Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 5 TRUE Scary Stories To Help You Fall ASLEEP | Don't Watch Alone

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

Get ready to dive into the eerie world of 5 true scary stories that will send chills down your spine and leave you looking over your shoulder as you try to fall asleep. These spine-tingling tales are sure to keep you up at night. Remember, it's always scarier when you're alone, so proceed with caution and prepare to be haunted by these chilling encounters. Watch if you dare, but remember, you were warned: Don't watch alone. Sweet dreams...if you can sleep after this. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ ►https://www.reddit.com/user/bohemiancouchpotato/ Timestamps: 00:00 Into 00:00:18 Story 1 00:23:41 Story 2 00:34:34 Story 3 00:42:03 Story 4 00:48:48 Story 5 Music by: 'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_AjpJL5I4&t=0s Business inquiries: ►[e-mail] #scarystories #horrorstories #truescarystories #redditstories 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

This episode is brought to you by Perfect Bistro Cat Food. Hey guys, today I'm interviewing my cat about his perfect bistro food. Percy, you seem to be a big Perfect Bistro fan. Here to comment? Totally. What do you like about it? You love the high-quality ingredients? And the delicious flavors, of course.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Listen to Percy, guys. Visit perfect bistro.com to try it for your cat. I've been hiking and camping for as long as I can remember. I was an Eagle Scout, and after that, I managed to convince a few high school and then college friends to come along on a few trips with me. My passion for the outdoors stayed strong long after graduation. But as all of my old hiking buddies started dropping out of the hobby, it got harder and harder to put a trip together. In the end, it seemed like if I wanted to go hiking as regularly as I wanted to, I was going to have to start going solo.

Solo hiking seemed kind of lame at first. I mean, what good are all these experiences if you can't share them with someone? Hardship and struggle forge very strong bonds between people, and that was half the joy of it. Each trip would bring another set of adventures and memories. I'm talking about real experiences too, not just getting drunk and sharing funny videos with each other. But as it turns out, solo hiking is actually pretty fun. Suddenly, I wasn't constrained by what anybody else wanted to do, where they wanted to go. or when a trip could take place.

I could just think it up and do it. Clock out of work on a Friday afternoon, and then spend the whole weekend in the woods before being back in bed on Sunday night? Don't mind if I do. Take off for a whole week to hike a section of the Great Appalachian? Why not? The only real issue with going solo is safety. I grew to envy my European counterparts, especially those in the United Kingdom.

They can head out alone with nothing but a fully charged phone, a spot of tea, and a few crumpets, you know. Whereas here in the United States you need bear mace, a GPS system, sometimes a gun if you want to feel really safe and secure. I'm not saying I was terrified every time I went anywhere, but you hear enough stories to know it's better to be caught packing than caught lacking. I only brought a gun with me once when I was up in the sierras, and that was for the bears and big cats. But much like anywhere else, a person might go. It's really the wildlife that you need to be afraid of. It's the people. Like I mentioned, you hear some really crazy stories, and I heard a lot of them right up until I stumbled into my very own cautionary

tale, one that started with me meeting a girl. So this one weekend, I decided to take a trip over to Hammersly Wild Area, which is like a designated wilderness spot sandwiched between elk and Susquehannock State Parks. As the name suggests, it's one of the wilder, more secluded, more secluded, areas of natural beauty in the state of Pennsylvania, you've got to drive out to this little place called Cross Forks, and then turn down a little side road until the blacktop ends and the trail begins. There's one or two small houses out there, but they don't mind you parking there so long as you don't leave a mess, and the place is so off the beaten path that there's hardly anyone else there to worry about messing with your ride. But then I rolled up late Friday afternoon,

and there's another car there with a girl leaning up against it. She's cute, dressed in hiking gear, but she looks angry, not exactly furious or anything, but super annoyed at something. I parked a distance from her, not wanting to crowd her or draw any anger or anything like that, and then got out and started pulling my gear out of my trunk. I didn't want to be a creep and start any unwanted conversation or anything, so I just resigned myself to walking past her and minding my own business. But as I started on my walk, we made a little awkward. eye contact and we kind of fell into conversation. We swapped hello's and I asked her if she was

okay and she replied no and well that was that. It turns out that she had a friend stand her up for a hike that she'd been really looking forward to and wasn't looking forward to driving all the way back home with nothing to show for it. She was debating going up the trail alone but also wanted to see if she could convince her friend to come out anyway as she was well aware that hiking alone as a female was not the brightest of ideas. I told myself it was the polite thing to do, but I also knew that inviting her to hike with me was a great way of getting to know a very pretty girl that clearly shared a passion for the outdoors. So I did just that and asked her if she wanted to come to join me. There was this definite moment of hesitation from her. She didn't look like the kind of girl to just go

walking down some remote forest trail with a complete stranger, and for a second there, I figured that she was going to politely decline me. But then, there was this sort of flash of spontaneity in her eye before she looked at me with a big smile and said, sure. She told me her name was Allie, and as we walked I explained that I was planning on making camp somewhere to stay for the weekend, but then I'd be happy to walk her back to her car once she was ready to leave. She thanked me, said that I was sweet for offering, and then carried on breaking the ice and swapping small talk. Then, once we got more comfortable with one another, I can safely say that it made for one of the best first dates that I'd ever been on. It definitely had this kind of vibe to it.

I'm no Disney Prince or anything like that, but I'm not terrible to look at, and I know when a girl is flirting with me and not just being polite or nice or whatever. So, as we walked and talked, I started getting pretty excited about where this might lead. It had been a while since I tried any dating, and my brief kind of jump. into Tinder had been a total disaster. I always found it much more appealing to meet a person naturally rather than to use the internet to sort of force it. But as I'm sure many of you will agree, that's much easier said than done. Given how it was a mutual interest, we talked a lot about hiking at first, places we'd been, close calls that we'd had and stuff like that. But as time went on, we started talking about other things too, like our jobs, our families, and relationships,

She told me that she'd been single for a while but wasn't looking for anything at that moment, but she was also quick to add that if the right thing came along, she'd been open to changing her mind about the whole not-looking thing. It seemed like a loaded statement, but it was a very welcome one. And as we continued to walk, I wondered if that chance meeting with her was the start of some lifelong romance. Now, looking back on it, I actually cringe at how naive that sounds, but I guess loneliness is a hell of a thing. Maybe about an hour into our hike,

we were walking along the edge of the stream, when Allie stopped to take a picture. She then asked me to give her a second while she texted her friend, saying that she didn't have enough signal for a call but could probably force a text through. To me, it was a very familiar little dance. Hammersley is pretty close to a town, but thanks to all the hills surrounding it,

cell signal was kind of hard to come by. While she was texting, I wandered back downstream a little bit, just waiting for Allie to finish up doing her thing. When something caught my eye, maybe 50 or 60 yards downstream, a flash of movement in the trees, only very slightly, but I 100% saw something for sure. I walked back to Allie to ask if she had any bear spray or anything on her. But when she said yes, I wasn't completely reassured. It was nice that we'd both be able to defend ourselves in the event of an animal attack. but at the same time, I didn't want anything to ruin our hike, especially if that thing happened to be bare-shaped. I told her I thought that I might have spotted something downstream.

She said that she'd keep her eyes peeled, and then we went off on our way as usual. Maybe an hour later, half hour later, we came out of the trees and onto a wide-open meadow that sloped slightly upwards. When we got to the top, or rather, where the gentle slope turned into a steep hill, we stopped and turned around to take in the view. Nothing had followed us out into the meadow, so I figured that we were okay on the wild animal front. But just to be safe, I decided to pull out this little monocular,

or spyglass for you pirate fans, that I was carrying with me to check out the tree line below us. I scanned, and I don't see anything, but then I scanned it a second time, and I see a dark figure moving parallel to the tree line. I can't really make out any details because of the difference in the field, but there was definitely something there. And right when I thought that they might just be some fellow innocent hiker

that I was making the object of my own paranoia, the figure stopped, turned their profile, and just stayed still. At first, I thought they might have been taking a leak or something, but then it hit me. They were watching us. I immediately directed Allie's attention to the figure, pointing out where I'd been looking before handing her the spyglass. She put it to her eye, listened again as I gave her directions where to look,

but then gave me some skeptical reply when I asked her if she could see anything. She asked me if I was 100% sure that the person had been watching us, and to be fair, I didn't know for certain. I just had a bad feeling based off the previous little flash of movement in the trees back near the stream. I tried again to get her to look in the right spot, then politely took the spyglass back from her to look for myself. And when I did, I saw that there was no one there, or at least, there was no one in the spot that I'd been originally looking.

I scanned the tree line for a third time in almost as many minutes, and that time there was nothing there. But I still felt very uneasy and suggested that we just move on. Our original plan had been to hike around the base of the hill that we'd come to, then head back down the same trail to where Alley's car was parked. But because of how uneasy I felt, I suggested that we walk a longer route so we wouldn't have to double back on ourselves. I could see that Allie was starting to get a little suspicious of my intentions there. She was having to agree to go on a short hike with some stranger, probably out of sheer politeness.

And there I was, trying to talk her into further going into the wilderness with talk of some shadowy pursuers. She seemed skeptical, but she agreed, most likely knowing that she could turn the bearer. on me if I started to get a little fresh, which I wasn't. After walking another mile or so, the tension had started to clear up, though. No one was following us anymore. At least they didn't appear to be, and I was starting to think that I was just being overly paranoid, like it was the nerves of trying to shoot my shot bleeding over into something else, you know? And speaking of which, that's pretty much all I was focused on from there on out. Allie kept reassuring me. making light-hearted comments about me being desperate for an excuse to save her,

so I found myself getting more and more chill and forgetting what I assumed was just a coincidence. Not long after walking back into the forest, we hit what I like to call the babbling brook. I first heard that term in a Bob Ross video that I saw on YouTube, and this place is one of the larger streams, looking like something the man himself would have painted. People sometimes give Pennsylvania a hard time, given how industrialized parts of it. of it are, but there's plenty of natural beauty to be had here. And in sharing it with my potential date, I was hoping to up my chances a little. Allie seemed delighted with it and started snapping pictures while I paced around with a smug smile on my face. She liked the place so much she wanted

to hang out there for a while to take a breather and eat some snacks, and while we did, she was planning on texting her friend the pictures, signal permitting, to show her what she was missing out on. While Allie was keeping busy trying to text, I excused myself to just go take a leak somewhere private, and then headed off into the trees to find somewhere secluded. I find a spot and do my thing. Then, just as I'm turning around to head back, I hear something in the trees behind me. I'm instantly reminded of that sensation of being followed, only this time I actually make an effort to find out if there's anything or anyone that was trailing us. I started walking directly towards where I'd heard the noise, calling out and asking if there was anyone there.

And that's when I see him, this big guy wearing hiking gear and walking away from me at a pace I found reassuring in a way, like I could give him the benefit of the doubt. But at the same time, I was now confronted with evidence that we were being followed. Hammersley is a big place, and sure, it gets kind of busy on a weekend, but not on a Friday afternoon, which is half the reason I like to get a head start by arriving at that very time. The chances of just running into someone, especially off the trails, are slim to none. So as much as I was in a state of being, convinced that we were being followed, I still wanted to confront that guy to at least make sure. I called out to him, not in some overly aggressive way, just to get his attention, you know?

I planned on asking him something fairly innocent like, are you okay, or something like that. just to gauge his mood. But when he turned, I was stunned into silence. He was dressed like a hiker all right, but he had these thick, heavy-looking gloves on, almost like those riot gloves that you see with the hard knuckles, and the lower half of his face was covered with a hunting gator, the kind where only the person's eyes are showing. While a face covering like that was totally normal during 2020 and 2021 and still kind of accepted today, you see back in 2015, it was definitely not a regular thing to see, especially since the guy didn't have any kind of orange indicators on his clothing for hunting, or more importantly, no weapon that I could see. I was sort of relieved to see

no weapon in his hands, but the fact that he was covering his face meant that he was obviously up to no good. And then there was the fact that he just refused to respond to me when I finally did ask him if everything was okay. He just gave me this sort of death stare for a second, and then turned again and walked off into the woods. Now my mind is rushing like a mile a minute by this point. Following us down a single trail was one thing, but this dude had potentially tracked us across an open meadow, and then it just so happened to stay on our trail,

even though we traversed the hill and picked up a seemingly random route. I'd like to think of myself as kind of an outdoorsman, but to me those were some freaky accurate tracking skills. and if this guy was using his powers for evil, then that was going to be a big problem for us. I rushed back to Allie, told her exactly what I'd seen, and told her that we needed to move fast. I told her that I knew it sounded crazy, and that I totally understood why she'd think that I was a creep, or whatever, but I'd rather she think that I was a creep and live than not act on anything and risk both of our lives. So much horrifying stuff seems to happen because people don't stop and just tell them,

This isn't normal or safe, and I need to leave. And I was having one of those moments right there. I gave my little speech at Tommy Gunspeed, you know, and I honestly thought that I had convinced her for a second. But when I was done, and I started walking off while beckoning her to follow me, she just stayed put. I remember saying, we need to leave Allie now. But instead of following me, she gave me a mouthful.

She told me I was acting like a total jerk, and that if we were being followed, she'd have known something about it. She wasn't some defenseless little girl either, so she resented me acting like it. According to her, just because someone happened to be on our trail didn't mean they were acting maliciously. They were all good points, and on any other occasion, I might have echoed them back to her. But I knew this was not any other occasion. Something was quite obviously shady with this weirdo, and we needed to exercise the proper caution, stat.

and it was about then that I started to notice this sort of gradual change in the way Allie was talking to me. It went from something like, come on, dude, you're being ridiculous, and urging me to stay, to accusing me of being a mixture of dumb, cowardly, and mentally ill. I wanted to walk her back to her car. She wanted to stay put and not even move on to someplace else downstream. And if I wanted to move or leave her, then I wasn't half the man I thought I was. among other personal attacks from her. I just remember being confused beyond belief.

It honestly felt like a weird dream. It seemed like any girl in her right mind would at least be kind of alarmed at the prospect of being followed by a man wearing a mask. But here was Allie, not even in the least bit bothered by the sight of me being visibly shaken up as I warned her of the potential danger.

The only mitigating factor, I guess, was this idea that she thought it was me who was trying to trick her into, I don't know, going someplace more remote so I could go all Ted Bundy on her without being discovered. That I totally understood, and I suspected that her reluctance was coming from there and not being dumb or naive or untrusting enough to not respond to my warnings. We were both being pretty loud by that point, arguing back and forth, and it hit me that our volume would make it very easy for someone to both zero in on us and catch us unaware. I remember looking around just to

make sure that we were still alone and felt that creeping, skin-crawling feeling that comes with knowing that you're actually being watched. I honestly thought that if I just started to walk off, that Allie would come to her senses somehow and follow. So that's what I did. I started walking off, looking back just once to see if she was going to follow or not. She looked furious, though, I mean really angry, and it was obviously because she wasn't going to get her way, but there was something else to it too. She wasn't going to get her way, but what she intended wasn't some spur of the moment thing that she could carry on doing without me. It was something that she had put a lot of time and effort and excitement into, something that was so close to coming together

but was falling apart at the last minute. I guess with the gift of hindsight, some of you have figured out by now. But in that moment, what was actually going on was almost completely inconceivable to me. Almost, but not quite. I realized that two of the big questions in front of me had answers that were intrinsically linked. The reason why the guy in the hunting gear could find it so easy, was interwoven with the reason why Allie wanted to stay in that exact spot near the babbling brook. The masked stranger and my new hiking companion were working together. Now I know I couldn't have known that for certain in that moment, and I'm not sure I could even describe how quick and how panicked my thought process was in that moment. But again, it was a case of, get the hell out of

there, be wrong but live, or I could not trust my gut and potentially run into something I wouldn't walk away from. And being the kind of person I am, I chose the path of least resistance. I started walking off, still in disbelief of how surreal it all was. It was a real, this could not be happening right now kind of moment like I couldn't believe how things had started off so well but gone so horribly wrong in just an hour or two but I could at least still see the funny side or kind of funny side maybe I was being a total jerk and I was going to look back at that hike

as being the time that I blew my shot over some weird attack of paranoia unfortunately the funny side was only visible for a matter of seconds as after that, any benefit of the doubt was blown away by an ear-splitting screech that came following me through the trees. You've got to understand, too, that hearing these three little words probably made for the single most terrifying moment in my entire life. All I heard after a few seconds of silence was Allie screaming out, he's getting away. The second that I heard that, I just instinctively ran. I don't know if it was finding out all that so-called paranoia had been justified, but But I mean it when I say that when it all came together like that, I could feel my heart

pounding out of my chest. I had no idea where the guy was if he was close, or what he had in his back. So I popped the clasp on my pack and wiggled it off my back, then moved my legs faster than I'd ever moved them before. And I didn't stop until I felt like puking. I always wore a kind of fishing jacket, the kind with a lot of pockets, and I kept all my absolute essentials in there, car keys included. If they'd have been in my pack, I'd have been forced to run with it, and if that was the case,

I honestly don't know if I'd be around to write this. After I stopped for maybe a minute to catch my breath, I kept pushing through the trees back towards my truck, trying not to trip and fall on my face as I kept checking over my shoulder. I knew the guy wasn't some master tracker anymore. He'd obviously been coordinating with that so-called alley, if that even was her real name. but I still had that fear that I was going to look over my shoulder, and he'd just be there. Thankfully, he wasn't, and I made it back to my truck, jumped in, and drove off. I kept telling myself that I'd call the cops the moment that I walked through the door,

but when it came time to do it, I found that it might have been a bad idea. I don't think any kind of crime had actually been committed, in which case, what exactly was I going to report? I hadn't even tried to retrieve my bag or anything, and if it was gone, the least I could report was it stolen or something. So that's what I decided to do. I waited a day to try to ensure no one was using it for bait or whatever, and then went out to retrieve it, and I found it untouched. I'd actually found myself hoping that someone had, I don't know, maybe gone through it

or tried to damage it in some way, as that might yield some DNA or maybe fingerprints, I guess. But no, my pack was just there, exactly where I dropped it, totally untouched. I had nothing to show from my experience, only my word and my memories. But as any attorney will tell you, those are about as useful to the cops as a chocolate coffee pot. There was nothing I could do. I had no recourse, nothing that wouldn't put my own safety at risk anyway. But then I realized that there was something I could do, even if it was just some insignificant internet post or even, email that gets ignored, downvoted, or buried or whatever. Because if just one person reads this, who was thinking of hiking through Hammersley and actually listens and takes note, then I might just

save a life. Because if I'm right and I wasn't just being completely and utterly paranoid, there's a couple out there who are setting traps for unwary male hikers, and I only avoided falling into it by the skin of my teeth. From sauce to dust to nuggets, it's Taco Bell's new Diablo Dusted Krispy Chicken Nuggets. Are they mild? If they were mild that have to change the name to little rascal nuggets or minor nuisance Nuggets, definitely Diablo. New Diablo Dusted Krispy Chicken Nuggets, a brand new classic.

Only at Taco Bell. At participating U.S. Taco Bell locations for a limited time and while supplies last. Who cares about your poops? Ollie does? That's why Ali's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fiber gut. your kiddos will love. Find it all on Ali.com. That's OLLY.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat,

cure, or prevent any disease. I'm a 31-year-old female originally from Oregon, and I was 28 when the story took place back during the whole Me Too thing. I remember talking to a friend of mine about the whole not-all-men thing. We both agreed that it's ridiculous to label all men as but we disagreed on something a little more nuanced. My friend believed that since just about anyone, no matter how nice they looked or how pleasant they acted, could be a predator. It made sense to exercise a degree of caution

around every man outside of immediate family. I thought it was quite a pessimistic way of looking at things and that it made sense to employ caution on a case-by-case basis. I'm not going to plug the first two digits of 911 into my phone if an Uber driver asks me how my day's been. how my day's been, but follow me down a dark side street and I'm reaching for my pepper spray. We went back and forth like that for a while over a few glasses of alcohol, and as much as they were always friendly exchanges, we never got to any solid conclusions. However, my friend said

something that really stuck with me. It's not all men, but one is enough. I had no idea how right she truly was. You see, a few months later, I drove out to government camp in my native of Oregon, parked my car in the old Golden Pose parking lot, and then headed up from my favorite trail into the foothills of Mount Hood. I went for two reasons. Number one, I was itching to get outdoors again after six months of being locked inside, and number two, I was working on a photography project as part of my lockdown side hustle, and getting the right pictures of the mountain and its surroundings was a huge part of it.

Anyway, I walked up to just about where the ski runs start, took my pictures, then started making my way back down towards town, snapping shots along the way. About halfway down, I reached a fork in the trail on my left, and when I looked, I saw someone standing there on the trail. They immediately stood out because they weren't wearing hiking gear, and I'd never seen anyone so far up the trail who wasn't wearing ski or hiking attire. He had long hair, sneakers, baggy shorts, and a t-shirt. Just your average white skater guy, maybe 20 to 24. years old. I guess that's not entirely out of the ordinary on its own, but this guy had no backpack, no water bottle. He just looked lost. We made eye contact for a second, and I gave him a polite smile

before heading off on my way. But as I did, I heard him call after me with something like, does this trail head up the mountain? I told him no, but it would lead him to a trail that would take him up the mountain. And then, I wished him luck and carried on walking. I don't think I even got four or five steps away before I heard him call out again. Only that time he said something so strange it actually made me do one of those silent little laughs. The guy says, and in a way that made it sound like there had been some minor confusion, Hey, uh, I think that's my bag. I stopped, smiled at how crazy of a statement it was,

and then turned back and told him, with just a hint of laughter, that he must be confused. He started walking towards me slowly and casually, saying, "'Nuh, that's totally my bag. I've been looking for it all afternoon.' Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I just slipped my backpack off my shoulder and then showed him. Like, I can promise you it's mine. It even has my name on it, see?

And I showed him the tag, saying Maddie. He leaned in and squinted like the writing was tiny and not in big block capital letters, then asked me in a voice that sounded genuinely hurt, why would you do that? I remember literally hearing that F this I'm out, jingle in my head, and this guy was either playing a stupid prank on me with his buddy recording from behind a tree,

or he was actually crazy, and I wasn't about to stick around to find out which one. I turned my politeness up to 100, smiled and told him, I'm so sorry, I've got to go, I hope you find your bag okay. He stayed quiet as I turned and began to, walk away, and I found myself hoping that that would be the end of the exchange.

But, as I found out, that was more wishful thinking than an accurate assessment. As the sound of his footsteps followed me down the trail, I started to get nervous. This wasn't some unusual encounter with a weirdo stranger anymore. The weirdo stranger was now following me down a quiet hillside trail with not another soul in sight. Remember what I said about pepper spray and side streets? Well, that rule applies to mountain trails too, and I always keep one of those cute little miniature pepper sprays on my car keys. In one smooth motion, I slipped my backpack off my shoulder again, shoved a hand into the little pocket where I kept my car keys, and then shoved them into my pocket for easier access.

And once that was in place, I felt a little more comfortable getting vocal again. I asked the guy if he was following me. He told me yes because I had his backpack. I told him that's not a funny joke, and it wasn't funny the first time. And he told me it wasn't a joke. He wanted his backpack returned. And if I didn't give it to him, he was going to have to take it. As we were still walking, me with my back to him, and him about 15 feet behind me,

I told the guy that it was starting to sound like he was threatening me. When he heard that, he took on this sort of indignant tone, asking me how dare I try and play the victim when it was me that had stolen his backpack. I was so convinced that it was a prank by that period that I actually stopped, turned around, and started looking for the similarly dumb-looking skater guy with a smartphone. And looking back on it, I think that was just wishful thinking. If there was someone else there, I wasn't dealing with another crazy person. But when I realized that we were truly alone on the trail,

that was not a nice feeling. I can tell you that. So once it hit me that this guy is either crazy or trying to rob me in the weirdest way imaginable, I reached for my pepper spray. I took it out, I showed him, and he pulled that frustrated card again. I told him if he doesn't stop following me, I'm going to pepper spray him, and then I'm calling the cops. He responded by saying stuff like, do it, call the cops. That's my bag you're carrying with my stuff in it.

Once again, I told him if he came within five feet of me, I was going to pepper spray him. and then I turned back and immediately realized the problem that I was facing. If I wanted to really be safe, I'd have to walk freaking backwards the whole rest of the way down to government camp. The best I could do was keep a minimum safe distance and just keep my hand on my pepper spray. This guy trailed me for a great distance, for a while yelling after me as we walked down, and the more he talked, the more obnoxious he got. Like I might have mentioned at the start that he was acting polite and well-mannered, Then he switched to the victim tone that he'd adopted, but as time went on, he got more and more obnoxious.

I remember at one point he said something like, I just don't understand why you're being such a bee about it. Just admit that you're wrong already and hand over my stuff. And then as it got more aggressive, it became things like, You need therapy. You could do hours of sessions and not work out all the crap you got going on in your head. He actually said that. My blood was boiling.

but I knew better than to react. If anything, he just wanted to stop me so he could close the distance again, or failing that, he just wanted this weird attention that I chose not to give him. Aside from the occasional look over my shoulder to make sure that he wasn't trying to close in on me, I tried not to give the guy so much as a word. The distance from where I ran into the guy, and where the trail ended was maybe only a mile, so after a few minutes of walking, I could literally see people walking around near the house, at the end of East Blossom Trail, and just seeing them was a huge relief.

I felt like I was almost back on friendly territory, you know, that even if the guy was being a jerk, he wouldn't dare put his hands on me if there were other people around. But even better, I suddenly see these two hikers walking up the trail towards us. I figured, rather than risk this guy following me back to my car, I'd ask these hikers to accompany me. But as we got closer, the guy following me tried one last trick. The second I called out to the two hikers, he started screaming over me. He was saying stuff like, help me.

My sister is off her meds and she wants to take her own life. You gotta help me grab her. I remember looking back at him, completely boiling over at that point, wondering if I'd actually run into the biggest psychopath on the face of the planet. And then, as I turned back to call out something to oppose what he said, I heard these fast, heavy footsteps coming up at me. I remember turning, seeing the guy sprinting at me, and letting off a burst of pepper spray at the last second before he collided with me. Thank Christ, most if not all of the spray was effective despite his efforts to shield his face

as he ran at me. So as I found my feet, I was shaken but still furious, and it was deeply satisfying to see him rubbing his eyes, screaming in pain. The hikers had run up onto the scene by the time I was up again, and I explained. explained everything very clearly, that the creep was not my brother, and that he'd been harassing me all the way down the trail. They very kindly told me that they'd keep him there for as long as it took to lose sight of me, and as I walked off, I pulled out my phone and I called the cops. I was almost at the end of the trail when I heard the scream, You can't tell me crap, just from a distance away, and then right as I looked back, the two hikers were wrestling this guy to

the ground. I just kept walking as I relayed all of this information to 911, feeling incredibly thankful that those two hikers showed up when they did. Even when I thought it was safe, I know now, looking back on it, that it wasn't. People have been snatched in broad daylight before, and there's no telling what would have happened if he continued to follow me. What I find incredibly creepy to this day is just how devious he tried to be, and how he seemed to enjoy trying to mentally overpower me as opposed to physically overpowering me. Although I do get the feeling that the mental thing was just an appetizer for something that he never got a chance to do.

I couldn't tell if he was truly psychotic or just mentally ill. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill? Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news. Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here.

Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. A better deal. No surprises. That's Verizon. Best network based on root metrics, best to overall mobile network performance U.S. second half 2025. All rights reserved.

It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply.

Some things work better together, like NARS's soft matte complete concealer and radiant creamy concealer. Soft matte complete concealer erases and blurs imperfections with full coverage. Then radiant creamy concealer evens and brightens with a luxurious texture and radiant finish. Two concealers, one flawless look. Perfect for a no foundation base. NARS, better together. Visit Sephora to shop now.

So, I'm going to tell you the story of my brief encounter with a man called Happy. So, in 2013, I'm working at a cannabis dispensary in Venice Beach, a block from the boardwalk. A good 35% of our patrons were unhoused people. Occasionally someone experiencing severe psychosis would try to come in, but if they were screaming or unintelligible, security would not let them in. If they had and presented the Holy Trinity of medical papers, Idaho and cash, they were. good to go. We had a compassion program where we'd bag up grams of shake left over from the bottoms of jars and give them completely free, one per person per day, to anyone who asked. Word about this spread quickly on the boardwalk. Generally, these people would be the nicest, most

polite, and considerate customers, even if they did smell a bit stinky, and their money got pulled out of a sweaty sock. No one working there would bat an eye if someone came in smelling like they slept on the beach for a week next to a bottle of vodka, as long as they just calmly bought their weed and went on their way like any other customer. It's a foggy, chilly day around the holidays, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Someone called out, so I was the only person in the backbud tending. There was another employee at reception and a security guard at the front door. I'm alone in the back room. There are cameras, but no one is actively watching them. This guy walks in after being checked in at the front. He's the only

customer at the moment, and I swear the whole room gets colder as he walks in. He's wearing a very worn in, deeply faded, wrinkled, conformed to his body floor-length leather duster jacket, and a similarly beaten-up wide-brim leather cowboy hat. It looked like he'd lived and slept in these same clothes for years. We didn't allow hats, hoods, or sunglasses in the store, so we So I'm surprised that security didn't make him take off his hat. The man had to be at least six foot five and built like a boulder. Not obese, kind of large, pick you up and toss you like a rag doll large. The stench that comes off of him is unlike anything I've ever smelled before.

Since it was beyond body order, beyond soiling yourself, it smelled like actual death, as if though he had raw rotting carcasses tucked under his thick, long leather coat. I thought I had been hardened by plenty of nasty body stank before, but this was absolutely revolting, far beyond anyone who hadn't showered lately or peed their pants. I'm trying not to inhale very deeply, and I say, Hi, sir, excuse me, I'm sorry, but would you mind taking off your hat? Store policy, big customer service smile. What are you looking for today?

He grunts deeply and he's walking very slowly, shuffling and dragging his feet. His voice sounds like he gargles with gravel, rough and wet, raw and angry. I don't take off my hat. At this point, I'm not trying to argue with this man about his hat either. Let's get him in and get him out. I glanced down and I see he's not wearing shoes. The bit that I can see from under his coat, one of his ankles is massively purple and black and swollen, melanized. The bottoms of both of his feet are bloody and torn up, and I remember.

realize that he is leaving a slight trail of blood as he drags his ragged feet across the concrete floor of the shop. My first thought is, how and why did security let this guy come in? So second is, this guy is obviously seriously injured, and that is concerning as a human being. I'm making sure to keep the display shelf between me and the sky, and that's only about a foot of space, like a bar. He gets to me, and the stench gets stronger. I meekly but sincerely ask, are you all right, sir? His eyes flare at me. What do you care? And I'm like, well, I tried not my chair, not my problem, not my monkeys, not my circus, you know? Well, great. What can I get for you? He pulls up one of his sleeves to expose his forearm, and it's covered in large, round burns like from a

cigar, some old old healed and some fresh and infected. It's not track marks, it's actual burns. He also has a jagged, homemade-looking stick-and-poke tattoo of a smiley face, a crooked circle, two lines for the eyes, and a scabbed-up curve of a smile. He points at this tattoo, Happy, my name is happy. The rotting stink was so strong that I needed to breathe little gasps of air, the least possible. I walked here, I walked all the way here from Pasadena. I'm like, well, sir, that's a really long walk. Anyway, what are you looking for today? Just for you. His eyes are dark and menacing. He is smeared with a layer of grime like he lives in the woods. It doesn't look like the average crust punk or disabled veteran you generally see living on the beach.

It's hard to guess his age, but he wasn't that old or young, somewhere between 30 to 50, I guess. He looked like he dragged himself here from his log cabin, like what would happen if you entangled some quantum mechanics poorly, and mixed Ed Gahn with an 1800s homesteader, then transported him to 20, 13 Venice Beach. I, of course, have never seen this man before. Once was more than enough to make him unforgettable. He keeps staring at me, and I move as far back as I can to the wall, hopefully out of his grasp. If he lunged, I would need to walk out from behind the case and around him to get to the security guard. I'm weighing my options. I decide to grab a bunch of compassion grams, and then weigh out an eighth and mark it down that I'd pay for it later.

And he's still just leering at me, wheezing heavy, stinky breaths. We actually have a special today, only for people who walked more than ten miles to get here. This is all for you, on the house. Thanks for stopping by. He accepts the bee, but continues to just stand there and stare at me. Thank you, happy. It worked. He grunts a gutteral noise that is not a word, and slowly turns.

turns to shuffle back towards the door. At the door he turns back to me and says, I'll see you later. He finally walks out after leaving plenty of his residual stench of death behind. Thank any and all of the gods that I did not see Happy later or ever again. When I asked security why did they let him in, he said that when he had noticed his bloody feet and said, Hey bro, you all good? It looks like it hurts. Happy had stepped up to his face and threatened to choke him out and called him a slur. Since it was just him and two 22-year-old 130-pound girls, he wasn't trying to die tonight and figured hopefully,

Happy could just get his stuff and leave. He was watching the cameras in the back, ready to call the police and owners if anything got weird. Apparently, we had different definitions of weird, but I understood his reaction, and ultimately, we were all fine, just spooked and creeped out, and now needing to clean blood off the floor with bleaching gloves and texting our boss that he owed us free weed. He agreed. We all lived happily ever after.

I want to talk about one of the scariest experiences I've had, which happened quite recently, and I apologize for the length of the story. I, a 24-year-old female, was living in a women's shelter and made some really good friends there. We used to sit at a park across from a temple at night, drinking and smoking whatever we had. We would spend hours there listening to music, having fun and discussing our lives. We were all quite young, in our early 20s. I should mention that we all had experienced a fair amount of trauma in our lives, and we connected through that shared experience.

One night my friends and I went to a party in the city and had been drinking for hours. When the party was over, we weren't tired, so my closest friend there, a 22-year-old female, and I decided to go to the park and watch the sunrise and have a little more to do. and have a little more to drink. We were there for a while, when suddenly we heard R and B and rap music coming from the temple across the street. I should mention that we were both mixed black girls,

and being tipsy, we thought it would be a strange adventure to go over there and see who was playing my favorite song so loudly in the morning at a temple. It could have been a potential friend, or a chance to learn more about the place, and the temple looked beautiful. We walked over, but the gates were locked.

We felt disappointed, but then a man came out to greet us and said that we could come in to see the temple. He mentioned that it was his music, and that he loved that we liked the same songs. We went inside, and he showed us around the temple. The bottom part was beautiful, but we noticed several rooms with beds. He told us that if we ever wanted to rent rooms, it would be unbelievably cheap. As homeless girls with not much work, we thought it was an amazing opportunity, almost too good to be true. At first I felt nothing but positive vibes. He showed us his computer playing the music and asked us which songs we wanted to hear.

I became comfortable with this guy because he was funny and we all got along really well. Anyway, we started discussing recreational activities that rhyme with marijuana, and we had some. We offered it to him because he was so cool and laid back. He said he would pack our stuff with our things, which becomes important later. I should add that he constantly complimented me specifically. specifically on my hair and skin color, and he made very forward compliments that made me uncomfortable. He started asking if I liked Asian men, and if I'd ever slept with one. He was of Eastern descent, though I'm not sure where exactly.

Then he proceeded to ask more questions about my preferences, and told us about giving drugs that I can't mention to girls to smoke and get with them. These were drugs that no one should ever do. He also mentioned that he would see us sitting at the park sometimes. through his window, and all this started to raise a lot of red flags. He then said that if we had another friend, they could also take his room because he was moving soon. That's when I got a weird feeling, so I decided to ask him why he was leaving if the rent was so cheap. He wouldn't answer and kept dodging the question. My intuition was telling me that something

was wrong, and it's ridiculous that it took me so long to realize it. I asked if I could get some water, and he told me to get one out of the fridge. When I went out of the fridge, when I went out of out, there was another guy there who was nice and offered me water, but I decided to get a glass and use the tap. He runs out of the room my friend was in and says, No, the one from the fridge. I said, I'm fine with this. He walks me back to the room, and I sit back down next to my friend, and then he went on to say, I'm moving because I hear people screaming and touching each other every night, noises banging on my door, sounds of people being tortured and hurt, and it disturbs my sleep. It was almost like he accidentally slipped out of what he had just said. I almost thought

it was a joke, and I asked him, is it nightmares, ghosts, or real people that are making these noises at night? He continued to dodge my questions. I asked why on earth he didn't tell us this earlier. We were honestly in disbelief, and he continued to ignore what we were saying and acting strange. I then noticed that he had closed the door when I came back in earlier, and I started to think that we needed to get the hell out of there. He then said, You have to listen to the song, you'll love it,

it gets worse. He puts on this terrifying chant-like song and plays it loud, too loud. He's chanting the song so loud that we're yelling at him to turn it off, and he doesn't seem to be listening. The video is like Viking-like people,

hurting other people as we're begging him to turn it off because it's terrifying. And why would he or anyone like that music? He turns his face to us fast and screams maniacally, with his teeth showing. his tongue out and his eyes wide. It was like the most distorted face I'd seen in real life.

He didn't look human. No sane person would act this way. My fight or flight response isn't really good. I just sat there trying to laugh it off, but I was really frozen in fear. My friend, on the other hand, was in fight mode. She threatened to beat him up if he didn't let us out right now, and I ran to the door and he ran at me, so I froze in front of him again. And he wouldn't open the door because it was like.

We start running out of the house while he's laughing maniacally, speedwalking behind us, and we bolt out. And mind you, I'm still trying to just laugh this off, but it was the beginning of the worst panic attack I'd ever experienced. If my friend wasn't there in her fight mode, I genuinely don't know what would have happened to us. I know it probably doesn't sound that scary, but this terrified me to my core, the way he changed so quickly, his movements and mannerisms, the way his space just didn't look human anymore, and how naive we were to go in there in the first place because it seemed like an innocent temple. We didn't get many answers from this situation because we were too scared to go back or cause problems, which is stupid. We didn't know if he

was truly troubled, or if there were actually people there getting hurt, tortured, or whatever else he was saying. It scared me as well to think about the fact that he knew that we were homeless, vulnerable girls at the time, that he may have lured us with the music that he hears us play. We were also completely tripping balls because I believe that he laced our stuff. I don't think I can say on here what my friend believed it was, but it was the worst experience ever,

and I highly doubt that those girls he spoke about in the beginning were there consensually. All, pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel. giving one person a $1.6 million dream package.

The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20.

Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get loose.

Lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, on a botulinum, to be. Botox. On a botchaline, I'm toxin A prevents headaches and adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may

spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lugarig's disease, Myasthenia Gravis or Lambert Eaton's syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit Botox Chronic Migraine.com or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. Ever since I was a young boy, I would wake up in the morning with my furniture arranged differently than when I went to sleep. Sometimes it was small. Like my lamp in the wrong place or my shoe rack was tipped over. Other days I'd wake up and the bed would be in the wrong spot, the dresser on the wrong wall, my deck in front of the door. In the beginning, it wasn't in a messy fashion. It seemed like a perfectly normal way to arrange my bedroom, just in a different way than I preferred. I have a very early memory from around five years old of my mom yelling at me for moving around all my furniture at night. I swore up and down that

it wasn't me. She seemed conflicted when she was yelling at me. I wasn't a troublemaker. She knew it wasn't something I would do, but looking back now, I think she was just scared of the thought of it not being me. After a couple of hours, I convinced my mom it wasn't me. After all, I was a small kid. I don't think I could have physically moved it on my own. Next to blame was my older brother. He was 11 at the time, so it still would have been hard for him to move my stuff, but not impossible. My brother liked to mess with me. No more than any normal brother, but never any over-the-top pranks. Mostly just because he was lazy, though.

No way he'd lose sleep over something so weird like moving my furniture every night. After my brother denied it and adding on that he stayed at his friend's house for sleepovers, often gave him an alibi. My mom attempted to blame my dad next, but of course that comment was not taken lightly, and ended with my parents just pointing fingers at each other. My mom spent that night with me in bed. She tried her best to explain why she was sleeping in my bed without making it sound scary, but I could tell she was scared.

I wasn't scared at all because it felt normal. I see now as an adult why she was freaked out. The night felt normal. If anything, it was a fun night. like a big sleepover, my first sleepover even. We woke up the next morning, and my mom gasped and gripped the sheets. Wait, how did this happen? I was right here. My mom looked around the room. It was pretty easy to do so,

given that the bed was right in the center of the room. This hadn't happened before. It was always in a normal spot against the wall. It was like the room was showing off that it could put the bed in the middle of the room without us waking up. my mother always claimed to be a notoriously light sleeper. She said how she can't fully turn her brain off in case we need her in the night, but she always seemed to sleep deeply to me. The rest of the day, she kept insisting that someone was sleep waking or something. She didn't think anyone was playing a prank,

but she knew someone in the house was doing it. She had to believe it. My parents ordered a Serenity camera online to put in my room so they could watch the footage the next morning. They got next day delivery, so I'd have to go one more night without them being able to watch me sleep. That night, they decided to let me sleep in their bed. I was even more excited than the night before. Now this was really a sleepover.

That night my mom tucked me in tightly in between her and my dad. I remember she held me all night long. I woke up the next morning to my mom sounding terrified. My parents' bed wasn't even in the bedroom anymore. It was sitting in the living room right outside my parents' room. parents' bedroom. My dad sat up and started to get as concerned as my mom. How? How did our bed get out here? He whispered with a stutter. It can't even fit through the doorframe. Was it taken apart and put back together out here? He hopped out of bed and picked me up into his arms in the process.

We all stared at it confused. Even as a young boy, I knew something was really wrong. My dad started to take the bed apart to bring it back into their bedroom and noticed that the screws were loose. Some were even missing, like it was put back together in a rush. I remember my parents being on the phone with, I think, the police, but they never showed up. I remember my mom being upset on the phone when they wouldn't help us at all. That night my dad installed a camera into the corner of my bedroom. My mom once again slept next to me. The camera they got was basically like a baby monitor that recorded the night.

My dad had the monitor beside his bed to be an extra set of eyes. The night came and went. My mom and I woke up with my room yet again rearranged. She looked up at the camera to see that it was destroyed. All video from the night was destroyed as well. This was right around the time when baby monitors could record to an iPhone and you could watch the video the next morning, but everything about the video was corrupted.

My family went to the police station that night, insisting that someone was in our house. The cops wrote down a statement, but that's all that came of it. My parents, for the next couple of years, kept trying to figure out what was going on, trying different solutions to find out how this was happening, only to find dead ends over and over again. My mom started to believe the house was haunted,

and after a couple of years my dad believed her. This was the main reason for our move when I was eight. I was so excited to be done with whatever was going on. At this point, the sleepovers weren't cute. I wanted my own space. My parents didn't let me go to summer camp or stay at friends' houses like my brother did. I was sick of it. It was night one in the new place.

It was only about 30 minutes from our old house. Not too big of a change, but just enough that I was excited. My parents felt so good about it. about the new place that they let me sleep in my own bed. I remember they told me at dinner while we ate McDonald's over a makeshift table made of cardboard boxes. I jumped up and down and hugged them both. That night I got tucked in and my mom was hesitant

to leave me in my own bed. She seemed worried but knew I needed this. My room didn't have much in it, just my bed, dresser, and a few boxes with my clothes in them. I remember falling asleep that night and thinking how creaky the new house. was. But I didn't mind. I was hopeful. I woke up the next morning before my mom and dad. I didn't have curtains yet, so the sunrise woke me. I sat up and stretched. I rubbed my eyes to wake myself up,

and I immediately felt a knot in my throat. The furniture was moved. At that moment, I made a decision. I knew if my mom saw this, I'd be stuck sleeping next to her for my whole life. My little imagination took over, and I thought about coming home from my job one day as a grown man, wearing a suit, and my mom still tucking me into bed. I sprung up and quickly moved everything back to where it came from. Luckily, nothing was too heavy for me to move. Just as I got everything back into place, I heard my mom's foot footsteps. I jumped into bed and pretended to be sleeping. She cracked the door and let out a sigh of relief and shut the door. How I wish I could go back in time and tell my mom the truth. I spent the next month doing this same routine. My mom always woke up at 7.30 to check on me,

so I'd always get up at 7 and fix everything. It was exhausting, but worth it. My mom was warming up to the idea of me going to summer camp, so I was motivated. My mom got comfortable enough to send me to camp. It was only a one-night camp that year, which was fine. She needed to take baby steps. I didn't think anything would happen honestly, but when we woke up in the morning every single bunk bed was outside. All 20 of them. 30 kids and 10 adults. All waking up feeling confused and disoriented. Some bunk beds even on their sides tipped over. Of course the camp counselors were confused. I knew what I had to do. I gaslit all the adults into believing it was the plan of the troubled kid, Eddie. I made up a whole story about how he convinced a few other kids to do it in the night.

I didn't think it was believable, but I was so convincing that everyone believed me. The camp counselors wanted to inform all the parents when they came to pick up what happened. Of course, it was a violation and needed to be explained to all the parents what happened. Luckily, I got out of it. I went to the camp with a school friend, and his mom picked us up. His mom believed me when I said I'd tell my mom myself. As the years passed by, I realized no matter where I slept, this would happen to me. I turned it into a sleepover trick. I'll tell my friends to come over and sure

enough it would happen. I'd even sleep at their houses, and it would happen. Whenever I was trying to show off the trick, the room would be an even worse condition than a normal night. I felt like I had a superpower. The years went by and it just became my life. It was like brushing my teeth in the morning. Now and then, I'd forget to fix everything in the morning, and my mom would check on me. It only happened a few times, but each time I saw fear in her eyes. I always just said I moved stuff around the night before because I was bored of the layout. I could only use that lie so many times, though. One time in high school, I was very sick. I was having a hard time getting up in the morning to move my furniture, and I didn't move my furniture for a couple of mornings. My mom was getting

nervous, and I knew I had to get up before her to move it the next day. My mom came into my bedroom to say good night and let me know she'd be gone in the early morning, but would say hi as soon as she got home at around noon. This was music to my ears. I could sleep in and not worry about moving everything before she could barge in. The morning came, and I got to sleep until about 11 o'clock. I couldn't believe how much better I was feeling. I knew I should have probably started to move my furniture and be proactive, but of course that's not what I did. I could hear my brother in his room next door playing video games, so I went to go see what he was playing. Him being a brother, he wasn't letting me play with him, so I instead stood by his bed for way too long and annoying him.

I lost track of time and heard the garage door open. My heart sank. I ran back into my room and tried to move everything back into its place. Luckily, throughout the years, I convinced my parents to get me lighter furniture. They never caught on, and it made life so much easier. Everything got replaced except for my dresser, which was a family heirloom. It wasn't all that big, but this day, it felt heavy. I knew I was weak from being sick all week, but I couldn't believe how heavy it was. It was the last thing to move, but it just wouldn't budge. I frantically ran to my brother and told him I needed help moving my dresser. He leaped out of bed to run to my room. With most things, he doesn't care to help me, but I was always honest with my brother that the furniture thing never

stopped. He knew that if our mom knew, our whole house would be a living hell, and she might even make us move again. He always had my back when it came to my supernatural furniture. Instead of going back into my room, I went downstairs to distract my mom. I knew she'd be mad to see me out of bed, but the consequences of my furniture being out of place would be so much worse. My socks slid across the hardwood floor, and I reached the kitchen just as she was opening the door. Her happy, Happy humming was immediately interrupted when she made eye contact with me. She set a grocery bag on the counter and got out some soup she just bought at the store. I thought she was going to yell at me, but I wasn't going to question it. I figured she was being patient with me since I was

sick. Just as she got out a box of popsicles, I heard an awful sound. One that I will never forget, a sound that is completely my fault. I heard my brother scream. It was a loud scream, but short, like something interrupted it. It sounded like he stubbed his toe and then covered his mouth halfway through. My mom and I made eye contact and started to head upstairs to check on him. It was too loud to be something small. We turned the corner into my room, and I didn't know what to feel. I saw my dresser still not in its normal spot,

but just slightly moved from where I left it. The dresser had a big drawer on the front that opened up like a door or a cabinet, and it was wide open and empty. But most importantly, my brother was gone. An hour went by and my brother was nowhere to be found. The doors to the house seemed to all be locked. Same with the windows. We ended up filing a missing person's report.

A whole week went by and there was no sign of him. My mom thought my brother was in the middle of moving my furniture to prank me or something and got spooked and ran off. I didn't have the heart to tell her or anyone that I felt like this was my fault. I thought that maybe whatever was moving my stuff wanted just me to move it or something. After that awful week, we found something to make it so much worse. My dad was in my room with me and trying to ask more questions about our last interaction. A lot of people asked me this since I was the last person to see my brother.

As I explained it to him for the 100th time, he was randomly looking at the dresser and opened up the big door we originally found wide open. It had a note taped to the incident. side. Before my dad took it, he looked nervously at me, asking if it was mine, but he very well already knew the answer. We called my mom into the room before we read it. The following is an exact quote from the note. I see our little game of hide and seek did not end like I imagined. Your brother is not who I intended to find me, but he will have to do for now. We had no clue what the note meant, but that didn't stop it from sending shivers down my spine. At the very least,

Now we knew someone had taken my brother. We thought the cops would do more to help now that we had a note. While they did do a little more to help us find him, they never found anything else. I never saw my brother again. Last year I moved out of my parents' house. This decision was completely based on my not wanting to move my furniture around every morning. I couldn't imagine a world where I could leave my furniture as is and just sleep in without the worry of my mom seeing it. That being said,

I moved out as soon as I could afford it. I moved in with my best friend, and we shared an apartment. He knew about my little party trick, and was never too freaked out by it. Although part of me was scared that once he saw it was legit, he would be scared. The first morning I woke up and the room was a mess. Everything was in the wrong place just as usual. Although I didn't think there would even be a usual for how my room looked anymore. I was sick of fixing it.

It was going to look however it wanted to look. After a couple of days of just letting my furniture do whatever, I noticed how it was being arranged was more and more chaotic, messier, like the furniture was mad that I wasn't putting it all back. I started straightening things, but nothing too wild. I just leave the big stuff. I mean, my roommate was weirded out, but he didn't care at first. One morning, about two weeks into living at the new place,

I woke up with my bed on our deck outside. I knew it was going to start getting out of hand. The whole reason for me moving out was to not have to move my furniture around like crazy. I was so mad I couldn't just leave the furniture as it was. For some reason it had to be put back to its normal spot. I let it go one more morning. I wanted to see what would happen if I left it just once more. I woke up the next day in the middle of the woods with no clue where I was.

It felt like when I was a kid, and this happened with bunk beds, but this was so much worse. It was relatively easy to find my way back, but just a long walk. In all, it took me about two hours to get home, not to mention having to figure out how to get my bed back home. When I got back, my roommate had a chat with me. He said how he never really thought the weird furniture thing was real and thought it was a very elaborate joke.

And now that he lived with me, it was affecting his mental health. He felt paranoid and really tired and wanted me to move out. I was of course bummed but knew it was for the best. I tried to tell him I'd start moving the furniture back every morning, and it would all be okay, but that didn't seem to help him feel better. I called my parents to tell them I was coming back home. They seemed excited to have me come home. They seemed very cheerful, actually.

When I asked them what was making them so happy, they said they felt better than they had in years, and felt so well-rested. It felt nice to hear them happy. for what felt like the first time since my brother went missing. I had most of my stuff packed up and was ready to move in just a couple of days. We both knew this whole moving thing might cause problems with our friendship, so we wanted to do something fun before I moved out. We did a spontaneous week-long road trip.

The morning I left, I didn't move any of the furniture back. It didn't seem necessary. I noticed something strange about the road trip. At no point in the trip did my furniture move. It was the first time since I can remember I woke up with everything looking the same. I thought maybe I found some kind of weird hack. We got back from an amazing trip feeling closer than ever, feeling thankful that we did it. I walked into my room and saw everything just as I remembered leaving it the day we left for our trip.

Everything except for my dresser, with the front facing down right in the middle of the room. I went over to the front of it to try and lift it into place, but it felt heavy. I immediately felt the memories of the day my brother went missing flashback into my head. This thing being heavy is bad news. I wasn't sure why, but I knew I didn't like it. I called my roommate in to help me move it. At first he was hesitant. He didn't want anything to do with my furniture.

Finally, I convinced him to just help me lift it quickly. As we pushed it back up to the wall, the body of a man came falling out. He was dead and limp. claw marks filled the inside of my dresser. It looked like it fell over while he was hiding in it. He most likely fell over at the beginning of our trip and couldn't get out. He was in the same spot where I found that ominous note a little while back. He also had a gas tank that had a sleeping aid in it that was connected to one of those things

that go over your mouth and nose before surgery or something. He looked malnourished and sickly. This man was my ghost for the last 15 years. moving my furniture around, thinking it was some kind of fun game or something. This was the man who took my brother. This was the man who gave a sleeping aid to me, and everyone else I lived with, so he could move my furniture around for me. This was the man who took away countless sleepovers from my childhood.

This was the man who stole my mother's peace of mind my whole childhood, so I could have some sick game every morning. They never found out who he was. They couldn't find anyone that matched his finger. fingerprints or dental records or anything at all. It's like it never even existed, most of all. They never found my brother. They never found out how the man got in and out of my house, if he even left, or how he was always around no matter where I slept. They never figured out how he managed to sneak around my living space for so long and not be seen. That was last year,

and after that day, my furniture never moved again. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's Remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with the cramudgeonly Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Remarkably bright creatures is now playing.

Only on Netflix. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your peasant. patio a glow-up. Springs calling. Ross, work your magic.