The Lets Read Podcast - 13: Episode 013 | Home Invasion & Sasquatch Encounter Stories | 30 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: November 23, 2018

Welcome to the thirteenth 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 Home Invasions, Sasquatch Encounters & Perspective of The Stalker Stories. 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: Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFvrqVSJE8E PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get a pro at Tread Experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there, treadexperts.ca. I live on an island off the east coast of Brisbane, Australia with my partner. Let's call her Lily.

Our house was a lovely mainland facing house. The entire front of the house is practically glass doors and windows to fully appreciate the view. We moved to the island for cheap rent and to be closer to my Lily's mother. She supported us at the time while we were financially struggling. She was a policewoman of nine years. My commute was minimum two hours to get to my job in the city so in order to go to work on time I would have to wake up at 4am. My usual morning routine consisted of waking up, showering, coffee hit, getting dressed, waiting for my ride to the ferry terminal. This usually took somewhere to 20-30

minutes in total. Meanwhile, Lily is in bed asleep. Even though I wore heavy work boots and am all sorts of clumsy, the front door closing was one of the only things that would wake her up. It acted as an alarm for her to start her day. Just as I leave to start mine. So cut to the morning of the incident. Normal morning, normal routine. I'm making my way onto the ferry when I receive a call from Lily. She was whispering in a hushed tone, which was very difficult to understand over loud ferry engines. Hey, what are you doing home? Did I miss your ferry? What? No, I'm just hopping on now. What do you mean? Are you not home? Huh? No, it's 4.30. I'm on my way to work. Are you okay? There is dead silence over the phone. At this point, I'm starting to

think the worst. I tell her to call her mom to tell her to get over to our house ASAP. I get a faint okay and the phone hangs up. You may be wondering why I'm not calling the police at this point as well. On the islands, police don't even start until 7am, and even then it's very unlikely to get a form of assistance. It's not incompetence, it's just plain lack of resources and manpower. The next part is told through Lily's point of view. Lily woke up to the sound of the front door closing. It's a large glass sliding door and it makes a distinct metal clicking sound when it latches shut, which it does so automatically or when you unlock it to open it. She assumes it's simply me leaving and snuggles further into the warm blankets,

but begins to hear heavy boot steps on the hardwood floor, making their way through the kitchen, then slowly down the hallway to the bedroom. They go past the bedroom into the study. The study the hallway to the bedroom. They go past the bedroom into the study. The study is adjacent to the bedroom. Think of a fork door left as study door right as bedroom. The walls are paper thin so Lily can distinctly hear the door handle grinding its way open with a very clear clink sound to signify you can't turn the knob any further. She hears the boot steps slowly walk into the study and what sounds like my computer chair rolling from underneath the desk

along with the sound of the seat depreciating into the floor as weight is being shifted onto it. This is where Lily assumes it's simply me returning home as I usually would come home and sit down at my computer desk. She quietly whispers into the phone, hey what are you doing home? Did you miss your ferry? Awaiting a response she took her ear away from the phone to listen to who she thought was me respond through the wall. Silence. She places her ear back on the phone and hears me responding with, what? I'm just hopping on now. She explained to me how her gut

dropped and felt heavy. Her breathing sped up and shortened simultaneously. I had never heard her speak of a time where she was more terrified than at that moment. I tell her to hang up and she promptly moves herself underneath the bed covers to obscure any noise she may make. She calls up her mom and begs her to come over immediately. She explained there's a man in the house. He is currently still in the study as there hasn't been any footprints leaving the room or even the sound of weight shifting back off the seat. Two minutes pass and her mother is flying down the road that runs along our house and promptly pulls into our driveway. Here's a bit more info. Our driveway was at least 50 meters towards the house at the end of the block

when you pull into it. There is enough elevation initially where you can see directly into the front of the house all the way back to the study and bedroom door down the end of the hallway. Her mom speeds down the house and hops out. She takes time to confirm the Hilux doors are locked and there's nothing in the tray that can be taken. She then proceeds to make her way into the house, making sure every corner is checked and any potential hiding spot is covered.

Keeping calm and collected, she begins to do a literal police tactical house clear, moving from room to room doing a quick but thorough check, confirming that doors are locked, windows are closed and rooms empty. She eventually gets to the study. The door is shut, no possible way to escape. One way in, one way out. She opens the door to find no one inside but the desk chair is in a position where someone could have been sitting at it.

She cleared the cupboard and checked the windows were correctly shut. She then proceeds to exit the study and turn left to open the bedroom door to inform Lily that no one is home, when in the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the glass sliding door opening. She sprints over to it and runs outside to nothing. No sound, no movement, nothing. I can clear as day remember her response when I called her asking what happened. There were no signs of entry forced or otherwise when I entered the building, no signs of someone exiting initially as well, although I do think someone somehow snuck past me.

I found the glass door open wide after I cleared the house, but I remember the latch clicking shut. There's my story of the time some sort of extremely agile and sneaky intruder spooked and evaded my partner's police mother. A few months later, someone on the island was caught breaking and entering and trying to force his way onto unsuspecting women in the homes. Lily's mother said the case is different as the man only recently arrived to the island a week before being caught, but it still gives me chills when I let my mind wander. I moved into my house when I was three years old. It's big with three floors and five rooms. The only thing I didn't like about it was the neighborhood.

Because you see, I lived a block away from the city's jail. Nothing too crazy ever happens, except this one time. So when I was around nine, I kept waking up because I heard noises throughout the night. My parents thought it was just birds or squirrels, so I didn't think much of it. One night, something else woke me up. Bells, sirens, from the jail. It caught me completely off guard, but what could I do? I was a nine-year-old boy. Sooner or later, my parents got wind of what was going on and told me to get back to sleep. Truthfully I couldn't. The next morning the jail incident was on the news. Three policemen were

held hostage during the night and two prison mates escaped. One was found two hours later near the local park at 4am but the others were not found. That night as I was in bed I heard something. Not outside but in the attic. Footsteps and heavy breathing. I wanted to run and get my parents but the door to the attic is right next to the door of my room. Then I heard it. The faint creak of the attic door opening. I was practically crying at this point, fearing for my life. My only question was, how did he get in? We keep the doors locked all the time. Five short minutes felt like five long years as the guy quietly walked down the stairs. I was able to make out the sound of him opening the fridge. Some time passes and he was climbing back up the stairs and into the attic. I didn't think it was safe to get my parents at that point

because at any time he could come out and wasn't sure if he was armed or not. So I waited. Waited till morning. As soon as there was sunlight, I woke up my parents to tell them what happened. Immediately they called the police. A short time after,

three police cars were in our driveway and the search team was already trying to look for the guy. What the police and detectives found really messed me up. Apparently the cellmate found a hole under our deck and was able to squeeze through a small tunnel leading to our fireplace. But the thing was that thing was blocked off for as long as I could remember. He managed to climb up the fireplace and into our attic. That's why I could hear small animals during the night. The man was armed with a wrench that my dad must have left out the night the guy came. The man was originally put into jail for robbery and now he's in prison for the next 15 years

under trespassing and breaking and entering. I'm not going to say his name for legal reasons, but just know that no one got hurt. I don't think I was really young, maybe 16 or younger. I was on a ride north, probably Dauphin with my father. He's a building inspector and an avid motorcyclist, and often has to make long trips within the province, or just over one, so this wasn't any different than usual. I agreed to come along. Must have been a summer or sometime I had off from school,

and wanted to go sightseeing before everything was covered in a blanket of snow. The further north you go, the prettier it looks, and despite the huge amounts of graffiti scrawled on the smooth red stones, I have found the scenery gorgeous. It's not unlike a lot of Canadian roads to have several offshoots and hiking paths, and when nature called, my father tucked into a fishing trail and parked. We wandered a little way up to a camping site, a few logs situated around a fire pit and a stream nearby. I sat on one of the logs and my father went to go relieve himself. I started to pick at the sand around my feet

and noticed something sticking out from under the log I was on. Foolish me, didn't really think much of it. Rather, I was excited to find an ornate hunting knife. Dad, I called out. Certain my father was finished by now and was just enjoying the view from where he was. Come see what I found. My father hurried up the slope shortly after hearing me and saw the blade. He quickly grasped my arm.

I complained like any kid would at the sudden roughness I was being dealt with, but relented when my dad said, let's get back on the road. Okay, I responded quietly following him while he still had a firm grip on my arm. From the brush on our left we heard the weirdest squawking sound I'd ever heard, but with that my father held me harder and began to tug me quickly to the car. That's not a bird. My father informed me under his breath, and I think that might have been the only time I had ever seen such a stoic man so frightened. My rough-around-the-edges tattooed biker father was running to the truck and towing me behind like a ragdoll.

Now, we obviously made it, got onto the road and drove to Dauphin and completed our business there and came back after an evening there. Nothing more was said about that until earlier this year, I'm 25 now, I said to my father, remember that time we went off the road to a fishing trail and we heard that weird bird noise? My father chuckled an uncomfortable chuckle and told me this. The knife you found wasn't the only thing there. I saw a bunch of bundled up clothes and food down by the water like someone had been there for a while. I knew we were being watched too. People go missing out there. Sometimes people want to go missing. It's called being on the lam. So I knew we weren't safe there. That bird call was a signal

for something. His explanation gave me chills. We were just average people going off the road to sightsee. We were so far up north in the middle of nowhere we could have gone missing and could have stayed that way too. Needless to say my father hasn't gone too far from the highways to relieve himself on his long trips anymore, and honestly, I don't recall having gone with him on any of his trips after that, whether it be related to this or not, I'm not sure. I was having a terrible time getting out of bed when I started 8th grade. Surprise, surprise, it was the onset of depression and anxiety. So my parents decided that I was to take the bus for the rest of the year so I didn't depend on my mom caving when I slept through my alarm and had to go to school late. It was go early or don't go.

Being the absolute dork and teacher's pet I was, I agreed to this because I was terrified of missing a full day. I should also add I was in a very wealthy neighborhood that was very branched off from anything in our city. The only traffic to the area was either residential or maintenance vehicles and landscapers. Also, I was very small for my age. I was pretty behind my female peers in terms of developing and makeup and things of the like. I looked maybe 10 or 11 and I dressed like a 4 foot tall IT guy. One day in late spring I got off at my friend's stop so we could continue a conversation we were having as my stop was two behind hers. The walk to my house wouldn't have been more than 10-15 minutes. My friend and I parted ways and I walked home in the opposite direction. It was about 5 minutes

before I noticed a white truck that looked like a maintenance car had been following me pretty closely, stopping every 30 seconds. This was shortly after the release of the iPhone 4 so I assumed he was lost and checking his maps app or something as our neighborhood was full of loops, dead ends, and the such. That was until I looked back a few more times and realized he'd slowed down to a stop every time I started to look back. Being raised in the height of stranger dangers, my forget this senses were tingling at this point. I started to walk faster towards the next left I had to make to get home. Maybe he really was just confused by a sprawling mountaintop neighborhood with ridiculously long driveways

and just couldn't find the house number for a place he was remodeling or something and would continue down that other road. No. He stopped, waited to see which direction I would follow at the fork and went left after me. I decided I'd stop altogether and see what he did, as I was carrying a heavy backpack and a cello was not about a haul at home for nothing. He stopped next to me and rolled down his window. You dropped your lunchbox, dear. I have it in here. Let me give you a ride home. I never brought a lunchbox to school.

I used all the force and intimidation I could find in my little 8th grade voice and said, I don't have a lunchbox. Stop following me, you white trash. I have your plates. He looked very angry as I booked it and ran to the nearest house I could see people inside and watched him open his door. I violently rang the doorbell when a mother with two young kids came out and saw the look on my face and the man running after me and didn't ask questions. She shut and locked the door behind her as I made a point of saying that that guy out

there had been following me for 15 minutes and I do not know him. Please don't let me go back out there until he's gone. We looked out the window and he was getting back in his car, speeding off in the direction he came. Luckily, the lady didn't let me walk the rest of the way home just to be safe and drove me back home, making sure he was gone first. I'm a 16 year old student in Sydney, Australia. I'm 6 foot 2 and I'm in grade 11. I was walking to the bus stop like I do every morning to get to school. I wasn't wearing a school uniform. My school lets you wear whatever you want as long as it's certain colors, with my backpack on.

I was about five minutes away from the bus stop, which is literally like across the road from a supermarket called Kohl's. Keep in mind, I was walking and texting. Yeah, someone will give me crap about that. And as always, before I get ready to cross the road, I look left and right, so there's no cars. I check left and right, and there was a car with these two men in there. I didn't really get a good look at their faces, but I could tell that they were islanders. Pretty sure that they were wearing those tradie shirts. So as I looked right I saw them approaching close to me so I waited to let them go. They were speeding and I didn't want to risk it and run

across the road but they stopped at the last second before me and just stared. They weren't doing anything they were just staring at me. I signaled at them to let them know that they could drive and I'd walk across the road after they left. They looked at me like they acknowledged that they could drive so I waited a few seconds for them to go. They didn't drive so I was like okay cool I'll just walk across the road. But no, they decided to drive their car as I was stepping onto the road and nearly hit me. They stopped when I stepped back onto the sidewalk. So I stopped and stepped back onto the sidewalk and glared at them. I told them to just drive again so I could walk after they left.

I walked a bit further up before crossing. Same thing happened. They stared, I walked, they nearly hit me again. This happened a third time and my head was literally screaming. You've read too many stories to know this isn't a coincidence. Get out of there. Even though it was 7am in daylight and I live in one of the friendliest neighborhoods. So after the third time, I ran across the road. I just went for it. As expected, they drove as soon as I left the sidewalk and obviously they didn't hit me. As I went to the other sidewalk across the street they went around the roundabout twice while staring at me again before they burned rubber and sped off. This was from my time at university, when I would regularly be out at odd times and odd things with odd people would happen often. Since moving to London, that kind of encounter had not been a regular occurrence and is too minor for me to recall. I was living in an area that everyone

would say was dangerous and was rough and supposedly had regular stabbings, but I'd lived there four years and never a moped in the other place for two years, and it was regularly left unlocked and had never been stolen. This new place, I had a push bike for less than two weeks, double locked it in a supermarket CCTV parking lot, and was only in there for 20 minutes, and it was gone. So that's the kind of place I live now. There's also a traveler estate and council estate right next to my street, so that may also have contributed to the theft. This story comes from when I still had the push bike. I regularly biked from my house to the gym, which was a 12-minute ride away along a main road

that eventually led to a motorway if you kept going after the gym. It was a winter evening and a month prior had been fireworks night. It was still light out so it was probably about 3pm, not at all late. I was riding the bike home and was almost there when this white cheap old car with blacked out windows rolls up next to me. It's pretty close to my house so this part is 30 miles per hour speed limit and we're coming to our roundabout so not too weird for a car to be moving that slowly next to me. I pull tighter to the path inside the bike lane but the car starts to drift closer and closer. At this point I'm a little freaked out. I'm terrified of driving because in general other road users can't be

trusted and I hear horror stories all the time about bikers being knocked or squished against lampposts but I keep going because as I approach the roundabout my plan is to steer off the first exit into a car park in front of a general store. However, before I get to make the turn the passenger window is being rolled down. For the brief second I have I I can see inside its car, full of early 20-year-old boys who are cackling maniacally. This freaks me out even more,

but I don't get the chance to do anything before they're pulling a firework, lit, from in front of them. I have a millisecond to duck my head as this firework is directed at my face. I feel this projectile breeze past my face and explosions from behind me. I look up and the car is speeding off, around the roundabout and in the opposite direction. My heart is racing and I'm visibly shaking. I pull over past a bus stop.

Thankfully I'm safe, I'm not hurt and I didn't crash. It all happened so fast that I didn't get the reg of the car but I called the police anyways. They don't seem to care much and they say they'll send patrols near the area, ask for my address to provide more details to an actual police officer that they send. It's been almost a year and I didn't get any police to come around and ask for more details but yeah, possibly the scariest encounter of my life. The story takes place in a park called Memory Grove Park, in a state in the south-ish west with a heavy religious majority. I'll just leave it at that. People who were around the area

during the satanic panic and beyond may or may not know that this place is a bit of a local legend due to stabbing victims being found here who were possibly caught in a ritualistic stabbing. The heavy presence of pentagrams all over the park. Don't know what I'm talking about? Locals? Next time you're there look at the stone ground by the memorials and other generally creepy and culty stuff. I believe a redditor has a picture of a demon they believe they spotted visiting the park after dark one night. If I can find the link I'll include it. But anyways my husband and his cousin had gotten drunk one night and I mean when my husband got home he was the most

intoxicated I've ever seen him and went to the park and the trails around it. He said they saw a noose hanging from a tree up on the trail and that once they made note of the pentagrams adorning the ground they saw a dark figure sprint at them but they ran. Me wanting to call bullcrap on what was probably two drunk dudes being babies said that my husband and I should visit the grove around the same time, 2-3am, the next day we had off. So, the next week we linked up with my husband's cousin, waited for 2.30 to roll around and walk to the park, approaching from the opposite side they did last time. No matter which side you enter the park from, you enter from above, and basically traverse down a paved and dimly lit hill with many turns and blind corners. We'd only made about three turns, so maybe like fifty yards, when we heard someone downwind from us say, hold on, to us as we approached a blind corner. As we rounded the corner we saw a guy stopped,

facing up the trail, putting something in a backpack and a girl waiting for anyone to come down for some reason. We were polite and stopped to wait for the guy and said a brief hello to the girl but she blocked our path to go down the hill. You guys know about all the bad stuff that goes on here, right? Like, sacrifice is real. It's not safe when she is out there. We said we know and we've seen it ourselves while collectively drawing a blank on who she was though. The guy walked back up to her and looked very nervous. He started humming in a very low tone and began checking his pockets feverishly. As my husband grabbed my hand, dragged me down the hill past them while his second stone cousin didn't seem to notice and kept up the conversation.

It was when I was downhill from the couple that I noticed the large hunting knife the woman sported on her belt as well as the man's switchblade peeking out from his belt. I know one when I see one as my husband used to carry one when we lived in a terrible neighborhood. As I looked at them in a better light I saw the man look nervous and tweaky and the woman had a scrape on the side of her face indicative of her probably being on meth or picking at her skin. Guys, I'm being serious. There are very very dark things out here, she said and then mentioned again. Sacrifice is real guys. We found her living here. There's white dresses and nail polish all over the trails. At this point all she is doing is sounding less and less coherent and my husband

is doing his very best to silently get his cousin to look at him so he can gesture to leave without any trouble as the tweaky guy continued to look nervous and check his pockets. His cousin finally came down and joined us downhill from them and we ran. My husband was convinced that they were going to try to mug us and I was convinced if we had stayed any longer the guy would have ganged up on my husband and cousin, and the girl would have come after me, and we would all be the next mysterious victims of the grove. We did make it down to the grove eventually, but the entire way down, we felt like we were being watched,

and something seemed off, so we left the park almost immediately, but not before we saw it, written in chalk on one of the monuments, take the baby from his mother and drink her milk. This happened back in the fall of 2016. I was a newlywed, 18 and moved halfway across the country to live with my husband. I was in a new town and had no friends.

My husband deployed in the early spring of 2016. A few months into deployment, I was lonely and wanted to head home. I decided to make the 16-hour trek home alone. I packed up my essentials and my cats. I left at 11pm because I couldn't sleep. I was about 4 hours into my drive and I was growing tired. I pulled into a well lit public rest stop so I could catch some shut eye. I pulled my car into a spot right under a light and I made sure cars were nearby. It's about 3 in the morning at this time and I fall asleep. Next thing I know I hear a knuckled tapping on my driver's side window. Sleepily I wake up and see an older man about mid-40s kneeling down to my window. Stupidly I open my driver's side door. Please don't shoot me. Uh, I won't. What do you want? My wife and I are stranded here. We need money. Do you have some? Right over here. He

points to the van parked in the dark off behind him. If you want to follow me. No, man, I'm good. I don't have any money. I'm sorry. At this point, I'm beginning to feel like something is wrong. Oh, come on. I swear I'm up to no harm. Come over to my van. My wife is in there. Sorry, but I don't have any money. I'm using the rest of my money to go home. All right, miss. God bless. God bless. With that, he stumbles off to the next car on my right to do the same thing. By now, I'm wide awake and I'm feeling scared. I turn on my car and peel out of the lot. I don't know what he wanted. I didn't see a woman in the van he kept pointing at but I didn't want to find out. So I just got home a little bit ago.

Earlier I decided to walk up to a gas station to get some snacks and drinks because I'm usually up all night due to my job and I was bored. As I was walking up this main road toward the store that I had planned to go to, a man walked out of it. As I was waiting to cross the street, I heard him yell, Hey! And then a few seconds later, Hey buddy! I was waiting to cross the street I heard him yell, hey, and then a few seconds later, hey buddy, I'm talking to you. I look over and see what's going on and realize this guy is looking and yelling right at me. So instead of crossing the street I start walking straight ahead and he starts pacing me on the other side of traffic, screaming at me. He keeps claiming I stole some scooter from him

and if he could cross the street, he'd beat me and all sorts of other obscenities. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. I don't respond to him at all because I figure there's no way to de-escalate a situation with a person who is so messed up they've mistaken you for another person. They just keep screaming at me until I get to the next block where I turn in, then walk backwards another block, then start walking to where I wanted to go again, just in case they found the opportunity to cross the street. I have no idea how that guy figured I was someone that stole a scooter from him.

I'm just glad the heavy traffic didn't afford him the opportunity to cross over to my side of the street. So my story starts during the summer of 2017. I was in South Africa for an internship. This opportunity was given to me by my school. There were about 15 of us participating in this program. We all lived together in an apartment and friendships were quickly budding. Typically on most weekends we would go out to Long Street, where all the bars were, and get food and then go out to the bars. This particular night my friend A and I were doing

our own thing and were going to meet up with the bigger group for dinner later. Dinner time came around and we went to meet them and by the time we got to the restaurant, the kitchen was closed so we couldn't order any food. A and I were fairly annoyed with the group because someone could have told us the kitchen was closing and ordered for us. So we were annoyed and decided to leave and told them that we would meet them at this bar, Beer House, that we all usually went to. We decided that we're just going to eat at Beer House since they had really good burgers. We make our way towards Beer House. It is probably a 10 minute walk to get there. Now it's important to note that Cape Town has a huge homeless population and you should never give these folk money because more often than not they will not use it for good. We were told that if we wanted to help we should

buy them food instead. Even then some people have told us that they have seen people that just gave food to immediately turn back into the store or supers to return the food for money and crime is no stranger to anyone here. Cape Town has one of the highest crime rates in the world. It's especially bad for tourists. So back to the story. So we get stopped by this homeless lady asking us for money. We made the mistake of talking to her for a couple of seconds too long. Up ahead of us we see another homeless person, but this individual was very young, maybe about 15 or 16. He noticed that we talked to the other lady and asked for money and we told him that we have none and tried to walk past them.

He continues to beg telling us that he is so hungry and even just a couple rands, which is South African money, would suffice. We tell him more sternly that we don't have anything and we see a change in his demeanor. We walk ahead of him and we see him crossing the street. We think we lost him and continue to walk towards food until we see him walking parallel to us on the opposite side of the road. We are at this point pretty sufficiently worried. We just try to ignore him and of course we are walking along the road that has no people walking and is not well lit. He starts running towards us and catches up and he looks like he has something in the front pocket of his hoodie. He looks both A and I in the eyes and says, give me money. I'm a beggar and I have nothing to lose. I'll stab you. And flashed his homemade shank. In that moment all I could

think was, wow, I could definitely get stabbed right now by that very very rusty knife and I don't have insurance here and I'm going to get sick. I don't even care if I get stabbed, I just hope I don't get sick. And then my flight or fight kicks in and I flight and low-key leave my friend slightly behind. We both run towards the only open store on the road and the owner of that store had to be one of the most incompetent people I have had the opportunity to interact with. He was absolutely no help. We explain to him what was happening and he just looked at us blankly.

The homeless guy followed us to the store and was just standing outside waiting for us to come out. We stay at the store for about 15 minutes until he finally leaves. We quickly make our move and run toward Longstreet since there are a bunch of people there. We get to the bar we are trying to get to and call an Uber and go back to our apartment. We were very shaken to say the least and just sat in A's room and ordered McDonald's. Yes, they deliver McDonald's in South Africa, and tried to get our stuff together. That's the story of how I almost got stabbed but could only think of how if I get

stabbed I'm going to get infected. I was driving with my buddies up the mountain road that led to our favorite reservoir to fish. It was about 11pm, there was zero activity on the road and the night was silent. Usually I can hear the crickets and owls with the occasional coyote calls but not tonight. I couldn't tell if this was a good or bad sign yet but I did feel uneasy for some reason. I mentioned this to my buddy who I'll call Bob for now. He said he was also feeling a little on edge for some reason. Luckily Bob had his carry permit and his 45 so we ignored this tension that was building up and parked at the turnoff that leads to the hiking trail. It's about a two mile hike to our spot from the turnoff into thick trees and brush. Our trail is well established and the moon is full so we didn't

have a hard time getting to our spot. The whole time though it was radio silent except for the sound of leaves and twigs crushing beneath our feet and being echoed throughout the reservoir. Our fishing spot is on the side of the mountain, with trees to our left, right, and behind us, with the reservoir in front of us and not much space to move. This is relevant to the story. Everything went as usual to about 2.30 a.m. By this point, we had caught five bass between the two of us and were itching for another bite.

Bob and I were both very silent and focused on feeling the next bite. That's when we heard a slow and low creaking sound from up the mountain behind us. We looked at each other but shrugged it off. The sound grew louder and louder until it climaxed with a loud snap. Just as we turned, a large tree about 400 yards behind us and up the mountain begins to fall and slides down the steep mountainside. Along with it, it brought some big loose rocks tumbling down. We start reeling up fast as we can and run back to the trail to our right and wait for everything to fall right into the water. The tree got caught on another group of trees about 50 yards from us and a lot of rocks made it down into the water that we were just fishing at. We could have just

died is what we both said. We were pumped full of adrenaline trying to cool down so we sat on a rock next to the trail and just breathed for a minute. That's when we heard a loud, bellowing howl that sounded like nothing I had ever heard or probably ever will again. If I had to describe it, it sounded like a depressed middle-aged man letting out all his pain in one long howl with the force of a lion's roar. I could feel the vibration in my chest as it let out this chilling cry. It felt like it would never end and when it did however it was followed by the sound of something pushing the trees and brush walking deeper into the mountains. Needless to say we got out of there in record time. Once we got to the car we felt safe in our modern steel machine so we lit up our dab rig to celebrate being alive and making it back to another night.

While we did make light of the situation at the time, it was definitely because if we had to take a hard look at what happened, we probably would have pooped ourselves. Bob and I later came to the conclusion that it may have been a Sasquatch that had broken a tree to mark its territory and we just happened to be there. We still fish there to this day, and plenty goes on in Azusa Canyon, from ghosts to Bigfoot, and everyday horrors. Nowhere is safe sometimes, but we'd rather be in nature enjoying ourselves than in the city. At least we pick our poison. I'm from a rural small town in the Midwest and growing up I was super religious and fascinated by paranormal stories. Seriously, I loved the travel channel when I was like in grade school.

I would always watch those true ghost story shows that had the dramatic recreations. I used to always ask my parents if they believed in ghosts or paranormal stuff and they would always say no. Fast forward to when I was middle school and we moved into a new house. My paranormal interests had mostly passed as I was getting older and had decided that ghosts were not real. When we moved we knew that the previous owner had passed away in the house in what is now my parents bathroom. Her name was Anna and she apparently really liked smoking and baking cakes and ugly floral wallpaper. For the most part everything was super normal. We moved in and I started 7th grade that fall. After months of living there I began to notice strange things happening that I could never really explain but would always just ignore. A shadow moving in the corner of my eye.

A kitchen sink turning on by itself. Weird footsteps and the TV turning off. But nothing else that was plugged in. Just the TV and the sound would still be going. You know, normal stuff. Until one day I was babysitting my brother who was just a toddler at the time with a friend. It was the middle of the afternoon, we were hanging out in the super cool new addition my parents built and I was laying my brother down for a nap on the couch. We turned the TV down super low and he quickly fell

asleep. We took the opportunity to relax and rest our eyes while watching TV. All three of us were basically asleep on the couch when I heard the front door open and heavy footsteps. I called out thinking it was my dad. When I heard the kitchen sink turn on and no reply and more footsteps, I got up to investigate. The water was left running so I turned it off. Then I looked out the front door to see if my dad's truck was there. He wasn't. Weird. I shrugged my shoulders and returned to the couch not thinking much about it even though there was no way my dad could have come home. Walked inside to turn the sink on and leave which let's be honest that would be a very

weird thing to do anyway, in the amount of time it took me to get up and look for him. Well, whatever. A few more months go by, I was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework after school, waiting for my parents to come home. I remember this very clearly because it was right around the time that song by Lady Antebellum, Need You Now, was super popular and I had just heard it on the XM radio. I was in the middle of homework when the radio goes dead. I was super focused on my homework so I didn't notice it right away. That's when I hear the sink turn on. Hmm. I got up, turned it off and sat down to finish my homework. A few minutes passed and I hear a large amount of water splash onto the

kitchen counter. I jumped from my seat, freaked out by the noise and got up to investigate only to find a puddle of water on the counter and floor. I was the only one home so I was trying to rationalize how the water got there in the first place. Unsettled, I cleaned up the mess and returned to my homework. I didn't know what to say about the incident or the one prior to that when I was babysitting so I didn't talk about it with my parents for a long time. Weird stuff continued to happen and I continued to ignore it. I always just thought there was some way to explain it. Entertainment items turning off or pausing for no reason.

It was probably the electronics or the power outlets. Kitchen sinks turning on by themselves. Maybe I turned it on and forgot. Footsteps. That was just my imagination. Forgot about the weird water incident altogether. I don't remember how it started but one day my parents and I were eating dinner and someone made an offhand remark about weird stuff happening. I think it was my mom, so I started asking questions. Has the TV ever turned off for no reason? Yes. Have you ever seen a weird shadow in the corner of your eye? Yes.

Has the sink turned off by itself? Yes, yes, yes. For them, it was always their bathroom sink. I laughed, almost relieved to talk about the weird stuff. My parents and I spent hours talking about all the weird experiences we had. I told them about when I was babysitting and my mom said she had something very similar happen. She said she was sitting on the same couch I was, we have two living rooms, and heard the door open and heavy footsteps. Thinking it was either me or my dad, she called

out but was met with no answer. She gets up to investigate and nothing. No one is home except for her. We decided that we were being haunted by a ghost. I think we were joking about it for the most part but over the years, I'm 22 now, plenty of weird stuff has happened that we have all decided that we are haunted. We're not sure if it's Anna or not, but we like to think it is. Anytime something weird happens, we yell something to the extent of, come on Anna, stop it. This happens mostly during the fall when she's most active. I can't really explain that fact either, but she acts up the most during September and October and November. Another weird thing is that she really hates heavy metal or screamo music.

I used to listen to it all the time and she would pause the iPod dock, not even turn it off, just pause. Doesn't matter where the iPod dock is plugged in, doesn't matter which one, I've had plenty over the years, and it doesn't matter who's listening. She hates that stuff. My mom will be listening to it and Anna will turn off the music or pause it a million times until my mom changes the music to something like bluegrass or something quieter. Anna will stop after that but my mom gets pretty annoyed because she just wants to listen to the music, Anna, she would yell. Over the years, Anna hasn't acted up as much. A few days ago, my mom sent me a text, I moved to a

different state, about how my family recently brought in my grandparents' grandfather clock. Here's what she said. I kid you not. We have the grandfather clock from Papa and Grandma's house. The pendulum has not swung, nor has the clock turned since we brought it home. As a matter of fact, the key to get it started is missing. All of a sudden, at 5.45 according to the clock, about 45 minutes behind current time, the clock chimes. Dad and I turned towards the clock because we weren't sure if it was on Harry Potter or in our house. The pendulum on the clock is moving, and the clock because we weren't sure if it was on Harry Potter or in our house. The pendulum on the clock is moving and the clock face is moving. It really was the clock chiming in our house that we heard. This can only mean one thing. Anna is back. I died laughing. Anna was probably

just curious about why my parents couldn't get the clock to work and decided to take things into her own hands. Some things to note, I did ask if my brother had been messing with it and she said no. Also, Anna doesn't do big things like that very often, especially when there's more than one person home. But when she does, it's always super surprising and funny. Though she has kicked my dog before, which I don't really appreciate. So a couple of years ago, my friend Justin got sick of living in an apartment and started looking to buy a house. Because we did pretty much everything together at that point, I was looking with him. His price range was pretty low as he wanted to pay cash,

around $20,000 to $25,000, so our choices were pretty limited. However, seeing as we live in a large Midwest city, there were plenty of fixer-uppers in that price range. So he finds a house that's less than a mile from my house. It's been vacant for just a few months and the owners are looking to sell it for about $12,500. It's a huge house, like six bedrooms, four bathrooms huge, and it really should have been a little suspicious. But it's not in the best neighborhood so we assumed it was just a good deal. We contacted the realtor by email around 1am on a Saturday morning, and he got back to us instantly, which was weird, but okay. We met up with him the next day to tour the house.

From the outside, the house seemed pretty normal. Built in the 1910s, it was a pretty typical World War I era Midwestern square frame house. It had cookie cutter floor plan that matched the houses on either side, was painted as pleasing mint green color in the yard, though overgrown and messy, was pleasantly large and fenced in enough for Justin's dog, and well planted with hedges and decorative trees. Past a screen and porch was the front door and inside it was a nice entryway with a beautiful wooden staircase preserved under shag carpeting. My personal pet project would be removing the shag carpet and restoring the staircase. A door to the left going into the parlor and a door straight ahead going into the kitchen.

Upstairs were four bedrooms and a bathroom and above that a finished attic that served as a master bedroom. Justin loved the house and declared his intent to buy that day, so the realtor went back to the office to get the paperwork and met us at a pizza place to fill it out and take payment. He seemed very hip with the kids these days, taking three twenty-something guys to a pizza place for paperwork. Before long, the house was Justin's. I was out of work at the time and Justin had 8,000 left to sink into the house before the year was out, so he decided to pay me to help him out. We planned on starting on the third floor and making it livable as a master suite, then working our way down, but the first step was getting electricity to the house.

The power company was being a PITA, and that took about two weeks. When we finally got power to the building, Justin brought a big pack of light bulbs from Costco, so we could go around the house replacing bulbs. When we came back into the house, some ancient alarm system was going off, letting out a shrill, shrieking noise. It took us a while to track down the alarm panel, and when we did, we couldn't figure out how to make it stop. Justin shrugged and said, It's my house, my alarm panel.

Took a hammer and bashed the alarm panel in until it stopped beeping. This would become a common thing for him with anything he wanted to remodel or replace anyways. So Justin started replacing light bulbs in the attic. I started in the basement and we planned to meet somewhere in the middle. The basement had only one light fixture and the first floor's lights were fine, so I got to the second floor before Justin finished upstairs. The wooden stairs I wanted so desperately to restore led you to a small central room, about 8 feet squared with doors to 4 bedrooms and a bathroom coming off of it, as well as the stairs to the attic behind a locking door. At the center was a very ugly 1960s ceiling fan

light fixture. I flipped the light switch at the top of the stairs and the ceiling fan came on. Now the house had been abandoned for some time and the plaster on the ceiling had started to come down. So the fan comes on and starts throwing plaster and dust and paint chips everywhere. I let out a startled shout and Justin starts to come running. I turn the fan off and he comes down to find me covered in dust and plaster, chuckling and saying, I think this fan works. Justin looked at it and said, that's an ugly fan, and jumped up and pulled it out of the ceiling. There were no wires going to the fan, they had been capped off long ago. Neither the fan nor

the light fixtures should have worked, but they both did and they both threw crap all over me. I suppose it could have been wireless but it looked really old for being a wireless fan of some sort. So we finished putting in lights. We found a bunch of tax receipts squirreled away in one of the bedroom closets that told us that the house had been bought in the 60s from a developer by a man with the surname Gines. Tax receipts went up current to a few years before we bought the house so we knew it had been in the Gines family for 50 years or so, but the people who had last owned the house had a different surname. In our research, we'd also discovered

that they had apparently abandoned the house and let it get foreclosed upon and auctioned to the city, who sold it to Justin. Next, we got to paint. The house had a bunch of lead paints, so we took Justin's dogs to his mom's house for the entirety of our depainting, donned our astronaut suits, and started scrapping out lead paint. I wish I still had pictures, but underneath we found crayon drawings from children. Nothing super creepy creepy but the context of finding them under the paint seemed really creepy. There were drawings of stick figures and flowers in a greenhouse that we assumed was the same one we were in. It was all fairly creepy to find under the 50 year old lead paint. We then pulled up the linoleum in the restroom and found

that, though water damaged, it was original to the house. The newspapers underneath it were dated from 1915 and detailed the sinking of the Lusitania in the United States entering the Great War. It also contained a lot of old comics and cartoons, which we thought was really a cool find. Everything was a bit damp, so we closed the windows up and left everything spread out to dry, figured we'd come back in the morning. It was 9 or 10pm by this point. Finally, as we were leaving the house that day, we went to check out the mudroom, which was sort of a lean-to built onto

the rest of the house on the back connecting the kitchen and dining room, almost like a butler's pantry. It had all sorts of ornate cabinetry in it which we really liked. On the wall was one of those cheesy suburban mom plaques that said something like, Jesus bless this home. Justin, being the immature person he is, laughed at it and said, Jesus has no power to bless here, and swatted it off the wall. Instantly, and I mean instantly, it dropped 20 degrees in the house. It was enough to freak both of us out enough that we left right then and there. I'm getting goosebumps just talking about this. I was driven to post this I should mention because yesterday my girlfriend and I were watching a horror movie that reminded me of everything that

happened and I had a minor breakdown and explained it all to her. So when we got back into the house the next day to resume work, it was still eerily cool in the house which had no AC or anything yet. We went upstairs to resume work, donned our space suits and headed to the bathroom to get the papers and kept scraping paint. When we got to the bathroom we found that a window had been opened. It had rained the night before, and every single piece of newspaper had been destroyed by wind or rain. We had the windows open earlier in the night

because of the whole scraping lead paint thing, but we had definitely shut them. Something had opened them back up and ruined our paper. Justin was upset but figured he'd let it open on accident. He hadn't and we threw the ruined paper away and got back to work. Scraping the paint took a couple of days and a couple of other creepy things happened. We uncovered more crayon drawings and some done in what appeared to be charcoal. Heard noises downstairs a couple of times when we were both upstairs, one of which resulted in Justin

grabbing his gun and heading downstairs with it drawn because he was sure someone had broken in, and a couple of more temperature and pressure changes. Eventually, we finished scraping the lead paint. Also, it occurred to me before the lead paint could come into play, but aside from mood swings and headaches, nothing that really happened is common side effects for lead poisoning. The next little bit of renovation went off without a hitch. Justin got a window air conditioner and space heater and moved into the house by September of that year. At this point, I was still coming over several times a week to help out. Progress was slow, but it was slowly but surely becoming a livable space.

With one functioning bedroom and bathroom and a mini kitchen consisting of a mini fridge and a microwave next to the bathroom, he was living there full time with his girlfriend and dogs. However, his girlfriend, who he had been dating for several years and him started fighting and they eventually broke up. I'm pretty mad at her for leaving him alone in that house all winter to be honest. One day he said that he came home and unlocked the door and didn't see the dogs who would normally come running in, tails wagging and grinning and barely let him pass the door they were so happy to see him. He called out for them to no response. He set his stuff down in the kitchen and headed upstairs. In the landing

space where the ceiling fan incident happened, he said he saw both dogs frozen still, hunched over, hackles raised, ready to strike, both focusing on the same spot on the wall. He tried to get them to snap out of it but couldn't so he shrugged it off and went upstairs to put his stuff down. Several minutes later the dogs heard his playstation power up upstairs and ran up to greet him as if that was the first time they had noticed he was home. He didn't tell me about this until later. When winter started to break we got back to working on the house. All throughout the winter Justin had been acting differently, suffering from depression, and I had tried to keep him company when I could instead of having him live all alone in that big empty creepy house, but with the warm weather his mood seemed to lift.

One day, we were out back working in the yard, laying down the foundation for a back porch and fire pit, when our friend, Mac, who was also planning on moving in and renting a room from him started shouting from inside. We ran inside and upstairs to see what was the matter and found one of his dogs, the older pit bull named Kane, lying on the floor not breathing and foaming at the mouth. We rushed Kane to the animal hospital but he was dead by the time we arrived. The vet said it looked like he'd either been poisoned or eaten something poisonous but we could never figure out what it might have been. Kane was buried at Justin's parents house because

he didn't want him buried in the house that killed him. Justin took the death of his dog hard. Kane was a little older but Justin had had him since he was a kid and losing him was losing death of his dog hard. Cain was a little older, but Justin had had him since he was a kid, and losing him was losing one of his best friends. Work slowed on the house again, and Justin started dating a stripper in what was a very toxic relationship. She moved into the house with him, and was affected very heavily by whatever was in it. Eventually, she stole a thousand dollars from him, and when he confronted her about it she attacked him, punched him several times and stabbing him with a kitchen

knife. He was hospitalized and honestly seemed to do better away from her in that house and he ultimately decided not to press charges. While he was in the hospital she stole more stuff from him including his tv and Playstation. When he went back to the house, our friend Mac had gotten engaged and moved out, and he was all alone with himself, the remaining dog and whatever evil lurked in the house. Justin asked me to move in with him and I almost did, but every time I stepped into the second floor of the house at this point I felt this awful heavy dreadful feeling like something in there definitely didn't want me there. I ultimately declined moving in and I really wish I hadn't.

By the time winter came again the house was pretty much livable. Justin had recovered from his stab wound and had returned to the house to find that his brothers and I had gotten a lot of work done on the house. Most of the plumbing had been replaced and the old aluminum wiring had been changed to copper which had gotten all the lead paint and most of the plaster removed and replaced and the backyard was finished complete with the fire pit. Justin was extremely grateful. He started renting out the other four rooms to help fund the final bits of restoration, including a new roof and exterior paint, but had trouble keeping the rooms filled. People would often move in and move back out within a month. It was like nobody could stand living in the house. So around January, Justin is living alone in the house again, just him and his

dog. I'm still coming over fairly frequently but have found steady work and am not spending nearly as much time working on the house anymore as I had been. I'm laying in my bed one night when I get a text from Justin. Can't do this anymore, considering ending it all. Help. I texted him back immediately saying that if he could hold out until morning, he'd be fine. I told him my doors were open if he wanted to get out of that house and asked if he needed to come over and if I could pick him up. He didn't respond. I tried calling him but it didn't go through. I eventually wound up going to sleep. The next day I wake up to a missed call from him.

I try to call him back and the call goes to voicemail. I decide to go over and check up on him later before work. I'm eating breakfast when a text comes in. I don't still have the text saved but I can remember exactly what it said. From Justin, 11.30am. I'm not a baby. I just don't want to deal anymore. Tell everyone I'm sorry and I love them. Come get Finn, the other dog. Give him love. Take care of him. There's a note on the phone. Give to my parents.

And sell this house. I texted him back. Justin, what are you talking about? You're scaring me. Two or three more times before running over to check on him. He had not responded. Arriving, I found that Finn had been put out in the backyard and was very happy to see me. I don't remember how I got into the house because of adrenaline,

but I'm pretty sure I kicked the back door in and ran inside calling for Justin. I found him hanging from his neck by a chain on those stairs I wanted to restore so bad. Sure enough, his phone was next to him on the stairs. He was blue in the face but still conscious, his eyes wide open and his blue lips mouthing, help me. It was terrifying. Justin isn't a small guy. It took a lot of work just lifting him up enough that he could breathe again. Again, I don't know how I lifted him enough that he could get his neck out of that chain, but I managed it somehow. Again, adrenaline is a crazy drug, I guess.

He sat on the floor gasping for air and massaging his neck as color returned to his face while I asked him what he was doing over and over again. Finally he said, let's get Taco Bell. I need to get out of this house. Justin wound up moving out of the house before nightfall and going back to live with his parents. As far as I know the house is still sitting there empty. He doesn't want to sell it because he doesn't want someone else to have to deal with whatever's in that house. I think he plans on tearing it down and using the land for something else but the city has the land zoned residential so who knows how long that'll take. He's now living in an apartment with his new fiance and their one-year-old kid which

tells you how long ago this was. Finn is still alive and well and Kane is sorely missed. I used to drive by the house all the time as it's on a somewhat major thoroughfare just off the highway and I've been avoiding it as of late. I haven't stepped foot in the house for more than a year now and I'm glad of that. Whatever's living in there clearly wants to be left alone. Doing some research on the house we discovered that the owner, Mr. Gines, was actually the grandfather of someone we went to high school with. When we asked him about it he said that his grandpa took his own life in his bedroom on the second floor in 2007. When I was 14 I spent every other weekend at my dad's house after my parents divorced.

My bedroom there was down a long hallway and was the last room on the left. My dad's and stepmom's room was across the hallway from mine to the right side. It was around 11.30pm and I was lying in bed watching TV with the bedroom door open. Out of nowhere this horrible feeling came over me and I felt completely terrified. I felt that something was in the doorway and staring at me from the dark hallway. I had never been this scared in my life before, I couldn't even move. It was this dark, heavy, and oppressive feeling that just kept hitting me in waves. I couldn't physically see anything, but I knew 100% that

something was there. It was blocking me from getting to my dad even if I could move. This went on for about 15 to 20 minutes. I then felt it move over to my window on the right side of my room. I felt whatever it was now watching me through the window. I started to hear faint scratching from my window. I began to pray. I had been trying to pray but for some reason it was difficult. It was hard to get the words out let alone think them. I finally felt safe enough to run out of my room and across to my dad's and wake him up up I told him I felt like something was outside my window He got up and searched around the whole outside of the house and found nothing I was still so shaken up. It was hard to fall asleep I finally did it around 4 a.m

In the morning, I called my mom and told her what had happened Actually started to cry when telling her Something had been in my room that was terrifying and full of hatred. It was and still is very hard to explain. Fast forward about two years. I'm hanging out with my mom and older sister. I'm 16 now and my sister is 24. Something in the conversation made me start talking about that night. My mom and sister started acting all weird and giving each other looks. I kept reading what what and why were they acting so strange. My mom finally says well we didn't want to tell you before because we didn't want to scare you

more but your sister called me that same morning before you and said something evil had visited her that night too. My sister says the same thing happened to her. A dark presence woke her up at about 1am. She woke up with the feeling that something was on her chest. She told it loud you were not welcome here and began to pray. She says she actually saw a black mass fly up above her and it was then flung backwards out of the window. It scared my mom and sister both and was truly unexplainable but also had confirmed that something very real had visited us in the same night. Thinking back on my phone conversation that morning with my mom I then understood why she seemed so spooked and weirded out when I told her about my experience. I had been expecting her to say something along

the lines of it just being my imagination. My family and I are not deeply religious nor do we attend church regularly but the only way to make this thing go away was to pray. Typing this all out has actually made me all jumpy and had given me a stomach ache. I'd say that's enough for now. I also got off of work and had been reading through the comments. I see a lot of people saying it was sleep paralysis. For one, I don't really mind if anyone wants to think it was. I realize and rereading my post again by myself saying I couldn't move really makes it seem that way and I apologize. I just want to clarify prior to this incident I had experienced sleep paralysis before as well as after.

I know what it feels like. You aren't able to move, cry out or even wiggle your fingers or toes. You're awake but your body will not respond to what you want it to do. This was not that. I was very much awake and alert sitting propped up on pillows in bed. I had full control over my body. I was frozen in fear and didn't want to move much or yell out because I felt it would come rushing straight at me.

I did make small movements, I remember, grabbing my blankets, turning my head to the side when it moved to my window. Then, making my run for it. So I was at work last month and I had my phone with me as usual. I know I had it because I and my boss were working in an apartment building fixing a toilet that was leaking into the unit below. We were using our phones to communicate, flush the toilet, turn on the tub and sink, and shut it off. When done, I set my phone with my unused tools, cigarettes, drink, you know, all the important stuff kept together. About an hour later,

my boss gets a phone call from my phone someone found it laying in the middle of the street close to our office about 10 miles away in another city I had two witnesses to this and we are all baffled this is not an experience that happened to me personally, but I was 7 or 8 when it happened to my mom. So some backstory that isn't necessarily important, but could help give some insight to me and my mom. When I was younger, my dad traveled a lot. He would fly out on a Sunday afternoon and fly back in on a Friday night. He was gone most of the week every week with a rare exception otherwise. So it was mostly just me and my mom in the house.

One night it was about 2-3am and we heard a knock on the door. My mom was really confused and was hesitant to open it. But she did because it was an officer so she thought maybe something had happened to my dad. I remember standing behind my mom and the officer explained that they had picked up this old lady that was wandering around the roads in her late 80s and they had told the officers that her name was BDW, the same as my mom's, her date of birth, same as my mom's, and gave the officer our home address as well. My mother was in her late 30s at the time and both my grandmothers were relatively young in their mid 50s or early 60s and we don't have a

history of early onset dementia so we were really confused. I remember my mom asking the officer if she could speak to the lady. She thought maybe it was a family friend or something that was in trouble. She went outside and I stayed by the door and she came back pale as a ghost and about to cry. I asked her who it was and she said it was no one and we should go back to bed. She told the officer this as well and said that she was sorry the lady had wasted his time. I don't want to explain that I remember the police lights shining through the windows. I remember the knock. I remember the officer talking to my mom.

That next morning, my mom seemed off. My mother was always cheery and the perpetually happy person, but that morning she was not and I wrote it off as she was tired from the previous night. When I was about 14 or 15, it crossed my mind again and I asked her about it. She said she remembered it and the lady in the back of the police car was her grandmother. My great grandmother, Odina. This would not be so strange but I never met Odina. She died 6 months to the day I was born. I was born on the 7th of January in 89 and she had died on the 7th of July in 88. I asked her if she

actually spoke to her and she said she did and that she had just wanted to check on her and see me. My mom was her favorite grandchild and we had several trinkets in her house that she gave mom. Mom is a very practical person and honestly does not believe in the paranormal at all. I'm not really sure how she justified it all these years, but she swears that night that she spoke to her grandmother in the back of that cop car. I thought maybe I had dreamed it, but before I posted it here I called her to verify this didn't in fact happen and it wasn't my weird little brain making it up at the time. Another odd thing was that the cop just left and we never saw him again. I was never quite sure what to make of this since it was a spirit in his back seat or maybe the whole thing was some spiritual paranormal thing

but I think my skeptic of a mother was happy it did happen since she never got to say goodbye to her grandmother. Back in 1990-91 I lived in a fairly large house with friends in Lancashire, England. The house was over three stories and the basement used to be servants' quarters and the old servants' bell was still attached to the wall. I've always seen things and felt spirits since being really young but hadn't really felt anything in the house for months. It was party central most of the time

so there were lots of people coming and going and music was always playing. It was a great place to live when you're just leaving your teenage years and don't have many cares in the world. After a few months of sleeping alone in the basement I've had my first encounter. It was so unexpected I thought someone was playing tricks on me. I was in my room and heard someone shouting my name a few times. After calling back and getting no answer, I searched the other three rooms to see if someone was joking around. Then, when walking back into my room, I heard someone say my name right behind me. I stopped, frozen for a second while all my senses screamed at me.

I knew 100% I was alone down there. I turned on my heels and ran to the stairs and then, in my peripheral, I saw a black mass moving alongside me on the outside of the staircase. I ran as fast as my deadweight legs could take me. I was quite hysterical and my friend up on the top floor instantly knew I'd experienced something terrifying. I couldn't go back down there. I had to have friends come down with me to get my things as I was so scared. After sleeping on the sofa for weeks I decided I was going to brave going back to my old room. I just couldn't cope sleeping near the kitchen and having housemates wake me at the crack of dawn

with their breakfast munchings. I had been back in my room for a couple of nights when I heard shuffling coming into my room. I thought it was my friend's old dog who seemed to like coming down to my room to poo. I told him to leave but he just ignored me. I called his name again and nothing, just silence. I sat up and looked around but he wasn't there. Laying back down I grabbed my book and I tried to dismiss it. I then heard quiet snoring coming from the bottom of my bed which got louder. It was a deep rattle type of snoring. I sat up and scooped up my duvet and marched quickly upstairs to the sofa. I eventually nodded off and told my housemates the next day. They were trying to find reasonable explanations, even saying the sounds of a seagull could have carried itself down the

closed chimney to the bottom of my bed. After another week of sofa sprawling, I moved into a room opposite the kitchen. I had a bed, sofa, and TV my friend had left there, so it was really cozy and I felt safe. Weeks passed, and then one Sunday afternoon, I sat watching TV. I could hear someone whistling to the advert tune on the TV and then the advert ended but the whistling didn't. After a few minutes I started to find the whistle sounds annoying. Then it got louder and closer and was in my room with me. I just freaked out and ran to a friend who was sleeping in the room directly above me. I woke her and asked her to come down

to my room with me. She agreed as she could see how concerned I was. We went back to my room with her boyfriend in tow. The whistling had stopped and I eventually spoke out and dared to do it while others were present instead of making me seem crazy and neurotic. After a few minutes it started again, quietly at first and then raising in volume, like it had gained more energy in its momentum. My friend's boyfriend swiftly left the room, saying, sought this, leaving me and my mate staring at each other with blank faces. My friend spoke out,

Why don't you just leave her alone? Then I realized it was whistling a tune, and my brain scrambled quickly to trying to figure out what it was. My friend stood up, quite scared at this point, telling me to come on. I said, no, wait. Oh my god. Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf? Yeah, I didn't stay after that. And we, my friend,

her boyfriend, and myself managed to move into a vacant flat next door the very same day. A new tenant in the house was very animated and excited to hear what I'd experienced, and she said she hoped she'd see something there. Then within a couple of months she was screaming the house down after she saw a suited man in the basement who leaned against the doorway, folded his arms and smirked at her. I wished I'd got someone in to help clear the house as I do worry that someone moving in may have children use the basement for a play area. I still can't bear to hear whistling near me. I work at a funeral home in Florida. Part of my job is that I go on removal calls, which is exactly what you hope it isn't. Dead bodies don't bother me and I'm the youngest, closest to fit guy they have so if we get a removal call for someone of any decent size or in a house that could be awkward

to maneuver in they send me and one of my co-workers to bring the deceased back to the morgue or crematorium. Anyways early this morning my phone rings and I get asked to remove a man from his home a town over. I get dressed and head out and by 3am I'm riding in a hearse down the creepiest dirt road in the creepiest hammock with the creepiest fog that I've ever seen. Even though the moon was three quarters full it was super cloudy and there was absolutely no light. I don't know why, but pine trees and palmetto just give me the creeps anyways, so I was already kind of edgy. Eventually, and I do mean eventually, we got to this old brick cabin. I know we weren't actually very far out, but just the general vibe of the destination made it feel like we were a good 30 miles from any point of civilization, or 20 miles from the nearest

Taco Bell. We get out, and my co-worker, Al, knocks on the door. Now, Al has been a funeral director since long before I came aboard, somewhere around 25 years or so. He's as old as he is short as he is round, and by this point he's pretty much seen it all, so I tend to just follow him. He knocks on the door once, twice, three times, with no answer. He asks me to go around and see if I can spot anybody through the windows. I walk around this entire house and the first thing I notice is that all the blinds are open and all the lights are on, but there's nobody in there, not a soul in sight. I report my findings to Al and when he reassures me that we do in fact have the right house, I suggest we call them and let them

know we're here. He responds by taking a short moment to consider my opinion, before opening the door and waddling inside like the trooper he is. I'm obviously not thrilled with the idea of going to someone's house unannounced, but I followed anyway because they were expecting us given that they called us and all. Besides I was getting more creeped out by the minute and didn't want to be left alone. The front door led to the laundry room for some reason and from there we make our way through the kitchen, living room and dining room. All the while, Al is calling out to absolutely no response. The only sounds in the house was a baby monitor on the dining room table which emitted constant static, as well as echoing Al's shouts from the other end of the house.

Eventually, we made our way up to the hallway. I called it the hallway because once you've reached it, the entire house completely changed. Up until this point, every room had been well lit with very warm lighting, pleasantly decorated and nice and roomy. It was actually really inviting. Once you got to the hallway, however, it becomes very dim, completely plain, and so cramped that Al had to turn sideways to make it through and that entire half of the house was like this. It's like they just gave up on building halfway through. I feel the need to draw so much attention to this because it was just such a sudden abrupt and massive change from the rest of the house. My first thought was that this half was just an add-on but no, the front door was in the middle of the hallway. Everybody just used the laundry room door because it was closer to the

gate and easier to maneuver through. Plus, the only very thin bathroom was on this end of the house. It was weird. Anyways, when we got to the hallway, Al lets out one more hello. Right on cue, a cowboy materializes just around the corner and speedwalks towards us with a huge smile on his face, coming to shake our hands. He welcomes us and leads us to the very back of the house, into a tiny bedroom with one tiny lamp on the corner lighting the whole room. In this room was the cowboy, his mother, his deceased father and the father's nurse. It was here that I noticed the other baby monitor, the one that was picking up Al's shouts and playing it back on the other side of the dining room, but nothing else, which means they could hear us calling to them, but nobody said

anything the entire time, and the cowboy didn't move until a solid 45 seconds later when he sped walk into the hallway. Anyways, we chatted for a few minutes, and when a puppy came up to me, the mother let me know that her name was Precious. This is noteworthy because it was the only time I saw the woman move. In fact, when I first came into the room she was blankly staring at a wall and I initially mistook her for the person we were here to remove. It's also worth mentioning that she just disappeared at some point during the removal. Like one minute she was there and when I took my eyes off of her for a second both she and Precious were gone. I was standing in the only doorway and I don't remember either one walking past me. That was the last time I saw either of them,

though as we were halfway through the hallway on our way out, I could hear Precious barking from somewhere in the house. So we eventually got to work. The hallway is too short for the cot to turn the corner so Al, the nurse, and myself carry the man down the hallway. Eventually we make it and the rest of the removal goes smoothly. One thing that kind of unsettled me though was the cowboy. While it's not uncommon for a family to stay in the room as we move the body onto the cot, Most of the time they chose to leave or at least back up. It's not ugly per se but it's just not very pretty to watch a recently departed loved one get manhandled onto a stretcher by two extremely out of shape men. The cowboy however stayed right on

top of us, smiling and talking about building a fence the entire time. It wasn't weird in the moment but looking back it just felt off. From that point once we got out of the hallway the rest of the removal went off without a hitch. We made it back to the funeral home and Al starts preparing to embalm. If he found the whole situation as weird as I did he sure didn't show it. The whole thing was just totally bizarre and felt off, like I said. My little brother wants me to go back tonight and see if the house is still there. I've got a feeling that the man we picked up first set foot in that house yesterday, no older than I am now. Honestly, I wouldn't really be surprised if my boss never actually got a phone call but just dreamt it and then woke up with her found in her hands already dialing me. Either way they came in to make arrangements this

afternoon so hopefully I get another story to come feed the dog every day. They live 15 minutes away in the middle of the countryside, but it's actually on my way to work, so I said yes. I usually go there at 8am, feed the dog, check if the house is okay, come back at 6 pm and feed him again. Yesterday I had more time as I had a day off from work so I stayed there throughout the day to play with the dog. At lunchtime I go inside and decide to eat a salad so I take out all of the ingredients and lastly go over to the bowl cabinet and open it. Now my uncles uncles have a six-piece set of white porcelain bowls and one red and blue bowl I have made for them when I was little. It's ugly but of course has a lot of emotional value so they've kept it all these years and I always use it when I eat with them. Bowl was not there though.

It's a bit of a tradition for me to use it so I start looking for it. I take out each and every bowl out of the small cabinet but nothing else is in there. I open the dishwasher, open the cabinets, the trash, everything. I opened and searched in every single piece of furniture in the kitchen. It was not there. I must have looked for it for 30 minutes or so because I was afraid that they had broken it or thrown it away and it is very important to me. Anyway I eventually put the white bowls in the cabinet and used another one for the salad. I was kind of sad but that was it and I didn't tell my uncles because I didn't want to bother them. Fast forward to this morning at 8am. I go to feed the dog and then enter the house and head to the kitchen to grab some water and be on my way. As I finish the glass of water I stare at the bowl cabinet which is made of wood and glass and I see a glimpse of red. sideways in the upper side as my aunt always put it in when she washes it, just sitting there. I wasn't scared or anything but I just stood there staring at it for minutes.

Like what in the name of the lord has happened? Absolutely no one else is entering the house these past couple days. It is completely empty and I'm the only one with the keys right now. The dog is not allowed inside and I search for signs of robbery but nothing's missing, though I doubt a thief would mess with the bowls. I'm speechless. I searched for that bowl for half an hour. It was not in there. I'm active duty air force and I was PCSing from Las Vegas to Georgia. I had one of my girlfriends drive with me because it was just my six month old son and me and that's a super long drive alone. Anyways, we left Vegas way later than I wanted. We were supposed to make it to Albuquerque that first night.

My goal was to be off the road by 8pm but we didn't leave Vegas until about 1.30pm and with a baby that still took bottles and was in diapers you can imagine how that goes. So we are driving through nowhere Arizona at like 10.30pm and it's late and kind of scary. No cell reception or random little towns for miles. My friend and I are BSing about random stuff and it gets eerily silent between the both of us, like chills and hair sticking up on the back of my neck. She said, I don't want you to think I'm weird but I just had a vision and there's something on the side of your car by your son's window. Before she said that I could feel something trying to get me to look out my mirror and window but I kept my eyes on the road. She said I don't know what this is or what the feeling is but

it's truly evil and I could feel it too. Thankfully I had one of those things in my window to keep the sun off my son so it was blacked out so my son wouldn't have been able to see anything but I started driving faster and stopped at the next town because I was so shaken up by that encounter or whatever that was I just wanted to be inside my hotel room. I parked underneath the light in the parking lot and grabbed some diapers and formula and left everything in the car I went back out the next morning and everything was fine, but I couldn't shake that feeling that night My friend couldn't either

Now I'm in my 30s. I've been in combat situations. So I wasn't just being a girl but Whatever feeling that was I don't ever want to feel it again After doing some research, it could have been a skinwalker. It was definitely in the right area. What are your thoughts? I was around the age of 15 when the story took place and yes, as I have stated before, these are true events that have happened throughout my life. A little backstory, my mother and father at this time had been divorced for a good 4 or 5 years now. So, she was a single mother raising 3 kids on her own as my father was never really in the picture.

She had no easy job to say the least. My mother, after my siblings and I went to bed and she was off work, decided to take an hour or so to herself and get on the computer. She of course, like the time in the late 90s, internet and chat rooms were the big thing and well, my mom enjoyed talking and sharing her thoughts with those who seemed to be like-minded people. Fast forward a year. I'm 15 and my mother had many friends and one of the lucky few my mother actually talked to on a personal level was named John. Actually, a quick small note. His name wasn't John, but I feel it a bit weird using his real name

and it's more so out of respect for him and you'll see why. John, you see, was dying and he was in a wheelchair. He had terminal cancer that spread throughout his body. He was only using 10% of his lungs. He had lost his legs to this terrible illness and being online was his way of being social as he couldn't get out much. He also kept his illness to himself only to confide in a few like my mother and others. So my mom and John would talk a lot about things and when he had a bad day or my mom had a bad day they would try to cheer each other up by virtual dancing and chat rooms to the WAV sounds they played. Yes weird and

yes I typed WAV sounds before mp3s. Oh and I should mention that every time John would send an instant message and say hello, he would send her the image of the at sign, a couple of hyphens, an arrow, and a couple of hyphens, and a comma. He would also tell my mother, no matter where he was, he would always watch over my mom and her angels. Two days passed and my mother hadn't heard from her friend. She was concerned but not too concerned as again her friend probably was busy with other matters. On the third day one of his relatives instant messaged her and told her the sad news that John had passed away due to complications of his illness. He also wanted his relative to give her this and he typed out that rose and those symbols that he would send which by the way still found a way to give her a rose even in this passing

now of course mom wasn't quick to believe so she did some investigating and yes in fact she found john's obituary and in that fact my mom cried. Another small note, one of my mother's hobbies is painting and she had shared many of her paintings with him through email and John loved them. This is where things get weird. Three days later I am sitting on the couch watching TV in the living room. My sister and brother are in bed and my mom is on the computer in the living room off on the other side of the room. It's quiet and then in the front room of our home that my mother called her studio we hear a loud thud. Now we both stop what we were doing and look at each other with that did you hear what I heard look.

I just slowly nod. We were in the country in the outer banks of North Carolina and I don't know what my mom was thinking but I was afraid that someone was in the house. Then I found myself saying to my mom, maybe it's a mouse. I probably did this to help my mom feel better and at the same time trying to calm myself down. I knew though that for a mouse to make that big of a thud it had to be one of those rats from the movie or the book The Princess Bride. You know, R-O-U-S. Mom gets up from the computer, walks over to the closet, and grabs one of my old metal softball bats that she named Bubba and headed toward her studio. I follow. When stuff like this happened, I tend to make jokes, calling it a coping mechanism. So I comically pictured someone watching this scene on TV, throwing popcorn at the screen, shouting not to open the door and calling us dumb.

So yes, dumb as we were, my mom opens the door, quickly flips on the light, bat held high and ready to hit whomever was in her studio. I watched as she lowered the bat as there was no one there. It was a small studio so you could clearly see everything in the room, window etc. was locked, nothing. I watched my mother look around and then her eyes stop on something and the look on her face was easily described as pure confusion. I follow her gaze to a painting face down on the floor halfway across the room. Her eyes then moved to look behind her to see her easel which had that painting on it before. I only know that the

painting was on it because out of my mother's mouth was, I left my painting on the easel before I made dinner. How did it get over there? She looks at me for answers as we stare back at the painting across the room. Right. Weird. I had no words and I watched as my mother moved over to her painting, picked it up, inspected it for damage, seeing none and just put it back on the easel. We don't say any more about it. That night and I go to bed and she does too. So on the next day, my mom and I say nothing about what happened the night before

and we go on about our days. Again that night, mom's on the computer, I'm in my room. I hear a loud thud coming from the living room where my mom was. This time my siblings and I run to see if my mom was okay, afraid she might have fallen or something. We found mom staring down in the painting that had been on the wall for years now on the floor. Her face said it all. While she was busy doing her thing on the computer, the painting somehow just fell off the wall. I again, to make people feel better, said, oh mom, it was bound to happen. The nail probably just moved or something. Nothing to worry about. Relief filled my mom's face as she

agreed. My siblings went back to bed and my mother of course asked me to put the painting back up on the wall which I said I would do and well won't lie. I forgot about it that night and left it on the floor. My mother that night before bed decided to leave it on the floor to teach me a lesson and see if I would remember to put it back up on the wall the next day. To my mother's delight the painting was back up on the wall the very next morning and she was proud of herself and her parenting skills as her plan worked. Her darling daughter actually put the painting back on the wall like she had asked. So she found me out in my room and said honey I want to thank you for putting the painting back on the wall. I looked at her and my face looked odd as I said, mom I didn't put the painting on the wall. I'm sorry I forgot about it

actually. Mom laughs a little. Stop joking like that. I'm not joking mom I didn't put the painting back on the wall. I reply and now I'm just confused as she is. The only other person who would be able to put the heavy picture back on the wall was my sister because my brother was too little at the time. So my mom goes to my sister who was in the living room and asks her, hey dear did you get on a chair and put the painting back up on the wall? My sister looked at her and shook her head. No mom. Now my mom is thinking us kids got together to play a horrible joke on her, which we assure her we didn't. We were ourselves starting to feel this was getting a bit creepy. As if a light bulb went on in my

mom's brain, she looks around the room and just shouts, Alright John, I know you're here. Thank you for letting me know you're okay but you're scaring the kids and me and you don't have to watch over us anymore. Go into the light. Yeah, we thought mom had lost it. I just stared at her and so did my siblings. Funny thing though, after she said that, nothing like that happened again. Who knows if it was John or maybe something else. I just know it was really weird. I was 18 at the time and I haven't left the island where I live. Halloween is coming soon and all I want to do is go on a paranormal investigation at a real haunted location and maybe see a real spirit. I'm talking to my cousin, mom, everyone that I'm close to,

how I want to do this, go hunting and I want to see a spirit. Halloween comes and goes, nothing, we don't go on the investigation. Instead I go with my siblings to my cousin's house to hang out. I'm disappointed, but oh well. Next year, right? Two days later, my mother, sister, and brother and I are in the living room watching a movie. The movie ends. My brother and sister head to bed.

I stay with mom on the couch to watch another movie. We both fall asleep halfway through when I am woken up by this overwhelming masculine but feminine smell in my nose. It was as if someone tried to drown me in perfume and cologne at the same time. I blink awake and then peer over at the TV to see a very tall white mist blocking the TV in front of the coffee table. The light of the TV gives it a glow when I stare at it. I blink again rubbing my eyes to make sure I am seeing what I am seeing and my body is frozen in a mixture of emotions, fear, excitement and confusion. I know my mom is asleep on the other end of the couch so without my eyes looking away from this white mist I gently kick my mom in the

leg which she startles awake and blinks. I whisper, tell me you see that mist. My mother's confused but she looks at me and then toward what I am staring at. She replies after a moment of silence, I don't see anything. My heart sinks and I'm now thinking I've gone insane. Whatever I am seeing isn't real and then I hear from my mom, you really need to learn how not to put on so much perfume. If it wasn't for the fact this comment made me feel relieved I wasn't going insane. I would have been very annoyed with the woman. The mist didn't move, just stayed there in a straight column of white. I whisper back to my mother, I'm not wearing perfume. It's not me. It's the mist in front of the TV. At the same time I say this, the mist moves. It rather glides forward towards me and

disappears. I don't know about mom, but I had a hard time sleeping the rest of the night. The story takes place during the summer between my sophomore year and junior years of high school. I'm a 5'4 male, Hispanic, with certain parts of my hair dyed blue in the front. So not very threatening, at least. That's what I thought. I'm an introvert. Because of it, a lot of people take quietness and occasional witty remarks as a sign of malice, rather than the defense mechanism it is. Let's be honest, kids are mean. In truth, I don't hate anyone, but when you get hurt enough by enough people, you tend to limit how many

people you let in. To my friends, I'm an open book. But yeah, despite my pacifist philosophy and the value I see in all forms of life, both human and non-human, I'm still the guy that gets all the weird stalker jokes and accusations. In 8th grade, my own guidance counselor targeted me as a potential threat because I sat alone at lunch, but that's a story for another time. Every guy I talk to calls me gay or makes fun of me because I'm a hopeless romantic with legitimate respect for women and a sense of human decency and not some heartless jerk just trying to get laid. In other words, I pride myself on being the kind of guy that I am, which is what makes

this story feel so much worse than it already is. I had a falling out with a girl who was supposed to be my best friend, let's call her Eve, right at the end of 10th grade. My friends are the people I care about, the ones who I'm there for and the ones who are there for me. She didn't want that, she just wanted something surface level. I was crushed after not just losing my second half, but essentially finding out she was never really there to begin with. And though I'm usually able to keep my emotions in check, I spiraled into a bit of a depression. My grades had suffered during the school year because of

the anxiety my so-called friend caused me, as it always felt like I was walking on eggshells. But now that summer had started and I didn't have the daily routine holding my life together, I just kind of stopped. Part of me was relieved to have the weight of a toxic friendship lifted from me, but I still felt so empty inside, so alone. I had always been an outcast so feeling like I was special to someone was a big deal to me and losing it was devastating. I didn't draw like I usually do, I rarely went outside, I even got sick more often. I kind of just loafed around the house. Emotions are like a drug or salty food. They can be addictive and even if they're bad, you'll keep trying to recreate them. When you're depressed, you don't feel anything.

If you make yourself sad, at least you're feeling something. One day I was doing just that, reviving the pain by sliding through old photos on my phone. For Eve's birthday, I had made a video in which I got a bunch of people to hold up lyrics to the song My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson as the song played over it. Cheesy, I know. The photo app has this feature on it that allows you to see where pictures and videos were taken on a world map. Laying on the couch, I got curious and pulled up the map to see where everybody who had helped me with the video were. Harmlessless right?

Then I noticed that one girl who would help me, let's call her Harper, lived within walking distance of my house. I had met Harper in the 6th grade but we were never all that close. I admit I had had a little crush on her in middle school but it was mainly because she was the only person who didn't treat me like trash and it was probably just because she felt sorry for me. We didn't have anything in common and it always seemed like I was invisible to her. She was sweet but she just saw right through me. I had gotten over any feelings for her a while ago but she would still say hi and we would talk once in a blue moon. I would like to reiterate that I did not go searching on the web for her address or follow her home. I just happened to notice because it was in the app along with several other people. It could have been

anyone. For a few days I actually forgot about it completely trying to distract myself from any thought of Eve by watching YouTube and collecting stupid memes. It wasn't until almost a week later that I remembered. Now this is something that only fellow misfits will understand and it drives my mother absolutely crazy when it happens. When I see someone I know in public I tend to wander around them and wait for them to notice me. I don't want to go up and say hi to someone who would rather I drop dead than have to talk to me. If they speak up first I know I'm in the clear. It's stupid I know. I just don't want to overstep and embarrass myself. If your company is rejected by most people, a simple hello, someone going out of their

way to talk to you can really act as a confidence booster. It's nice to feel wanted in one way or another, and after I tried to be the best friend I could for Eve, I still wasn't good enough. Well, you see where this is going. Keep in mind, this is North Carolina in the middle of June. I wasn't about to walk half a mile during the middle of the day. I go on a walk throughout the neighborhood every night so my parents really wouldn't suspect anything. I guess that should have been my first clue. If I was keeping my plan for them,

deep down I knew something about what I was doing wasn't right. It was about 9.30pm when I set out. I actually took a few wrong turns before getting to her street. As I walked down I had this sudden heavy feeling in my throat but I chalked it up to nerves. It wasn't until I came to the actual house itself that it all began to set in. What exactly was my plan? To walk past their house and hope someone would notice me. Just then, I saw a car pull into the driveway and Harper's brother step out. He paused, gave me a puzzled look and walked inside. That was when it really hit me. What am I doing? Standing outside the house of a girl that I barely knew in the middle of the night, that's what. I can make all the excuses I want, that I wasn't

thinking straight or that my emotions clouded my brain but truthfully I knew this was screwed up. My mind knew full well that this was not okay and I just ignored it. I wanted to go and turn and run away. Right when I was about to sprint out of there I saw someone step out of the door. It was their mother. I tried to act as casual as possible, even asking if I was making people uncomfortable when she asked if I was lost or needed help or something. I made up some nonsense story about having a faulty compass. I just happened to have one with me and by some miracle she bought it, or at least acted like it. She was very pleasant, considering what her kids must have thought and said before she came out.

Once she was inside I ran home. I panicked as the reality of what I had done hit me in waves. I didn't tell anyone what really happened, not my friends, not my parents. I told everyone else it was a coincidence and thought that if I just played it off nothing would come of it. It's been several months and Harper blocked me as I discovered when I tried to text her about something completely unrelated. We have the same first period every other day and she avoids me like the plague. I ended up leaving her a voicemail as my final attempt in reconciling our not even friendship. It went something like this.

Hey it's me. If you're listening and please just listen, I know I screwed up. I was a jerk and then a liar and a hypocrite and probably a few other things. You have no reason to trust me or listen to me. I've been a lot of people over the past few years and I'm sorry you've only gotten bits and pieces of some of the worst ones. There was something I wanted to talk to you about concerning that, but as I have realized, there's probably a lot I've done that warrants an explanation. I'm not trying to justify anything or make excuses, there's just a lot of wrongs that I've been trying to right recently. Just get back to me if it doesn't make you too uncomfortable.

I won't bug you if you don't, just think about it, please? Okay, thank you. Bye. She never responded. I feel awful. I know there is nothing I can do to fix this. It will forever be a stain on my timeline that I can never scrub away. I was always an insignificant part of her life and I know that.

I was okay with only being a footnote in her story. I just wish it didn't have to be a bad one. Harper, if you're hearing this, I never meant to scare you. What I did was unacceptable and I'm sorry. This is my dad's story. It's one of many my pops told me growing up. My dad is from a city south of the Mexican capital, and let's just say my father's childhood was quite colorful to say the least. This city alone contains 365 churches, one for every day

of the year and the great majority built in the days of the conquistadors, so they're pretty old. My father is the third of 14 kids. No, seriously, and those were the children that actually survived. This was Mexico back in the mid to late 70s and this was very common. In the particular area that my father is from, he remembers how city officials would hold competitions to see what mother had the most children. He clearly remembers one woman having 22 living children. Mind you, this was Mexico back in the day and Catholic down to the bone, so birth control was out of the question. Since my father was the third oldest child and as a boy he was deemed old enough to help provide for his younger siblings, again this was Mexico

in the 70s, there was no such thing as child labor laws. I'll call my father Andreas in the story just for the sake of anonymity. So one day, Andreas' father wakes up 12-year-old Andreas around 4 in the morning and tells him, get up, you're going to help Senor Manuel with his groundskeeping duties at such and such church. You start helping provide for your brothers and sisters. Andreas had no idea his father had made such arrangements, but did as he was told, albeit begrudgingly. Because this was a time when if you didn't do as you were told, you got beat. And I don't mean just a simple spanking. I mean beat black and blue. It was late fall, early

winter, and since Andreas and his family were poor, the closest thing he had to a coat was the blanket off his bed. Senor Manuel was already waiting for Andreas outside, and since it was cold weather, the sun wasn't even peaking in the horizon yet. So here goes Andreas, rubbing the grit from his eyes, grumpy that he had to be up so early and in the cold to help out with his brothers and sisters, when suddenly Senor Manuel spoke up. Listen kid, I only agreed to this to help out your father, but you're going to get in my way more than you help, so just go into the church

and do whatever you want, just stay out of my way. Andreas perked up at the sound of this. His father was still going to get a little money to help out with his siblings and he didn't have to do any of the work. This was the best deal ever, or so we thought. When they arrived, because they walked there, Senor Manuel unlocked the old wooden doors to the church and told Andreas to lay down in one of the pews and keep out of trouble. Andreas happily wrapped himself up into his blanket and curled up on one of the pews in the old dark church. The only light was from the candles that were stacked about the church and in the old wood and wrought iron candelabras. Andreas quickly fell asleep. After some time, something woke Andreas up.

He wasn't sure how long that he had been asleep, but he couldn't help but feel that eyes were watching him. He peeked out from under his blanket and screened the area. His eyes were drawn to a darkened doorway to the left of the altar and the moment he realized what he was looking at, the air was sucked from his lungs and his whole body ran cold. There in the dark doorway were the faces of three men. Andreas couldn't believe what he was seeing and rubbed his eyes like crazy, hoping it was just a trick of the light. But they were all right there.

The men weren't dressed in clothes he recognized, but in clothes that looked to be from hundreds of years ago. Their faces were dark and angry and they kept making gestures at him that they were going to hurt him. Andreas didn't know what to do. He was frozen in fear and terror, so he covered his face in his blanket and began to pray. He peeks one eye out and is relieved to see the men are gone, and somehow he falls back asleep.

After some time passes, Andreas, who is a very light sleeper, wakes up again, that feeling of being watched snapping him awake. He opens his eyes again, and to his horror, the men have returned and they are actually standing outside the doorway now. Their clothes are old and their faces are full of hate at the sight of him. They make gestures at him that they are going to hurt him and one of them gives a dark smile that scared him more than the violent gestures. The smiley man gestures for Andreas to look up and when Andreas does, a scream claws up his throat but dies on his lips. There from one of the old wooden chandeliers hangs Senor Manuel and his entire body had been skinned beside his face, which is the only recognizable feature.

He pinches himself and pinches himself in the hopes that he is dreaming, but he isn't. Andreas hears a creaking sound behind him and notices a silver of sunlight creeping on the floor of the church, and before his mind could register what his body was doing, he bolted from his place and ran out the open door and didn't look back. Andreas hears someone calling his name, but refuses to look back. It was indeed the real groundskeeper, alive and well, but Andreas was too frightened to look back. After that day, he refused to go into or anywhere near that church until he was around 18 years old. By that time, the church was mostly unused and borderline abandoned.

He went into that church, went into that doorless room which led to some stone steps that went down into a type of basement. The room was windowless and empty. Andreas made himself stand there for an hour to prove to himself that he was not afraid anymore and that what he saw, although he couldn't explain it, was a figment in his imagination. Nothing happened. I asked my dad if he was scared and he responded with, of course I was, but I had to get over that fear. Many decades later after my dad had come to America and married my mother and started a life with her, huge earthquakes rocked his hometown. This was back in the 90s and my father paid for a friend to mail him copies of a local newspaper

from his hometown. What he read shocked him friend to mail him copies of the local newspaper from his hometown. What he read shocked him. Due to the magnitude of the earthquake that hit his town, many of the old churches were severely damaged and revealed dark secrets. The church from my father's story was among the damaged churches and upon inspection of said church, the bodies of local native Mexicans who were forced to build the church were discovered buried in the walls. This of course made my father question what he had seen when he was a boy, and severed the last thread of his religious interest in the Catholic church. Unfortunately, this was not the only case of bodies found within church walls. My father went on to tell me that a certain covenant had the bodies of young pregnant nuns buried within, and some showed signs that they had been buried alive.

It turns out that, during the time of the Mexican Revolution, peasants took their daughters to convents in the hopes that they would be safe from the dangers of the revolution. Sadly, this was not the case. When these poor peasants would go to visit the daughters, some were told that the daughters were sent off to the Vatican to further serve the church, only to never be heard from again. This is just one of the stories my dad told me from his days in Mexico. To this day, my dad can't explain what he saw, but he remembers it crystal clear.

Please take into consideration that this is by no means me bashing religion. This is just a scary life experience my father told me that Ultimately turned out to have very sad outcomes for some poor people I'm a girl, I studied Chinese at a university and went to China for a program exchange for a few months. Also, English isn't my mother tongue, so excuse me for any grammar mistakes. I went to a Chinese school in China. Everything happened very well, and after finishing my semester, I got extra time before leaving the country so I could visit around with friends. Me and another girl friend decided to visit the capital during one week. It was January so the weather was awfully cold in Peking and after two days there I got sick

but since we had so much to do I just carried on for the full journey. Everything went okay. I discovered that I didn't like Peking that much in comparison to where I stayed for my full semester but some places we visited were beautiful anyway. What made the journey awful was the day before we left Peking. On that day we had decided to visit a part of the Great Wall by our own. Since I was still sick we got up a little bit later than expected but it was still a little bit afternoon when we got out of our motel. We made a few researches in how to get there and all we had to do was taking a couple of bus. The final bus would make the longest trip, about two hours, and then we should walk about 10 to 15 minutes until arriving at the Great Wall. So that's what we did.

When we arrived, it was close to 4pm. When we got off the bus, we were in front of a building with a parking lot area and, on the right, a large road that was leading to the Great Wall. We followed our Chinese Google Maps and on the right a large road that was leading to the Great Wall. We followed our Chinese Google Maps and climbed the road. It was literally on a mountain, trying not to fall off since the road was very slippery. After 10 minutes we saw some shops on our left side and we had the choice to keep using the road or using a shortcut through a tiny hall full of gift shops. Obviously we took the shortcut. As we approached we noticed that we had to climb 60 degree stairs and my friend was already tired from all the walking that we

had done so we took a tiny break and she ordered some food to warm herself up. I'm just going to remind you that the weather was below freezing even though we were wearing a ton of clothes. For myself I wore three pairs of socks, two sweaters with a jacket and two beanies, and I was still frozen and couldn't feel my feet. So, we were tired up a lot more easily than normal. At some point, my phone even told me that it couldn't cooperate because of the freezing weather. After that, we climbed the stairs and finally arrived at the entrance area. We bought our tickets and entered in the Great Wall area.

It was wonderful. We climbed a few stairs, took pictures. We pointed a spot that looked like the highest from where we stood and decided to go until there and then go back. The wind was crazy up there, that's where my phone almost died, and the stairs were polished and all bumpy, probably because this place is highly visited. That made the path even more slippery than the road was. I fell off at some point without even realizing it until my butt was on the floor. Halfway to the highest spot my friend felt really bad all of a sudden and needed to sit. I asked her if she wanted us to go back and she declined. She sat on one of the stairs and told

me to keep going, taking pictures of her and then we will proceed to leave. At this time of the day the sun was going down. In China after 5pm it's dark but there was still a lot of people on the Great Wall so we thought it was okay to continue. It took me 10-15 minutes to reach the highest point. I took some photos and then went back to my friend but she wasn't there anymore. I panicked a bit, tried to check my phone and I couldn't see anything from her. I texted her and thought that she should have gone back to the entrance area. I went back to the area but she still wasn't there. I noticed a big gift shop on the left and entered. I started to ask for my friend and the man behind the counter pointed me to my friend in the back of the shop. She was drinking a hot cocoa glued to a radiator, but she was still shaking.

I sat down with her in relief. We waited a bit more for her to warm up again and then left the store. We wanted to take the shortcut as we did before, but it was closed. We were used to seeing stores closing after 9pm in China, so it surprised us since it was only a bit after 5. So we had to take the long way. And it's at that point that everything went from okay to a complete disaster. We researched on the way how to go there but not on the way back to come back.

We thought it would be the same so it was okay for us. Normally there were two buses but only one of them did the trip back to the city and obviously we didn't know that. The first bus we took to arrive there was going one way and stopped after 9pm. The only bus that could drive us back to the capital stopped riding at 5pm. We learned that the hard way. We were going down the road when we saw two big cars with two suspicious guys. One of them tried to stop us and yelled in an approximate English of, no more bus, go with me taxi. I knew exactly what kind of taxis they were. I've been warned by other friends that some people waited at the great wall and pretended to be a taxi. They usually propose to drive you to the nearest bus stop but that trip

is overpriced. We refused as we thought at that point that the first bus we took could still drive us back home. We kept walking but the guy still talked to us. We thought he will stop after a while since we ignored him. We didn't know how wrong we were. We were walking still trying not to fall and we didn't hear from the guy for a couple of minutes so we thought that he had gotten over it and then we heard a car slowly driving behind us. There were some larger areas in front of us, and the guy drove until there and turned off the car and got out of it. He tried again to persuade us to go with him.

He said the price of the trip, and we said no in Chinese. We told him it was too expensive and then started walking again. We could hear him say, No bus to Peking. Bus station very far, but we ignored him. My friend was still feeling really bad, and it was difficult for us to climb down. We heard him going back in his car and was driving at our pace next to us. He kept talking and blocked the road once again. At this point my friend had had enough and she told him she was feeling bad and she was okay to go with him if he lowered his price. He said no, so we kept walking.

I told her there was no use to show him interest, otherwise he would keep bothering us and try scamming us while the bus stop was only about ten minutes away from us. Obviously, he didn't stop there and kept following us and talking to us. He stopped his car again in front of us and finally said he was okay to lower the price. I had pity for my friend's state of health and I was also tired and feeling weak. We talked a bit together to decide whether we should go with him and we were on the verge of saying yes. Then I had a gut feeling. We were two

young girls lost in the middle of nowhere and he insisted a lot to go with him. I remember the stranger danger talk with my mom when I was a child, grabbed my friend's arm, said no again and helped her to come down. We used a little path so the car couldn't follow directly, thinking we were done with him but we could still see him from there and he was still asking to come with him. My friend was almost crying from pain and all I thought was that I had to be strong for the both of us. I screamed at the man, threatening to call the cops and told him to buzz off. He laughed and the second man from earlier arrived with his car. They had a chat and we decided to use that distraction to flee. Thankfully he stopped following us after that.

We arrived at the building with the parking lot area and went to the bus stop. That's at this moment that we realized there was no bus stop on the other side of the road. On one side of the parking lot there was a little kind of house with, we believe, two policemen inside. My friend went to ask them for help and waited just in case at the bus stop. When she came back, she told me that there was no use and also they rudely made fun of her Chinese accent. I was mad, thinking that these men only talk Chinese while we talk three or four different languages. Whatever, I told her. We will wait at the stop and we will ask the bus driver. We waited for 15 minutes and no bus was

in sight. We saw that there were lights on in the building behind us and we went straight there to ask for help. A nice security guy told us to take the bus for one stop and then there, there should be a bus stop on the other side of the road so we could have a ride back. He said that the bus should pass every 30 minutes or so, so we should still wait at the bus stop. He was nice enough to wait with us until the bus finally arrived. We did as he said and after 10 minutes we arrived at the next stop. At that place there were more houses and buildings so we felt a bit safer than before. We waited for the bus but didn't seem to come.

After a while a man that was getting out his trash saw us and asked if we wanted help. We told him we wanted to go back to the city and waved his hand in the air. There's no more bus he chuckled. You should sleep here to go back to the city and waved his hand in the air. There's no more bus, he chuckled. You should sleep here and go back tomorrow morning. That's when we noticed the guy went out from a motel and he was probably the owner so we declined his invitation. Thankfully he left, but we were panicking again. It was around 8.30pm and normally the last bus should be at 9pm. Yes, it took us almost 3 hours to arrive nowhere

while normally we should have been home already, but it wasn't done yet. We thought forget it, as we were so exhausted at this point and ordered a Chinese Uber to drive us back to Peking. It would be expensive since it was a couple of hours trip but we were too tired to think, and at least it wasn't as expensive as the fake taxi. The Uber driver arrived 10 minutes later. Still no bus came but so we thought it was the best choice we did. He stopped in front of us, asked our name and we nodded with relief. But then he asked how much we paid him. We share a weird look. My friend told him, you should know it, you have the app as well. He asked again. She finally told him and he responded, it, you have the app as well. He asked again.

She finally told him and he responded, hmm, no I want double the price. We were dumbfounded. How could even our Uber driver try to scam us? We argued with him saying we don't have any money and we paid already with the app. We said we were tired but he didn't want to change his mind. At this point I lost it and just screamed with a low pitched voice. I was dead beat, frozen and thought we were never going home. My scream did no reaction from the guy.

Maybe he chuckled but I can't remember that. I was having a huge panic attack. I was crying and begging but this idiot didn't want to change his mind. I started sending my friends help texts as I didn't know what else to do anymore. One of them that lived in Peking at the time called me. She was trying to understand what was going on and listen to the discussion and disbelief. Two old ladies were walking near us so my friend stopped them to beg for their help. The two ladies talked with the Uber driver and then told us we should pay him. They were clearly on his side and thought we were dumb tourists and we weren't worth their time. They were clearly on his side, and thought we were dumb tourists,

and we weren't worth their time. They stayed with us anyways, as my friend tried to solve the situation, and my friend was on the phone just getting angrier and angrier, trying to find a solution on her side. I was totally useless at that point. Suddenly, and thank the lord, my friend got the idea to cancel this Uber drive and to order another one. Luckily, the other car was 10 minutes away from us. The odd Uber driver didn't leave us and still tried to bargain with us, even when the second Uber driver showed up. The old ladies left at that point and we jumped in the car without saying a word. Both of the drivers talked together. I couldn't understand what they were saying because I was still in shock, but

our driver finally started the car. This time our driver didn't try to scam us but I was tense during the whole way back to our motel, frequently checking the Chinese Google map on my phone. During my whole semester in China, this day was the absolute worst experience I had ever encountered. Some background information from my experience. 1. Our German Shepherd Rocco passed away about a year ago, leaving us with two pit bulls in the house. 2. I often experience sleep paralysis of the non-paranormal kind. This means when I experience sleep paralysis, I do not see any figures or shadows during an episode, nor experience any paranormal activities, which makes this experience very unique to me.

I was having a sleep paralysis episode downstairs while dozing off on the couch around 2am-ish. My husband and the two pitties were already in bed upstairs and I hadn't heard any noises that indicated any of them were awake. It's important to note that my two pits make clickety-clack noises with their nails, short as they are, as our floors are all wood and tile throughout the house. Rocco never made noises because he was always a proper dog and never bound around the house like these two. During this episode, as usually, I tried to keep my breathing even, repeat a few prayers, not to freak out altogether.

It never helps and often make things worse. While doing this, I distinctly heard a dog sniff my ears and felt a wet nose. It was brief, maybe a few seconds, and I just figured it was one of the two dogs that came down to drink water or use the doggy door. Shortly after, and I mean minutes after if that, I'm able to move again. I never fall back asleep after a sleep paralysis episode. It always scares me to think that another may occur again, I always stay up and after I was able to get up and move again I searched for which dog it was that sniffed at my ears. I did not see neither of them so I crept upstairs to find that all three were fast asleep in the master's bedroom. It was

then that I realized I hadn't heard any clicking noises from the two pit nails nor did I hear them go back up the stairs. I told my husband and of course he brushes it off saying I probably fell back asleep and didn't realize it. I'd like to think that our faithful and loving Rocco came to visit me that night. This first story happened when I was around 12 years old, so back in 2007. During summer holidays, we'd hang out at a playground near my apartment, often way past midnight. It might sound weird for five kids to be out without supervision so late, but Finland is generally a safe country, and since the sun doesn't really set during the summer our parents were really relaxed about us being out at night. So one night we're just

chilling as usual laughing probably louder than is polite when we hear a car driving fast on the gravel road leading to the playground. We hear it stop at a small opening meant as a parking lot for visitors before starting up again. The car does what sounds like donuts before driving away, only to repeat the same thing a couple of more times. At this point, we've all gone quiet, listening to the car as it keeps repeating the same steps. Now, we're at a position where we can't really see the car because the playground is surrounded by forest, so we can only know what's happening by sound. The car leaves again and comes back just as the oldest one of us at 13, called R, does what I still to this day

consider one of the stupidest things he's ever done. From the top of his lungs he screams, come play with us and then the car stops. There's this moment of silence where we just look at each other. We all let out a sigh of relief when the car starts up again and starts to leave. We think we're in the clear when R shouts again, and at this point the rest of us are screaming for him to stop. We all go quiet again when we hear the car engine stop, and after this it's all very much a blur to me. The car stops, but this time we hear the door open and close like someone getting out of the car. I remember my friends screaming as we run through the playground. I hear footsteps following us but I'm too scared to look back, afraid of what I might see. We run

to the other side of the park and straight through a worn out hole in the hedge fence, just big enough to fit through. It's a weird detail to remember but I was the last one through and in my panic I screamed about not being able to fit through over and over until R and another friend quite literally dragged me to the other side. Once through we all just stood there in silence and in shock but also relieved because we are now right next to a big road and let me tell you, seeing the occasional car driving by has never felt so comforting. Eventually, once we feel the road is clear, we go back because R had left his bike when we bolted. We make sure he gets out of the park safely, all agreeing to

send a text once we get home before everyone runs off to different directions. Safe to say, we didn't hang out past midnight after that, no matter how light it was outside. The thing is, while I said Finland is a safe place to live in, we happened to live in one of those worst cities. But yet, four of us lived or had lived in the bad part of town, mainly inhabited by families living below poverty line and people suffering from addictions or mental health issues, and the playground was smack dab in the middle of that area. However, R was from a wealthy family and grew up in what I call the rich people neighborhood on the other side of town, and it took us closer to a month to convince him to come back and hang out with us,

even during the daytime. The second story takes place in September of the next year. Me, R, and K, who was also there during the park freakout, have spent the evening in the city center. It's the night of fashion, basically a commercial festival meant to promote the local clothing stores with fashion shows and appearances from B-class celebs. Also prime time for teens a bit older than us to drink in public without any consequences, and we'd gone out with the same group of friends, but two of us had to leave early, unlike the three of us, their parents actually set them a curfew after the previous accident. It's around 11pm and the festival was starting to die down,

so we head to the backyard of a nearby apartment building and just hang out at a swing set. People had started to head home a little earlier and we can hear the last of the music blaring from the distance. So we hang out there for a while, not really feeling uneasy despite the growing darkness because we think that there are still people everywhere nearby. So what's the worst that could possibly happen, right? Well, after a while a couple of older guys, I'd guess around 17 or 18, entered the yard and sat down on the bench. We paid them no mind and continued talking, assuming they're just there to chill, just as we are. Now I'm not 100% sure what happened at this point as I have my back to them, but suddenly R and K go very quiet, shushing me as well while taking quick looks over my shoulder. I try to ask them what's up but they still just shush me and stop me when I try and

turn around and see what's going on. After what feels like minutes but was probably only a few seconds, R whispers, let's start walking away, act casual. K nods and we leave and only at this point am I starting to get scared. As quickly as they can, they let me know that the guys have been staring at us for a good 10 minutes while whispering to each other. Okay, at this point I'm creeped out but not as terrified as my friends. However, as we're walking away, Kay looks back and lets us know the guys have stood up and are now following us, matching our pace. We start speedwalking and then burst into a full sprint when we hear their footsteps

getting faster behind us. We run to the end of the road and make a quick turn right before a crosswalk. Kay sees a barely visible opening in a hedge fence, the true hero of my life, and crawls through, pulling R with her, who in turn grabs me and pulls me to the other side. We sit there, three kids on wet lawn right in front of someone's house, and watch through the bush as the guys come to the same crosswalk, and we're all just silently hoping they didn't see where we went. Someone, I don't remember who, points out that they're holding on to something, and since I'm the closest to the guys, I take a peek and it feels like my soul is about to leave my body. They've stopped, clearly trying to see where we went, and half hidden in their fists are tiny pocket knives.

I whisper this to my friends and whatever color was left on their faces immediately drains away. Kay starts muttering something in Russian and I can only assume she's praying for our lives. Finally, the two guys evidently decide we must have crossed the road as they do just so, clearly still searching for us as they disappeared in the park on the other side of the road. We sit still for another ten minutes and then get up before, once again, hurriedly going back for R's bike. He's clearly a lot more shaken up than me and K, so we walk with him as far as we can, and then continue on the phone for another five minutes until he gets home. We walked on the side of the motor road, as our only other option was an unlit

road right next to a forest, for another fifteen minutes before parting ways at my place, and safe to say, it was the last time we stayed out so late. I don't know how much this affects the events of that night, but at the time we were all between 5'4 and 5'6, and although R was the only guy of the group, he was constantly getting mistaken for a girl at the time. All three of us were also rocking some major baby faces, leading to people usually

thinking we were at least a couple of years younger than we really were. I'm 23 now and have multiple more stories for a later time, including some paranormal experiences as well as a drug boss living right next door. But as for now, we still don't know who those guys were or what they were planning on doing to what they probably thought were three preteen girls. For some background, my twin sister and I are females and this happened around the year of 2012 or 2013. That would make her and I around 12 or 13 at the time. We are both currently 18 and the event that I am about to explain still gives me nightmares to this day and I have to remember how lucky I really am to be alive. We are from the

outskirts of Chicago and at that time hadn't been anywhere since. During the Thanksgiving holiday some family of ours from around the surrounding towns invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner which would be in about a week. My family and I weren't really close and everyone thought it would be a good idea to get together and spend time with one another. Boy were they wrong. I have a big household, a family of seven. There was my twin and I, our three younger siblings, and our mother and father. So two of my aunts, both from my father's side, this is important to note, thought of a plan to separate us for more space and we would all meet up again in the following days. My twin sister

and I, being the oldest, got to pick who we wanted to stay with until we would all meet up again. Her and I chose our aunt for privacy reasons, let's call her Shelly. So my sister and I chose to stay with our aunt Shelly as it was only her, my uncle, and grandfather. We thought it best to choose her because my other aunt had many young children and my parents had my youngest sibling who was only a few months old at the time. We thought it would be a great time away from all the crying, hitting, and whining. Hours pass and soon we're on the highway, making our way to our Aunt Shelly's awesome house. Well, we thought it was awesome at the time. It had everything kids could want. She had a lot of video games, a computer, two dogs, and she gave us all the junk food our little

stomachs could possibly hold. About 20 minutes until we arrive at my aunt and uncle's house, my aunt decided to stop at a store next to Walmart. I don't know which store it was, as it was a chain of stores connected together, to pick up a few last minute things she needed for Thanksgiving dinner. My aunt Shelly and my uncle went inside the store, leaving my twin sister and I inside the car with my grandfather. Now remember when I said the fact that my aunt was from my father's side was important? Well, here's where it goes into effect. So my grandfather was also from my father's side, making him my father's father. My father's side of the family is Puerto Rican, and a lot of that half of the family doesn't even speak English. But my twin

sister and I only knew English, which put my sister and I in an awful place during this. Now let's cut to the chase. A few minutes after my aunt and uncle went inside the store, my sister and I made a game of messing with my grandfather while he was sleeping. We'd tickle his sides, put jelly beans up his nose, kept rolling the window up and down in which he was leaning on. You know, funny kid stuff. He never woke up during any of our playing but we could hear him snoring loudly. He's out like a light, my sister said to me and we both fell into fits of laughter. The minutes kept ticking by and the parking lot around us grew smaller and smaller. Many cars leaving and hardly any cars coming in. It was late when we

looked at the car radio and it was almost 11 at night. My sister and I were now getting antsy and needed to move around as many kids do. As I was opening the car door on my side, a small black car pulled up beside my aunt's car and I quickly shut it as the car now beside us almost took off my aunt's car's door with how reckless they were driving. They seemed like they were in a hurry. I scoffed and looked back at my twin sister who also looked as surprised as I did. Jeez, what's their problem? I asked. It was taking the two men in the car beside us an awfully long while to get out. My sister was no longer interested in them and continued messing around with our sleeping grandfather. However, I was interested.

I crouched my body down so my head was the only thing visible if you were looking at my aunt's car. I kept looking in their direction while also waiting for my aunt and uncle to get out of the store and come back into the car so we could be on our way. Minutes seemed like hours and the men still didn't get out of their car. I could only hardly hear them talking. I grabbed the handle of the door and my sister quickly grasped my arm. I turned to her and she shook her head at me. What? I asked. I want to get out and stretch my legs. I'm going to go check on Titi and Tio. Titi and Tio, which is slang for aunt and uncle in Spanish. She once again shook her head. She always acted like she

was the boss even though she was only two minutes older than I was. I sighed in defeat and continued watching the men next to me which were now beginning to get out of their car. I sunk down further so they couldn't see me watching them. Both men dressed in all black slammed the car doors behind them and one handed something over to the other. My breathing stopped and my heart began beating a thousand miles per hour. The man handed a gun to the other man. I yanked on my sister's sweater and made her sink down to my view so the men could not see us or so we thought. The man who did not carry the gun was carrying a large black trash bag. What? My sister asked. I shushed her and held onto her arm for dear life. She shifted under my grasp and complained about how I was hurting her. They have a gun, I said barely audible, but I knew my sister had

heard me because now she was quiet and her breath also grew ragged. We watched as they grew closer to the chain of stores and I knew we were both quietly praying that the men didn't go into the same store in which my aunt and uncle were in. Thankfully they didn't and I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding. Instead they walked into Walmart. What I heard next still makes my ears bleed. I could hear very faint screams of the people inside Walmart as the man holding the gun pointed it towards the civilians. My sister jumped over and shook my grandfather who was now awake. Grandpa, grandpa, my sister yelled. What darling, he said in Spanish. She quickly went on a spree trying to explain to my grandfather about what was happening. My grandfather tried to listen but he couldn't understand and him being as old as he was,

he just fell right back asleep. At this point my sister and I were now terrified. I still didn't take my eyes off the man in the store. My sister quickly grabbed the blanket beneath us and made us sink to the floor of the car, covering us up so we were no longer visible. It seemed like years but soon the car doors next to us opened and we could hear a girl screaming and sobbing. My sister's eyes went wide and so did mine. Shut up and get in the car doors next to us opened and we could hear a girl screaming and sobbing. My sister's eyes went wide and so did mine. Shut up and get in the car! That's all we ever heard the men say. I wanted to see what was going on before they left so I did something I regret.

I peeked up from the covers and slowly peeked over the window. I saw a girl, I'd guess around sixteen in the back of the car, crying loudly. I held my breath and looked at the men in the front seat. Two pairs of daggering eyes were looking in my direction. The guy nearest to my aunt car abruptly opened his door, but he didn't get out. The other guy quickly grabbed him and shut the door. He only shook his head to the other guy. He looked annoyed. The guy in the driver's seat looked at me, smiled a sinister smile, and put his fingers up to his lips, motioning me to shush. I nodded and finally let the tears fall.

I looked over at the girl once again and she looked back at me, both of us wallowing in our tears. Her sad eyes still haunt me. A few seconds later the car sped off, never to be seen again. My sister and I were quiet in our tears. Her sad eyes still haunt me. A few seconds later the car sped off never to be seen again. My sister and I were quiet in the car. We didn't speak again until my aunt and uncle came back to the car. We both quickly jumped over our words to tell them what happened. They both just looked at us like we were crazy. It was probably just the girl's parents picking up their teenage daughter who didn't want to leave her friends.

That's all they said. They never mentioned anything about the gun we mentioned or the trash bag. My sister and I cried and silenced the rest of the way of the house. Nothing ever came of it. I now live in the town in which that happened. I still haven't went into that store. Although it happened nearly six years ago. My dad is a nurse who works at a nursing home in a small town in the south of the Netherlands.

I respect nurses a lot because you need a great deal of patience and have to be able to handle difficult situations, like someone with dementia wandering off and bringing him or her back safe and sound. His job consists of guiding and taking care of the elderly. He can get calls from time to time from elderly who need his help at night with, for example, going to the bathroom. He loves his job and makes a lot of hours working in night shifts. Seeing people leave fully rehabilitated and ready to go home always brings a smile on his face. But enough of that, on to the story. My dad had just started his night shift one night when he got a call by an elderly man who I will call William. William shared a two-person bedroom with another man, Charles. These two men were mentally healthy and had no signs of dementia whatsoever.

So, my dad walks over to the two-person's room and asks William if everything is okay and if he needs help with something. William says, There was a man in my room just now. He stood next to my bed and was wearing a long trench coat and had a top hat on his head and he had this very large book under his arms. I didn't dare say anything to him. My dad looked confused and asked,

Maybe it was Charles you saw who got up to use the restroom? William responded, I did not make out his face, but I'm certain it wasn't Charles because I checked and he was asleep when the man stood next to me. My father was pretty shocked to hear this and offered William to wait next to him until he fell back asleep. When William did, my dad checked on Charles who was still sound asleep. Halfway through the night, my dad's shift ended and a co-worker took over for him. He told her about the sighting of the

man in the room. She didn't really believe him very much though. The next day in the afternoon my dad had to go to work again. When he arrived the co-worker told him what apparently went down last night. The co-worker did not receive any more calls from the two persons bedroom. The next morning as the co-worker was making her usual rounds to wake everyone, she discovered Charles lying lifeless on his bed. She asked other co-workers to come help her, to maybe save his life, but they noticed he was already cold to the touch. When they asked William about it, who was woken up by all the commotion, now sitting completely baffled on the edge of his bed, he gave them an answer that left them confused and frightened.

He woke up out of nowhere in the middle of the night when he saw that the strange man had returned. This time William did say something. He asked, Who are you? What are you doing here? Unlike last time, the man spoke. In a deep, low voice, he responded,

I'm not here for you, I'm here for your neighbor. Go back to sleep, William. William was too scared to say or do anything after this. He shut his eyes and tried to fall back asleep which miraculously he did. Later the staff reviewed the security footage that was of the hallway in which the entrance of William's room was. No one except for my dad got in and out of that room the previous night. William still believes to this day the man who visited him that night was a physical manifestation of death. It happened when I just started college. I stayed in an apartment that was literally in the middle of the woods and isolated.

Apparently my college worked together with the weird apartment. That building had always been famous for being haunted and people ending their lives there. Not proud, but it happened even when I was still staying there. I stayed in a unit on level 3A and my two best friends were on level 5. Let's call her Jess and 6, Angel. You see, the apartment sucks and even worse, the past six months those three levels that happened to be our floors had no lights at all at the hallway. And the worst part was was my unit was at the very end of the hallway near the emergency exit and in front of my unit all I could see was woods. It was completely dark if I were to go out to have dinner. Since we were all females we decided to

have a way to go out to dinner together without feeling scared. Angel and Jess would go out first and take stairs down to level 3A and I would go out last until they would call me that they were on level 3A. And once more, we never took a lift since it stopped working way too often. One night, Angel texted me that she's on level 3A. Since most of the time she's always already with Jess, I was taking my time. I locked the door and looked towards where they should have been and I saw both of them and they waved at me with their phone. It was completely dark but I saw their phone screen lights so I walked slowly since I knew they were together.

I was walking down the hallway while looking at my phone. I said hi while looking at my phone and without saying anything I just walked past them and go towards the stairs so they can just follow me right behind. But what I heard was, where are you going? We're supposed to wait for Jess here. I stopped. I turned around and there she was.

Angel, all alone and no sign of Jess. I looked around for Jess and she's still not there. It was all darkness around us. I remember it clearly. I walked past them and even said hi to two people. There I was, stood there dumbfounded and waited for Jess without saying a word to Angel. They still don't know anything until now. So who was it? The majority of my family does not believe in the paranormal. I was raised to believe that when you die you go to heaven or hell depending on your beliefs. I personally believe that places like homes, hospitals, graveyards, etc. have energy, and depending on certain events, that energy can focus on bad juju, creating a force that is like an imprint of another time. Even

though the belief in ghosts within my family is lacking, we have had our fair share of odd happenings, specifically in my grandfather's home. My grandfather grew up in dirt poor old coal miner country Pennsylvania. He and his brother dropped out of school and barely had a first grade education. The family was torn between two jobs, grave digger or coal miner, and my grandfather chose the latter. When he finally did get money coming in, he and his brother-in-law purchased a duplex. My grandfather, grandmother, and mother lived on one side and his sister, brother-in-law, and my mom's cousin lived on the other. My mother told us stories of how she and her cousin would talk through walls and how she would comfort her cousin because her uncle was a raging alcoholic

and abusive to her cousin and aunt. Eventually my mother's uncle ended her life and her aunt and cousin moved out. My grandfather tore down the walls of the duplex to make room for foster children as he and my grandmother had issues with conceiving more biological children. Off topic, eventually my mother did welcome a younger sister and brother when she was 12. My mother eventually left and married my father and had siblings and I. In a turn of events, while visiting my grandparents, my grandmother suffered a heart attack, gastric bypass gone wrong, and at the age of 40 passed away at home. My grandfather naturally went crazy, attempted to end his own life Rage quit his coal mining job and went on disability. He refused to enter the house, placed the foster children back in the state's care,

and moved my aunt and uncle in with a relative. He claimed that my grandmother was haunting him in that house. My family uprooted and moved into the house. We lived there for about six years. During that time, I always had the feeling of being watched. Me and my sister's room had a door that led up to the attic. There was always someone rattling the door handle and my sister got into the habit of climbing in bed with me out of fear. My parents were on the other side and their room also had a door leading to the same steps to the attic. My mother, the non-believer, had even pushed her dresser up against the door to stop the door from randomly opening. Then there was the window in the kitchen. It faced a porch

and when you looked at it, it always seemed someone was walking past. I swear there was someone walking past it. I never mentioned it at the time, but my father admitted he too saw the same thing years later. Eventually my grandfather decided he wanted to move back in and my family moved a few hours away, coming back every couple of months to visit it. During that time my aunt and uncle moved out on their own and my grandfather was introduced to a friend of my aunt's and well, they shacked up and got married. At the ripe old age of 50, my grandfather became a father again. Not only to two young stepchildren, but two more biological children. Yes, my aunt and uncle

are 10 years younger than me. My grandfather told my mother about how he would get up with my youngest uncle and take him to the bathroom during the middle of the night. There was only one bathroom and it was on the first floor. He claimed my uncle was terrified of the lady who walked around at night. My grandfather swore he could literally smell the perfume my grandmother wore, white chantilly lace. He said it made his hair stand up. On one particular midnight bathroom trip, he heard a scratching in the roof between the first and second floor. Figuring it was a rogue critter, he waited until morning to pull the tiles off and take a look at any damage done and lay a few traps. What he found

gives me serious goosebumps to this day. Stashed away in between the roof tiles were old family videotapes of his sister's family from when the house was a duplex 30 plus years earlier. There were many other odd happenings but the craziest is recent. Now my mother, myself, and my sister's family came into some luck when the two houses next door to my grandmother's became available. We snatched them up and after some hardcore renovations moved in. My mother and I in the house directly next to my grandfather's and my sister in the same property as mine up on a hill with a private road. My mother had been looking to move back for a while as my grandfather, after 20 years of marriage, found himself 70, single and raising a 16-year-old by himself.

Yes, some scum would leave an old man alone to care for himself and a young daughter. This left my father living with my twin brother, who incidentally lived next door to my oldest brother and his family three hours away. Though my father is stuck in a contract job, he and my twins still make way to visit every weekend while my oldest brother visits once a year. He has had his own family after all. Though my grandfather is quite old nowadays, up until last November he still had one living sibling. He was quite devastated to be the last one of five alive. Now my oldest brother hasn't visited since September the year before and decided now was the time to pay his respects and visit our grieving grandfather. He brought his two young

sons with him. Mind you the youngest was two the last time he was here visiting. We were sitting at my house, eating breakfast and waiting for the funeral service to start when my brother came in with his youngest, now three-year-old son and announced he had asked him if they could go visit my grandfather next door. Here's the real kicker. He said that he wanted to see his friend Patty. My brother claims he never told him that name and had no idea where he got it from. Patty is my grandmother's name. We took him next door and

he told my grandfather he wanted to see Patty. My grandfather's mouth dropped open. He asked my nephew to point out where Patty was and he pointed to the corner of the kitchen next to the window. He said Patty says it was all going to be okay. Later when we got back from my great uncle's funeral, we dropped my grandfather off at his door to find a single white bird feather stuck in his door with no birds around. We were all at the funeral. There was no way anyone could have done this. In case you were wondering the meaning of white feathers, it means your loved ones are in heaven, safe and well. So this happened about six months or so ago in my home in a small town in

South Australia. We had just moved into a new house, we being me, my two brothers, my sister and my mom. My bedroom, which has many windows along one wall showing the entire backyard to be visible. There were three doors to my room, one leading from the laundry and toilet, one leading to the kitchen, and the last one was a screen door that led directly outside. Those details are important. The room was a rectangle, down one end was a screen door that led directly outside. Those details are important. The room was a rectangle, down one end was the outside door, and up the other was my bed. One morning I woke up at about 4am, which is really early for me, and I had this strange feeling that I was being watched, but I couldn't tell what it was. I tried to look around, but I couldn't move.

Oh man, I thought. I had heard plenty of stories about sleep paralysis, but I never but I couldn't move. Oh man, I thought. I had heard plenty of stories about sleep paralysis but I never thought I'd experience it. Wait, during sleep paralysis normally people see really weird stuff. I didn't see anything. I managed to move my eyes finally. I looked at the cupboard next to my bed and then next thing I knew I'd looked at the clock on the cupboard and it was 6am. I could now stand and everything seemed fine. Skipped to the next morning at about the same time and I woke up. I was able to move this time. I couldn't get back to sleep though. I had the same feeling of being watched. I got up and went to the kitchen to get

a glass of water but as I stood up I looked at the screen door and saw a face. As I got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water but as I stood up I looked at the screen door and saw a face. As I got closer I realized it wasn't just any face, it was the face of a clown. I know it sounds stupid. I stared in shock, I couldn't move. Then it just vanished. I collapsed to the floor wondering what had just happened. Needless to say I moved out of that room pretty soon, although my mom didn't believe me about the clown or the sleep paralysis. I thought it was over. I was so wrong. Once I had moved rooms I had about a week where everything was fine. Then it began. My bedroom door would open even though there was no wind and it was perfectly closed. Book pages would flip themselves.

I'd wake up to the sound of knocking on my window and although it had died down a bit I think it's because my sister is in my old room now and she's been complaining about how hard it is to sleep. I've always believed in ghosts and all that kind of stuff but I don't know guys. Is this a ghost, or just mine and my sister's imagination? Keep in mind, this is 2018, and the clown thing died years ago. I'll update if anything happens. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit,

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