face, literal inches from my forehead.

I don't know how long I froze. My brain was on fire. I took stock of everything. Like, I thought this was my last moment. and I wanted to remember it all. The gun was small, but it looked like it could do the job. He didn't wear a mask or face covering at all. He had long arms to get the gun so close to me.

He wore a gray shirt and blue jeans. He was sweating profusely, like he was scared. I don't know what he was saying. I know that he was talking, but I couldn't hear him over my heart and my thoughts. I thought that he was not going to leave. me alive. No mask. I'm scared as hell. I was dead if I couldn't do something. So I decided to talk. Are you stupid? I can't give you any cash, I said. What? Why? He said as he dropped the gun a bit. There was an opening and I took it. I shifted to the side as I grabbed his arm and pushed the gun back into his face as I hauled him over the counter.

I had never acted so fast in my life. It was hands down the most stupid thing that I could have done, but it worked. I could have died that day. Instead, I had the guy laid out on the floor, my foot pressing gently on his throat. Anytime I felt him move, I pressed down. I called the cops and reported the attempted robbery. When the cops got there, I asked them to lock the door. aren't you supposed to do that?

The cop responded as he flipped the latch. The other cop pulled out a pen in a notebook. So what did he look like? I looked down at my feet and started describing what I saw. The cop looked at me funny, leaned over the counter and laughed. Hey, Bill, get a load of this. The first cop looked over the counter and saw the guy on the floor. Hey, Roger, long time, no see.

Apparently they knew the guy, and when they checked out his gun, they found it to be empty. So, I got lucky. Very lucky. I would never suggest to anyone to do what I did. I was also suspended from work for two weeks, as per company policy. I don't blame them one bit, either. The only reason I did what I did, was that I thought I was dead anyways.

I'm Nicole. I'm one of the few black women in my hometown to become a registered nurse. I grew up in St. Martinville by the Bayutech, in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. I'm a lot older now, so looking back at certain events still makes hair stand up on my neck and haunts me. I know you're thinking, what the hell is she talking about? Well, just listen. Almost 20 years ago, I recently graduated from LSU with a nursing degree. I moved back home with my parents, and I worked 16 miles south at a rehabilitation and nursing facility in Lafayette.

Living in a rural parish, my salary was low to average. I would work 16-hour shifts on the weekend and one or two days on weekdays. The following year, I found another nursing facility located in Baton Rouge. It was northeast of St. Martinville, basically 61 miles. It did seem pretty far. But this job offered a higher pay salary, sick days, and a sign-on bonus. I had a one-hour and three-minute drive, so I would set my alarm clock two hours early. I drove back and forth to work.

My parents were very worried about being. responsible on I-10 Monday to Friday every morning. Within a year, I saved enough to relocate to Baton Rouge. I found a small apartment close to my job, and I started dating a guy named Jackson. My apartment had eight buildings. I lived in Building 8, in the back of the apartment complex. I parked my car in the back parking lot, and my landlord and I would socialize about the world and my job. He told me to call him Dan, for short of Danny.

Dan was a much older guy at the time, maybe mid-50s. He was 5'11 with brown eyes, dark brown hair, which he always wore a cap over, a salt and pepper beard, was stocky and very sweet. Dan's wife died a year prior of cancer. He would say, you remind me of my beautiful angel. and I would smile and say thanks. I could see that Dan was still grieving. Poor guy, I thought. A few times I suggested some sort of therapy, but Dan always said no.

A few months ago, I changed my work hours from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. I liked it. It was a laid-back shift, but recently I would arrive home at around 6.15 to 6.30. I walked to my apartment to put the key in the lock, but my door was unlocked. I entered my apartment not knowing why or who could be there, but to my surprise, there was no one. I went to the manager's office. Dan was at his desk drinking a cup of coffee. I told Dan about my door, and we both went back to my apartment.

Dan asked me, Are you dating anyone? I replied yes. but then said that he didn't have a key. My parents have the only spare. Then Dan asked, to feel safe, would you like it if I changed your locks? I thought about it.

Dan asked if I'd forgotten to lock my door. I blew it off and then just said, No thanks. But my intuition told me that I would never leave my door unlocked. I called Jackson, and I asked Jackson if he had left the door unlocked. And Jackson replied, No, my beautiful angel, and we hung up.

I dwelt on that thought, beautiful angel. A few weeks later, I came home to an open door. I rushed to my car and called the police, mentioning a burglary on my AT&T razor cell phone. I watched the police pull up, two officers got out of the car as I walked toward them, and they checked my apartment. There was nothing stolen,

my windows weren't broken. It was just like my door was left open. But by whom? Then the police asked. Are you dating anyone? I said, yeah, why? And one of the officers gave me a piece of paper with writing. The paper was a letter written to me.

The letter said, My dear darling, I know you're wondering why I wrote this letter. I love you. I watch you, and I will protect you. I will never hurt you, my beautiful angel. Love, your secret admirer. I didn't recognize the handwriting, and I didn't know of any secret admirer, I told the police.

Dan walked up, I introduced him to the police, and I showed Dan the letter. Dan told the police about the first time, and the police suggested that I get my locks changed. Dan said he would go to the hardware store as soon as he was done with his tenant interview. Then Dan left. The police asked me a few more questions about Dan,

and then gave me a card with an incident number and detective number, and then left. I decided to call in to work, and I called Jackson. I wanted Jackson to come and have dinner and watch a movie with me. Later that night, Jackson came over. I just finished cooking dinner, and I told him that Dan hadn't come back to change my locks. Jackson just continued eating. After eating, the movie ended. We decided to go to a bar for a couple of drinks,

and we came home at a quarter to 11. We both then went to bed. At around 3 a.m., Jackson woke me up. He told me to get up, call the police, and then handed me a metal bat. He told me to stay in the apartment, and I asked him where he was going. He said, outside.

Now, I was scared. He woke me up without explaining the problem, and he went outside. I then heard a grunt, then a voice hollering. I looked out the window to see Jackson scuffling with a man. I described over the phone to the police, and then hung up and ran outside where I saw the man on top of Jackson hitting him in his face. I came up behind the man, hitting him in the back with a metal bat, knocking him off Jackson. I helped Jackson get up and we went into my apartment.

I locked the door, put a chair in front, and then cut the lights out, and we hid in my bedroom, until we heard the police sirens. We opened the door, and Jackson goes to make a police report. The police searched the apartment premise, and they returned to inform us that they found the description of the man. It was Dan, the landlord. The police said that Dan had been made. married six times, and all of his wives had died to suicide.

The last marriage, Dan's wife's death was a mysterious cold case. They found his wife dead in the bathtub. At first it was ruled a suicide, and I asked what happened, and they said she fell and hit her head getting into the tub. Then the autopsy report stated blunt-forced trauma to her head had killed her. Dan, of course, had an alibi. Of course, charges were pressed. I moved in with Jackson for three months, but our relationship didn't really work out.

So I moved back to St. Martinville. But to Dan, I hope that we never meet again. I frequently go to my grandparents' house. I want to make one thing clear, though. The house is very clearly haunted. Let me give some background. The house was built in the 1960s. It was built over a cemetery for African Americans before they were given rights, and slavery had ended.

But it had obviously been a long time since people stopped putting corpses there. It is also by some very deep woods. All the houses are surrounded by the woods as I live in the southern part of the country. I've seen some ghosts and spirits before, but it was when I was very, little. I've also had paranormal experiences, and some of those were recent. I often hear knocking in places of the house that no one can get to due to the furniture. My great-grandmother, 76, and can barely walk, also lives with my grandparents, and she's diabetic, and she's very unable to move due to her weight. Her room is where I often hear the

knocking coming from, but she's handicapped and is a bit of her. She's handicapped and is a little bit of not able to get up without a walker, or even really knock on the wall. Why would anybody knock on a wall just to scare me? Apparently, I'm the only one that ever hears it, or notices it. We also have an attic. Some things go missing, and oftentimes my cats just tear at nothing. But I've heard that animals can see ghosts. I get paranoid sometimes, but only to an extent. A light once fell from the same. ceiling, very recent, actually, as it was only a few months ago. The light was new and recently installed, but it was definitely installed properly. So, why would it randomly fall out of nowhere?

As mentioned, we do have an attic, but I can't even remember the last time someone went up in it. The light itself didn't fall, but the covering fort fell off, which was very weird. Nobody messed with it, and like I said, it was properly installed. The most recent experience that I've had with a ghost was over a year ago, July 4th of 2021, to be exact. Usually a lot of my family comes over, and two specific cousins usually ask to stay the night, and only one is allowed to any time, and I always choose the older one to stay the night with because she's more fun. She recently got a new boyfriend, so she was mostly on FaceTime with him,

and I honestly wanted the night to end because of her ignoring me and being rude to, I guess, impress her boyfriend. She wanted to go outside, and I was fine with it, because we were finally doing something after hours. She decided that it would be funny to mess with me, and say that she saw something by the woods in our neighbor's yard, so we would keep running up and then run back trying to get a closer look each time. Eventually we got close enough to get a clear look, and I actually saw something. It was a white, skinny figure. It looked naked, or had very little raggedy clothing,

and it looked like it had white hair with lots of chunks ripped out. I couldn't see a face, though, because I'm practically blind and can't really see that far away. I took a good ten minutes to look at it, and when I finally said something about seeing it to my cousin, it started running towards us. I guess my cousin didn't see it because she didn't do anything until I screamed and started running back to the back entrance of the house. I was wearing Birkenstocks, and I slipped because of the slightly wet grass. I didn't look back once, and I just grabbed my shoes because it flew off, and I took the other one off and then continued running. When I got back into the house, I locked the door and sat against it. So did my cousin.

I told her everything and also got mad at her because she looked back at me and laughed when I fell. We continued sitting against the door, and then we heard knocking on said door. We got scared and ran back to my room, and I almost started crying. As an update, it's been almost a year since I've posted this, and I've made some edits. I'm now 13, and I've only had about one other scare since then. I had a different cousin over, and we were sleeping in the living room together. She went to the kitchen, which is the hot spot for my experiences, to grab a drink, and then turned the light off after that.

We then noticed that the light was turned back on. It was late at night, and nobody else was really awake. Why is the kitchen light on? I thought you turned it off when you came back. I asked her. Oh, I could have sworn that I turned it off. I guess I imagined it? She replied.

She went back to the kitchen and turned the light off. Jordan, I said, and she replied what. The kitchen light is still on. Have you not been turning it off? What? I turned it off. I know that I did. She answered.

Well, it's on and no one's awake, so who else would have turned it on? Are you too scared to turn it on? Are you too scared to turn it off? I asked. No, I'm not scared. I've been turning it off, she replied. Look, if you're embarrassed to admit it because you're older than me, that's totally fine, I said. She replied with, Braley, I'm not lying. I'll turn it off again. You can even come with me to make sure. I said, okay, I'll go with you.

I went to the kitchen with her, and we turned the light off. This process repeated again, and we, of course, got a bit freaked out. "'Jordan, nobody's awake, right?' I asked my cousin. "'No, just us, why?' she replied. "'Because the lights on again,' I said. "'What, there's no way.' She looked into the hallway and saw the light on. I entered the kitchen myself and turned it off,

and then the back entrance slightly opened. I thought maybe someone didn't close it all the way, so I closed it. And then the light turned on again when I went. was in the kitchen. Jordan, why did you turn the light on? No reply. Jordan? Still no answer.

I went into the living room, turning the light off behind me, and said Jordan, stop messing with me. She was asleep. I got paranoid, and I put two fingers directly under her nose to make sure she was breathing. She was, so I was relieved and then went to the restroom.

I remembered how the light turned on again. as I was shutting the door and got a little frightened. I went ahead and finished my business, walked out into the hallway, and the light was on again. I walked into the kitchen, and the door was open again. I closed it, locked it, and I checked the house in case I was locking someone in who shouldn't have been in there. No one.

No one was there besides my asleep family. I kept the kitchen light on because I was too scared to turn. it off at that point. My mother and I recently moved into a new house with my brother. I'm mostly alone because they both work, and I'm always paranoid and scared at nighttime now. This happened last night. So, I work at a small coffee stand,

with only a drive-thru window and a walk-up window in a sketchy area. On the closing shift, we only have two people working. So it was me, 22, female, and my co-worker, 19, female. Around 10 p.m., this woman comes up to the walk-up window with a little dog, and she asks if she can sit on our bench outside. We tell her, sure, and she goes and sits down. About 10 minutes later, she comes back up and knocks on the window. She's looking visibly distressed.

and has tears running down her face. She tells us that she lives in a big city about four hours away, and that she totaled her car nearby, and asks if one of us can give her a ride to a large bus station, about 20 minutes away. My coworker and I believe her story, but don't feel comfortable giving a stranger a ride. We tell her that we can't just clock off and leave in the middle of our shift,

and she asks us how much longer we have to go. My co-worker lies and says two hours. It was really only like 45 minutes, in hopes that she will figure something out on her own or move on. She goes back to the bench to sit down. After 10 or 15 minutes pass, she comes knocking again, asking a second time for a ride,

saying that she doesn't feel safe in the area alone at night. She says that she tried to get an Uber, but that she only has cash, and they wouldn't let her pay with cash. I tell her that she could call a cab and pay with cash. She says they're pretty expensive. At this point, we get worried that she's going to hang around until we lock up and leave. I text my friend, who's on shift as a cop in the city, asking if there's any way we could safely help her get out of her. of the area. He gets another officer on shift to drive out and offer her a ride.

He tells me not to promise her anyone is coming, as he isn't sure how long it'll take his buddy to get there, or if he'll get dispatched to a bigger call along the way. About five minutes before close, she knocks again and asks for a ride. I tell her we're trying to work it out if an officer can escort her, but that I'm not sure if they can come. come yet or not, as they are really short-staffed in our city. I also tell her that, worst-case scenario, there's a city bus stop about one block down the street.

She seems hopeful about the cop possibly coming, and then returns to the bench. It hits 11 p.m., and we close and lock the windows. She comes up again and asks if I can just call her a cab. This is odd to me because she said she was. trying to call herself an Uber earlier, so I'm not sure why she couldn't use her own phone. I call a cab. I tell them our coffee shop's address, and that the woman needs a ride to the large bus station downtown. The cab dispatcher tells me that that bus station got turned into a homeless shelter, but that they can drop her off at one of the bus stations for that bus line. I go back

to the window and tell the woman the cab is on the way. She asks how much the cab would be. I tell her that they didn't say, and then I ask her how much she had. She didn't respond. I gave her some water, a snack from my bag, and a treat for her dog, and we finish up our closing chores. We go to leave, and we set the alarm and lock the door. We hear her knocking at the window again, but then she walks over to us at the door. She seems really scared, and she asks if we're leaving.

I tell her that we have to go, but that the cab will be here soon and that she'll be okay. She says she doesn't feel safe, and she points out a white truck parked on the street next to us, with its lights on. She says there's someone in the car and that she doesn't feel safe waiting alone. I reassure her that she will be okay, and I remind her that she has to be. and I remind her that she has her phone and can call the police if she still feels unsafe. My coworker and I get into my car. I was giving her a ride home because her boyfriend was late to pick her up,

and we discussed what to do next. We felt sympathy for her and believed her, but we also didn't know if she was associated with whoever was in that truck or not. If we sit in my car in the lot and wait for the cab to come, she'll likely start coming up to us at my car. Neither of us had bad gut feelings, but the situation was sketchy, and we didn't really want to take any chances. We left and decided to circle the block

to see if she would stay there, leave, or get in the truck. When we get back around the block, she's gone. I turned to start driving my co-worker home, and we see her sitting outside of the gas station. I'm not sure if she ever went back to get the cab or not. I wonder if she decided to wait there to ask people getting gas for a ride, or if she was trying to get away from the person in the truck that she was creeped out by.

I felt really bad for her situation and guilty that I couldn't do more to help her, but I feel like anything else I could have done would not have been safe to do. My friend, the cop, reminded me that. that you never know what people's intentions are or not. And that at the end of the day, she's an adult, and she'll figure something out. Quick heads up, I don't normally do this, but this story does contain mentions of sexual assault. So just an FYI, if you can't or don't want to listen to that, then I would suggest skipping the story. This happened a few years ago.

We had just moved to a new city, and, I was about 11 at the time. There weren't any bus routes that came near where I lived, so my mom had to pick me up from school every day and take me in the mornings. The place we lived at the time wasn't the best. I live with my brother now, things are much safer. We had a lot of gang activity, kidnappings, assaults, etc. In our city, I was also one of the very first.

few white girls. This is relevant because I got a lot of attention for being a petite, short for my age, white, blonde girl with blue eyes, from classmates and other adults. Mostly a lot of sexual harassment. But for this specific scenario, my mom didn't want to have to drive all the way to the school to get me because it was too busy with other parents picking up their kids. So, she wanted me to walk to a local gas station and wait for her to pick me up from there. We did this for a little while. One of those days, I was waiting out front of the gas station waiting for my mom to come and get me. I never really felt safe, so I always stood with my back against the wall and watched the people

while they got gas. Most of the time, nobody ever bothered me. They had places to be. but one time this adult man walked up to me and asked me if I wanted a ride home. I was so surprised and scared that he had come up to me like that. I didn't even hear what he had said. So I wanted to be polite. I laughed and just nodded.

He looked really pleased and started motioning for me to come with him back to his car. At this point, I realized what he had asked, and I was getting really nervous because I didn't want to suddenly change my mind and just tell him no, but I also really didn't want to go with him. He noticed I wasn't following, and he told me to hurry up and come on. I told him that I actually didn't want to, and that I'd be okay because my mom should be here any minute. He then started to argue with me and tell me that it was no trouble and that I should really go,

with him because I would get home faster. He even tried to tell me that if I went, he would stop and get me something to eat on the way home. I tried really hard to tell him I didn't want to go, but he kept insisting and he was starting to get closer. I didn't know if I should run inside the store or not, but I was too scared to go anywhere. Thankfully, before he could get too close to me,

I saw my mom's car parked on the street where she usually waited. I didn't know how long she had been there, but I told him that my mom was here, and I ran to her car and got in. I told her what happened, and she told me that it was good that I didn't go with him, and that next time I should go into the store if someone bugs me like that. I remember seeing him get into his van while we were driving away, but I never saw him again. Although, about a week later, a kid from my school got into a van with someone, and they were actually missing for a few days. When they found them, they had been sexually assaulted and dumped on the side of the road somewhere, thankfully alive. All I could think about is that it must have been the same guy, and that that could have been me.

The first story is a possession story, and the second, a ghost story. As I was coming home from my brother-in-law's house, late at night, maybe around 1 a.m., I had my stepson, a teenager, with me. As usual, we were both in good spirits, making jokes, singing along with the radio, talking about whatever came up, however random or strange someone else might find it. We're about halfway through our 45-ish-minute drive. When I look at him and he's looking at him, he's looking at, at me like he's afraid of me. Eyes wide, mouth open, gripping his seat, leaning practically through the passenger door, terrified. I turn the radio down and ask if he's okay.

He says, I don't know. Are you? Which, why wouldn't I be? I tell him I'm fine and ask what's wrong. He asks me if I know where I am, and while I look through the darkness, I notice I'm about three to five minutes farther down the road than I thought. It's a dark mountain road, and I'm going slowly. I kind of give him this, what the hell look,

and he says I was singing, and then he watched a smoke come in the open window, enter my head, and take over. As in, I stopped singing mid-song, didn't answer him when he was talking, and just stared blankly ahead driving. still safely. And then after a few minutes, the smoke just left my body.

And that's where I looked at him sitting there terrified. I don't know if this has ever happened to me before, or since, because I felt fine. I don't have any recollection of the three to five minutes. No confusion, nor sense of dread. But I was possessed by something, right? Maybe just an old backwood's ghost, that missed driving?

Maybe something else. I have no choice but to believe him, as A, I'm missing time. B, he would come to me to talk about things openly and honesty, and C, he would never pull it off if it was a prank. He would laugh four seconds in. The second one is on the same winding road, and just the two of us again. Closer to home this time, I start hearing a rhythmic, metallic sound.

For a couple of miles, I can't figure out what. In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, that could be. I recognize the sound from somewhere. I couldn't place it, though. As the miles pass, the sound keeps getting louder and I finally figure out what I think is happening, but it makes no sense. It's the rhythmic, tink, tink, tink of pickaxes on rock. Yeah, like the old chain gang.

and movies. This is the same road I took to get there. There were no repairs happening, and it's a dirt road. It had been there for quite some time. It's the only road around, and again, it's the middle of the night. The noise keeps getting louder. On the last stretch of the road before home, we climbed this big hill, and at the top,

there are three guys with pickaxes. They look like they're on break, but they aren't, in color. They're more like a sepia tone. They look toward the car as we approach, take a step back to give us extra room, and all three acknowledge us with either a nod or a slight wave. What's that called when an event leaves a spiritual impact on an area?

That's what it had to have been. Residual energy, I think. I'm a believer in fate and luck. If it's going to happen to you, nothing is going to stop it. However, one of my former work colleagues has the opposite view that nothing can predict your future, even after what happened to him. He gets up for work at still dark o'clock, leaves home at the same time, sees the same people in roughly the same place, every day on his way to work,

until one day he was late by two minutes leaving his house. as he walked along the usual cyclist past him and then came the car and, to quote, Meatloaf, it was going like a bad out of hell. It swerved past the cyclist, hit the road island, flipped, crashed back to the pavement, before finishing its trip upside down in the middle of the road. On telling me this story, he pointed out that where the car hit the pavement was where he would have been walking if he'd been on time. So, what delayed you? I asked. After some thought, he said, the bin hadn't been put out for collection, so I went and took it out, which took two minutes.

I truly hate Walmart, the corporate symbolism, the size, crowding, lighting, etc. As I'm sure many people can relate, and I had sworn not. to go there again multiple times in the months leading up to this. But I was fixing up my newly acquired vintage camper in the summer of 2022, and kept having what I needed when I needed it at the price that I wanted, was lowering me back in with my perpetual brokenness. The last time I went was to get the spray paint that I'd been using, which is only available there or on Amazon,

and I wanted it immediately. I decided to park in back by the Auto Center, a tactic I had used previously to try and make the trip as sure as possible, since the paint and hardware section is adjacent to the Auto Center. It was business as usual in the Auto Center. At least there was nothing that caught my attention on recall. As I pushed the button to open the Auto Center entrance door and went to grab my spray paint. Of course, I ended up looking at other things. for a bit. I have ADHD, which makes a truly detestable shopping experience in there, and eventually ended up near the front. I used the self-checkout, and walked my way back to the

auto center exit where I parked. I passed through the corridor of the auto center checkout slash waiting area to exit through the door that I had entered from, and it wouldn't open. I had learned that upon entering, there is a button that must be pushed to unlock the door, door, but I could have sworn having done this before. That, when exiting the door, it would open freely. My brain quickly chalks this up to me misremembering and starts looking around for someone nearby to push the button on the other side, and to let me out into the parking lot.

I look towards the car shop area through the glass, and there isn't a single auto worker to be found. There are multiple vehicles cranked up on the lifts, but there is literally no. no movement in the entire space. Again, my brain chocks this up to Walmart being a general crap show, and I turn around to consider my next option. There are also zero employees at the checkout counter, just two men waiting there,

presumably for someone to come ring them up. And a woman with her toddler's son in a cart sitting in one of the leather armchairs in the makeshift area where customers wait for their car services to finish. I ask her if they're all there, waiting for an employee of some kind, and she says yes. Not wanting to walk all the way back to the front, and externally circle the massive building to get to my truck that's right there, I pop a squat in the leather chair perpendicular to hers, assuming someone will be walking through that door any second.

A few moments pass, and for some reason both the woman and I notice one of the cheap corkboard panels in the ceiling start to raise up slowly at one end. Not frantically, like from a gust of wind or something, but very smooth and deliberate, teetering up and down, sometimes pretty high up and sometimes just a bit. We confirm that we're both seeing it and have the following exchange.

Her, there's definitely a worker up there doing that. Me, wouldn't we be hearing footsteps, though? Can that kind of ceiling even support weight like that? her, but it has to be a worker, though. Then, the panel directly across from that one starts to do the up and down hovering as well, creating a drawbridge-type movement, but with both sides of the bridge moving independently and without consistent pattern. There's a super bright, warm, yellow, orange light coming from the space up in the panels.

At this point, I start literally yelling up into the ceiling. Hey, who's up there? No reply. The woman and I are both pretty energetically anxious at this point. I yell again. Hey, is someone up there? Both panels then slowly drift back down into their correct placement, and stop moving. I then notice about three or so panels down from the ghost panels,

a ceiling panel that was organically off its tracks and tilted some, exposing a bit of the space above. I then realize, as I'm sharing with the woman out loud as I think it, that there is no light at all coming from that space, meaning the light that we saw would have to be somehow isolated to just that area above those two panels, which was not possible. I look around to see no employees still, and just jump up and say something like,

This place is evil, and book it back into the main department store. I'm super flustered and start trying to find another back exit somewhere, while simultaneously texting my friend that I'm trapped in Walmart, and that there are shadow people in the ceiling here. I finally see some employees and decide to turn around and try the auto center door again, because I just want to be out of this place. I forgot to really look around again because, when I got there,

a woman was entering and I sprinted to grab that door for dear life. I seriously feel like the dark energy of corporate capitalism was incubating in that ceiling. Big yikes. But I can truly say that I have never returned. When I turned 18, me and two of my friends decided to take a trip to our local casino. We mostly just played simple games like slots and video roulette, since it was our first time going to a casino. After losing some money, we decided to search for something to eat. Pretty much everything was way too overpriced,

so we wandered around for quite a bit. Eventually, we reached a hallway along the border of the main floor. We made our way down the hall looking for food, but everything was closed. We started to notice that the hall was completely vacant of people. As we wandered further down the hall, we reached an oddly intriguing small room through a double doorway. This was the only entrance into the room. It was completely empty, except for us three, and about 10 to 20 slot machines.

We were bored, so I decided to throw $5 into the slot machine and spin a few times. After my second or third spin, an odd-looking man, early to mid-30s, appeared from behind. behind the slot machine, seemingly out of thin air. He began watching me play and started getting uncomfortably close to us. We weren't very worried since we outnumbered this dude three to one. However, we were confused. We grew more and more uneasy the longer he stood there, not saying a word. Eventually, my friend decided to ask him what was up.

The man looked at us for a second before asking if we were all brothers. others. None of us looked even remotely similar, so we told him that we were all just friends. He said, Oh, that's great, and proceeded to ask if he could join our group. We told him that we all came together and lied in saying that we were actually planning on leaving soon. He told us that we should stay and play with him, and then says, My good friend Rachel over there knows all the good machines. and pointed towards the other side of the room. We slowly peered around the machine,

and all became immediately horrified. Nobody else was in the room with us. He was pointing into an empty corner. We all stand up from our seats and slowly back out of the room, not letting our eyes leave this man. Once he was out of sight, we turned around and sprinted down the hallway back to the main game room. We all vowed to never go back down that hallway again, and I never did.

But curiosity eventually got the better of us. About a year and too many casino trips later, we're playing Blackjack back at the same casino with a fourth friend. He gets bored and hungry and says that we should look for food. After walking around looking for food, we made it back to the entrance of that very hallway that we had. vowed to never return to. The fourth friend said that we should search down there for food.

The rest of us tell him no, and explain to him that we cannot go back down there. He asks why, so we tell him about our experience down that hallway one year prior. He said that we're BSing him, and that there's no room of slot machines in the location that we described. He explained that his mom was a worker at the casino. and he would know if there was a rogue room of slots in the middle of nowhere. So, we did the one thing we could do to convince him of our experience. We decided to lead him to the room.

We made our way down the hallway and searched the room, but, after walking for a few minutes, we reached the end of the hall. Confused, we turned around and searched again thinking we had somehow missed it. There was no room. We came to the conclusion that they must have moved the machines out of the room, since the casino does change things around quite frequently, so people don't gain a sense of direction on the game floor. So, we once again walked down the hallway in search of an empty room,

or at least a set of closed doors that would enter the room. Nothing. No doors. Not even remotely close to where we remembered the room. We were completely dumbfounded. and started to question our sanity. All three of us remembered the room in the same location, yet there was nothing. There was no room with slot machines. There was no room at all.

To this day, neither me nor my friends understand or can explain how this happened. So I have memories when young of my sister and her sleepwalking episode. Have you ever seen a person's sleepwalk in front of you? The horrors, they basically look like an empty vessel, and kind of possessed. There is especially a core haunting memory of my sister, sleepwalking one night. That evening, me and my mother were watching TV, and we stayed watching different shows late into the night. when my sister decided to go to bed while we stayed awake.

An hour or so after she left, she came out of her bedroom and went into my parents' bedroom, which my mom and I noticed and wondered why the hell she would go in there, especially with my dad asleep in the room. My dad has this black work suitcase for his paperwork that he took everywhere, and all the sudden my sister came out of the room with that black suitcase and headed to the front door.

My mom at this point knew that my sister was sleepwalking and shushed me, and we started following her steps without startling her. She was also saying things that we couldn't understand or hear properly. It sounded like when someone talks to themselves out loud. She got to the front door. and started to unlock the door. I looked at my mom and saw that she was concerned at this point. But luckily, as my sister opened the door,

she hit her head trying to open the door while she stood in front of it, because the door opens inward, not outward. My sister woke up at this point and looked all confused, as she was trying to figure out how she ended up by the front door with my dad's suit bag and her head hurting. She really had no clue and doesn't remember any of it. My mom took her to bed and eased her into sleeping again. I was freaked out, and I couldn't sleep that night.

What if she was having a manic dream and decided to act on it while sleepwalking? That thought always terrified me. Luckily, as she got older, her sleepwalks stopped completely. However, to this day, she remembers none of it. Hi, Raven. This is probably the fourth or fifth story that I've submitted to you, but I'm honestly not sure what category this one fits in. But I'm almost certain that you'll find a place for it on your channel, though.

The story comes from my dad. He told me recently that his best friend was having some issues with his relatively new wife. I'm not going to use his name in order to use his name. to spare his privacy. They got married only a couple of years ago, sometime during COVID. My dad said that he used to call her sweet Mary, because, well, her name is Mary, and she was always so sweet.

My dad's friend is an older man, in his late 60s, so it's no surprise that both he and Mary had been through a few divorces already before the two of them met. everything was fine between them for a while. But within a somewhat short period of time, Mary's demeanor started to become a little strange. They lived a few states away from us, so it's nothing either of us personally witnessed,

but it sounded like the two of them were likely to get a divorce if things continued to get worse. We never could have imagined how far the situation would escalate. All of this was several months ago, and that was the last that I'd heard of it. A few days ago, though, I had dinner with my dad, and he gave me a very disturbing update. Mary's mental state had apparently deteriorated pretty quickly. She'd been complaining of physical ailments, all sorts of weird things, and she was insisting that there had to be mold in the house.

She basically wanted to tear the house apart until they found it. At some point, Mary and my father's friend had dinner with a buddy of theirs, who was a doctor. In conversation, Mary mentioned the health issues that she'd been experiencing recently. Their friend was concerned, and he told them that her symptoms matched those of someone who had been poisoned. He asked if she'd been handling chemicals or had eaten anything strange. she said she hadn't, and once again insisted that there must be mold in the house. The doctor took Mary's hand and pointed out some distinct white lines that had developed across her fingernails, which are apparently a tell-tale symptom of arsenic poisoning.

He recommended that she immediately get her blood tested to make sure that she hadn't been poisoned. She outright refused to undergo any sort of testing, which seemed extremely strained. to everyone in the room. My dad, upon hearing this, suggested that his friend get his own blood tested to make sure he didn't have anything in his system, because Mary's reaction to the doctor's suggestion was pretty irrational, and honestly, suspicious. His friend spoke to Mary and told her that if the lab found poison in his blood, he would be contacting the police right away.

Guess what the lab found? Arsenic. As much as it seems like something you would only see in a TV show, it was starting to sound an awful lot like Mary had been slowly poisoning her husband and had mistakenly exposed herself to the toxin. But it gets much, much worse. Some even more disturbing evidence surfaced once my father and his friend dug deeper into Mary's past. Her previous two husbands had died pretty young, and as it turns out, their causes of death were conditions that could both be traced back to specifically arsenic poisoning.

I'm not sure what exactly law enforcement intends to do with Sweet Mary, or if she really is a black widow. But I can only hope that she wroughts in prison if her intentions were as sinister as they seemed. So, this happened a few years ago. I'm not exactly sure when, but I think I was around 13. I'm 16 now, and female. My cousin, who I'm really close with, had a basketball game at her school, so me and my mom went to go watch her play. We were sitting on the bleachers in the front, closest to the floor, and we're just watching the game. I remember looking up at one point at the bleachers.

higher up, and seeing an old man, probably in his 50s. Not that could with ages. He was wearing a jacket, jeans, and orange-tinted sunglasses, even though we were inside. I remember thinking it was a little weird that he wasn't sitting with anyone. In fact, he was actually kind of far away from everyone else. Not that there were very many people besides parents and siblings. I didn't really think much of it, thinking maybe he was a single father or something like that. The school was completely opened to pretty much anyone during the game.

The doors to both the entrance in the gym were left open, so almost anyone could come and watch them play basketball. I made a small mental note of him, and I went back to watching my cousin play. I also thought that it was a little weird that he was pretty much the only person's just a little bit of him. and not cheering, or making any noise for that matter. He just kind of sat on the bleachers and watched the game, but I still ignored it. The game went on, as normal. I think they lost, I don't really remember, but we still cheered her on and told her that she did well. After it was over, my cousin and the other girls went to change from their basketball uniforms

in the locker room, while the parents and other friends or family waited in the hallways right next to the door leading to the parking lot. While we were waiting for her to change, I saw the same older guy with the orange sunglasses. I figured he might be waiting on his daughter, or even his granddaughter, but after a couple of minutes, he started acting weird.

He would get really close to me without looking in my direction, and then walk back over to where he was before without looking again. He did this for a moment. a while, and I did my best to ignore it. I watched as the other families filed out with their kids, but every time a family passed by and exited through the door, he would follow them halfway, and then stop as they walked through the doors. He did this for probably about 10 minutes before he left through the doors without a word or another glance. He left by himself, so he couldn't have been waiting for anyone.

He never checked a watch or phone or anything like that either, so it's not like he was worrying about time. I remember thinking it was weird and creepy back then, but I didn't really realize how creepy his behavior was until I told my mom about it after we left. She told me that I definitely should have told her, and to tell her if anything like that ever happens again. I think it creeped her out a bit, too.

He really creeped me out then. I got a bad vibe from him, and I remember shuffling closer to my mom whenever he got too close. He gave me a bad feeling. But I still wonder if I was overreacting. Maybe he was just a harmless guy who wanted to watch the game. I don't know. I'm hoping you guys will have some opinions or thoughts on it,

and I think I might just be reading, too much into it. Lazzangue surgellied, puissance-moyerned for 15 minutes. We're like it's the dojo. Pry to play.

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