Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Dark Skating Tales Haunting Encounters and Chilling Dangers on the Rink PART2 #22

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #creepyencounters #truehorrorstories #nightmarefuel #skatinghorrorstories #unexplainedevents  Part 2 of Dark Skating Tales continues the spine-chilling experiences on the rink. From strange shadows following skaters to unsettling encounters and tense moments of fear, these true stories keep readers on edge. Each tale emphasizes how even ordinary leisure spaces can turn into scenes of suspense and danger.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, creepyencounters, truehorrorstories, nightmarefuel, skatinghorrorstories, unexplainedevents, scaryencounters, chillingtales, unsettlingmoments, realnightmares, disturbingstories, stalkerstories, urbanhorrorstories, survivalstories, truestoryhorror

You ever have one of those nights where you think you're just going to hang out, watch a movie, maybe eat some junk food, and then your life takes a sharp left turn into What the Hell Just Happened, Territory. Yeah. That was us. It started out at the drive-in. One of those old, slightly run-down ones that still had a big weather-beaten screen, gravel parking rows, and that faint smell of popcorn oil mixed with dust in the air. There were six of us that night, me, my sister, two of my brothers, and a couple of friends. We were all piled in blankets, arguing over snacks, and pretending not to be freezing under the night sky. The movie was loud enough that we had to lean in close when we talked, and our headlights were off, so everything around us was pitch black except for the occasional glow from the screen.

Somewhere between the movie's boring parts and our half-hearted bickering, I noticed movement. At first I thought it was just someone cutting through the trees to sneak into the drive-in without paying, not exactly a rare thing. But then I really looked. Three figures. They weren't just walking, they were carefully stepping out of the tree line like they were afraid to make a sound. And all three of them were wearing burlap sacks over their heads.

Not like potato sacks from the store either, these were rough, loose, and had holes crudely cut for eyes. I froze, staring. They didn't say a word, didn't rush. Just, came closer. That's when I saw her. There was a girl, moving weird, stumbling a little. At first I thought she was with them, but then I realized she wasn't walking freely.

Something was dragging behind her. No, she was dragging something behind her. A cord, like an old extension cord or rope, tied to her ankles. I hadn't even noticed it until then, but the moment I did, my stomach dropped. One of the burlap-headed guys took a few slow, deliberate steps forward. He stopped maybe ten yards from us. I remember watching his foot come down right on the cord's end. He didn't yank it, didn't make a scene, just pinned it there, keeping her from moving any farther.

The girl immediately started screaming, not the startled, oh my God, kind of scream, but this raw, desperate sound that made my chest tighten. Me and my sister were instantly on edge, yelling at them to back off. One of my brothers, always the hot-headed one, grabbed a rock from the ground and shouted something like, Let her go or you're going to regret it. His voice cracked halfway through,

which would have been funny in any other situation. Not here. The three men didn't flinch. Didn't even tilt their heads. Just stood there, face is hidden, their breathing almost invisible. I scanned them up and down, looking for weapons, trying to calculate what we were up against. I didn't see anything obvious, no guns, no baseball bats, but they were still mostly swallowed

in shadow. The only times I caught any detail were when the flicker from the movie screen lit their shapes, or when my brother's flashlight beam wandered too close. Sitting here writing this now, I know how insane it sounds. Burlap Sacks. Random girl with a cord around her ankles. Trucks with deer skulls. But I swear to you, it wasn't a dream, and it wasn't some movie scene I'm blending into my memory.

I was there. We all were. It was the kind of standoff you see in slow motion in your head afterward, because you're too busy trying to figure out whether you're about to live or die to process it in real time. Then the owner of the drive-in showed up. This old, Wiery-Gy. guy who'd been running the place forever, never without his cigarette and grumpy attitude.

But that night, he had a Sanoff shotgun in his hands, and he walked right up to the closest burlap head, raised it to the guy's face, and growled, get the hell off my property. That's when I heard it, the crunch of tires on gravel behind us. I turned just enough to see two pickup trucks rolling slowly toward us from the entrance. For a half-second I felt relief, maybe the police had already been called, maybe we were about to get back up. Then the headlights hit us, and I saw what was mounted on each hood, deer skulls. Big, bleached, antlers reaching forward like claws. The trucks didn't cut their engines, didn't even honk. They just sat there idling, watching. I couldn't see the drivers through the glare, and honestly, I didn't want to. The owner didn't

turn to look. Didn't acknowledge the trucks at all. He didn't. He didn't see the drivers. He didn't. He Just kept that shotgun pointed, his voice hard and loud. I said get the hell off my property. Now, I don't care who's sitting in those trucks. You don't leave, I shoot. Meanwhile, one of my brothers, not the one holding the rock, was crouched down, frantically trying to untie the cord around the girl's ankles with his bare hands. His fingers kept slipping, and she was trembling so bad it made the rope jump.

And then it hit me. This could be it. We could all die here, me, my siblings, this stranger. All because of whatever this was. The burlap head with his foot on the cord finally moved. He didn't say a word, just stepped back. A few steps more, then the other two followed. None of them turned their backs. They just melted back into the shadows of the tree line, disappearing like they were never there. The second they were gone, the two trucks peeled out, tires spinning, gravel spraying. No more headlights. Just darkness again. The cops showed up not long after, sirens echoing off the trees, and an ambulance pulled in for the girl. Officers combed the woods with flashlights, but they didn't find a single thing, no masks,

no footprints, nothing. The girl barely spoke English. Said her name was Hildegard, which sounded fake as hell to me. She wouldn't or couldn't, explain much else. About a week later, hunters found a man's body in those same woods. Beaten to death. My gut told me it was one of the burlap heads, maybe turned on by his own crew. We never saw the girl again. We even checked with the hospital and police, but no luck. News vans came sniffing around, but the owner chased them off.

And not long after, the drive-in shut down for good in 19-tenth. We went to the final screening, Batman Returns. The whole last week, that's all they played. We saw it three times, but honestly. I spent more time staring at that stretch of trees where she'd come from then at the movie. Half of me expected a figure to step out again and just stand there, watching. Fast forward to spring of 2004. I was 19, but I still looked about 14.

5 feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, 1.10 if I was carrying laundry. My parents and aunt were headed to Mexico for vacation, and I decided to stay behind, house sit for my aunt. Sounded easy. Keep the pool clean, grab the mail, restocked the fridge. Her place was up in the southern California hills with a killer view of Long Beach. Big, airy, quiet. Perfect for studying for my psych exam. Most days, I lounged in the massage chair in the guest room, music on low, highlighters scattered across my notes. Sometimes I'd step onto the balcony to tan or hit the treadmill in the basement, but mostly,

I stayed in the cool air conditioning, convinced I was being productive. Every night before bed, I'd set the alarm, check the security cameras. But on the fourth night, I got lost in my notes and forgot. It was 1.30 a.m. when I finally decided to take a.m. when I finally decided to take a.m.m. break. That's when I remembered the basement door was still unlocked. My stomach did a little drop. I figured I'd check the cameras first, you know, just in case, before heading down. I clicked the feed over. And there he was. Middle-aged guy. Balding. Glasses. Slowly coming up the basement stairs like he lived there. And in one hand, a balloon.

My mouth just, hung open. I made this tiny, pathetic croak of a sound before I even realized I was doing it. He reached the top step, paused, looked around, then stepped into the kitchen. My brain short-circuited. Part of me wanted to slam the door, lock it, call the cops. But I knew it'd take them ten minutes, maybe more, to get here. Plenty of time for this guy to find me. I could hide, sure, but I didn't like to.

the idea of crouching somewhere while he roamed the house looking for me. So I did something stupid. Incredibly stupid. I tiptoed back into my room, cranked my music louder, and then made a big show of stomping down the hall. Marcus. I shouted, trying to sound tough. I swear I heard something downstairs. Put on your shirt and grab the key to the gun cabinet. I was praying my voice didn't sound as shaky as I felt. The music helped cover it. Silence. Then, on the camera feed, I saw him bolt. He ran out the basement door, across the backyard, around the pool, and slipped through the hedges. Just before he vanished, he let go of the balloon. I watched it drift lazily upward, disappearing toward the dark line of the Pacific. I locked the door,

set the alarm and called the cops. Called my aunt too. That's when she asked why I didn't just hit the panic alarm on the security pad. Yeah, didn't think of that. The cops caught him a week later, asleep in his car in a grocery store parking lot. People always ask me about the balloon. I still don't know. My best guess.

Well, people always want the neat little bow at the end of a story like this. They want to know what the balloon meant, why the guy was in the house, and how it all ties together like some horror movie reveal. But life doesn't do bows. Still, if you force me to guess, I think the balloon was a prop. Not for me, for him. Think about it. If you're some unhinged creep, you don't just break into a house to steal a TV.

You bring something strange, something that throws people off, something that makes the whole thing stick in their brain forever. A balloon isn't threatening. It's almost childish. That's what makes it worse. It reminded me of clowns, carnivals, those weird street magicians who try to hand you something just so you'll stop walking. I kept picturing him standing there in the dark, holding that stupid balloon like it was some kind of invitation. When the cops caught him, they didn't say much. Just that he'd been sleeping in his car and that he had a history. They didn't elaborate, which probably meant it was worse than I wanted to know. I asked if he had anything with him when they found him.

They said yes, but it wasn't a balloon. It was a duffel bag with rope, gloves, duct tape, and a Polaroid camera. That's the part that really messed with me. The balloon was just bait. The rest, well, I've got a pretty good imagination, and I wish I didn't. For a while after that, I got paranoid about everything. every sound at night. If the fridge kicked on too loud, my heart would skip. I stopped sitting with my back to any windows after dark. Even in daylight, I'd catch myself checking over my

shoulder like some kind of twitchy squirrel. And then, because apparently the universe likes to keep me on my toes, the balloon guy's face started showing up in my dreams. Sometimes he'd be in the basement, other times just standing at the edge of a field, or by the drive-in screen from years earlier, holding that balloon while those burlap-headed guys stood just behind him. It's funny, or maybe funny isn't the word, how my brain decided to mash those two nights together. Like it wanted to tell me they were connected somehow. I know logically they weren't. The drive-in incident happened over a decade earlier, in a totally different place. But in the dream, they're part of the same thing. One dream stands out. I'm back at the drive-in. I'm back at the drive-in.

in, except the movie screen is blank, glowing white. I'm sitting in my car, but I'm alone. There's no chatter, no popcorn smell, just this heavy, suffocating silence. Then the trees start to move. Not like wind, like breathing. Out from the tree line comes the girl, Hildegard, dragging that same cord behind her. But instead of the burlap-headed men, it's the balloon guy walking just a few steps behind her. The balloon bobs gently above his head, almost cheerful in contrast to the look on his face. In the dream, I try to yell for her to run, but my voice doesn't work. My hands grip the steering will so tight I can feel my nails digging into the leather. And right before he reaches her, she turns and looks directly at me. Her mouth opens, but it's his voice that comes out.

You left the door unlocked. I wake up every time at that exact moment. sweaty and tangled in my sheets. I wish I could tell you I shook it off after a while. That the dream stopped, that I moved on. But they didn't. Even now, I'll be walking to my car in some half-empty parking lot at night and feel that little prickle at the back of my neck. Like someone's just far enough behind me to be invisible when I turn around.

I've asked myself a hundred times, why me? Out of all the houses that guy could have picked, why my neck? night. And with the drive-in, why did those men back off? Why didn't they fight the owner? Why was the girl tied up at all? No answers. Just gaps. And gaps in stories are where the bad stuff likes to live. A couple years after the balloon incident, I found myself driving past the old drive-in property. By then it was overgrown, the sign rusted, the screen half collapsed. I parked across the road and just, sat there for a while, staring at it. Part of me thought maybe I'd see movement in the trees. Maybe I'd get closure somehow, see one of those burlap-headed guys again,

or the girl, or even just someone who could tell me they'd heard the same story. Instead, all I got was silence. That deep, hollow silence that feels almost alive. I left after about ten minutes, but not before taking one last look at that spot near the woods where she'd stumbled out. You ever get the feeling a place is looking back at you? Yeah. That. Years later, when I tell people these stories, I see two kinds of reactions. The first is the polite nod, they think I'm making it up or exaggerating. The second is the quiet stare, the kind you get from someone who's had their own moment of, oh God, this is real, this is happening. And And every once in a while, someone will ask, so, do you think you'll ever know what it all meant?

And I'll tell them the truth. I don't want to. Because here's the thing, answers don't always make things better. Sometimes they make them worse. Sometimes you find out the reason for the balloon, or the burlap sacks, or the deer skull trucks, and it's not some random, chaotic fluke, it's something planned. Organized. Something that doesn't stop just because you survive.

survived once. So yeah. I'll take my gaps, thanks. I'll keep the door locked, the alarm set, and the camera's on. And if I ever see another balloon in the dark, floating where it shouldn't be, I'm not sticking around to find out who's holding it. That's the whole thing. Two nights, years apart, but stitched together in my head like they belong to the same book. Whether they do or not, well, I guess that's for whoever's reading this to decide. Me? I've decided to live my life as far away from tree lines, basements, and drive-in theaters as possible. And if you're smart, you'll do the same, to be conined.