The Lets Read Podcast - 134: STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE | 20 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 122

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about The Middle of Nowhere, Terrifying Host Families, & Night Shifts... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: Simon de Beer https://www.instagram.com/simon_db98/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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From tires to auto repair, we're always there. Tread experts.ca I don't know. I used to work for the Chico County Sheriff back in the mid-90s. Chico really is the middle of nowhere, the poorest place in the entire state of Arkansas. Back when I was a deputy, there was never more than about 10,000 people in the entire county. It was and still is the kind of place that people drive through without a second thought. But I think about Chico a whole lot. I think about it every day. Sometimes it's all I can think about, no matter how much booze I sink or how many pills I take. Back in the fall of 96, Shiko started to become flooded with a kind of

low-grade crystal methamphetamine that was called crank or biker meth. High-grade meth forms crystals, hence the name, but the low-quality stuff is just a powdery white substance that can burn up the user's throat because of the stuff it's cut with. We were finding that junk everywhere. It was decimating the poor folks out there. It was in the schools, in the bars, even in the churches. We arrested this one kid who'd been awake all weekend and had sat there twitching in the pews until the collection plate came around. Didn't even care that people saw him take the money either and was too messed up to even have any means of a getaway. Violent crime skyrocketed in the space of about four months.

Things were getting out of control. We were picking up tweakers from all over that were making pilgrimages to Chico just to spend their money on the cheapest, dirtiest crystal we at the department had ever seen. I put cuffs on guys from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, even as far away as Indiana. The county sheriff even got a call from the governor who demanded something be done about it all and, as you can imagine, all that fecal matter rolled straight downhill. But we had no idea where this stuff was coming from. Anyone we picked up for selling wouldn't talk about who they got it from, no matter what we threatened them with. They were like crystal commandos and from my experience, that's just not like tweakers

to cover for each other. They'll do anything to stay out of jail because it usually means a forced detox, but these dealers kept their mouths shut like they were full-blooded mafia, La Crystal Nostra or something, like they were more scared of the guys selling it to them than they were of us. We bagged one guy with six pounds of the stuff and it was me that drove him over to the county for booking. Afterward, I went back to my car and there was all this mud just caked onto the floor under the back seats of my cruiser. I mean it was everywhere. It smelled real bad and I was livid that he'd made such a freaking mess. But then it hit me. All that mud had to have come from somewhere right? And by the looks of it we managed to bag

the guy just as he'd gotten a re-up from his connection. So wherever the sky had just come from was muddy, real muddy, like maybe somewhere out near the Mississippi or one of the lakes out here in Chico. I decided to take a drive just to see what I could see, maybe a little walk too if the feeling took me. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? I found our crystal cooks and brought them in for the big win? Well as it turns out, that actually was the worst thing that could happen. I found our crystal cooks and brought them in for the big win. Well as it turns out that actually was the worst thing that could happen and afterwards I'd never be the same again. I spent a lot of time fishing with my pa when I was a kid. That's pretty much all there was to do in Chico. A county of over 40 separate lakes and reservoirs and I've been to almost all of them.

Most of the shorelines are shale or sandy soil, but one particular shoreline is pure mud, one you're going to lose your shoes in if you don't have the foresight to wear rubber boots. And it has the infinitely creative but descriptive name of Mud Lake, and it was Mud Lake that I decided to take a drive to that afternoon. The lake itself isn't too popular with fishermen, not unless you're looking for some monster catfish and those things can be much more trouble than they're worth to reel in. So as I'm tracing the edges of it on foot, I thought it was pretty strange to see a trail of smoke wafting up through some trees around the other side. I mean it was faint,

real faint and maybe if the wind had been blowing just a little I'd have never seen it at all. But it was eerily still that day and just as quiet. It took me about 20-30 minutes of walking but I traced the edge of the lake right around to the rough area I could see the smoke. The closer I got to the source, the more I began to smell this disgusting putrid stench, almost like a mix of rotten eggs and cat urine. I also noticed that patches of what would have otherwise been healthy plant life had started to die, like whatever I was closing in on was death itself, how no life could survive near it. I thought about turning back a

few times but eventually came across what I can only describe as a series of wood panel and corrugated iron shacks. I know I should have called out to see if anyone was home or announced myself as a deputy in demand that whoever was inside should come out, but the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach just seemed to stop any words from coming out of my mouth. Cops don't go by the book all the time, especially not small town deputies like me. Besides, I couldn't hear anything coming from inside any of the shacks and aside from the small campfire burning and a clearing between the shacks, there were little signs of human inhabitancy. I pushed open the door to one of the shacks with my.44 drawn

and immediately recoiled at the fumes that came out. I'd never actually seen a working meth lab before, but I didn't need any narcotics expert to tell me that's exactly what I'd just seen. There was all kinds of trash strewn around in there. Discarded packaging from cold medicine, batteries that had been cut open, used coffee filters, and that wasn't including all the improved glassware set up on a small table. That and I had heard stories about how bad they'd smell from all the chemicals being mixed up in them, which must have been where that cat pee smell was coming from. I backed off from the shack, coughing and spluttering, feeling nauseous

with my eyes streaming. I felt awful but at the same time kind of elated. I was almost certain that I'd found our meth cook. It was only when I searched the other shacks that I began to feel really freaked out. The first one was evidently some kind of sleeping area. The two camping cots set up on either side of the shack. Only the thing was, they didn't look used at all. They were covered in the same kind of trash that was strewn about the lab shack, gas canisters, tubs of what looked like raw chemical ingredients. Whether used, those shacks obviously didn't sleep much, if at all. There were also rolls of dollar bills all

over the place. These guys weren't taking care of their profits at all, it seemed. Either they were making too much money to account for it all, or money just didn't matter to them and that was a terrifying prospect to me. Whoever was flooding Chico with crank wasn't doing it for the cash, they were doing it for some other reason entirely. But it was the things that were written on the wood wall panels that really got my attention. All kinds of weird phrases and symbols had been scrawled on the walls in what appeared to be black marker pen. Stuff in chicken scratch, handwriting so bad I could barely make any of the words out that were interspersed with skulls, devil looking things, and little black stars. I backed out of the second shack and went to check on the third,

which was by far the worst one of all. There was another rotten smell coming from behind a flimsy wooden door, but this one was from something very different to a meth lab and when I peeked inside I almost puked from how bad it was. Surrounded by yet more piles of trash and money was a big old wooden stake that looked like it had been driven into the ground as deep as it could possibly go and tied to that wooden stake was the most mutilated dead body I'd ever seen in all my years of police work. Whoever it was had been dead for a while but they hadn't completely decomposed yet and there were so many flying insects and maggots crawling all over their face and body that at first it kind of looked like they were moving. I'm not sure how much damage had been inflicted while they were still alive and

I pray that most of the mutilation had been done post-mortem but the look of agony of the corpse's face makes that almost impossible to imagine. The poor soul that had been tied to that stake had been scalped, had one of their eyes removed, had teeth pulled, fingers cut off with the stumps looking like they'd been cauterized to stop them from bleeding too much. There were deep, dark-looking patterns of cuts across their face that suggested that they'd been carved up in a kind of ritualistic way while they were still alive. The same kind of black burn marks on their finger stumps were present on the torso and thighs too, looking almost like cigarette burns, but like they'd been inflicted by something bigger. There were many other wounds on the body that would have required a coroner to really be able

to tell how they were inflicted, but one thing was clear to me. Whoever this was had been tortured, maybe even to death. Then right as I'm about to turn around to head back to my cruiser and radio the whole thing in, I hear something moving through the trees behind me. I spin around to see the filthiest backwoods monster I'd ever seen, just walking through the trees in nothing but boots, a pair of urine stained white briefs, a shin holster with what looked like a hunting knife tucked into it, and a gas mask. He had some kind of AR variant slung over his shoulder too but luckily I had my.44 trained on him before he could react and reach for it. I told him not to move or I'd put him down and at first he started raising his hands nice and

slow. All I could see of his face was the cold, dead gaze that stared back at me through the misty, clear, plastic eye holes of his gas mask. There was just nothing behind them, like they were a doll's eyes or something, alive but not alive. Then I heard something moving behind me and I figured it might have been his partner or whoever the second camping cot belonged to. And for just a second second I was dumb enough to give this guy my back out of fear that his partner was trying to sneak up on me. But it must have been a possum or something running through the woods because there was nothing there when I turned, and by the time I looked back, the guy in the gas mask was unshouldering his rifle and

prepping to fire. I let off three shots at him, and I'm pretty sure I missed every one. In return, he let off an automatic burst of his rifle that ripped up the shacks behind me and somehow, either from the poor vision of his mask or the recoil of the rifle, managed to miss me too. Next thing I know, I'm running through the trees, trying to use the trunks for cover in between looking for a solid position to return fire. I can hear this guy barking like a rabid dog while he's chasing me, and I fire three more shots in a running gun battle that leaves my.44 empty. He replies with another burst of his rifle, and although it didn't feel like I'd been hit right away, I suddenly found I wasn't able to run anymore, like I suddenly lost all feeling in my right shin. I hear him make this muted whooping sound like he must have seen me go down and realized one of his shots had hit the mark,

but from the lack of follow up fire I figured that he too must have been out of ammo. I didn't see any spare magazines on him and he was half naked after all but he did have that knife on him and I could hear him hollering about how he was going to use it on me as he took off after me through the trees. The whole time I'm reloading my.44, I'm thinking about the state of the body back there in the third shack, how no one but me knew I was out there and how he'd have all the time in the world to, how no one but me knew I was out there, and how he'd have all the time in the world to work me over, just as I'm assuming he'd done to that poor soul that was tied to the stake. That was the most afraid I'd ever been in my entire life. Every

single other emotion pales in comparison to the intensity of that fear. I was shaking so bad I could barely load my revolver. Even with the speed loader I could barely manage it. But somehow I did, rolling onto my back and aiming just in time to see this monster coming through the trees at me with his knife in hand. I put all six bullets into him and then watched him collapse into the dirt like a sack full of rocks. It wasn't over though. I still had to crawl back through the mud and the blood to my cruiser, and I had to snake past the cook's dead body in order to do so.

The whole time I'm crawling past him, I was expecting his eyes to just open suddenly like a horror movie or something, for him to roll onto my back and plunge that hunting knife into my neck while I was trying to crawl away. Every second was drawn out, my heart racing as I tried to keep one eye on the guy and one eye ahead of me. But he didn't wake up. No one just gets up after taking six.44 slugs to the chest. I was retired on medical grounds not long after. Doctors said the bullet that hit me fractured when it hit the shinbone, and there's been a piece of lead still stuck in my right leg ever since,

meaning I now walk with a permanent limp. But that's just the physical scarring of what I went through that day. Sometimes I think the mental after-effects have been far worse. I barely slept a wink for months, Sometimes I think the mental after effects have been far worse. I barely slept a wink for months and if I actually did manage to drift off after drinking myself into a stupor, the nightmares would be enough to have me waking up screaming, having soaked the bedsheets with cold sweat. It got so bad that my wife couldn't sleep in the same bed as me until hours upon hours of therapy sessions gave me some small measure of closure. I thought for a while she might divorce me, because the man that came back from Mud Lake just wasn't the same as the one that drove out there. I'm doing much better now.

Me and the wife are still together and we live down in Florida, quite comfortably too thanks to the compensation I got from the government. I got a medal of valor from them too, something most guys would keep on display somewhere, but I keep that thing locked away in a drawer. I figured maybe if I write something like this it might help process what happened back at Mud Lake, thinking that it might help me get past it. My therapist thought it might not be a good idea, and I told him I'd rather just forget, but I know that's not possible, that the memories of Mud Lake will stay with me until I'm as dead as that cook and his gas mask. Driving through the thick woodland in the middle of nowhere near Highlandville, Missouri, you might just happen to see a rather bizarre looking sight nestled in the hills of the Ozarks.

At first, you might think you're hallucinating, having seen something so peculiar peeking up through the treetops. The structure that might greet you looks far more like it belongs in the French Alps than rural Missouri. A huge medieval looking castle style structure that might greet you looks far more like it belongs in the French Alps than rural Missouri. A huge medieval looking castle style structure that looks like something out of a fairy tale. But you wouldn't be hallucinating at all, because the building I'm describing is very real indeed. The mysterious Chateau Pensmore, also known simply by the mononym Pensmore, is one of the largest, most grandiose houses in the entirety of the United States, with its construction and purpose being shrouded in intrigue, enigma, and myth. But the real reason behind all this secrecy might not be that the owner is simply a very private and paranoid person. It could be because the truth is far

too terrifying for the general public to comprehend. The Pensmore Mansion construction began way back in the year 2008, when a former Central Intelligence Agency spook turned businessman began to have blueprints drawn up for the ultimate country retreat. It would be something of an understatement to say that Stephen T. Hough was being overly ambitious when he dreamt up the idea of a 72,000 square foot home. But the former astrophysicist and founder of Sensor Systems was more than prepared to see the endeavor through, and was most definitely in possession of the resources and the patience to do so. But what makes Pensmore truly unique is not only the design, but also the choice of

materials used for its construction. Pensmore was built with a state-of-the-art insulated concrete structure. Its 12-inch thick walls reinforced with a novel form of high tensile steel fiber known as helix. This advanced combination of stone and metal is apparently dense and durable enough to survive almost anything man, machine, or mother nature can throw at it. Explosives, raging infernos, earthquakes, hurricanes, nothing could so much as put a dent in Chateau Pensmore exactly as Stephen Hough had designed it. The structure is bulletproof, blastproof, fireproof, insectproof, ageproof, more or less indestructible. This house will be standing 2,000 years from now. Even then, it will be hard to knock down.

Huff once said when being interviewed by a national publication that focuses on rare and unique real estate, and it's a matter of public record that he took the time to put his dream home to the test. It would take eight long years before Pensmore was finally declared fit for human habitation. At one point, a huge portion of the structure fell into a sinkhole that opened up on the grounds of the estate, but Huff slogged on with the work at hand, and the finished product is an objectively extraordinary one. When it was finally finished in late 2016, Pensmore stood at an imposing five stories tall, boasting five separate living quarters complete with 14 bathrooms,

13 bedrooms, a music room, observatory, grand ballroom, movie theaters, and a huge host of other recreational and professional spaces, one of which is known to be a kind of museum which Huff himself curates. Pensmore also has over 4,000 cutting-edge solar panels, nine tons of batteries in varying sizes, and the entire property is host to herds of wild Ossaba Island pigs, a hardy breed of swine that are kept as a kind of self-sustaining food source. Stephen Hough poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the property, sparing no expense in creating a truly self-sustaining, energy-efficient,

fortress of a home in one of the most remote and isolated areas of the country, perhaps even the world. But there remains a question that could transfix all who ponder it, and that is, what exactly would possess an ex-US Army intelligence officer and CIA agent to build such a structure? Publicly, Stephen Hough has told those that pose the question that Pensmore Mansion is a kind of experiment. An experiment intended to demonstrate viability and practicality of creating a truly energy-efficient, self-sustaining structure that can be safe and secure, as well as environmentally friendly. The purpose of this design is not simply as a domicile either. The basic blueprint can be

used as a school, a hospital, or any number of purpose-built facility that needs to remain standing in a disaster-prone area of the country. Hough has also explained that Pensmore is essentially a tangible exhibition which showcases not only the durability of the materials involved, but also the architectural feats his company is capable of, making Pensmore Construction a kind of giant advertisement for sensor systems. But why the Ozarks? Why not Alaska or Nevada or Montana? Why pick rural Missouri over all the other isolated and remote areas of the country? Huff explained that the particular area of the Ozarks in which Pensmore is built is subject to some of the least constrictive regulations in the country, with the local government taking somewhat of a laissez-faire approach to social intervention. Missouri is also an area of the

U.S. that would present Pensmore with all manner of environmental challenges, such as extremes of hot and cold, tornadoes, storms, everything Huff would need to prove that his brainchild could withstand even the harshest of weather. But, if this was the case, if the whole thing was simply intended as proof of concept, why not build something smaller? Why not simply test out the materials on a smaller, more controlled, and less costly scale? All of Huff's responses seem to suggest that he isn't exactly being completely open or honest concerning his motivations, with his answers only succeeding in raising yet more questions.

When construction of the Pensmore Mansion began, rumors spread like wildfire among the local population, rumors that grew only more bizarre and outlandish as time went on. One of the most popular theories among the more conspiratorially- minded native Missourians is that Pensmore is a base of operations for the New World Order, a place where their shadow government will congregate during the final days of human civilization, potentially as a result of the catastrophe they themselves are planning. There are some who even suggest that Pensmore is some kind of government facility, one hiding in plain sight that may be home to a covert, black ops installation that houses anything from alien technology or highly advanced weather control weaponry to wormhole generating equipment or bio-warfare labs. Such cutting edge technology is said to be secreted away in a vast network of underground tunnels that have been

constructed in the supposed sinkhole that opened up or was excavated during the mansion's construction. Some of the locals have also claimed to have heard an extremely loud sound coming from Pensmore's vicinity at night time, something akin to a train rumbling through the area, despite the fact that there are no train tracks running through that area. Others insist that they have seen unmarked black 4x4s rolling in convoys towards the compound that houses the building, ominous looking helicopters, or mysterious armed guards that aggressively shoo away those who try to get too close. One man told a local news agency that he tried to fly his civilian bot camera equipped drone over the compound in the

hopes of a little innocent observation, only to find the thing's electricals shorted out before falling from the sky like a dead bird. And so we must ask ourselves, what exactly is Penn's More Mansion's real purpose? If it were just the case that it was the opulent home of some eccentric but ultimately paranoid billionaire, we could understand it being constructed just the case that it was the opulent home of some eccentric but ultimately paranoid billionaire, we could understand it being constructed in the way that it is. But Stephen T. Huff is much more than just some skittish germaphobe. He's a military intelligence officer and a CIA astrophysicist. He's a man who knows things, whose entire career for the span of many many years was based around knowing things,

sometimes very secretive things that are hideously unfit for public consumption. So what does Stephen Hough know that we don't? What had he learned in his years in various intelligence agencies that made him want to accumulate the wealth to build a veritable fortress in the middle of nowhere? Let's just pray we don't ever have to find out. Let's pray we never have to suffer the repercussions of whatever forbidden knowledge that Stephen is in possession of. To be continued... There really is no better way to describe Monroe County, West Virginia than the middle of nowhere. One of the state's most southerly counties, Monroe, is perhaps the most overwhelmingly rural place in the entire eastern United States. There is not a single stoplight or fast food outlet anywhere in the whole county, and has one of the lowest population densities of any county in the whole nation. Much like any rural area of the eastern U.S., Monroe has its fair share of problems with opiate addiction and the crimes associated with it.

But a disappearance or a murder is a rare event indeed, and when one actually occurs, it stirs up rather a lot of attention from citizens and law enforcement alike. So in April of 2007, when a dark red Chevy pickup truck was found abandoned behind a derelict building in Peterstown, it sent ripples of fear through the small community in which it was discovered. And it's because the truck belonged to a man named Timothy Wayne Dalton. And by that point, Timothy had been missing for almost three weeks. According to his missing person's profile, Timothy was just over 200 pounds and had dark brown hair and pale blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a dark blue button-up shirt,

light gray shorts, and black Nike sneakers. There's a good chance that he was also wearing a dog-tag necklace, a relic of a relative's military chance that he was also wearing a dog-tagged necklace, a relic of a relative's military service, and was also carrying a pocket knife. Close friends stated that he sometimes went unshaven for maybe a week at a time, and he was never known to sport any kind of lengthy facial hair, and was known to talk with a subtle stutter. In the brief period before the truck was found, local sheriff's deputies had managed to build up a picture of the events that had preceded Timothy's disappearance He had paid a visit to his mother on March 26th and apparently behaved perfectly regularly for the most part They made small talk about his firewood cutting job which, as lowly as it seemed, made Timothy's mother very proud that his son was gainfully employed

Especially when the economy was tanking in such a dreadful way. But at certain points, Timothy's mother noticed that he was acting rather skittishly, peering out of her trailer window every so often as if watching for something or someone. It's not entirely unusual for a boy to act in a protective manner over his beloved mother, so she didn't think too much of his watchful behavior. Yet this was the last time her son was ever seen alive, with the only clue to his potential whereabouts being the abandoned truck that was found two and a half weeks later.

Despite his mother's concerns, local law enforcement insisted that there was no foul play involved in his disappearance, yet there are solid reports from reputable sources that, when the truck was discovered, the window on the driver's side of the vehicle was found to be broken, with glass lying on the interior, indicating it had been smashed from the outside. Despite this, police declared that there was no clear indication that there had been any kind of struggle speculating that the window might well have been broken before or after he had disappeared. Speaking to Timothy's family members police heard how it would be very out of character for Timothy to just vanish without at least informing them that he was going somewhere and while it was a well-known fact that Timothy had dabbled in some non-violent crime in his past, he has no outstanding warrants and was not a suspect of any recent burglary case. He's been described by many as a timid fellow with a heart of gold and as far as his friends know, he was not involved in the narcotics trade, either as a dealer or a user. This essentially eliminated the possibility that he had skipped town out of fear of being arrested for something,

a theory that was compounded by the fact that pretty much all of his meager belongings could still be found at his place of residence. As it stands, there are two prevailing theories that attempt to explain Timothy's disappearance. The first is that, for whatever reason, he owed money to a one-percenter motorcycle gang that sometimes passed through the area. This theory came about due to the fact that at the time he vanished, Timothy's sister was dating a Hell's Angel who was patched to a Princeton chapter of the gang, a town just a half hour away from Peterstown. As a frequent drug user, she was careless with her finances,

and it's very possible that the angels passed along whatever debt she owed to her blood relatives. Then, when Timothy couldn't pay up, the angels decided to make an example out of him. The second theory revolves around a rumor that Timothy had bad blood with a local deputy who was supposedly violent, unstable, and corrupt. It was common knowledge among members of the Peterstown community that one particular area police officer believed that he was above the law. The same officer happened to give Timothy a ticket during a traffic stop one day, one that Timothy insisted was unfairly cited.

He swore he'd see the cop in court. Then, to the surprise of the local townsfolk, he did and ended up actually winning the case. He was awarded a sizable compensation. The cop in question was disciplined for his apparent misconduct. It was a humiliation, one the officer couldn't ever get over and as much as this particular cop was an embarrassment to the forest, there's every chance that a bunch of good old boy deputies would close ranks around him should he have to decide to take a little revenge. This would most definitely explain how the reports of a broken window suddenly morphed into a conclusion of no signs of a struggle. Yet these two theories, as elaborate as they seem, are still little more than conjecture. So the question remains, what could have happened to Timothy Dalton? It certainly

wouldn't have been easy for him to leave Monroe County without his truck, as it truly is in the middle of nowhere with no local taxi companies in the area or bus routes running through it. The only explanation is that someone picked him up, conscious or unconscious, dead or alive, and took him out of Moreau. Peterstown has a population of just less than 700. People talk, people see things, but apparently nobody saw hide nor hair of Timothy after he visited his mother's place. The woods around the town might be dark and deep, but they're actually kind of commonly frequented by local hunters, who often scour the backwoods for fresh meat to put on the table to save a few dollars in the grocery bill.

Surely if Timothy was murdered and dumped in the woods, a hunter, or perhaps a hunting dog, would have come across his remains at some point. As far as we can tell, it really is as if the guy just disappeared, dropped off the face of the earth one day from some unknown reason. But maybe it's the case that whoever did disappear Timothy knew a little too much about the process of searching and finding someone. Maybe it was a person who'd had experiences in finding bodies, who for professional reasons would know the most effective method of making someone just up and vanish without leaving so much as a trace of them behind. But whoever that might be is still

completely up for debate. Yet perhaps it might be better if we avoid any kind of heavy speculation, lest we offend the wrong person. A person who might just be violent, unstable, and corrupt. Electric Forest is an electronic music festival that normally takes place at the end of June in Rothbury, Michigan. Nestled in the varied depths of Sherwood Forest, the festival truly is in the middle of nowhere and incorporates all the natural beauty of the towering woodland trees into the experience of those who choose to attend. By day, fans can roam around the enchanting scenery, hanging out among the pop-up installations or the hundreds of hammocks that hang between the tree trunks. But once the sun sets, they can watch as the forest is lit up by the many light fixtures,

and according to many, that's when the magic really begins. The exhilarating atmosphere combined with jaw-dropping light displays and spontaneous secret parties, all matched with a carefully curated lineup, generates a truly unique experience for one and all. It's this particular music festival that 29-year-old Kevin Graves wished to attend during the summer of 2018. Hailing from Oakland County, Michigan, Kevin bought tickets for himself and his girlfriend who was instantly sold on the idea of partying in such a unique and unusual place. Both were fans of electronic dance music, but had found themselves tiring of visiting the same old clubs week in and week out, so electric force provided the perfect way to switch things up a little. But after only a day or two of partying among the trees, the blissful feeling between himself and his girlfriend

apparently turned sour and the pair began to argue intensely. Speculation as to the reasons behind these arguments ranges from the couple having run out of money, to overcompensation of alcohol, to Kevin having witnessed his girlfriend flirting with other guys. All of the above is up for debate, but what we know for certain is that after a particularly vicious confrontation, Kevin walked out of the main festival grounds to return to their campsite alone. Fellow festival goers had reported seeing a man leaving the site who was very upset, possibly even in tears. It's a rather sad end to a tumultuous relationship, but what makes this incident particularly terrifying is that, after these sightings, Kevin was never seen again. His girlfriend returned to the campsite several hours later, expecting to find Kevin sleeping off

the effects of the drugs and alcohol he had ingested. But when she unzipped the front flap of the tent and peered inside, she found it completely empty. This wasn't exactly a surprise to her though and she figured either Kevin had gotten lost on his way back, possibly even found another group of revelers to hang out with to cheer himself up, or that he had headed back towards the main festival compound to either look for her or party some more. So with that in mind, she simply crawled into her sleeping bag and got some much needed rest. The following morning, Kevin still hadn't returned but again, his girlfriend wasn't particularly alarmed. It was only when the festival came to an end that she had to find

her own way home that she actually began to worry. Kevin hadn't seemed to have returned to his apartment either and to his girlfriend's knowledge he was still in Sherwood Forest. It was around then that she broke and contacted his close family regarding his apparent disappearance, who in turn contacted the police to report Kevin missing. Law enforcement set about scouring the area surrounding the festival site using every asset at their disposal, using sniffer dogs, aerial units, and dive teams. Not a trace of Kevin could be found anywhere. They then appealed to the public for information regarding Kevin's whereabouts and many people called into the missing person's hotline claiming

to have spotted him in the days after the festival. Callers stated that they had seen him around other cities in Michigan, as well as in other surrounding states. In some cases, Kevin was spotted at a motel not far from the festival site, in others, at a diner in the same sort of area. There were also suggestions that Kevin had ran off to join some kind of religious cult that was in attendance at the festival, given that their colorfully branded bus was said to be present at the event. After some investigation, the group was found to be The Word of God, an ecumenical charismatic missionary Christian community founded in the late 60s that is based in Ann Harbor, Michigan. But a spokesman for the Word of God denies ever being at Electric Forest that weekend. And Kevin's family insists that it's pretty much out of the question that he would run off somewhere without at least telling them first.

The behavior of Kevin's then girlfriend has also raised a great deal of suspicion among those that investigated his disappearance. In the immediate aftermath, she posted a few grief-stricken posts on Facebook, the kind you might expect to read if Kevin had been confirmed deceased. Yet nobody was ever found and as far as police knew, he wasn't dead at all, just missing. And then instead of cooperating and staying in touch with Kevin's family as one might expect her to, she proceeded to block most of them before refusing to answer any more questions with regards to what happened that weekend, or where he might have ran away to. According to her, their relationship was on the rocks at the time. She also apparently posted on a Reddit comment after his disappearance that claims he was suffering from mental illness, and that he had a history

of threatening to end his own life when they had previously come close to breaking up. There is every chance that she simply wishes to move on from a painful period of her life, away from drug and alcohol use, and away from the pain of knowing that she might have contributed to a tragic and unforeseen event. However, there is also a chance that she is so uncooperative because she knows way more than she is comfortable sharing. Police managed to interview a handful of the festival's staff that were working during the same weekend that Kevin went missing. Although most couldn't remember seeing Kevin specifically during their time there, as the event is attended by hundreds if not thousands of festival goers.

Some told stories of revelers going missing year in and year out. One even told police the story of how one person went missing after partying too hard and was found as far away as Alabama. Yet another admitted that it wasn't exactly a rarity for people to die at the festival due to excessive alcohol or narcotics use, often people who mixed things that really shouldn't go together. He then told police of a rumor he'd heard from a few different attendees of a guy who had actually died sitting up. Others had just assumed that he was asleep and continued to drink and dance around an actual dead body, becoming extremely distressed when they realized he was dead and not just passed

out. Other members of staff admitted that sometimes they weren't sure if the location of the festival was a safe choice, that they worried that some might be messed up and would wander off among the trees wearing very little clothing, only to be subjected to some stormy weather that might cause them to pass away as a result of exposure. There was one member of the festival's staff who told the police a story that they were initially convinced was Kevin. A man who seemed to be very upset by something was going around the main compound giving away all of his possessions, including expensive electronic items and large amounts of cash. These are in line with reports from Kevin's family that he'd apparently emptied his bank account in the week before the festival was due to start.

So what actually happened to Kevin at that festival? Was it the case that he simply was so grief-stricken by the breakup with his girlfriend that he had opted to simply up and vanish from Michigan? Perhaps this grief was something that a religious cult could prey upon to induct him into the ranks. Or perhaps such a cult would be able to use the heavy amount of drugs in his system to essentially brainwash him into the way of thinking. Regardless of what happened, we can all agree it's an extremely scary prospect that we could end up basically vanishing from the face of the earth after attending something as seemingly benign as a simple music festival.

Perhaps we're never truly safe, no matter October of 2018, a little game came out on the Xbox and Playstation that would become an overnight sensation and take over the lives of gamers everywhere for a long, long time. Seriously, people must have wondered why Howdy seemed to have replaced Hi in many people's vocabularies. Why all of a sudden hundreds of thousands of people were too sick to go to work on the money that followed, and when they finally did show up for work, they made cryptic references of how all they wanted to do was to get back to Horseshoe Overlook. For those that haven't figured it out already, the game I'm talking about is Red Dead Redemption 2, and those that work their way through it will understand the obsession with it. But for me, it went way beyond turning Halloween into an excuse to dress up like a cowboy, because I wanted to try all that stuff

for real. I'm not talking about robbing trains, hunting crocodiles, and shooting lawmen, of course. I'm talking about taking to the open range on horseback and seeing parts of this country that city folk like me rarely see. And that's how I ended up in Glasgow. Now a lot of you are going to hear that and be like, how did Red Dead take you all the way to Scotland? But there are two Glascos. Well, maybe even more than two, but the one I'm talking about is way out in Montana. And when I say way out in Montana, I mean it well and truly is the middle of nowhere, and it took us like two days ride to get there from the point we set off from. It's like a little oasis of civilization in a mind-numbing expanse of sheer wilderness.

Or, at least, I thought it was civilized. Because no offense to anyone from Glasgow or that area of Montana in general, but there are some seriously crazy barbaric people around these parts, and I was unlucky enough to run into one. So like I said, we'd just done two days worth of hard riding through some pretty wild country to get to Glasgow and I didn't know the meaning of the word saddle sore until then. The whole idea was that we get two days rest and relaxation in the small town of around 2000 and we get back on the trails. And let me tell you, after those two days I understood why cowboys drank so heavily. It probably wasn't even to

dull the loneliness or to shoo away the ghosts of those they shot down. It was probably just for the painkilling effect from being so saddle sore. Seriously, being saddle sore feels like Iron Mike went to town on your groin, and not in a good way. Anyway, so me and a few people in the same trail tour group as me find this little place called Abbey's Palace on First Avenue South and we get to drinking. Real hard too. I'm not even going to say that I wasn't a jerk. I probably talked way too loud and said some kind of derogatory things about small towns like Glasgow. Not that I meant to be an a-hole or anything like that. I just feel like I kind of understand why someone might take issue with what I was saying and how I was dressed because

someone certainly did. So from what I can remember, and honestly that's not very much, this guy saunters up to me and asks me what my problem is. No, I do remember exactly what I said at the time because the dudes in my group didn't stop reminding me of it for days after. I put on my best John Wayne voice and was all like, My problem's with you, pilgrim. Before slapping the guy's arm as if to say, aren't I the funniest? Only he doesn't find it funny at all. That area of Montana wasn't some little novelty to him like it was to me. To him, it was

his whole life. So my big dumb drunk brain doesn't quite realize that there's some conflict going down until it's too late, but by that point, I've made this guy so mad and so much that he legit wants to knock my teeth out. All I did was apologize. Try to reassure everyone that I just am tired and drunk and ignorant but the entire bar is looking at me. With my trail buddies not being too happy either. So needless to say we got asked to leave. And that was the point that I realized I was a lot more of a Micah than an Arthur last night. And the next morning I was seriously ashamed of myself and I was actually kind of glad to be leaving Glasscope behind. But I'm not sure I deserve what came the next morning and I'm 100% sure my trail buddies

didn't deserve it either because a good few hours after a dawn departure we're on the trails heading west again when I heard what sounded like a firecracker going off a few feet above my head. I was seriously exhausted and hungover so when it happened the first time, I wasn't exactly sure what I was hearing, only that the horses really didn't like it. They're making those high-pitched whiny sounds and our trail guide starts freaking out and telling us to turn back and keep our heads down. It was only then that I realized what was happening. We were getting shot at. Now I'd never been shot at before so I had no idea that when a bullet passes near enough to you it makes a kind of loud snapping sound. That's the sound of the bullet breaking the sound barrier as it passes by, like a mini version of the sonic boom that those old Concorde planes used to make. We ended up galloping back the way we came,

crying out in fear and hearing yet more of those cracks and the occasional whiz, which means the bullet is even closer than when it cracks, as we're getting out of there. We ended up riding all the way back into Glasgow, which was about 15 miles back eastward, to report that someone had actually fired on us as we were traveling along the trails. We actually booked ourselves back into the motel that we had stayed in the previous two nights, had to cough up a bunch of money to pay for the horses to be looked after, which, to be honest, was the least of our worries since someone had

literally just tried to kill us. Or at least, I thought they tried to kill us. A few of us ended up going back to Allie's palace to try to kill two birds with one stone. It would give me a chance to apologize for last night's bad behavior whilst also giving us a place to drink away the jitters of almost taking a bullet. And funnily enough, guess who's there? The guy I ended up angering the previous night. And just as I'm gearing up to apologize to him and everyone else who was present, I catch him kind of grinning at me. Again, maybe it was my dumb hungover brain but I didn't quite get the significance of it, not right away. And then it hit me.

I saddled up to him with me being the angry one this time and hissed something like, you tried to shoot us didn't you? Only the sentence was laced with considerably more curse words. He just grinned back at me and said something like, boy I didn't try and shoot you, which at first calmed me down a little, but then he says, if I tried to shoot you, I'd hit you, and you wouldn't be standing here right now. His words sent a chill through me, and then goes on to say something along the lines of, and you just try and kick up a stink about it. We're thick as thieves in this town. You can throw any accusation you like at me, not a single one will stick. And that was the most scared I'd been in a long time. Not quite as scary as getting shot at, but

scary for a whole other reason. And not long after, for the second time, I was glad to be getting out of Glasgow. For some context, my high school was not the best. We had to go through metal detectors and have security check our backpacks every time we entered the school. Yet students managed to bring in guns, knives, drugs, you name it really. In 10th grade my computer teacher broke her leg so she was out for about 4 or 5 months. We basically got free A's in that class for just showing up. The substitute teacher didn't actually teach though.

The sub was tall, dark complexion, looked pretty young and was very friendly with us, always making conversation and joking around. I will admit I found him pretty attractive and so did some of my friends in the class. Him and I would talk during the class and I'd feel him looking me up and down. He would even compliment me sometimes. For example, once he asked what ethnicity I was, I told him I was mixed with Indian and Dominican and he said, pretty mixed. Just weird stuff like that. Looking back, that was a major red flag considering I was an underage student, but my 15 year old brain found it flattering and he wasn't creepy looking I guess.

Even though our teacher came back around springtime, the sub still worked at the school and subbed for other classes. I'd always see him in the hallways. He would always say hi and ask how I was doing. Right across from the school there's this place called The Gardens, which is basically the projects and a little park with a parking lot next to it. That's where all the kids who sold and smoked would chill. I used to go there pretty much every day at lunch or after school with my friends to smoke. But anyways, my best friend lives about 20 minutes from my apartment and my high school was right in the middle of the route there.

It was getting a lot warmer on the east coast so I was wearing a crop top and leggings. One day I was pretty faded walking back home from her house. I was feeling a little on edge that day. It must have been around 8 and I was about to pass the gardens when I heard someone saying, hey, over and over. It was dark and I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't see anything. I wasn't sure who it was so I kept walking. The person who was calling me ended up catching up to me and tapping my shoulder which low key scared me. I turned around and it was the sub from my computer class. I told him he scared me and he apologized and we started making small talk.

I was feeling a little uneasy and I found it weird that he was around the school at night but I didn't think much of it. Then out of nowhere he asked me if I smoked. I felt my heart drop through my butt. I got so scared. I was already high and kind of paranoid so I thought I was in trouble. I got super defensive and started going off saying, why are you asking that? You're a teacher. What are you, the fed? You trying to get me arrested? Etc, etc. And he looked super offended. He was like,

I was just trying to smoke you out. But that's how you feel, huh? Okay, I see how it is. All of a sudden, I felt bad, and I calmed down and apologized. I told him to try and look at it from my perspective and imagine a teacher coming up to you asking if you smoked. How would you feel and react? He still seemed a little upset but he pulled a dime bag out of his pocket and asked me, so what's up then?

I was really apprehensive and I said, I still don't know, can you prove you're not just trying to get me in trouble? He just looked at me and pulled a dutch wrap out of his pocket and rolled a blunt right there. He took out a lighter and hid it right in front of me. He passed it to me and I hid it and he kind of looked around and said, hey, not here. He started walking to the parking lot and told me to follow him. He unlocked his car and told me to get in. It'll be better if we smoke in there, he said. I was pretty nervous, but I was a little out of my mind and I wasn't thinking straight and I got in. He started driving out of the parking lot, so I asked him where he was going. He said just around the block. It's safer here. He had the radio on in the car and we both kept smoking as he was driving.

The windows were down so we could ash. Eventually he parked on an empty street. It must have been two blocks from the gardens. We finished smoking and he put his hand on my thigh and told me I was looking good. I just nervously mumbled thank you without making eye contact. I know I used to find him attractive but at that point I wasn't feeling it at all. I just wanted to leave but I didn't want to be rude. I asked how old he was and he said 28. Then he asked me. I laughed a little and said, you're not going to like the answer, I'm 15. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, since there were seniors in the class

and I am pretty curvy so maybe he thought I was 18 or something. He just said it was no problem, he didn't care. I found that answer extremely unsettling but but I still didn't leave like an idiot. His hand was still on my thigh. I was looking out the window because I was too nervous to look at him. He kind of cleared his throat, so I looked at him, and he was straight up exposing himself. Suddenly, I felt nauseated. He kept rubbing my thigh and eventually started doing even more I wasn't making any noise whatsoever

My heart was pounding out of my chest He asked me to go further but I said I wasn't feeling comfortable with that He responded Whatever Just touch it I just kinda looked at him so He ended up grabbing my hand and pulling it towards him and even though I was uncomfortable I did it anyways. But thankfully after about two seconds my phone started ringing and it was my mother. I stopped what I was doing to talk to her.

She asked me if I had left and when I was coming home. I said that I'm by the school and I'll be home in 10 minutes. I immediately threw the door open and ran out of there. I heard him calling after me, but dear God, I did not look back. Thankfully, the school was close by and I knew the way. I pretty much ran home and cried the whole way there because I was feeling so overwhelmed, even though nothing really happened to me as such. I didn't report him because I didn't even know what to say. He did see me around after that and tried to talk to me but I just completely ignored him. And that was it. Kinda

underwhelming but my heart was racing out of that car. Thankfully he didn't go any further but please be safe and use better judgment than 15 year old me. To be continued... I, along with some teachers, went on a month-long trip around Europe to study and, as we only spent one week in each city, we stayed with host families. The trip had been going amazing. My friend and I, who had chosen to stay together in our accommodation, had had a really good experience with the old lady that we stayed with in the first part of the trip, so we were really excited to meet our next hosts. We had been encouraged to write an email to each of our hosts a week before we left home, just so that they could get to know us and we could get to know them, which helped making our first interactions not quite as awkward.

However, I had sent a really nice email to the father of this family, we'll call him John, and he never replied. I didn't think much of it, he probably hadn't seen it or maybe just didn't want an answer which is totally valid. But just when we get off the plane I got an email from him which merely said, hello let me know when you get on the bus. I thought it was a bit cold but I do tend to be a bit overly friendly sometimes as a result of being extremely socially awkward so I figured it was probably just me being too intense or something. A cab took us to their house and we're greeted with the strongest glare I'd ever experienced. Again, me being overly friendly I just kept saying hi and thanking him for everything and whatnot but he didn't even say

anything. He just kept glaring at us and then at the taxi driver until the cab left and he just opened the door and let us inside. Before he even said hello or even showed us around the house or anything, he made us stay in the narrow entrance and began telling us the rules of the house, which is normal, but the way he said it was very intimidating, basically stating that we had to take extreme care of his house or we'd have to pay for anything and everything we damaged, which, again, was valid, but he didn't stop glaring at us like we had already broken something. He ordered us to take our shoes off and told us our room was on the third floor, then left.

So we had to carry our suitcases up the very, very tiny and narrow stairs, not even knowing where we were going because we obviously didn't know the house and he hadn't even showed us the way, but whatever, we thought. It's probably just the awkward introduction. But the awkwardness had only just started. We were called down for dinner and sat waiting whilst he cooked for us and his daughters. He asked which one of us was vegetarian, and that was me. After explaining how stupid and unhealthy I was for not eating meat and how being a vegetarian

would take ten years off my life, I guess, he handed me a little bowl of literally five pieces of very small lettuce leaves. Again, kind of weird, but we wouldn't even have dinner at their house since the school we were exchanging into covered our meals, something I'm still so glad about, so it was fine. He started asking really specific private questions like, how much money have you brought? Where do you keep it so you don't lose it? And do you come from rich families? Which made us very uncomfortable, so we just said we didn't know and tried to change the subject. He also ordered us to never speak Spanish, our mother tongue, whenever we were there. Even if we were alone, inside or outside the house, which obviously we didn't do

because we speak Spanish. It's not like we have trouble speaking English, but it was ridiculous when we were literally talking alone. But whenever he heard us talking in Spanish in our room, which I still don't know how he did, he'd come up to scold us for not conversing in English. Yes, he scolded us. We also later learned that his wife suffered from a disease. I'm not going to go into detail for privacy reasons and we didn't really see her around much. That night my friend took a shower first, then me and whilst I was getting dressed in the bathroom, he came into our rooms and started talking to us and asking us other questions about us. It was very uncomfortable because I was dressed in the bathroom, he came into our rooms and started talking to us and asking us other questions about us. It was very uncomfortable because I was still in the bathroom and he kept coming near the door to ask me stuff and then turning back to talk to my friend.

But after a while he left and it was fine. We discussed that it was really weird and we were really worried about the money questions because it was his own house and he could easily just come into the room in the middle of the night, open our suitcases, and just do whatever he pleased. The next morning, we got up really early and came down for breakfast. To be honest, we kind of had high expectations because our last host was absolutely the best, so we were expecting that he would at least have a slice of bread for us. Yeah, he didn't. But a slice of bread for us. Yeah, he didn't.

But that's not the bad part. Whilst the whole family was eating at the table, he told us to just go through all the cabinets and pantry, that there would surely be something to eat. I honestly didn't feel comfortable with raiding this family's kitchen while they were just staring at me. My friend grabbed a banana cause she didn't know what to do and I said I wasn't hungry so we just left and decided to no longer have breakfast at their house because it was too awkward. And I know you must be thinking I'm overreacting but

first of all, I didn't know these people and it was so uncomfortable. Besides, my social anxiety didn't help at all and I just couldn't bear being there. As I said, since we had dinner at school, we didn't really spend a lot of time with them. We really only showered and slept there and that was it. But somehow in the little time we were at the house, he always found a way to make us feel more and more out of place. We had to let him know via text when we were coming home and I'd always be polite but also friendly so I'd just say, Hi John, we're five minutes away! Always with a little exclamation mark to seem nice I guess.

But the second night we arrived home and as we went through the front door, he came stomping his way towards us, absolutely furious like he was about to punch a wall. He started yelling at me, telling me to never, ever text him or any adult like that again. I was so incredibly confused and scared like, what did I even send to him? He pulled out his phone and made me read out loud that message. He said normal people do not text like that, that it was very disrespectful, and proceeded to show the text to everyone around the house and ask them what they thought of this and if anyone had ever texted them like this. He was so angry about the exclamation mark,

and I was livid inside, like absolutely on the verge of tears and leaving the house. I just said sorry and went to our room. He then came up smiling like nothing had happened and had the absolute audacity to ask, have you brought any gifts for us? We had. We had brought them a beautiful picture frame and lots of sweets from our country. We had spent a lot of money on them. We handed it out to them and he was acting like a little kid at Christmas.

However, when he opened them, he looked at them like we had given him a bag of trash. This? Is it? He asked frowning. I thought it was going to be something better. I figured since we're letting you stay in our home, but I guess it's fine. Thanks. He left the room disappointed. We continued to have really, really bad encounters with him, telling us off like we were his daughters that he could just yell at like it was nothing. At night we'd hear him screaming, fighting, banging, and crying.

My friend wanted to contact accommodation services to ask for a host switch because we were truly having a really horrible time, running away from our host to avoid another interaction but I refused to. I know dumb because firstly I was too shy and scared of what could happen when we told him we were leaving for another home and also I felt really really bad because of his wife and I didn't want to give the family a hard time when they were probably already struggling with medical care and hosting was their only income. She was mad at me for a bit but she thought the same as I did as badly as we wanted to leave, so we decided to suck it up. We also had gotten lost at some point. While we were on the night bus back home, luckily there was a

teacher from the school who we knew and she walked us home. She asked who we were staying with and we told her we were staying with John and mentioned it was a bit uncomfortable there. Her face changed a little bit from happy to kind of worried. Yeah, I know him. We've been told that he is a bit special, but that's it really. I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah, try spending a night in that madhouse and you'll tell me about it. When we told John about us getting lost and the teacher helping us, he seemed so interested, in a creepy way. He said he knew her and asked how she was. And the creepiest part, he asked if we knew where she lived. Like at least two or three times. We had seen her house, but we just told him no because it was very, very weird. The last full day there, he told us that

he probably wouldn't be home when we arrived since he mentioned he was meeting a friend or something, but that he would arrive no longer than 10 minutes after we did. We arrived home that night and as he'd said, he wasn't home. This time the only one home was his wife. It was our first time getting to chat with her only. She was so, so nice. She seemed genuinely like the only sane person there. We talked for a while actually and then we thanked her profusely for everything, even though your husband is a nightmare lady, and told her that she had a very beautiful family. Then she stopped smiling and said, You think so? I don't think so. But thank you. And then it was all silence. For about 30 seconds.

And neither of us knew what to respond to that with. So after a bit we just nervously laughed and said goodnight. John didn't return until about midnight. He asked if we had any laundry to do. I did. Some of my clothes I'd been wearing for a week and really needed to be washed. But then he said that he would do it, and wouldn't let me go and help or do it myself. And honestly, this might be a reach, but I really didn't want to give him my clothes for some reason.

It just felt wrong. So I ended up declining, saying that I remembered that I actually had washed them, which I knew wasn't believable but there was no way I was going to give him my stuff. He kept insisting, asking over and over again if I was sure and I said that I was. That night I woke up to the sound of my room's door creaking open and what looked like a dark figure slowly creeping in. I laid there completely still, attempting to feign that I was asleep, but through the cracks in my eyes I could see the figure looming over my bed.

It had to have been John. He just stood over me, staring for what felt like an eternity. He then continued into my room and seemed to spend some time in my drawer and slowly creep out. To be honest, the memory was so surreal and my body felt paralyzed that sometimes I even wonder if it was real. The next morning we were so excited to finally be able to leave that house after a week that felt more like a month. We had our things ready and took our stuff down the stairs to the main entrance, waiting for the cab to pick us up. Then he came downstairs and started to make small talk with us. He kept looking out the window over

and over again like he was looking for something. We thanked him for the hospitality, which wasn't provided, but you gotta be polite I guess, and he started rambling about how he loved hosting students that had been doing this for like 10 years and stuff like that. And then he started saying weird stuff like, but you have to be careful because you don't know who could be staying with you. There's some crazy people, you know. I swear to god I was about to escape, getting ready to run, when the cab arrived and he started suddenly acting super nice and happy, like we had the greatest relationship. He hugged my friend and then went in to hug me. I reluctantly hugged him back for a second and then went out the door.

As soon as I stepped out of the house, he slammed the door shut so loudly, even the cab driver looked scared. He glared at us through the little windows while we got on the cab and drove off. I've never been so relieved in my life. It was like a weight being pulled off my shoulders, and you bet I blocked that number so quick. Glad I would never have to see them again in my life. The real kicker in the end, when I had time to check my luggage, I actually was missing close to three pairs of my underwear. I had no idea where they went, and this made me physically ill, thinking about what happened to them.

I understand that families have their issues, but that man was absolutely terrifying. Even though I'm really thankful I at least had a place to shower and sleep for a week, I feel really sorry for anyone that had to stay with him in his over 10 years of hosting, or may have to in the future. Don't be like me. If you feel uncomfortable, leave. I'm lucky nothing more than the overall weirdness and verbal abuse happened to me, but there's tons of cases in which from the ages of 18 to 20.

I worked in a really well-known electronic shop in Canada. At the time of the story, I was the only girl working among a bunch of guys. I'm a very small person, about 5'3", and I had a shorter length, bleach blonde hair, as well as I always wore fake eyelashes. Mainly, I'm explaining my looks because I was never treated well by customers. They assumed I was stupid or would either constantly walk past me and ignore me or they would ask me something, think I'm wrong and go to a mail worker and ask the same thing to only receive the same answer.

I dealt with a lot of horrible customers and most of them being older men. I had everything from really rude remarks to remarks about my physical self, but I enjoyed the job and I needed the money. One day, I was with one other male co-worker and a woman, maybe in the late 60s, came in and she seemed like a sweet old lady so I sighed with relief that I would get to have a nice conversation with someone for once. Wrong. She came up to me and told me that she had been overcharged on her phone bill. While this isn't something we usually dealt with, I agreed to go look at her account and see what the charges were.

Unfortunately, the charges showed extra data usage or calling outside of Canada. Not too sure, but it basically showed that she got charged extra because of what she had done. So I moved my computer to show her and very politely told her what I saw and explained the extra charges. She just kinda looks at me and then clenched her fists and internally I was like oh god, she's gonna hit me. My coworker was on break in the back, the mall was dead as it was almost closing time so if she was going to hurt me she could easily get away with it. I started to back up and she slammed her fists on the desk so hard that the pens on the desk moved. Within two seconds after that she started screaming at the top of her lungs, mostly

incomprehensible, and she started walking around the store throwing things off the shelves. I just kind of stood there with a blank expression as I'd never experienced something like this before. She then came back to the counter, grabbed her phone and started to walk around the store slamming her phone on the ground, picking it up and repeated that. She did it so much that there were shards of glass all over the floor for days afterwards. Finally, my coworker came out and was like, what? And just looked at me as I was almost in tears. He came behind the counter and kind of covered me and told the lady she needed to get out now. Obviously, she didn't like that and she just kept chucking her phone on the ground,

screaming and swearing at us and just getting increasingly more agitated. My coworker picked up the phone, called for security and we just stood there in silence. Within like 10 minutes the security guard showed up. Our security sucked as we barely ever had incidents like this. He tried to calm her down and she was shoving him and started to throw things again. I was at this point across the store talking to another customer that came in and my coworker yelled out to me, go in the back now. I looked at what he was looking at and she was running towards me. I ran to the back and locked myself in the bathroom and just

bawled my eyes out for like two minutes. I came back out because I didn't hear any more screaming, and I saw the security guard trying to put her in handcuffs. She literally body checked this poor man and ran. The police showed up and took our statements and looked at the security footage and said that they'd get back to us, but we never heard anything again, and pretty soon after that beginning of the first semester. I was 20 by then and I used to hang out near my university a lot at this time of the year because the weather was still really nice and warm and my university was adjacent to a park. As we had a three hour break, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to eat lunch in the park rather than in the cafeteria. I said yes and we went there. It was a regular school day, probably a Thursday, and the place was filled with kids, students, and people walking their dogs,

so not empty at all. It may seem odd to underline this, but I rarely go by myself in that park if there's no one else around because it makes me feel nervous, kind of vulnerable. I'm an overly anxious person, don't judge me. But this day, the place was crowded and we hardly managed to find a place somewhere on the grass for us to sit. We ate, talked, and enjoyed the sunny weather for a good hour. After an hour, the park was way emptier than when we arrived. Almost all the children had left and we were quite on our own. As we both wanted to smoke a little before returning to classes, and now that we wouldn't bother anyone with the smoke, we rolled two joints. I know it's not especially a good thing, but it was just our

little habit when we hung out together. Anyway, the past belongs to the past, right? I was focused on rolling up when my friend suddenly asked me, do you see them? I looked in the same direction as her, but I couldn't see what she was talking about. She insisted, those guys, the bag, they're staring at us. And then I saw them. 50 meters away from us, two guys, who seemed a little older than us, were standing in the middle of the way, looking intensely at us. They had literally no expression on their faces. I'm kind of used to creepy men, whether they're polite or much more intrusive. You know those who follow you in the streets, those who inexplicably stare at you in the bus for 30 minutes, those who won't leave your side until you give them your number. It can be really easy

to get rid of them, but those kind of encounters are often awkward, embarrassing or worse. So I felt a little uncomfortable although I wasn't worried. As I kept looking at them, I understood that they were going to talk to us. I asked my friend if she knew them and she answered no, adding that she hoped that they would not come over to say hi. Unfortunately, three minutes later they were right in front of us, smiling. They were two. The first to talk introduced himself as Manny. He was a small and short haired guy who was obviously on drugs, but I wouldn't know which ones to be honest. The other one was tall, pale, a quiet guy. I can't remember his name, but we'll call him Steve to

make things easy. Manny talked and smiled a lot. He introduced himself and his friend, asked us about our day, praised the warm temperatures. He seemed either unable to shut up or desperately trying to play it cool with us. Before we could even tell them to leave, he invited himself to join us on the grass, assuming that we would be okay with it. As a welcoming gift, he opened his bag. It was a huge plastic bag, one you would take to do some groceries, and showed us a 4.5 liter bottle of vodka. I couldn't help but judge them. It was like 1pm, in a park, in in the daylight so it felt kind of ridiculous to me.

His friend handed us a tiny and already used paper cup but we declined the offer, saying that we needed to stay sober because we had classes to attend two hours later. Unfortunately they had already drank a fair amount of vodka and they kept insisting until my friend told them, I'm not the type of person who would drink vodka right after lunch. I either drink it on Friday night with my friends or pass my turn. Don't ask us again. I should tell you now, my friend is not a scaredy cat at all. To be honest, she's the bravest person I've ever met and she's never uncomfortable in front of strangers.

Usually when she's bothered by a weird guy, she either acts weirder than him to make him feel more uncomfortable or laughs it off, making jokes and acting friendly until she tells him to leave because she'd rather be alone. Or in the worst cases, she kicks his butt and leaves. But even if she didn't want their company, she was still unperturbed and relaxed, way more than I was, and it felt good to have her by my side. They must have felt that she was serious because they stopped insisting and instead they started to ask us things like, are you students, do you have a boyfriend, can I have your number, and so on. We were both in a relationship and not interested in the two of them, but it didn't stop them from flirting. They kept complimenting us in a heavy, unpleasant, clumsy way and we began to feel embarrassed.

We could clearly tell that alcohol was unleashing them. They were annoyingly enticing, openly flirty and it escalated quickly from sympathetic remarks on the way we were dressed to nasty advances. As I said, we were not interested, but they didn't take no for an answer. I was so uncomfortable that I avoided eye contact as much as I could while trying to find a way for us to get out of this situation. At this point, two other guys, supposedly their friends, came and sat with us, even though we didn't tell them that they could. They looked dirty, idle, and stoned, and one of them had a scrawny dog full of fleas. Not really assuring, but we kept our thoughts for ourselves. My friend said something like, we should probably get back to college now, but it didn't work the way we planned. They offered to come with us,

claiming that it was not the first time that they crashed classes just for fun. We replied, no thanks, we don't want to get into trouble. But Manny insisted. We declined, he kept insisting, saying, don't worry, it's not a big deal. And suddenly, he pulled a gun out of his pants and brandished it in front of us with a proud expression on his face. We immediately stopped smiling. First, because we live in France, carrying guns is neither allowed nor usual, and second, because we felt trapped. The gun looked old but really heavy and extremely dangerous in his drunken hands and it wasn't funny anymore. I was genuinely afraid of what would happen next. One of his friends, the one with the dog,

we'll call him Nick, started to panic, got up and said, Are you crazy? Don't you know I got crank on me? To which Manny replied, Chill out, there's no cops here. His friend shook his head and took his bag, ready to get out of there. Then Manny pretended to be aiming at Steve and he told us, with a big carnivorous smile, that he could totally shoot him without being in trouble. Steve seemed a little nervous. Nick walked away, yelling that he didn't want to be seen with us because it was too risky and I wouldn't disagree. It was the middle of the day in an almost empty park, so the scene seemed quite unreal.

I just thought, God, I've never seen this close to a gun and its owner is a drunk man who doesn't want us to go. It looked like a really bad situation. He turned toward us, exhibited the weapon, and asked for our opinion. Do you like it? I'm not a huge fan of guns, I replied. Are you scared? Maybe. I tried my best to hide the fact that I was scared because I didn't want him to notice it and take advantage of me.

Even my friend kept a fake smile on her face to keep up appearances. He quickly put it back in his pants and stared at us for a long time with a wary eye after what he strangely asked. What did you see? I figured he was talking about the gun but I couldn't understand why he would ask such a thing with such a suspicious tone. He asked again so I said, I saw nothing and he laughed. My answer may seem stupid but I didn't want him to feel proud or to give him this kind of power over us by letting him know that we were afraid of the weapon. I thought it was stupid to carry a gun and to point it at his friend but he simply kept laughing and his laugh sounded awful to my ears like the one of a cold-blooded sociopath.

I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. My friend must have noticed it because all of a sudden she took my arm and told everyone, Oh, we're late. We really gotta go. Have a nice day. Before running away, they shouted, Hey, can we have your phone number at least? And she replied without even looking back, No, but have a nice day anyway. We never walked so fast to get to classes than this day. Even though we ended up not attending the lecture because our teacher was sick, this we didn't know at the time, we were still so astounded by what just happened that it took

us several hours to process, and after that we was 18 and I was young, innocent and naive. Now that I'm in my mid 20s I would never let this happen again. It was my freshman year at college and as one could imagine I was excited to be on my own for once in my life. So excited to be on my own I decided I was going to take summer classes on campus. That way I wouldn't have to worry about coming in when the big crowd of freshmen came and when I'd also already know where everything was. Plus, it meant I could get away from my parents faster. But mainly, all I could think about was

boys. You see, I had never dated anyone throughout high school, so I thought I would find my one true love at college. Because of course, that's all the movies told me anyways. About two weeks go by and me and one of my roommates, I had four, were hanging out in the lounge area showing off pictures from Instagram of our friends and family. Well my roommate, I'll call her Tracy, showed me a picture of her and these two guys. One of the guys was Tracy's boyfriend and the other was Tracy's boyfriend's best friend, Sean. Now Sean was very attractive and I told Tracy that he was hot and she told me that he went to the tech college near us and he was single.

Now a day or two goes by after this and she tells me that she told Sean that I was interested in him and he wanted to know if he could follow me on Instagram so he could DM me. And at the time I trusted Tracy because she seemed like a cool chill girl so I excitedly told her yes. I wish I never told her yes. I talked to Sean for about a week before I was comfortable enough to give him my phone number. At first he seemed super sweet. He would always send me a text message in the mornings, telling me to have a good day at class and he couldn't wait to FaceTime me that night. And he would FaceTime me every night. At first I loved it because I never had a boy give me so

much attention. And like I said before, I had never dated anyone so I was just over the moon that he was even interested enough in me to talk to me. But it started getting annoying. He would text me almost every second of the day and try to FaceTime me at least four times. When I wouldn't respond to him, he would ask if I was okay, why I wasn't answering him, if I was seeing another guy. If I was seeing another guy, it would make him really mad if I was. I, of course, once seeing the messages, would try to reassure him that I was okay and I wasn't seeing anyone. Like I said in the beginning, I was young and naive, and I didn't see it as a red flag. Things kept going downhill though. It came to a point where he started asking for pictures of me,

either just selfies or pictures of me in the mirror. I wouldn't send them though because I wasn't comfortable, and he would brush it off saying that was fine and I could send them pictures of myself to him whenever I was ready. One day I was in class for a long time because it was a lab and it started at 7pm and wouldn't end until about 10pm that night. For those of you who don't know, labs in college can last from 2-4 hours and mine just happened to be 3 hours that night. Once class ended, I headed up to my dorm and took out my phone. I clicked the button on the side lighting up the screen. I had 380 unread texts, 10 missed calls, and 3 voicemails from Sean. Before I could even react or even read all the messages, my phone started to ring.

Instead of being Sean, it was my dad. He had called me to make sure that I was alright because he had gotten an alert from the phone company that I had gotten all those messages and I was still on his phone plan. I don't know why but I lied to him and laughed it off, saying that it was just in a group chat with a bunch of girls from school. Once I got off the phone with my dad, I quickly went to look at the messages I had gotten. Most of them were demanding why I wasn't answering him and he would come and find me if I didn't answer him. The voicemails were crude and mostly of him saying he was just going to find me and when he did, he was going to punish me for not answering him. After this, I just completely blocked him on everything I could think of,

completely freaked out about the whole thing. About a week goes by and I start to slowly forget about the incident trying not to think much about it. At least that's what I was trying to do. That whole week I felt like someone was watching me but I brushed it off as me being paranoid. At the end of the week my roommate Tracy, who I had been avoiding, comes up to me shouting at me saying how I broke Sean's heart and he had called her crying saying he didn't understand why I stopped talking to him. I couldn't even get a word in because of how fast she was talking. She finally called me a self-centered idiot and walked away.

I went to class right after that not realizing I had forgotten to lock my dorm room. You see, I live with four girls and each girl had their own room, which would lock from the outside with a key. Well, when I came back from class, I noticed my door was cracked open slightly. My heart dropped into my stomach. I hesitated going in. My hands were shaking terribly, but I finally got the nerve to push it open. Nothing. There was nothing out of place, it seemed. Even though there was nothing out of place, it seemed. Even though there was nothing out of place, I could have sworn I closed the door before leaving for class. Though I don't remember if I locked it or not, I know for sure I closed the door. So I asked my roommate,

including Tracy, if anyone had gone into my room today, and they all denied it, even Tracy. But I just knew in my heart someone had been in there. I tried to brush it off but I couldn't. So one weekend when I knew that all my roommates were going to be out of town, I switched dorm buildings and room with the girl that I had gotten to be close friends with. After I moved in, I told her all that had happened and she said that she would walk with me to my classes, which thankfully we had most of our classes together except the night lab I had, and she would walk with me to my lab and wait until my lab was done to walk with me back to the dorm. One night though, she had gone out of town to see her parents or something.

I was walking back from my lab and it had gone really late that night again. I heard someone walking behind me but I didn't pay any mind to it since class was just let out. But as I was walking I could hear the steps getting closer, so I started to pick up my walking speed. At this point I could tell someone was following me and I was afraid to look back. As the footsteps increased and got faster I started running as fast as I could. Now let me tell you I'm not athletic by any means. Somehow though, adrenaline probably, I was able to sprint to my dorm building hearing someone still running behind me and I thankfully already had my keycard out to get into the building and I swiped it on the door and slammed

it behind me. Looking up from slamming the door I see someone who's probably about 10 feet away from the door staring at me. Even through the person's hoodie that was up and I couldn't see their face, I could just see that they were looking at me and I knew it was Sean. Not wasting any more time, I got to the RA that was up that night, bawling and telling him what had just happened. He called the police and I told them everything that happened but they basically said they couldn't do anything since I didn't see his face, even if I thought it was Sean and maybe I was just paranoid since it was night time and I was walking by myself. After all this, I called my

friend and told her what happened and she never went out of town again if I had my late night classes. I eventually decided college wasn't for me and I dropped out. I moved back to my home state and went to cosmetology school and became a hairdresser. I still haven't dated anyone yet though, maybe it's the fear of something like that happening again, I'll never know. I do know that I'm super careful with who I talk to now, and who I give my social media and phone number to. To be continued... a friend's hen party. A hen party is the Scottish version of a bachelorette party. We went to a few pubs and clubs that night and settled at the Lovello nightclub. I have autism so generally I'm not very good with my social skills but

they insisted that I go along with them and that it'd help my confidence. What would happen to me this night would ruin me forever. Unlike other people, I can hear sounds and noises a lot different from other people. My friends were dancing to loud music. For them it was fun, for me it was just white noise to an extreme level, a very high pitched tone ringing in my ears I really regretted going out. I just sat there while they danced and I had seen this guy from a distance hanging from the balcony. Luckily some bouncers caught him when he fell and I was relieved but felt disgusted at the same time that someone could get himself in such a state and he was removed from the nightclub. My anxiety levels had skyrocketed and I couldn't handle the music anymore.

I told my friends that I felt ill and wanted to head back to the hotel so they told me to stay safe and phoned a taxi. To which I did. I was waiting outside for more than an hour in the pouring rain. No taxi had appeared. I phoned back countless times but they said the taxi services were busy and it'd take a while to get one to me. The doorman showed me directions to a taxi rank and said that I'd get one quicker if I joined the taxi queue. I walked down taking his instructions and it was very dark and rainy at this moment and eerily quiet. This was until he popped up from an alleyway, the guy from the balcony, and he was there peeing. He looked like a typical English hooligan, shaved head and topless and

some horrible torn denims and beer bottle in his hand. I walked on and I could just sense him following me. Oi, he said oi you. I don't know why I did but I had to turn around, got the time. I told him the time, put my head down and kept walking. He tried to catch up with me, staggering a bit because of his drunkenness. Where are you from? He asked. Oi, I'm talking to you. Where are you from? You one of them Macoms? A Macom is a slang term for someone from Sunderland, Newcastle's sworn rivals in football. I said, no, I'm Scottish. He rambled on some more, but I chose to ignore him. Oi, listen. I'm talking to you. He reached his hand to grab my shoulder and nearly tripped up. I laughed a little. I really couldn't help it. What you laughing at you little scot? He said.

Reaching for me again by instincts, I started to run. I just didn't feel comfortable with him there. He started to chase me. Oh, you get back here. He kept shouting. My high heels had fallen off and I was running in my bare feet. I couldn't run anymore because I was out of breath and my feet really hurt. I went into a phone box to protect myself from him and he tried to barge the door in. I gripped on it so hard putting all my weight onto it. He started ranting at me. Come on, wait till I get you. I'm going to teach you a little lesson. He started kicking the door and it had almost moved, I was screaming for help and there were some passers by but they ignored my calls for help. He kept kicking at the door and nearly got in.

I jammed my fingers but still held on for dear life. I then used my feet to hold it even tighter too. He threw his glass bottle at the door and booze had spilled everywhere, soaking the whole phone box. I was worried he was going to smash the glass. He'd have definitely got me by then. He started ranting at me, calling me all terrible names and I should go back to Kiltland and eat haggis or whatever stuff you people eat. He started mocking the accent before chanting, Engerlind, Engerlind, Engerlind. I just couldn't stop myself from crying and kept screaming for him to leave me alone. I could actually feel my throat get sore I'd screamed so much. He then pulled out his junk

and started rubbing it against the glass and said, I'm going to make you suck it. After another aggressive struggle he managed to get his hand in and grab me but I kicked the door, shut it against his arm and jammed his fingers when I kicked it again and he was reeling in agony and had blood pouring out of him. Some passersby had tried to warn him off and he pulled out a penknife from his pocket and threatened them with it. He got in a brawl with two guys from the group and I took that opportunity to run away while his back was turned. I remember my bare feet ended up with glass in them but I was in so much shock I just kept running and the rain never stopped pouring. I spent the next hour at the taxi rank

freezing cold. I'd lost my jacket. When I ran I can't remember how I ended up without it but I had blood pouring from my feet. I remember I could see it mixing in with the drain drops on the concrete. The taxi driver had asked if I was okay and I was constantly shivering with fear as well as the cold and couldn't stop crying. I could barely talk but managed to tell him about my ordeal. He told me to go to the hospital or the police but I just wanted to go home at this stage. I had to settle for a hotel room of course. After a trip to the hospital I got four stitches in my feet and antibiotics to avoid infection. I went back to Scotland the next night without my friends as I was too scared to do anything. I'd reported him to the police but nothing ever came of it and I never heard anything

back. Warning, potentially upsetting content to come. Where to start with this story? I work as a veterinary nurse assistant. We get unusual things brought into our clinic, but this one I just had to share. Today, the 31st of October 2020, was my Saturday to work. I was on reception with the receptionist and vet nurse. Early 9am, we get a call from an elderly man who had found a dead cat in his front garden at the time he said it looks like its head had been caved in. We often get deceased animals brought in as a result of being hit by a car so we asked him to bring it down to us. Before 10am-ish the elderly man comes

in with the black cat in a plastic bag. We take contact details from the man then he tells us how he found it and my wife is so upset, poor thing. And here's where things get creepy. The cat is in a clear plastic bag. Guys, it has no head. It's decapitated. And on further inspection where the cat's head should have been were clean cuts. Now a bit of background, I live in the UK and a while back we had a string of mutilated animals being found outside of homes and in parks, and at that point the supposed suspect was called the Croydon Cat Killer or the M25 Cat Killer. However, police ruled it out to be foxes, supposedly. I have seen plenty of animals that have been attacked by other animals, dogs, cats, foxes, etc. and I can say with absolute confidence that I believe this was no animal.

The whole body, aside from the missing head, was intact. No bites, puncture wounds, broken bones, claw marks, nothing to suggest the cat had been killed by an animal. The place where the head should have been was clean cut, as if by a knife. We scanned the poor cat for a microtrip and found one. We looked up the details in the microtrip system and found the cat's name to be Lucifer. A black cat named Lucifer found beheaded on Halloween. I wish this wasn't true and that I had made it up but sadly it's not. We tried contacting his owners. Home phone wasn't connecting and we left a message on the mobile number that we found Lucifer and to call ASAP. One other disturbing thing was the

address where Lucifer was found was two streets over from his registered address and close to my vet clinic. I was very wary when I finished my shift today and waited inside the clinic until my husband was outside to pick me up. Just the unnerving feeling that whoever did this was lurking around and still out there. We alerted the police, RSPCA, and a group called SNARL, South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty. SNARL are eager to help, however, they cannot examine the body without the owner's consent, so at present we are holding Lucifer until we can make contact with his owners to decide what to do. The lovely poor old man had agreed to be contacted by the police, RSPCA, SNARL to help in any way. I've worked alongside animal cruelty and abuse cases, but this has to be the most chilling,

disturbing, and upsetting case I've ever encountered in my years working as a veterinary nurse assistant. I'm hoping we get some good news about this story soon. And that's my creepy encounter. I pray I never have another one of these. Safe to say I hugged my two cats extra tight when I got home. I'm a 26 year old female living in the northwest of the United States, 4 hours drive above Salt Lake City. I'm going to sum this up a bit. I have religious people, mostly Mormons, come to my door from time to time.

I'm always polite to them and listen to what they have to say and say no thank you at the end. Yesterday I had three guys come to my door that I think were about 16 to 18, maybe older, and wearing nice dress clothes. They said that they were Mormon and started off by stating that they were trying to get a law passed to increase taxes for unmarried individuals versus married couples. I stated taxes are already higher if you're single. They asked what do I do and if I felt loved and accepted. I replied I'm in college pursuing my bachelor's degree and yes I feel loved and I'm not always accepted. They said they know what it's like to feel that they're not accepted and that their group could help. Their group has love and since I'm not married they said that they would have a husband arranged for me. That I would get to pick a husband from five different suitors of their choosing that would never have to work a day in my life and that I'll never have to be lonely again.

I could just be a housewife and wouldn't have to do their 18 month recruitment as long as I produce a child within two years. I said I already had a significant other and I'm not lonely so they asked if we are going to be married within six months because they could have me guaranteed to be married within that time period. I said I didn't know but it's not my decision to make and we are content where we are. They said well he can also have another wife to assist with the housework so you'll never be overwhelmed. I said we're monogamous and fine with where we're at. They said that he would come work for them and he could go to trade school, paid for by them. However, he would have to give 10-15% of his income to the church to go to food banks, healthcare, and anything

we would need. They said or you could entice an outsider into joining us but if you become married and decide to leave, you'll be cut off from the church and everyone. I said no thank you, I'm not interested in joining their group. They said that's okay, if I wanted to join them, they would be around. My significant other told his co-worker who is Mormon about it and he said that yes, Mormons take 10% of your income to help with food banks and those in need, but nothing like that. It must have been one of the subsects or even a cult. I've seen cults on TV like the Heaven's Gate cult or the crazy ones that get busted by the feds, but I never thought I'd come in contact with one.

They were holding hands together and very persistent the entire time. Just plain creepy. What do you guys think? Did I just have a run in with a cult? I wanted to share one of the scariest photo shoots of my whole entire life, not only because of the creepy subject, but also the creepy guy. So last night my model and I went to finally do a photo shoot that we wanted to do for a long time. So basically I wanted dead girl in your headlights at night type of photos. It was 9pm, but it was already pitch black here.

We found some deserted road in the middle of nowhere and started to shoot. We went through two outfits and she started to change into her third. Then all of a sudden we saw a car in the forest. There was a dirt road to the left of us and apparently he got stuck in the mud and couldn't get out. We were waiting for him to get unstuck and drive wherever he wanted to drive but it was taking so long we decided to go for it and shoot. She was still trying to change, it's not so easy in the dark in a small car so I decided to go outside and get my settings ready so she wouldn't need to stand in the cold rain for too long. As soon as I got out, this dude

magically got unstuck and sped to the road we were on. I hopped in the car, we locked the doors and sat there. In that moment, we were a little scared but still, he could very well have been just stuck in the road and just got out. He pulled to the driver's seat where my model sat, like 10 centimeters from her car. He almost broke off her side mirror with his one and looked into our car. We had this big butcher knife for photos so she pulled it out from her bag and showed it to him and that's when he sped off. We decided to go the opposite way in case he decided to block the road or something, but we were met with a dead end and had to go back. When we went to that place that we met, this creep, he was in the same spot as before,

pretending to be stuck again. So we sped right past him and called the police, because we thought that he could just be waiting for somebody to go up to him and offer help, and then potentially harm them. So please guys, be safe, pay attention to your surroundings, and maybe don't go taking photos in some deserted roads. It was a few years ago, I was home alone. At night in my bedroom and I was chilling on my bed and I started to sing, a thing that I do quite frequently. And as it was summer, I'd let the door of my balcony wide open to let the fresh air in. Then for some reason I heard some noises coming from outside,

like as if someone walked into the garden. I wasn't sure at the immediate time if it was my cat or my parents simply coming home until I turned my head to the balcony door. I saw a pair of hands of some guy trying to climb my balcony. I panicked after seeing it and yelled, is there someone there? Then the guy fell off and went, oh sorry, it's just that me and my friends heard you singing and we thought you were in danger so I decided to check if everything was okay before going off. I still don't know who that was, maybe since the house next to ours was used as a vacation lodging, the guy and his friends probably just booked the house for a few days, but I'm not really sure. And still, if he was truly worried, then why did I used to work the late shift at a club in the city center.

It wasn't a frightening job by any stretch of the imagination, unless you count the state of the girls' toilets at the end of the night. But I tell you what, one thing happened to me as a result of that job that will stay with me for the rest of my life. This is a story in two parts, one considerably scarier than the other, so without further ado, I'll get on with the first part. So I'm working this one shift and it's getting close to closing time, so I'm cleaning out the ice wells, marrying bottles of spirits up, all that usual closing time stuff. Right in front of me there's a group of people having a little drink and dance, with one guy and his girlfriend just sort of stood with their backs to the wall, not really looking like they were having a great night. A younger lad comes to the bar, hoards a drink off

of one of my colleagues, then starts trying to chat to this moody looking couple in the way that young lads like to do. He's all like, hey, you see alright? Where you been tonight? Blah blah blah. It's making me laugh a wee bit because the moody fella obviously does not want to chat, but the young lad just doesn't take the hint because he's drunk and in such a good mood. I don't pay too much attention to this though. It doesn't look like a fight is gonna kick off, well not at first anyway, not until the younger lad starts chatting to the moody guy's girlfriend or wife or whatever they were. He doesn't take this well at all and starts basically telling the kid to get lost, which to his credit, this lad then does. He knows where he's not welcome and he's not about to waste his time

trying to cheer them up. Next thing I know, the moody couple finishes their drinks and looks like they're leaving. However, on their way out, they happen to pass by the younger lad who sees them leaving and gives them a wave goodbye. Now he might have said something snarky, might have given the moody one of those cheeky little looks, I'm not sure. But either way, the moody fella then rushes him and gives him what looked like the crappiest little rabbit punch I'd ever seen in my life, like this top down bop that looked like it wouldn't have done anything but tickle him.

Now I'm a bit jaded with the job at this point so I just casually tell one of the younger staff to make sure the door staff see this couple out. I mean, to his credit, the younger lad didn't react to this awful punch, he just ducked out of the way and avoided any trouble so he didn't get thrown out. I just remember thinking, top bloke, before I carried on cleaning my station. We don't need any extra trouble on that job, it's tough enough honestly. Anyway, so I pop out for a smoke about 15 minutes later and my jaw just about drops when I see what's going on. Outside is stood the younger kid, the one that was trying to cheer up the moody couple and he's got this huge slash on his head. Like there is so much blood coming out of this kid's head and

the cut is like right behind the ear. Because of where the cut was and how much blood is pouring out of him, people were seriously panicking, trying to keep pressure on it, keeping an eye out for an ambulance. It's like a scene from a war movie or something. It was nuts. I didn't even get to have my smoke at first because one of the door staff is all like, go get some paper towels, so they could use them to stem the bleeding or something. I get back with the paper towels and the kid responds, I feel really cold. And that was chilling, like actually chilling.

It was pretty balmy out that night too, not too bad for British autumn, light jacket weather kind of thing and this kid was trembling saying that he's freezing. Jesus I thought he was going to die and he obviously did too. It was ridiculously stressful and without a doubt the worstest shift I've ever had to work, but it didn't end there. The next day I call up a mate of mine who used to sell me some Mary J from time to time, telling him I'd like to pick up something because I'd

had a heck of a shift that night before and was still pretty shaken up by it. So he stops by with my stuff and I start telling him all about the incident the night before with the kid who got slashed. How I didn't even know he'd been cut at first, how gnarly it was, how I didn't know if this kid had survived because they just bundled him up into an ambulance and that was the last we'd heard of it. My mate starts giving me this look, then says the name of the club I work at. Not a question like, was it this place, like a statement, telling me where it was. I was pretty amazed that he seemed to know about it then realized like oh god did he die and it was in the papers or something? So I ask him just that, asking him how he knew about it because I'm pretty sure he didn't know where I worked.

He gives me this knowing look then tells me the kid who got slashed was his boss's little brother, this kid called David. Now here's the thing, my mate's boss was like the big man in the area I used to live in, like he was in charge of a little group that sold all the drugs in the area, some pretty hard stuff too, not just weed or a few pills, like they moved some serious weight under the cover of a few legit businesses. And these were not people you wanted to mess with. The kind of guys that were super nice to you if they liked you, asked after your family, offered to help you out financially if you needed it. But if they didn't like you, oh man, were you in trouble. But anyway, we finished our chat about it with him assuring me that this kid David was still alive just in in really bad shape, and I thought that was that.

A few days later, I get a call from an unknown number. It's a guy who works for the big man, so to speak, who wanted to know if I was free to talk. I say yeah, just thinking we met on the phone, and he responds, Okay, I'll be your place in five minutes, be ready. I didn't even have time to ask him what it was about, but I didn't need to. I knew well what it was going to be about. The guy turns up, calls me from the street while he's in his car and I invite him inside, but it turns out that he wants me to drive over to the big man's place, which turned out to be this flat above a corner shop about 10 minutes drive away.

It was this tiny flat, but it was decked out in drug dealer chic, like everything is top of the line, huge TV, gadgets everywhere, and in the living room is this guy, Paul, who I'd actually seen around the neighborhood a bunch. He was short but super intimidating, not just because I knew what he did for a living, but because he just had this intensity about him. Not to mention this gnarly looking cauliflower ear that told me that he'd been in one too many street fights or played rugby, and not many people play rugby around where I live. We're a football town, not a rugby town. But anyway, Paul starts telling me how if I get in touch with the police and say I saw a knife, even though I

didn't, he'd make it worth my while. I basically saw the whole slashing thing happen, but if I told the exact truth about what I'd seen, there wouldn't be a conviction. That's just how flimsy the law is. Like apparently he'd already been told by the police that there just wasn't the right angle on the club's CCTV to make it an airtight case against the guy who'd cut him. So I had to like bend the truth, so to speak. Which I didn't have any trouble with at all. After all, it was basically the right thing to do. It kind of shocked me how this big time dealer was working so close with the police, like he'd think he'd gone all Tony Soprano and

taken the law into his own hands or something. But nope, sometimes people who live on the wrong side of the law kind of need it to work for them too. That's just how crazy the world is I suppose. So yeah, I talk to the police, tell them everything and then think that's the last I'll hear about it. But again, life is full of false endings and this is where part two of the story really kicks off. Months go by and I think it's all been dealt with or rather I hope that it's all been dealt with. But then once again I get a call from an unknown number asking if I'm free to talk. I know the drill this time, so I throw some clothes on and get ready to be driven round to this place above the corner shop to talk to big time Paul. Only this time when I walk into the living room, it's not just Paul sat there, it's this whole crew of dudes, mean looking ones too.

And on the TV is what was really obviously some CCTV stills. Now I'm not 100% up to speed in the law about all of this, but I'm almost certain you can't just walk into a business and be like, Hi, give me copies of your CCTV footage. I think it's only really the police that can do that. Like getting hold of some place's CCTV footage has to be breaking a ton of data protection laws but that's besides the point. So in front of all these mean looking dudes, Paul presses play on the TV remote which kicks off a slideshow of stills from a bunch of different cameras and starts asking me to tell him if I recognize anyone. Now these are

stills from a bar I didn't work at. I didn't even know which one. Like I had so many questions as to how he'd managed to track this dude down. The one who cut his brother I mean but I figured there just wasn't the time to ask them. Now I'm looking at all these stills and Paul's like, you recognize this fella? I'm like, nope, every single time. This goes on for a long, long time too. There are shed loads of different fellas popping up and each time I'm having to tell him, I don't recognize him or him. Everyone in the room, including me, is starting to get pretty frustrated at this. Like you could tell they thought that they'd found their man and I genuinely felt bad having to tell them now.

Like it got to the point where Paul starts losing his cool like, come on to help you here, but I know what the score is and I can't be telling you it's someone that I'm not certain of, alright? I felt really proud when all of these scary guys in the room with me were like, fair shout lad. Nodding along as if though I had done something super honorable or something. Like as messed up as it was, I wanted them to get the right guy too. The police obviously hadn't been able to help them and if that's what it came to, to be able to get a little piece of justice then so be it. I was in for a penny, in for a pound so to speak. Then Razor looks like it's coming to the end of the footage and we've had no luck.

I see him. This bloke with strawberry blonde hair, a bit tubby around the waist with a proper moody looking face. I got that feeling in my gut when you recognize someone. I just knew it was him. I spoke up, actually loud like, him, that's him there in the checkered shirt. They're all like, are you sure? Are you dead sure? I respond, look, if there's anyone on that tape that was in the bar the night your David got slashed, it's him. I can't be 100% for sure, but I'm not 100% sure about anything and I'm telling you, unless that's the bloke that was in the club that night, he doesn't half look like him.

Then the room went quiet, like really quiet. All these blokes are sitting around looking at each other and I suddenly felt very, very unwelcome. I knew they had things to discuss and I couldn't be around to hear them, mainly for my own good. So big man Paul gives me a lift home and as we're driving, my curiosity gets the better of me. When I look back on it now, it makes me cringe to think about, but I actually asked him, so what are you going to do to the bloke in the picture? Paul just doesn't say a thing, not a bloody thing. He just keeps driving like he didn't hear what I'd asked him. That was actually very chilling. Like legit scary. You watch gangster movies and in a sick

way they seem like they'd be fun to hang out with. But it was not fun being in the car with a bloke who was obviously planning something horrifically violent. A bloke who had the power, the influence, the intimidation factor, whatever, to be able to procure some CCTV footage like that. A bloke with the balls to be talking to the police about nicking his brother's attacker while he's selling all sorts of illegal stuff right under their noses. We rock up to my place and I thank him for the lift. All he says is, You're a good lad, Sam. You're a good lad. I can't even describe how spooky it was. Walking upstairs to my flat, realizing what I'd done.

I'd basically condemned a man to death and whatever horrible stuff they were going to do to him before they snuffed him, I'd condemned him to that too. Like yeah, I know he'd brought it upon himself that something was going to happen to him sooner or later, be it by the police, by those gangsters, or maybe just karma. But it was me that recognized him in those stills, and it was me that was the deciding factor in him getting tied up and cut up or set on fire or tortured or whatever Paul and his boys were going to do to him. It was on my head and it always will be. It's something I try not to think about to be honest. Like it's actually one of the few things in my life that actually

haunts me. Even some of the more traumatic things in my life, we find a way to talk about them sooner or later. Sometimes we laugh about them, sometimes we don't. This is something I genuinely don't like talking about. I don't want people knowing I was involved in it, which is why I've changed some places and names here, the names of those involved, even the legit business Paul used as cover. It wasn't a corner shop, I'll tell you that. It was something squeaky clean. Something you really, really wouldn't expect to be the front for a drug ring. Like I said, I try not to think about it and maybe writing this out has been a good way of processing it.

Because sooner or later, I'm going to actually have to face up to the act that somewhere out there is a dead body that didn't get a funeral or a proper burial. The body of a person who suffered horrendously before they actually died, probably in so much pain that they wanted to die before it finally happened. And all that, all that suffering, all that death, that's on me. Forty-year-old Curtis Pichon worked the night shift at a factory in a place called Seabrook in the state of New Hampshire. He was a security guard and the factory was owned and operated by the Venture Corporation, a company which was in the business of manufacturing plastic parts for vehicles and other such machinery.

Curtis had managed to secure the job because of his past experience working as a patrol officer for the Concord Police Department. He enjoyed his job as a police officer but was unfortunately forced into medical retirement in 1994 due to his multiple sclerosis diagnosis, a condition which rendered him unable to effectively use a firearm. His forced retirement left Curtis extremely depressed and withdrawn. Being a police officer was all he'd ever wanted to be and he figured he could have stayed in the force for at least another 15 to 20 years. But MS had robbed him of that and as a result, Curtis developed something of a drinking problem, using alcohol to self-medicate whenever he was wracked by feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness. Yet even though his condition caused him frequent and terrible pain, he was

able to land the job at the plastics factory because of his past experience, as well as the fact that it only required a limited amount of mobility and didn't necessitate the use of a firearm. On the 4th of July of the year 2000, Curtis arrived for the night shift at around 9.30 in the evening. Since it was Independence Day and much of the workforce had secured time away with their families, a small team of just 12 employees were providing overnight security for the factory for that particular shift. Around midnight, the head of site security stopped by the guard shack that Curtis was manning for a sit-rep. Curtis told him everything was fine and that there had been no incidents to speak of.

He had expected July 4th to make for a quiet shift and so far, he had been right. However, less than two hours later, Curtis was on the phone to the fire department, telling him that his car had somehow burst into flames and was so close to the guard shack that it was in danger of catching on fire. The fire department responded quickly and put out the fire, and when quizzed about it, Curtis claimed he had no idea how it started. When later asked about the incident, the head firefighter at the scene told police that Curtis appeared to be unusually calm about the whole thing, and for a man that claimed to have lost a great deal of

personal possessions when his car burned up, seemed curiously disaffected. Head of site security told Curtis he could head home if he wanted to, but Curtis refused, saying he'd much rather stay at his post for the duration of his shift. A supervisor then went back to check on him at around 3.30am, and again, everything seemed fine. But about 20 minutes later, a colleague of Curtis's noticed that he was absent from the guard shack he was supposed to be present in. Curtis himself was gone, but most of his remaining possessions were still there, which included cigarettes,

a packed lunch, his glasses, and some contact lens solution. A guard was put in his place while the head of security tried to locate him, but over two hours later when Curtis' relief had arrived to take over for him, he had still not reappeared, and there was no sign of him anywhere around the factory. The head of security checked the last entry written by Curtis in the security logbook, which was recorded at around 2am. A group of workers, who were taking a break at around 3, mentioned that they had spotted him on patrol. However, about the time he must have gone missing, a foreman said that he'd sighted two vehicles speeding out of the factory's driveway,

but he did not get a clear look at them to provide a description. Days went by and Curtis didn't return to work, nor did he return home to his family, and eventually he was formally reported as a missing person. When police spoke to Curtis' family, they were told that in the weeks before he'd gone missing, he'd expressed a great deal of concern about his own safety. This was because he had recently spoke out about witnessing what he believed to be illegal activity that was taking place on the grounds of the plastics factory. Curtis had also complained to his family about a colleague that threatened to kill him over a parking ticket he had written for him, although this member of the team was said to have a solid alibi on the night Curtis went missing.

On the same night that Curtis went missing, a pair of vending machines near the cafeteria had been vandalized and a padlocked door to the union office had been kicked in. Yet investigators were unable to determine if this had anything to do with his disappearance, be it a distraction or a show of force by some kind of criminal organization. Police then spoke to Curtis' father, who told them that on July 3rd, Curtis had told him in confidence that he had purchased a 9mm handgun from him for $200 cash. At first, the father was concerned that Curtis was going to use the gun to take his own life, given how depressed he was regarding his medical retirement, but this was ruled out since the

handgun was later found unused in Curtis' apartment. Police also considered the idea that having his car set on fire was a breaking point for Curtis, and that shortly after it had happened, he had wandered off from his post to possibly take his own life. But given his limited mobility, it is highly unlikely that he could have gotten very far, and an intense search of the surrounding area didn't turn up any body. Insurance investigators also noted that although there didn't seem to be any sign of gasoline or other accelerants around Curtis' car, it was most likely arson of some description. They also discovered that Curtis had been planning on purchasing a new car later that

same week, which is certainly a curious piece of information, especially given how calm he was about the destruction of the vehicle. Curtis' fate remained a mystery for eight long years, with heavy speculation that he had manufactured his own disappearance as a result of his severe depression. But in October of 2008, a man named Robert April was arrested for assault and making violent threats after an incident with the teenage brother of a man who owed him money. Apparently, Robert April had accosted him before saying, When I see your brother boy, I'm going to slice his throat and nobody will find his body just like the missing person from Seabrook.

Yeah, that's right, I killed him and your brother is next and nobody will find an ounce of blood. I buried him in my yard and your brother's next." He was found not guilty after the teenage boy told a courtroom he had lied about the assault, yet many suspected there had been a great deal of witness intimidation involved. Despite escaping punishment, it was pretty well established that Robert April was involved in many criminal dealings with larger organizations based in nearby Boston. The missing person from Seabrook he had mentioned could well have been Curtis,

as one of the skeleton crew working security that 4th of July night back in the year 2000 was none other than Robert April himself. There is every chance that he was so keen on making the teenage boy recant his testimony, not because he was afraid of simple assault conviction, but because it was confirmed that the boy was telling the truth about the threats, then he would be implicated in the disappearance or murder of Chris Pichon. An anonymous tip line had been set up by the Pichon family in the aftermath of his disappearance, one that received very few calls during the time of its existence. But not long after Robert April was found not guilty of assault,

someone called the tip line and shared information that, just before he vanished, Robert had caught a member of the security team stealing expensive machine parts from inside the factory. Since he threatened to alert the authorities to this, and refused to be intimidated by threats from the criminals masterminding the thefts, he was murdered. The caller then told the tip line that Curtis' body was hidden inside the union office before it could be smuggled out at a later date, hence why the door had been kicked off the hinges that night. It was then cut up and buried in the murderer's backyard, which as we know, is a piece of information that lines up with what Robert April had supposedly said to the teenager he had threatened. Acting on this tip, the police

then excavated Robert's backyard, but found nothing. They also intensively searched Robert's brother's property, but again found nothing. It is also speculated that Curtis had discovered thieves breaking into vending machines that night. A violent confrontation had ensued, and Curtis ended up being murdered by those involved in the robbery. Lieutenant Mike Gallagher of the Seabrook Police Department has spoken publicly of his belief that Curtis' car was set on fire as a diversion by a pair of factory workers while they attempted to use forklifts to break into the two damaged vending machines and a change machine. At some

point, Curtis caught them in the act and was killed for it. But like many other theories surrounding this particular case, it simply could not be substantiated. While Robert Averill is still the primary suspect, the name of the second alleged perpetrator has never been released publicly, since the only evidence against them amounted to nothing but hearsay. In fact, not a single solid arrest has ever been made in connection with his disappearance. Just how do people go missing so easily? Even in an age of CCTV cameras, cell phones, and forensic evidence, how is it that someone can simply vanish off the face of the earth? It is a terrifying reality that such a thing is very, very possible. That

all we have to do is make a wrong turn, bump into the wrong person on a dark night, or anger someone unhinged enough to do something they might just live to regret. But maybe they won't regret it. Maybe they'll sleep like a baby at night after strangling us, stabbing us, then carving up our corpses and burying us in concrete or throwing us in a river. And that's the world we live in. One where life is fragile, and those that are willing to take it, hide in plain sight. 20-year-old Kelly Bergdove lived with her 4-year-old daughter in Bridgewater, Virginia. She was a popular young woman, and a single soul in all of Bridgewater seemed to have a bad word to say about her. Least of all her loving husband, who she'd been romantically involved with since they were both high school sophomores.

She also made a point of keeping in touch with her mother and sisters almost every single day. All in all, Kelly was about as wholesome as a person as you've ever likely defined, and even found the time to work night shifts at a local gas station to help support her family. They weren't exactly strapped for cash, but Kelly valued the idea of making a contribution that would allow them a taste of the finer things in life, as well as squirreling a little of her paycheck away each month for her daughter's college fund. But sometimes terrible things happen to the most wonderful of people, and on the night of June 18th, 1982, But sometimes terrible things happen to the most wonderful of people.

And on the night of June 18th, 1982, something was about to happen in the sleepy town of Bridgewater that would send shockwaves through the close-knit community. In the night in question, Kelly was working her usual night shift at Harrisonburg's Imperial Gas Station on South Main Street, Route 11. Kelly had gotten the job because her three sisters had either worked there in the past or were still currently employed by Imperial. The employer thought that it would make the girls more accountable for their work and he was right. Whenever one was sick or couldn't come into work, another would always take her place. And on this night in particular particular Kelly was covering for one of her sisters for a little extra college money for her young daughter. Kelly's mom Rachel was also a very loving and attentive person and would often call the gas station whenever one of her

daughters was working to check if they needed any food or hot coffee brought over to help them through their shift. When Rachel spoke to Kelly that night, nothing seemed to be amiss. To her, it was just another average night at a mostly quiet gas station in rural Virginia. But little did she know, this would be the last time she would ever talk to her daughter, as the evening's events were about to take a rather dark and terrifying turn. At around 2.30 in the morning, long after Kelly's mom had retired to bed, Kelly apparently called the Harrisonburg police. The call was to inform them that she had been aggressively harassed by a guy that she described as

improperly dressed. It seems Kelly was far too polite to describe what this male customer actually did in any kind of detail, but it's safe to assume that the implied meaning was that he'd exposed himself to her. Just a few minutes after this first call, Kelly called again, this time pleading with the dispatcher for a patrol unit to be sent to the gas station. The same man that apparently exposed himself was calling the station to make obscene threats, and it seems that Kelly was growing anxious as she believed he was willing to follow through with them. The dispatcher promised to get a unit out to her as soon as possible,

and that she should hang tight. However, just moments after the second call ended, Kelly dialed 911 yet again, only this time she was in a complete panic. With a voice that was dripping with fear, she demanded to know how far away the responding officers were, as the same deranged customer had apparently returned and was sitting in a silver or grey Ford that was parked in the gas station's parking lot. The last thing the 911 dispatcher heard was Kelly screaming that the man had just gotten out of the vehicle and was heading towards the gas station's main building. She then slammed the phone down, apparently preparing to defend herself.

The cops rushed over to the Imperial gas station, expecting to arrive to a violent assault in progress. But to their bemusement, when they arrived at the gas station, the place was as quiet as the grave. They searched the entire site, but Kelly was nowhere to be found. All that remained was her purse. There were no signs of any kind of violent struggle, no indications that the store had been robbed, but there were also no clues as to where Kelly was. It was as if she had simply vanished into thin air.

What's clear is that if the suspect was armed, he could have forced Kelly into his vehicle in just a matter of seconds. Kelly's family believed this to be the case as they insisted that any attempt by an unarmed man to grab her and shove her into their vehicle would have resulted in Kelly fighting back vigorously. The police investigation that followed led officers to a nearby convenience store, where a clerk informed them that he had been visited by a man driving a gray vehicle about a half hour before Kelly's disappearance. The clerk told him that the man was aged between 20 to 25 years old and had blonde shoulder-length hair. This might seem like an obvious lead, but the cops were unable to track down this man, so no connection between him and Kelly's apparent abduction could ever be made.

The police then interviewed Kelly's three sisters, who were also employed by the gas station. They were shocked to hear that the obscene kind of phone calls that Kelly had received that night were commonplace, but that no one had ever acted on them, believing them to be from some harmless old pervert whose bark was louder than his bite, so to speak. They also didn't entirely believe that the man that had harassed Kelly that night was the same person making the phone calls, as there didn't seem to be anything overly threatening about the lewd calls, while the driver of the silver or grey Ford was obviously aggressive enough to show up to the gas station in person. Yet after news hit that one of the gas station girls had apparently been abducted,

the phone calls seemed to stop entirely for a while only resuming around six weeks later when this apparently harmless old perv called and made lewd comments to one of the gas station's new hires. This could well be because whoever was making the calls simply wasn't involved in the abduction and didn't want to implicate themselves as a suspect in such a violent and disturbing crime. But it also could be because the same person who made the calls was satisfied with abducting Kelly and didn't feel the need to make another call. Not until the same hunger resurfaced in them around a month and a half after the fact.

When local media outlets contacted Kelly's parents regarding their daughter's disappearance, they gave a rather shocking answer to some very probing questions. When asked if they had any idea who might have kidnapped or harmed their daughter, and if this person might be a member of the local community, Kelly's parents unequivocally answered in the affirmative. Although the police had asked them not to publicly speak the man's name, they believed her abductor had been someone Kelly had gone to high school with, someone who had a long history of indecent exposure and making obscene telephone calls and, according to Kelly's sister, also drove a silvery gray Ford. But surely if Kelly had known the man personally, even just by association, she would have named him on one of the three 911 calls she made

leading up to her abduction. But it's also very possible that this person had either obscured their face somehow or Kelly had simply not recognized him given that they had both graduated some time ago. There's also the possibility that Kelly was so terrified that she just failed to mention the man by name during one of the calls. Either way, the police obviously found the possibility of this man being the culprit so plausible that they asked Kelly's parents not to use his name publicly. Yet despite this, he was never charged with any crime, as there was simply not enough evidence to attempt any kind of conviction. There were several other suspects

in the case and authorities were sure to question all of them, but at a time when CCTV cameras and DNA evidence were still just technological pipe dreams, actually placing a suspect at the scene that night was all but impossible. For all intents and purposes, the person who showed up at the Imperial gas station that night was a ghost. Someone who showed up, bundled Kelly Berg Dove into a vehicle, and then seemingly vanished themselves. Barely a trace of either of them was left behind, merely a purse and a vehicle description. Far too little for the cops to go on to secure a suspect, Kelly, or her body. Almost 40 years later, what happened that night remains almost a total mystery, with Kelly being declared legally deceased by

local authorities. Despite her family pouring money into private investigators to try to find out exactly what happened, they're no closer to getting any solid answers as they were almost four decades ago. The only truth we have of that night is the terrifying reality that Kelly went to work that night, not suspecting a thing, and ended up encountering someone that caused her to vanish from the face of the earth. And that, horrifyingly enough, is something that could happen to each and every one of us. In 2015 I managed to land my dream job as manager of this really old rustic pub. It was the kind with stained glass windows, ornate bar fixtures, the works. But it was bought up by this big brewery company not long after and they ended up cleaning house. So within six months of getting my dream job, I'd lost it

again. I was desperate. I had rent and bills to pay so I was ready to work just about anywhere, doing just about anything, for any money at all really. So I ended up getting a job in this 24 hour off license in the middle of town and it was my job to work the night shift, 8pm until 6am. This place was really busy too, had a cash machine inside, sold really expensive bottles of premium booze and was mostly a cash business. It was the place that pretty much every single person who went out to drink and wanted to carry on drinking when the bars closed would stop off to pick up a few bottles before they got a taxi home. So I'm not messing around when I say we sometimes had like 7,000 pounds in cash on site by the end

of the busiest part of the night shift. And well, I say we, I mean me, as I worked that shift entirely alone. So it's Sunday morning, about 5am and it's just before Christmas. The off-license had been extremely busy that night and we had way, way more than 7,000 pounds on site. Like, it had been Black Friday, which in the UK means that it was the last Friday before Christmas. So all the office parties had been in town, spending it up and they pretty much all wanted booze to go home with too. There were queues going out the door at one point. Seriously, it was one of the busiest shifts I've ever worked, including in pubs. So by the time it started to quiet down, I was ready to collapse. I remember just sort of resting my head on the counter at one point, thinking I could have actually fallen asleep right then and there. Then I hear the little beep at the door opening, and although I'd rather have flushed my own head down the toilet

than serve another drunk customer at that point, I get ready to serve one more person. I look up and in front of me is this bloke who seems alarmingly sober, like almost everyone who walked in during those Saturday night shifts were rotten drunk, eyes all glazed over and bloodshot, slurring their words but this guy is shockingly lucid, which was dead weird. He also keeps his hands in his jacket pockets the whole time he's talking, but it gets even weirder when he greets me by name. I thought he might have known me and I just didn't recognize him so I remain polite and say like, yeah that's me, how do you know that? Then he once again refers to me by name and follows up by telling me where I live. Again I'm like, how do you know that? Only this time I'm also thinking that this is a plainclothes policeman or something and I've done something wrong like accidentally sold a bottle of booze to someone under 18, maybe even failed one of those underage tests the police try on occasion to catch businesses.

Then he starts asking after my mom, then refers to her by name and asks about my sister, again knowing her name too. He asks me if they're still living at such and such address and gives their exact street address. I then apologize and tell him that I just didn't recognize him, figuring that he was an old family friend or something that I'd forgotten all about, but something about him is creeping me out all the same. He didn't once take his hands out of his jacket pockets, like to the point it was getting sort of odd. People talk with their hands all the time and this guy's hands were like wedged into

those front pockets on his jacket. That's when these other guys walk in, who also seem weirdly sober. They were quiet and deliberate in their movements, just pacing towards the counter and flanking the guy who seemed to know a little too much about me. Then really politely, the guy who seemed to know all about where I lived and where my family live asked me if there's a toilet in the back of the shop. I told him there was and he tells me to walk back into it, lock the door and not come out for at least half an hour. And just to make it clear that he's not really asking me, he shows me that he's holding something inside his jacket. Something heavy. Only then do I realize what's happening. They proceed to take all the CCTV USB sticks,

wreck the monitors, break into the safe, rinse the tills, empty the shells of all the premium spirits. I mean they absolutely robbed the place blind. All the while I was just sat in the toilet wondering how that guy knew where I lived or where my family lived. As they were leaving I heard footsteps walking up to the toilet door and I started shaking hard. Then I hear this voice telling me that I did the right thing, for the sake of my family, that all the stuff that they'd taken was insured, that no one but the insurance companies would lose a penny, and it was them who were the real thieves anyway. I ended up telling the police that I didn't get a good look at the guy's face, and that I wanted to help them, but that I just couldn't. I told them that

it all happened really fast and that they must have been professionals because I didn't even get a chance to hit the alarm behind the counter. They must have gotten away with like 10 grand all in all and they didn't even take half an hour to do it, more like 15 or 20 minutes to be honest. They managed to make sure that the one person capable of identifying them wouldn't say a thing to anyone about it. Like I can't even tell you how frightening it was that they'd managed to work out where my mom and sister lived. People who put that kind of work into criminality, they really are not to be messed with. And besides, it's just stuff. Just material stuff. It's not worth losing your life over and it's certainly not worth risking your family's safety over.

No amount of money compares to your own mom's safety. For many years, 53-year-old Robert Wilson was employed at pharmaceutical manufacturer Thornton Ross in Huddersfield over in the UK. He worked the night shift in charge of site security and he was darn good at his job too. During his tenure at Thornton Ross, there hadn't been a single break-in or incident of vandalism and he was well on his way to a promotion to head of security. Robert had suffered some serious misfortune in his time and was forced to change careers several times during his life, but for the first time in a long time, everything was going well for him and it seemed his luck was finally beginning to turn. Yet a chance encounter with two teenage boys earlier last year was all it took to bring his whole world crashing down.

At approximately 11pm on January 16th, 2020, Robert was watching the CCTV monitors in the site's security office when he noticed two shadowy figures wandering around the facility's parking lot. Robert gathered up a colleague by the name of John Badejo, along with another security officer and the trio went to investigate. There they found that the two shadowy figures were nothing more than young boys, in the form of 16-year-old Luke Gockroger and 19-year-old Kieran Earnshaw, and that the two boys seemed to be very drunk. When confronted as to why they were roaming around the parking lot so late at night, the boys appeared apologetic at first, explaining that they had merely attempted to navigate

a shortcut through the facility, but that one of them had managed to drop their phone in the process. Being the compassionate soul that he was, Robert agreed to help the boys find the missing cell phone. He also knew that the quicker he could help them find the phone, the quicker they would be out of his hair. Robert took his own phone, turning on the flashlight to help illuminate the dark parking lot so the group would be able to find the missing phone. In doing so, he happened to accidentally shine the flashlight in one of the teenager's directions, Kieran Earnshaw, in his drunken state, assuming this was because Robert

was making a video recording of him and demanded he turn the phone off. Confused, Robert assured Kieran that he was simply using the flashlight feature but Kieran didn't believe him and angrily demanded him to stop. At this point, harsh words were exchanged between the two and a confrontation arose, but Robert could never have expected what would follow. Kieran reached into his tracksuit pants and produced an actual sword from them. Apparently it was intended to be nothing more than a decorative ornament, but Kieran had taken the time to sharpen it and apply grip tape to the handle, turning what should have been

a charming adornment into a deadly weapon. He began to attack Robert Wilson with the sword, slashing and striking him with it over and over again. Robert raised his right hand to defend himself and the strike that followed was said to sever all four of his fingers at once. John Badeja watched in horror as his colleague's bloody fingers tumbled to the tarmac below and rushed to his defense. But Ciaran was quick, and saw John's approach out of the corner of his eye. He turned, swinging the sword hard in his direction, slicing through the thick fabric of his jacket and sending sharpened steel plunging into his flesh. John Badejo backed off, clutching at the fresh wound, while Kieran turned his attentions back towards Robert Wilson, who by that point was attempting to crawl away, mortally wounded.

Kieran began hacking away at him again. As Robert's colleagues fled the scene, the blood-curdling scream of their wounded friend echoing around the parking lot as they ran. Kieran's friend Luke then joined the attack, pulling out a knife from his jacket and began to stab the fallen Robert over and over again until he screamed no more. CCTV footage had managed to capture every second of the attack, from start to finish, and the two teenagers were quickly tracked down and arrested by the West Yorkshire Police. Under advice from the defense attorneys, both pled guilty to Robert's murder. Kieran Earnshaw was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 21 years and 140 days. Luke Gottkroger was sentenced to a minimum term of 16 years and 17 days.

Kieran also pled guilty to inflicting serious bodily harm on the second victim, John Badejo, and Luke pled guilty to the possession of an offensive weapon. James Goddard of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said that this was a ferocious and frenzied attack on an innocent man who was simply carrying out his duties. The two teenagers inflicted a horrific level of violence on Mr. Wilson, as well as seriously injuring Mr. Badejo. The two defendants are now facing significant jail sentences. Our thoughts remain with Mr. Wilson's family and friends, as they have been throughout. When questioned by investigating police, Kieran Earnshaw was apparently unable to provide any legitimate reason as to why he was carrying a sword. He claimed it was for

self-defense, but when pressed on who he was seeking to defend himself from, he had no response except a shrug. The only conclusion we can draw is that Kieran was carrying that sword because he wished to use it on another human being, and he was not particularly fussy on who that might be. There's every chance that Kieran knew that Robert Wilson wasn't recording him that night, and that he simply chose to feign outrage so he had an excuse to take out that sword and end a man's life. Ciaran had been out drinking that day, for hours on end, and was apparently carrying that sword with him the whole time. But he opted to use it at night, possibly because it

was the only time he was drunk enough to do so. Yet, is there not something about the dark of the night that brings out the most predatory and violent side of a man? So, the point remains, if Robert Wilson had been working the day shift, if he had been safely inside his own house when the sun had gone down, he might still be alive today. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. And if you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and give and receive feedback from the community, and maybe even hear your story featured on

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