The Lets Read Podcast - 151: ALMOST STAYED AT CANNIBAL CABIN | 27 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 139

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about 911 Calls, Cannibal Cabins & The Caribbean...  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

If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our Tread Experts. Until May 30th, purchase four new Michelin passenger or light truck tires and receive up to $70 by prepaid MasterCard. Conditions apply. Details at Michelin.ca. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at Treadexperts.ca slash locations. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations.

From tires to auto repair, we're always there. Tread experts.ca I don to drive. Like, hours-long drives to nowhere with no destination in mind. Just me, my music, and the road ahead of me. Living in Nebraska, I'd often take back roads or lonely highways cutting through the countryside to small towns and eventually cities, and I'd usually take these drives at night since they were less traffic to worry about. I've done it since I've had my license four or five years ago, and I've never once had any sort of issue nor have I ever run into any trouble.

That was until a few nights ago. For reference, I'm a relatively small 22 year old female and as I stated before, I often take these drives completely and utterly alone. They're a good way to clear my head when I'm stressed, upset, or overwhelmed or for me to get a plan together to sort personal issues out. I've also done these long and lonely drives to get away from the toxicity of my household when I used to live with my parents as a means of coping with their alcoholism. Though now that I've moved out and am in a much better place mentally, I don't really have the urge to get in my car and just drive anymore.

However, on the night that this event took place, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious with a ton of personal issues I'd rather not get into. I felt restless and irritable around my boyfriend, couldn't focus on anything else, and decided I could take a drive to clear my head. My boyfriend was understanding and told me to be careful and to not be gone for too terribly long since it was getting pretty late. I agreed, gave him a kiss goodbye and left. I drove around our city for about 30 minutes but I was still feeling on edge about everything transpiring in my personal life so I decided to drive further north down those familiar dark winding one lane highways.

I kept the car at a steady 65 miles per hour, taking the turns at a slower pace in case a deer jumped out around the bend and was just admiring the vast empty darkness of the snow capped fields and barren trees. It was honestly a bit creepy being all alone with no cars in sight and seemingly the middle of nowhere. The few houses miles back from the road, lightless and the dead cornfields withered away and covered in snow. It was like something out of a horror movie and I half expected to see a ghost pop up in my rear view mirror or see someone clamber out from the patches of trees dotting the horizon.

The only light came from the headlights and even then I still strained to see through the inky darkness of the night. By now it was just after eleven and I told myself that once I made the familiar roundabout that would either take you to a small town or back up towards the city, I would head back to the city and home. That roundabout was still maybe fifteen to twenty-five minutes away, but other than my imagination picturing the worst, I wasn't really all that concerned. I mean, I was by myself. I didn't have any other motorist to worry about, right? As I'm rounding around another bend, I notice a

vehicle with its hazard lights maybe a quarter of a mile or something away from me. It was some sort of sedan, dark colored, and was angled to where only part of it was on the shoulder while the rest was jutted out into the road. Like they had pulled over in a hurry but didn't quite manage to do that. The driver's side door was flung wide open and as I slowed my vehicle down and angled it towards the opposite side of the road to pass, I could make out what looked like maybe blood on the inside of the open door. I didn't see anyone on the road or in the car and I was the only motorist in sight. Cell phone reception is spotty at best in this part of the country, but more often than not,

you couldn't get reception no matter how hard you prayed, which was definitely the case when I took a glance at my phone to see I hadn't had any service. So, a lone female on the road at night, pulling up near a vacant vehicle that looks like someone had been attacked on the inside, with no cell service. No, I'm no dummy. I've watched countless episodes of Invest discovery and criminal minds and read far too many true crime books to know that this had bad and danger written all over it. But there was still a small part of me that worried something terrible would happen to whoever was in that vehicle and I thought I needed to help. These roads don't get a lot of traffic late at night and temperatures were well below freezing.

If someone were hurt or in trouble, there was no one and nothing else to help them but me. Still, I erred on the side of caution. I was still driving my car, though a bit more slowly, and as I approached the vehicle, I rolled down my passenger window a bit, shut off the music, and called out, hey, anyone there? Are you okay? I didn't hear a response. I worried they were passed out somewhere, but I wasn't about to get out and look for them. I told myself I'd call out one last time, and if I didn't hear anything, I would leave, and the moment there was reception, I'd call it in. And if I did hear someone, well, I'd figured out my next course of action then. So again I shout out, hey, what happened, are you okay? There was silence for a beat and then I heard rustling in the shadows of the trees,

followed by a gruff voice saying, yeah. I was relieved at first and was about to say something in response or possibly even stop my car and get out when I noticed three things nearly simultaneously. As I inched my way past the front of the sedan, I noticed that there was no damage to the hood anywhere else in the vehicle, which I found to be strange considering the blood on the inside of the door. In the rearview mirror, I caught a glance of someone coming out from behind the sedan and they were making their way towards my car, fast. The person did not have any blood on them or appeared injured in any way, wearing a mask. Not like a face mask from the pandemic or a ski mask or anything normal, but one of those masks you could see in the Purge movies, and they were holding something in their hand. I don't know what it was, I couldn't get a look, but from its length and shape my guess was maybe a tire iron or a crowbar or something. I don't need to tell you that I slammed on the gas the moment I noticed those

things and drove like a maniac out of there, my heart thundering in my chest and my entire body shaking. My window was still rolled down in my haste and the music was still shut off so I could very clearly hear someone, definitely a man, shouting at me, though I had no clue what they were saying. I just knew I had to get out of there immediately. I stole one last look in my rearview mirror as I just knew I had to get out of there immediately. I stole one last look in my rearview mirror as I drove away, mostly to see if they were getting in their sedan to follow chase or if they had stopped. The man with the weapon was still standing in the middle of the road watching me, and right before I looked away from the mirror I saw a second man emerge from the trees that

had been rustling earlier, also wearing one of those creepy masks and no trace of blood on him. I probably broke every law for speeding that night, but I wanted to get as far away from those men as possible. As soon as I made it to the roundabout, I turned towards town, parked in the Walmart parking lot that thankfully still had cars from who I assumed were workers closing up shop and proceeded to have a full on meltdown. When I could pull myself together I called one of my friends, T, who was a police officer to tell him what happened and what I should do. He was concerned for me and after asking if I was okay, where I was, did they follow me, etc. He told me since it was at his city limits

he couldn't do much on his end, but he could get in contact with a local police sheriff in that jurisdiction to take my statement and check it out. I agreed, thanked him, and while I waited for police to show up, I called my boyfriend. Through my hysterical sobs and panic, I managed to tell him what happened not even 10 or so minutes ago. He was, as you can imagine, super freaked out for my safety and wanted me to either come home immediately or drive down himself to take me home. I told him the police were on their way to take my statement so I couldn't leave and that I was okay, but I stayed on the phone with him until I saw

the familiar police cruisers pulling into the lot. I gave the police my statement and they assured me that they would go back to the spot I told them that the sedan had been to take a look and they would try to catch the guys who did it, though with no cameras and no description of the men I wasn't sure what they'd be able to do. I didn't even get the license plate number, though at the time of my panic, the thought never came to mind until the police were asking if I got it. All they had to go off of was a dark colored sedan and two guys with masks. After I gave my statement, I went home and stayed curled up close to my boyfriend the whole night, listening to every sound the house made in fear that it would be those guys arriving any minute to finish whatever it was they started. Since the incident, I haven't heard back from the police

about whether or not they had any leads, and I'm not sure if they ever will. I'm just thankful I'm still here and that I didn't stop my car or get out. I'm not sure what would have become of me if I had. I still had so many questions that have no answers. What were they doing? Why? Was that blood on the inside of the car or just a ruse to get more attention? If it was really blood, did they hurt someone else? What would have happened to me if I had stopped my car?

Needless to say, I won't be going on any more late night drives to anywhere, and I was a naive 15 year old just starting the big high school life. I live in Hungary, so we have a different school system and such, but bear with me. So when I started high school, I decided I wanted to be part of the choir of the school, mostly because I had to get 50 points of community service to be able to graduate 4 years later and if I went to the choir I got 15 in a year. So I go the second week of school and that's when I met him for the first time, George. So we go around, everyone says their name and a few things about themselves, the usual. I didn't even notice him at first because he was sitting at the back and he was very quiet

the whole time. Well, everything goes well, my life goes on, nothing really happens. During my first three weeks I decided to take part of a school program that focuses on students with good grades and an interest in nature and the subjects like physics, biology, etc. I joined because I was obsessed with chemistry and biology at the time and I wanted to do as much as I could. When I joined with a few of my other classmates, everything went smoothly. We'd go to these on Friday afternoons and stay in the school laboratory, do some experiments, studying, etc. Then after like two weeks, the teacher decides that they want us to mingle and don't just group up with our classmates.

This program only allowed 9th and 10th grade students, so they manually pick up partners. I got partnered with a few 10th graders and one of them was George. I kind of recognized him, but just assumed from school, obviously. Usually I'm friendly and chatty so I become fast friends. More like we know each other's names and say hi with everyone. Time goes by. He reaches out to me over Facebook. This happened years ago so excuse me if my memory is a bit hazy but we chat a bit.

He was shy but friendly and I was being friendly back because I didn't want to come off as rude. But I knew that some boys think if you're friendly that you're flirting so I intentionally keep them at a distance and talk about boys and stuff. Wing woman him a little I suppose. You know how it goes. I then got a boyfriend. Didn't really last long and it doesn't really add to the story and I knew he didn't like that. We were kind of friends because we were in choir in the science program but nothing past that. Time goes by, it's been like 4-5 months and I know he likes me. I have just been broken up with, it didn't really affect me but it did end so he thinks I'm free. I hold him at a distance but he starts to act weirder and weirder.

At first I thought it was because he had a crush on me and he doesn't know any better. But then he gets weirder and weirder like going to the fountain to drink. It was located next to our class so when he drank he saw what was going on in the classroom but kept watching the time and whenever he saw me talking to them he wouldn't leave me alone until I told him who they were and if they liked me or not. Mind you, we aren't even really friends at this point. He keeps following me in school, on field trips with the choir and the science program. One time I caught him taking pictures of me but he laughed it off when I confronted him. One time he was showing me pictures on his phone. We used it in an experiment in the science program, and he accidentally showed me a picture of my own butt.

I was standing normally, with my back to him, talking to my other friend in the program, and he took a picture of my hindquarters and legs. I know it was me because I was still wearing the same pants and shirt. He laughs it off again, says it must have been an accident but the photo was clear and I was perfectly in the middle. I get even more weirded out and I distance him more. Time goes by, him texting me the same or even more and me trying to ignore him and curve him softly and nicely. Before anyone says I should have been firmer, I understand your point, but we also had many mutual friends and we were still in the program and choir and I didn't want to make it awkward for everyone. So I kept blocking his attempts of breaking out of the friend zone, even though that's not real and he wasn't my friend. He was still following

me, looking up everyone I knew, on Facebook, Instagram, every social I had. He started this stupid game where he would tell me what I was wearing even though I didn't see him at all that day or week. He didn't have many friends, especially in my class, so no one had told him what I was wearing. I don't know how he knew what I was wearing because me and my friends, even my friendly classmates looked out for him. The worst in this was the embarrassment I felt. When my friends would see him and everyone had to focus on keeping me out of his sight and even them feeling uncomfortable by his presence and creepiness. One time I was wearing a knee-length shirt with normal t-shirt and black, not see-through stockings,

and he messaged me, in his mind a joking way but in reality very creepy. I had to go to the bathroom because I almost had a little problem in my pants, meaning he almost creamed his pants. Gross. I ignored him more and more, ghosting him, looking away, not talking to him, hoping he would take the obvious hint and buzz off, but it gets worse. His texts would get more intimate, more creepy, asking why I'm ignoring him, gaslighting and manipulating. I felt super uncomfortable every time he was just in the same room. My birthday was coming up and a week before he sends me a screenshot of his gallery in his phone and he has a whole folder of my pictures. Over 47 pictures of me in it. Some he screenshotted my story or downloaded my uploaded pictures. After that I don't upload at

all or even today way less frequent. I blocked finally, but he messaged me on another platform. Why? I understand you hate me. I get it, blah blah blah, and more gaslighting. I felt bad because he didn't have many friends, so I unblocked him, which was a huge mistake. He thought that meant that I liked him back. After that, he was unavoidable. At every school function, every day, he would find a way to annoy me and my friends. He spread the rumor that we were together and that I loved him. I had to find a new route to the bus station because he memorized where I went and he started to go that way, even though the dorms were in the opposite direction, just so we could coincidentally meet. Finally, summer is here, we go on break,

and he goes home from the dorms. He lived in the capital, I lived in a small town 80 kilometers away, but he just kept messaging me. The usual creepiness, stupid anime pictures, his favorite that he saw us in. When I posted after months that I went on a motorbike ride with my brother, 22-23 at the time, he downloaded the pic and sent it back with the caption, I want to have a motorbike so I can visit you every day. He kept hinting at the place I lived, luckily he didn't know exactly, only where the town is. At this point he was messaging me multiple times a day and he wouldn't leave me alone. I didn't message him back anymore and just ignored his existence. I went to a summer job

where I reconnected with an old friend who I told everything about this guy. She mentioned that her best friend is a muscular fellow who likes to help girls like me and scare away dudes like that. So I say okay. At this time I was desperate to get George off my back. I was even thinking of asking a guy friend of mine to pretend to be my boyfriend for money. Well I met her best friend and soon after meeting him, like a month, we started dating. I told him all about George, showed him evidence and he was absolutely disgusted by him. Summer comes to an end, we go back to school. My boyfriend went to a different school in the same city.

The choir goes on a trip and we go to the school's lake house, this stupid little cabin. He is there of course and luckily my friends are very upfront and very confident. I try my best to ignore him and pretend he doesn't exist. My friends separate us the best they can. One evening after the choir meeting, he waits for the opportunity when my friends go to the bathroom and I'm alone, so he corners me between him and the wall. I was sitting on a couch, so I really can't leave because he's standing in the way. He reaches out and in his sweaty hand is a ring. A freaking ring. He says he bought it for me. I tell him to keep it and give it to another girl who likes him back and he won't let up. And I get more and more anxious that he won't leave me alone. I wait until he moves a little and I slip past him and bolt upstairs to our room that I shared with my friends.

I tell them what had happened and after that we avoided him even more, even if that's hardly possible. After we got home from the trip I tell everything to my boyfriend, we weren't quite official yet. He tells me that he'll talk with him before our next trip to Poland, school choir stuff. He does and George says he will back off, says he's sorry etc. Well he just continues his nonsense, glues himself to my group of friends and wouldn't leave us alone. He was lurking around waiting for me to be alone so he could ask about my boyfriend and why I'm letting him dictate our relationship. Luckily my friend is extra so she positions herself between us at all times and I am letting him dictate our relationship. Luckily my friend is extra so she positions

herself between us at all times and I am extremely grateful for that. After we got home I tell my boyfriend everything and he talks to him again. But George keeps up at it so I tell him that my boyfriend wants to talk to him again. At first George escapes through the side door of the school and tells me that my boyfriend didn't show up to the talk. I laugh at him because my boyfriend's right next to me reading his message. He was waiting for over an hour just to tell him to screw off. Well, next time he can't escape because I'll be there, so he goes out to talk. And after an excruciating half hour, we go home to my boyfriend's house, he tells me it went good, and I go home. At night, George messages me, telling me that he wants me to tell him to leave me alone, and doesn't want my boyfriend to manipulate me to hate him.

I get so livid, and rant to him and chew him out for his nonsense for the past year or so. I block him thereafter and everything seems fine. He doesn't reach out again, leaves me alone, probably hates me too. Good, forget him. But did you think this was the end? Of course not. After five months, he messages me again, tells me he's sorry, admits he was wrong and he would like a second chance.

I warily accept, hoping he did change. I know, naive little me. Well, he did change because he made up an imaginary girlfriend to make me think he didn't like me anymore. But he kept trying to coax me into going into his dorm to play pool. I deny him. He gets mad and I chew him out again. I tell him to leave me alone. He clearly hasn't changed and I don't want him in my life.

I tell him to screw off like he was in the previous five months. He blocks me on Facebook and leaves me alone for about a week. He messages me again and then I tell him to leave again. After that he doesn't try anymore. He has found himself a new target. The new girl looks like me. Hair color, length, height and eyes and style is very similar. She goes to choir too. I leave the choir and the program is over so he doesn't have an excuse. Do you think that now is the end? Of course not. After a year he starts showing up at the store that I went to every day for three years, exactly when I went in. And he could have went like 20 minutes before and we would have missed each other but he went when he knew I usually did. One time I was standing in line, at the end of the

obviously longer line out of the two, and he stood behind me, didn't talk, just stared. I was starting to get mad so I decided that I would not go to that store for two weeks. I eventually forgot about it and after a while I went back to the store at the time I usually did. Before you ask, why was I going at the exact same time every day? Well, the answer was simple. I got off my 705 bus at around 7.45ish, and this was the only store that was on my way to school. Here, school starts at 8am, so I would just go in at around 7.45, buy my breakfast under two minutes, and be done by 7.50.

I still had about ten minutes to walk the three minute way to school. After that I noticed that when at a school function he would look at me multiple times and would quickly take his eyes off me when I noticed. But then he graduated and moved to a different city a hundred kilometers away. I kept and still keep blocking him, but one time when he was stalking my Instagram profile, he accidentally clicked the request follow button and quickly deleted it. I blocked him there and it's been quiet since. So, my 9th to 10th grade stalker, George, let's never meet again. And now a word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. When faced with a new challenge in my life, it's quite often that I find myself hyper-focused on the problem rather than keeping my eyes open for solutions.

But when you finally train your mindset to find your own solutions, there's no better feeling. And that's where Better Help comes in. A therapist can help you become a better problem solver, making it easier to accomplish your goals, no matter how big or small. And prior to trying therapy, there was this semi expectation that no one could help me find those solutions but myself. But that couldn't be further from the truth. An unbiased, professional outside perspective was exactly what I needed. And this extends into so many other things as well, like unloading build-up stress, emotional healing, and working through anxious, racing thoughts. So if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable,

and entirely online. Get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey and switch therapists at any time. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash read today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash read. The story takes place in the summer of 2001 in southern Rhode Island, where I'm from. I'm a female for reference and I was 20 years old that summer, in between my junior and senior years of college at the University of Rhode Island where I'm from. I'm a female for reference and I was 20 years old that summer in between my junior and senior years of college at the University of Rhode Island. I decided to stay on campus and take some classes so my senior year would be a little lighter and be

less stressful for me. So I rented a cute little apartment with a friend near campus and we loved it. There were a lot of other college students around and I enjoyed living so close to the beach in summertime. My schedule was pretty open so even though I was working and going to school part-time, I had a lot of time myself and loved the freedom I had to do whatever I wanted. I've always been into fitness and exercise and one of my favorite things to do that summer was take my rollerblades to the local bike path and listen to music in my earbuds while I glided down the long straight path. Every day I would drive to the bike path and park my car at a park close by to the path and roller blade the mile long path until it ended and where another park began. At that second park

I would sometimes rest on one of the benches and take a little break and drink some water before turning back around to go down the bike path again and ending up at the original park where my car was. Two miles every day. It was fun and great exercise. Right up until this instant, I'm about to chronicle for you. On this particular morning, I slept in and was running late getting ready for my daily workout. I couldn't find my earbuds anywhere. They were not where I normally left them on my kitchen counter and after spending some time looking for them around the apartment without any luck, I just said screw it and decided to go exercise without them. I get to the park,

put my rollerblades on and start my first mile. It was a beautiful July morning and I was enjoying myself when suddenly, unexplainably about halfway through the mile, something felt very off. The temperature was in the 80s but I had goosebumps all up and down my arms and legs, the hair on the back of my neck was standing up and I had an intense sinking feeling of dread in my gut. I've always had a very strong intuition, I trust it with my life. I have felt this feeling before in the past and it has always served as a warning, but I kept on skating, becoming very aware of my surroundings. Fight or flight was kicking in and I didn't even understand why. That was when

I saw him. There was a man up ahead of the trail, off to the side of the path. The first thing I realized was that he was taking steps backwards off the path. He was trying to hide from me behind a tree, but I could still see his face from a good distance away, watching me like a dead-eyed predator. He stood there with his hands in his front pockets, not moving at all. As I skated closer to him, the dread in my stomach grew. I noticed he was not wearing workout clothes. He had an oversized hoodie, jeans, and work boots, nothing you would wear if you were there to exercise. Now I had to quickly make a choice, though I stopped and turned around the way I came from, possibly endangering my life by losing the speed and momentum I had gained. Though I keep skating past him and hope he doesn't rush me

from the side, pushing me off the path. The fear I felt turned quickly to rage. Now a quick backstory on me, I am no stranger to violence and assault from men in the past. I thought, why should I live my life afraid? Why should I kowtow to these men who think they can just take what they want from me? Do they think I'm just going to keep taking it? I felt my hands ball up into fists, my jaw jut out in defiance, and I decided to stand my ground. Something told me that as I passed him that I need to remember everything about what he looked like. I noted his dark eyes and beard,

his plain blue baseball cap, hoodie, jeans, and construction boots. I could tell my nostrils were flared and my eyes were flashing anger and I glared at him with an intensity that said, I see you there and I'm ready to fight you if need be. We maintained eye contact for what felt like a long time, but could not have been more than a few seconds. Then he actually broke eye contact and looked away from me. I knew he had changed his mind about whatever he was considering doing to me, but I was still not safe yet. I flew as fast as I could to the second park and got off the bike path. Now I was in a tough position. My car was a mile away as was my shoes and cell phone.

I couldn't go back down the path again and risk passing him a second time. He might have moved. He might have been hiding in a better place waiting for me, knowing I would need to go down the path to get to my car again. So I took off my rollerblades and made my way over to the road that ran parallel to the path and walked the mile back to my car in my socks carrying my skates. It probably looked a little strange to drivers that went by, and the walk seemed to take forever. Once I saw my car, I ran as fast as I could and locked myself in it. I never went back there to roller blade again. Unfortunately, the story does not stop here. After the incident, I went on with the rest of my day. I went to class, I made lunch in my apartment, I got ready for work,

and I went to my closing shift where I worked as a waitress. I returned to my apartment complex at about 10pm to find my neighbor yelling excitedly on his cell phone in the parking lot, pacing and smoking a cigarette as he talked. He and his girlfriend lived upstairs. I didn't know them well, but they were friendly enough. She studied nursing and he was a business major. We all hung out shortly after move-in day, drinking beers and smoking on their balcony and I thought they were both pretty nice people. I parked my car and started walking towards the building just as he was hanging up from his call. I nodded politely towards him and offered him a friendly greeting, something like, hey how's it going man? Seeing his

face closer now under the lights, I could tell that he had been crying. He told me his girlfriend was in the hospital. She had been attacked and violated by a strange man, and was recovering from various injuries, most seriously a head injury from smacking her head on concrete. As he described to me what happened, I felt tears rising in my own eyes and it felt like I had been punched in the stomach. What I said next to him made his jaw drop. I said, did it happen on the bike path? He incredulously said yes and demanded to know how I knew that. I told him I knew who did it and I explained what happened to me that morning. He immediately asked if I would talk to the police and give a description of the man. Because of the little voice in my head that told me I needed to remember everything about his appearance, I was able to give a full detailed

description of this man to the police. For months after this incident, I checked the news to see if he was ever caught, but I never heard that he was. The girl he attacked did make a full recovery and shortly after returning from the hospital she and her parents showed up in a moving van and packed up all of her things from her apartment. I never saw her again. For a long time after that I felt a lot of guilt about what happened to her. I felt that somehow her fate was meant for me, but I'd skirted it and left it for someone else to suffer through. What did I do to ward off this attack? What did I do that she didn't? The last and most chilling piece of this story, the earbuds that I lost that morning of

this incident, the ones that I had looked all over my apartment for and that I had decided to forego using that day because I didn't have the time to look. I found them the next day on the kitchen counter exactly where they were supposed to be. I know for a fact that they weren't there when I looked and I can't explain why they disappeared that morning. I know my roommate didn't take them. I can only suppose that my awareness of the situation was the thing that saved me in the end, and some higher power was looking out for me that day. A few years ago I was using Tinder to meet friends and find a partner which I now realized was a bad idea. I would swipe right on everyone hoping to find someone to talk to and find a partner which I now realized was a bad idea. I would swipe right on everyone hoping to find someone to talk to and just a friend as I was kind of a loner with

no friends and homeschooled. I remember meeting a funny girl named Katie. Katie started the conversation with memes and funny jokes and pickup lines. Me being someone who needed anyone to talk to was filled with excitement. We talked for a few hours and Katie ended up wanting my Snapchat username. I agreed and sent it to her hoping she wasn't fake or a man or using a fake picture catfishing others. Katie added me and sent a picture of her face. To my excitement, Katie was real and just as beautiful as her pictures. After a week of talking with Katie, Katie started asking personal questions that kind of raised some red flags. Where I lived, what my address was, why I lived with my family. I never sent Katie my address but in my head,

red flags started raising as she would often guess what I was wearing or she would tell me she likes my Blink-182 shirt before I had even snapped her a picture. I remember always feeling like I was being watched and always looked over my shoulder. Not knowing about the snap map update at the time, I didn't think anything of it. A few days later, Katie had posted to her Snapchat story. Now before I go further, I want to mention Katie lived in a town 45 miles north of me. Anyway, continuing, Katie posted a picture of a playground park to her Snapchat story. Earlier in the day, me doing the usual skipping all my friends' stories, didn't realize what I saw. An hour later, she had sent me a Snapchat of her at the park along with the caption,

I see your house from here. To my disbelief, I realized she was at the park that was about a three minute walk from my house. Panicking, I responded asking where she was. She responded with the name of my city. Asking her what she was doing here, she had stated that she wanted to surprise me and see me. I had asked her how she knew where I lived and she said that she had her connections. I wasn't looking for a relationship with Katie. She was a nice girl but not someone I'd be in a relationship with, especially since Katie had an 18-month-old daughter. I told Katie I was a little creeped out by her knowing where I lived without

me ever telling her. That had made her really upset. Katie started arguing with me and telling me how I didn't appreciate her taking the time to surprise me. Keep in mind, we didn't plan a date nor was I interested in a relationship with her. I remember Katie saying something really rude to the point where I had to block her. A few hours later, I had ran to McDonald's with my father to get dinner for my family. As we were ordering, I felt my stomach drop and felt a cold breeze overcome my body. I felt something off. As I had turned around, I saw Katie standing behind me looking insanely upset. I quickly turned back around and

pretended I didn't see her. I hear my name come from her mouth and my father looks confused. I turn around and walk up to her and she chews me out again asking why I blocked her. I, being a really nice person giving people the benefit of the doubt, I unblocked her and gave her a hug stating I was busy with my family that day. As soon as I got home, she had snapped me saying she would see me soon later this week. Again, I blocked her because she really did creep me out. A week goes by and I hadn't heard nothing from Katie. That wasn't until I was cleaning up and went to take the trash outside and as I opened my door, I was stunned to see Katie inside a car in front of my house. Freaked out, I dropped the trash bag and slammed my door. To this day, I don't know what she

intended to do or what she wanted but my advice to anyone reading this is always check to see if your snap map location is on or not. Thank you. ZocDoc, you can see real, verified patient reviews to help you find the right doctor in your network and in your neighborhood. After all, finding the right doctor is just as, if not more important than finding the right plate of Eggs Benedict. And that's why I started using ZocDoc, and I can't recommend it enough. ZocDoc is a free app that shows you doctors who are patient-reviewed, take your insurance, and are available when you need them. On ZocDoc, you can find every Thank you. Search, find, and book doctors with a few taps. Find and review local doctors, and you can read verified patient reviews from real people who made real appointments. Now, when you walk into that doctor's office, you're all set to see someone in your network who actually gets you. Every month, millions of people use ZocDoc, and now I'm one of them.

It's my go-to whenever I need to find and book a quality doctor. So you can go to ZocDoc.com slash read and download the ZocDoc app for free. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today. Many are available within 24 hours. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash R-E-A-D ZocDoc.com I'm 48 years old and trans, male to female to be precise. I don't consider myself the best looking woman out there. I'd say I'm cute, but there's a lot more who are stunningly gorgeous. Which is why I found this particular incident so strange. This might go slightly long and I apologize in advance, but I can only convey it in such a format. It happened about a week ago and on a particularly average day, nothing special about it.

It was warm and sunny outside where I live here in Indiana. I had gotten home from work and forgotten to pick up some things from the store before I left. So I got changed into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt then headed to the local Walmart to grab those items I forgot. I'd made my way into the produce section, looking at some heads of lettuce when I was slightly startled by this older man, looking to be around his early to mid-sixties, reaching out a bit closer to me than expected. Seeing as I still abide by the six foot distancing rule when possible, this made me stagger back just slightly. Not wanting to be rude, I kind of just giggled to myself at how I must have looked ridiculous

for getting spooked by this harmless looking gentleman. I had looked over at him directly, smiled to him and said, hello, sorry to be in your way sir. He turned to me and gave me a gentle looking smile, but said nothing. I watched as he then took to his shopping cart, not even taking anything from the vegetables and wandered off. I thought little of it, seeing as I've done similar things to that in some form or another. I then went on with my shopping and was halfway down the next aisle when I see the same man coming from the opposite direction. Again, I think nothing out of the ordinary, shoppers often go down the same aisles, but when he passed me, he gave yet another smile and went back to just pushing his cart down the

aisle. Not normally, this wouldn't be worth anything to note, except that when I grabbed something off the shelf, I saw out of my peripheral vision that the man then had turned his cart around so he was now going the same direction I was. Strange. I'd round the corner to another aisle but once more I was treated to this same man coming down the aisle behind me. This was starting to get a bit odd and a red flag started to go off my head. I glanced to his cart and he literally had nothing in it, just walking around pushing it behind me. I'm usually pretty chill about things like this, but this time I had this odd feeling. Something wasn't right. Aisle after aisle, the same thing happened. I'd go down a bit, he'd come down a bit. I'd stop in

the aisle, he'd also stop. I'd start going and he'd start going. Maybe this was all just some strange coincidence I thought to myself, except the little voice in my head telling me something was off with this guy. I decided to test my theory by backtracking to an aisle I'd already been to, acting as if I'd forgotten something. Sure enough, you guessed it, the old man followed. Stopping when I did and then following behind me when I'd walk again. Only this time it was getting very uncomfortable. At some point he'd taken a phone out and was walking with it out in front of him. If I'd glance back towards him, he'd turn it to the side and make it seem like he was reading or texting or typing something out. In my head, I was only

thinking about why would this guy be following me? What does he want? Regardless of me not being done shopping, I turned my card around and headed for the front of the store. Of course, this man followed this action as well. I'd found a self-checkout employee and asked that she call a manager for me. She asked if she could help me but I insisted on seeing a manager. She did so and I noticed the old man, still, on his phone, glance up toward me a bit, then back to acting like he was just reading a text. The store manager arrived just a few minutes after the employee had called and I spoke to him about what was taking place and my concerns for this old man's actions. The manager looked over as he had me point him out and saw him with his phone turned towards us. With this though, the old man then

suddenly put his phone away, turned with his empty cart and headed toward the exit. He dropped his cart off and then exited to the parking lot. He'd purchased nothing at all. I felt relieved he was gone and thanked the manager for his time. I finished my shopping without incident, never seeing this old man again. I don't know what this old man's intentions were. If he was just curious about me, shy to say anything, was he taking pictures with his phone? I can't say. All I know is that it was unnerving. Now I know this might not be as scary as other posts and might sound mild to some of you, but when you're like me and not used to having strange men follow you around like that, it can be quite frightening, not knowing what he had planned

had I left without telling anyone about him. I guess the most appropriate start to my story would be describing my dad as a kid, and the house he grew up in because that in and of itself helps explain some reasons why he was the man he was when me and my sister were growing up. My dad was born in Montana in 1963 and was the third of five children his parents had given birth to. So his household was very hectic to say the least. Unfortunately my dad's dad, my grandfather, was not a kind man. He was physically and verbally abusive to his children and would yell profanities at them, slap them around, hit them, beat them, abuse them, and just overall was not a kind of man to be with. I recall my mom telling me that one day when my dad was 12 years old, his father pinned him down to the bed,

sitting on top of him, and repeatedly punched him in the face before assaulting him even further, a detail I really don't want to go into. So, as you can imagine, my dad had a very rocky upbringing. When my dad turned 18, he did what many children of that age did and decided to join the military. After some paperwork, he was enlisted in the army in 1991, starting his career of 22 years serving our country. Now a humorous part of this story is when my dad met my mom. My mother attended the church that I wrote about in the first story. A small Christian church in a quaint town in Alabama. Very, very cultish. Though back then it was nothing like the church it is today.

The people were kind. It had a great preacher and the church community really cared for all of its members. What I'm about to describe is the day my dad met my mom, but told from my mom's side of the story, just so you can appreciate it in its full. My mom had grown up, went to school, college, and attended the church religiously her whole life. So when a scrawny guy with a beard down to his chest, shaggy hair, and old clothes came into the church for the first time, she was quick to notice. But not because she saw him as attractive, but because of how rough he looked. Imagine this, a 21 year old guy, never to be seen in this church before, walks in with these huge round glasses that covered half your face,

a long unkempt beard, weighed no more than 130 pounds soaking wet, and overall just had a rough exterior. He walks up to her and straight out says, hey, you're very beautiful, will you go on a date with me? He did always have a way with words. My mom was shocked at this stranger's proposal to a date and did what any southern woman would do. She told him if he shaved off that beard and put on some decent clothes, then maybe she would think about it. That's what was said that day and she thought nothing more of him. That is until he returned to church the next week, clean shaven, a new haircut, and wearing a suit and tie. Mom told me she didn't even recognize

him when he boldly walked up to her and said, hello there, I'm back. Will you go on a date with me this week? And that's all she wrote. They dated for nine months before he popped the question and asked her to marry him. At this point in their lives, dad had not been sent overseas for the military, so he was a funny, light-hearted, easygoing man that could light up a room with his kindness and terrible jokes. He treated my mom like a queen, bringing her a rose to work every day, taking her out for dinners, buying her anything he could afford for her, writing her romantic letters and leaving them throughout the house for her. He truly loved her. When my sister was born in 1992, they were excited to have a child.

But not long after her birth, my dad was called to arms, being sent overseas for the first time. He was shipped to Iraq for 12 months and the man who returned was not the same man that left. He was angry, mean, secretive. The war changed him and this is where the nightmare begins. When my sister was young, she thinks around 7 or 8 years old, but she isn't certain because this time in her life is very fuzzy in her memory. Dad began to sneak into her room when our mom was away for work and would do terrible things to her. I was around 3 years of age at that point, and my sister complied and did what he asked, so she could protect me from him. She doesn't know how long this abuse lasted. When she tries to think back on it, her memory almost freezes up. Her brain has blocked these memories out in

an attempt to help her cope. During this same time, dad would be caught emailing one of his army friends, a female friend. I won't accuse him of cheating on my mom with this woman because I have no evidence, but what I do know is my sister would see him messaging her on the computer when mom was at work, trying to hide the emails and acting like he didn't know what my sister was talking about when she asked him about it. I think my mom suspected something was wrong at this time, but it's hard to say. I'm going to skip a few years to where I first remember the abuse towards both me and my sister. I was around 8 years old, attending the now cultish school.

I'll write a very short summary about my schooling in case you didn't read my first entry. It was a very small school, taught on supposedly godly principles, based solely on God and the Bible. The school was strict, with 98 rules you had to abide by. Everything from only wearing skirts or dresses, only listening to gospel music, not going to movie theaters, no Pokemon, and the list goes on. Our school had a mark system. When you did something wrong, you received a mark. If you got three marks or more at school, they sent you a note home to your parents telling them you were bad at school and needed punished. How me and my sister were punished is we would get paddled by dad when we got home from work in the afternoon. This always made my dad furious, and he would yell at us, scolding us about how we'd

been terrible kids and knew better. Then we would get sent to our rooms to be paddled. I'm not exactly sure what the real turning point in all of this was. I think it was just simply years of being in the military taking a toll on my dad's mental health, but he started getting more violent with us. When I was 11 and my sister was 17, my dad got sent to a second tour, this time to Afghanistan. He was gone 18 months and when he returned, he was a terrifying man. He yelled at us for talking too loud. He would slam doors. He would separate me and my sister if we were laughing too much. It was a straight up nightmare to say the least. One day he didn't like something I said to him, something he thought was

disrespectful, so he jerked me by the arm so hard it left a perfect handprint bruise on my arm for a few days. This is the time when me and my sister's bond was cemented so deep we couldn't live without each other. We were scared, sad, and depressed, and being together brought such a need for comfort that when we were separated during the days, we texted or made knocking signals on the walls to communicate. One knock on the wall signaled for you to come to the other person room quietly. Two knocks meant dad was coming and to be quiet. Three knocks meant I love you. When my sister decided to move to Mississippi for college, I truly sunk into my all-time low mentally. We messaged when we could, but my sister's absence

in the house left such a hollow hole in my heart that this is when the real depression set in for me. Fortunately though, dad was sent on a third tour, again to Afghanistan so the house finally became quiet. It was just me and my mom in the house and it truly was the best 18 months as a teenager I had. Apart from school, I was okay. Not great by any means but there was peace in my house. Me and my mom built a very strong bond in this time together since we only had each other, but it was short-lived. My dad returned from active duty after a year and a half and that's when living in my house wasn't just scary, it was outright dangerous. My dad came home broken. He saw things, did things that broke him mentally. He wasn't stable anymore. His PTSD was so severe that he was hospitalized multiple times. He wasn't just angry anymore.

He was thinking about taking his own life and others. Dad threatened to shoot me and mom and then take his own life afterwards. He was ready to do it as well. He had a gun in his hand and his other guns surrounding him on the bed. He was ready to die. He was ready for all of us to die. My mom talked him down and took his guns away. And that night he was sent to a military hospital for treatment. Something happens in you when you know your dad wanted to kill you. A despair,

an emptiness, not even a fear, just drowning in sorrow. I'm 16 at this time. School couldn't get worse, the mental strain it took to hide what was happening at home and keeping a smile on for everyone was tearing me apart. I thought dad was right to want us dead. What was left to live for? I can truly say if it wasn't for the loving support of my mother and my sister never leaving my side, I would not have survived. I would have taken my own life back then. Thinking back on those nights when I would look at a bottle of pills and think, dying in my sleep would be a peaceful way to go or holding a knife to my wrist and thinking would be so easy to cut and just leave quietly.

Looking back now, I still don't understand fully why I never did it. The best I can figure is the love my sister and mother flooded me with gave me enough hope to keep going. But no matter why the reason, I'm glad I didn't go through with it. After my dad returned from the mental hospital, he was better. Truly better. He didn't yell anymore. He laughed and played around again. He would tease me and make jokes, buy me new things, take me on father-daughter dates. It was better. I'm not saying it was perfect. He still had his mood swings. He still said things that were hurtful sometimes and I could never trust him like I wish I could. Looking at the man he became compared to the man he was years ago, it almost scares me. I know what he's capable of. I know what thoughts run

through his head. I know what would have happened if he got off his medicine. I've lived with all of this in my chest for years. I've never been able to freely tell anyone. I don't want to. I want people to see my dad as the man he is now. I don't want them to think bad things of him. He's come such a long way, he's worked hard to fight his mental illness, and I'm proud of the man he is now. A loving goofball, caring grandfather, and loving husband and father. But it is hard to keep all those feelings inside. I'm hoping writing out all of this will help me put my mind at ease. What makes it all harder is, mom isn't aware of many of the things he did to me and my mind at ease. What makes it all harder is mom isn't aware of

many of the things he did to me and my sister. She doesn't know about all the abuse or the bruises or the cheating, the deleted internet history, and I pray she never does know. She's the hero in this story. She kept the family together, worked harder than she ever should have, spent any free time with us making us laugh. I want her happiness. She doesn't deserve to know it all. The moral I'm trying to betray here is, things do get better. In the darkest days when you are drowning in despair and sadness, hiding in your room, hoping he doesn't open the door, thinking the only way out is death. You're wrong. Things get better. I'm 22 now, married to a wonderful man, living happily. I survived an

abusive upbringing, an abusive cult, and though I am still haunted with the nightmares of my past, I use the bad dreams as a reminder of how people can change. Being in the military and living with those demons really do change a person. I don't want to discourage anyone from serving their country, but I want you to know you may have to give more than you're willing to give. This is the end of my story, but remember everyone, you can win and have a great life. Take care. I was born and raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, home of the Colorado State University Rams. It was mid-January 2016. I was 23 years old and had recently started dabbling in the dating scene again. I met a guy on eHarmony and we decided to meet for breakfast at a little restaurant.

The date went really well and after about an hour and a half of my date, Josh asked if I wanted to go for a walk with him and his dog Bandit. I told him I'd love to, so we left the restaurant and I followed him in my car to an open space area called Legacy Park in North Fort Collins that ran along the Poudre River. I texted my mom to be safe and told her where we were going. Snow covered the footpath that we walked along. Josh and I talked about our favorite places to hike in Colorado and we both mentioned wanting to do a 14er that summer. Bandit was off leash, running and playing in the snow. Josh mentioned he wasn't totally comfortable having Bandit off leash because of some frozen over section along the river. All of a sudden,

we heard a little splash in the river. We thought it was maybe a bird or falling snow from a tree. Before we could do anything, Bandit immediately ran towards the river and jumped in, chasing the sound. Josh and I immediately ran to the bank and noticed that the area Bandit was in was not frozen over, but the edges around the bank were. Bandit was trying to pull himself out of the water, but couldn't. The ice along the edge was too slippery. In that moment, both of us panicked. Josh started screaming Bandit's name and we both ran downstream trying to get ahead of him. Only a hundred or so feet away was a big frozen over area of the river. Josh and I started screaming in panic as we both jumped down the side of the embankment.

But we didn't get there in time. Bandit went under the ice. With our adrenaline rushing, both of us jumped on top of the ice screaming and searching the water below for his dog. All of a sudden, I heard a loud crack. The sound of cracking ice echoed through the woods. I looked at Josh in fear and then we both fell through the ice into the frozen water. The water was only waist deep but the temperature took my breath away. Both Josh and I struggled to get back on the ice but we were able to pull ourselves up. Within about 60 seconds, Bandit resurfaced on the other side of the ice block. Josh grabbed him by his collar and pulled

him onto the ice and we both swam and dragged him back to the embankment. Josh was screaming for help and by that time a few joggers had stopped to help us and had actually called 911. Bandit wasn't breathing, so I immediately started CPR on him while I screamed for someone to get help. Josh was inconsolable. As I was doing CPR, I could hear the sloshing of water in Bandit's lungs and I knew it was bad. Josh screamed, we have to get him to a vet. Run back to your car, Hannah. Go get your car. With that, I jumped up and started running back to the parking lot about a half mile away. I was soaking wet, freezing,

didn't even realize right away that I had lost my shoes in the river. I got to my car and floored it through the woods to get to Josh and Bandit. When I found them, Josh had Bandit in his arms and was running towards me. He jumped in my car and I raced to an emergency vet clinic about a mile away. When we got to the clinic, we threw open the door screaming for help. Several veterinarian staff ran out of the back and took Bandit from Josh's arms. We both fell to the floor sobbing. One of the vet techs stayed with us as the staff vigorously worked on Bandit. At this point, I had no idea what to do. I had just met this guy.

I didn't know if he wanted me to hug him and hold him or leave him alone. After about 15 minutes, the vet came out crying and told us that they did everything they could, but Bandit did not make it. The screaming and crying that came after was something from a horror movie. Josh called his family, who were from Arizona. As he spoke to them, the vet staff asked me if I needed anything. I told them that this was actually a first date and I had no idea what to do. One of the staff noticed an open and bleeding wound on my foot and bandaged it up for me. I didn't know it at the time, but I also had two broken toes and had ripped off my big toenail. I know this isn't necessarily a scary story, but it was the worst first date and worst

day in general I'd ever had. My heart is still broken over five years later as I write this story. Love your animals and hold them close. And rest in peace, bandit. When I was 25, I made the biggest decision of my life. I decided to move across the country to go to grad school. Life on the east coast in Virginia hadn't been great since I finished undergrad. I was working two dead-end jobs and a toxic relationship and just generally depressed going from four amazing years of college to that. I planned out that trip weeks before leaving. I decided to take the route going through the middle of the country, passing through states like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas,

and New Mexico. Since I didn't have any deadline on when I needed to arrive, I decided I'd drive 10-15 hours per day and stay wherever I ended up. I decided to find cheap Airbnbs instead of pricey hotel rooms, but I actually prefer the home feel of Airbnbs to hotel rooms. My first day was the longest, driving 14 hours to Nashville. I got checked into my rental, got some barbecue, and fell asleep watching Breaking Bad. I hit the road early the next morning. The free feeling of driving cross-country is something I can't recommend enough to anyone. After driving for about 12 hours, I was feeling the stress of being behind the wheel for so long. I stopped for a coffee and to book my next stay. I was an hour east of Oklahoma City, which had tons of more options, but since I felt myself

nodding off, I figured it would be a safe bet to find something closer. As I scrolled through the app, I came across an entire cabin for $60 a night. The caption read, Bob's Mountain Getaway. The cabin itself looked simple. It had aluminum siding with a sheet metal roof. I wasn't looking for luxury since I was basically using the place to sleep. As I read through the description, something seemed off, as if the poster were trying too hard to make the place seem like a resort. I also thought to myself, this is eerily similar to those stories you hear about people getting murdered in a cabin in the woods. Having watched too many killer documentaries and movies, I decided to go ahead and drive to Oklahoma City and stay at a safer looking place.

The rest of my trip was pretty normal. I'd never seen the mountains out west, so I was in awe with how rocky and how non-green it all was. Fast forward two years later, I'm out of grad school with a good job and a healthy relationship. I was listening to a true crime podcast called The Last Podcast on the left. They have a segment where they read news stories about strange happenings. They read a news segment entitled The Eunuch Makers. Basically, these two men were renting a cabin on an LGBTQ app similar to Airbnb and offering services for gender reassignment surgeries. Mind you, these guys weren't doctors or even college educated. They were caught because one of

their patients went to the ER due to a botched surgery. Curious, I googled the story and started scrolling down, eventually to a picture of the cabin. It looked oddly familiar and it took me a minute to realize why. It was the same cabin I saw on Airbnb two years back. I went through my phone to confirm because I remember taking a screenshot of it because of how creepy it looked. What makes things even more terrifying is that they were keeping the body parts after the surgeries in jars. They would grind them up to make sausages and other dishes. I'm not sure what sort of harm would have befell me if I would have stayed there that night, but the thought of what was going on in the same place I almost slept in is spine-chilling. Take it from me, if you're ever in an area you're unsure about,

always spend the extra money for your safety. I was 19 when this story happened back in 2017, and it takes place in Vienna, the capital of Austria. I met my ex-girlfriend, Victoria. I met Victoria on Tinder and decided to go out as we had been chatting for a few weeks by this point. We decided to meet in the restaurant for our first date and things went really smooth. She eventually moved into my apartment and this is where things started to take a turn for the worst. She really hates me talking to any friends of mine who were female. I told them they were just friends but she didn't care. She then blocked

every female friend I had while I left my phone on our bed. Looking back I should have known things would only get worse rather than better but at the time I thought she was just being protective of me and I found it kind of cute. She then started thinking I was cheating on her every time I went outside without her. And this started to get annoying but stupidly I let it slide. I also once caught her holding a knife and giving her arm a few cuts. This deeply worried me as I knew at the time that Victoria was struggling mentally. I asked her why she did this and she said it was a statement on how much it hurts her when I leave the house without her. I told my friends about the situation

and they said I should have left her then but I didn't listen to them. I thought she was going through a rough time and that everything would go back to normal. For a month everything was normal and no cheating accusations, just two lovers loving each other. I was quite happy with the way things were going until I came back from visiting my parents and I saw blood on the floor. I immediately called her name but got no reply. I then thought to go check our bedroom and Victoria was there, her arms slashed with a lot more cuts and all my clothes were scattered on

the floor. This was the last straw for me. I told her we were done. This made her worse. She started crying and saying she was sorry and that she'll change herself. She was refusing to leave my apartment however. Eventually her friend got her out of my apartment, which took a long time. And you may think that the story ends here. Sadly, it doesn't. A few weeks later, after we broke up, she started following me home from work. I saw her green eyes always watching me. She also posted letters to my house asking for a second try. I filed her police report and they didn't do much to help the situation.

I also moved out of Vienna two months after the situation and I hope that Victoria got or gets the help she needs. I live in a fairly large city for northeastern Ontario called Thunder Bay, around 100,000 population. I was forced to move out of an apartment I had lived in for six years due to the number of trap houses and crack users around. So I did move in into the new apartment I live in now, still fraught with drugs but not as bad. As soon as I moved in, this smell started emanating from everywhere and I told my boyfriend at the time, who helped me move, that it smells like a dead body. The landlord told me the tenant disappeared or went to jail or something akin to that. My boyfriend at the time told me it was my previous encounters with death that had me paranoid but when I smell it, I know it. I cleaned my fridge and oven with bleach and

oven cleaner as well as underneath with the hope that it was left over from previous tenants. I even thought at first that it was coming from the drains, so I used a drain cleaner. I thought maybe some sort of meat or something was rotting under the fridge or stove, but I was wrong. The smell persisted. One day I was vacuuming and the handle of my vacuum cleaner hit the wall and it opened slightly, so I went to investigate. There was the most awful wall of stench one can imagine. Think of sticking your face in a bag of garbage that had been baking for weeks under the sun. Upon my recoil, I saw him. He was on the ground, but the rope still around his neck and hung around a pipe. A lot of his fluids had actually

eaten through part of the floor. I called the police, of course, and I didn't touch him, but they came and investigated off and on over a week and deduced that he had taken his own life. I'm still in that apartment, but I intend to move soon. Upon inspection of the wall closet that seemed to slide in and out now, I washed it all with bleach and the landlord repaired the floor. There are shelves and a massive pipe going through the top of it. I have since closed the door and haven't used it since, but it was in my bedroom, so at times I do lie awake staring at it. To be continued... What do you think of when someone mentions Cuba? Probably cigars, the missile crisis thing,

all those cars from the 50s they have, maybe even Cubano music like Buena Vista Social Club. But whenever I hear the word Cuba, I think of my old neighbor, Ricardo. Ricardo, or Ricky as he insists on being called, lived in the apartment above me in Miami when I was working down there. He and his boyfriend would often spend their evenings on the little balcony area near their apartment's front door, and whenever they caught me returning home from work, they'd always, always offer me a daiquiri or a saoko. A daiquiri I could turn down, but a saoko? No way. For those that don't know, a saoko is like a rum cocktail made with coconut water. The first sip you're like, huh, this is new. Not sure if I like it, but it's new. Second sip is like, hmm, okay, I'm getting into this. And by the third sip, you're like, this is my life now.

Viva la vida de Saoco. So there was me, Irish-American Long Islander, chilling with the gay neighbors for a few hours every week. The conversation never really advanced past small talk, and I was only ever truly engaged whenever they were giving me hints on how to pick up cubanitas. So it's not like we talked about anything too heavy. But one day, my curiosity got the better of me and I started asking Ricky about Cuba. Most Cubans will immediately smile when you ask them about La Patria or the homeland. Even with all the crazy stuff that's happened there, they'll tell you how much they miss it, about family they left behind. Like you get a general sense that it's a messed up country, but they still kinda love it, you know. A concept that won't seem all that alien to most

Americans I know either. But not Ricardo. Ricardo didn't have a single good word to say about Cuba, and immediately that struck me as strange. Maybe I should have just minded my own business. It's not exactly the politest or well-meaning conversation to be like, yo, tell me all your childhood traumas, bruh. But I couldn't help myself. I mean, sure, I wanted to get to know my neighbors a little bit better, but I also wanted to know what happened to make a Cuban of all people display such contempt for their country of origin. When I finally asked the faithful question of how did he end up moving to the US, Ricardo sighed, and his boyfriend Andrew immediately got up to top up their drinks,

almost like he knew what was coming. And so, he starts telling me his story. I'll do my best to remember exactly what he said, and if he happens to be reading this and notices I got some details wrong, I'm so sorry, amigo. I'll do my best. Ricardo was just 19 in the late 50s, a young man living in Havana who found that he wasn't like other girls. Ricardo's words, not mine. He said life wasn't great for a young gay man, as Latin culture has always been very masculine-oriented, but it also wasn't bad either. Havana was a hedonistic place and it was relatively easy for him to blend into the party scene. He worked as a bartender and fixer for a lot of the wealthy Americans that came over, and even says he met Sammy Davis Jr. one night

before he got super famous with the Rat Pack. So as I said, life was pretty good for Ricky. It wasn't like there was a pride parade every year and Ricardo still had trouble having his family accept him when they became aware of his standing in life, but he had a regular boyfriend and his prospects of moving up the employment chain were quite high from what he told me. But then came the revolution, and that changed everything. By Ricardo's own admission, he fully supported the revolution at first. Cuba for the Cubans. It made total sense, especially when a brutal dictator had turned the capital city into a playground for American mobsters.

Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano spent a lot of time down there because the Batista government was more bribeable than a Mexican cop and gave them free reign to run whatever scams they wanted. So at first, Ricardo was all for the 26th of July boys. The revolutionaries didn't call themselves communists or socialists back then, and celebrated the revolutionary victory in 1959. But as the revolutionaries took full control, their promises of a free Cuba turned out to only apply to certain groups of people. And sadly, the LGBT community wasn't one of them.

Ricardo said things didn't turn sour overnight, more like that the homophobia that already existed became more overt. Before, homosexuality wasn't exactly celebrated, but it was definitely tolerated. But now, with Castro in power, things like long or extravagant hairstyles, tight pants, colorful shirts, or even what were called effeminate mannerisms were seen as indicators that a man was gay, and they were strongly encouraged to correct themselves. Quote unquote. No one was kicking your door in and dragging you away if you were gay, but go out in public in your Daisy Dukes and you can get into a lot of trouble if the wrong revolutionaries found you. But then came the Night of the Three Peas. It was meant to be a huge police raid on Havana that targeted three types of individuals. In English, it translated to women of the night, their pimps, and predators that targeted children.

Castro unleashed his morality police, and at the time, I mean, who's not going to support it? So the whole thing got tons of support from your average Cuban, especially in rural areas, but the reality of it wasn't so much that they were arresting bad people, they were just picking up anyone who was openly gay and saying they were either a pimp, a hooker, or worse, someone who went after children. Ricardo himself had grown up in a rural area and wasn't as flamboyant as his boyfriend at the time. I guess you could call him Butch these days, as he put it himself. So he was able to basically pass his straight. But his boyfriend, the one who liked to cross-dress at some of the raunchier nightclubs,

the revolutionaries literally threw a black bag over his head, broke all of his fingers, getting him into cuffs, and he sadly suffered a little accident when the cops bashed his head into the door frame on the way out of the apartment. Only, when people spoke up about the mistreatment of their friends or loved ones at the hands of the police, they were accused of being a counter-revolutionary. Ricardo said that when confronted with it, Castro was totally unapologetic about his homophobia. I dug up this quote to give you an idea. We would never come to believe that a homosexual could embody the conditions and requirements of conduct that

would enable us to consider him a true revolutionary, a true communist militant. A deviation of that nature clashes with the concept we have of what a militant communist must be. What does that even mean? According to Fidel, you can't be gay and be a good communist, like those two things are somehow mutually exclusive. Around about the time La Rampa, an area with lots of nightclubs that were popular with the LGBT community, started being targeted by police as a center for counter-revolutionary activity, Ricardo decided it was time to leave Cuba. Ricardo said that he got out in the 70s, one of the lucky few to do so. But some of his friends weren't so lucky,

and that's when I learned about the concentration camps. Ricardo said that his boyfriend was arrested and released a bunch of times on nonsensical charges, until the mid-60s when he was arrested by military police and never came back. Not long after, Ricardo heard news about the Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción, or UMAP for short. A rough translation would be Military Units for Helping Production, and it was presented as a kind of alternative to the regular military service. Those who weren't mentally or physically fit for compulsory service in the Army, Navy, or Air Force could join these units

and help the revolution in their own special way. Sounds awesome, right? Well, these things were anything but. Because what the UMAPs really were was just a series of prisons for pacifists slash religious people, Jehovah's Witnesses, hippies, conscientious objectors, groups like that. But by far the vast majority of people sent to these camps were gay men. The Cuban government could throw you into one of these camps for three years without charging you, and they did so regularly. Fidel later closed the camps after international outcry at what was basically slave labor camps. But Ricardo's by then ex-boyfriend, they hadn't seen or heard from each other in three years, was forced to undergo aversion therapy. Now I actually misheard Ricardo at first. I thought he said conversion therapy,

which as most people know is when you try to turn gay people straight. I'd like to think that most of you can agree that's a cruel and terrible idea, but that's not what Ricardo said. He said aversion therapy, which is actually horrifyingly different to conversion therapy in a number of ways. Firstly, aversion therapy isn't really trying to rehabilitate you or whatever, that's off the table. All it intends to do is take something from you and turn it into something you hate. And this is done by showing you images,

movies, or audio, or whatever that thing is, and basically torturing you at the same time, so that you come to associate whatever thing it is with pain, fear, and sadness. And that's what happened to Ricardo's ex back in Cuba, all while he was trying to start his new life in Miami. They showed him homoerotic images while they subjected him to mock drowning, electroshock torture, and beatings. And when I asked Ricardo how he knew all this, if they were separated for so long, and he told me that his ex showed up in Miami in 1980 after the Mario boat lift. Castro basically let a bunch of gay guys out of jail and told them to get on a bunch of boats in Mario Harbor and told everyone that he'd flushed the toilets of Cuba.

Ricardo said he barely recognized his ex when he saw him. It had been 15 years, but he looked like he'd aged about 40. He was broken and couldn't handle being around so many other Cubans, and Ricardo said his ex moved up to Ohio not long after. I know this isn't a traditionally scary story, but I've got to be honest and say I think supernatural stuff is kind of dumb. It's not real, so it's not scary. But what happened to Ricardo and his friends? That stuff legit happened.

Like I did a bunch of reading about it after I heard and not a single word of what he told me was exaggerated. I couldn't get the idea of aversion therapy out of my head for days. Like that's basically the same stuff from that Clockwork Orange movie, forcing people to watch stuff while you inject them with drugs and stuff or torture them. The idea that you can make someone hate something they used to love or taking love itself out of their lives by making them scared to be intimate with whatever gender they are attracted to. Tell me that's not a living nightmare, seriously. Tell me that's not

a fate worse than death. Only, Stephen King didn't just make this stuff up. It actually happened, and I legit can't believe I didn't know more about it until then. Anyway, I hope I did a good job of telling Ricardo's story. I don't really see him being a Redditor, so I'd like to think I'm doing a good thing by getting a story out there. I just can't imagine going through what he and his ex went through. An actual living nightmare. And at the risk of sounding dumb and cheesy, it really makes me appreciate the kind of lives we're free to lead these days. I know society's not perfect, but my god have we come a long way.

Be good to each other. The Caribbean While the Caribbean is mostly known for its white sandy beaches, crystal blue waters, and eponymous pirates, there is another area of the Caribbean that's synonymous with paranormal phenomenon and bizarre disappearances. Named for the island at its northeastern tip, strange occurrences are so common in the region that its name is often greeted with flippancy or indifference, but one particular incident caused the single biggest non-combat loss of life in US naval history. So perhaps we should start paying a little more attention and take a deep dive into the curse and causes of the Bermuda

Triangle. Although the phenomenon has only had a name for the past 70 years or so, incidents in the triangle obviously go back hundreds of years. The first official mention of bizarre disappearances occurring in the Caribbean appeared in the Miami Herald in September of 1950, although it would take two more years for an article in Fate magazine entitled Sea Mystery at Her Back Door. It's this short article by journalist George Sand that lays out the basis of the Bermuda Triangle theories that persist to this day. He explores the loss of several planes and ships, including the loss of Flight 19, a group of five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers that disappeared while on a routine training mission in the region. Sands was also the first to lay out the now familiar triangular area where the losses took place, as well as the first to suggest a supernatural explanation for the disappearances.

The Flight 19 incident would be covered again in a 1962 issue of the American Legion magazine, with the author reporting that the flight leader had been heard saying over his radio, We are entering white water. Nothing seems right. We don't know where we are. The water is green, no white. They also reported that the Navy Board of Inquiry stated that the planes flew off to Mars. Regarding Flight 19, what we know for certain is that the five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers took off on December 5th, 1945, never to land again. The squadron's flight plan took them east from Fort Lauderdale for 141 miles, north for around 70, and then back over a final 145-mile leg to complete the exercise.

But as we well know at this point, neither the planes nor the pilots were ever seen again. The US Navy initially put this down to either a manual navigation error resulting in a total loss of fuel and sent a PBM mariner aircraft in search of them. However, when the plane and its 13 crew also seemed to drop off the face of the earth, it became clear that something was horribly wrong. Historians have suggested that a fault with the mariner's engine caused it to tragically and unexpectedly explode in mid-air. But having a five-plane flight and its follow-up search and rescue craft disappear in the space of a few hours? That seems like far too much of a coincidence for anyone with even the hint of a curious mind. As we've already stated,

there have been a number of bizarre disappearances in the triangle. The earliest known dates all the way back to October 11th of 1492, when Christopher Columbus and the crew of Santa Maria reported a sighting of unknown light just days before landing at Guanahani. In the 19th century, numerous ships were either found abandoned or disappeared completely, and with the advent of the airplane, the same phenomenon began to occur with those too. What the incident we'll focus on today involves the disappearance of the USS Cyclops, the single biggest non-combat loss of life in US naval history. The USS Cyclops set sail for Rio de Janeiro on February 16th of 1918, carrying manganese ore

up to Baltimore. Aside from a brief stop to take on supplies in the Brazilian city of Salvador, the Cyclops continued on its way with no other scheduled stops. It has since been suggested that the Cyclops was overloaded, since an unscheduled stop had to be made in Barbados due to an unusually high waterline. But records back in Rio showed that the ship had been loaded and secured in line with contemporary safety measures. The only confirmed mechanical flaw in the Cyclops was arguably insignificant, with an officer submitting a report that the starboard engine had a cracked cylinder and was not operative. This report was confirmed by a survey boat which deemed the

inoperative engine to be no great threat to the ship's safety, and recommended that the ship be returned to the United States immediately. For some reason, a rumor went around that the Cyclops was sighted on March 9th by the captain of a molasses tanker near the coast of Virginia. Despite being widely reported, the rumor was completely denied by the captain of the Amoco, who said he'd seen no such ship and had no idea why anyone would say otherwise. On top of that, because Cyclops was not due in Baltimore until March 13th, it would be highly improbable that the ship was anywhere near Virginia on the day in question. Yet in any case, Cyclops never arrived in Baltimore, and despite numerous extensive search and rescue operations, no wreckage of the ship was ever found. And on June 1st of 1918,

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt declared Cyclops to be officially lost and all 306 hands deceased. The nation mourned the tragic loss of life, but questions as to the Cyclops' fate remained. One possible explanation for the Cyclops' disappearance is the violent storm which swept through the Virginia Capes area around March 10th, just three days before she was due to arrive back into port. A violent storm would obviously overload an already troubled ship and may well account for the sinking and subsequent disappearance of the Cyclops. However, the extensive naval investigation that followed concluded that many theories have been advanced, but none that satisfactorily accounts for the Cyclops' disappearance. This summation was written,

however, before two of Cyclops' sister ships, Proteus and Nereus, vanished at sea during World War II. Both ships were transporting heavy loads of metallic ore similar to that which was loaded on Cyclops during her fatal voyage. In both cases, their loss was theorized to have been the result of catastrophic structural failure, but some aren't satisfied with such an answer. Insisting the common thread that runs between the ships isn't so much identical structural problems, but the fact that all three ships were sailing in the Bermuda Triangle at the time they disappeared. Both scientists and historians have put forward theories which attempt to explain such a strange and consistent phenomenon. One of the most cited explanations in official inquiries

as to the loss of any aircraft or vessel is human error, or perhaps even human stubbornness in the case of businessman Harvey Conover. The wealthy entrepreneur sailed right into a storm south of Florida on January 1st, 1958, determined to enjoy his new yacht, the Revanak. In the end, he lost his boat and his life. The Gulf Stream has also been cited as a possible contributing factor. Often described as a river within an ocean, a small plane making a water landing or a boat having an engine trouble can be carried far, far away from its reported position by the current. A vessel could suffer some kind of catastrophe, be shifted upstream, then the responding rescuers simply look in the wrong place. It sounds like a solid theory, but it's

still highly unlikely that three large cargo vessels could all vanish without a trace, and in exactly the same way. Another explanation for some of the disappearances has focused on bizarre, terrifying, and very natural phenomenon known as methane eruptions, or simply mud volcanoes. It has been hypothesized that periodic methane eruptions may produce regions of frothy water that are no longer capable of providing adequate buoyancy for ships. If this were the case, such an area forming around a ship could cause it to sink very rapidly and without warning, a terrifying prospect akin to an airplane just dropping out of the sky. Reports from the U.S. Geological Society describe large stores of undersea hydrates worldwide,

including areas off the coast of the southeastern United States. However, the U.S. Geological Society has also said that no large releases of methane are believed to have occurred in the so-called Bermuda Triangle for the past 15,000 years. Similar to mud eruptions, another less known meteorological phenomenon might also be to blame, one that scientists have called air bombs. A powerful downdraft of cold air was suspected to be a cause in the sinking of Pride of Baltimore on May 14th, 1986, with the crew of the sunken vessel noting that the wind suddenly and violently increased in velocity. Dr. James Lushine, an expert in rare weather events, stated that during very unstable weather

conditions, the downburst of cold air from the loft can hit the surface like a bomb, exploding outward like a giant squall line of wind and water. And as we've heard, there are many natural, plausible explanations for things that occurred in the Bermuda Triangle. But there are less conventional scholars who insist that paranormal occurrences are to blame for the disappearances. One explanation cites UFO activity for the mysterious vanishings, while another pins the blame on leftover technology from the mystical lost city of Atlantis. Followers of the purported psychic Edgar Case takes his prediction that evidence of Atlantis would be found in 1968. One of his works can be quoted

as saying, while the ruined temples now play host to multitudinous underwater creatures, the great Atlantean fire crystals that once provided so much of the tremendous power and energy that was found in Atlantis still exist. Case also frequently alluded to the discovery of the Bimini Road, a natural rock formation on the Caribbean seabed. Believers describe the formation as a road, wall, or other structure. But the Bimini Road is proven to be of natural origin, so the theory hardly makes sense at all in the context of a man, or Atlantean made structure. What's clear is that even after a sizable amount of research, it's not entirely certain what's causing the disappearances of ships and aircraft in the Bermuda Triangle. Despite a variety of natural and unnatural possibilities being suggested, it's hard to pin down exactly which is true without any

physical evidence being recovered. Obviously, the supernatural explanations make for a terrifying prospect, but even the natural ones are utterly horrifying. Imagine your ship suddenly sinking for no apparent reason, plunging you and hundreds of your crewmates to the bottom of the ocean in a freak mud volcano. Or your airplane being blasted out of the sky by one of those air bombs. It just goes to show that nature itself can be far more terrifying and deadly than any supernatural explanation. And that pointing towards the lost city of Atlantis or UFOs adds a little wonder and excitement to something that would otherwise be soul-crushingly meaningless and random. So just remember, the next time you're on that Caribbean cruise, or flying out to Jamaica

to soak up the sun, if the weather starts to take a turn for the worse, or the ship starts to sink a little lower in the water, you might just about be the next victim of the Bermuda Triangle. I was an officer in the Royal Marines for eight and a half years. As you can probably imagine, I did my fair share of actual warfighting and counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. But my career in the armed forces also had me doing things you'd more commonly associate with the police. Because the marines are part of the Royal Navy, we specialize in amphibious warfare. We train with fast boats, ship-to-shore insertions via helicopter, scaling cliff faces from boats, that sort of thing. If it goes on water, we train with it. So when the British government needed someone to do a job in the sunny Caribbean, they chose us for it. And when I heard from a mate of

mine that we were shipping out to the Caribbean, I thought he was just messing with me. We'd just done six months in Helmand the year before, a winter tour too, so it was absolutely freezing sometimes, especially at night. So the idea of going on operations in one of the world's number one holiday destinations had a huge appeal to it. And I'll admit that when I learned exactly what we'd be doing, I got way more excited than I probably should have. We'd been hunting Taliban and Iraqi insurgents for the past few years, but in the Caribbean, we'd be hunting drug smugglers. The way it was explained to me was that the British government wanted to curtail the amount of cocaine being smuggled into the UK.

Since we had a lot of diplomatic ties with the Caribbean members of the Commonwealth, we could get freedom to operate in their waters, which also happened to be used by some of the busiest drug smugglers in the world. If we could cut them off nearer the source, it'd be much harder for them to get product across the Atlantic. Although operations would be much less aggressive in terms of applied lethal force, it promised to be much more fast-paced, which after months at a time dodging IEDs sounded like a much welcome change of pace. So, for the first few weeks of deployment,

we practiced rapid deployment with the fast boats, trained with the specialist weapons we'd be using, stuff like that. Then came the first couple of interdictions, where we raced out towards a supposed fishing vessel, most of the actual fishermen having got two pennies to rub together, let alone enough money for a top of the line outboard motor. Searched it, confiscated any drugs, then moved on. Most of the time the blokes with the drugs on them are just couriers on some terrible wage, so the last thing they want to be doing is going toe to toe with marine commandos.

It just wasn't worth losing their lives over. So generally speaking, sailors on guilty vessels would just give up as soon as we showed up, which honestly suited us down to the ground. As much as we like a scrap, I often think of the ancient warrior poet, Ice Cube, who said, if the day does not require the use of an AK, it is good. 90% of all the interdictions we made were completely non-violent, and around 40% of those involved actual narcotic seizures. But out of all the ops we pulled in the Caribbean, only one really sticks with me, because it's the only one where things actually turn nasty. A big part of any interdiction action was making sure we had a representative from whatever nation's waters we were using, making it a proper joint task force instead of just the British ragging it around the Caribbean and nicking people's powder.

And while we were based in Barbados, that person was Chief Inspector Raggy Mason. I have no idea how he got the name of Raggy, and it didn't exactly fill me with confidence when the head of the local police introduces himself with a nickname. But Raggy proved me wrong spectacularly, by proving to be a diligent, hardworking, and shrewd practitioner of the law. If I was a resident of Bridgetown, I'd sleep a lot better knowing Raggy was on the beat. Working side by side in those conditions, it's hard not to get attached to people. When you risk your lives together, even when admittedly there's not all that much of a risk, it forms that band of brothers style bond. Cliched, I know, but

some things get that cliche status for a reason, because they're like a universal truth or something. The point is, despite all the Scooby Doo jokes, we liked Raggy and Raggy liked us, which made it all the more difficult to stomach what happened to us next. So, we're hanging around below deck when we get the word that we're on an interdiction op. We leg it topside with all of our kit, pile into one of the fast boats, and then we let rip across the Caribbean Sea towards where our radar had picked up the target vessel. First thing I noticed when the boat came into view was that it was much bigger than our usual fodder. We normally go after what are called cigarette boats. Thin, lightweight, high speed crafts that are perfectly suited to just

bombing it to shore and back as quickly as possible. But the one that appeared on the horizon was massive in comparison, with a much larger hold along with a little bridge for the captain. We knew they'd spotted us when we saw a small motorized dinghy speeding away from the vessel itself, which is common practice when well-to-do smugglers are on board. So we figured we'd made quite a big bust and the mood shifted up to reflect that. So, once we'd properly identified ourselves, the blokes on the boat reluctantly allowed us to board. They kept insisting they were just fishermen and to be fair, they probably were. Smugglers are

quick to leg it when we turn up. The actual fisherman who owns the boat? Not so much. Once we'd secured the deck, we found the entrance to the hold and dropped down inside. Raggy went in first, torch in hand, and although we had our weapons at hand, I'll admit we really didn't think we'd be using them. So as much as we went in tactically, it wasn't anything like the white knuckle room clearances we'd done in Iraq and Afghan. Now picture the hold of this boat. It's quite big, but still not large enough to fully stand up in, and everything is stacked haphazardly in three rough rows, leaving too little corridor-type spaces for us

to move down. We'd spotted two pieces of cargo that seemed ideal for smuggling, one set of big boxes labeled Materiel de Peche, fishing equipment, and a set of large oil drums that appeared to contain fuel. The drums definitely had some kind of fluid in them, but that didn't mean they didn't have vacuum-sealed bundles of narcotics in them too. However, since it had taken longer to search them than the boxes, we agreed to secure those first before we moved back to the drums. As usual, Raggy was point man, all so we could tell the international community that this was a Bajan-led operation. He shuffles down one of the makeshift corridors until he reaches the stacked boxes. Then he leans forward and peers around the back of them to check if there's anything concealed between them and the bulkhead. I watch as his eyes go wide, having obviously seen

something. But before he can react, I just see this flash of steel in the light of our torches before Raggy collapses forward. I just start unloading into the boxes, trying to put rounds into whoever is hidden behind them to ambush Raggy. A second later, the hidden attacker then falls forward, with more holes in him than a cheese grater. Now, we're in twice the trouble, because not only is one of our blokes severely wounded, but the bullet holes mean the vessel's in serious danger of sinking. Not immediate danger, but from the look of the leaks in the wooden hall, it had maybe an hour or two before it'd be listing, four or five before it sank entirely. This is if it wasn't towed into port and repaired, sharpish.

At this point, you have to keep in mind that once I saw someone attack Raggy, I just reacted and neutralized the immediate threat. I didn't actually see how hurt he was, I just saw the attack, my torch beam is focused on the boxes and almost everything else in the hold is plunged back into darkness. Once we're certain the threat is gone, I start going to check on Raggy. I shine my torch and I see Raggy's face. His eyes are wide open. That look of shock in them is still clear as day and there's a little bit of blood around his lips, so I know he's not in a good way.

Then I notice the amount of blood on the deck, and then I noticed the thing that's haunted me ever since. That Raggy's head wasn't attached to his body anymore. It was just lying there next to the stump of his neck, which was still absolutely gushing with blood. His attacker must have brought his machete right through his neck, meaning they'd kept it abominably sharp. Add that to the fact that they were just hiding there when they could have gotten away in the dinghy, or at least pretended to be a fisherman, and the conclusion you get is that this monster literally just wanted to kill some policemen or marines.

Usually we take a casualty on operations. There's a pretty standard procedure we'd go through. Secure the area, give first aid, that sort of thing. But it wasn't like it was just a gunshot wound to the leg. Something we could whack a tourniquet on after applying a bit of pressure. Raggy was brown bread properly. There was just nothing we could do for him. after applying a bit of pressure. Raggy was brown-bred properly. There was just nothing we could do for him.

We obviously had to hang around for a medevac and all that, getting both bodies off the ship before we arrested blokes on board. Only then could we search the hold, which by that time was already filling up with seawater that mixed with Raggy's blood. Once that was done, it wasn't any of our business anymore. We headed back to the ship while other Royal Navy personnel took over and tugged the fishing boat into port somewhere. I had a debrief, went over where we went wrong, and the OC told me I'd be offered the Royal Navy's own special brand of trauma counseling once we got back to the UK. But other than that, I was left just to process the sudden decapitation of someone I'd come to care about immensely.

It was grim, and to an extent it's just the nature of the job. But even on my Iraq and Afghan deployments, I'd never seen anything quite like Raggy's severed head, just lying there on the deck of the hold. Okay, so think back to high school. Were there ever any white kids who thought that they were Rastafarian? You know, unhealthy obsession with Bob Marley, always wearing green, yellow, and red, routinely making comments about smoking the herb or saying bombaclot. Well, if you did know a kid like that, you'll understand what me and my buddy Ryan were like. We were those 420 kids, complete stoners, each determined to

start growing dreadlocks at some point, just never quite committing. So imagine my excitement when my parents announced that the destination for 2014's family summer vacation would be Jamaica. We weren't staying anywhere near Kingston, rather nearer a place called Montego Bay on the western side of the island. Not that I minded too much, I was just ecstatic to be visiting Zion for the first time. But my mom and dad weren't dumb. They were looking forward to relaxing at the four-star resort they'd picked out for us, and they recognized that I was excited about something entirely different.

So before they left, they sat me down and explained that under no circumstances was I to get into any trouble at all. I remember trying to defend myself, but they were right. I was planning on exploring Montego Bay as soon as possible to get myself a connect, and as much as I promised that I wouldn't go looking for ganja, it was a completely empty one, and I was in town just a matter of hours after we landed, sniffing the air for that telltale smell. From what I read on Reddit, walking up to the first dude selling would most likely result in me being horribly ripped off, and that I most definitely didn't want. The best way to get a hook up would be to walk into the quieter, less touristy parts of town,

getting friendly with someone, then asking them to do you a favor. If you could trust them to buy for you, maybe, well, giving them a cash incentive, you'd be spending less money and getting way better product than you would otherwise. So, that's exactly what I did. The resort we were at provided complimentary cabs that went into town and back, so I just jumped into one of those and I was on my way to get some of that holy herb. The feeling of excitement I had is only comparable to being a kid on Christmas Eve. I was practically vibrating, a feeling of youthful exuberance that I honestly don't think I've ever felt since. But little did I know, I was making one of the single biggest mistakes of my life.

So there's me, wandering out of downtown Montego Bay up into a suburb called Shantytown. I should have probably taken a clue from the name, but over the course of about a 20 minute walk, the scenery just got rough and more rural the further I walked. Until by the time I got to Shantytown, the scenery really started to live up to its name. I mean it wasn't exactly tin shacks, but it was definitely a far cry from the shiny touristy friendly areas of Montego Bay. And as you can imagine, it wasn't long until I smelled that telltale funk of the wisdom weed, like a homing missile I tracked down at source.

I mean, it was kind of like a cartoon or something, me walking along, sniffing the air, following the increasingly potent aroma, until suddenly, I round a corner and come face to face with four guys I just assumed were Rastas. They're listening to reggae, smoking dope, passing around a bottle of rum, and all looks like a good time. But as soon as they see me, they're not this, hey man, come sit down brother, attitude that I'd been expecting. It was pure animosity. The first guy that spoke had such a strong Jamaican accent and spoke in such thick patois that I literally had no idea what he was saying. I just sort of stood there for a minute with my jaw on the floor, realizing I was woefully unprepared for my prospective transaction. Eventually one of the other guys says something like,

Are you asking for what you're doing here, boy? I just stammer something about being a visitor from America, and they just burst out laughing before the same guy says, Makes sense you think you can just walk up into someone else's back garden. I feel like a jerk. So I just apologize and start walking away, but right as I do, they're all like, Nah, nah nah white boy,

where are you going, we're only playing. So at this point I think, I'm pretty much back in. So I nervously walk back into the guy's yard and take a seat on this small plastic kid sized stool since it was the only thing there to sit down on. These guys are asking me all kinds of questions, where I'm from, how old I am. Then they get real interested in why I like Bob Marley so much. So I get to explaining and they're kind of half impressed and half making fun, still calling me white boy but now offering me turns on their joint. I run out the clock for a while, waiting for the right time to ask about picking up some herb from them and while I'm waiting, they get out this huge, long pipe and start smoking out of that too. By the time I'd

taken a turn on the pipe I was absolutely blasted. They kept insisting I take deeper and deeper pulls too until my throat was so dry that I was practically begging for a sip of their rum just to stop from coughing. But as you can imagine, that only made me feel worse, and not long after, I decided I needed to get out of there before I puked. But obviously I can't leave until I get my smoke. I might not get another chance, I thought. At least, that's how my young, dumb, intoxicated mind saw it. So as I get up, swaying a little from all the drinking and smoking, I ask the guys if they have anything to sell. One of them says, sure, stands up, and leads me into the house behind them. I follow him up on some stairs and we're talking prices the whole time,

all in US dollars of course, which I figured would make a transaction more attractive. Then we get up into an upstairs room that looked like it was just used for storage. There's all kinds of broken furniture all over the place. A busted fridge, loose piping, all sorts of junk. Made sense to stash their stuff there, I suppose, but when the guy stops me and tells me to close my eyes, I start thinking that something is a little sketchy. Uh, why? I remember asking. Got a sample for you, something special. Gonna open your mind to the truth, you get me? I'm suitably convinced, nervous, but convinced nonetheless. So I close my eyes and I feel as the guy puts something cold and metallic against my mouth. I assume it's another pipe, so I start like

dragging on it. I was high as a kite, okay? Before I hear the guy start to laugh this horrible, sinister laugh. I open my eyes, and it's not the mouthpiece of a pipe I've got between my lips, it's a single barrel shotgun and for all I know, it's loaded. I just stand there, frozen to the spot as the guy is laughing at me. Should know better than to walk up in a strange man's house, white boy. Then using the barrel that's in my mouth to like, push me, it moves me back towards the door and down the stairs again, all with the gun in my mouth. Now you're probably thinking, but there's no way you could have had it in your mouth

the whole time, moving around corridors and down staircases, and you'd be 100% correct. Because anytime the barrel slipped out of my mouth, cutting at the corners of my mouth or smashing into one of my teeth as it did, the guy would always shout like, put your mouth back on it, white boy. I was almost in tears by the time we got back out into the yard, and the guy's buddy started rolling on the floor laughing at me. The next thing I start hearing is, shoot him, take him out right off now. And to my absolute pant-wetting horror, the guy starts to count to three. As soon as I hear the three, I just act, like I legit didn't

even think about it. I didn't run at first because I figured the guy would just shoot me if I tried, but now I seem to actually be planning on it. It just made sense to die running away than to die just standing there like a coward. I heard them laughing again as I ran, and I was so messed up that I face-planted multiple times as I ran down this fairly gentle slope and back towards downtown Montego Bay. And I spent the remainder of the day trying to get sober and stable enough to go back to the resort without my parents realizing that something had happened. I should probably make it clear at this point that apart from that one horrific incident, everyone else in Jamaica was perfectly friendly and welcoming. And I hate to sound like I'm blaming anyone but me here, but Jamaicans being so friendly

to tourists is maybe what lulled me into a false sense of security in the first place. My mom and dad still don't know that all this happened to me all these years later, but I figured they suspect something as for the rest of the vacation, I was content to chill at the resort and only go into downtown Montego whenever they were going too. The point is, if you're young and planning on doing any traveling or whatever, don't be as dumb, rude, or as naive as me. You can only coast on your own charm and the kindness of strangers for so long, and if you go looking for trouble, you might just find it. In the year 1982, in the market of a small Haitian town known as Leistera, a man approached a woman and greeted her warmly, as if he hadn't seen her in a rather long time.

The woman simply stared back at him in shock, not saying a word. One could consider this rather unusual, as the pair were in fact brother and sister and it's true that they hadn't seen each other in quite some time. The man identified himself once again and asked his sister why she wasn't pleased to see him. But when onlookers heard the man's name, terror and panic spread through the marketplace. You see, this man's name was Clairvius Narcisse, and he had been buried in the local cemetery 18 years before that day. At around the same time, a man named Wade Davis was studying for a PhD in ethnobotany at Harvard. His study of psychoactive plants used among the various native tribes of the Americas had taken him all over Central and Southern America,

as well as the Caribbean. And now he was being called upon to join his old college professor in a rather unusual task. When asked if he could leave for the island nation of Haiti in the next 14 days, he replied in the affirmative, not wishing to miss out on something so mysterious and alluring. Two days later, Davis met with Dr. Nathan Klein in a Manhattan apartment, where he was handed the death certificate of one Clavius Narcisse, dated March 2nd of 1962. They were about to try their hand at solving the mystery of a man who'd come back from the dead. On the night of the 30th of April, 1962, a then 40-year-old Clavius Narcisse checked himself into a hospital, complaining of fevers, an aching body, and blood in his saliva.

A few days later, he was pronounced dead by both an American and a Haitian doctor. Two of his sisters bore witness to his body which was then buried on May the 3rd. After his apparent resurrection, Clairvius claimed that one of his brothers had a zombie curse put on him in retaliation for a land dispute. After being buried, he had been resurrected shortly after before being flogged, tied up, and taken away to work as a slave in the northern region of Haiti. There he worked the land as a brain-dead slave for the next two years, until the death of the master broke his spell. He claimed to have stayed away from Lestiere for the next sixteen years in fear of his brother, but then chose to return after hearing

of his death. Upon greeting her in the market that day, his sister didn't give him anything like the reaction he'd been hoping for. She later said she noticed a scar on his cheek from where 18 years prior, a misplaced nail had caught his skin at his coffin lid and been hammered shut. She offered him money and told him to leave. Wade Davis had concluded that an African plant, Datora stramonium, could have been used as the basis of a poison and could have been introduced to Haiti along with the African traditions. Datora stramonium could be used in a concoction that, when rubbed on the skin, would have a variety of effects including hallucinations, delusions, confusion, disorientation, and amnesia. In large doses, it could fell a human in a numb stupor or even result in death. On his arrival in Haiti, David met with a man by the name of Max Beauvoir.

Beauvoir was an expert in Haitian voodoo and warned Davis that his search for the zombie person would be fruitless, as it wasn't the poison which made the zombie, but a voodoo priest known as Bocour. Davis was then invited to witness one of his more tourist-friendly voodoo ceremonies later that evening, and later said he was fascinated by the Mambo, or voodoo ceremonies later that evening, and later said he was fascinated by the mambo, or voodoo priestess, who drew symbols on the ground to invoke spirits while wailing and chanting echoed around the village. Davis' next stop was to meet with Marcel Pierre, a voodoo priest who he was assured could create a zombie. He told him that his backers in America could pay him thousands upon thousands if the poison were real, for they were interested in its possible pharmaceutical

uses, and after a bit of bravado between the men, Marcel Pierre, who had initially resisted the idea, finally agreed to make a zombie poison. The ingredients turned to be highly gruesome, and included digging the body of a three-year-old child from her grave. They worked by night, and after they had rubbed an oily substance on their skin, Pierre crushed the head of the decaying child's corpse open with his hands and added the rotten contents into a mixture containing plants, the carcass of a toad, and large sea worm that had previously been placed inside a jar together and buried in the ground until the creature had died from rage. Several fish that

had been placed on a grill to burn were added and the whole thing was crushed into a powder, poured into a glass jar, placed into the coffin with the corpse of the child, and buried in the ground of Marcel Pierre's temple for three days. Finally, Davis had his poison. But just as before his return to America, and quite coincidentally, Davis was out on a walk when he stumbled upon a field of plants that he recognized. It was an entire field of Dactyra stramonium. After Davis returned to Harvard, he immediately sent his poison to the laboratory along with specimens of the ingredients for toxicology analysis. His results were fascinating. He found that the plants all had physiological effects,

leading to rashes, sores, and skin irritations. The toad contained a multitude of poisons, but importantly, all symptoms matched with the symptoms of Clavius Narcissus showed before his death. The addition of the sea worm made logical sense, as the toad would secrete more of its toxins if it felt threatened. So by placing the creatures together in a jar and burying them, they were not simply dying of rage, but the toad was being coerced into creating a hazardous amount of toxin before its death simply by the presence of the worm in the jar. The real breakthrough came with the fish, however. The species used in the

poison was blowfish or puffer. The poison of the blowfish, tetrodotoxin, is one of the most poisonous toxins known. Its effects include reduction of temperature, a prickling sensation leading to numbness, often giving the feeling of floating, paralysis, and glassy eyes, eventually leading to a comatose state. However, full consciousness is retained until either the victim of the poison dies or recovers, depending on the dosage. This would not only explain why Narcisse could remember everything about his death, but also explain how it could have actually appeared dead to the physicians in the hospital. Davis researched the pufferfish's poison and found several cases of people dying, only to miraculously return to life on their way

to the morgue. The plants were used as an irritant, a way in which to create a sore and open wound which would allow the toxins to reach the bloodstream. It was genius, it all made so much sense. What had seemed phony and random had turned out to be an actual recipe for creating living zombies. Now that Davis had a grasp on the proclivities of zombification, he was driven to understand the meaning and through his search discovered the Bazongo, secret voodoo societies, a trace of lineages of rites and rituals descending from the hidden groups of escaped slaves during colonial French rule. These groups of men and women, enacting out their cultural traditions in the mountains, would eventually form a militia that played a forefront role in the fighting of the rebellion.

Now, these traditions survived as secret religious sects meeting in shadowy temples during the black of night, submitting offerings into coffins lit by firelight as drums rattle and priests sing. The Bazongo both protect and police their own communities. As Davis was told directly during his time in Haiti, the Bazongo can be sweet as honey and bitter as bile, and zombification is something of a form of capital punishment from the Bazongo. Narcisse knew he had wronged the community and understood his punishment in the context of voodoo. He accepted his fate as a zombie and as voodoo dictates, he had become the very thing that is so utterly feared by societies all over the world. The walking dead. dead I was a 911 dispatcher for just over 20 years. Over the course of my career, there were many, many calls that seared themselves into my memory, and most of them are far too messed up for a safe-for-work thread like this.

But here's a few short ones that spring to mind whenever anyone asks me what my most intense call was. The first that comes to mind was a woman who had just gone into labor. The thing that really shocked me at first was that she had said that she was just 24 years old, but this was her sixth time going into labor. I figured that meant that she had at least a husband or some kind of baby daddy around, but I was absolutely horrified to hear that she was totally alone. Not a single other person was around to support or care for her. I dispatch a team of EMTs as soon as I could, then I stay on the line to give her a few basic instructions, grabbing towels, bottles of water, making sure she's breathing okay and stuff like that. I wasn't a mother at that point in my life, so I didn't really have any frame of reference for how long it might take. Some births are over in a matter of hours, some stretch into days worth of pain and pushing.

Point being, after less than half an hour on the call when she says, It's out. I pushed out the placenta too, thank you. I'm kind of taken aback. I asked her if she's okay and she replies, Sure, just putting some pants on, excuse me a moment. And however confused you are to read this, just know that I was a hundred times more confused at the time. I ask her what the baby is and if it's crying and she's like, I don't know. I ask her again to check on the baby before the EMTs arrive but again she basically just refuses. At that point

it hits me that it's probably just a prank call. Like, she sure did sound like she was in labor when I answered the call, but if she was a talented enough actress, I can see myself falling for a put on. Either way, I was angry, real angry, and I started making a note of the caller's number and address so I can pass it on to my supervisor as a malicious call, the kind we can prosecute over. But right as I'm doing that, I hear the EMTs arrive in the background of the call and from the way they reacted and what they were saying before she hung up the call, I knew it wasn't a prank at all. I was this mix of horrified and furious. I wanted to reach through the phone line and punch her in her stupid face. But at the same time, I didn't want to be within a hundred yards of whatever horror show apartment she was occupying.

I didn't get a chance to find out what happened to her. Presumably she was transported to the hospital with her baby, but whether or not the poor thing survived, God only knows. The second call also happens to be from a woman in labor. I asked her where she was calling from and she told me she was driving herself to the hospital whilst having contractions. In theory, if they weren't bad contractions, I guess you could drive yourself but it's definitely not something we advised women to do. That may be different for others, our dispatch center didn't, and this was a classic example of it. She seemed to be in a lot of pain and in her panic, she'd gotten herself totally lost after pulling over on the on-ramp to the interstate. I kept asking for landmarks and

trying to give her directions, but the only solid piece of info I could get out of her was the description of her car. While trying to pinpoint her location, medics were searching all of the ramps to the interstate. She told me the baby was coming and within just a few minutes of pushing, she had delivered. But then, I asked her if the baby was crying and she says no. I feel a hint of my own panic at this point and I asked her if the baby was crying, and she says no. I feel a hint of my own panic at this point, and I asked her where her baby is. She tells me it's in the footwell of her car. I asked her to pick it up, and just like the first mom, she refuses. I don't know if she was exhausted or what, but that was another distressing one, and again, I was unable to get any news on the outcome,

and I was only left just to wonder. The third super rough call that comes to mind is the naked woman on the highway. I got a call from a guy who'd spotted a young woman acting bizarrely at the side of a highway. I asked him if he knows her, or why she might be acting that way and he says no but then he thinks that she's drunk or something. But then I ask for a description of the girl and the guy tells me how this young woman is completely naked, hair a mess and she's covered in dirt. He told me he tried to see if she was okay and she tried to bite him. I tell the caller to keep their distance from the woman but to try to keep me up to date on

her location and he was evidently quite close because I hear a car honking its horn before he starts yelling, she just ran across the highway, she almost got hit by a car. This continues on for a few minutes with the caller telling me how the girl is running back and forth with cars honking and flashing their lights at her until finally, oh my god, oh my god, he hit her. All the vehicles that came after had no idea what was going on and no marked unit would get on the scene for another 10 minutes. Cars keep running her over again and again and again, just obliterating what was left of her until, by the time the lanes were closed off, her body parts were just spread along a two-mile stretch of the interstate. I was working the fire slash EMS radio that night when one of the units radioed

into me. While he was talking, I heard another medic in the background debating with another if what they were looking at was this girl's head. That one really got to me. But the last one got me even worse. I got a call from a man saying that there was a fire in the hotel he was staying in. He told me he was trapped inside his hotel room because there was too much smoke in the hallway outside and that he was with his wife and children. I felt sick when I heard him say that, but we're trained to

be as cold as possible. I asked him if it was possible to escape from a window, but he told me that they were on the seventh floor and there was no way his kids could be able to climb down. Right when he tells me there's more and more black smoke coming into the hotel room, I ask him to take shelter in the en suite bathroom and stuff wet rags in the door's cracks if there are any. I also told him to use flannels like makeshift gas masks, wetting them and putting them loosely over their mouths and noses to filter out some of the smoke. As I'm basically yelling at EMS to get their butts over there, I could hear coughing and crying in the background of the call. The mom was spraying the

door with cold water from the shower, but it didn't seem to help at all, and there was a moment when I distinctly heard one of their kids ask, Mommy, are we going to die? I kept talking to the dad as long as I could, keeping him up to date with the progress of fire and EMS, but it wasn't long before his voice became weak, and then he stopped talking altogether. That one I did get an update on. The whole family was found dead in the bathroom, kids tucked into the tub, parents trying desperately to protect them from the smoke and flame. I had nightmares about that one for a long, long time.

Working 911 dispatch was without a doubt the most emotionally eviscerating experience of my entire life, and sometimes I wonder how I managed just over two decades of it. I loved it and hated it in equal measures. Every year I lied to myself. One more year, that's all, I'd think. But when it went on and on and on, and in the busier jurisdictions, there wasn't a day that went by where someone in the center didn't get a soul-shattering traumatic call. But for me, it wasn't even the violence or the death. I took those as a given. It was the little things. The units you dispatch who give you attitude. The callers who yell and insult you even though they need your help.

Everyone in the dispatch center is as stressed as you are and as much as we like to promote a sense of camaraderie, the high-pressure work environment sometimes leads to clashes between colleagues. This has made me laugh, it's made me cry, it's made me hate myself, it's made me hate the public, and weirdly, it's made me love the public too. It's a thankless job most of the time, but anyone who really wants to make a difference, who wants to facilitate saving lives on a daily basis, go look at being a dispatcher. It's a hard job, but you'll lose count of the people you'll help before you even get your first paycheck. Back when I worked full time for the fire department, I used to take the odd shift working the medical side of the 911 dispatch center.

Since smartphones have been getting more and more sophisticated, I've heard it's much easier to pin down exact locations. And in the UK, they have this new three word system that brings EMTs right on top of your position, should you happen to be stranded somewhere with no recognizable landmarks. I'm almost certain a system such as this is about to be implemented in certain states, but back in 2006, when all anyone had was flip phones and whatnot, finding out exactly where an injured party was could prove extremely difficult. From what I understand, these days you can ping a location to within a few feet of where a call is coming from, but back in the early 2000s, the area was ballooned to square miles.

South side or north side of a city, maybe a county, but nothing as accurate as the tech today. So, with that little bit of context established, this is by far the worst 911 call I ever received. I got a call from a cell phone, presumably one of the aforementioned flip phones, and it was a younger girl telling me her mom had fallen and wouldn't wake up. Over the course of several questions I established that not only has the mom apparently fallen down a flight of uncushioned wooden stairs, but that she didn't seem to have any vital signs whatsoever. This could have simply been because her young daughter simply didn't know what she was looking for or had made a mistake when it came to her breathing or her pulse. But the really

alarming thing, the little girl couldn't give us an exact address. And as much as I asked her things like, do you have any mail around to read the address off of? Nothing seemed to work. She couldn't find anything. She couldn't remember. And she was beginning to panic. And in a situation where every single second counts, we were burning valuable time. What's worse, all she could say about where she lived was that it's a farm. And given that pretty much all of my district was rural farmlands, her description didn't bring us any closer to saving her mom's life. Working through all the standard questioning, I got to asking how long it had been since her mom's life. Working through all the standard questioning, I got to asking how long it had been since her mom fell down the stairs. She told me her mom had fallen just after her favorite TV

show had started and doing the math, I figured out that she'd been down for 30 minutes at the very least. We're taught to remain completely professional in those situations. I mean, I had one regional dispatch trainer tell me, the more robotic you are, the better. The more detached you are, the more lives you'll save. But in that moment, hearing the mom had been out for like a half hour, I felt my heart sinking. It was like an ice block in my chest. It was the toughest time I've ever had trying to keep it together on a call, but as per my training I just took a deep breath and tried to mechanically work through the problem-solving techniques I'd been taught. I'd ask her the street name, if there were any landmarks, if there was mail in the house, what she could see out of her front door,

but the only thing that landed was the landmarks thing, with the girl telling me that her family walked to and from church every Sunday. Walked. So it had to be close, right? Seconds later, my supervisor and law enforcement are scouring a map of our assigned area, marking off every single church within the few miles of working farms. When they'd narrowed it down to a total number of five churches that could feasibly be walking distance from a family with small children, we dispatched a unit to each one with specific instructions to go in lights and sirens the whole way. This would give our younger caller a shot at hearing them approaching so we could further coordinate her response. But just keeping in mind that with only three fire rescue vehicles,

two ambulances, and four police patrol cars to cover the entire area, tracking down this young girl's location meant we'd be stretching thin the entire time. By trying to save one life, we'd be risking the lives of others. It was a nerve-wracking risk, but one we were willing to take. Thankfully, after hearing some of our frantic calls going out over the radios, a couple of sheriff's deputies and a handful of highway patrol officers volunteered themselves to join the search effort, bearing in mind that all this had happened and we were no more than about 15 minutes into the call. I've never seen or heard of such a large-scale response in our county, not on my watch anyway. I mean, we really did go into overdrive as soon as all the circumstances of the call became evident. I remember the 15 minute mark because this is

about the time we learned that the phone she was using was a cordless one and the family kept the phone at the bottom of the stairs, just feet away from the front door. This obviously meant that she'd be able to walk outside to look for lights and listen for sirens, a major breakthrough in her efforts to locate her. There was some added suspense when it seemed like she might not have been able to open the front door, but I thank god when I heard her say I got it. Then, it was just a matter of waiting, and hoping she'd heard the sirens in time. I know it's a huge cliche to say that minutes seem like hours or whatever, but I'd never really understood that whole time is elastic concept until then. It really did seem like forever before she heard our sirens, but there was no time to celebrate when she did.

We were still faced with the task of figuring out which of our emergency vehicles we could hear. Law enforcement thought fast and had me telling each responder to stop and turn off their sirens before one by one we had them turn them back on so we could determine which one was the closest to her. It turned out to be one of the fire rigs, so we sent everybody to their position and then they spread out to cover the general area, all with their sirens on again. Eventually one of the state troopers pulled into her street and the girl could see him coming. When the rest of the dispatch center heard me saying, okay run to the fire truck honey, go wave to the fire truck. There was a bunch of silent celebration as people punched the air or buried their heads in their hands in relief. As the little girl met the fire truck, the driver was able to relay his position to us

and they signaled that her job was essentially done. I stayed on the line while EMTs were guided onto the property and once they'd arrived, it was adios from us, and all we could do was hope that the mom was okay. Well, it was more like prey by that point, as for all we knew, she had been flatlined for just going on about an hour. However, we heard later that by the time the medical guys got there, the mom was actually awake. She was incredibly disoriented as there was clearly something horribly wrong with her, but she was alive at least. They later found out that she had a broken back, an absolutely horrific break too and

one that might take her more than a year to recover from. The young girl was given a little reward from the police department for her bravery in the call, as she kept calm and did everything we told her to do. I can't say it was anything more than a token, something to take the edge off the traumatic event she'd gone through, but what else can you do? I suppose this has something of a happy ending though. The mother recovered with no brain or nerve damage, but the recovery process in itself sounded almost as bad as the injury. I suppose the reason I'm telling you all this is to serve a reminder for something very, very important.

As someone who's worked as an emergency dispatcher, I really can't stress how important it is for parents to teach their kids the following things. 1. Teach them your first and last names. 2. Get them to learn their home phone number off by heart. 3. Teach them how to make a 911 call and that's all attached to that. 4. Teach them their home address and zip code. This is by far the most important one. I've lost count of the number of times when this information would have literally saved a life, or at least prevented life-changing damage to health or property. So please, you're not just sparing some 911 dispatcher's nerves, you might have been saving your own life, or those of your family members.

Turn it into a game somehow. Heck, get creative, turn it into a song. But please, teach your kids their home address and teach them how to ask for police, ambulance, or fire. I always remember this as happening exactly after my 8th wedding anniversary. I was working nights at the time, so me and my husband ended up having the whole night to ourselves. Needless to say, I was in something of a chipper mood by the time I got to work. It was around 3.30 in the morning and I was sitting in my pod telling my coworkers how my husband had gotten me a spa day. The last thing I hear before the phone rings is one of them say, bring back some face masks so we can pamper ourselves in the dispatch center. The thought of us doing our jobs with mud masks on made me laugh out loud, and I had to calm myself a little before picking up the call. That's the thing about working

dispatch, your shift goes from one to a 100 with some calls. You're just sitting there, minding your own business, and the emergency just comes to you. And Jesus Christ, was this one an emergency? I open with the usual, 911, what is your emergency? And I hear a soft, whispered, female voice, couldn't have been any older than a teenager say, I can't do this anymore, please help me. Right when I ask where she's at I hear a male voice shouting and then a banging sound as if someone is trying to break into the room this girl is in. I dispatch a nearby unit of cops as quickly as I can, telling them it's a potential domestic violence situation. In a way it was a potential domestic but in others it was much much worse. This girl was 13 years old, not much older than my son is now and she had a gun to her head.

It was her father on the other side of the door and he was indeed trying his darndest to break it down but it wasn't to hurt her, it was to stop his daughter from shooting herself. I joined him, pleading with the girl in as calm and calculated a way as possible to put the gun down, but all she did was say it again, I can't do this anymore, before she pulled the trigger. I'll never forget the bang, or the screaming on the line as her father finally broke the door in, and the sound of him screaming how sorry he was. That shrill, empty, hollow shrieking. It'll forever be burned into my memory.

It was probably one of the single worst moments of my entire life, but still. I had to keep it together, and keep working. Pick up the phone, sir. Please pick it up, I kept saying. I need to walk you together and keep working. Pick up the phone, sir. Please pick it up, I kept saying. I need to walk you through CPR, sir. Please pick up the phone. Deputies are coming, paramedics are coming, but please pick up the phone. No one picked up the phone. I don't think he could hear me over his own screams. I stayed on the open line, calling out to someone to pick up, but there was a weird noise before the screaming sounded further away.

Almost like the phone had been tossed to one side. As the paramedics and deputies finally arrived on the scene, they called it. There wasn't a surgeon in the world that could have saved that girl's life. The contents of her skull were spread all over her bedroom wall. Signal 7. That was her name now. Death Investigation. As I disconnected the call, I remember my upcoming spa just popping into my head. Like a weird now where was I moment. I guess that's just how we compartmentalize things. It occurred to me that that little girl would never have a spa trip anniversary present from her husband, and how tragic that was. A dumb self-centered thought I know, but it was just how my mind

opted to process the horror of what I'd just been exposed to. I didn't cry until I drove home. A full hour's drive of just non-stop, ugly sobbing. Pulling into my driveway, I wiped my face, went into my kids' room and hugged them. They started crying too, confused and frightened as to why I was so upset. I guess that wasn't quite the right call, but I just couldn't help it. It was just something I needed to do. A good number of years have passed since I got that call and it definitely wasn't the last time that I had to deal with something like that. Trouble is, they never get any easier. You just learn to deal with the fallout better, to just keep on going and keep answering those calls. Dispatch is a crazy job to say the very least. One call you're talking to a

toddler who's just had a nightmare but doesn't want to wake up his mom or dad. The next minute you're listening to someone taking their last breath. I even got a call from someone reporting Taco Bell for getting their order wrong. Dispatchers get threats, they get screamed at, they get called every curse word ever conceived. But we keep going. We keep answering those calls. We lose co-workers that take their own lives every single year. The stress of the job is extremely high and there's very little in the way of closure for those that need it. Dispatchers carry a heavy burden, long after the call has ended. As a dispatcher I get some pretty wild calls, and I remember I got a call from a woman who

said her husband and son had gotten into a fight that had gotten totally out of hand. Sadly to say, that kind of thing is way more common than you'd think, to the point where I'd even call it a run-of-the-mill domestic situation. In those types of situations, we're trained to send a minimum of two units, one to break up the fight and another to gather up all the necessary statements. While they're on their way, I ask the woman what her husband and son are fighting over, whether this is regular behavior for them, and the whole time I can still hear them screaming and shouting in the background. Occasionally a door will slam,

the voices get louder, the woman begs them to stop and the cycle just keeps going on. She told me that they would argue regularly but she'd never felt the need to call 911 before. This time was different, she said, and I could hear the terror in her voice that confirmed this is true for me. She started to tell me how their son had been staying with them since his divorce the previous year. I ask her how old her son is and she says 43. Now I'm instantly taken aback here. I had it in my head that the son was in his teenage years as this is most commonly when the father-son clashes occur. She actually manages to calm down a little as she tells the story and I begin to really feel for this family.

The son had obviously had some kind of nervous breakdown, leading to depression and he'd barely even gone outside for the past few weeks. He evidently wasn't dealing very well. Then right as things kind of calm down and the shouting in the background dies down, I just hear the woman blurt out, oh my god he's got a gun, in the middle of a sentence. I keep asking her, ma'am who has the gun, tell me who has the gun, and she tells me she saw her husband walking down the hall out to where the son was and she'd seen his.38 revolver glinting in his hand. And herein lies why dispatch can be so traumatic. I know something awful is about to happen.

Once some people get going there's no stopping them so my priority here is to preserve human life as best I can until the actual marked units arrive on scene. In the calmest, most mechanical voice possible, I tell her to not try and get in the way, but to find cover and stay put. The ideal place being a porcelain bathtub if the family owns one. You have no idea how many lives porcelain tubs have saved over the years. I had one co-worker call them bathroom bunkers, and it stuck.

When it's clear she understands my instructions, I radio into my police units and tell them to go full code 3, lights, sirens, door kicking mode, while telling my ambulance to stage nearby. This is standard practice to ensure that medical units aren't hurt. If we have an EMT go down at a scene somewhere, god, that's a whole can of worms I don't even want to think about. When I get back to the call, it's almost totally quiet now. I ask the woman what's happening, and she tells me that she too can't hear anything, and that she even thought it might have calmed down once the son had seen his dad's gun. I hear her say, do you think I should check on them?

And I'm right in the middle of telling her to stay put when, bang. I hear this horrible scream of no down the phone and all of a sudden the woman bursts into tears. I know the worst has happened and all I can do is inform my officers that there have been shots fired at the scene. By this time they're both on scene and grabbing their long guns from their trunks and as they approach the house they can hear both the dad yelling and the son groaning in pain from around the family garage. They come around to the front of the garage where it was clear both men were and notice that there's a small keypad, presumably with a code to open it. I get the code from the wife and pass the information to my officers,

listening as they plug the code in before the distinct sound of the garage door raising can be heard. I can't even tell you how fast my heart was racing as I heard those doors slowly rising. Any second, I'm expecting to hear a torrent of gunfire exchange between the shooter and the officers. I was convinced someone was going to die that night, and I'm keyed up to send in another unit of EMTs, but there's nothing. Just silence. After what felt like forever, an officer keys up and tells me that they have one guy in custody and one on the gurney. The shooter had just given up as soon as he saw the cops. Somehow the son actually survived and his dad was arrested for

attempted murder. And unbelievably the argument started because the dad wanted the son to move out. That's all. It was something so small and dumb, but it just escalated and escalated until the father had no problem turning a gun on his own flesh and blood. To be continued... ago, it was a typical serene Sunday morning in the upstate New York Sheriff's Office 911 center I worked in. But when I say New York, I mean way upstate. Think the Adirondack mountains, streams, beautiful lakes, and people from Long Island in their summer homes. The most serious calls we ever took tended to be accidents on the interstate highway that ran the length of the country, or domestic disputes that never involved an arrest. May I remind you that this was a long time ago. And house fires. You get the idea. Sunday shift, picture the serene, newspapers out on the consoles,

Dunkin' Donuts still gave free donuts and coffee to road patrol deputies, and us underpaid, forgotten, and normally overworked dispatchers. 911 rang and I was so bored that I actually jumped on it, thinking it's probably a parking complaint about a church from a frequent flyer with nothing else to do. Nope. Open line in the actual freaking middle of butt kiss nowhere. A minimum of 20 minutes response time for any unit, police, fire, or EMS, instantly you know it's going to be a tough call. I heard an adult female in the background say oh my god before adding something about burning.

She then picked up the phone and adds a desperate help before it sounded an awful lot like she dropped the phone again. Next thing I heard was a door of some description slamming, then about 30 seconds later a distant bang, like a firework or maybe a propane canister exploding. Well, I dispatch all three types of emergency units as per policy with unconfirmed type of emergencies, but I was 100% sure the house was on fire because of the burning comment. Then I heard, please help me, again, only very softly. Positive that the house was burning, I tried in vain to get a response and kept asking if she was alone, get out, etc. All the while updating and expediting units on the radio. First volunteer fire chief arrived and reported no fire. So instantly I'm like, what's going on here?

But the fire chief ran around the house checking for smoke, but instead he found a man in the backyard, motionless, and holding a gun. This is the day I found out that a 12-gauge shotgun fired point-blank into the chest of a 30-year-old woman holding a phone sounds almost identical to the sound a screen door makes when it slams. I listened to the poor woman's last words as she died alone on her kitchen floor, and I also somehow managed to send a firefighter directly into a life-threatening situation. There's no academy course that exists that can teach you how to deal with stuff like that. Took me a long time to stop equating a slamming screen

door with gunfire. Try explaining that to your family and friends when one of them lets the screen door close a little too hard on Labor Day weekend. Anyway, the firefighter turned tail and ran, and the guy turned the gun on himself instead, but didn't get it quite right and survived initially. The number of resources spent trying to save him before his inevitable death was ridiculous, but because I was also a volunteer EMT, I understood it. The medics on scene even got med flights to transfer him to a trauma center, but they couldn't save him. So I guess karma worked well that day. As As ironic as it might sound, the scariest dispatch call I ever got came in on the non-emergency line. I answered to hear a heavily accented woman telling me that her husband was causing problems in the home. I could tell that she was kind of panicked and since she apparently didn't speak too much English,

I quickly requested the help of an interpreter. Then I listened as the Hispanic woman explains that her husband wasn't home right that second, it was just her and her kids, but that he might be back any second. I just breathed a sigh of relief that we had an interpreter on staff. Domestic violence calls mean a lot to me given my previous experience with it and I think it would have killed me if I had been unable to help her. We managed to obtain the address that she was calling from and were in the middle of asking a few basic preliminary questions when suddenly I hear a man's voice getting louder and louder until several others began to scream. I then hear the

telltale sound of the phone's handset hitting something hard, this sharp electrode jank from where whoever was holding it had been forced to drop it in a hurry. I immediately asked my coworker who was working on the main police channel to send the officers code 3 lights and sirens but the yelling and screaming seemed to go on in the background of the call, with no one talking into the handset. Suddenly, I hear the sounds of someone picking up the handset and putting the phone to their ear. I'm saying, ma'am, ma'am, are you there? Over and over again. But it wasn't the lady who spoke next, it was a man's voice. They sounded

chillingly calm as they began to talk in Spanish. The interpreter relays to me that the man was telling us that everything was fine and there was no need to send any police officers. But I could tell that the situation was anything but fine. But I kept him on the line as long as I could, relaying questions through the interpreters regarding who he was, what was happening, where the call was coming from. He's just dismissing them all, insisting there's no emergency, but it doesn't matter, because I keep him on the line just long enough for the responding unit to catch him unaware. I actually heard the officers busting their way into the property

and ordering the guy to show them his hands. I later heard that the guy was the woman's husband, the one who had been causing problems at home. After she kicked him out and changed the locks, he'd come back with a knife to repeatedly stab her in front of their children. By some pure miracle, despite multiple stab wounds, the woman survived and her husband went to prison for attempted murder. I also had the honor of the call being used as a training tool for non-English language domestic violence situations. It's weird thinking all these up-and-comers are listening to my voice during their training, and I'm glad I can't hear the things they say

about my conduct. But if I can help stop potentially deadly instances of spousal abuse, I think that makes it all worth it, don't you? I work as a 911 dispatcher and one night I get a call from a lady letting out the most piercing, blood-curdling screams I've ever heard. Standard operating procedure tells us to lower our voices and calm the caller down wherever possible. But in this case, I had to yell down the line just to be heard. I tell her in as stern a manner as possible to calm down and tell me the location of her emergency. But all she can say over and over again is that he is killing someone. It was a murder in progress, the first I'd ever had on the job. The caller was a woman living in a one-bedroom apartment with her husband and brother

and apparently those guys both despised one another. Then on the night I got the call, the husband said something nasty to the brother and the brother just lost it. He grabbed a knife from a kitchen drawer and just began hacking away at the husband, meaning that when this woman called, she was witnessing the murder of her husband at the hands of her brother. I can't even imagine how messed up that must have been, seeing two of your loved ones in a life and death confrontation like that. When the police arrived, the suspect showed no resistance. He just stepped out the front door with his hands up and surrendered. He was covered in so much blood that, when he

lay down on the ground, his body imprint was left in a stain of blood on the concrete. When he gave himself up to the officers, he told them that they should just dig a hole and bury me in it. And once they saw what he'd done inside the house, they were tempted to do just that. The wounds inflicted weren't so much stab wounds, although there were plenty of those, but like slashes with a steak knife. The brother had used the razor-sharp teeth of that thing to horrifying effect, and the cops said the woman's husband was literally carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey, shears of flesh just tumbling down his exposed arms and face

where the brother had just gone berserk. I've had a handful of other calls like that, ones that really did hinge on me doing my job professionally in order to save lives. There might be many, but let me tell you, you never, ever forget your first. As an emergency call dispatcher, I once got a call from an elderly lady on the countryside. She was around 70 years old, as sweet as can be, and politely asked me for some advice on an injury she'd gotten. She'd had an accident while preparing dinner for her family, who were on their way over in the next hour or so, and wanted to know if it was serious enough for her to have to request an ambulance. So I go through the usual routine of asking her name and address, then ask how she cut her hand.

She starts by saying that she was breaking down a chicken carcass with a meat cleaver and immediately I'm thinking, uh oh. She then says something like, I must have just come down a little bit too hard on it dear because the next thing you know my thumb hurts and I'm bleeding something awful. I ask her whereabouts she'd cut herself and she says, just between my thumb and my first finger dear. Which confused me at first. She'd cut the area between my thumb and my first finger, dear. Which confused me at first. She'd cut the area between her thumb and finger, but she said that she'd come down hard on it, and that could only mean that... Can I ask you, madam, have you actually severed the thumb? I asked, absolutely dreading the potential answer. Oh no, dear, the elderly woman said. Well, mostly, but it's still hanging on a bit. I think I might be in a bit of shock. Do you think you

could send me an ambulance, please? I'd already dispatched an ambulance right around the time I'd suspected that she'd gone and cut her thumb off. The poor old woman, she must have been absolutely terrified and the idea that she didn't want to trouble us with what was without a doubt a life-threatening injury, it broke my heart. I found out from the ambulance crews that it was a good job that she called when she did. She was on blood thinners to reduce the chances of a blood clot which meant that by the time paramedics arrived, her kitchen looked like a slaughterhouse. By the time they got her into the ambulance,

she was close to passing out and she definitely would have died if they hadn't gotten her to A&E in time. Get this though, the doctors were actually able to reattach her thumb. She ended up losing most of the feeling in it but still, pretty amazing considering she'd almost completely severed it. I think her family moved her into a residential home after that for her own safety and honestly, it's one of the calls that started me off thinking about quitting. I get a call from a frantic woman who said that she'd walked into her apartment to find her roommate hanging from a hook over a doorframe. She'd been holding the girl's legs up to loosen the noose while she called 911, but she didn't have the strength to hold her up much longer and had no idea what to do other than call 911. I ask where exactly in the apartment she is, and she says the doorframe between the kitchen and the hallway. I ask if it would be possible to gently lower her friend, run into the kitchen and grab a knife to cut them down.

She says she thinks so. I counter into it, like, okay ma'am, we're gonna grab a knife in 3, 2, 1, go. I hear her grunt a little as she lowers the body, then cutlery jingling together as she grabs a knife and, finally, the thud of her roommate's body hitting the floor as she succeeded in cutting the rope. Okay, okay, I cut her down, she says after grabbing the phone again. I tell her the EMTs are on their way but then I finally get to asking her how long her friend had been hanging. She tells me she has no idea that she's been working all day. I tell her to begin CPR if she knows it, which she does, and after a few cycles of chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth,

she picks up the phone again and says, I don't think it's working. I tell her to keep going and that it's essential to keep trying. That's when the lady hits me with, but she's cold. She's so cold. I had to take a minute to compose myself. Those words hit me like a ton of bricks for some reason. I dealt with worse calls than that, straight up triple murders, assaults, all that, but hearing this girl tell me how cold her friend was, it just tore me up. Just over a year later, I retired. I don't regret my career in dispatch, and I know I made a difference out there, but there's only so much one person can take,

and it was that call among a handful of others that just pushed me over the edge. I'm a former chief of police in Glen Lynn, Florida. A call began like this, like any other. 911, what's your emergency? A woman is screaming frantically, saying, an alligator ate part of my baby. My dispatchers tried their best to get some straight answers out of her, but even when she stopped screaming down the phone, all she'll say is, we were just walking along the sidewalk and out of nowhere, an alligator jumped out of the water and ate part of my baby. Living in Florida, this was entirely possible and we'd had all prepared for the worst possible outcome. Police arrived on scene, then the fire department, and an ambulance not far away.

The fire department medic was the first to arrive but he radios in that the other units should abort. Of course, the first thought was the child was dead and no EMTs would be needed. And a few minutes later the medic said animal control was needed. I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, this poor woman, what a terrible thing to happen. Then out of nowhere, I hear something over the radio like, is that a leash? There was a leash hanging out of the alligator's mouth. The baby the woman had been referring to wasn't a human baby at all. It was her freaking dog.

It's something we laugh about now, but after all the horror and fear over this fictional poor kid's life, we were straight up angry when we found out. It didn't help that the woman complained that no one would take her to the hospital or take what was left of her dog. There wasn't much to the vet. All I can say is thank god no humans were injured. Believe me, I do feel bad for the dog sure and the lady but let your dog run off wild near the rivers or lakes in the sunshine state. You didn't bring your dog for a walk, you brought it as an appetizer. As a dispatcher, I had a call come in from a woman who was screaming that someone in the house was being stabbed. We knew it was serious as screams could be heard in the background as well as a man yelling and cursing. Dispatch was quickly able to determine the location and had cars en route. The dispatcher

attempted to keep the caller in the line but the attacker wasn't done. He found her on the phone and began stabbing her as she's screaming into the telephone, help he's killing me, before she dropped the phone. He could be heard in the background yelling at his victim as he went about his continued gruesome attack. The accused in the matter was served with a restraining order that very day. He returned to the home and was banned from entering and went on a killing spree. Two other relatives in the house were also stabbed before he killed his ex-girlfriend and stabbed himself. His stab wounds were described as being superficial and non-life-threatening. The officers could be heard arriving at the scene just a minute or two after they were dispatched,

but it was too late for this domestic violence victim. A recording of the call is used in both our training of new dispatchers and also new officers. The blood-curdling screams and pleading of this young woman on the phone leave an indelible impression on everyone who hears it. The only silver lining is that the murderer will die in prison. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. To be continued... and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon. We'll be right back. deposits, or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions.

19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario.