The Lets Read Podcast - 112: Episode 100 | Craigslist & Morgue Stories | 24 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Welcome to the ONE HUNDRETH episode of The Lets Read Podcast! This podcast includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Craigslist, Morgues & People Under Our House... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: Simon de Beer https://www.instagram.com/simon_db98/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I worked at a barbecue restaurant that is considered convenience food. Everything is homemade and we get fresh ingredients every day, but we work on the same timetable as fast food places. So you walk up, place your order at one of our registers, pay and then wait 5 minutes and your food is ready. Given this, your face to face interaction with customers doesn't need to be super long. Keep this in mind whilst reading. I'm a female in my early 20s and pretty decent

looking so I'm accustomed to comments made by pervy old men or the occasional attempts at flirting made by guys that come up to my register. But only one customer has ever raised multiple red flags and set off all the alarms in my body telling me to run. The first time Jared came in was a few days after July 4th. One of my co-workers happened to be with me at the register. After placing and paying for his order, Jared talked to us about the holiday and how he's super excited. Normal conversation. Then he turns his attention only to me and tells me I look like a Barbie. Not an uncommon comparison as I have blue eyes and at the time long blonde hair, but his compliments didn't stop there. He continuously repeated my likeness to the doll,

adding in beautiful and stunning among other choice descriptors. His name was called for as food so I thought the conversation had ended there. I was wrong. I was running around doing my side work when Jared came out to me at the counter and said that he had something to show me. I looked around to my co-worker for help. They had taken note of how strange his comments were towards me but none of them had noticed that he'd come back up. I put on my best customer service smile and followed him to his table. As mentioned, I worked at a barbecue restaurant so there's barbecue sauce on all the tables. When I get to Jared's table, he's pointing at a spot on his plate where a fly was squirming in sauce that he had poured out. My first thought was that the fly landed in the sauce that he was using. I was about

to apologize and get him a new plate when he said he landed there a few times before I finally got him. As he said this he poured more sauce on the fly laughing and smiling as he did so. Mortified but also trying not to show how freaked out I was I said said, oh, you don't want to torture him now. Why don't you let him go? Jared says while still pouring sauce in the fly. Nah, he's having a great time. Can't you tell? Look at him swimming around. I know it was only a fly, but I couldn't look at it struggle anymore. And to be frank, he made me extremely uncomfortable right out the gate. Trying to be as polite as possible, I told him I had to get back to work. I told my manager Dana and a few other co-workers what he had done,

and we all agreed it was disturbing and pretty weird. He didn't come up to the counter again until he was about to leave. He stared at me as he walked up, waved, and said, Goodbye, Barbie. I'll see you soon. I hope he wouldn't. A few days later, Jared came in again. I was at the same register, talking with one of my co-workers. He comes up to order and starts discussing the 4th of July again as it was the next day. We told him the restaurant is actually closed on the July 4th, so we were happy to have a day off. Again, normal conversation

until he reaches over the register and grabs both our hands while speaking to us, saying it was amazing and we deserve a day off. At this point he still hadn't ordered his food but was still holding our hands so I changed the subject by asking what he'd like to order. He started ordering and had let go of my co-worker's hand but still had it on mine. I gently tugged my hand away saying something like, uh, kinda need that, type in your order. He looked incredibly mad when I did this but quickly covered it with a short laugh.

Thankfully he got his food to go so there wouldn't be another fly drowning scenario I'd be witness to. After he paid he left my register to go wait for his food ending ending our interaction. A few minutes later, he comes back up to me, cutting off customers in line and says, hey, did I ever show you a picture of my girlfriend? I know my mind thought of the worst case scenario, but as he pulled his phone out, I was convinced he was going to pull up a picture of me. He didn't. It was a Facebook picture of a very busty woman in a very tiny American flag bikini. The entire time he was just staring at me, smiling, almost gauging my reaction. I just kind of laughed it off and responded with a, oh, that's cool. He puts his phone away, never breaking eye contact with me and says,

yeah, she's hot, but nowhere near as hot and beautiful as you are. I gave him a very quiet, oh, um, thanks, and a nod. Fortunately, he left the restaurant a couple of minutes later, but only after he stared at me while walking away. Yes, the picture you have in your head is correct. This man walked sideways backwards as he walked out the doors and never took his eyes off of me. Once he got to the doors, he made it a point to stand and wave until I looked at him and waved back. Dana came up to me after he left saying if he comes in again, she and I will have a code word and I'll go hide in the back until he

leaves. She didn't like the way he talked to or about me. I was thankful she shared the same feelings as I felt maybe I was being dramatic or my uneasiness wasn't warranted. The third and last time Jared came in, I was on the phone with a customer who was placing a large to-go order. The phones were directly behind the register so there was no avoiding him. I was grateful I wouldn't have to take his order this time but I also couldn't run and hide, it was bittersweet. I avoided eye contact with him as best as I could because I didn't want to talk with him if and when the phone call ended. It was working until he reached over the register he was at. My co-worker Sarah was highly confused, waving his hand around trying to grab my attention. I reluctantly waved back and continued to take the phone order.

I got to hear Sarah ask him questions to get his order correct, but he was completely ignoring her questions because he was talking to her about me. Isn't she a perfect Barbie? What a beautiful Barbie. A busy Barbie girl, isn't she? She's a beautiful girl. This continued even after the phone call ended. But instead of talking to Sarah about me, he thought it best to talk to me about my appearance.

At this point, customers are starting to take notice of what was going on and poor Sarah was stuck in the middle not knowing what to do. I did my best to ignore his words and just nod in hopes that he would get the message that I didn't care as I was still doing some paperwork for the to-go order. He was incessant and still hadn't placed his order yet, so he had no reason to walk away from the register. To my relief, I heard my name being called from the office. I looked at him and said, Ah, that's the boss calling me. And Jared responds, well, I was and still am very grateful for Dana. I briefly explained what was going on and who the guy was and Ron looks at me and asks if I wanted Jared kicked out. I told him no, but I wanted to hide until he was gone. Ron told me that was fine and to stay in the office until he came to get me.

He came back a few minutes later and said Jared was staring at the wall where the office was when he came out to see what Jared looked like. Ron packed up Jared's food and said he barely made eye contact, continuously glanced in the direction of the office and was visibly angry the entire time. Ron said if he ever came in again to just abandon ship, go to the back and stay there until someone told me the coast was clear. I never saw Jared again. This is almost a year ago and my stomach still drops when I see a, I went to visit my best friend Carly in Park City, Utah. When I arrived in Utah, Carly told me that she was having a barbecue with some friends at her place. Sundance Film Festival was in full swing, so we're going to eat and hang out and then go catch a few films. Around 5pm, friends started showing up with alcohol, meat for the grill and snacks. I was introducing myself to several of Carly's friends and learning that most of the people who lived in Park City

were there for the ski season as snowboarding and ski instructors and lifties, lift operators for the resort. As I was chatting with people, a guy walked through the front door and I couldn't help but stare. He was strikingly good looking. He looked like a male model. He had olive skin, light brown hair, and the perfect smile. The guy walked up to me and introduced himself as Matt. I said hello and then continued to mingle with everyone as Matt did the same. As a 21-year year old, I was very innocent and naive. I'd never really had a real boyfriend before and this is why I thought it was exciting that Matt seemed to take notice of me. I'd look at him from across the room and he'd be staring at

me. He'd give me a little wink and then go back to the conversation he was having. A little while into the barbecue, Matt came up to me and asked if I wanted to walk out to the garage with him to get more beer. The garage was separate from the house and you had to walk down a flight of stairs and then across the snowy driveway to get to it. I said yes and proceeded to follow Matt out the door and down the stairs. Being very naive, I actually thought he just wanted a companion to go get beer with. When we reached the garage, we entered in and I walked over to the fridge. As I was opening the fridge door, it was slammed shut on me. Matt grabbed me and pushed me against the wall.

He held my wrist down and began kissing me all over. I didn't quite know what to do because, like I said, I was very innocent and I had no experience with anything that was happening before. Matt let go of my wrists and started to unzip his pants. I put my hands up and said, no, I don't want to do this. Matt grabbed me by the waistband and unzipped. Then he got down on his knees and looked up at me and said, come on, it'll be fun. I again told him no and pushed him away.

He stood back up and started aggressively kissing me on my neck. He started to groan and then slammed his hand against the wall behind me and said, Your fear makes me feel so good. And with that, he put his right hand around my throat and continued to kiss me. By this point, I was very scared and wanting him to stop. And what he said next still gives me chills. As he was still kissing my neck, he whispered in my ear, Is it weird that I want to have my way with you and kill you at the same time?

My stomach dropped, and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. My mind was screaming to get out of there. As Matt started to tighten his grip around my throat, someone walked into the garage. Thank God for that person. Matt immediately stopped what he was doing and backed away. He barely made eye contact with me as he left.

It was as if backed away. He barely made eye contact with me as he left. It was as if nothing happened. I went upstairs and cried in Carly's bathroom. I couldn't believe what had happened. Fast forward to 2016, I got a call from Carly asking if I remembered Matt from her BBQ. I stuttered at the thought of him but told her I did remember him. She said, you're not going to believe this. He was arrested on the suspicion of killing six women. My heart sank and I almost fainted. Six women? How could this person be so stone cold evil?

I hung up the phone with Carly and sobbed on my couch. Had I really survived a serial killer five years earlier? I don't like thinking about what could have happened, but all I know is that if that person had not walked into the garage, it's very possible I could have made his murder list seven women. I'm a 26-year-old man and I just had a really weird night. I've been thinking about submitting a story and I guess this is that story. It's not really creepy at all, mostly just weird, but I might recommend not listening

if you're particularly squeamish or emotional. I pulled an all-nighter last night, so I was already in a bit of a weird mental space, but a few hours ago, things got a lot stranger. I was relaxing my room watching some live streams on YouTube and everything was normal enough, but I started noticing some weird sounds in the background. At first I thought my mind might have been playing tricks on me,

but I kept hearing them enough to be sure that there was something there. The sounds were kind of high-pitched, almost like scratching, so I thought that there might have been a big bug bumping its wings against the window. I didn't think much of it, it definitely didn't seem like a big deal, so I just put it in the back of my mind. But then I looked over and saw a big rat scurrying around the corner of my room. It actually walked closer to me and stared right at me before scurrying off again. It actually stared at me so long that I had time to snap a picture.

Well, I'm not easily freaked out by animals so I wasn't scared or anything. At first I was kind of nonchalant about it but then I realized that I now had to find some way to get this rat out of my room before it made itself too comfortable. Oh great, this will be fun. I put it off for a few minutes but I realized that I wouldn't be able to properly relax until I'd taken care of the situation. I put on some long pants so the rat couldn't bite my leg and then I started my mission. I knew which corner my room he was in so I did a bit of exploring and tracked him down. He was hiding in my bookshelf, squeezed into a narrow space on top of a stack of VHS tapes. I started realizing that this whole thing

was actually a bit terrifying. I'd never tried to wrangle a rat before and I realized that there was a significant chance that I might get bitten. I wasn't worried about the pain of the bite but I really didn't want to be in the situation of having to worry about going to the hospital and getting like a rabies shot or something, but I needed this rat out of my room, so getting bitten was a risk I'd have to take. At first I wasn't sure how I was going to get him out, but I came up with a plan where I would wall off his escape route so he would only go one way and then I would trap him under a container and bring him outside. Well, everything went pretty much according to plan, but when he bolted out from his hiding place, I wasn't able to trap him before he scurried between my legs and out of my sight. Oh boy, now we were really off to the races. Instead of knowing where the rat was, now I had to track him down again and he could be anywhere in my room.

I really didn't want him making a nest somewhere, chewing on my stuff and leaving little turds as a souvenir so I got right back to tracking him down. I knew it was going to drive me crazy if I didn't get him out of my room before I went to bed. Well, I started walking around my room, shining my flashlight everywhere and moving things around to make sure he wasn't hiding behind anything. It was pretty hot in my room and the combination of running around my room while being on high alert meant that I was sweating like crazy and my heart was beating pretty fast. Some of the stuff I had moved around was settling so I kept hearing noises from every direction. I felt like I was in the jungle of Nam or something and I was rapidly losing my grip on little sanity that I had left after being awake for more than a full day and then chasing a rat around my room for hours on end. I felt like I'd checked every

possible hiding spot at this point, but then I checked in the one last place and bingo, there he was. He was hiding in a narrow space behind a few cabinets that sat near the wall. I think I hadn't checked there yet because it was only a foot or two from his original hiding space and I was sure that he'd gotten much further than that. I'm not sure if he had been running around my room or if he had been behind these cabinets the whole time but as soon as I found him I felt a sudden shift. Of course there was the satisfaction of finding his hiding space but there was also a sad note. The rat went from being an evil mastermind who was sneaking around my room, always one step ahead of me, to being a scared little guy hiding in his tiny alcove almost certainly completely terrified.

This was no time for getting sentimental though. I had a mission to complete. I moved a couple of things in front of his possible exits to make sure he had stayed put and then I devised my plan. I made a little container that he could run into and I figured I'd remove the obstacles and he'd scurry right into it so I could bring him outside and set him free. But when I set it all up, he didn't go for it. I think the space was so narrow that he didn't have room to turn around, so instead of running into my container, he just stayed where he was. That threw me for a loop, and I wasn't sure exactly how to proceed from there. I couldn't put my container on the side he was facing because the positioning was awkward and

there wasn't enough room. I heard my dogs barking so I knew I needed to take them outside for a bit so I decided to wait for a little while and figure out what to do. But before I took my dogs out I realized that there was something else I had to take care of. I had a power cord running through the space that the rat was hiding in and I really didn't want him chewing through it while I was outside with my dogs. I lifted up the power cord and tried to yank it up from behind the cabinet, but it got stuck when I tried to lift it. I figured the cabinet was probably sitting on it, preventing it from moving. Oh well.

I unplugged it so at least there was no power running through it, and then I took my dogs outside. When I got back, I went back into the room and checked up on my rat friend. As soon as I looked behind the cabinet, the rat wasn't on the ground anymore. He looked like he was a few inches above it, and it looked like he had somehow gotten himself wedged in a very narrow spot. I instantly knew something was wrong, and then I saw the power cord squeezed up against him.

He wasn't moving. When I yanked up the power cord, it must have lifted him up and crushed him against the corner of one of the cabinets. You see, these cabinets are sectional, and they can move independently, and I must have accidentally pushed one further back than I meant to. And that series of events meant that I had just taken a life. Yes, it was just a rat, but rats are living beings too. They have feelings and they're actually fairly smart. My heart sank and I knew that the

accomplishment I'd get from completing my mission was now gone. It didn't count as a win because it definitely wasn't what I was trying to do. I wanted him out of my room, but I didn't want him dead. He was a cute little guy and he seemed like a good rat. When he first scurried out of his hiding place and stared at me, it almost seemed like he was being friendly. He didn't have any beef with me and I didn't have any beef with him, besides the fact that I wanted him out of my room. I immediately started thinking about how he died. At first I was worried that he had slowly suffocated while pinned against the cabinet, but when I looked at his body I saw a wet spot that I'm pretty certain was a blood stain. Hopefully that means it wasn't too long and drawn out, although maybe slowly asphyxiating would be better than being quickly crushed,

I don't know. Well now I was in a very different situation than I was a few minutes ago. At this point it was four in the morning, but I knew what I had to do. I took him outside and gave him a proper burial. I dug a small grave in the front yard so my dogs couldn't dig him up and I said goodbye to my little rat friend. I could have buried him without touching him but I felt the need to stroke his fur a little bit. I had just taken his life and the least I could do was give him a few post-mortem pets. Yes, I know people say that rats have a weird bacteria and you shouldn't touch them. I was worried about that myself. I washed very thoroughly with soap and then rinsed with rubbing alcohol for good measure. As I was petting him, I told him I was sorry. I didn't mean to kill him and he was a good boy.

I looked down at him and his eyes still looked very alive somehow. I told myself he was just sleeping, very peacefully. I didn't want him to get dirt in his eyes or ears so I put a leaf over his head to shield him and then I filled in the grave. As I was burying him, the name Timmy popped in my head. At first I thought it was just silly, I figured that it was probably a reflex on my part that I wanted to humanize him, so I gave him a common name for a pet. But then I realized that there was a weird coincidence that made that name very fitting. I've been listening to a radio show earlier that night of a guy named Dave McGowan being interviewed by Ed Opperman. They were talking about the 1960s countercultural movement and they mentioned that Timothy Leary had connections to the CIA

and he apparently ended up snitching on people. Someone said even back in the 70s I was already hearing the word on the street that Timothy was a rat. So there you have it, the whole drawn out saga. It might not be the most interesting story but it's probably the most eventful thing that happened to me recently. It went from being a weirdly intense rat hunt to a tender and tragic moment that made me reflect on life. If I had managed to successfully get Timothy out of my room alive, I'm not sure what his life would have been like. My brother has a cat that kills rodents fairly often, so I think there's a decent chance that my rat friend would have met that fate. I don't think many rats manage to die peacefully of natural causes.

Maybe this was all for the best. Hopefully Timothy's death was quick and relatively painless and he's up in rat heaven now, munching on the biggest block of cheese imaginable. To be continued... condo in a newly minted condo community near the edge of our mid-sized city suburbs. The basement was a dugout style, so there were windows across the outside facing wall to the backyard, but they were low to the ground, so if you were to walk by said windows, the person in the basement could only see your feet. One late summer night, I awoke in my bed. This is fairly startling to me already since I never wake up in the night. I listen intently to the sounds around me. I hear nothing but crickets outside my open window in my

room. I get that you're a grown woman stop thinking the boogeyman is after you thought and trying to settle back into sleep when I hear it. Distant aimless whistling coming out towards the main road that leads to the condo development. I try to listen past my heart racing to tell where the whistling was going. Our condo is one of the last units on the end of the property. If you were to cross by foot into the development from town, our backyard is the first you would walk across. It was the first time that placement made me feel exposed. That and my window was open. Sure, I still had a screen, but not much comfort to me at that time.

Again, the I am a grown up thought came to me and said, it's probably just some drunk guy wandering down the road. He's nowhere near your house and it's not a big deal. Go to sleep. So I tried to just block out the noise and get to bed. But the whistling was also aimless with no tune, just like it was trying to get attention. Not keep it self-occupied or I have a song stuck in my head kind of whistle. I couldn't help but focus on it and hear it getting closer and then I heard the footsteps. Aimless footsteps to go with the now horribly loud whistle. Are my grandparents not hearing this, I thought. I'm about to get up and go upstairs, but by this point, I am gripped with fear over the closeness of my late night visitor in my open window,

and it's only getting worse. Louder and closer until I'm sure the person is stepping on the stones that line the outside of my bedroom window, and with a whistle so loud I am sure it's them leading down to look into the room. I bolt, covers off, and jump from the staircase. I thought I would feel safer up there, but it was little comfort. My mind went directly to the sliding glass door to the porch, the one with the staircase to the backyard. It's locked, right? I couldn't bear to even try to listen and see if I heard anything more. I bolted yet again, now to my grandparents' room.

I was breathless and trying to wake my grandmother. It had to be an emergency to wake either of them and you would think this situation would count as one. Well, grandma was not having it and instead was angry that I might wake up my grandfather. No one believes me since I tended to have one of those wild imaginations people speak of. Maybe that was right. It was just me that heard it. Nevertheless, I slept on the upstairs couch after making sure the porch door was locked and taking a fireplace poker to sleep with. It wouldn't be a creepy story though without one final twist. About a few days later, my grandmother and I decide to go shopping.

We took another road out that we do not normally use so it's my first time seeing this street since the night of the whistling. I am in the passenger seat watching the condos pass by when I see one with police tape around it. Worn tape that you could tell was already slack from being up longer than 24 hours. Grandma? I asked. What happened there? Oh, I didn't tell you? She says nonchalantly.

A woman lives there by herself. A man broke into her basement window a couple of nights ago. I don't know the details, but her dog scared him off, I guess. I was quiet in the car for a moment while I was hoping my grandma would make the connection. Grandma, do you remember when I came to your room a couple of nights ago, complaining about a man going past my window? No? Never mind, Grandma. Never mind. I've always been skeptical about whether it's possible to see into the future,

but I can't seem to make sense of an experience I had 20 years ago. As a teenage boy, I was prone to doing dumb things. My buddies and I decided to play a game called The Elevator, which consisted of purposely hyperventilating and then one of the others would pin our chest against a tree until we passed out. We would only be out for a few seconds, but it felt like hours. My experience was different than the others though. While I was out, I dreamed of the next two weeks, except it wasn't like a dream. It felt like I had literally gone

about my life as I normally would. It was so realistic that when I woke up it quite literally felt like I had traveled back in time. The next two weeks played out exactly like they did while I was passed out. I considered myself to be an open-minded skeptic. So much of what I experience I can chalk off to coincidence and possible self-fulfilling prophecy. And here's what made my hair stand on the back of my head though. After about a week there was a brand new movie on TV. It was the first time it aired so there was no way I could have seen it before. Except I did. In the elevator. I spent the next few days terrified that at the end of the week I would wake up and start the process all over again.

20 years later I still find myself nervous and excited that I may wake up in the past. To this day I still have no idea what to make of my experience. To be continued... other countries who are afraid of going out alone even in broad daylight, but I've had the privilege of never facing that fear. That was until that day. I was on my way to a friend's house for a group project. It wasn't far, only a 15 minute walk away. Yes, I traveled alone most of the time, especially if the location was close by. Most people in my country feel safe going to school alone as young as seven. To a lot of you that may sound reckless, but that was how it was. Everyone felt safe. I had a phone, my first phone. Thing was, I didn't even have mobile data. I couldn't call my parents for help or anything if something had happened, nor could I alert my friends. I was walking alone along the road when I felt an eerie presence

behind me. I've always been hyper-aware and a paranoid person, so I immediately turned to look around. A guy with a bright lime green shirt was on his motorcycle on the road. His motorcycle was white, a stark contrast to his blinding green top. I felt uneasy, so I picked up my pace. After walking for about another minute, I noticed that no one wearing green on a white motorcycle had driven past me. Obviously vehicles would be faster than someone walking. They should have passed me by now. I looked back again. To my horror he was still behind me. He was driving but at a snail's pace, just enough to stay around 1-2 meters behind me as I walked. At this point in the story, I want to explain something. I was 9, but I've always been ahead of my peers in terms of development. I had accelerated a year in school and had a rather

well-rounded body, let's just say. It was not uncommon for people to mistake me for being older than I actually am, but that does not excuse any harassing behavior, of course. I walked even faster than before, resisting into breaking into a sprint. I glanced behind me every few seconds. It was then I noticed he was glaring at my behind, and I was disgusted. Unfortunately for me, there was a traffic stop ahead and I had to stop walking. Not surprisingly, instead of driving on like a normal person would, he just pulled over to the roadside. I stared at him, hoping he would get the message and go away, but he just started

making kissy faces at me. He also kept gesturing me to come near him. Needless to say, I did not. And as soon as the traffic light turned green, I bolted all the way to my friend's house. When we went back to my friend's house, the incident had kind of evaporated from my mind. That was until I realized the guy was still tailing me. I was floored. How could he have known I was leaving my friend's house? Did he follow me all the way there? Did he wait that full two hours for me? All the way home I walked as fast as my little legs could carry me. All along he was making suggestive gestures at me and staring at my butt. I told my parents as soon as I reached home and we filed a police report.

They said they couldn't really do much about it because he didn't physically harm or touch me but he would keep a lookout for the guy. I soon forgot about the incident. That incident happened during summer break, and you would think that that was just an isolated stalking incident. It was not. I started noticing the guy. Same green t-shirt and motorcycle and everything around my school. It was like he was always there.

Always. I couldn't understand how he knew what time I got dismissed from school and which gate I would leave the school from. I started leaving from other gates in hopes that he wouldn't see me but he soon figured out what I was doing and started circling the school. Wisely I had friends living near me and I always, always went home with someone else. Me being the cautious kid that I was also managed to take down his license plate number. None of the kids at school believed me and some even bullied me for faking the story to gain more attention. I suffered a lot through that school but that's a story for another day. Well, one day I stayed back in school

to do something. I can't quite remember what it was. All my friends, which was like three, had left the school at that point and it was late. It was the first time that I had walked home alone in a very long time. The green man on the motorcycle had kind of become a norm for me at that point, so I didn't think much of it when, surprise, he was once again at the school gate. For context, the pathway was right along the road and it was narrow. There was only one path that led me back to my house. I had to pass him to get home as he parked right along that road. I just tried to be as fast as possible, quickly walk past the green man. That was when he grabbed me. He grabbed me by the arm tightly and told me he'd been watching me for a while

And that I was very beautiful He asked me for my number and tried to pull me onto his motorcycle I knew that I was royally screwed I was 145 centimeters, 9, a weak female with no weapon on me He could drive away anytime on his motorcycle and just drag me along. Thankfully, I was a psycho that watched violent shows and crime documentaries, even though I was nine and I did the only thing I could think of. I kicked his nuts, hard. He fell back in shock, almost knocking over his motorcycle. I then took my heavy school bag and

threw it at him, bolted while screaming for help. Well, he had a motorbike and I was on foot. After recovering from the pain and the shock, he got back on his vehicle and started chasing me. Thankfully, me screaming for my life got the attention of a 12-year-old senior of mine who was too walking home. This guy was tall, 170 centimeters and pretty buff, especially for a 12-year-old. He was in our school's basketball club and learned taekwondo. He pushed me to hide behind him. As this monster got off his motorcycle and told the boy to go away if he didn't want any trouble, he punched the guy square in the face. Suddenly scared, he ran back to his motorcycle and drove away. I went back to the initial location of the attempted kidnapping to retrieve my school bag and the guy offered to walk me home.

I told my parents what happened and we filed a second report. I also gave them the license plate that I had noted down. Nothing ever came of it. The police never called back and I never saw the green man again And no, it didn't turn into some childhood romance story or anything I didn't even become friends with the guy who saved my life We just occasionally greet each other in school The thing never became a big deal and he wasn't known as a hero or anything

The only thing that changed was I became slightly more psycho after that I started learning archery and various knife handling skills. I never leave my house without a penknife at the very least in my bag. I still don't really fear going out alone, even stuffing both earphones in, seemingly oblivious to my surroundings. But my instincts never fail me. I've been stalked and approached by older men many times since, but I approach the incident not with fear, but with wisdom from my previous experience. A couple of times when they tried to lay a finger on me when I brought out my weapon, which thus far has been enough to scare them away. I always have 911 dialed on my phone if I feel an unsafe presence.

I hope my story served as a cautionary tale. I'm still young now at 15, but much more aware of the family is fairly vast. She has three brothers and three sisters, all of whom are married and have several kids of their own. It goes without saying that when summer rolled around and it was time for the annual family function, there would be endless hours of fun and entertainment. My grandparents were fairly wealthy individuals, and with a share of their fortune each year they would rent out a lake house,

cabin, or beachside mansion for our family to resort at in its entirety. Each home usually had several stories and a countless number of unique little additions that made the experience that much more memorable. For the year in question, my grandparents decided to rent out a large four-story lakeside home. It was complete with a dock, game room, movie theater, vast kitchen, and even a tube slide system that went from floor to floor. What was supposed to be a blissful escape would soon become home to one of the worst memories to date. Before we delve any deeper into the story, I would like to do a quick explanation of the layout of the home because it's pertinent to understanding the rest of the story.

The house was built upon a very steep slope that led down to a lake. The house was literally built horizontally off of the side of the hill, so on the part of the home that wasn't connected to the hill, there were long stilts that connected the house to the base of the home, to the bottom of the hill. For additional support of the home, brick was added in between the stilts, creating a vast canaveral-like room underneath the home, only accessible by a cellar door at the bottom floor of the house. This pit-slash-room had no insulation, obviously, dirt floors which in reality was just the bottom of the hill and filled with spiders and other small rodents and such. It was highly recommended by the

homeowners who were renting the property from that that we don't venture down into this area because it would be a 10 or so foot drop to the floor and no ladder for assistance returning to the bottom floor of the home so anyone to go into this place would practically be imprisoned in a tall, dark cement hole. Okay, back to the story. After all the pleasantries with my family and settling in for the first couple of nights, all the more mature members of the family, which included me, my brother, and all my aunts, uncles, and their significant others, decided to play a game commonly known as Sardines. The game is basically inverse hide and seek, where there is one hider and the rest of the players are seekers. All the lights in the home are turned off, creating an atmosphere of complete blackness.

The hider is given a minute to hide, and once they are settled in, the seekers begin their hunt. If a seeker happens upon the hider, then they silently slip away and hide in the same place as the hider until all people are hidden and only one seeker remains. Now that you have a quick synopsis of the game, house, and a large number of people playing, you can see how this could be the perfect concoction for a fun time. My uncle Mike was the one selected to do the hiding first. We shut out all the lights in the home and after the given minute of hiding, the hunt was on. My brother, aunts and uncles and I searched the first couple of floors to no avail. Searching under each table, in each closet and behind each couch.

After about 15 minutes of searching and nobody seemed to have found him, an idea sprouted in my head. Though I dismissed the thought at first, I couldn't stop thinking about that cellar door in that space that lay beneath the home. Being that I was on the younger end of the family, around 17 or so, I wanted to impress them by being the first one to find him. So I silently crept away from the group and seekers and down the last two stories I had to go get to the bottom floor of the house where the cellar doors were. When I got there, I found my body physically shaking with adrenaline, and after opening the door that closed off the little closet-sized room that held the cellar doors, I was trembling with fear. They looked just so ominous in the dark lighting. I walked up to them and placed a hand on each of the handles. Before I even opened the

door I was able to hear scuffling and maniacal giggling from the room. This assured me even more that I had got him. My fear went to excitement when I learned of his presence. I flung the doors open and looked down into the dark abyss of the hole. I quietly whispered down at my uncle telling him that I had found him and that I was going to drop down and join him. He just kept laughing and laughing, which really unnerved me because it was unlike him to do that sort of thing, without at least admitting he'd been found or telling me to join him. Really wanting to be the first seeker to find him, I slowly began lowering myself down into the hole, hanging on to the edge of the cellar door and letting my feet dangle into the hole.

Stupid, I know. I could hear his laughter getting louder and heard his footing shifting as he began to walk closer to me. A horrid stench assaulted me the second that I lowered the rest of my body into the hole. I still clung to the cellar door, not allowing myself to drop the extra five or so feet to the floor just yet. Being that I was closer to the ground now, I could start to begin to see his shape and it looked off. I couldn't make out facial features, but seeing his slouched posture and lanky arms made me hold on to the ledge of the ceiling door for a moment longer in hesitation. In that moment moment I heard my aunt's voice calling for me, telling me that they had all found my uncle and that I was the last to find him.

My mind didn't piece the two together instantly but when it did, saying I could feel my heart sink to my stomach wouldn't be an exaggeration. The immense, overwhelming fear that I felt in that moment I have yet to ever feel again Without a moment's hesitation, I pulled myself up out of the hole And instantly ran to my aunt calling for help, screaming about a man underneath the house She looked confused at first but sprung into action when she too heard the laughing from the hole She called my uncles down while she phoned the police and gave them a quick description of the man, but because we were in the middle of nowhere, it took them

about 25 minutes to arrive. When they finally did, it was a flurry of red and blue lights, but what unnerved me the most was that a full SWAT team arrived as well. Dozens of men poured into the home, gunsung, which felt intense for what seemed like a mentally ill home invader. Within moments they came out carrying a deranged looking man in handcuffs. It wasn't until later on did I get the full details of the story. The man that they had arrested was indeed a mentally insane man, however, with a warrant for his arrest for the murder of his ex-wife, as well as the murder and mutilation of her dog.

I also found later that the stench that was coming out of the room was his feces. It appeared he'd been trapped down there for several days, surviving off of only an old Gatorade bottle tossed down there by the last residents. He claimed he got himself stuck down there when he had initially broke into the cellar to elude police capture It has been about three years since this incident and its memory has become less and less intense with each passing day However, some nights I lay awake at night, thanking God that I didn't let go of that cellar's ledge Ledge. My story has a bit of a backstory. When I was 26, I got a divorce from my husband who told me I would never date anyone as good as he was. Well, I took that to heart, so I decided to sign up on a dating website. Without giving the name, it was a Christian one. I thought this website would be safe being that

it was Christian. Later I would find out that three people had been murdered using this website. I didn't realize you could change the location to be close by till later and I started talking to this guy who lived about two hours away from me. I thought this guy looked nice in his pictures, none of which were up close. I should mention that I wasn't the best looking person. I had gained weight from depression and years of abuse from my ex-husband. I talked to him for a little while but he started to get very serious so I asked if we could keep it as friends until we went on a date. He said sure, but went ahead and deleted his profile. Like magic, we were going to be a couple after the first date. I should mention that he asked for my address and I said no,

but I could give him my work address, but he declined. Thank God. I planned to meet up with him when my aunt got married, being that he said that he lived in the area where she was getting married so I arrived the day before the wedding and stayed with my parents who live near where the wedding is as well. We talk on the phone and he says he's working the next day. Remember this because it will come up later. This makes me upset because he knows that we had a date and he knows that this is something my ex-husband was notorious for doing all the time. I remind him of our date

and he says, oh yeah, I'll fix it. And he texts me later and says he got off. The next day is the wedding and so we go. It's beautiful and everything was great. I message him after and ask where we are meeting because I thought we would meet somewhere close to where he lives. Sadly, he wants to meet on the other side of town, which, with traffic, took about 45 minutes to get there. After waiting 15 minutes in said location, which was a private school parking lot on a game night, he pulls up behind me in an old beater pickup truck. Now, I should note that I love old trucks. I grew up in the country, so I love old trucks, just not ones with wrenches for door handles. He comes out in a plaid button

up and jeans and when he smiles his teeth are ye like large and yellow. Remember, there were no close up pictures. Now this next part I know is stupid on my part. I should have followed him in my car but I got in said truck and thus the night of terror begins. He asked me where I'd like to eat. I told him I didn't know because I hadn't lived in this town for about eight years. He suggested IHOP. Now I like this place with groups of friends at 1am when nothing else is open but a date. I say okay because he's in charge of where we go.

We arrive and after we sit, he people watches out loud about people sitting right next to us. I remind you, we met on a Christian website and this goes against my beliefs so I'm already uncomfortable. Then he tells me when the food arrives, who wants to pray, then proceeds with, 1, 2, 3, not me. Completely amazed at this, I just go ahead and pray for our food. After we are done, we continue our journey with a stop at the guitar store that also has other music equipment and things. He proceeds to play guitar until his fingers are bleeding. Wanting me to sing along with songs I'd never heard before, I walk away as he puts the bloody guitar back on the wall and grabs another and plays it. We are there for two hours before he finds me

picking at a piano board out of my mind. At this point I want to go home but he makes a suggestion of a movie. I love movies and I think maybe we go to a new release or something. It's 8pm at this time and we roll up to the dollar theater. I am speechless I think. This is a date right or is someone pranking me? I see a movie I haven't seen before on the title board. He mentions that he has seen it before. I think, okay, this is an obvious chick flick and teen movie, not something I would see this dude going to.

But we move forward and can't believe what he does next. He talks through the entire movie, no worry about anyone around us, quoting every line. At the end he gets up and leaves and says he'll be right back. I apologize to my fellow moviegoers about this guy. He comes back a few minutes later and sits down. I think, well, we can go, the credits are going, but he just hums along to the end credits. He finally says let's go. It turns out he was warming up his truck. I think this date is over being that it's like 10.30pm and I am physically feeling pain from this.

He said he wanted to take me somewhere. I said fine but I need to go home after. He said okay and took me to his work where there was a ton of small aircrafts. Not gonna lie, this was probably the coolest part of the date. Do you remember what I told you about him having awful work and then saying he didn't? He then tells me, See that helicopter? I was gonna take you in that, but you told me not to work. I'm beyond angry at this point and I'm done.

We get in this truck and he says one more place. I really want to get home and I'm tired, angry and in pain from how bad the state is gone. He then drives to a landing strip where there are storage containers for planes and things and parts of trucks. I am not enjoying this because we are still not far from the city and there is so much light pollution you can't see any stars. Now at this point he may see me angry or distant but he starts the truck and pulls away turning the opposite direction as my car. I tell him, my car is that way, where are we going? He answers, I need to get gas. At this point I'm scared because there were a ton of gas stations by where my car is parked. I tell him this and he says fine and turns around and heads to my car.

I said, if you need gas can we stop? He says no and continues to drive. He parks the truck beside my car. I hop out, give him a very awkward side hug and tell him, I'm sure there's a girl out there for you but it's not me. I get in my car and drive away. He tries to call me but I don't answer. He then texts me and tells me that he thought I just wanted to be friends I didn't respond He tries to call me again where I am dating my now husband but I just hang up I put the story as a warning to girls out there who think they're just meeting in public places is okay The first date should be a coffee shop

It's quite public and you have lots of witnesses. For context, at this time I was 15 years old, a girl in 9th grade. My friend in the story, KC, was in my grade and the guy I will be talking about, Tom, was a grade above me. KC was with Tom and me and this Tom had gotten close. I was fine with this and I never thought of it as anything more than a friend. He had started texting me. He and KC broke up a few days later while I was texting him. Stupid. Never had a boyfriend. Me didn't see it as a red flag when literally 10 minutes after they broke up he started flirting

with me. Me and Tom started talking a few days later. Pretty terrible of me I know. Everything went down between Tom and Casey and I took Casey's side and stopped talking to him. A few months later I get a text from him and we become friends again. He texted me all the time and was really clingy but I can't lie I enjoyed the attention. Around March of that school year we started talking again and eventually got together. We dated for about 5 months then I ended when I found out that he had cheated on me. Well he kept coming back and we were basically on and off again for the next 3 months. He had mentally abused me and kept me trapped so that lasted until January of the next school year. I finally cut everything off and he kept popping up.

He joined everything I was in. He joined drama. If we were doing a new song in band, he would get on the instrument beside me. We were in percussion. It got so bad that I had to get the senior guys in percussion to keep him away. It got to the point where I got anxious around him and he was everywhere. This is where I'm going to explain why I'm so anxious around him. Every time he got a sliver of alone time with me, he would touch me. I said no every time and he stopped a few minutes then he would try

again. I would then just let him. I somehow forgot to mention that he also had a weird foot fetish and that also freaked me out. And back to the story. My drama teacher knew what was going on and she told the vice principal and the principal talked to me. I'm the type of person that hates confrontation and I didn't tell them about him touching me but he did back off. Tom didn't really stay away however. He did stop touching me. He believed that the drama teacher hated him and told lies since he doesn't believe that he's a creep and he thinks he doesn't do anything wrong and he let him believe that. It was the last day of school and I was sitting in a small room that

only the yearbook staff could be in and he opens the door, pops his head in and asks me a question about a teacher and I answer him in a cold tone. He then says, can I have a hug? And holds out his arms. I glare at him and say no in the rudest way possible. School is out and his number is blocked however I had to give announcements to the drama kids and I had to unblock him and I forgot to block him back. A week later I get a text from him and he was basically asking how I was. Thankfully I just never answered. I live in a small village in the middle of Oklahoma and you can walk from one end to the other in less than two hours. One day back in 2019, beginning of my senior year of high school, I decided to walk home from school instead of getting a ride from a friend or my girlfriend.

Yes, I know, sad, I don't have the money for a car. Bills are killing my money. Anyway, it's only a two mile walk from my school to my home on the other side of the village. I was walking on the main two-way road that mostly goes uphill. It was a hot day, so I was sweating. I was cursing at myself for not getting a ride from a friend and being so stupid to walk two miles in 100 degrees. That's when a car pulled over and waved me over. The car looked familiar. I'd seen it around the school a few times. I thought it was one of my friends so I rushed over and the passenger side door swung open. I looked in and it was a middle

aged balding man. He asked me, hey kid, need a ride? I kindly declined saying, Uh, no thanks, I can walk. And I waved him off. He didn't seem so thrilled with that response. With a slightly more agitated tone, he asked me again, Hey kid, do you need a ride? It's hot outside. Again I tell him, Uh, no thanks dude, I already said that. That's when

he opened his door and screamed at me, get in the car right now. I felt a fear I'd never felt before. I slammed the passenger door shut, threw a rock at him to get him to stay in his car and started to sprint towards traffic. He was yelling and cursing at me while I tried to wave down another car. No cars stopped but once I put at least 25 yards between me and him, he slammed his door and sped off. I ran and ran for 30 minutes, out of breath to a restaurant on the side of the road and burst in. The lady behind the counter looked so concerned and called the police. I made a report and the cops drove me home. Now you'd think that'd be the last I'd see of the guy, right? No. I saw him at least a dozen more times around the town. He recognized me and would

always give me a dead stare and a scowl. He got arrested a few weeks after the last time I saw him. I was there when it happened, but his eyes... His eyes were so menacing, like he wanted to kill everyone he saw. It turned out that he was a convicted felon and wanted for murder and kidnapping. I'm thankful I never got in that car, and I'm thankful he never chased me. I'm thankful I never got in that car and I'm thankful he never chased me. I'm thankful he gave up. It was May of last year and I had just signed the lease on a new house. It turned out the refrigerator didn't come with the deal.

I'd spent most of my money on the house so I started looking for a cheap one at garage sales. I couldn't find any that way. Then I remembered Craigslist. After just 10 minutes one popped up not far from me. I called the number and a nice lady answered. She said the refrigerator was still for sale but she couldn't guarantee it would still be there when I arrived. So against my better judgment I asked for her paypal and sent her the $75. She sent me an email confirming she got the money and we set a date for me to pick it up. That Saturday I texted her letting her know I was on my way. The house was a nice ranch style place, probably built in the 80s. I knocked and this hot brown haired girl in very short cut offs answered. After I picked my job from the ground I asked her for Sonny.

She said that was her and showed me inside. I had zero reason to be nervous. Like the outside the house was nicely finished and smelled clean. We made small talk for a few minutes until this big dude, at least 6'5", covered in tattoos, appeared from the kitchen. She introduced me to him as John, her boyfriend, and she said he would take me to the refrigerator. She disappeared to the back of the house and I never saw her again. John led me through the kitchen to the garage. He opened the door and pointed to the back of the house and I never saw her again. John led me through the kitchen to the garage. He opened the door and pointed to the refrigerator.

It was all the way across from me, almost sitting against the overhead door. I could barely see it because the garage itself was so dark. I asked him if there was a light but he said it had broken and they hadn't had the chance to fix it. No big deal. He had to open the overhead door so I could move it out anyway. I asked him to raise it, but he said it was also broken. He apologized. I was just going to have to bring it through the house.

This annoyed me, but I had no choice at that point. There was a little light shining in from the house. It was going to have to do. I took two steps, maybe three, into the garage before I realized that there was plastic on the floor. I looked down and saw that it covered the entire floor. This is when I began getting nervous. I couldn't think of any reason why I would be there except I stopped in my tracks. John's shadow began drawing closer. Then, off in the corner to my left, I heard a shuffling noise. Everything inside of me said to leave. Suddenly I turned

around and walked quickly back to open the door. I was surprised to see how close John was actually to me, but I kept going. I weaved around him and said, I forgot my dolly in the truck. I'll be right back. There was a dolly leaning against the wall not far away. He pointed to it and began to say something, but I didn't stop. When I was sure he wasn't behind me anymore, I ran the rest of the way, out the door, all the way to my truck. I hopped in it and tore out of there. I don't know what happened after that. I got a few texts from Don, but I erased them without reading them. When I got home, I logged onto Craigslist to report them.

I was shocked to see that the listing was already gone. I looked around for another 30 minutes to make sure. They must have erased it right away. I also called the police and made a report. They seemed a little dubious of my claim but promised to check it out. I never heard from them again and I don't much care. I'm alive and that's good enough for me. As for the $75, there was no way I was going to ask for it back. It wasn't worth getting involved with those freaks again. I haven't gone on the site since then. The whole system strikes me as risky these days. Anyway, I got lucky a week later. There was a garage sale in my neighborhood that had a used

refrigerator. It was $100 but a lot nicer than the one and it serves its purpose just fine. As I wrap this up, I don't want to give people the wrong idea. I don't think Craigslist is dangerous for you to use. Thousands of folks get stuff off of there every day with no trouble, but after what happened to me, I just don't think it's worth the risk. However, if you do find something on the site, you just have to be careful. Bring a friend when you go to get it. If you can, meet in a public place during the day. Most importantly though, use your head. If the situation seems sketchy, bail.

It may mean the difference between life and death. I want to preface this by saying, despite changing names and the use of a throwaway, everything else I write here is 100% true. Although I myself am not the subject of the story, I'm choosing to stay anonymous because of the stigma related to the content found within. A stigma I happen to agree with, by the way. Now, with that out of the way, here are the facts. I have a friend I've known since grade school. Because of difficulties he has with advanced math, he wasn't allowed to graduate. A foolish state law in my opinion.

Therefore, he left school our senior year. Lacking a high school diploma frustrated his ability to acquire any good work. Despite his clearly high level of intelligence and experience with computers, he had to settle with a job at the local transfer station or dump for the less savvy. It's the place the trash trucks drop off their loads and trailers take the garbage to the landfill from there. I know more about trash than I care to know, clearly. No one has to tell you about the large amount of waste taking place in our culture.

Because of this waste, my friend Robert, we'll call him, saw an opportunity to make extra money. He noticed a lot of old computers were being thrown away. Since he was well versed in the field, he got an idea. He began bringing discarded laptops and towers home to repair. Not all, in fact most of them were junk, but a few proved to be unexpected gems. At first he only sold on eBay, but because of the rising cost of shipping, he moved most over to Craigslist. In no time, he was well known in the area as a top-notch computer builder.

I'd wager 50% of the laptops in the county came from him. As a matter of fact, I'm writing this on a computer he actually gave me. And because of this reputation, he was making more than enough to quit the job at the dump. They would have cut him off from his supply or at least added an extra cost he didn't need. And so he stayed on. My reason for writing brings us to April this year. Robert had come across a pair of HP laptops, one of them almost new. He chose to keep the older model for daily use. He just recently sold his after being offered a price too good to refuse. It was a super duper decked out laptop someone had used for video production.

As usual, it was found at the transfer station, like all the others. The newer of the pair was only two years old and didn't appear to have any problems. This would make selling it that much easier. His usual process was to go through a computer and remove anything not on it at the time of sale. He was performing a primary search of the new HP and came across a password-protected file. This piqued his curiosity. Yes, sometimes computers had a password required to log on, but he'd never seen a single file protected, not on any he'd found. Many of us may use a password on our banking or tax files, this was what Robert assumed he'd discovered. It had to come off regardless, so he did his thing and cracked it. What he found sickened him. Since I'm aware some reading this may be

survivors of this type of assault, I'll try to be as brief as possible. 5 gigabytes of CP is what it was. Not all of it was intimate in nature either. He said there looked to be some beatings, even some snuff. This is where I come into the story. Robert called me, terrified and crying. He described what he found and promised he only watched enough to verify what it was. I believed him, naturally. He's the last guy I'd think to look at that garbage. But anyway, he continued sobbing, promising he didn't download it. I did the best I could to calm him, but he was obviously terrified. When he eventually chilled a little, we talked about his options.

We agreed the police needed to see it. The problem was how to give it to them. Just having that stuff is illegal, whether it's yours or not, so I came up with the safest idea I could. Robert considered it a moment and agreed. After first wiping his prints from the laptop, he wrapped it in Christmas paper and taped a note explaining the situation at the top, minus his name of course. He drove out to our mall and walked into the police station located inside. To avoid being identified, he wore a plain black hoodie and mask. We hoped he'd fit in because of the whole quarantine situation, and when no one was looking, he set the computer on the counter and walked away. Unfortunately, a cop caught him on his way out. Once they saw the note and the contents of

the lap stops, his fears came true. Countless hours of denials did no good, and news of his arrest spread quickly around town. A bail hearing was held, but the amount of $50,000 might as well have been a million. This means he's stuck in jail for the foreseeable future. In a larger town I imagine his life would be in danger but the few times we spoken he's claimed to have had no problems. I can only hope it stays that way until we can clear his name and get him out. The guilt I carry for suggesting this stupid plan is part of why I'm telling this story. I'm also livid because of the lies we are raised to believe. Honesty is the best policy.

This may be the biggest lie I ever sold to man. Tell me why a decent, hardworking man is in jail for doing the right thing. He discovers proof of a horrible crime taking place and tries to leave it with the authorities. What does he get for this? You may say, but he tried to do it in a deceitful way. You are correct, but what course of action did he have? Just having that evil in your possession is a crime no matter what. What happens when he tells the truth?

No one believes him, that's what. Why would anyone do what he did if they were guilty? Now my purpose may be becoming clear. It is a lesson. A horrible example of why honesty is not always the best policy. I want the next person who finds himself in the same spot to know he benefits in no way by doing the right thing. The damage was already done to the victims when it was made. Nothing you can do can

alter that. Just delete it and go on with your life. You're not a bad person, only thinking pragmatically. If only Robert had known that then, he would be free today. To be continued... Mine is at that age where she's learning to ride a bike. She's off of training wheels and because of the rate at which she's growing, she was ready for a better bicycle. The two of us sat down and browsed the internet for ideas. As you can imagine, she liked the more expensive models. I didn't have the heart to tell her that we didn't have the money for a new one, so I waited till I was alone and searched for used ones. That's how I came across Craigslist.

There was a few available in the area, but they were incredibly beat up. If I was going to pass it off as new, I needed a bike in good shape. I continued to look and eventually found a like new bike for a good price. Almost too good. My suspicions were raised, but I figured I'd check it out anyway. If it was in worse shape than the photos let on, I'd walk away. My wife and I went to the seller's house to see it. To my surprise, it was just as nice, almost brand new. I smelled a rat and questioned the seller. He claimed he had purchased it for his daughter but she only rode it a handful of times. The bike showed very little use so I took

him at his word. I paid the man and we took it home. My daughter's birthday was coming up and we decided to give it to her then. I hid it away in our shed until the time came. The morning of her party I let her outside. I told her to cover her eyes and when I gave the okay I unveiled the bike. She was naturally ecstatic. I got a big hug and thank you. She hopped on and rode it until her party that afternoon. I figured my job had been done and the bike would last her a few years at least. The next few weeks were life as normal. My daughter rode with her friends after school and weekends. Other than adjusting the seat, I had little work to do on it. I should have expected something would go wrong. It was a Sunday afternoon.

My daughter, who we'll call Alex, was riding in the street in front of the house with her cousin. All of a sudden I heard some screaming and crying outside. I ran out to see what was wrong and Alex was sitting in the street, holding her leg. As I got closer, I saw blood pouring out of it. I'll admit, I got a bit nervous. I reached her and asked her what happened. Now that I was there, I could see just how bad the injury was. Halfway down on the inside of her left leg, the skin was split to the bone. I could see the muscle in fact. Alex was bawling her head off and I tried to calm her down. Once again, I asked her what

happened. Lucky for me, her cousin wasn't phased. He pointed behind me and said, a pedal broke off and cut her. I turned around and there was a pedal on the ground. I picked it up and noticed the part connecting the pedal to the crank arm is sheared off, leaving behind sharp little points. The other half was still in the crank and had left the same sharp pieces. I started getting angry when I realized the post steel looked like some cheap pot metal instead. I'm not sure if I'm describing this well, but imagine a stick broken in half. The two pieces you have left have sharp points located at the break. Essentially, you are left with two sharp sticks.

Well, I sent the cousin inside to tell my wife about what happened while I whisked Alex off to the ER. I wasn't sure how to apply first aid, so I left it alone. Once we reached the hospital, I let them treat the wound. Alex eventually got some painkillers and she calmed down. She got the leg cleaned up and sewn up and we made arrangements with a cosmetic surgeon to have it prettied up. This entire time I'm quietly seething over the pedal's shoddy quality. We made it home that night and I scoured the internet for information about the bike. It turned out that this is a common problem with this particular bike.

So common in fact they had a recall to replace the pedals. Learning this did my burning fury no good. The recall had been made over two years prior to me buying the bike. As I calmed down though I realized I was guilty for not checking up on it more thoroughly. I'll own that. That may have contributed to my anger. I've already apologized to Alex and my wife for failing as a father. While I was in the process of my apology tour, a nugget found its way into my head. I wonder if the seller was aware of this problem and withheld it from me. It ate away at me until I was driven to call and ask.

I played my cards close to my vest early on. My question was simply stated and I left out Alex's injury. He tried to say it had slipped his mind. Then he went on to say all I needed to do was contact the company to get a free pair of pedals. Shouldn't be much trouble. I imagine it's a simple process. This is when I lost my cool and pounced. Oh yeah?

Then why didn't you do it before selling it? My daughter has a giant gash in her leg because you were too lazy to send it off for free pedals. Either that or you sold it knowing full well what could have happened. Which is it? I blindsided him. He just mumbled, never able to come up with an appropriate response. I was so mad by this time I was positive he'd sold the bike knowing of the dangers associated and the existence of the recall. He'd done as much as admitted to it, and that's the moment I decided I was going to sue him. Well, I'll see you in court, a-hole. Except I called him the whole word, obviously.

I hung up before he could respond. It was the best I'd felt in weeks. Although I should have consulted with our lawyer before saying it, after we had, he was sure we had a case. I initially wanted to go for the big bucks. The guy was a doctor, after all. However, after I cooled off, all I really wanted was Alex's medical bills paid in an apology. Our lawyer and his would exchange some phone calls back and forth until they agreed to settle. Alex got her bills taken care of and he promised to meet face to face for an apology. Later that week he met us at a lunch and apologized to me. He surprised me and even apologized to Alex. She accepted it gracefully and I thanked him for showing up. I'd become so

wrapped up in my own little search for revenge I'd forgotten one important thing. My wonderful daughter no longer had a bicycle. There was no way I was going to let her ride that death trap again so I took a hunk of our tax return and bought her a brand new one. It's what I should have done in the first place. I spent a whole week of nights after work researching the pros and cons of several bikes until I chose the best one. It was more than I wanted to spend, but after all, if we don't think of our children's safety ahead of money, we don't deserve their love, now do we? To be continued... I spend my weekends searching through thrift shops and online sellers for interesting and hard to find cassettes. Sometimes I'll purchase boxes of tapes.

These often include home recordings of forgotten television shows and family memories deemed no longer important. There was a time I loved nothing more than to cuddle up and watch them with my girlfriend. Although most turn out to be boring, I occasionally stumble across something very special. A couple of years ago I was browsing through Craigslist and came across a box of cassettes. It was taking up space and they wanted it gone. Frida the first person to show up. So I pounced on the deal. An hour later I was parked in front of my TV with a big box of tapes.

The haul totaled 44. Many were blank or home recordings lacking labels. Oh well, I always love a mystery. I had a few hours before work and watched a tape or two on Fast Forward. The first had an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica and the other was blank. Once I was done, I pushed the box into the closet and left for work. It would stay there for another nine months, untouched and forgotten. In the meantime I bought countless more tapes and my collection began to take over my spare bedroom. I built a massive shelf to store it all and inventoried each tape as I shelved them.

This is how I remembered the box in my closet. When I realized I hadn't finished watching each tape I set aside an evening with my girlfriend to do so. I remember that night like it was yesterday. My girlfriend, Brittany, arrived just after 7pm. We made dinner together and had Butterfinger ice cream for dessert. At about 9, we curled up together and started the first tape. The next few hours, we saw a recording of NBC Primetime from 1987, three movies from HBO, and A Wedding from 1991. Brittany especially loved that one. The fourth tape was also A Wedding. I watched as much as I could before opting on a pee break and having a smoke. When I stepped away, she was fully engrossed in the ceremony.

After I hit the head, I slipped down on the porch for a cigarette. That only took five minutes max. Before I returned to the bedroom I grabbed a refill of water. I was in the process of doing this when I heard Brittany scream my name. I ran into the room as fast as possible. She had her hands over her mouth and her eyes were the size of saucers. Her gaze seemed to be fixed on the TV. What? What? I said. I leaned over the TV but saw nothing but a blue screen. I asked her again.

She remained speechless but pressed rewind on the VCR. A few seconds later she pressed play and patted on the spot next to her. I assumed this meant sit down, so I did. The tape began as the happy couple prepared to cut the cake. I got annoyed and asked, What's going on with you? Just wait a second, it's coming. The words were so sudden I jumped.

So I kept watching, waiting for some mystery thing to occur. The couple were feeding one another cake and the recording cut out. The static blared at us for a moment before a new recording began. Now, a man was staring at us. He looked to be starting a video camera. When he moved away from the camera, you could see a nude woman laying on a bed. The guy hopped on the bed and they began doing it. Alright baby, I said in a joking way. Brittany snapped and told me to shut up.

By this point, I was completely dumbfounded. I almost felt embarrassed watching it. I'd never thought of myself as the sort of voyeuristic type. The couple continued coupling and the woman whispered, choke me. He did and it began to peak. I'm thinking kinky to myself, not my thing but to each his own. The man continues to choke the woman. She began gasping for air but he didn't stop. Even when she grabbed his arms he kept going. He completed the act and let go of her throat. The couple laid quietly together for a few moments and said nothing. Suddenly, the man turns toward the woman. He stares for a few seconds, then raises his eyebrows and starts shaking her. The dude's yelling her name and occasionally slapping her cheeks, but she's not moving.

This is when I started to catch on. The man then stands up, now holding his partner by the shoulders and shaking her. Still no movement. This is when he started to catch on. He eventually stops and just stares into her empty eyes. No way, man. I'm beginning to freak out now. No way, dude. Brittany is silent. The man sat down on the edge of the bed, his head buried in his hands. A low sobbing can be heard. This goes on

for a few moments before he remembers the camera. In one long motion, he reaches out and slams his hand down on it. The blaring of the static returned, and I sat struck dumb. The hissing continued until Brittany finally pressed stop. Dude. It was the only word I could get out. I'd never seen anything like that before. Brittany turned toward me and asked what we should do. I honestly had no idea.

I still couldn't believe it was real. Maybe it wasn't. Let me have a smoke and I'll consider our options. I retreated outside to think. When I return, I propose the idea that it may have been fake. I don't want to go to the cops until I'm sure it's real. No way do I want to become the butt of some troll's joke. Okay. If she had any misgivings, she kept them to herself. She may have still been in shock. I know I was. Our evening was clearly over. I suggested she stay the night, but she declined. No big deal. I'd have a hard time getting any sleep until I knew the truth. My first goal was to contact the tape's previous owner. I knew for sure the man in the tape wasn't the dude I got the box from.

There was a good chance he may know his identity though. My emails went unanswered. I tried to contact him by phone but his number no longer worked. I finally went by his place and discovered that he had completely moved. Without a way to contact him my options had run out. Off to the police it would be. The cops said that they would watch the video and contact me if they had any additional questions. It was out of my hands now.

In the weeks during my search I'd seen very little of Brittany. She'd always had some excuse. I figured it was only a matter of time before she ended things completely. Another week would pass before she'd call. I can't do this anymore. I haven't slept for weeks. All I can see is that dead woman. There was no use or sense in arguing with her. I wished her a good life and hung up. It would have been heartless to expect her to just let something like this go. God knows I'd had my fair share of bad dreams over the past month. Things like that tend to affect women a lot harder than us. If her feelings change in the future, I'm not hard to find. Hundreds of cassettes have passed through my hands since then. With room now becoming scarce,

I've taken to selling blank tapes and extra copies of films. With Brittany no longer in the picture, I admit curling up in bed and watching the tapes has lost a bit of its luster. Most of my viewing takes place in the living room now. To this day, every time I put an unlabeled tape in the player, I get a little tinge of fear. Will I see someone die? I've had a lot of time to think it over. When you collect something that captures a moment in time, a sliver of someone's life, you never know what terrible secret you may uncover. I think this still scares me so much because it involved my daughter. It's the summer of 2016 and we just purchased a new house.

The washer and dryer included with it were brand new. We already had a set, albeit much older. We saw a chance to make a little money and listed them on Craigslist. I hadn't even been aware of the place before my son suggested it. It was surprising to me how fast the call started. We expected it would take the weekend at least before we had a buyer. Several people wanted to pick it up the following morning. Unfortunately, our family was traveling to a reunion and wouldn't be around to let them in. Every caller was told whoever arrived first Monday morning would be the lucky buyer.

The terms were set and we headed out the following morning. That night we received a panic call from our daughter. She had stayed behind because of illness. Something truly scary and extraordinary had happened just hours before. She said she was laying in bed, watching TV and heard a loud crash. Then voices echoed from the living room. Not sure what to do, she stayed still and listened. When she was certain it wasn't us, she grabbed her phone and hid in the closet.

The voices of two men drew closer and stopped outside her door. They were talking about looking for something. She feared that they were there to kidnap her. The dispatcher kept her calm and they made small talk until the cops arrived. A ruckus could be heard coming from the living room along with some yelling. Then everything went silent. The dispatcher stopped talking for a moment. Seconds passed, then it was all over. The dispatcher spoke up and told her she could come out. She emerged and introduced

herself just as the last thief was being let out. It took a week or two to get the full story. The interrogations uncovered their reason for the break-in. The pair had intended on buying the washer and dryer, at least at first. When I mentioned we'd be out of town, they decided to just break in and take them. Both swore they never knew my daughter was there. I thanked my maker they didn't. No telling what could have happened. After first making sure our girl was okay we returned home that night. I remember shaking like a leaf the whole drive back.

I jumped from the car before my husband could park it. The second I saw her I gave her a big hug and didn't let go for a long time. My husband and I spoke to the police the following morning. They assured us because of their previous convictions the burglars would do prison time. They were still inside the last time I heard and wouldn't be released before 2025. However, with all the cons getting out because of the lockdown, I fear they may be among them. Although our daughter seems to have left it in the past, the long-term effects still aren't clear. If they are released early, I hope any hidden trauma doesn't rear its head and set her recovery back. As for the washer and dryer, a nice young couple picked it up that Monday morning.

We happened to run into them a few months ago and they said both units were still working well. I mentioned to them what happened that weekend and they were shocked but still able to find the funny side. I'm glad things went well and we were both able to laugh about it now. Every day we hear of families that weren't so lucky and I'm thankful to not be among them. All this happened because I saw a YouTube video about a shelf unit stereo. I've been looking for one for some time. The addition of a decent turntable sold me. My first stop was Amazon. Unfortunately, they wanted more than I could afford, so I hopped on

eBay. I came across a few there, but all the seller's feedback ratings were lower than I liked. At first, I thought it was SOL. Then I remembered Craigslist. Within 10 minutes I'd found my stereo. I contacted the seller and we agreed to meet at Walmart at around 8pm. I grabbed the cash and left about 7.30. Our arrangement was to meet close to the building. I drove around the lot for a good 15 minutes before I gave up. I just figured I'd been trolled. However, as I headed toward the exit by the highway, I saw two men waving their arms. It had to be the sellers, so I pulled over and parked. I asked why they had parked so far from the store. One guy claimed that there were no parking spaces when they arrived.

From what I could see, there were plenty. I let it go though. There was no point in angering them. Maybe they were just stupid. There's plenty of folks like that around here. The taller of the two made small talk for a few minutes. I didn't want to be rude so I humored him. The moment he stopped speaking I tried to get the sail in motion. While we were talking I hadn't noticed that the other guy had snuck up behind me. When I pulled the cash from my pocket, I got a hard nudge in my back. This caused me to jerk upright.

When I looked at the tall guy, he had a pistol pointed at me. My instinct was to yell for help, but the two guns suggested against it. It was obviously a robbery. The tall guy didn't have to ask. I handed the cash to him and he kindly said thank you. I hope that was the end of it. They drive away and I'd be left scared and feeling stupid. But I was wrong. The tall guy demanded I give up my phone. That was going to hurt more than the money. It was a brand new iPhone. I reluctantly pulled it from my pocket and took

one last look. The entire time the other guy didn't say a word. Now they had what they wanted. The two men got in the car and drove away, leaving me shaking in fear and feeling like a fool. I'd convinced myself I'd taken the proper measures to prevent stuff from going wrong, but the moment they changed the plan, I went ahead anyway despite any misgivings I had. Now I was minus $100 in cash and a $400 phone. Without a phone, I had to walk the 200 yards to the store to call the cops. The employees tried to be sympathetic but I'm sure they thought I was stupid too. The police arrived soon and took my statement. I respect them for being honest with me. We all knew the guys probably wouldn't be caught and they haven't been.

Almost four years on and I have yet to hear of an arrest. I suppose I should be grateful it didn't cost me more. Had my assailants been of the mind to, I could have paid the ultimate price. Maybe two and a half years back I met a chick at a bar. She had been stood up and I had just knocked off for the day. I didn't go there with any idea to score, I just wanted a couple of pints to help me unwind. I'd been there around 45 minutes when the bartender slipped me a note. It was from a girl sitting at the end of the bar. She asked me to grab a table with her so we could talk.

My curiosity was piqued, so I looked to my right and locked eyes with possibly the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I thought maybe I'd been given the note accidentally. No way a girl that hot was interested in me. To make sure, I pointed at the note and mouth, Was this for me? Then I pointed to myself. To my amazement, she nodded yes.

And that's where our evening began. I grabbed a quiet table in the corner and she joined me. We introduced ourselves before getting to the small talk. Her name was Amber and she was 25. Close up, she was even more beautiful. I asked her why she'd written the note. I was genuinely curious. While I'm not a walking mess, I was nowhere near her level. The possibility I was being tricked came to mind, so I asked if I was being pranked, but she said no. It wouldn't be the first time. My friends seemed to think it was funny any girl would like me.

They put notes on my windshield at least twice, pretending to be from a secret admirer. I never fell for it. I'm far smarter than they think I am. This, however, looked to be a real encounter. If it was, I was going to play it all the way through. The getting to know each other continued another hour until she asked if I wanted to take her home. I jumped on it and we walked a few blocks to my apartment. We had a few more drinks and started messing around.

I don't kiss and tell, so I'll just say we enjoyed one another's presence for the rest of the night. When I awakened the next morning, she's already gone. I wrote it off as an amazing dream and went to bed. When I came out, a pair of beer bottles caught my eye. I walked over to get a closer look. One had lipstick residue on the mouth. I still wasn't completely positive. I walked over to the bed and look. One had lipstick residue on the mouth. I still wasn't completely positive. I walked over to the bed and sniffed the pillow opposite mine.

The wonderful smell threw me back to the previous evening. There was no doubt. It had really happened. I was over the moon for a long time. I hoped to see her again. I went as far as asking some employees if they knew how to find her but none did. As time went by however I wrote it off as a one night stand. I began dating a new girl, a wonderful fun chick to be around but Amber stayed in the forefront of my mind.

This new relationship never really went anywhere and we ended things a few months in. Being newly single I hoped to track Amber down and maybe pick back up where we'd left off. I returned to the bar and asked around again. I got the same answer. I didn't have the money to hire a detective and without a last name, I couldn't do a search on the internet. Providence would arrive in the form of Craigslist. I was browsing the site and came across the missed connections section. It looked to be just as good as any other avenue so I made a short description of our night together and how I'd like to meet again. I posted it and went on with my life. All was quiet until about day 8. A message came from someone claiming to be Amber. I asked

a few questions They knew all the answers and even added things no one else could have known I was overjoyed to be talking with her again and asked if we could meet for drinks She agreed and suggested the place we first met It sounded perfect, almost romantic I started to believe this may actually go somewhere My months long search was over. For the rest of the week my stomach was in knots. I was counting the hours. Saturday eventually

arrived and I made my way to meet her. She was visible from outside and more beautiful than I remembered. I joined her at the table and the night went much as it had our first evening, all but one thing. Throughout the evening, she checked her phone many times. I assumed she was just nervous and tried to ignore it. It was a few hours before she suggested that we go back to her place. I'd been looking forward to this for months. On our way out, I visited the bathroom. As I walked out, I noticed she was fiddling with her phone again.

However, now she was making a call. I didn't care. Besides, maybe she was calling a roommate. She was basically a stranger to me. For all I knew, she had kids. Once again, I really didn't care. She'd hung up by the time I returned anyway and we made our way to her car. I stumbled my way down the street until she pointed at this plain four-door sedan and I shuffled up to the passenger door. She unlocked it and I fell into the seat. We closed our doors but instead of starting the car, she just sat there and smiled at me. Oh, she wants to make out. The idea perked me up. When I leaned over to kiss her, a strange male voice told me to stop. What? I was so drunk I had a difficult time assessing the situation.

I turned my head to the back seat and saw a large, masked man pointing a gun at me. Don't make me shoot you, cowboy. Instantly, I sobered up. I could tell he meant every word. I looked over to Amber. Our eyes met and I knew I'd been tricked. They were cold, lacking any empathy. I was devastated.

I'd lost my desire to live in that moment. Moving much faster than I should have, I yanked my wallet from my pocket and threw it into the back seat. I think my nonchalance caught the man off guard. He said nothing, even as I stepped from the car and slammed the door. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood mute, staring at the pavement. It remained quiet for around 30 seconds until I heard the car start and speed away. It wasn't long before I had a massive adrenaline dump. The seriousness of what had occurred mere moments prior hit me like a truck. I hunched over and actually began vomiting. Massive amounts of booze and nachos poured from my guts. I eventually ran dry and returned to my feet. I wiped my mouth and made my way home. I wanted nothing but to sleep and didn't even bother to undress before falling into bed. Most of the day was gone when I woke up. I chugged a bottle of Gatorade, my hangover cure. The events of the previous night became clearer by the second. I felt so stupid.

All the time I'd wasted looking for her. Then I got angry and my desire for revenge kicked in. A quick shower and a two mile walk later I found myself filing report. In Chicago, stick-ups generally don't get much attention. When the detective handed me some mug shots I got the idea I'd stumbled into something a tad more serious. I was shocked to see the faces of Amber and her accomplice staring back at me. I pointed them out and the detective gave me the lowdown. Only at that moment did I realize just how lucky I'd been.

According to him, I had fallen prey to a scam. Amber's real name was Shannon and she'd been a career con artist. The pair had been targeting single men for the last six months or more. I was thought to be their fifth victim, and the previous three had actually been killed. And I felt a shudder through my body. The detective was unsure why I'd been allowed to live, and that made two of us. Perhaps our history made me too much of a risk. Maybe she'd been pressured into doing it by her partner. I'll probably never know. It was hoped that I had new information to give him but I ended up being no help.

We spoke a little longer before he sent me home. Now I was even more confused. I was happy to be alive. On the other hand, however, I wondered why I'd been spared. I have one particularly funny theory that they didn't consider $23 in a maxed out card worth killing over, but the truth is it's not really a joking matter. Things wouldn't get any clearer when Amber's accomplice was arrested. He'd be brought in on unrelated charges, only to lawyer up the second he was asked any questions. He'll stay mum more than likely, even when presented with the possibility of execution. The detective on my case thinks Amber probably won't be caught for a long time, and even if she is, she'll go the way of silence

too. If and when she is caught, I hope I can get a few minutes alone with her, not because I wish her any harm. I've come to terms with her role in the crime. Instead rather I'd like to ask why I was spared when others weren't. I'd like to think it's because we'd made some type of connection on an emotional level, then again that's probably just my romantic side thinking out loud. In truth, it probably just wasn't my time. My husband and I bought a townhouse back in September of 2017 and we've had super weird things happen since. Most of these experiences have happened on our second story, for background, where the stairs come up my office is immediately to the left. Then there is a long hall to the right with a hallway bathroom, the laundry room just past that, my son's room on the other side,

and the master bedroom at the very end of the hall. The access to the attic is in the master bedroom closet. As our family goes, it's me, my husband, our son, and our two large dogs. When we first moved in, our son was only two or three years old and had just started making full sentences. He would be playing all day long without any issues but whenever it started to get dark outside he started getting nervous and wouldn't want to be in his room. He had come downstairs at one point saying, Mommy, do you hear it? Hear what kiddo?

The baby's crying mommy. My son is an only child so you can imagine my confusion at this. I came upstairs with him and I asked him where he was hearing it from, thinking he may be hearing the neighbors through the walls. He took my hand and pulled me towards the master bedroom, stopping just short of the threshold. He pointed to the darkest corner of the room and said, Over there. The baby is crying over there. My body went numb at this but I tried to brush it off and told him that there was no baby and he's just imagining it. This persisted for about a month before he finally stopped talking about the crying baby.

During this time I had been doing research on her house and there had been no deaths in the house that I could find let alone any kids that lived in the house before us. A few weeks after my son stopped mentioning the baby I started hearing scratching noises right above my bed in the attic. I told my husband and he thought we had a raccoon or some other animal in the attic. He went up a few days later and there was nothing. I'm normally a heavy sleeper but at least twice a week I would wake up to a faint scratching noise right above me. I did my best to ignore it and just got back to sleep. This seemed to work as we hadn't had an issue for a while up until recently. I have always felt somewhat uneasy on the second floor but

I just attributed it to my past paranormal experiences growing up and just being a little paranoid. Now I'm thinking my senses were on point. A few months ago my husband and I were talking about how our son had this weird affinity for the crying baby when he was younger and I had mentioned that one day when I was taking a nap, I woke up abruptly to being sideways on the bed with one leg hanging off towards the closet, almost like I was being dragged towards it. However, I don't remember being pulled at all and I do flop around a lot in my sleep so I brushed it off. After I told my husband about this, he frowned a bit and said he had a weird experience too recently. Apparently he woke up one morning at around 2.30, 3am and saw a figure standing by his side of the bed.

He said it was all black and he couldn't really make out a face or any distinct features. He went to kick the figure thinking someone may have broken into the house and his foot went right through the figure. This freaked him out a little and he is a firm believer that if you don't acknowledge paranormal things they can't do anything. So of course he rolls over and goes back to sleep and doesn't even think to mention it to me until I told him about my experience. The whole time we've been here the dogs will randomly get spooked or stare at something that I don't see Every once in a while our wolf hybrid who is typically scared of his own shadow Will get very upset and his hair will stand on end and he will emit a low but vicious growl Our other dog is a Malinu black lab mix but she is getting old, 10 years old now

And doesn't really do much other than sleep on her bed and try to get all the pets and treats from us. And this brings us to the present. Yesterday there was a decent storm that came through our area. It was semi-dark out and thundered every once in a while. I am working from home during the virus pandemic and my mom had come to pick up my son at around 11 30 a.m so I can work in peace without my son continuously bothering me. A few hours later I'm listening to a podcast while working and I hear a faint mumble that sounded almost like mommy. The chilling thing is is that it sounded exactly like my son. I turned around to tell him that he needed to go

back to his room and not to bother me while I was working, but as I was turning around I remembered that he wasn't even home. I was here by myself with the dogs. There was no one behind me and no one down the hall. At this point, I try to brush it off thinking my mind is playing tricks on me when my wolf hybrid starts losing it. All his hair goes up, he gets between me and the door and starts doing this low growl.

This freaked me out a little bit but I told him to stop which he listened and laid back down but without taking his eyes off the hallway. About an hour later I was in the zone with work and was talking with a co-worker on our team chat. They sent me something funny enough to make me audibly laugh. I then heard a tiny giggle that sounded exactly like my son coming from his room down the hallway who still isn't home at this point. I nearly fall out of my chair at this point with how scared I was. I got up and checked all the rooms upstairs but I was home alone like I thought. I had to get back to work as we were starting to get busy but I was on edge and straining to hear if anything else was happening behind me. About 10 minutes later I hear the crash of something relatively small but

still loud downstairs. My dog starts down the steps while I follow behind them. My playstation controller which was originally on the charging stand behind the TV, was in the middle of the living room floor. This made my blood run cold as we had not had anything physically moved yet and I had a full-blown panic attack. I called my husband who was already on his way home and said he would be there soon. When he got home, everything seemed to stop. This all happened from about 2 to 4.30pm in the middle of a little thunderstorm. I have looked into it and from what I gather, when something can mimic voices like that, it's typically evil or demonic. Should I be worried? What should I do in this situation? I don't want to scare my son and we can't move, but I am extremely paranoid and scared to be home alone now.

Any help is appreciated at this point. To be continued... for her fair share of ghost stories about the old morgue in northwest England, which has been torn down with the rest of the hospital and has a housing estate on it. Her most freaky one has to be when they dropped an expired patient at the morgue. This happened back in the 90s when the hospital was still used. They had been in the morgue handing over an expired patient. This next bit of info is important to the story. The ambulance bay was a concrete garage with one tiny dim light inside and was directly opposite the morgue slash mortuary. The ambulance needed a key to lock all the doors. Mum and her colleagues walked out of the morgue, chatting away like you normally do when her colleagues stopped dead and stared into the ambulance bay.

There, in the far corner, behind the dim light was a dark figure standing. Now another bit of info is that this was at night. They brushed it off as just an object at the back of the bay after it didn't move and the light made it difficult to see. They made their way to the ambulance thinking nothing of it and got in, using the key to unlock it. Mum put the key in the ignition, but didn't turn the engine on, as they had to fill the rest of the paperwork out. While they were filing paperwork out, the ambulance doors suddenly locked. All of them.

From the outside. They froze, looked at each other, then looked up in front of them. As they looked up, both their eyes locked onto the door of the morgue which they had watched swing open, and another figure walked silently out of and began to walk straight for the ambulance. In my mom's words, they bricked it. Started to freak out as that thing got closer. They couldn't get out of the ambulance due to it being locked from the outside. Their only choice was to drive off. As they did, the figure vanished in thin air and the morgue door was still wide open.

Oh, but couldn't they just go back to their station? Well, that hospital was their ambulance station. They refused to go back until it was bright outside. Mom recalls them coming back in the morning and her colleagues describing her being sheet white, and they were the same after Mom told them the story. They all refused to park there after that, or even avoid going to that morgue if possible. Whoever lives on that site now, I feel so, so sorry for you. She has many more ghost stories. Some of them are even quite amusing. They genuinely are as it's mixed with my mom's dark sarcasm. I'll definitely share them if you guys are down for that. Generally ghost stuff doesn't bother her, but this particular incident really did.

I went on a little hiking trip with my dad to Shasta, California, a small town in Northern California near the Oregon border. Shasta is home to a potentially active volcano named, of course, Mount Shasta. There are many trails on Mount Shasta, so my father and I were excited to do some hiking. We drove up the side of the mountain to the parking lot in which one of the trails begins. I believe it was called the Old Ski Bowl Trail. The landscape was a very barren incline, filled with rocks, boulders, dirt, and very few trees. About an hour into the trail, we came across a very odd assembly of these large boulders.

They were arranged in a circle. We thought it was strange, but we continued on. If you look up pictures of the trail, you'll see much smaller rocks arranged in patterns and circles. My father and I only encountered three people. At least, that's what they appeared to be at first. The first two were a father and son. We met them on a steep incline that went along the wall of a cliff that would then switch back as it reached the top of the cliff. We stopped and said hello, talked about the trail and then went our separate ways. And here's where it gets weird. Dad and I kept walking up the incline for just about two minutes. I turned around and saw the father and son so far

down the trail. It should have taken them at least 20 minutes to get down to where they were, but somehow they were in only about 2 minutes. To this day I have absolutely no idea how that could have happened. There was no one else on the trail at this point and I could see the color of their clothes from that distance so I knew it was them. I pointed it out to my dad. We thought it was weird, but we didn't dwell on it and just kept going. And here's where it gets so much weirder. As we reached the top of the cliff, there was another strange rock arrangement that was off to the side of the trail.

This time, there were far more rocks than before and they were now arranged in rows, almost like gravestones. We continued on the trail and reached another sort of incline with a switchback to reach the top of another cliff. We reached a point where we would need climbing gear to continue so we decided to head back. When we turned around, I saw a man standing among the rocks, staring at us. He was wearing a button-up shirt, cargo shorts, and a wide brimmed straw hat. He was at a distance where I should have been able to make out his facial features, but it was almost as if he had none, like his face was just flesh and skin. I pointed him out to my dad, and then the man quickly ducked down behind a boulder and was peering out at us over the top of the boulder.

It seemed almost playful, like a child trying to hide. For a few minutes, I was out of it and I had no recollection of what was going on. According to my dad, I just started walking towards the man in the hat. My dad was calling to me. Joshua! Josh Josh what are you doing? Where are you going? And then I came to. I was standing right at the edge of a cliff and it was a huge drop, enough to kill me or at least seriously injure me. My dad grabbed me and pulled me back to the trail. He told me to stay put and my dad went down to the boulders to search for the man, but he wasn't there.

There was nowhere for him to go except up or down the trail. It didn't make any sense. He just disappeared. I have no idea what was going on on that trail and I have no explanation for it. I've told this many times to family and friends and no one has any explanation. I've done research and found similar stories about encounters with a man with no facial features wearing a hat. I've also read that the Native American tribes from the area viewed Mount Shasta as a holy site. They believed it could act as a portal to other dimensions and that it is guarded by

spirits who would potentially harm anyone who tried to go up the volcano. If anybody has any similar experiences or insight at all, I'd love to hear. Please share anything that you have to offer. To be continued... and I'm alone somewhere or at night because after all what happened I don't know what could come next. I will tell you guys one to two early stories and if you'll be interested I'll tell everything. Some may sound very unbelievable but trust me everything is true. 1999. The first encounter. My mother told me this one and I was just a newborn. My mother was making dinner in the kitchen and I was sleeping in my room upstairs. She had the baby phone on and she can hear me when I wake up. She heard crying through the baby phone so she went upstairs to check on me. I was still sleeping and she got

very confused. She went back to the kitchen and heard the crying again. Checked on me again but I was still sleeping. She turned off the baby monitor because she thought maybe it's broken. She went to the kitchen and nothing happened for like an hour. Then she heard the crying again through the phone and she started to freak out. She ran upstairs and I was still sleeping and the baby monitor was still turned off. She took me downstairs because she was really scared at this point. She called my father and told him the story and told him to come home. As she was waiting for him with me in her arms, she heard the crying again through the baby monitor but this time it was different. It started out as a baby cry but slowly went to a deep,

louder voice and by the end it was just a loud, deep shouting. My mom almost passed out, but she stayed strong to protect me. She ran out of the house and waited for my father who arrived a few minutes later. After this, nothing happened for like three years, but this was just the beginning. 2003, I was four years old. I remember some parts of this, but mostly my mom told me what happened. I was playing with my mom in the living room at night because my father always came home late from work, but we always waited for him. We had a great time as always, but then it happened again. I saw a tall woman in a black dress. I wasn't scared at all, actually. I was very calm, and I asked my mother, Who's the tall lady, mommy? What lady are you talking about, son?

The one standing in the corner. She started to freak out a little bit, but didn't take it too seriously, as I was only four and very creative. There's no one else here, I promise you. But she's standing right behind you, Mom. Then she really started to freak out, but still kept it together so I wouldn't see that she was scared. She stepped back to show me that no one was there. See? There's no one here, just the two of us. But I can see her, Mom.

She's right behind you. Now she's looking very angry at you. My mom didn't know what to say at this point. My father arrived home before she could say anything. She said right before my father opened the door, she felt a very cold breath

on her neck. I've recently posted a story on this thread regarding a dead boy who contacted me in my dream asking for help. I'm posting this because it affected me even more and I would appreciate any suggestions or advice. My uncle died 10 years ago. Him and my auntie were on holiday in Egypt cruising on a ship that day going snorkeling and he had all of a sudden got up and left my auntie without a word while they were preparing to snorkel, went to the edge, and jumped in. They were incredibly close and my auntie thought it was very odd of him to do that but ten minutes later they found out that he was dead. The autopsy revealed that he had had a heart attack but also drowned. It's been ten years and my auntie is still not fully over it.

She was on antidepressants for many years. She cried so much that her skin under her eyes were raw. Three years ago I had this dream. I was standing in this weird place. There was a corridor in front of me, sort of if one of the walls of the corridor was missing so I could see what was happening. There was a swaying double door on one end and hundreds of people passing through the corridor and through the door. When the door swayed open there was an incredible light in there.

I knew that those people were souls who had passed away. Now, every time they had gone through the door they were thrown back to the beginning of the corridor over and over again. It felt like an old video cassette being stuck repeating the same snip. Walking among these souls was my uncle, being constantly thrown back, walking again and again. This carried on maybe thirty times while he spotted me standing by. I could see that he was in a complete and utter shock seeing me there and had the saddest look on his face I'd ever seen.

It had pierced my heart. After a while he strayed away and came up to me, grabbed my shoulders by both hands, tears running down his face saying, You have to help me. I don't belong here. I'm not supposed to be here. I asked, what is this place? He then replied, Please, tell auntie that I love her so much, that I miss her, please. I then pointed at the door and asked what's behind the door. At this point he became sort of angry, stepped away a bit, pointed a finger at me and shouted,

You were not supposed to know that At that point, this entity flew in between me and him and with the biggest force threw my whole body away I could not see its actual form but it looked like a grey shadow In my mind I knew it was a demon or somewhat of a demonic form and the anger that was radiating from it was the worst I'd ever experienced It was so angry and shouted at me. How did you get in here? How were you allowed to witness this? This is not for you to see. Who let you in here? The voice of it was very deep and not human.

He then told me telepathically that I have to pay for witnessing what I had witnessed and he threw me into this marsh. I knew that I had a choice. I was given a choice. Either I drown and stay where I was, among the other souls, or fight. I could feel the mud raising to my chest, then to my neck and mouth. I had never in my entire life fought this much for my life. It took absolutely everything in me to try to get out of there and when I pulled everything I had in me I saw a little round window that appeared on this wall. I pulled myself toward the window and squeezed through and that very moment I woke up. I got an instant migraine. The biggest migraine I had ever had in my life. The pain was excruciating and running all the way up and down the back of my head.

It felt like someone had beat me up with a baseball bat. I only then found out that this place is called Purgatory in mythology and apparently guarded by demons. I lit a candle for my uncle. Send him a light but I still have this on my mind as I feel he is stuck there for some reason. I have also never passed the message to my auntie. I don't have the heart to do it considering how much she had been through. To reopen the wound in her I just can't. I would really appreciate any suggestions and opinions. Update. I have now contacted my aunt and this is what I said. I feel compelled to pass this message on to you as I've been holding this for quite some time now because

I didn't want to poke into your wound. I had a dream about Uncle Yosef and I know it wasn't just a regular dream and he told me to tell you that he loves you very much and wants you to be happy. I do get contacted by the ones that pass from time to time as they sense that I am some sort of a channel and I know deeply that if I am being told a passive message that I am compelled to do so no matter what. I energetically feel that he needs you to let him go now. Not to forget him, but don't dwell on this burden anymore. He needs that. My friend Emily called me one night

during our sophomore year of high school. She was audibly shaken and told me that a name had popped up on her wall. She knew I was into these types of things so I told her to send me a picture. I wish I still had the picture today because you really had to see this name actually bubbling up under the paint on the wall. The same way that you get air bubbles while applying stickers. The name Mike was clearly on her bedroom wall. She assured me that she had never seen it before and that she had slept in the same room her entire life, so I could only assume that she was telling the truth. I had seen plenty of ghost hunting TV shows so my first thought was

to do an EVP session. Basically recording yourself talking to the spirit and hope that you catch it talking back. So I told her to do one and to call me after she listened to it. She called maybe 5 minutes later and told me that she didn't hear anything particularly concerning. I asked her if she specifically mentioned the name Mike and when she said she didn't I told her to do another recording and mention the name specifically. We hung up the phone and she called back in under a minute. She said that as soon as she asked about the name there was an owl that started to hoo outside of her window, which didn't seem too odd to me at the time. I told her that I would be over after school the next day and we would see what we could do. We got to her house at like 3.15ish. Her dad was

still at work so it was just us and the dog who was really aggressive so we put him in the garage. The first thing I did was grab one of her dad's beers and she got an apple to eat. We sat for a bit in her kitchen and talked about a couple of things, I'm sure before beginning our ghost hunt. Now, when I tell this story in person I make sure to explain the layout of her house so that it's easier to imagine what I was seeing. For the sake of this post I'll just tell the story. So we start the recorder and start to walk her upstairs. I ask the typical questions like, is there anybody here with us and is there something you want to say to us? But as soon

as I asked about the name Mike, an owl started to hoo outside of her window, which startled the both of us. I turned to walk down the stairs and while my back was to her I heard a loud thud and turned around to see Emily on the floor at the top of the stairs. There were only like six steps. I know this is cliche but the look on her face was as if though she had seen a ghost. She stood up and practically jumped down the stairs, slipped her shoes on and ran out the door and down the street. I was already spooked by the owl so of course I started running after her and away from the house. I finally caught her and she was crying frantically while fighting to catch her breath. I asked her if she was okay and how she fell and her response was,

I didn't fall. I was pushed. You will get a chance to hear other stories from me in the near future about why I felt the way that I did upon hearing this from my friend, but I was upset. I stopped being scared. I felt as if though I could control whatever was going on in her house and that hurt my friend and I was ready for a fight. I took her back inside and sat her at the kitchen table. I grabbed my tape recorder and the beer bottle I had drank and went upstairs to provoke the spirit. I threw the bottle on the ground and said, since you want to be tough, pick the bottle up and hit me. Nothing happened and I turned to go down the stairs. I turned the tape recorder off and sat at the kitchen table across from Emily, her back was to the stairs. After I pressed play on the recorder, she kept telling me to stop it and to turn it off.

I brushed it off at first but as she got more persistent about it in my gut it started to tell me something isn't right. So I stopped the tape recorder and asked her why she didn't want me listening to it and she couldn't give me a straight answer. I pressed record on the tape recorder and continued asking a couple of more times before she sank from her chair and sat kneeling on the floor next to the table. I asked, Emily, why are you sitting on the floor? Get up and sit in the chair. She replied, I don't want to sit up high.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but every time I told her to sit in the chair, that was her reply. I don't want to sit up high. Now remember I was recording this so I stopped the tape recorder and started to rewind it to listen to what I had just recorded. When I pressed play my friend Emily began to crawl around the table very slowly. As I listened to what I had recorded I heard myself tell Emily to sit in the chair but then there was a man's voice that would say, I don't want to sit up too high, literally right before Emily said it. Not like an echo, the entire phrase was said prior to Emily speaking on the recording. So I'm hearing this as she's basically crawling towards me and we lock eyes for a second,

then she starts like jumping while on her knees banging them on the floor and screaming. I was absolutely terrified but I was also six foot and 200 some odd pounds and she's maybe five foot six or seven and probably 130 so I just told her she'd better calm down before I beat her. I laughed looking back on that because I really didn't mean it. She gave me this super creepy evil glare and giggled in the most evil spiritish sort of way. She got up from the floor and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs while I'm facing from my seat. On her way up she grabs the beer bottle I threw on the ground earlier and the apple she had when she was pushed before running out of the house.

She then walks back into her room at which point I no longer can see her and I'm left sitting at the table trying to make sense of what I just experienced. As I'm sitting there dumbfounded she comes down the stairs with the beer bottle but no apple and she's holding the bottle upside down by the neck with the same creepy evil glare as if she wanted to hit me with it. Remember, early when she first came back in the house, I threw it on the floor and told the spirit to hit me with it. I once again told Emily, Emily, I love you, but if you try to hit me with that bottle, I'm going to knock you out. She did the evil giggle again and she told me that she wasn't going to hit me then walk past me at the table and put the bottle on the sink. She then sat at the table in the chair next to me and just started rolling up the newspaper sitting on the table.

Emily has this obsidian rock that she put on a string and wore as a necklace. She had a particular bond with the rock and always had it on her. I noticed she wasn't wearing it and asked her where it was. She just sat there with her head down rolling the newspaper and said, What rock? At this point I was positive that I was no longer talking to Emily and I grabbed her hand. As soon as I did, she looked up at me and her entire presence changed. Just by the look in her face I could tell that she was back and she just sat there looking at me and her entire presence changed. Just by the look in her face I could tell that she was

back and she just sat there looking at me as if we were in a mid-conversation waiting for me to speak. I said something along the lines of, dude, what was that? She of course had no idea what I was talking about. Turned out she didn't remember anything after coming back inside after running down the street and sitting at the table. After showing her the recording of the man's voice and her talking with no recollection of doing so, we agreed to let the dog in and keep every light on in the house and sit in our room together until her dad got home. It was a terrifying experience. Emily never experienced anything else after that but I had one other run in with what I believed to be the same Mike entity. It happened three years later.

The year after I graduated high school I was telling this story to my girlfriend at the time and we were just hanging out. We both had two days off from work and it was the middle of summer so we sat out on the balcony with the radio right outside the door. A few hours later I had to leave for a little bit and received a picture message about an hour after I left. It was a picture of the concrete outside the back door where we placed the radio. The names Mike, M, and 91 were etched into the concrete as if some kids did it when it was first poured. Of course, we would have seen it prior to this if we had been there seeing that we already were in the apartment for a few months at that point, and that was the exact place we put the radio when we were hanging out. That's how she noticed it because she was putting the radio away.

And that's where the story ends. I keep in contact with Emily to this day. She's always uncomfortable talking about it, but has no problem confirming the story, at least from her perspective. Kind of a side note, Emily's middle name is Rose. There's a movie called The Exorcism of Emily Rose, so that's kind of weird. But she's a mother and a wife and seems to be leading a seemingly happy life now. So about two years ago, my Nana brought home a Ouija board that she had found at the yard sale. I've always been a true believer in the paranormal and it's always been one of my peak interests. I have heard and read enough stories and watched enough shows to know not to mess with the Ouija board and quite frankly they kind of freaked me out so I wanted nothing to do with it.

My nana on the other hand doesn't believe in the paranormal whatsoever and thought it was just a fun game for myself, my brother, and the oldest of my two cousins. I left it on the dining room table for days before she made me put it away. I ended up sliding it under my bed in hopes of just forgetting about it. My brother, 11, and my cousin, 12, bugged me about it constantly because they wanted to play with it and I wouldn't let them. I tried to explain to them that it wasn't just a game and that it shouldn't be messed with but they were preteen boys who couldn't help but do things that they shouldn't. One day after I got home from work the boys were there and I had this sneaking suspicion they played with it.

I looked under my bed and it was there but I had this odd feeling about it. That's when I went downstairs and interrogated them about it. At first they denied it but I saw right through them and they finally admitted that they had played with it. I asked them if they had said goodbye when they were done and they said that they did. My cousins like to over exaggerate stories big time and make things up to be overly dramatic, so when he told me about a couple of things that supposedly happened I didn't believe him at all. Also, they were boys who liked to mess with each other so I assumed that was what was happening. A couple of nights later I got in bed and as I lay there trying to fall asleep I get this feeling like I'm being watched.

I looked over at my closet which has two sliding doors and I notice one of the doors is slightly open leaving a small space between the doors. It creeped me out for some reason so I turn and face the other way trying to ignore everything and fall asleep. I finally fell asleep and then the next thing I know I'm woken up by what felt like someone or something hitting me in the back of the head. I was laying on my back so the back of my head was fully on my pillow which made it even weirder and it wasn't a light hit either. It freaked me out so much that I was shaking. I looked around my room and I don't see anything but then all of a sudden I hear my floor creaking like someone is walking around my bed.

I'm so freaked out at this point it wasn't funny. After laying there for a good little while I finally got the courage to get up and grab my phone and book it to my living room. I sat down and tried to calm down. I could still feel a tingling, pulsating sensation in the back of my head. I turned on my phone and realized it's 3 in the morning. I called my boyfriend, now husband, with tears streaming down my face from being so freaked out. He didn't pick up and I swear I called him another 15 to 20 times before I finally gave up. I sat in the chair until my nana got up around 6. I didn't tell

her what happened because I knew she wouldn't believe me and would say I was acting stupid. After she got up I had breakfast and then called my boyfriend again and he finally picked up. He told me he had his phone on silent mode so he didn't know that I had been calling. I gave him so much guff for this, let me tell you. I told him what happened and he felt terrible and felt like an idiot for having his phone on silent and he told me he would have come over in a heartbeat to comfort me and was very apologetic. Later that day he came over and took the Ouija board to a junkyard to get rid of it. My husband is the only one in the family that knows what happened and I didn't experience anything again after I got rid of the Ouija board. Moral of the story, Ouija boards should not be messed with. I'm a pediatric nurse and was on a night shift recently.

I was in charge so the girls before me handed over that they logged a clinical engineering job for call bell number 7. This was because the call bell kept ringing non-stop starting at 2200 hours. There were no patients in the room as it's an empty double door room. The call bells were disconnected from the wall and it still continued to ring. I said I would hand over in the morning to the charge nurse so she can follow up with engineering. I thought nothing of it as it was ringing when I started my shift and just thought how annoying it was going to be all night as it dings really loudly every two minutes. At midnight before we start doing rounds, I went to inspect the room and note all the call bells are disconnected from the wall and nothing looks amiss besides one pillow missing

from the bed next to the door. I remind myself to bring a pillow next time. I walk past to ensure the room is set up for a potential new patient in the morning. My co-worker, Molly, is floating between pods. The ward is divided into two pods. Molly is a serious and hard-working older nurse who is a devout Christian. She is going into room 8 to do an IV antibiotic and I walk down with her as I am the nurse looking after pod 1, where room 7 is located. I'm about to allocate a room to a new kid coming in. I walk past room 7 as it's on my way, and I think I should grab a pillow for the bed by the door, and I look into it as I walk past before getting a pillow,

and oh my lord, the bed is sitting up, and it looks messy as if someone was sitting on it. I thought someone from a different room could have been messing around with the bed so I wasn't shocked or worried. Molly finished her antibiotic and was gelling her hands outside the room next door when I asked her to come into room 7 and have a look. She asked if I was preparing the room for a new admission and I said no. I asked her if she sat the bed up and she said she hasn't been into the room as there aren't any patients and she left the call bell problem to me as I was in charge. I say it looks like someone is sitting here waiting for their call bell to

be answered. Molly pats the bed and says hello and looks at me and I jokingly say hello mate can you please stop ringing the bell, you're keeping the younger kids awake with all the noise. And we walk out shaking our heads at the weirdness of the situation. We look up as the call bell dings and then the signal goes off for the first time since we started our shift. It never went on again that night. I had to explain to my manager why I logged an engineering job and for her to cancel it. There are so many potential explanations, but we have many odd things happen in pod one during the night, including people seeing and hearing the boy with the guitar, seeing a little

girl come into their room and children sleepwalking and standing in the middle of the hallway, staring at the room. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, rLetsReadOfficial, and give and receive feedback from the community, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And join my Discord to interact with me and other listeners directly.

And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all these stories in long compilation form and save huge on data. Located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the bio. Thanks so much, friends. And remember, all hail Timmy the Rat.