As The Raven Dreams Podcast - Scary Stories For Dark Dreams - Volume 15 | ATRD Podcast

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Today we have more than 2 hours of True Strange & Scary Stories with a lovely late night ambience. This is part of the "Scary Stories for Dark Dreams" series, which is a collection of stories put together for the sake of sleep or simple background noise. This collection includes The following true scary stories: Scary Winter Stories, Catfish Stories, Stalker stories, and Other True scary stories from Listeners 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. Support the channel for Early Access AND more! Patreon ➤ https://patreon.com/AsTheRavenDreams Join ➤ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkW0ihdMHfBUjQrMKjRto6g/join Or Check out the Merch Store! ➤ https://teechip.com/stores/astheravendreams Much Love, and Sleep Well... ----- #TrueScaryStories #AsTheRavenDreams #RedditStories ➤ Stories include a content warning for language and sensitive/disturbing content. Viewer discretion is always advised. ➤ ALL Audio of this Podcast are copyright of AS THE RAVEN DREAMS / RAVEN ADAMS and may not be duplicated, in any format, without explicit permission ➤ If you like any of the following stories, consider subscribing! - Dark Web horror stories, creepy lets not meet stories, stalker stories, Glitch In The Matrix Stories, Unexplained Horror stories, Paranormal stories, cryptid encounter stories, Crazy ex lover stories, creepy neighbor stories, quantum immortality, true scary stories from reddit, or any other True horror Stories! ➤ And Remember; You are loved, you are important, and you are valid. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Cirotay. Bookiné. Oh, that also. And profite. Via Rae. The voice that we love that am. 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. Okay, so this just happened to me and my buddy over the weekend, and I wanted to share this here. I'm 22 years old and have been living with my grandmae since I was about 11. Now that I'm a bit older, I've been able to take care of her as her health has taken a downward slope.

However, she is still able to get around on her own at home and is still fully there mentally. So sometimes I go out with friends for the night just to kick it. Sometimes there are recreationals involved, but we stay out of trouble. I couldn't imagine doing something to disappoint the woman that has raised me. So, anyways, this was one of those nights where Curtis and I met up at our local spot to enjoy a night of no responsibilities and no one depending on us to do something. Our go-to spot was behind a building that had been abandoned some time ago.

There was a narrow alleyway that connected it to some kind of doctor or dental office, but it closed at normal hours so there wasn't another person in sight. We would sit back there to smoke and BS for hours before we would finally leave. That night, we got on the topic of food, and as it goes, and we started craving some of our favorite junk food. We made our way out through the alley into the nearest gas station, and once we were satisfied with our purchase, we went back to our spot. Walking through that alley was normal for us.

We walked to that spot from his place since it was close, and that way, a parked car at an abandoned or closed building wouldn't alarm anyone. Being in that alley in the dark didn't scare us, especially when we weren't alone. It may not have been the best place in town, but we knew how to take care of ourselves. Not to mention, it was an unwritten rule that, if you kept to yourself, minded your own business, no one would bother you or say anything to you. So, when we were walking through the alley and we saw a lanky and scruffy-looking old man,

and we didn't think anything of it. and we kept our conversation low and did not make eye contact. As we passed to the guy, he let out a low, gravelly, he. So we slowed our pace, but kept walking and looked back at the guy. He held up his hand as if he was greeting us, and asked if we had any smokes. I've been there before, so I stopped and pulled one out to give him. He then lit it with the matchbook that he had, thanked me, and, As we nodded, we continued on.

Pretty simple interaction that we thought nothing else of. We got back to our spot and started talking and screwing off again when we saw that same guy walking out of the alley towards us. We weren't really going to be able to hide what we were doing, or rather smoking, so we just sat there, waiting to see how this would play out. The man approached and asked us if we had anything extra that he could, it smoked too. If it kept this guy from snitching on us, I guess I was happy to share, so I gave him what he asked for,

and he was actually pretty cool. He asked us some general and not to personal questions, like if we hung out there a lot, and how we found this place. He even told us some interesting stories that he knew about the building we were behind. He seemed totally fine while we were talking, but then he dropped his head like he he was in deep thought. We sat in silence for a minute before Curtis and I started talking to each other again, going on like there wasn't a third person sitting there with us.

Everyone has their own things they're trying to work out, so I felt it best to let him sit there and not interrupt him. As we were talking, he started muttering to himself, but there was nothing that we could make out. After this continued for a bit, the guy slowly looked up. and was staring right at me. Thinking he may have just had something to say, I looked back at him and just said, What's up, boss? You shouldn't be here.

I was confused at first, partially annoyed, thinking we were about to get some dumb lecture from some random guy about wasting our lives. But then it turned to confusion when I started thinking about how he's been sitting here with us this whole time too. What exactly was his whole plan here? Curtis and I looked at each other and he asked the man, What do you mean?

This is a dangerous place. You never know what you might encounter. Still feeling annoyed and confused, I made a comment about him being here too, or something to that effect. That's when, without breaking eye contact, he smiled at me and said, I know.

I've seen bad things happen here. I know things you couldn't possibly understand. Curtis started talking about how he was killing the mood, and I agreed with him. This was supposed to be our time away from everything else, and now we got this stranger in our self-proclaimed spot talking about things that made no sense. We made a motion to each other to just get up and leave,

when the guy once again spoke. I know things about you. you, Isaiah, things you don't even understand about yourself. Now, when we're outdoing what we were that night, we rarely actually use each other's full names. It was either us calling each other C or I, or one of the nicknames we'd given each other, and I can guarantee you that night, we never set our names around this guy. So, how did he know my name. I stood up and asked him how he knew me and again, without as much as a flinch. The guy looked up at me smiling and said,

It's easy when you have my eyes. Would you like to see into them too? I hadn't noticed before, as I had no reason to pay much attention to what he looked like. But as I stood over him, and the single light from above us lit up his face, I noticed his left eye was glossed over and still, unlike his right eye. It was a fake eye. Call me a jerk, but normally that stuff I wouldn't even take notice to or care about. But between his cryptic talking, knowing my name and the night now feeling incredibly tense,

I was pretty unnerved by this. Curtis looked at me in basically just motion that we should go, and I agreed. As we started walking away, he continued to sit in the same spot. not looking at us and said, The night will always find you. We picked up our pace and got the hell out of there. We went back to Curtis's house and tried to shake off the bad vibes.

Our high already ruined. Shortly after I went home and went to bed, hoping that guy was just off his rocker and that I would never see him again. Everything was fine the next day, and even most of the week until I was walking home, from the gas station. It felt like I was being stared at, and typically I just got this annoyed feeling. You know, the kind when you want to look at someone like, you got a problem. But this time

I was feeling more on edge. My fighter flight was kicking in, and I started looking around, all over. That's when I saw him. On the other side of the street, standing next to a bus stop, it was that same man. I stopped walking and just stared at him as he was clearly already staring at me. I didn't do anything, but stood still until he lifted his arm to wave at me smiling. I just picked up my pace to get home quickly, and thankfully he didn't follow. I told Curtis about it too, so we've been avoiding our normal spot, not wanting to run into him again. And so far, neither of us.

us have seen him since, but I don't want to take any chances. I don't know if this guy had bad intentions, if he was just trying to scare us, or maybe he was crazy, but whatever it was, I did not like the vibes I got from that man. I'll send you an update if I do run into him again, but to be honest, I hope I don't have to. It's never too early to plan your summer story in Europe with WestJet from Rolls, 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. This is a bit of an unconventional scary story, and to some, it may seem more strange than terrifying, but for me, it was probably one of the few moments in my life where I was seriously scared. I don't scare easily, and I do have a bit of a tough guy bravado about me, and sure, I may be a bit ignorant to the ways of the world, but I like to believe I can hold my own out here in this big bad world. That said, no, when the whole thing went down, I was feeling like a wimp. So, in order to really tell the story, we have to establish some background.

Of course, isn't that how all these scary stories go? Back when this happened, I had just turned 17 a month prior, which would have been around December of 2014. I had applied for and successfully landed my first job at a certain sandwich shop. One that's definitely well-known, but nowhere near the size of subway or anything. Despite the fact that the interview was literally just How old are you and have you ever worked fast food before?

I was seriously excited to have landed the job at all. This shop had a handful of employees, a couple shift leads, a manager, and then an owner that owned two of the same shop. I will also mention that not all the locations were franchised, such as his two locations. A lot of them were owned locally and independently, and basically just paid for the brand recognition. They had to follow the corporate guidelines for the product, but that was it. This being the case, it was actually kind of nice working there,

as they paid better than the franchised locations, and they were a lot more lax on how things were done. So long as the place stayed clean, and the customers stayed. happy, we weren't harassed or pushed to do menial tasks just because we had free time. There wasn't a whole lot of free time, but when it wasn't busy, we were pretty much free to sit in the back and chat. One of the surprising things that I noticed when I started working there was that the owner would occasionally work behind the line, and would also sometimes close the shop with the managers.

This was a bit odd to me. I thought the whole point of owning a small place like this was to pretty much not work, but still reap the rewards. But it was also kind of nice because the owner was a pretty legit dude. He was actually the person that I had my welcome aboard meeting with, and he was kind, professional, and seemed to be genuinely supportive. The managers were pretty good. decent, and the rest of the staff did their job well enough.

I think all of this really led to an environment that was welcoming for everyone, and the customers could tell. So, all that is the background. A good place to work, decent employees and management, and the owner was probably the nicest person to ever own a sandwich shop. With all that out there, it didn't take long for me to see. some of what was actually going on, specifically with the owner. I started the job in December, probably two weeks before Christmas, and in my second week, I was working a shift with the owner and one of the managers. During the shift, a large black SUV pulled up to the front spot, and in walked two very well-dressed businessmen.

At this point, we weren't busy, so I happily washed my hands, put on some gloves, and then turned around to ask how I could help these gentlemen. Now, again, I'm not a small dude, and I'm confident in my abilities to hold myself, but these guys, something about them was intimidating. As soon as I turned around, one of the guys asked for Marcus, who was the owner of the establishment. Almost as if on cue, Marcus walks out from the back and tells me that he will take care of these two, and that I should go ahead and take a ten-minute break outside.

He was very pushy about this, and as much as I didn't want to go out into the snow, I went ahead and did what he asked. As I was headed out the back door, I was stopped for a second by the manager, and I told him that Marcus told me to go. out back and take a break because of two guys asking for him in the front. As soon as I said this, he let me go and headed into the shop, but I could tell by the look on his face, these guys were a big deal. Now, when two grown men react to visitors like this, it's obvious that something is up,

and it's either not legal or it's ethically questionable. In the end, it wasn't my business, so I let it go and took a breakout back. About a week later, a situation like this played out the same when the same guys showed up. Except this time, Marcus wasn't there. I told them as such, and when I mentioned that I would be happy to help them, the look they gave me, it felt like daggers. I then mentioned that I could also go get my manager if that would help and then shouted to the back for Corey,

the manager that was there the last time this happened. He got to the front and much like Marcus told me to go ahead and take a ten out back. By this point, I kind of just assumed the situation was flat out something illegal, like drugs, and I didn't want to be involved with it. So I just said screw it and went out. out to my car. It was snowing and if I was going to take a break I was going to do so comfortably.

For about a month this didn't happen. No suited men, no scared managers, nothing like that. And things were pretty normal at the store. Then, somewhere around the end of January,

I was working with the owner on a closing shift, and the manager that was supposed to be on duty had to call in, so it was just the two of us. We had finished up the dinner shift for the night, and I was in the back doing dishes and cleaning when I heard Marcus say something like,

sorry, we're actually closing up for the night. But he trailed off near the end, like he was surprised by something. I thought maybe it was someone he knew, completely blanking on the two guys, so I just kept doing the dishes. Until I looked over and saw him walk walking back, being followed by, you guessed it, the two fancy guys from the black SUV.

The only difference was that this time, they were pushing him to the back and they both had guns trained right on him. This is where I kind of fell apart mentally and became that wimp. I pretty much just pushed myself with my back against the wall and put my hands up in hopes that I wouldn't be a a victim of whatever was going on here. I think they were a bit surprised to see me there and not the other manager, because they paused for a moment and started talking to each other in a language that I didn't understand. Marcus then said something to them in that same language.

I'm assuming telling them that I had nothing to do with any of what was going on and to leave me alone. They didn't seem to like him back talking, as one of them should be able to. shoved him to the ground and then pointed the gun at me. To say that I became a baby would be an understatement. I was 17. I'd been working, making sandwiches for a little over a month. And I'd been working to save money for a car, which was a dumb thing to think about,

but it was all I could get into my brain. I was about to die and not get my car. This was the end of it for me, and I had no idea why. The guy that wasn't pointing his gun at me, grabbed me by the shirt and walked me over to the walk-in. He stood me facing away from him and kicked the back of my knee so that I fell into a kneeling position. This was that make-or-break moment, and I honestly thought I was dead. Thankfully, I heard him grab something and then felt him tying my hands and feet up and duct tape. He tied me up to the point where I couldn't move at all.

and then shoved me down and shut the door. I just kind of laid there on the floor and stared at the meat on the shelf and thought, my God, those guys were cartel or something, and I almost just died. I tried to listen to what was being said, but they were speaking the other language, so I had no idea what they were saying. I heard Marcus screaming, I heard them yelling,

and then I heard the door to the back slam shut and nothing. It was silent. I was seriously tied up in the walk-in, and it was about 10 o'clock at night. No one was going to be coming into that store until around 9 the next morning. And my parents probably weren't going to worry about me since I had a habit of crashing at my friend's house. What's worse, with how cold it was, how scared I was, and how much adrenaline was seriously making my heart pump, there was no way I was going to fall asleep. I just kind of sat there and stared at the wall for the entire night and felt like I was freezing. Thankfully, this was the walk-in fridge and not the actual freezers, so while it was cold, it probably wasn't going to kill me.

me. The next morning, I was beyond ecstatic to hear someone come in, and I was screaming as loud as I could to get their attention. Needless to say, they were a bit more than shocked to find me bound and lying on the floor. They got me out, and they called the cops, as well as the manager, who showed up in five minutes flat and started asking questions about the whole thing. He was there and trying to gather more information than the police were, which made me realize that he had a stake in this whole thing, too. He didn't really seem keen on speaking to the police about the whole thing, but after I was questioned,

I was given a number to call with more information and told that I could leave. That's, honestly, my whole story with this. To the best of my knowledge, they never found the owner, dead or alive, or the two men. And my guess is that they're no longer in the country. The store actually ended up closing, and I'm pretty sure the police started investigating the whole thing, but they didn't bother me anymore after that.

I also didn't go back after that night, and decided to just focus on school. I will say that I feel bad about whatever happened to market, but I'm beyond thankful that they decided I wasn't enough of a threat that they needed to take me with them. Wherever it is that they went. My story is one that's pretty messed up, and I'm not saying that lightly. Part of this was possibly the lowest point of my life, and was absolutely something that gave me some sort of PTSD,

but it's an important story for me to tell the world, in my opinion. I was abused and mistreated by a person, and it's a bumpy ride, so if that's not something you can stomach, then I don't recommend reading the rest of this. I dated a guy named Cole for most of my time in high school. I met him at the end of my freshman year, and we actually started dating at the beginning of my sophomore year, and were together until we graduated. neither of us was one of the popular kids, and neither of us really stood out of the crowd.

So we just kind of really enjoyed each other's company, and being together with someone that was like me was really nice. Well, that's what it was on the outside, at least. To everyone in the school, my parents, and the public eye, we were just too shy high school kids that liked to hold hands. In private, however, he was emotionally manipulative and horribly controlling. My home life wasn't great. My parents argued non-stop, and they were always so aggressive with each other. So I guess as I was growing up, I kind of connected that with love. And when Cole started doing the same thing to me that they did to each other,

I thought it was normal. It didn't take long for that emotional manipulation to turn into physical abuse, and then sexual abuse. Basically, if he wanted to do something, we would just do it, and I had to accept it, because he loved me, and that was that. This went on for over a year, and a half until spring break of my senior year. I spent the week over at my grandmother's house in an attempt to get away. from him even just for a little bit though I framed it that I hadn't spent time with my granny for a while which was true while I was there my grandma actually saw a bruise

that was on my inner thigh and the whole thing spiraled I broke down I told her everything she was horrified to hear what had been happening between us but once she calmed me down she basically told me that I had I needed to exit the relationship as quickly as I could. We talked about it some more, and I agreed with her. She had convinced me that I needed to get away from Cole, and I needed to get away as soon as possible. Once spring break was over, he came over to my house,

and I was adamant that we needed to spend the time in the living room instead of my room, because I knew what would happen if we went behind closed doors. Throughout the evening, I just kind of sat alone on the couch and kept my distance while I prepared for what I had to do. And then, once he had to leave, I ended up telling him that I thought we should take a break from each other. I saw by the look on his face that he wanted to smack me, something he had pretty much turned into his rebuttal when he thought what I said was wrong, but he didn't, because my mom was in the other room and he had to keep up his good kid appearances. He asked me if I was sure that I wanted to do that

in a way that was almost threatening. But I nodded and I said that I enjoyed our time together but that I needed some time to think things through. He basically left after that, but he did not leave me alone. He was dead set. on quote unquote winning me back in some way. Whether that meant by telling me how much I meant to him or telling me that I would be sorry for what he had done,

I tried my best to ignore the notes, the letters in the mailbox, the constant phone calls, but I couldn't ignore the literal brick through my window. Yes, he literally threw a brick through my window, complete with a small note attached to it that said, I love you, Kayla, and I will die without you. Complete with his signature.

Thankfully, that was enough to make this whole thing a lot easier, as my dad called the cops, and he was subsequently arrested because he admitted that he did it. I was actually happy that this happened, because I would be able to move on, focus on school, and he wouldn't be there to distract or bother me anymore. Now, I thought that was where it all ended. He was charged, told to stay away,

and I finished high school without any issues. After I graduated, I moved out and then moved in with my grandparents and went to college. I spent four years furthering my education and living with them. Then, I went out and got my own place a few miles from their house at an apartment complex down the way. I lived there for six years, so at this point, I had been on my own for a decade. I had started my career, and I had met a guy that I was dating, and things were pretty serious. Basically, I had moved on with my life, and I was happy, despite... what I had gone through.

Recovery was difficult, but I felt like I had successfully managed to do so. Unfortunately, things went south really fast one random day, when I got a phone call from a number that I didn't know. I answered it, and I wish that I hadn't. As soon as I said hello, the voice on the other end said, Hey, Kayla, it's coal. In a tone that was way too excited to be on this call. As soon as he said his name,

my blood ran cold, and there were legitimate chills running down my spine. That was a voice that I never wanted to hear again. And the fact that he had somehow found my phone number was something else altogether. I kind of sheepishly said hi and then asked what he wanted. He laughed when I responded and then said something like, don't sound so excited to talk to me,

and then started in with what he was calling for. He asked me if I could be a reference for a job that he was applying for because he needed someone to tell them that he was a good person and willing to do the work. I basically just said okay and wrapped up the call as quickly as I could That feeling in my stomach whenever this happened Was literally the worst thing that I had felt since he and I were together

I ended up telling my current boyfriend what happened And thankfully he was fully supportive and willing to keep me calm And talk me through the situation At the end of it He pretty much told him me that I should just not answer any numbers that I don't recognize and just move on, pretend that it never happened. He then followed up with, if I wanted, we could go up and change my phone number.

I told him that it was okay, and that I would just not answer any more calls that I didn't recognize. That would have been a great solution, and probably would have been enough if what happened next didn't happen. About a week after that happened, I went into the office to work, and sitting in the lobby was Cole. I opened the door and literally just froze the second that I saw him. My heart was racing, and I'm pretty sure that I started hyperventilating because I was

feeling dizzy. As soon as he saw me, he stood up and walked over. over to me, grabbing me and pulled me into a hug. I had no idea what to do, and I just kind of stood there frozen with his arms around me and not letting go. I wanted to cry. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to literally just stop existing.

He was talking in my ear about how much he had missed me since high school, how happy he was to see me. He said that he was there for an interview to work in the IT department, which was the department that I worked in. And he said that he was so excited that he may end up working with me. Then he said something that made my heart stop. It could be just like old times. As soon as he said that, I immediately pulled myself away from him and walked away as quickly as I could to go and talk to my manner. I walked into his office and I knew that he could see that something was wrong because he stood up and asked me if I was okay.

I let loose. I asked him if there was someone named Cole there for an interview. He told me there was, and that he was there to interview for a position that was on our team. Then he asked me if I knew him. I explained everything to him. I pretty much just dumped the entirety of my trauma on him, and I told him that Cole was the cause of it. He then followed that up with saying that he would keep what I said in mind

and asked me if I had a restraining order on coal. I knew what that meant. It meant that he did not care, and that he was going to proceed as if I had never told him any of this. The restraining order question was a matter of covering, himself legally. I told him no, and he ended the conversation pretty much right away. I went back to my desk, but I think I spent most of that day in the bathroom just staring

at the wall and having a panic attack. That was actually the last day that I worked there, because I knew what was going on. Some of you may say that it was purely coincidence that he was interviewing for the same company that I was working at, but it wasn't. He didn't seem surprised to see me. He never once said anything about not knowing I worked there, and his comments made me feel more like he knew it, and was just trying to pretend that he didn't.

I know, it sounds paranoid, but he got my number. He went to my office. He interviewed for a position on my team. None of this was a coincidence. Like I said, I ended up quitting that day. I didn't even put in my two weeks just in case.

I wasn't willing to give him any more time around me. I also did go and change my number after that day, so he didn't have it. Thankfully, this time around, I had more of a support system in place. My boyfriend, my grandparents, and a few of my other friends. They all supported me in my decision, and they helped me get my mind straight. So, that's it. That's the story of my horrible X that showed up randomly in my life ten years later. It was hard to get through, and I still feel like some days he's going to show back up in my life to cause me more distress.

But thankfully, he hasn't. If he ever does, I'm honestly not sure what I will do. Or what it will do to me. Hi, Raven. Huge fan. Hello, Owl Waitress, and thank you. I love all your stories, and I figured I would share one of my own. I'm sorry if this is long, and I'm no writer, so bear with me.

Due to my job closing down, I had to find a place to work that was within walking distance to my apartment, which really didn't leave me with many options. So I ended up working for a famous chain that requires their waitresses to wear orange shorts, and white tank tops. I'd been working there for maybe six months, and I had my regulars, of course. There was one regular who always came in every Friday. We'll call him Joe.

Joe seemed like a nice guy. He tipped well. We would make small talk, and he'd always request a table in my section. One Friday he came in and ordered, and I brought him his drink, and he asked how school was going, so I told him I was prepping for my psychologist, final. He asked why I was working instead of studying, and I made a joke that a girl's got to pay her bills, then went off to take care of another table. At the end of the night, he wished me luck

on my final and left a $100 tip. I was extremely grateful and honestly surprised. I aced my final, and the next Friday was happy to tell him how it went. We high-fived, and I took his order as That night, he had asked if I was seeing anyone. I was honest and said, no, not with school going on and work. I was just too busy. He then said that if I was his girlfriend, he'd be more than happy to take care of me, and let me focus on school. I gave an awkward laugh and told him I'd be back to check on him in a bit.

I took my break immediately after that and texted my bestie about what had just happened. She too said that it was a bit creepy. The rest of the night passed by uneventful. That night when I left work, I noticed a truck at the back of the parking lot that I hadn't really seen before, but ended up deciding to pay it no mind. As I neared my apartment, I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach like someone was watching me. I look around and I don't see anyone, but I pick up my pace. As I'm reaching the stairs, I see a guy with a hat and a black hoodie, about ten feet behind me. His head was down so I couldn't see his face, but something told me that I needed to get inside, and fast.

I raced up the two flights of steps and locked the door behind me. I peered through the window and the guy was just standing in the grass, staring at my window. I was so freaked out that I stayed awake until I ended up passing. out from exhaustion. The week had gone by in a blur, and I'd been getting back to normal. It was Friday again, and in comes Joe seemingly happier than normal. I take his order, and I ask him how it's going. He says that he's great, that he's got a new girlfriend, and things are really taking off.

I congratulate him and wish him well. As I lean in to remove the menus from the table, I feel him sniff my hair. He asks what kind of hair products I use Because his girlfriend has similar hair And he likes the way that mine smells Creepy comments But I brush it off and tell him Since it does smell like blueberries

I even tell him where he can get it He says thanks And the rest of the night is fine until my walk home Again, as I'm nearing my apartment I get that eerie feeling that I'm being watched but there's no one around me that I can see. I make it to my apartment without incident and tell myself that I'm just being paranoid. The next morning, I go to leave for school, rushing because I overslept,

and there on my doorstep is a note and a box. I pick up both, sit the box inside, and take the note with me. As I'm walking to class, I pull the note out of my pocket, and it says, for my favorite girl, each moment with you is all I need. Confused, I stuffed the note back into my pocket. That evening at work, I go on my lunch break and sit outside towards the back of the parking lot, just scrolling social media. Joe walks up asking how my day is going and if anything exciting happened.

I look around because the back patio is for employees only. I asked him how he knew I was back there. He said he'd come in and was told that I'd gone on breaks, so he went around looking for me. I asked him why, and he said it's because he wanted to make sure his favorite girl was safe. At this point, I'm starting to put it together in my head. I tell him that he's not allowed back here and that he has to leave. He looks down at his feet as he says he'll see me around. I go in to tell my manager what's been happening, and she tells me,

it's a hazard of the job, and that that's just how men are, and that they can't help themselves. I explained that I think he's followed me home, and she then tells me there's nothing she can do about it. I needed the job, so I told myself that I would have to deal with it until I could find something else. In the meantime, every time he came in, I would trade Joe's table with another waitress, and each time he would stare at me the whole night. Every week I would come home to packages and notes from candy to stuffed animals, hair products, and my favorite manga. The notes started out nice, and then as time progressed, they became worrying.

He would say things like he knew my route home, and how I would be alone every night, and how it wasn't safe for a girl to be alone, that anything could happen. At the start of my last week there, he showed up every day and just stared daggers at me for hours. By that Wednesday, I decided that I'd had enough and could deal with the hits to my wallet missing those last few days. I'd gone to class, come home and napped, and woke up somewhere around six-ish. The sun was setting and I'd gotten hungry, so I decided to run up to the Sprout, a grocery store, around the corner for half off.

off sushi. I go in, grab my things, and as I'm walking out, I see Joe in his truck just looking at me. I try to pretend like I didn't see him and speedwalk towards my house. As I'm half walking, half running, I hear his truck behind me. I don't turn to look, but I talk my things tightly into my arms and take off at full speed across the parking lot. I can see the lights from his truck behind me, so I dart across the front lawn and through the bottom apartments. I hear his car come to a screeching halt, and then footsteps coming up from behind me. My heart is pounding.

I'm fumbling with my keys as I run up the stairs. I slam the door behind me, and as I'm locking it, I hear him begin pounding on the door, trying to turn the knob. I yell at him to go away before I call the cops. He's screaming things at me through the door about how I let him on for months, how he's been doing all the right things to show he's interested, but I just ignore him, and how I was treating him like he was nothing. I yell again that I'm calling the cops, and it goes silent.

I know I should have called, but cops make me nervous, and I have to say that I don't feel comfortable calling them. I was just hoping that he would go away with the threat alone. That night, I'd called my best friend to come stay with me for a few nights to keep me company, as I didn't want to sleep alone. That night, as we were sitting on the couch watching anime, my phone starts chiming, back-to-back notifications. I look down at my phone, and there's Facebook Messenger and Instagram DM notifications.

I opened them. They're all from Joe. I had no idea that he'd been on any of my social media. He had tried to tag me in a relationship notification on Facebook as his girlfriend. There were people in the comments saying, congratulations, and I'm so happy for you. I immediately untagged myself and blocked him on both Facebook and Instagram. About 30 minutes later, I get a Facebook message from my Facebook. a page that didn't have a picture.

I figured it was him, but before I could block it, the messages started flowing in. He said that he's loved me since he first saw me, that he knows we're meant to be together, that he's the only one for me, and if I

can't see it, then he's going to show me. At that point, my best friend demanded that we go to the police. I took screenshots and gathered up the notes and gifts, but and because I didn't know his last name, they wouldn't give me an order of protection. I literally felt defeated.

My old job didn't care. The police couldn't do anything until I could either get more information or something violent happened, and he was caught in the act. With no other options, I moved back in with my parents a few towns over, switched to online classes for the rest of the semester, and I didn't leave the house without another person. I'd get random friend requests for a few weeks after that from who I assumed was Joe, and would just block them, then stopped. With that being our last semester,

my best friend and I decided to move further north, and I haven't seen or heard from him since. I really hope that he gets the help that he needs, and I hope that I never... see him again. As a kid, or more so a young teenager, I could tell that I was different from my sisters. I was never interested in boys and dating until I got older and learned why that was. I am a lesbian, but with my parents being super religious, I never told them or talked to them about it. I didn't even tell them until recently, like within the last few years.

Two of my sisters are really awesome and supportive of me, while the other one is actually worse than my parents. We never really got along that well anyways, so I just don't talk to her. Anyways, I bring this up because this is why I ended up meeting and dating people online. I did this as a teenager in chat rooms, and sites dedicated to the LGBT communities, but as I got older, I started using more adult-oriented apps, since I could take care of myself, go to public places, just things like that.

I had a few successes, but they didn't go anywhere after a while. I did get a few good friendships out of it and really started to learn what I liked in a partner and what traits were a hard pass. So, while flipping through the app, one day on my lunch break, I came across this girl named Stephanie. First, I thought she was stunning.

She had long, straight, dark brunette hair, bright green eyes, and an honestly breathtaking smile. From her pictures, she seemed very outgoing and active. There were lots of pictures of her at beaches, one of her that looked like she was hiking up a mountain. There was even one of her skydiving. and something I've always wanted to do. I thought she looked great, and now can the personality match?

So I messaged her, and lucky me, she responded. We started talking a bit about ourselves, and what we liked to do for fun and even some of our pet peeves. We seemed to have a lot in common, too. We both had similar interests and hobbies. I mentioned the skydiving picture, and she told me she was going, through training to be an instructor herself, or whatever they call it, so she said she would

love to take me out to do it. We then started talking about coming out, when we knew, how we told our friends, our families, how they reacted, just things like that. At that point, I felt like I had a friend that I knew all my life, but they understood everything. She explained that her parents had pretty much disowned her. when she came out, but felt much better about it afterwards because she knew who she could trust and rely on, and that she's been happier since.

I told her about my family situation, and she made me feel better about not talking to my sister. I had the same mentality toward her, but then felt guilty because she was family and thought I should still love her. But if she doesn't love or care about me, then why should I? After a few weeks or so of us talking, I believe it was, we wanted to meet in person. Unexpectedly, though, I had to go on a week-long business trip to train a new class in a different state. I know I looked suspicious at first, but she understood, though, based on knowing what I did for a living,

and the fact that I sent her pictures of the plane and hotel room with me in them. I hoped that that at least made her feel better about it, knowing that I was a real person. So, once I got back, we finally chose a place to go. We were going to meet up at a local restaurant that I quite enjoyed, but she had never been. Its whole theme is retro video game style. They have old arcade games there, and even some of the tables were those cool tabletop games. You had to reserve those spots, but all the other stuff. seats were open to see yourself.

So, upon date night, I got myself all dressed up, even dyed my hair and put on makeup, something I didn't normally do. I was really looking forward to this. I got there, and I found an open table on the side that didn't have a lot of people around. And it was also by a window, so I figured it would be easy to spot, at least. I texted Steph to let her know I was there. and where to find me, and she told me that she was almost there. I went ahead and ordered drinks and nachos,

expecting they would both arrive around the same time. I went back and forth between looking for her out the window and playing a game on my phone while I waited. The food and drinks arrived, and I still sat there waiting on her, when someone else approached my table. It was a guy, and he looked, So out of place. He was wearing jeans and one of those dress jackets and a tie.

This place couldn't be any more casual, so he really stood out. But then, his appearance beyond that was just kind of unsettling. His skin was super pale, but his lips almost looked stained. Like he had just wiped off lipstick. It was weird. He had blonde hair, almost buzz cut. Like it had been growing back in these piercing greenish-gray eyes. On top of all this, he just stood there, smiling at me.

Not knowing what else to do, I gave him an awkward smile back, and I said, Hi, can I help you? To which he responded saying, Sorry, I couldn't help but wonder why such a beautiful girl was sitting all alone. I told him as I motioned towards the second. drink that I wasn't, and that my date was going to be here soon. He then made the comment, and it feels like you've been stood up, but I'd love to buy you another drink and keep you company. I then told him no, that my date had recently texted me

saying they were on their way. They weren't late or canceling, and nor did I get that feeling from her, so again, I said she would be there soon and just declined his offer. That's when he said What if I can offer the same things that Stephanie can? My first thought was, who the hell is this guy? But then I realized what just happened. Stephanie wasn't who I thought they were at all. And I had just been catfished. No wonder they were so willing to wait for me, I guess.

I've been hit on by guys before, because, as they like to put it, like it's some kind of compliment. I look normal, whatever the hell that means. So I said already pissed off that my time has been wasted. So you had to fake being a hot girl just to get a date, huh? That seemed to hit something in him based on how he paused for a second, and looked away. But unfortunately, it wasn't enough to sway him, because he slightly chuckled looking back at me.

His response, though, was surprisingly not one that I had, heard before. He said that his goal was to see if I was really a lesbian and to help me convert my ways. Usually, after telling a guy my preference, they just walk away without saying much more, so to have this guy really say he wants to convert me, it was pretty brave. I just laughed, hearing something similar from my sister and told him to walk away now to save himself some time. but he wasn't ready to give up yet. His way of converting me was different, though. Oh, no. He said, Oh, I guarantee, baby. After one night, I know I could change your mind.

All right. Cool. So now we're back to the flirting, I guess, in a very gross way. But as I started grabbing my purse to leave, he grabbed my hand and got close to my face and said, I promise there will be pleasure within the pain. I whipped my hand back at this point, and had a few choice words that I yelled at him and then started walking out of the building. Unfortunately, it did not stop there. I'm already upset and crushed,

so my head is all over the place as I'm unlocking my door, not paying attention to my surroundings, and I get pushed against my car and hear a familiar, your voice from this guy. He's now grabbing my hip and saying, I promise you won't regret it if you give me a chance. Thankfully, I was able to swing my head back hard enough and hit something solid, causing him to back up.

This gave me time to unlock my door and jump in as he sat there staring at me, obviously pissed off. I started driving away and was picking up my phone to call my friend. As I'm talking to her and listening to her gripe that I didn't call the cops on the guy right then and there, I noticed the truck behind me had their brights on, and was riding really close and then backing off. I told my friend about this car, and she told me to pull on to a side road to see if I was followed.

To my horror, he did follow. And of course, I was immediately worried that it was this same guy. I told my friend that I was going to call the cops and hung up. I called them, told them I had a feeling who it was and that I feared for my safety. The operator actually guided me to a safe area where cops were going to be, which was this little park. I pulled in, keeping them on the phone, and lo and behold, and my catfish got out of the truck and started walking towards me. However, I didn't notice the cop either until I started to hear him yell that this guy needed to stop moving.

It scared me and that guy. They restrained him and then had me come out when it was safe and take a statement. I know it wasn't as bad as others have gone through, but he still assaulted me, so I definitely pressed charges. That was the bulk of my experience. My ego was hurt the most, thinking I really scored, but they turned out to just be a garbage human. I don't let it hold me back, though. I'm more careful about meeting new people, but I still have fun. I am a lot more open about myself, so I guess my catfish did help me there.

They tried to change me, but actually only made me stronger. So, I guess, just double. and triple check on people, because you can really never be too careful. This actually happened a few years back when I was in college, so it would have been around 2018. Back then, I was a very social person. I liked to hang out in large gatherings, go out to events, etc. You get the idea.

That year was actually the last year that I went to house parties, partially because of COVID two years later, but mostly because of this event. I'd gone to a house party that was hosted by a really good friend of mine, Wayne. Wayne is a weird guy. He likes parties, but he's also kind of a stiff. He wasn't the type to throw wild bashes.

He was the one that planned out a gathering, made sure that everyone knew that closing time was 10.30 p.m., and kept things within with the long, said was okay. The plan of this party was that it would be a small to medium-sized get-together, no more than 20 or so people total throughout the house and yard, just people that we both knew pretty well.

But as the night went on, I noticed that the count of people was definitely more than 20. I leaned over to Wayne at one point and asked if he invited more people than he told me, and he took a look around the party and gave a bit of a sense. scowl. He hadn't. He mentioned that there was a group of guys that he didn't know that showed up a few minutes ago, and that he just hadn't had the chance to talk with them because he'd been talking with everyone else. I patted him on the shoulder and mentioned that I would go talk to them for him if he wanted, and he said that he would really appreciate that. I walked up to the small group that was standing off to the side, just chatting amongst themselves, and lifted a hand to

sort of wave in a friendly way. I'm the diplomatic type. I tried to keep the conversation light and casual, assuming that maybe these guys just didn't know they weren't supposed to be there. I didn't want to make a scene or be rude. They could be good guys. I asked one of the guys how he knew about the party, and he mentioned a mutual acquaintance of Wayne and I,

a guy named Jason. I nodded, asked if Jason told them about it, And they sort of shrugged it off and said that they were friends of his, and that's where the conversation tapered off. With that information, I went back to Wayne to let him know. Upon hearing the name, Wayne's expression changed to one of annoyance. He said that Jason had actually done this before, and that he was going to have to have a talk with him.

Jason was actually a co-worker of Wayne's, so Wayne definitely treated him with kid gloves when it came. came to these things, because he didn't want to have to sort out any bad blood with someone he worked with. I could tell that this, however, was a breaking point. Wayne asked me to come with him just in case, and I agreed. As we walked towards the backyard, I noticed that the group of unfamiliar guys was headed in the same direction, just ahead of us, which made me feel a bit uneasy for some reason.

We got outside just in time to witness the horrifying scene. That group of guys had jumped Jason. They were relentless as they beat him senseless, punching him, kicking him, beating him harder and harder. It was a quick but very intense assault. And after just a few seconds of chaos, they stopped. One of them leaned over Jason, who was completely motionless and yelled, consider this a warning.

Next time, it'll be your last. Then, in a show of audacity that still haunts me to this day, the group walked calmly through the party, out the front door, and all got in a car and drove off. They didn't rush, they didn't glance back, they didn't do a damn thing to hide who they were. They walked, as if they owned the place, as if they were untouchable.

In the aftermath, of course, 911 was called, and an ambulance arrived to tend to Jason, who I honestly thought was dead. Thankfully, he wasn't. Despite the attack, Jason refused to identify his attackers. He claimed that he had no idea who they were, and that he'd never met them. It was pretty clear that he was covering for them, for whatever reason. Nothing came of this event, at least not to the best of my knowledge. They were never identified, and I haven't seen any of them since. As for Jason, I haven't really seen him either.

This was also the last time that Wayne had an actual house party, which is completely understandable. We can all speculate what the hell this was, but it was pretty clear that Jason had upset someone that he shouldn't have. and I think that it's best that we all just left it at that. Bear with me, this is going back to the 70s, but enjoy the ride if you can handle a ride back in time. It's been so long since I even thought of this experience, and yet it rates up there. Mysterious, unexplainable, occult.

I was living in Chicago at the time, in high school, having moved from the southwest. And it felt fun, energetic, and yet there was a need to escape from it as well. My father was always cutting out and going on junkets to South America for long weekends, and I was fine with a mild party house while he was gone. But sometimes he would take me along if the holidays were aligned, and so we went on one of these long weekend trips to England

and a dip into Wales. I remember it all too well now. The cold of O'Hare Airport, a couple that stood out kissing by a counter. He looked like Mick Jagger, and he was with a woman in fashionable velvet overalls, or some kind of one-died jumpsuit and poofy copper hair. And my grandmother had come along at the last minute.

She was a traveler, coming out from her ranch in Washington State and meeting us there. I was hiding in a big army jacket and wearing faded jeans with the police patch that I had swiped from a pile at the police department. That time that my friend and I got flashed and a cop pulled up right afterwards, so we flagged him down. Yeah, we were just out walking and the duster pulled up real slow, and the guy was acting lost, and then he just stared. Well, anyway, he was caught in the alley behind a Chinese takeout. The cop seemed to know exactly where that shrink would be.

Yeah, that's what we found out he was. The plane ride felt morose, flying over the North Atlantic in late November. I hoped that we weren't going down in it, and London was dialed a few notches down from dreary. It was dark, almost as night. Walking around the record shops in Piccadilly, my dad rented a car within a day, and we blew off the big city heading in. west. It was a dogged trip. The rain poured, and we went from little village to little village in our not super comfy fiat on mud roads. The whole trip was grey and brown. Yet there was something

dreamy about looking out the window on the old stone walls and the smeary pubs that we passed. Once we got out and went to a market in the pouring rain, and I got an old used paperback book of ghost stories that were super British, and full of castles and deranged geniuses. It was fun just slouching in the back, reading, this hair-raising stuff while cruising by abbeys, palatial brakes, with hedgerows and mazes. There were no more billboards, bright gas stations, none of that. It was full immersion. And nearing one of our last nights,

We rounded a corner and pulled into a pub in a deserted edge of a rolled-up sleeping town. We went in to just ask where an inn was, and the corpulent bartender with dark hair and a big smile, wet with sweat, and his hand with a rag up a glass, and we are ordering up a storm of things and laughing, and as my grandmother and dad are talking with the bartender, a gentleman asked if I would play darts with him. We had a strangely great time. I hit a bull's eye on my first try. It was true beginner's luck, and we laughed and laughed about it. He had zoomed in the parking lot in a shiny jag from his job at Lloyd's of London,

ensuring George Harrison. But then as we spoke about things, he lowered his voice. You're just traveling through. That's it? Yeah, I answered. So you really don't know where you are? because this is a damn strange place. So I must tell you, and you can take it upon yourself to find everything I speak of in the morning.

He then proceeded to tell me of a church that I would find on a hill to the right in the morn. And if I looked at the top, I would see that instead of a cross, there was a crescent sort of shape, a kind of golden bowl. And that would be the sign that this was not a Christian. an area. And that the hill the church was on, the church with the bull instead of a cross, that hill was hollowed, and beneath it was where the Hellfire Club met. And he proceeded to order another ale as he drew a map on the coaster with his Lloyds of London pen. It was rather cozy upstairs in the pub's inn, and sleep came so fast. The morning was intriguing to me. I told my

grandmother and my dad what the gentleman had spoken of the night before. It seemed sort of senseless, but we took off early. It was like 6 or 7 a.m. And there was this mist all around that gave light somehow. And as we got in the car and began to drive, there it was. On a moat hill above a thick forest. The top of the church could be seen, and yes, it really did have a golden bowl. My father, the driver, was deeply confused by that bull, and so began to drive toward the winding road leading up the hill to the church.

Now, this is where things began to get odder. There was a trail that we saw off the road that led into it, and I suddenly was begging to go up the trail and meet them. I have no idea why. Were my legs cramped? Did I feel I needed a solid walk up the hill on a good, obviour? trail? I said that I would meet them at the top, and they agreed. I thought it would be not scary at all.

It was morning, and would only become more so. And it was a gentle, quiet woods, a pleasant walk. Yet there was something going on out of the ordinary. And I saw that along the trail, there were images nailed to the trees. They were not satanic, per se. Some were Hindu-looking cut-outs, thick and glued to thicker paper. They were put up with intent, all with burned-out candles around them. There were more than the Hindu ones, but that one I swiped for some reason.

It was less creepy than the others. I slid it in my army jacket pocket, seeing more and more images deeper off the trail, and then something white, ghost-like. Was it a stray piece? of extra thick fog. I watched as it crossed in front of me and went up the hill, and I made note to watch, even though I was frightened. I knew that this was the type of incident that could be forgotten, brushed aside, denied.

I was not going to let fear come in, and I knew that this was a rare chance to be in a most strange place. At the top of the hill, we came together again. And we walked around the church. But it was early and it was locked, so we left. We decided to continue our journey, leaving this unforgettable twilight zone. So I have a creepy story that happened back when I used to do snow removal for a bunch of rental properties. So back around 2010.

For a slight bit of backstory, I worked for a small bit of backstory, I worked for a small, company that did contract work for the aforementioned rentals. They would load us up two or three to a pickup. We would go out to the properties while it was snowing or just after a snowstorm, and it would be our job to plow out the parking lots, shovel the main stretch of sidewalk, and drop some ice melt, and just make sure everything was good to go for the residents by the time they got up to go to work.

We weren't exactly detail-oriented. We were pretty much just told to move the snow out of the way and make sure that no one would slip, fall, or otherwise hurt themselves in the common areas. It was probably one of the most strenuous jobs a person could possibly do. Wake up at 3 in the morning, load up into a truck, get to the sights, and start shoveling. And that last part was my main duty. I didn't get to drive the truck. I was the newbies, so I was told to run the shovels on the sidewalks and drop the ice melt.

It was miserable, but it paid all right for what it was. Plus, I only had to work about five hours on the days where we had to do the removals. So, on the date in question, back around 2010, our area had gotten a lot of snow and we had four properties we were supposed to do, which meant that we were going to be out until around eight, removing the snow. We loaded up, and we got through the first three with relative ease. No real problems besides being cold as hell and dealing with the mild case of frostbite. And then we headed out to the final property,

which was a bit of an uppity-style property. By that, I mean that it was a full-on rental property that was owned by a big real estate company, and it was a bunch of townhomes and duplexes around what was essentially its own block. The part that makes it uppity were the people, prices, and the property's requirements. The people were snooty, the prices were outrageous for the area, and the property management were the only people that we ever had problems with. For the most part, the properties we worked with had one requirement. Make the snow not block the way of cars.

This specific property, however, was super-anal about where the snow went, the direction that we plowed in, and the type of ice melts that we used. Yes, they had a specific brand that they required, we used because they claimed it was less harmful to the cement. We get the first half of the property done and cleared out, and when we get to the southeast corner, we notice that there's already a pile of snow in one of the parking spots.

Like someone had used a small plow or a large shovel to move it into a pile about four feet or so tall, and they had filled the entire handicapped spot. We kind of sat there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. If we should call the office, tell them that one of their tenants had left a pile of snow shoveled in one of the spots. But I made a comment about how they would just blame us, because it wasn't in the designated snow zone.

My boss sighed and paused for a second, thinking about what we should do. The spot wasn't large enough for him to make. maneuver in, and there were cars next to it anyways, which meant we were going to have to get out and move the snow back out into the parking lot, so we could then plow it into the correct area. This meant a lot of manual labor to move a pile of snow, just to repile the snow elsewhere, which then also meant that I was the one that had to get out and do it. I hopped out of the truck and walked back to get the shovel and then went over to the pile of snow

and attempted to push some of it off the top. And of course, it had become a chunk of ice more than just a pile of snow. I smacked at some with the shovel to loosen it up, but had to climb over it and start breaking chunks off. But I was getting nowhere fast. I motioned for my boss and our co-worker, to come over and help me.

They parked and grabbed the shovels, and we all started chipping away at the parking lot iceberg. It took us a few minutes to get a good portion of it out of the parking lot, but when we had gotten most of the way through, I noticed that there was actually something in the snow pile. It didn't take long for all three of us

to realize what we were looking at. It was an arm, and that arm was attached to a snowpile. torso. This pile of snow that a tenant had packed so carefully into this parking spot wasn't done out of frustration of said tenant. This was a temporary grave. We immediately dropped the shovels and ran back to the truck. My boss grabbed the phone and called 911 to report it, and he told me to call the property management. The management showed up first, then the police. police and the EMS, though EMS wasn't going to be able to do much. This person was quite obviously

dead. They had us help remove the ice as best as we could from around her so they could get her out and attempt to identify. As soon as we were able to get her uncovered, it was pretty clear how she died. There were multiple stab wounds to the chest and stomach area. The management was a able to identify her right away. It was one of their elderly tenants that lived in the building that was just to the right of the parking spot. They told the police that she lived alone and that no one in the area had any problems with her or anything.

We were pretty much told by management that our job was done there and the police thanked us for our help. We packed our stuff back up and decided that we were done for the day. My boss said that he felt like we should take a couple days off because of how messed up this situation really was. After a few days when we all met back up, my boss had actually told us that he was able to contact the management of the property and talk with them about the situation. And they told him a little bit more about it. This older woman was a decent tenant, but she had apparently moved her son into the basement without her. the knowledge of management.

And her son had a drug problem. It was basically a case of her wanting him to live with her and get better, but he was set in his ways. And apparently they'd had a disagreement that night,

and he killed her and then buried her in the snow somewhere around three in the morning. If we had chosen to do our route backwards, as we sometimes did, and we went to that problem, property first thing, we probably would have run into him burying her. We all kind of guessed that he knew she would likely be found eventually, in that it would be easier to just cover her in the snow, as it was likely to not melt for a couple of weeks.

Plus, he may have thought that we would just pile more snow on to the spot when we plowed it. He was caught, thankfully, because he had taken his mother's car and attempted to get as far away as he could. Thankfully, he was the main suspect, and they put out a call for the car. So, when it was spotted literally two towns over that same day, he was pulled in, and he told them about what he had done. I actually did this job for a couple more years after this incident, but every time we approached a pile of snow that was more than a foot high, I think my boss and I both kind of

clenched, wondering if it was going to happen again. Thankfully, it never did. The story takes place several years ago. In the early to mid-2000s, I think it was 2006, because at the time, I was living with my aunt and uncle in the middle of pretty much nowhere Midwest. I won't get into the whole why I was living with them thing, because it's not really relevant. Just know that I had crappy parents, and they were the next best thing. But they really did live in what was pretty much the middle of nowhere.

The town, if you could call it that, that we lived in had a really small population. And pretty much everyone knew everyone else. It was basically one of those small towns where, if you pulled into someone's driveway, you would get met with the business end of a double barrel. On top of this, they lived on what was essentially a long dirt road that literally just ended. There were no turnarounds or side roads. It was just one long dirt path with gravel on it that went the length of a few properties and then stopped at a tree line. It didn't even have one of those metal guardrails to stop you at the end.

It was just forest and a small ravine pretty much. This meant that the people that came down the road were typically just the people that lived there, or were visiting someone that lived there. Very rarely did we get someone that would drive all the way down the road, find that it ended, and then turn around to go somewhere else. Now that you have an idea of what it was like, I'll get on to what actually happened. I was 16 at the time, and had recently gotten my driver's license, so I was the one that drove to the only gas station to get snacks, or would drive out to the grocery store to pick up the few things that we needed.

I was pretty much just taking every single opportunity that I could to get into the car and go, since I now legally could. This was especially true since it was summer break. because otherwise I would just be sitting in the house with my little brother, and that was not something I wanted to do. It was pretty early in the morning, sometime around eight or so, because my uncle had just gotten up and was complaining that we were out of both creamer and milk for his coffee, and he was getting grumpy because of it.

I told him that I would just go ahead and run to the store to get what he needed if he wanted me to. He said that I could go, but then told me to take Jimmy, my little brother. I really didn't want to, but I wasn't going to fight him on it. We got in the car, headed out down the drive and onto the road towards the main roads. A few minutes into the drive, I saw what looked like a car sitting on the side of the road with the hood up, which is also something you don't usually see around here. I slowed down as we approached, and I saw a man in a button-down shirt and nice pants,

just kind of standing there in front of the car, looking at it like he was annoyed or frustrated. I asked him if he was okay, and he laughed and then walked over to my window. Here's how the conversation went. Him. No, I'm not okay. I was driving down the road, and this thing just stopped running. I don't know what's wrong with it. it. You wouldn't happen to have a phone I could use, would you?

Me. No, I don't. Sorry. Were you going to see someone down this way? I could point you to their house, and they could probably help you. Mind you, this was 2006. Most people didn't have cell phones on them at the time, much less out here. Him. That's all right. Could you give me a ride up the road to the gas station so I could call someone? It's just me out here, and I don't really know. where I am. This was a bit of a weird statement to me. He definitely looked out of place, but to be on this road usually meant you knew where you were going. Me. Oh, this is my uncle's car, and I don't think he'd want me to have a stranger in it. What I can do, though, let me turn around and go get him, and I'll let him know where you are, so he can come out this way. He actually

owns a mechanic shop, so he can either tell you what's wrong, or get you towed out to the shop, and I'm sure he'll be able to fix it. When I said this, he kind of looked upset or disappointed, which was weird to me. I was basically offering to get him a certified mechanic to look at his car for free since he was stuck here. My uncle had been working on cars for something like 30 years at this point. There was nothing that he couldn't diagnose or fix at the shop. The guy kind of just looked around and shook his head. and then leaned in and said,

Could you guys just go ahead and give me a ride? I think that would be the better way to do this. And that's when my brother leaned forward and started talking. He asked, Is that guy with you too? And pointed towards the trees by the car. The guy looked shocked and then turned around to look at the trees. Then asked in a sheepish way,

Uh, oh, what guy? My brother once again pointed and said, That guy right there, behind the tree. He's been standing there for a while. Will he need a ride too? Now my brother can be a bit annoying at times with how he was, but this was practically the thing that saved us in this situation.

As soon as the guy realized that we knew the other guy was there, he didn't really seem to know what to say. after a couple seconds of mumbling and jumping around with his words, he seemed to motion to the other guy. And as soon as I saw him start walking out of the trees with a gun in his hands, I booked it. I knew exactly what was going on here. And I knew that I needed to get as far away from this as quickly as I could.

I slammed the gas pedal and took off. I'm pretty sure I actually ran over the first guy's foot on the way. after what felt like forever of driving down the road at top speed, I looked back, slowed down, and I turned out on to the main road where everything was. When I finally parked in the parking lot at the grocery store, I just kind of sat there with my heart racing and panicking inside. My brother, on the other hand, was just like,

Huh, that was weird. When I was certain that I wasn't going to die from a heart attack, We got out and quickly ran into the store. I went over to the desk and asked to use their phone to call my uncle. I told him that some guys were parked on our street and that one of them had a gun, and that they tried to carjack us. I honestly think that they were more likely trying to kidnap us and take the car too, but I just stuck with the carjacking.

He told me to stay there until he got up to the store and said that he was, going to call the cops. When the officer got to the store, my brother and I told him about the whole thing. We told them about the car, the guy, the second guy with the gun. They did a sweep of the area, but they never found any of them. My uncle said that he didn't see them either when he drove down the road. My guess, they probably took off when we did, because they knew that the cops would be there soon. It was really bizarre for them to do this in the middle of a rural area,

on a road where it's just a bunch of country folk. But at the same time, I guess if you have the patience, you could get a mark pretty easily, since people out that way are always willing to stop and help. It was the only time that there were any reports of anything like this, and I never saw the two guys again, which tells me that they weren't from around there. And honestly, I hope that I never do see them again.

I'm new to this sub, and I'm not sure if this will catch anyone's interest. However, with the amount of true crime content I consume now, I feel compelled to get this story out. I, 27, female, attended a big university in the Midwest and started bartending after a few weeks. after turning 21. It was a fairly small college-type bar. When I worked weekdays,

I would be the only person in the entire bar from 4 to 9 p.m. until another bartender and bouncer came in. I'm very petite, and I was young, so this made me uneasy. But I was downtown, and there were always a lot of people around. A man, whom I'm assuming was local, started figuring out which days I was there alone, and he seemed to always stop in. He was short and stocky, but very muscular, covered in tattoos, always wore a fedora with a feather in it, and had very big gauge-type earrings that were shaped like bullhorns.

This is probably irrelevant, but my point is that you couldn't miss him in a crowd. He started off making subtle remarks about, how pretty and small I was, which I brushed off because this is pretty typical behavior in a bar environment. And I was a broke college student trying to make money. As time went on, during every encounter, he would somehow slip something into the conversation about how petite I was and how I needed to learn to defend myself. Eventually, he started telling me about the martial arts classes that he was into, and talked about wrestling maneuvers that he learned in all of his training,

and told me he'd love to teach me so I could defend myself if I ever needed to. He started offering to show me these different chokeholds, and was extremely persistent on showing me how to do them. No matter how where conversation started, he would end up getting on the topic of different chokeholds and would tell me, I won't hurt you, I can just show you on the ground, over here how you should do it.

I always found a way to change the subject or acts like I was getting a phone call when he would start getting on to the topic. It started to become every time he was there. Eventually I started texting my guy friends or the bar owner when I would see him walking past the bar, trying to see if I was there. Someone would come immediately. He caught on to this and stopped showing up. Now that I hear so many of these stories about predators with very specific sexual fetishes, I'm terrified to know that I didn't do more to protect myself in this situation.

It's sad that as young women, especially in certain areas of work, we're taught to accept this kind of behavior and be polite and kind. I specifically remember this man asking me three or four different times where I lived, And I'm so glad that my instincts told me to lie. I just hope no one else has encountered this man and been met with the worst outcome. I want to start this story by saying that I'm a bit of a broody person. It's just who I've always been. I've always been a bit more comfortable in the night when the world is silent and everyone else is asleep.

I like to enjoy the time to myself. I also struggle with self-image and anxiety. so in order to keep myself active and healthy, I like to go for walks when it's pitch black outside, especially on nights where I'm struggling to sleep. On this particular night, I was feeling rather restless, and I decided that I would go out for a quick walk around the block. I grabbed my jacket, my headphones, and my flashlight,

and headed out into a rather lovely night. As anticipated, there was nobody. else outside, minus the occasional car that would drive by every here and there. And it was a bit windy, so the leaves were blowing about, which made it that kind of magical night that I was hoping for. I was about 15 minutes into my walk, when I was hit with this intense feeling that I needed to pause. It was a bit of a strange sensation, but I seriously felt like I just needed to stop for a moment. When I did, I noticed that one of the streetlights ahead of me was starting to flicker.

I wasn't sure if it was flickering prior to me noticing it, but it was definitely flickering at the moment that I noticed it. After staring at it for a couple of seconds, I heard what sounded like a person saying, Hey, from a bit of a distance. I was confused because I had my earphones in, and if there was someone that had said something from the distance, it sounded like they were, I shouldn't have been able to hear them.

I immediately took my earphones out and looked around, trying to see if I could see someone nearby that was calling out. When I turned back toward the street light that was flickering, it made a popping noise and completely went out, which made me jump. I wasn't sure what to do, but thought that I should just keep going, right? it was just a light surely that was just a really

good timing on my part to be looking at it when it went out I took a single step forward toward where the light was and once again froze a voice called out again with hey

come here my first instinct was to turn around and take off back home but then my curiosity started to get the best of me I know stupid but at the same time, this was too freaky to just turn away from and ignore. I grabbed my flashlight and turned it on and then slowly lifted it towards the darkness where the dead street light was.

Much to my relief, there was nothing there. I actually chuckled to myself thinking that I was just losing it and that I needed to get home and sleep. Just as I was about to turn off the flashlight and continue on, my eyes caught a glimpse of motion on the end. edge of the light, which shifted me from my relief back to terror. I watched as what looked like a shadow quickly darted away from my flashlight and over toward the wooded edge of the street. I tried to follow it, quickly shining to the left, but I couldn't see anything. My heart skipped a beat as I stood there and just watched the tree line for what felt like several awkward moments. I just held the light. pointing it at the trees and waiting for something to happen.

Unfortunately, something did. I saw what, again, looked like a shadow, leaning slightly out from behind one of the trees. I was pointing my light directly at this thing, and yet it was still completely dark. As it leaned out, I once again heard that voice whisper. Hey, come here. Please, come here.

For a single fleeting second, I actually considered going towards it. But then my brain kicked back in, and I realized that that would be the dumbest thing I could possibly do. I had no idea what the hell this thing was. I had no idea what its intentions were, and I was pretty much defenseless. Once that thought occurred to me, I felt that wave of terror wash over me. My legs felt like jelly, but I knew that I needed to get out of there. I started to turn to head back home, but was interrupted by what really triggered my flight response. That voice once again whispered at me, but this time it said,

I won't hurt you. Nothing that says I won't hurt you in the way that it did actually means it. I immediately turned and took off at a full sprint. I have never in my life run that fast or for that long, but I made record time getting back to my front door. I fumbled with my keys, jumped in, and locked the door, and then paused as I caught my breath and tried to slow my heart down.

After a few moments of just standing against my front door in silence, I decided that I would go to bed. And thankfully that was the entire experience. The rest of the night was uneventful. And I haven't gone on a night walk down that road, I thought about going back to see if I could find this thing again, but it kind of occurred to me that if I was that scared that night, there was a reason. It wasn't just because it was weird. It was instinctual.

So, I've decided that whatever that thing was, someone else out there can take the credit for finding it. This is another addition to some other oddities that have occurred at or around my house. home. My wife and I moved in here three years ago. We found a nice, quiet place, and there's access to several services, gas stations, emergency services, eateries, that are all within three blocks of us. Pretty handy. There have been several things that have happened since we settled in, which I have written about before. I will try and jot some things down when I remember them. There have been so many creepy or just plain weird, scary, or wrong things that have gone on that I forgot some of them, really. I've almost forgotten more than I can recall.

A good friend of mine has told me more than once that he thinks that I'm like a magnet for this stuff. And I told him that I don't want to see this stuff or have this weird stuff happen. I don't want to experience this crap. someone told me that I'm probably sensitive and these things are attracted to me what the hell does that mean? Am I easily hurt or sad for some reason? Why do I have to be plagued with this? Do I have to expect this garbage for the rest of my life?

Seems like it. So here is one that I remembered. I decided to get it down while I could. This really odd and unsettling thing happened two years. ago during the summer. It was almost 11 a.m. And I was doing some work outside, and I was dragging the garden hose out, and was stretching it down the driveway.

I was going to wash my truck after spraying off the awnings, and I wanted to get it done before I lost the shade. I was about 20 feet from the road that run past out front, and I just had that weird gut feeling. Did you ever get that? you know, something is just not right? Well, for me, I get that. Not just having to experience things I sometimes, for some nasty trick on me,

seem to know when things aren't going to be as they should. I hope I could explain this so someone might understand, let alone comprehend. I heard a vehicle coming from the north corner of the block. I glanced up and saw a small, rusty red color. I don't know what make. It was just one of those small, single cab pickups, with a bench seat, so it was probably made around the 70s. It sounded as old as it looked. The exhaust was making some noise, like it had some holes in it, and it was patched with a tin can. I don't suppose anyone remembers those days. Side note and fun fact for you, William, you're describing my first

vehicle that I ever owned, literally, 77 Dodge pickup truck, with a hole in the exhaust that made a popping noise. Sorry for the aside, I just wanted to add that. I stood there watching this small pickup coming down the road, getting closer, and as it did, I thought to myself, isn't that odd? I was looking at the cab of the truck, and things just didn't look right. No, not right at all. That is wrong.

Not happening. No. This is wrong. I could see inside the cab and see the seat, the steering wheel, dashboard. However, I couldn't see the driver. I was kind of transfixed. Is that the right word? I mean, I don't know if I moved other than turning towards the truck to look.

I don't know if I blinked, said anything out loud or even was breathing. I was just so intent on watching this truck going right past. past me, I don't know what else was going on. There was nobody sitting in the seat. I could see the entire seat. The windows were down on both sides, and there wasn't anywhere for someone to hide in there. It was too small. It was only going about ten miles an hour.

It came down the road, rolled past me, got to the corner, and slowed at the stop sign. It didn't stop, but rolled through, turning left, and head. headed east. As I watched the whole damned thing, and didn't even think of my phone, with a camera. At the time, I was so stuck on watching this that I wasn't thinking. I missed out on that. I've told a couple people, but they just say the usual stuff. I know they probably don't believe a thing I told them.

It's frustrating. When you have something happened and you have no proof. I've seen and heard things through my life that I can't explain or prove. But one night I heard something very, very bizarre. But this time I had a witness. I've spent a lot of time outside. By that, I mean like camping, hiking, fishing. I learned how to identify certain animal tracks and sounds made by them.

Basically, I did a lot of stuff, heard a lot of stuff. I'm an outdoorsman. My wife and I were sitting in our living room watching TV, just having a nice quiet evening at home. It was late fall and it was dark. The windows are closed, and all of a sudden there is this screaming sound. It was behind our house to the south corner of the property. There isn't any way I can tell how it sounded and do it justice. It was a screaming sound, maybe male.

Hard to tell. It was hoarse or gravelly. changed tones, and my wife said the same thing that I was thinking. It sounded like an animal and human being combined. It really sounded creepy. It was nothing that I have ever heard in the woods or in town. Not a fox, coyote, wolf, bobcat, weasel, raccoon, skunk, owl, hawk that I have ever heard. And it was moving.

It progressed from the south corner near the garage. and went past the room of the house that we were sitting in, and toward the north to the alley. We've never heard it again. No idea what it was, and I still can't identify what we heard. I've never really told anyone about this story, with very few exceptions.

Basically, I've only ever mentioned it to two people. One of them I'm married, and the other one really, isn't in my life anymore. It didn't matter when I mentioned it to them, mostly because it was several years after the fact, and they didn't really seem interested in it when I told them about it, which probably speaks a little to why they aren't in my life anymore.

Anyways, that said, I was listening to a few YouTube narrators tell creepy encounter stories, and I realized that I could go ahead and tell my story to the internet. and then maybe someone out there would care. And maybe I'm overreacting with the whole thing, but it was just one of those situations that seriously freaked me out when I was younger, and it still kind of makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it now. I was young when this happened, like 14 or 15.

Now, to tell you a bit more about who I was and how my life was back then, when I was around six, I ended up being dumped into the foster system and had been cycled through a couple of families for various reasons. One of the things that you're not really told about the foster system, that you have to be a part of it to realize, there are people that adopt kids for money. It is absolutely a thing that happens,

and when it does, the kids usually do. don't live their best lives. I was one of those kids. My foster parents had four other adoptees that they pretty much just ignored, and they collected a check each month from the government. Because of this, I was pretty much left to my own devices from the time I was six to the time I was 16. After that, I had actually moved out of the foster home and in with the friend of my mine, whom I actually ended up married to.

Being left to do whatever I wanted most of my life led to me doing things that I shouldn't have. I'm not going to beat around the bush. When I was 14 or so, I had already done a few different drugs, and I was already drinking pretty frequently with people I should not have been hanging out with. I honestly don't even remember how I ended up with that crowd that I did, but I would frequently go out after school on Friday nights and hang out with people that were older than me. I would drink with them until I would black out,

or until I just couldn't feel anything. Surprisingly, none of them ever did anything to me. I was 14 and very vulnerable, And seeing as how I would black out at the house with four or five guys that were anywhere between 17 and 24, they easily could have sexually assaulted me. But none of them ever even tried to even hit on me. I think they looked at me as a younger sister, not enough to try to steer me in the right path,

but enough that none of them looked at me in that way. That said, this specific event and situation, was one where I wish I would have just drank until I blacked out and slept it off over there, but I didn't. Now, for the most part, I would get to the point where I would have zero memory of the night before, but on this night, I wasn't feeling it, and I only drank enough to be kind of numb. I was still mostly conscious and able to focus. Because of this, I decided that at around 1.30 in the morning, I would walk from their house to my house, which wasn't too far.

But it was definitely far enough that a drunk 14-year-old girl should not have been considering walking it, especially since it was January and somewhere in the neighborhood of zero degrees Fahrenheit. But brave, stupid little old me was completely invincible. and I wanted to go home so I could sneak in and sleep in my own warm bed. I have no idea why I wanted to do that. I would have been warm and safe there. I just know that I wanted to. The walk home started simple enough.

I told them I was leaving, walked out into the snow-covered yard, and tried to keep my footing on the frozen sidewalk. About 300 feet from the house, I started thinking that this was stupid and that I was going to freeze to death, or fall and break something, but I was also a dumb kid, and decided to just buck it up and go the whole way. Now, I wasn't exactly bundled up for snow, but thankfully it had stopped at this point. I just had to deal with the wind and the freezing cold. I had a coat, sure, but I was also wearing shorts, which was something that I was.

definitely regretting pretty quickly. Despite these complaints, I was determined, and after about half an hour, I was at the home stretch. I could see my front yard from the corner that I was at, and I would be there in somewhere close to five or ten minutes. As soon as I took the turn onto my street, I heard that sound of a front door and screen door opening, and then closing just to my left. I didn't think much of it at first, but then I heard someone yell, Hey, in my direction. I wanted to ignore it, but my inebriated brain told me to look over and see who was calling for me, which was dumb, because I didn't know any of the people on this street, with the exception of our direct neighbors. I glanced over to see who it was,

And my stair was met with an older man, probably somewhere in his 60s, standing in his yard with his hands on his hips, and literally no clothes on. When I say no clothes, I mean nothing. No underwear, no robe, no socks, no shoes, not even a hat or anything. He was hanging out in all the glory of the day he was born. As soon as I made eye contact, his angered face quickly turned to a devious smile, and he said, Why are you out here so late, sweetheart? I turned back to look ahead so as to not be staring at this naked dude surrounded by snow, and just said, I'm just walking home. Sorry to bother you. Which was probably just a response that came from my dumb, drunk brain.

He then starts to walk. walk towards me from his front door and says something like, why don't you come on in? It's too cold to be out here. To which that same drunk brain, it decided to be a smart ass and say, Yeah, I can tell. As soon as I made my snide quip,

this dude started yelling obscenities at me as loud as he could and started to speed up in my direction. As soon as I heard him running towards me, I took off into a sprint, towards my house. I turned back and I saw that he was following me as fast as he could. Thankfully, I was about 50 years younger and probably close to 200 pounds lighter than him at the time. So I was able to get a bit of a lead.

Unfortunately, around the point where I hit my yard, I realized two things. It was 1.30 in the morning. No one in my house was going to be awake. and I didn't have a key to the front door. My original plan of sneaking in wouldn't have worked as it was, and at this point I was stuck with having to break in. But that wasn't going to work since I had the naked old man, seriously tailing me into my own yard.

The only thing I was going to be able to do was get into my backyard and hope that the outside door to the detached garage was unlocked, and then hoped that he would eventually give up on his chase. I got to my yard and hopped the wooden fence, and immediately was hopeful that that would be enough to stop him. Almost as if he read my mind, he literally shouted, Huh, you're going to make me work for you, huh? The tone of his voice seriously sickened me,

and just replaying it in my head makes me get those same chills down my spine. I took off around the house and got to the rear garage door, and almost as if God himself responded to my panicked request, I grabbed the knob and it turned. I literally leapt into the garage and shut the door behind me, and then locked it. I was sitting there on the ground with my back against the door, freaking out, and thinking that this guy was seriously going to get me,

that he was going to just break up. the glass on the door and open it and then abduct me. I heard him huffing and shouting at me, saying things like how he only needed me for a couple of minutes, and how he promised that it wouldn't hurt too much. This guy was seriously a predator, and he was hunting me. I heard him walking around the backyard, I heard him put his hands on the garage doorknob and try it,

and then I heard him yell something and walk away. I would have to guess that he didn't realize I was in the garage because he kept walking around and calling out for me. I want to reiterate that this naked old man had run after me in the snow, climbed over a fence into my own home's backyard, and was still yelling out for me. He obviously had no shame and no care about whether or not someone saw him or noticed him.

He had a one-track mind, and getting to me was that track. At some point in time, my brain gave up, and my drunk self started to doze off sitting on the floor of the garage. I was freezing cold, drunk, and scared, but I was also exhausted, and I ended up just falling asleep right there against the door. My guess is, when he realized I wasn't outside anymore or, wasn't in a place that he could get to me, he gave up and went back home. Mostly because, when I woke up, it was to one of my older brothers opening the garage door to leave for work. He basically told me to go inside and go to bed, which I did, mostly because I knew that this hangover was probably going to suck. This was, seriously, the most terrifying thing to have ever happened to me.

The fact that this old, naked man was willing to run into the freezing weather to chase me down the street, enter into my backyard to get to me, and then yell while right outside my home about what he was going to do to me, was, well, it was horrifying. It's even worse that either no one in my family woke up to it or cared enough to see what the hell was going on. Like I said, I'm much older now pushing into my late 40s, and am married to someone that actually does love me. It just pains me and sickens me to know what he was probably looking to do to me, and I'm thankful for the fact that I was able to get away from him. But I also worry with how brazen he was about everything. I'm thinking that I may not have been the first person that he has.

had targeted. There is a time in most of our lives when we seem to temporarily forget some of the forms of human decency that our parents taught us. This usually occurs sometime during the young adult stage, a time when we seem to think that we can pass off certain forms of selfish, ill-mannered behavior as thinking for ourselves. That was the case with my husband and I on this particular day. What can I say? We were bored that night, and an opportunity for free instant fun seemed to impeccably land itself right into our laps.

And so, we graciously accepted it. It was eight in the evening, and the first day of the November daylight savings time, which had just gone into effect, so it seemed like it had been dark outside all day, instead of just a few hours. We were about to move the following day, so our cable had already been transferred to the new address, and we had mindlessly packed every one of our DVDs into, God only knows which of the eight million boxes piled in our dining room. Quite unexpectedly, our phone rang.

My husband and I looked at each other puzzled because we thought that our phone service had been turned off, to be transferred to our new address. and, oddly enough, the phone hadn't rang all day. My husband just shrugged his shoulders, so I answered the phone and he sat beside me, and could hear the entire conversation. Right after I said hello, I could hear a rude, aggressive male voice speaking urgently to someone in the background. What did you say you wanted on that again? It was obvious that the caller was not yet aware that someone had answered the phone on my end.

I didn't recognize the voice. Again, I said hello in a questioning tone, hoping to alert the caller that the phone had been picked up. The caller responded in a nasty tone that suggested that I said or done something rude to him, which I hadn't. Hello? The caller said rudely. Hello? You better wait a damn minute. He snapped at me.

My mouth gaped open in shock, but before I could speak, The caller resumed talking to me. Hello? Yeah. Give me a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, an Italian sausage, and mushrooms. And two large steak and cheese subs, one with extra meat, but with no onions on the extra meat one. The caller spoke in a nasty tone as if he was ordering someone around who knew better than to cross him. Perhaps a servant.

He continued with his order clearly talking down to me. and I want an order of 25 hot wings with a side of barbecue sauce, and two extra blue cheeses, and a two-liter of orange soda. The caller had not allowed me to get a word in thus far, and once again, before I could inform him that he had the wrong number, as sort of an afterthought, the caller spoke in a snarling but humor-laced tone as if trying to impress someone around him at my expense.

And their amused giggle confirmed it. Oh, y'all can keep that nasty carrot celery stuff for your own dinner, because I don't eat that stuff. I don't want to be waiting all night for my stuff to get here. And y'all had better not forget my damn soda. Suddenly, an angry rush flowed through me. I spoke. Okay, sir, that'll be 2750 with delivery, I said in the most cheerful voice. The caller paused for a few seconds.

What? 2750. You sure? The caller's voice now sounded like a nice guy all the sudden. Yes, sir, I said in a cheerful voice. We're running a special today. If you purchase two subs, you get a huge discount on everything else that you ordered. That's the bomb.

Y'all are the bomb. The caller praised in that cunning, superior tone that people use when they've just gotten over on someone. sir, where will we be delivering this to tonight? I asked in the most respectful tone than I could muster. My husband looked at me wide-eyed as if he'd suspected that I may have completely lost my mind, almost as if he was worried that he and I would actually have to prepare this order and deliver it. When I was in my early twenties, I thought I had all the answers because, after all, I was grown. As I look back on those days, I'm amazed at how dumb I was.

This reflection of stupidity was confirmed when my husband and I were genuinely shocked and caught off guard when, after an hour, the guy called back to inquire on the status of his order. The driver hasn't gotten your order to you yet, sir, I asked, pretending to be surprised and confused. He left nearly half an hour ago. Sir, I am so very sorry. He should be there in about five minutes, I assure you. Between the time that I ended the... initial call with this guy, and the time that he called back to check on the status of his order, curiosity had prompted my husband and I to do a little research and simple arithmetic.

We discovered that the order that we told the caller would total less than $30 would ordinarily have cost over $50 in most pizza places. We wondered how the caller could have been naive enough to believe that an establishment could afford to present such an offer, one that wouldn't yield any profit at all, and would actually cost them money. My husband and I laughed until our eyes teared up and stung. The humor suddenly vanished from my husband's face, and it was replaced with worry. What if they call back again, though? He asked in a nervous whisper, and the expression on his face made me fall right back into

another laughing frenzy. These are just people, not the boogeyman. They can't do anything to us. They don't even know who he are, I assured him with a smirk. Besides, maybe this will teach them a little something about common courtesy and telephone etiquette. The truth was that I resented the ill mannerisms of the caller and thought that he would dare to speak that way to a fast food employee. It infuriated me, as half my friends at the time were working in fast food. The phone rang.

It was now almost nine o'clock, so I knew it couldn't possibly be anyone else besides our rude caller. I reached to answer it with a sinister grin on my face. My husband got to the phone first. I thought to myself, oh well, there goes my last bit of fun for tonight. Old Johnny Joykill is going to tell them they have the wrong number. Prematurely, I exhausted a bored sigh. Hello, sir. this is the manager, and before you go off on me, I want to sincerely apologize for my

employees' incompetence. I had to look twice to make sure that the voice was coming from my husband's mouth, and not from the TV. He continued, apparently, our delivery guy quit on us tonight, and he took your food with him. My husband spoke his words so fast that the caller didn't get an opportunity to say anything. We've already prepared a brand-new or something. order for you and it's out for delivery.

Our driver has a white Lincoln town car with a red ragtop roof, and if you look out your window right now, you should be able to see him approaching your house in less than 60 seconds. Finally, my husband gave the caller a chance to speak, and he tilted the phone receiver for me to listen in. Oh, okay, because I was about to say that this is taking all night. Are they even coming? Answer, we've actually knocked off. half the price and we threw in another double-meat steak sub and upgraded your wing order from

25 to 50 just to express our sincere apologies and to assure that we may keep you as a customer again i am so very sorry for all of this mix up tonight sir i was indeed impressed by my husband's oscarworthy performance oh man don't even worry about it we're cool the guy's tone sounded friendly as if he were talking to an old friend. Then you will order from us again? My husband asked, with exaggerated humility, sounding just like a manager trying to salvage his business clientele. Oh, for sure, for sure, my man, for sure.

I could actually hear the pleased grin, the caller's voice. Okay, well, I'm going to hang up now so you can go out and meet our driver. His name is Charles, and he's shining a flashlight on your address plate right now. After my husband ended the call, we took our phone off the hook and just laughed ourselves to sleep. Instant fun. To this day, whenever I order a pizza or wings, I secretly wonder what I would do if it never arrived. Deep down inside, I know that if it doesn't, it would probably serve me right. Hello.

Now, the story isn't what most might be used to. seeing as how it's told from the perspective of the one who we would call the stalker. Let me preface this by saying that I am aware that what I did is wrong and I'm truly sorry for it. For context, I'm a male, now in my 30s, but this takes place in high school about 14 years ago. I attended a large public school, though I won't say where to protect the privacy of those involved. during this time I was in a severe depression and seeing as how I was not aware of what that entailed I thought the feelings I had were perfectly normal I was in a class called study period during which time I was part of a small tight-knit group of friends we had dubbed ourselves the breakfast club after the film of that name instead of studying we would spend an hour and a half just talking about our lives and ourselves

elves. The group consisted of myself, a boy named Eric, who was my best friend at the time, and two girls. Their names were Amber and Cassie. Now, during this time, I was shy and socially awkward, and I had no idea how to approach girls. However, with Cassie and Amber, I never had this problem. In time, I even started to fall head over heels for Cassie. She was everything I liked in girl. She was smart, fun, loved to read, and on top of that, she was very pretty. Soon, and it shames me to write this, I actually started to follow her around the school, trying to discern her schedule and to try to work up the courage to ask her to homecoming. However, before I could, another boy asked her to go, just as friends, but to me, it seemed

devastating. I felt like I had missed my chance, but then I started to reason with myself thinking that I could just wait until after, then if she was still single, I could have my moment. Being the complete dult that I was, I did just that. To my relief, she was still single afterwards, so thinking this would be the chance that I had waited for, I made what I consider one of the dumbest decisions in my entire life. Given that I was too shy to approach her directly, I wrote down my feelings for her in a love letter to the effect of, you're the best part of my day. Every time I get to see you was amazing.

You're the most perfect girl I have ever met, and I would like to know more about you. I did not sign it, seeing as how I thought that if I didn't, I could just wait and see and gauge her reaction. When she got up to use the restroom, I slipped the letter into her backpack. The following day, I eagerly awaited study period. Believing I would be able to declare myself as her admirer that morning, thinking she would be receptive to it. Instead, I was called into the teacher's office and confronted with the letter. The teacher straight up told me that my letter was unacceptable, and that's far from receptive,

Cassie was frightened and in tears over it. Needless to say, I got detention for that incident for a whole week. Thankfully, my parents never found out, as I had fibbed about staying after school for afternoon classes. My mental state, which was already bad, promptly deteriorated further, to the point where I even began to contemplate taking my own life. I'm sorry to say that my... My obsession with Cassie continued for some time afterwards.

But to my dismay, she had already deduced my name and blocked me on all social media, and I never saw her again. Long story short, I got moved out of that class and very nearly did end my life out of guilt. However, I eventually confided in my parents about my depression, and after a year of therapy, I was able to recover and move on with my life. I know this isn't terribly interesting or scary, but I will say that it was by far the darkest, most traumatic experience of my life. It's been years, but I confess that I still do feel a bit of guilt for what I did. And if I could, I would say to Cassie, wherever she is, how sorry I am.

When I was in my 20s, I was unmedicated. bipolar and I was dealing with an immense amount of unprocessed trauma. Being bipolar, I was also being super promiscuous and just not making good choices. I was using OKCupid and matched with a guy that seemed pretty normal. He worked at a smoke shop, had a dog, no kids, and was married. Come to find out, they were looking for someone who would be down for a little. Three-some. We talked for a few weeks, and then he invited me over.

I was manic. Like, manic, manic, manic. And said yes. I walked to the street corner of my apartment and told him where I was. He picked me up in a newer BMW, and we drove across the town to his place. When I get there, the vibe was awkward, if that makes sense. I met his wife and we all chatted. She told me that she was an RN at the local hospital and was showing me her tattoos,

and after a while he offered to make us drinks. My mom always told me to be careful taking drinks from strangers at bars and such, but my dumb ass assumed it was fine since I was already at the house. Still, I watched him. He had several mini vodka bottles and was poured, them into glasses. He had a juice of some kind and then served them. It tasted like an ordinarily cheap, crappy drink. Way too much booze and it was dry. After a while, I felt super anxious. His wife had gone into the bedroom and I was alone with her husband. Something was off. I felt

nauseous and just overall got sick. I worked at the hospital and I assumed that I had just picked up a bug. I stood up and it felt like the entire world had shifted. I damn near fell over the couch. I didn't think I had drink that much but then thought that I must have. I grabbed my bag and I tell him that I was going to call a cab and go home. Immediately he stood up and loudly said, "'No, you can't.'

He said it almost too fast and frantic. It scared the crap out of me, and I knew immediately that I needed to leave. I told him I wasn't staying and that I was leaving. He tried to block the door, but being shorter than him, I ducked under his arm. He tried to grab my shoulder, but I shook him off, and I swung at him. My blow landed on his throat and knocked the wind out of him. I took the opportunity and ran as fast as I could out the door and into the street. I had a cab number saved in my phone from a really nice cabby.

It was his personal cell phone number, and he was a close friend of someone that I knew well. I don't know why, but I called him. He answered, groggy and clearly just woken out of a slumber. I'm sobbing as I tell him what happened. He perked up right away and told me to walk to the gas station across the way and wait for him there. Less than five minutes later, he was pulling into the parking lot. He jumped out and ran over to me.

He had remembered taking me home, so he knew the address already. He told me to have a friend meet me at my house and to stay with me. My friend met us there and brought me inside. I don't remember the rest at all. Apparently I was acting erratic and making no sense. and she called 911 and an ambulance came. I woke up in the hospital. The doctors were telling me that I had such a high amount of benzodiazepans in my system,

that it was a miracle I made at home alive. I filed a police report, and the nurse was arrested. I'm not really sure what happened from there, but I'm so grateful for that cabby that came to my rescue. To start this story, I have to tell you a little about my son. sister. We were born exactly a year apart. Our birthday is on November

23rd, Jen being the older one. We've always been inseparable, but we did everything together, and matched like we were twins. We even joked about going on dates together with guys, and as teens,

joked about having a double marriage, things like that. We always said nothing could come between us, but people change as adults, especially when you're smitten by someone. Love, truly his blinding. Jen met this guy named Eric at work, and they started dating.

He seemed really cool at first. I went over to have dinner with them at her place, and he seemed very well-mannered and very sweet to my sister, so I joked with her that I hoped I could find a guy like him, Things seemed to be going pretty well with them. They were probably together for six months or so, before we started noticing changes. Jen started becoming a little more reclusive,

which wasn't like her at all. She was a very social person and outgoing, so it was weird for her to decline parties and dinners with family, or when I would invite her out for just a day together. We used to do this a few times a month, month, and she always seemed to have an excuse, and it actually kind of worried me. At one time she declined, saying that she wasn't feeling well, so I decided to surprise her with some homemade chili and cinnamon rolls. When I showed up, she was hesitant to open the door,

but when she did, I learned her reason for hiding. Her left eye was black and blue, and her forehead and cheek looked scraped. I learned Eric was not the person that we met. It was your typical abusive relationship. He would snap, apologize, he'd be fine for a week, and the cycle would just repeat. It definitely caused tension in the family. I loved her and I could at least understand that it wasn't an easy thing for her, so I still tried to let her know I was there for her when others weren't. However, it was difficult at times when I was around both of them.

I've always been a bit overweight, whereas my sister was always the taller and slim one. I'm very aware of it, and it's very hard to offend me about it. That didn't stop Eric from commenting, though. He hated when I was around because he always knew how I and the rest of the family felt about him. He would crack jokes about my appearance. And my sister would try to defend me, but I ended up stopping her, in fear that he would do something to her. Anyways, after multiple attacks, he finally hurt her enough to put her in the hospital.

My dad told her that she needed to leave this guy for good. Otherwise, they were done with her. My mom didn't say much either. I was still there for her, but I pleaded for her to leave him. I even offered to let her stay with me, or I would stay with her just to make sure she wasn't alone. However, while feeling heartbroken, confused, and alone, my sister sat in the hospital with her thoughts, and of course he called her, pleading her to take him back and said that he was going to go to therapy, and all that crap.

Once she got home, he actually proposed to her. In his cockiness, thinking he had her wrapped around her finger, she declined, as she had learned that he had been actually cheating on her. All the abuse that she took and she, of course, wasn't his one and only. She finally gained the strength and put her foot down. For being such a tough guy, he didn't argue much when my dad and a cop were at my sister's place, when he got there to get the last of his stuff. A few prank-slash-threatening calls later, he gave up, and my sister never heard from him again. And with that, I got my sister back. It took a while for her to be able to be herself again, but it was beautiful to watch her enjoy freedom and life again.

After some time, though, she was feeling a bit lonely and said she was ready to start dating again. I'd been looking on a few apps and sites, so I thought it could be fun to get her profile set up, and maybe we would get lucky and like each other enough to double date. We get it set up, and she's enjoying herself and even talking about hookups. Hey, as long as both parties are for it, at least they're enjoying themselves. So, I had a few matches myself, but the dates just kind of fell flat. but at one point I did meet a guy named Corey. He seemed really cool and had a lot of similar interests that I did.

I was starting to get into streaming games, and he said that he wanted to do the same but hadn't started anything up yet. We were talking for quite a while, and both wanted to meet, but he said he was out of the state for work. I appreciated him telling me this up front, and it kind of made me feel better about the situation, as well. We scheduled a time to meet after he returned in a week,

and in the meantime we continued talking, and I told my sister about him. We did share pictures, so we at least knew what each other looked like. My sister even thought he was cute and said she approved. Once he returned, we made plans to go have drinks and see a movie. We were going to meet up at a pub that was close to the theater,

so it was about 20 minutes from my place. I got there first after getting a message from him saying he was almost there as well. Instead of going in, I decided to sit outside and wait. My bad habit was smoking, so I thought I would smoke one while I was waiting to calm my nerves as well. Don't worry. He said he was a smoker too. Otherwise, I wouldn't have lit up before a date. Anyways, while I was standing there, I looked up to see the people that were passing by, leaving and entering the bar.

It wasn't completely dark yet, but as the cars were coming towards me with their lights on, I couldn't quite make out the faces of the people walking towards me. So, when I saw a guy cross the road and walked towards me, I stared at him a bit harder to see if I could make out if it was Corey. He definitely looked familiar, but not quite like Corey. I know pictures are still going to be a bit off from what you get in person, but Corey was tall and slim. He didn't have much muscle or form to him, I guess.

But something told me to figure out who this person was. Thankfully, a car was driving by the opposite way, so I could actually see his face a lot clearer. It was Eric, and he looked pissed. My heart immediately dropped, not knowing what he would do in public, and I immediately dropped my cigarette and dashed inside. I ran to the back as they yelled at me that I couldn't be back there, and I tried to explain to them that I was being followed. They didn't seem to believe me, or understand at first, until Eric came in and yelled out my name. I pulled out my phone and called 911, and I tried to stay low so he didn't see him.

me. Someone in there, I think it was just a patron, tried to get him to leave or something, as well as a bigger lady that was behind the bar, and then the place fell silent as I could hear scuffling and fighting. Thankfully, the police showed up and arrested him. The guy that was helping had to cut across his arm, because he apparently came in with a switchblade of some sort, but otherwise, everyone was okay. I noticed afterwards that I had a few moments. I noticed afterwards that I had a few missed calls from my sister. I texted her, and I gave her a brief rundown of what had happened, like a cop showed up at the bar, we'll call soon.

So she at least knew I was okay since I wasn't responding. I gave a statement, and I told him who the guy was, and a little backstory. Apparently, one of the cops that showed up actually knew his history, too, and had even received a call from my sister to do a check on me at the. this place. Once things started calming down, I called my sister to figure out what the hell was going on. She was freaking out, talking about how she was getting messages from Eric, threatening that he was going to kill me and kill her. My sister had her restraining order against Eric, so he instead tried to stalk her any way that he could other than physically. When he found

her on a dating site, he decided to make not one, but two, fake dating profiles to keep tabs on her, and to try to get me as well. He knew exactly what she liked, and due to the info she talked about, he created the profile of someone that I would like as well. He had started messaging her from his fake profile, talking crazy, calling her all kinds of names, telling her she was worthless, and said that after he takes me out, she would be next. She quickly figured out what was going on and tried calling me, and then when she couldn't get a hold of me, she called the cops. I'm thankful that I decided to wait outside

because who knows how much of an advantage he would have had if I hadn't been out there. Sadly, this damaged my sister even more as she felt like she put me in danger. even though I've told her that she could not have known. He used pictures of two different guys, and we still have no idea whose pictures he used. Nor would I ever have blamed her for it. We got off the dating sites just to be sure, though, and kind of let fate do its thing instead.

This was all a few years ago, and I could thankfully say that we've had no more run-ins with him, and he actually did some jail time. Just be careful out there. to everybody. Not everyone is fake, and not all the fake ones are life-threatening, I'm sure, but you really just never know. And maybe just meet up for coffee in a police station parking lot, just to be safe. I worked the late shift to pay for university, and I came home at midnight. I share a house with my mom, and I park my car in a garage that you can open with the remote control.

You can get straight into the house through a door that connects the garage with the basement, which I normally do, except for Tuesdays, where I go around the house to pull our trash can onto the street, and then enter through the main door. Our house is surrounded by tall bushes, so you can't see much of the street. It's a small rural village, and I know all the neighbors very well. On a Tuesday night that I returned from my shift, and when I drove into our street, I noticed an unfamiliar car with its headlights on. Since I know my neighborhood so well, I was kind of confused about the car, but I couldn't see the license plates,

nor the person sitting in the car clearly, since the light was blinding me. You only drive on to our street when you live there, or visit someone there, since it only circles back to the main street when you follow it to the end. I opened the gate in garage door remotely, and I drove inside. From that point, I can only see the street through the gate since the bushes are high on both sides, and I normally would have left the car and walked outside to grab the trash can. But that day, I got a long voice message from a friend and stayed in my car to listen to it. Seven minutes into the message, I lift my gaze and look into my rearview mirror,

and I see a man standing in my driveway behind my car. He didn't move in any way. He just stood perfectly still and watched me. I panicked and locked the doors, and then I grabbed the remote and closed the extremely slow garage gate. I just sat there for a moment and was too scared to leave the car, since I couldn't be sure that he didn't enter the garage before the door reached the floor. I also had to call my mother because the grower.

garage door into the basement was locked, since I had planned to use the main door. She later told me that she immediately went to the window. She can overview the streets and she lives on the first floor, but couldn't see the man or the car at that point. I told myself it was probably a neighbor who didn't think about how creepy he was acting, and that I didn't recognize him in the dark, but I asked around and nobody knew the man. I only got the information that that type of car was seen slowly driving around our neighborhood the last few days. So my mom thinks that it was someone who wanted to surprise me and forced me to let him into the house to rob us.

My grandma had just died, and nobody knew that my mom spent the nights over. She thinks that he waited behind the bushes, and he got impatient or confused when I didn't exit the car. We never found out who it was. In 1990, when I lived in the old Masonic apartment building on Geary and Larkin in San Francisco, my roommate and I were both asleep when we both had the same dream, of an extremely attractive man who looked different to each of us, according to our tastes. Once he appeared, he started trying to seduce us. But when he got close, he started to change into something so very,

vile and disgusting, it could put one off to adult relations for a long time, and it kind of did for me. At the point that he was close enough to touch us both, we tried to wake up, but we were stuck in sleep paralysis, trying not to be touched by this thing. The only way I can describe it is a total sickening perversion of everything a person could find attractive in a man. according to your tastes beyond your wildest fantasies. When it got to the point that he was about to touch us,

we both broke out of the paralysis at the exact same time, and simultaneously called each other's names until we were both wide awake. We sat up talking about it for a while, and I think we stayed up all night, not wanting to go back to sleep. This was completely different from my normal sleep paralysis, that can easily be explained by broken sleeping patterns. While the normal kind that I wake up with

is because I have to go to the bathroom really bad, or I can't breathe because my sinuses and throat are dried out from the heater. I only panic when I can't breathe, and I fight hard to get out of it. But there's no demonic anything going on, just a bad dream related to suffocating or peeing myself. I'm aware of what's happening and it's maddening. but not scary.

What my roommate and I experienced in that apartment can only be an incubus. Thank you for sticking with this rather personal story. I tried to make sure that it wasn't TMI. Hey, Raven, this is my first time submitting a story, or telling anyone about this as a matter of fact, but it's one of those memories that just keeps popping back up. It might not be the most exciting story to be.

to happen to someone, but it sure keeps me up at night. I was a goody two-shoes teen and never touched a drug in my life. When I was about 17, one summer I would walk my dog around my neighborhood at night. It was a relatively safe neighborhood, and I lived in South Florida, so it was too hot to go during the day. Not to mention there were other dog walkers during the day, and I hated making small talk with the retired residence of my neighborhood. I was a bit shy.

One night when walking my dog, I was suddenly stopped in my tracks when an orb of light hovered above the ground, around 20 feet in front of me. It was only maybe a foot above the ground directly in the center of the road, and about the size of a softball, or maybe a bit larger. It almost looked like an LED light, blue and white in color,

and as a very solid ball, there wasn't much reflection on the ground. Just as fast as I could process what I was seeing, it blinked out of existence. A few seconds passed, and it appears again, even further down the road before blinking out again. Almost like a huge white firefly, but being in South Florida,

we don't even really have fireflies. The moon was, bright enough that I could see that the road was completely barren where it disappeared from. It almost felt like it was beckoning me, or leading down a path the way it moved further down. But I didn't get closer to investigate. I noped out of there. It happened again a few nights later on a different street in my neighborhood, blinking three times in and out of existence. Same height, hovering above the ground and about 20 feet away.

appearing further and further away each time. For some reason, being 17, this did not stop me from walking my dog at night. Although it definitely should have. It must have been about a month later when my boyfriend and I went on a motorcycle ride. He was a bit older than me, but also never touched drugs in his life. He was a car and bike guy, so we frequently went on drives on his motorcycle. This time it was about 10 p.m. earlier than I had seen the lights in my neighborhood. The boyfriend and I were riding around town and then down a usually pretty busy two-lane main road.

At this hour, there were a few cars passing by in the other direction every few minutes. Driving along, everything was fine, until all of a sudden that same kind of ball of light was nearly at our height, just barely at our heads, a few feet in front of us, but a bright orange yellow this time. It was so close that we both ducked under it, and the bike swiveled a bit. I literally watched it appear out of nowhere. I was staring at the road in front of us from behind him the whole time.

He yelled back, Did you see that? What was that? Had it not been for his reaction at the same time as mine, I might have assumed that I was crazy. I would like to recount something that happened 25 years ago when my wife and I were buying a place in the country. It was an old farm property,

but all that was left of it was a pole barn, used for a garage, an old barn that needed to be torn down and the house. It was located at the top of a hill that really offered a nice view. You could see 15 miles to the west, and see the town that was in that direction. We had nearly three acres, and I had done a lot of work on that property to make it look better.

I had cleared a lot of brush, tore down the old barn, and was digging out an area for a small pond. I had mowed trails around the back of the property to walk around. I had my mower in the garage, working on the engine. I was taking off the points used for spark to the spark plug, and was replacing it. it was an electronic ignition system.

A friend showed me how to do that because the plug would fire better and last longer. I had been out there for quite a while trying to get the flywheel off and get it redone. It was winter, and there was a good foot of snow on the ground, but I had the door pulled down in a space heater going, so it wasn't too awfully bad out there. Besides, whether it was cold or not, I still had to get my mower fixed, so I could use it to plow the drive out. It was getting late, about 11 at night.

The garage was 40 feet from the house, and I was just basically focused on what I was doing, not really thinking of anything other than making sure I wasn't screwing something up. All of the sudden, and I mean that, it was sudden, something hit the door that led to the other half of the pole barn slash garage. From in there, there was a doorway

to the back of this building. There was two small rooms in the back that looked like they used to be for animals. Whatever hit the door was heavy, and pretty forceful. It sounded like someone threw a cinder block at it, hard.

It scared the crap out of me. I was sitting down while I was working, but I was up, and backpedaling, and at the same time I threw the breaker bar that was in my hand at the door. It smacked the door and dropped to the ground right in front of the door.

I headed to the house and got my rifle and big flashlight and headed back out. I told my wife what had happened and she told me to be careful. I went back into the garage and I opened that door to the other section. I only had the light of my flashlight, because there wasn't any lighting in this other part. I had my rifle cocked and checked the other side of the door. There was definitely a mark, on that side, but I couldn't find anything that had hit it.

There was nothing on the ground or even close to that door that would have hit it. I looked up to the loft area where there was some stuff piled up. Nothing. I went to the first room in the back and checked there, and then the last room. That room was always a little spooky for some reason. It had a low ceiling, and I had to stoop over to go in there. There was an opening in the last room, and I stepped out the back and shined my light around. All around the area, even upon the roof.

There were no tracks in the snow, so nothing had come in or out that way. I walked all the way around the structure, and the only footprints were mine that led to the house and back. I couldn't find a thing that could have made that loud bang against that door. I couldn't even find a raccoon. nothing but I had to get that engine back together so I went back in and I was going to finish things up but when I went to pick up my breaker bar

I couldn't find it it had fallen to the ground right in front of the door I saw it laying there when I came back out with my rifle but it was gone I stood there looking at that spot that I know that it had landed then I spotted it it was laying on top of the mower

engine. Something was in there, and it placed my breaker bar on top of that engine. I picked up my rifle and sort of backed all the way back to the house. Needless to say, I didn't want to be out there anymore that night, and I never found out what could have hit that door. Hi, everyone. I have an event that happened earlier this year that I still cannot shake. I live in a nice shore town, where locals travel up and down the shore to visit other beach towns for dinner, clubs, etc. One night my friends and I decided to go to a club in a beach town about 20 minutes away.

We arrived at about 11 p.m. and met with our guy friends from an hour up north. There were four of them, and they came in two separate cars. My friend Kaylee and I took a ride share to the club to meet them, and we ended up having a ride share to the club to meet them. And we ended up having a great night, and around 2 a.m., we planned to go to a local, slash, nicer gas station or food place that is open 24-7.

Kaley and I jumped in the car with two of the guys, who were sober. We got to the gas station, which was in a pretty dangerous area, but figured that we would be safe because we were with four guys and in a well-lit place. When we arrived at the gas station, we parked parallel to the other car with the other two guys inside. We went inside to look for hot dogs. I'm not sure why we were craving them at 2 a.m., but we couldn't find any. The six of us get back outside and head into the cars that we came in. Kaylee, me and the two guys we came with, and the other two guys in their car parallel to us.

I was in the passenger seat and Kaylee was behind me in the back seat. seat, we rolled down our windows so that we could talk to our friends in the car next to us. The cars were also turned off, so we didn't kill the battery. We spent about 25 minutes talking, laughing, and just having a good time parked there. It was about 3 a.m. at this point. Out of nowhere, we saw a guy in a gray hoodie with hands in his pocket run up to our friend's car parallel to us, and he said, Hey, got any girls in the car?

Our friend went silent and then said, Bro, no, get away. The guy in the hoodie then ran up to our car and peered into the driver's side back seat completely silent. Just staring at Kaylee and our guy friend. We then noticed the gun in his pocket with his hand on it. I noticed, as well as the guy driving, and we whispered to Kaylee to get down.

Kaly and I slid down into the seats as far as we could. I've never felt that much fear in my life. I felt like we were sitting ducks. The guy then lifted the gun up at the car and walked around the car just staring at us through the open window. We didn't know what to do. We were begging under our breath for our friends to turn on the car and drive away, but he didn't want to make any sudden movements or leave our other car of friends stranded. There was also no easy way out of the parking lot, just an alleyway or a long way through the entire gas station area.

The guy with the gun then stands in front of our two cars. At this time, our friend driving turned the car on, and the guy with the gun came running at us so fast. It all happened so quickly, but our friend driving the car sped into the alleyway next to the gas station store. The man with the gun then jumped into a car that had someone else. striving and followed us, hitting the back of our bumper until we caught speed and were ahead of him. We sped down that road making random turns so fast until we lost them. We finally got away and then realized their other car of friends wasn't on the road with us. Terrified, we called them immediately.

Thankfully, they told us that they were safe and had driven off in the other direction. We never got a chance to call the cops that night. It all happened so fast, but I wish that we did. I came to find out through friends and people in the area that this is a common gang initiation tactic, holding people at gunpoint, taking the girls, and then leaving them out in the middle of the street. It's terrifying to think about what could have happened if our friends driving the two cars weren't thinking clearly. I hope I never feel that amount of fear again, and still, to this, This day, my heart drops when I see people with their hands in their pockets at night.

This was back whenever I was about 17 years old. I used to spend a lot of time walking in the woods, on the walking paths that had been either paved or had been walked down so often that they were stamped down into the dirt. I lived in a pretty decent suburb. There were quite a few people that live there, but it's never been heavily populated. There are neighborhoods here and there, but a lot of trees in between them. I was pretty heavy into fitness and being active, so I was spending hours every week jogging and walking through those paths. This was a pretty normal day.

I was home, I think on spring break, and my parents were at work. I decided to take a nice little hike through the woods behind her. my home. I've always found that the forest was calming and a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I would grab my Zoon, which should date this story a bit, and head out into the woods to listen to whatever I had downloaded at the time. On this day, after about 20 or 30 minutes, I started feeling a bit off. It was hard to describe. I just, I just, I just kind of felt a bit of anxiety, which was not normal for me. I couldn't shake this feeling that something around me was watching me or following me,

but I kept telling myself that it was just my imagination. I glanced behind me and around me, and I couldn't see anything that would cause me to have those feelings. The woods were actually incredibly still and empty. after a few more minutes that anxious feeling dug deeper, and I literally felt the hair on my neck start to stand up. I got this really weird chill down my spine. I paused my music and closed my eyes for a moment,

taking a deep breath in a way to gather my thoughts. I pulled my earphones down and listened to the woods. Nothing was out of the ordinary. I decided to pause and, I guess, squat down for a moment to catch my breath, and get through what I assumed was an anxiety attack. As I was sitting there, breathing and thinking that everything was okay, I heard steps a bit off to my right. I opened my eyes again and turned my head, and that's when I saw it. This was a creature, unlike anything I had ever seen before, and I don't say that lightly.

This thing was tall, easily seven feet tall. It was slender, scrawny even, with long and spindly-looking limbs that seemed way too long for its body. Its neck was elongated. It wasn't quite draught-like, but the neck was longer than what I would expect any normal creature's neck to be. The flesh that was clung tightly to its muscles and bones was this sickly, pale yellow color, kind of like the underbelly of a catfish, if that makes sense.

The skin almost looked rubbery, again, like that of a catfish, and it sort of shimmered in the sun. It got worse when this thing turned to look at me. Its eyes were like two deep, empty holes. I just sat there, staring at this horrible creature as it walked slowly through the trees,

just sort of slowly trotting like it was trying to avoid my attention, even though I was staring at it. After a few steps, it slowly crouched down, much like how I was crouching, and my mind immediately went into, this thing is going to pounce or run at me. That was enough to kick my brain into overdrive, and before I knew what was happening,

I was running my back end off. It didn't really feel like, I had a choice, more like my survival instinct had taken over. I remember my heart pounding in my ears, the taste of salt on my tongue as it dried out, and this overwhelming urge to just keep running until I knew I was safe. I dashed through the woods, branches scratching me up, but I was completely ignoring them. My mind kept flashing back to those pits that thing had for eyes, that sickly color of its skin. I kept glancing back to see if this thing was following me.

Thankfully, it didn't chase me. Or at least I didn't see anything to indicate that it had followed me. Maybe it was just as surprised by my sudden flight as I was. I made it back to my house and slammed the door shut behind me. I was shaking, out of breath, drenched in sweat, but I was safe. I appeared outside half expecting this thing to be there, but... There was nothing. To this day, I have no idea what that thing was.

I can't even rationalize what it could have been. I don't know if this was some sort of crypted, or maybe it was some kind of alien creature. The way that it tried to avoid my attention, and then crouched, almost like it was mimicking me. It was weird. I actually have avoided that path, and area since that day, and I don't live there anymore as I've grown up and moved out.

But I've not read or heard any stories in the area about this thing, so I guess that I was just the lucky one. I have a bit of an odd story about one time that I used Tinder and ended up getting catfished. It's kind of embarrassing in the end, and I'm glad nothing else happened when the events took place, but it's still one of those stories that shows you that you should be careful with who you swipe to match with. When this happened, I was 24, and like a lot of single dudes, I was pretty much swiping right on any girl that I thought was even remotely cute. I'd only been single for about two or three months, but the ex and I had a really rough

breakup. She accused me of cheating on her, and just completely lost. her mind over something that literally never happened. What's worse is that the relationship with her was a nearly three-year relationship. Everything was perfectly normal at the beginning. There was little to no tension between us. She seemed to genuinely enjoy being with me. And then a few months before the end, she started pretty much just losing her mind.

I have my theories as to why, but I also don't want to further slander her, so I'll just let that go. Anyways, like I said, I was newly single, out of a several-year-long relationship with someone that I thought was the one, and I was pretty desperate to find anyone that could possibly fill that void in my life.

Then I was going to swipe right until that happened. Cue the obvious. Tons of scammers. Tons of people asking for money, looking for sugar-daddies and all that. there were a few ladies that I chatted with for a bit that seemed like they were interesting, but nothing really ever came of it. Then I came across a profile of someone with the name Natalia,

and her profile looked like a cold mind to me. Reading through what it said and even without my desperate demeanor, I was thinking that she would absolutely be perfect girlfriend material. She was incredibly attractive with red hair, which is kind of a thing with me. She was a year younger than me. She said that she liked to party and live life to the fullest, but then also had an entire section talking about how much she loved Star Wars. Full disclosure, I am a Star Wars nerd.

That was actually something that my ex and I never connected on. I loved it. she thought it was the dumbest thing ever. It's not anything that led to us breaking up or anything like that. It was just a point of contention between us. So, obviously, I swiped right on Italia, immediately. And I was super hopeful that she was going to connect. To my surprise, almost right away, she did.

I went straight to messaging her. I started with a cheesy pickup line, and then mentioned to her that I was a huge Star Wars buff. She responded back, seemingly excited to talk to me. We messaged for a while that night, and started talking again pretty much first thing in the morning. She mentioned that she was going to college to be in IT. I told her that I was working in IT.

She mentioned that she was planning on going to a convention that was in town a month later. I was elated to hear that because I was planning to go to the same one. She told me how much she liked to play a specific video game series, one that's a bit older and not as well known anymore, and I was over the moon. It was literally my favorite series. Every single thing this girl was saying to me was cementing further and further in my mind how much I genuinely wanted to get to know her and start something more. She was perfect, and pretty much every sense of the word. Then, after a few weeks of talking over text and a couple calls, she asked if I wanted to meet up for a date.

And at the time, Infinity Wars was still playing in theaters. It was right around the end of it playing, so most everyone had already seen it, but I asked if she had seen it yet, and she said no. I confidently recommended that we go see it at a local theater, and she agreed. Agreed, but told me that she wasn't going to be able to go to that theater. She needed me to drive about 25 minutes west to a theater that was near her house. I didn't mind. I was absolutely enamored with this girl, and a half-hour drive was nothing if it meant spending time with her.

We agreed on getting together that Friday, and she told me to be there at 7.30 for a showing of the movie, and that she had already bought the tickets. The day came, and I got all prepped up for the date. It was nice having that confidence back, that drive to actually dress nicely, that push to be better than what I'd been for the last couple months. Around 6.40 or so, I got into my car and decided I would take it slow to let my nerves calm while I drove to the theater. I plugged the address into my phone and was incredibly confused at first. As soon as I put it in and loaded the directions, it had a little flag on the screen that mentioned that the theater was temporarily closed for renovations.

At first I was thinking it was odd, but at the same time, I've used Google Maps before, and had it take me down roads that were now dead ends, telling me to hang a sharp right into someone's front yard. So, it being incorrect was definitely not impossible. I took the drive out to the area of the theater, and it was a nice little area. That is, until I actually got to the theater's parking lot. The building had the lights on, but there were no cars in most of the lot, the only exception being a couple of work trucks off to the side of the building, and one slightly older cavalier that was parked near the entrance. There were obvious red flags,

but at the same time, I kind of thought that maybe she didn't know they were closed, and that it was her and the cavalier. Then I kind of also started thinking about the fact that, if she was already there and they were closed, why did she not call me to tell me? Didn't she say she already had the tickets? The situation was definitely a bit confusing to me as I was pulling up, and then I kind of thought that maybe I was just overthinking,

it. Maybe it was just a mistake, and she was waiting for me to get there to change the plans. I pulled up next to the cavalier and glanced over to see if it was her, and there was someone in the car, but it wasn't Natalia.

It was my ex. And a guy that she had always told me was her cousin. I just kind of sat there in awe. She had successfully catfished me. She had posed as my perfect woman, on a dating app, matched with me and then lured me in to falling for a person that literally never existed.

This actually made a lot of sense, since Natalia seemed to like everything that I liked, and be interested in everything that I was interested in, things that my ex would have known I was interested in. I rolled down my window and she looked over with the most malicious grin on her. her face, and then had the gall to ask me if I was looking for someone. I asked her why she had gone through all the trouble. When she told me that her cousin, who she was now telling me was her boyfriend Paul, wanted to meet me, because she had told him so much about me and all the things that I did to her during our time together. Now, I may not have been the perfect boyfriend, but I was not abusive or aggressive or anything like that.

I may not have been super attentive, but I wasn't an a-hole or anything. I'm just sitting there watching as she laughs at me and he starts getting out of the car, and I could sense that he was there to kick my ass. I called her a few unsavory names and told her what she could go do to herself, put my car in reverse, and started driving on. As soon as I got a few yards away, I heard a super loud bang, followed by another and another and then the sound of glass shattering. I pretty quickly realized that this guy was seriously unloading a handgun into my car, trying to kill me. I floored it, and I got out of the parking lot and on to the main road, freaking out and having no idea what the hell was going to happen.

I pulled up into a parking lot of a busy strip mall, and I actually managed to pull in next to a police cruiser, with two cops just seemingly hanging out. I jumped out of my car, and I started rattling off what had just happened like a madman. I started yelling about how my ex and her boyfriend were literally trying to kill me, that they shot at my car. It was pretty obvious that something had happened, considering there were bullet holes and broken. glass. In the middle of me telling them about it, who else would pull up but the two people that had just tried to murder me. I started screaming at the officer that he had a gun and that he had shot at me. This kind of kick-started the cops to jumping out and telling them to get out of the vehicle. Paul was apparently not a fan of police and started telling them that he didn't have to

step out, that he hadn't done anything. The cop said that I was reporting that he had a gun and that he had shot at me, and but Paul was arguing that nothing happened, and that it was just an argument between ex-lovers. I have never in my life been more grateful to see somebody arguing with the police officer over whether or not they needed to comply, because as soon as he started deflecting, the cop got suspicious and ended up pulling him from the vehicle. Long story short, to wrap this all up, they found the gun with a half-empty clip. They also found several pictures of me.

They found the text conversations on Paul's phone. And they also found a tarp, some rope, and a shovel in the trunk of his cavalier. Based on this, they had some incredibly messed up thoughts in mind on how the night was going to go, and it was all because my ex was a vindictive person. I now know that she was actually cheating on me with Paul near the end of our relationship, which is why she was so accusatory of me cheating, projecting, and all that. Also, the pictures that she sent me of Natalia were actually pictures of a girl that she followed on Instagram, one that she knew I would find attractive.

They were both charged with a bunch of fancy, crimes like conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to commit murder, as well as attempted murder on Paul's part. Thankfully, the only thing he managed to actually hit was my car door in the windshield. And if it helps to know, I never went back to online dating. And I've kind of just decided that it was better to spend some time single instead. I'll apologize now in case this isn't written correctly. I'm not good with computers.

I grew up without all this technical stuff. I read a few of those stories that people had sent in, and I kind of stude on this for a while, but I finally decided to send it in. It's probably my very first weird thing that has happened to me. This happened a long time ago when I was five. I just felt like I needed to get this out there before I die. I was home playing in the backyard. It was summer and sunny out.

We had one of those swing sets that had just two swings and a teeter-totter. I was swinging and, I guess, lucky to be facing the hedge that was about 20 feet away, and I can remember this whole thing like it just happened. The property on the other side of the hedge was like a junkyard. There were old car parts, a couple of old cars that we used to play in, boards, old crates, etc. But it was a breeding ground for snakes. If you lifted anything up, there were a few snakes under it.

Well, I spotted a garden snake coming out from under a bush at the hedge. It started heading towards me. So I jumped off the swing to run to the northeast corner of the house. I watched that snake come to the spot where I had been, and then turn and was coming through the grass, headed towards me again. That would be another 20 feet to the house. I ran down the walk at the back of the house to the southwest corner, which was about 30 feet, so I couldn't see the snake anymore.

I was only three foot something and the grass was covering it. I stood there watching, and sure enough, that damned thing came out of the walk. turned south, and was coming towards me again. Now, you have to understand, I was five. That was pretty scary for a five-year-old. Well, yeah, I was scared. I ran to the front of the house, to the corner, where the steps go up for the front porch.

That house is still there. They've added it on an enclosed porch. Back then, it was an open porch with solid wood railings. I again watched, scared out of my mom. mind as that snake came around the southwest corner of the house. I could barely move, but when it got to about ten feet from me, I bolted up the steps to get into the house. However, my mom had the screen door locked, and I couldn't get in. I remember screaming bloody murder for, to me, what felt like a long time. By then, that snake had come up the cement steps

and was looking over the top step at me. My mom had been inside talking to the school nurse for the school that I would be going to. They came out, the nurse saw the snake, stomped her foot and clapped her hands at the same time, and the snake took off. I've never forgotten that, and no one that I have recounted this too

has ever heard of a garden snake chasing someone. I would really like to know what made that snake follow me. because they just don't do that. About a month ago, it was the night before I had a maths exam and coding projects to hand in both on the same day. As you can imagine, despite putting in a fair bit of effort, I was extremely nervous and felt like I wasn't really ready for either of them. Despite this, when it reached 10 p.m., I decided to go to bed and just hope for the best.

And while I ended up doing okay on both of these, that isn't what worries me. You see, when I went to bed that night, every single time I would fall asleep, have a nightmare and then wake up about an hour later, only to fall asleep and have that process repeat again, but with a different nightmare. This wasn't shocking to me as I was obviously nervous for what I had the next day, and my brain was conveying that through the dreams I was having. even though none of them actually had to do with school in any way.

In one of the nightmares, I was in my backyard and it looked to be my own. When I saw, about five meters away, around the corner of my house, a long shadowy figure with a head that was an oval shape, sort of like a UFO. It had three white glowing eyes, one in the center of this oval and two a bit off to the sides, placed at positions that seemed fairly normal. I remember being aware that I was in a dream, and not feeling scared. I thought to myself, wow, for once this isn't even scary, or something like that.

As I had that thought, the shadowy figure quickly zoomed into me while speaking. It had legs, but if I remember correctly, it didn't look like it walked. It just simply hovered towards me, with no warning or anything. The moment this happened, it made me so scared that I woke up. I woke up before it could finish the sentence that it was saying. However, after waking up, it kept talking until the end of the sentence and then stopped. This terrified me, and it made me hide under the blankets, which is something you wouldn't normally do at 15 years old.

The voice sounded like that of a middle-aged man, and it sounded like it was coming from my room. It was very clearly a male voice, and it did not sound supernatural, but it was a voice that I have never heard before and have yet to hear since. Before anyone asks, no, I don't remember what it said to me,

but I'm pretty sure the sentence contained the word man. While I do think this was just a dream, and I was somehow able to hear the last word awake because I was perhaps half asleep or so worried that I started hallucinating or something. I can't help but notice that I've heard of no one experiencing this same thing. Longtime reader, first time poster, a throwaway account for obvious reasons.

Quick backstory. Around July and August of 2021, my city was under its second major COVID lockdown, where you were not allowed to have any guests over at your house. I had just moved back in with my parents in early July after my lease ended, and I did not renew it. I'm in my mid-20s. My mother was a big stickler for the COVID laws,

so my girlfriend was not even allowed on my big front porch, which, yeah, really annoying. Okay, to the story. My girlfriend and I would often go for walks around a local creek near my house, and we were a fresh couple, so we had certain needs, if you understand. There was a hidden side path attached to the main walkway that goes through the creek that we would sneak off into to... Yeah, and yes, we know it's messed up. One night, around 7 p.m., it's wintertime, so it's pitch black in this creek after about 5.30, we decided to walk to our spot.

My girlfriend was excited and decided to skip ahead of me. I was walking slowly while she was about seven meters ahead of me. Once I turned the corner onto the side area, I noticed that she was on her phone and she was acting suspiciously, checking the weather and other apps. And then randomly she said, Okay, it's time for me to go home. I was sort of just like, oh,

Okay, she doesn't want to do anything anymore, no worries. As we started walking away, she whispers, There's someone right behind you. And I'm like, what? I turned my head over my right shoulder, and there was a man in all black with his hoodie on, squatting and hiding in the bushes staring at us. Where this bush is was on the top of a ledge

about three to four feet above the path, so while the man in black was squatting and crud. our faces were basically aligned. I immediately said, What the hell? I was pretty caught off guard, so I said it weakly. And this man did not react at all. He didn't gasp, say hello, or excuse me,

or any of the usual things a person would say if people noticed each other in the pitch black woods. He just stared at us as we walked away. I asked my girlfriend how she even noticed him, and she said when she walked down the trail before I got there, she saw the man on his phone, and as soon as she arrived, the man in the hoodie turned his phone off. We left that walkway, and went up one sort of close by. Yeah, we're idiots. And as we were walking up the parallel side trail, we could see the man still hiding in the bushes and staring at us.

There was only the faint light from the moon. While not really scary, it was more of a creepy, unexplained situation. So, a man hiding in the creek bushes, let's not meet. I would like to share this past life story, or at least would I presume to be a past life story. When I was four or five years old, I started referring to myself as Charlie. My name was not Charlie. and in fact I am female. Charlie was a dark-skinned boy.

He was Native American. He did not look like the horrible depictions of Native Americans that I saw on Western television shows. In fact, I did not even know what a Native American was. But I knew that I was a 12-year-old boy who had been taken from his family. The white people had cut my hair short, and I wore white people clothes.

I could picture the clothing that my real family wore. It was beautiful, woven material, full of colors and ceremonial headdress. I was not allowed to wear those clothes, and I was not allowed to speak the tongue of my family. I remembered my family, but spent the rest of my life living as a white person. That life was short, however. I died at the age of 15 when I consumed some type of food that poisoned me, Interestingly, whenever I turned 15 years old in this life, these memories faded. Later in life, I learned of the native tribes that once lived on what is now American soil.

I learned of Indian children being taken from their families so that they could be assimilated into white society. I also learned that many foods, especially milk, killed many of these children because their bodies were not able to digest it properly. I don't know if this is truly a past life story. I only know that there is no way that growing up in the 1960s, I would have known of any of this. Not only did we not learn it in school, but we didn't see it on TV. And at the age of four or five, I truly would have had no context for it. My parents just thought that I had an imaginary friend that I would eventually outgrow. to this day, I am educated in Puebloan history of the Southwest. I love the music, culture, food, and wisdom of what I consider to be my ancient elders.

Thank you for sharing this story.