The Lets Read Podcast - 161: THIS TEACHER WAS DIABOLICAL | 21 True Scary Stories | EP 149

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Creepy Teachers, Beaches, & College Horrors... 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: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

Discover the exciting action of BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz. Make instant 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. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. To be continued... As a teacher, I have some pretty messed up stories to tell. But the kid that still gives me the creeps, even all these years later, was just five years old when this memory of mine went down. He was just a little kid, but that's the exact reason I found his behavior so disturbing. If it had come from a teenager, it'd be concerning but understandable.

But from a kindergartner, it was downright chilling. So, this kid was by far the most poorly behaved child I'd ever had the displeasure of teaching. Not only was he the unholy trinity of disruptive, confrontational, and demanding of attention, but they were also extremely intelligent and manipulative for their age. On more than one occasion, I basically watched this kid not just start a physical fight, but engineer fights between other kids. One time, he took this one kid's little pencil bag, walked over to the coat rack where all the backpack coats were hung, then hid the pencil bag in some other kid's backpack. At first, I just sat back at my desk and watched him out of the corner of my eye thinking, what's he up to?

But then, when he went over and told the pencil bag's owner and such and such a kid had taken it, I realized he was trying to cause trouble. Second graders can be really mean to each other, that's a given, but I'd never seen a sophisticated and malicious scheme played out by someone so young. And it wasn't like these were isolated incidents. He did stuff like that every freaking day. I've dealt with a lot of badly behaved children before, and most of them just need a little patience, care, and attention. But seeing how this one particular psycho kid interacted with just about anyone made me think

that there was much more serious issues at work. My first move was to approach our department head as frankly I had no idea how to progress the situation. Punishments just didn't seem to work. I was in quite a state about the whole thing but she was fantastic. She assured me that it wasn't my fault but also warned me that there were no quick fixes and what would follow might turn out to be a long, drawn out, and stressful process. We couldn't just exclude the kid, not at such a crucial stage in their development. But at the same time, something needed to be done. And that thing was bringing a child psychologist on the school board's payroll who'd spend

an afternoon observing the kid's behavior. That way they could make an official recommendation on whether or not they should be moved to a special ed class or withdrawn altogether. So, on the day in question, the psycho kid was particularly badly behaved, displaying exactly the kind of behavior I wanted the psychologist to observe. I had specifically requested that she show up in the afternoon, just in case psycho kid just so happened to be subdued in the morning. It was rare, but it did occur. But then, as soon as the psychologist shows up and I introduce them as a nice lady who will be watching how great our lessons are, the kid's behavior turns picture

perfect for the following hour. There wasn't even the slightest bit of rude, aggressive and manipulative behavior from them, to the point that I was actually stunned at what a radical behavior shift there'd been. Luckily, they agreed to sit on a few more sessions and would be returning on Monday for more of the same, so it's not like I was up the creek with no one believing me. But not long after, when class ended and all the kids were filing out of the classroom with their coats and bags, etc., the psycho kid looks up at me as he's leaving and says, I did good, didn't I? I was stunned. Somehow, without ever being prompted, the kid worked out that the nice lady was there

solely to observe him. Maybe she gave the game away making eye contact one too many times, I honestly don't know, but the psycho kid knew what the deal was and the game was essentially up. The following two psychologist visits, the kid behaved like a dream. Please and thank you, sharing with other kids, complimenting them. Jesus, they put on such a good show that the psychologist didn't even think that there was anything amiss. And that's when the I'm not crazy moment started happening. We even discussed placing a camera in the classroom at one point, but the head of the

department vetoed it on account of too many parents potentially objecting to the recording of their children. That kind of red tape is just one of the many frustrations that come with a career in teaching. Luckily, three months later, it wasn't even my problem anymore. Psycho Kid had moved on to first grade and to a different teacher, then by second grade they transferred to a different school. That was the last I heard of Psycho Kid, but I'll never forget his name. He'd be around 12 or 13 by now, and every so often I plug his name into Google just in case anything has happened involving him. I've got nothing to date, but for some reason or another, I get the feeling that one day, I'll search his name up, only to find out that he's done something truly, truly terrible. I went to a pretty rough state school here in the UK.

It was only for three years as I ended up moving schools to complete my GCSEs, but it definitely made an impression on me, as well as leaving me with a handful of anecdotes that I don't think I'll ever get tired of telling. Most of them are pretty funny. Childish antics and schoolyard gossip, that sort of thing. But one or two others tend to provoke horrified reactions from anyone I tell them to. And one of these stories is the story of when Mr. Broughton had enough. So there was this kid in my English class called Francis, and Francis was one of those hard cases in our year group. He basically did whatever he wanted

because teachers knew that it was just easier to ignore him and teach the kids who wanted teaching as opposed to rising to his bait. Try to discipline him and Francis might just decide to throw a chair or something. As you can imagine, most teachers didn't want the smoke, so Francis basically ran year 10 for a while. And it wasn't just the teacher's lives he made miserable either. Anyone who wasn't in his little circle of friends was a target for his aggression. As I'm often fond of telling people, he literally fulfilled the archaic bully stereotype of stealing people's lunch money, and it was quite a while before the school threatened to get the police involved.

I think they couldn't even expel him because he'd already been expelled once, and no other school in his postcode would take him, so we were kind of legally stuck with them, I guess. And apparently, so was Mr. Broughton. Francis gave all his teachers a hard time, but Broughton was a kind of exception. You see, he was a big bloke, an ex-rugby player who'd tried and failed at setting up a senior rugby team when all the year 10 and 11 lads wanted to do was play football or get high. Given the chance, he'd have crushed Francis in a second. But given all the rules on how teachers couldn't touch students, Francis knew he was basically untouchable. But that didn't mean he wasn't cautious about it. Francis definitely gave Mr. Broughton an easier time than the rest,

at least, until the day he decided to push the envelope. So that day we're sitting in English class and Broughton is trying with all his might to get us to read through Act 2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Francis is up to his usual tricks, trying to put people off reading, making silly innuendos, generally making a nuisance of himself. Broughton starts telling him off for it, gently, mind you, but he's still telling him to shut up and behave. Whenever anything like that happened, I just learned to zone out and let it happen. as weird as it sounds, there's only so much drama you can take before student-teacher verbal confrontations just get boring So I'm not even sure how it happened, but I just heard Francis mention something about Broughton's wife

And then a big chunk of the class did like a subdued rap battle, oh, reaction Anticipating a sharp escalation. But by escalation, I purely mean verbal. There was never any chance of an actual physical fight happening, at least not between a student and teacher. That's what I thought anyway, and that turned out to be very wrong. Usually whenever Francis brought up something personal to do with a teacher, they had long since learned to ignore it. And the thing that really grabbed my attention here was that Broughton had most definitely not ignored it. He was looking up from his desk,

redder than a beetroot, just staring at Francis after he made the comment about his wife. It wasn't even that bad, I don't think. From what I heard after, Broughton had said something about leaving the rest of us to get down to business, and Francis had said, oh, just like your missus, sir. Honestly, it was still considerably less harsh than the majority of the abuse he'd doled out to teachers, but still, Broughton was looking at him like he'd just slapped his wife in front of him. Young man, Broughton started, his voice literally trembling with rage. I'm going to give you an opportunity to apologize for your comment. Francis should have taken the chance while he still had it, but it was never like him to quit while he was ahead.

Oh, struck a nerve have I sir? Francis just gloated. He didn't recognize how serious the situation was about to get and honestly neither did I. I didn't expect Mr. Broughton to explode the way that he did. I didn't think he even had it in him yet little did I know he was about to teach Francis a lesson he'd never forget. Just apologize. Brten said, and we can leave this here.

The way he said it was so seething that the whole class was silent, waiting for Francis' retort, and I remember shifting my seat to subtly watch whatever he was about to do. I think everyone and their dog could see something cataclysmic was about to go down. Everyone, except Francis. Oh, that's his subject, eh, sir? He said. What, did she cheat on you or something? Having it away with the milkman on the side? At that, Broughton exploded, standing up so violently from his chair that his desk shifted a bit. He then marches down one of the rows of desks towards where Francis has sat, and Francis responds by standing up, stepping into the aisle, and throwing his arms

up in the air like, come on then, kind of way. He'd done it before, many times, then I could count and it always ended with the teacher backing down and Francis firmly being king of the classroom. Not this time. Both of Broughton's massive rugby player hands shoot up and wrap themselves around Francis' throat. The choking sound he set out was honestly terrifying, like a sharp, constricted attempt at inhalation that just came out as a gargle. The entire class gasped as Francis threw a punch in Broughton's direction, but his reach was nothing compared to the teacher's, and his swings missed wildly as he turned increasingly red in the face. I thought Broughton might throw a punch back for a second, but he didn't. Instead, he drags Francis just a few feet toward one of the windows. These are the kind that don't open up horizontally, like a door. They're the kind that open vertically and with just a crack,

if that makes sense. Safety windows, so a kid couldn't just fall out, but with an angry teacher forcing a kid towards the opening, there was still enough room for a kid to't just fall out, but with an angry teacher forcing a kid towards the opening, there was still enough room for a kid to be thrown out, which is exactly what Bratton appeared to be doing. He was forcing Francis' head towards the opening, pinning him down on the windowsill before forcing his head into the opening. Through a combination of choking and struggle, Francis had barely made a sound as the entire class just sat back and watched in horror. But as soon as his head was out the window, and he's looking down three stories at a concrete playground, his attitude changed completely. Sir, please. I'm sorry. Sir, no! If anyone had been about to speak up, hearing Francis talk in a way that sounded utterly terrified,

it stunned everyone into silence. It was like seeing a unicorn or something you never, ever expected to see with your own eyes. A scared Francis seemed like a complete oxymoron, a total impossibility, right up until that moment. Tell me I wouldn't be doing the world a favor, Brun said. He was angry that his voice was cracking as he screamed. Go on, tell me. Tell me who'd be sad if I just dropped you. At least a third of Francis' upper body is jammed out the window at that point.

His legs are flailing, kicking at the chairs and desks behind him, and for one hot minute, I think everyone believed Mr. Broughton was actually going to drop Francis out the windows. And only then do they speak up. Kids were telling each other to go get the head, begging the teacher to leave it and let him go. But Broughton was just deaf to their pleas and continued to berate Francis as he forced him further and further out the window. It was only when Broughton once asked again, like, who's going to miss you? And Francis responded with something along the lines of, my mom, She'll be on her own. Please, mum. Mum. Hearing the hardest kid in our year literally begging for his mother,

that disturbed me in a way that nothing else ever really has. In the end, when all is said and done and you're staring death in the face, it really is your mum that you think of last. Fortunately for Francis, I think that was the one thing that saved him, and you could sense the shift in Broughton's demeanor almost instantly. A few seconds later, he was dragging Francis back into the safety of the classroom, but instead of carrying on the fight, Francis ran out of the classroom, clearly crying, screaming about how, I'm going to have your job for this. And to foreign readers this just implied that he was going to get him sacked, not that Francis was literally about to take over as English teacher.

I'm sure it'll be a surprise to no one to hear that Broughton ended up losing his job. But we also found out why he'd reacted so violently. And that's because his wife, the same one Francis had so flagrantly disrespected, had recently been diagnosed with cervical cancer, and I'm pretty sure it was terminal. I'm not saying he wasn't out of order for kicking off on a student like that, but at the same time, I can understand why that was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. I think it was the same for my parents too. Like once they heard about Broughton getting the sack for almost murdering a student, they went into overdrive trying to find a decent school for me to prep for my exams. I left that school less than two months

after that incident, and did a few weeks homeschooling while my parents petitioned the council for an emergency placement. It worked, I got out, and the rest is history, I suppose. But I still think of state secondary school teachers from time to time, how some of them must be living an actual nightmare on a day-to-day basis, and how fortunate I am that I don't have to do the same thing. To be continued... It was the second teaching position I ever had and it was at this god-awful inner-city school with a power-mad principal and staff who just didn't care. I had two main problems at the time. One, the school's computer equipment was garbage and desperately needed an upgrade. I kept pushing for an upgrade but she wouldn't release any funds because her frugal budgeting had made her the darling of the local school board. I was threatened to go public about it and instead of just doing the right thing, I could tell the principal was looking to get rid of me.

All she needed was a reason to do it. And two, the second problem was a girl we'll just call Tammy because I can't actually name her or the school for legal reasons. Tammy was a pain in my behind. A textbook case of a disruptive student. I don't even mind if a kid just wants to show up and nap. I'm willing to just focus on the ones who want to better themselves. But a kid who makes it impossible for those kids to learn?

Every teacher's worst nightmare in my mind. Now on the day it all started, Tammy was behaving particularly appallingly and I was forced to send her to the principal's office. But when I demanded that she leave the classroom, Tammy straight up refused. I basically had to shout her out of the room like a Marine Corps drill instructor, just bellowing in her ear until she couldn't handle it anymore. I know that sounds a little harsh, but trust me, if it works, it works. I get her out in the hallway and I'm kind of corralling her towards the principal's office,

kind of impressed I'm managing to do so. But then it dawns on me that she's just walking there out of her own accord, something that was definitely not in her best interest. I ended up walking back to class, leaving her there with a smug smile. I knew something wasn't right with that picture, but I never could have guessed what was about to happen next. During lunch, the principal catches me in the teacher's lounge and asks if I can make an after-school appointment in her office, with Tammy, to discuss her behavior. She might as well have told me that she figured out how to turn base metals into gold. I'm standing there like, you managed to get Tammy to stay after school? What witchcraft is this?

She assures me it's no magic and that I'm to report to her office at 3.15 sharp. For a while, I actually thought we might be making some kind of progress, like we made a breakthrough with her or something. But then, I remember the way she smiled all smugly as I turned to walk away, and as much as I wanted to believe it, part of me always knew it was too good to be true. Because when I show up to the meeting, Tammy is in tears,

and the principal seems mad at me. I won't give you a play-by-play of everything that went down, as that would be an essay in itself, but essentially, it became obvious that Tammy wasn't the one in trouble. I was. And I was in trouble because Tammy had told the principal I was touching her. Different language was used at the time and it's not anything I'm too interested in repeating but needless to say it was hideous. But what was even more hideous was the realization that the principal was taking these allegations seriously and I knew she was only doing so because she wanted me out. I'm not saying I shouldn't have been suspended for a week without pay as, frankly, I needed the free vacation and a standard practice with an investigation.

But the principal wasn't treating this as an innocent until proven guilty situation. She seemed to treat Tammy's hysterical display of acting as proof positive that her allegations were true. But as furious as I was, I knew they had absolutely zero physical or recorded evidence of me ever having behaved in such a disgustingly inappropriate manner. So at first, I wasn't too worried. That's until the principal came forward saying there was a piece of security camera footage from six months prior, which allegedly catches me touching Tammy inappropriately in a busy hallway. When I actually saw the footage, I burst out laughing. I walked past her with like four or five foot berth between us and neither of us react as we walk past. But according to the principal, who wanted nothing more than to

get rid of me, this was prime evidence and it was enough to get me an indefinite suspension while she pushed the matter forward to the school board. If they decided I should be fired, I could be looking at an arrest for child abuse. My career would be over, I'd be publicly ruined, and I'd probably see the inside of a jail cell. If I couldn't get some decent legal aid from the teachers union and if they too believed that I was just some freak, you could bet they wouldn't be opening up their wallets too fast. I remember sitting in my apartment drinking a beer at like 1.30 in the afternoon and it hit me that I might actually go to prison for something that there was no evidence of me doing. It was like everyone was in the grip of their collective madness,

believing this student over me, even when they'd known that I was a good teacher for years and years prior. It was a nightmare, and I'm not ashamed to say that I cried when the drunken despair truly set in. Thankfully, that was as bad as it got, because as soon as a member of the school board saw the footage, it was clear that I was innocent. In a face-to-face meeting with them, I made the point that if Tammy was so traumatized, why wasn't she going to the cops directly?

And more importantly, why wasn't the principal encouraging her to do so too? To me, the answer was clear. Go to the cops and risk arrest for filing a false report when the truth came out. Keep it an internal matter, and both Tammy and the principal could get what they wanted, which was seeing me gone. But from what I understand, the principal denied this completely, saying all she wanted was to protect her students and in the end, she got off with a slap on the wrist and I was offered my job back. No way, I was not about to go back to work under her again and I ended up relying on

my unemployment insurance until I could find a half-decent school with a vacancy. But it was definitely worth going back to my college diet of ramen and rice-a-roni for a while, just so I could get a sixth grade class back in the mid-2000s that had every teacher's dream student in it. She was smart, diligent, always well presented, and her overall behavior was exemplary. On top of that, she was also quite a popular young lady and had a visibly calming influence on her fellow students. So needless to say, she proved to be pretty popular among the teaching staff too. Just imagine a person who makes your job infinitely easier. Heck, some of you might not have to imagine. Maybe there's someone at your job who just makes the day go by faster, makes things easier, someone you look forward to seeing on a day-to-day basis. And now imagine them coming up with an intricate plan to kill you. Because

that's exactly what happened with this perfect student of ours. All these blog things might well have proceeded the mid-2000s, but discovering our favorite student's account was the first time I heard of them. I still remember a co-worker walking into the teacher's lounge looking slightly pale with urgency in their step. You teach Samantha, right? They asked me, and when I responded in the affirmative, they pulled out their laptop and brought up the girl's page. It contained an extremely detailed and disturbing plan of how she was going to tase, restrain, and murder myself and this other co-worker of mine, all the while we were tied up, back to back, to two classroom chairs. The method of execution

would be one bullet from her father's Taurus.22 pistol, and I do mean one bullet because she planned to shoot us in a way where the bullet would pass through my head and into the back of my co-workers. Like I said, it was extremely disturbing how detailed her plan was, and part of that was how economical she seemed to be about it. Like to her, efficiency was almost as important as the end result, like it was a challenge or something. Obviously, we took the blog to the middle school's principal almost immediately, explaining that there was a clear and present danger if the issue wasn't addressed properly. There had been a similar kind of incident involving a male student making threats to a female teacher,

and this could have been expelled almost instantly, so we were expecting similar measures to be taken. But then word gets out that all that's going to happen is a five-day suspension following a meeting with her parents. Five days. Myself and my co-worker were just dumbstruck. This wasn't a slapping duel in the schoolyard during recess. These were well-thought-out, murderous ideations that were clearly a serious plan, not an edgy attempt at humor. When we took issue with it, we were assured that she'd be removed from our classes, but she'd be allowed to remain at the school for 7th and 8th grade. When we asserted that we weren't comfortable with this, the principal told us the girl would be banned from going anywhere near the 6th grade corridor and that she'd be punished if she did so. And that was about as good as we could get it.

Edit 1. I just came back to see that there's like a thousand questions for me in the comments. Please give me a while to answer all of them, but I promise I'll try and cover as many of them as I can in another edit. Edit 2. Okay, so how exactly did my co-worker find the blog? It turns out two of her friends ratted her out after seeing her answering questions on some website called ask.fm. Not only had she given another detailed answer on how she'd do it, but she'd actually named her two friends as co-conspirators. According to her, they were more than willing to help her ambush us on a dark

winter's morning. Turns out they weren't and told on her before they copped some of the blame. As for why she wanted to kill us, to this day we have no idea. The closest that we got was asking her parents if she was violent at home or whatever, but they just turned it around against us and told us that we were terrible teachers. They claimed that she was just acting out, that she simply wasn't capable of that kind of violence. When we asked if her father did indeed own a Taurus 22, there was a very telling moment of silence in which I deduced that yes, he did. As for the punishment that actually went over our principal's head, it was

the school district, not our school's admin, who decided on the ineffective five-day suspension. They were just painting by numbers. Infraction A plus infraction B equals punishment C. There was no personal touch, no individual consideration, and sadly, that's just the way it worked out in our school district. Finally, I think it's prudent I address the veracity of the threat since I'm seeing a lot of the, haha, you were scared of an 11-year-old girl. I'd like to remind these people that back in 2001, 12-year-old Christopher Pittman murdered both his grandparents with a shotgun he had somehow taught himself to use. Don't make the mistake of thinking that a kid can't plan an attack or operate a firearm

or generally just doesn't have it in them to commit an atrocity. Threats of violence should be taken seriously, no matter the age or status of the person making them and even when we look like we're making mountains out of molehills the alternative is losing people we're close to in senseless, bloody acts that are totally preventable attacks that are sometimes from the people we least expect. We had this substitute teacher back in 8th grade. He was real nice, but nobody took him seriously at all.

He kept order by being chill but he was a little too chill and I think most kids just perceive that as weakness. Not to mention how and I know it's not nice to say it but he looked kind of funny to us. I remember not being able to quite put my finger on it but he just had this sort of dumb look about him that definitely wasn't working in his favor at all. Anyways, we had a teacher off sick for a whole week with shingles or something, and Mr. Nice-but-dumb-I'll-call-him was filling in the entire time. As you can imagine, the more the week progressed, the harder and harder a job he had of keeping us in line. It got to the point where kids were being openly disrespectful to him, and the dam broke when one kid mentioned his appearance. Gradually over the course of the week we'd worked out that Mr. Nice But Dumb looked funny because one of his eyes was slightly off center. So I said the dam broke when one kid was like,

what's wrong with your eye anyway? Mr. Nice But Dumb just stopped, and what had merely been an exceptionally friendly facade dropped entirely. It was like that old book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, seeing a person kind of transform without ever really changing in appearance. Slowly the entire class stopped what they were doing, fell silent, and watched Mr. Dumb But Nice stalk down one of the rows of desks towards where the kid was sat. He leans in and says something like, Oh, you mean this? And he then reaches up and takes hold of his eyeball, and he proceeds to pull it out of its socket. As you can imagine, a room full of 12 and 13 year olds having just witnessed something like that just lost their absolute minds.

Kids were jumping up from their desk, either bailing from the room entirely or backing off and watching with grim satisfaction. You could see the inside of the guy's head. Dude, it was like this cavernous, fleshy socket and as I was expecting a bunch of blood to come spurting out of it any second, nothing came. It looked dry in there and that's when it dawned on me. The guy had a glass eye. Mr. Nice-but-dumb turned out to be a Gulf War veteran and had lost his eye in a friendly fire incident out in the desert somewhere. We all watched in absolute horror as he explained that the kids should be more polite with strangers

and that you shouldn't ask questions that you don't want to know the answers to. At that, he invited us all to sit back down so he could continue the lesson but before he could, the principal shows up with one of the kids who'd bailed in tow. Mr. Nice But Dumb finished the rest of the period, then we unfortunately never saw him again. It kind of sucked because we had it real easy until the whole glass eye incident and the sub we got for the last few days of our teacher's absence was kind of a jerk. See So as you can imagine, the kid who asked the dumb question about Mr. Golf War Vet's eye was not too popular after that. Two years ago, I decided to take art as one of my electives. I didn't have much of a choice as it was one of the only elective classes that I could fit into my schedule,

but I knew some friends who were taking the class so I was okay with it. On registration when I received my schedule, I was surprised to see that I didn't recognize the teacher's name. The sole art teacher that we normally had was teaching a different class at the same period, so they had hired somebody new. We'll call this new teacher Mr. M. At first Mr. M seemed really nice, a little quirky, admittedly, but he had some really cool project ideas and we were excited. Then the comments started coming. While they were a bit subtle, they definitely made students uncomfortable. It was first believed to be a joke, but the more it happened, the more awkward the class felt. The first red flag was that he'd started referring to himself as Daddy. If we'd finished a project or

assignment that came out well, he would smile and nod, telling us that daddy's proud. Honestly, it seemed like he was attempting to be endearing and that he thought of us as being similar to his kids, but it just didn't come across that way. I also remember him telling a girl one time, Wow, that dress is nice. That's not usually a compliment given by teachers. Along these same lines, he also defended the cheerleaders' uniforms despite the majority of the school, including the cheerleaders themselves, saying that the skirts were showing a little too much. After some similar comments were made and the

referral to himself as Daddy continued, we suddenly got a substitute teacher, who ended up being our teacher for the remainder of the year. Nobody heard from Mr. M ever again. To be continued... school sophomore in my hometown of Dallas, we had three different science teachers in the space of a year. First one left because she went on maternity leave, and the second one arrived because the second turned out to be crazier than a soup sandwich. And as much as that little turn of phrase might have made you chuckle, this story is about to get pretty dark, so strap in. As I said, the first teacher leaves to nurse her second kid so Mr. Albright shows up and the first thing he does is decorate his classroom with all his homemade taxidermy. Some of the girls thought it was incredibly creepy and refused to look anywhere near the little dead fox, squirrel or the raccoon he kept on his desk. But I don't know, as much as they were kind of

janky looking, he'd done a real good job with the eyes. He had this rattlesnake too, kept it on a windowsill and no wonder some of the kids were creeped out because, good god, the eyes on that thing made it look alive as you and me. Mr. Albright was really weird too, but I couldn't help but hang around after class one day to ask about his taxidermy. He told me it was just a hobby, and the three examples he brought in were the only ones that had ever come out looking okay. That's when I complimented the eyes on the things, especially the eyes on the rattlesnake. This kind of silent pride seemed to wash over him, like he grew a few feet

taller just from the compliment. I wasn't trying to kiss up or anything, they were just real good is all. But he acted like it was the best thing he'd ever heard and launches into this big speech on why the eyes are always the most important. He tells me there's nothing so intricately designed or manufactured as the human eye, how each person has a different pattern to their eyes, and they're just as unique as our very own personalities. The eyes aren't just the windows to the soul, he told me. They're the very soul itself.

Kind of poetic, right? But all that was totally lost in me. I just wanted to check out that sweet rattlesnake. Cut to like 15 years later. I'm on vacation with my girlfriend, now wife, and we're watching HBO in our hotel room one night as we drifted off to sleep. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing to be watching before bed, and we both love crime and cop shows, so we're watching this show called Autopsy about how killers are often caught through a victim's autopsy results. We're both about to fall asleep

and the way my wife tells it, she's just about scared out of her skin by my screaming, Jesus Christ Elizabeth look. She thinks there's someone about to get shot outside or something and goes to rush to the window but but I'm pointing at the TV. Because what I'm pointing at is some guy's mugshot that the autopsy TV show is displaying, and it's unmistakably Mr. Albright. And no, he wasn't one of the victims on the show, but he was actually one of the killers. I was astounded how I'd never managed to hear about it. I know he was only teaching in our school for like three or four months,

but God, being taught by a serial killer, and yes, multiple victims, was kind of a big deal. The thing that really, really creeped me out though, hearing what he'd done to the bodies afterwards. According to the narrator, Mr. Albright killed three people around the Dallas area in the early 90s, a couple of years after my encounter with him, and his thing was taking trophies. I'll give you one guess as to what those trophies were, just one. You guessed it. The eyes. He took the girls' eyes after he'd killed them. Heard he died of corona last year in prison. A buddy of mine sent me the link confirming that

he died, but it didn't say why. I'm just putting two and two together. Older dude, confined in prison. Probably the rona. But yeah, anyway, that's my story. And while y'all have been talking about how your teachers are creepy cause they've complimented your hair, we're out here in Texas getting taught by actual serial killers. I grew up in a kind of messed up family. My mom's side are all from Westfield, New Jersey, while my dad's side are all from Newark. Mom's family are all clean living, church going people. But my dad's side? Crooks, thugs, and thieves, all of them. They were never involved

with the mafia or nothing like that, but they were still career criminals who tried their darndest to drag my dad down with them. Luckily, he escaped Newark and started a family nearer to his in-laws out in Westfield. They did everything they could to keep me on the straight and narrow too, even sending me to Sunday school each week and boy did it suck. The guy who ran the place, Pastor John we used to call him, was just a total jerk. He seemed to only care about two things, the Bible, and scaring the life out of us by telling us how we were all going to burn for eternity if we died with sin in our heart. I mean, it did the trick to an extent. I'd barely even gotten a parking ticket my whole life,

but Pastor John wasn't the good Christian he made himself out to be, not by a long shot. So this one weekend, Dad drops me off at Sunday school. Only Pastor John was nowhere to be seen. In his place is the nicest lady I think I'd ever met, one who proceeded to make the lesson that followed as fun as she possibly could. Myself and the other kids were over the moon, no more getting yelled at, and this lady brought candy with her. And that was that. Miss Harris was our new Sunday school teacher and we never heard from Pastor John again. As you can imagine, no one missed him and no one pined for his return. And no one ever asked why Pastor John left the Sunday school.

To me, it was a case of don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you. Decades go by. Actual decades, mind you. Decades go by, actual decades mind you. I start a family of my own, mom and dad turn gray and in the same chair I used to drink juice boxes with my parents, I'm now drinking the same wine or beer they are. So me, my wife, mom and dad are a little tipsy after dinner one night and the kids are with a sitter and the conversation is getting a little loose. Mom and dad are playfully embarrassing me by telling my wife a few choice stories from my youth. Somehow, the subject of Sunday school comes up and I say something about that jerk Pastor John. Mom and dad just look at each other, the smiles disappearing from their faces,

leaving me and my wife to ask what just happened that's when my dad explains the pastor john had simply disappeared one day and the switch over to mrs harris was news to them too when they did learn though and what they worked tirelessly to keep from me was that pastor john had vanished but only shortly after his entire family were found dead in their home. The cops thought that he was dead too for a while, that maybe he'd been kidnapped after home invaders had slaughtered his wife, kids, and mom in front of them. But then the case ran on America's Most Wanted, and the cops got a bunch of calls saying that Pastor John was living in Virginia under a different name.

They go investigate, and sure enough, it's Pastor John with a fake ID, insisting he's never lived in New Jersey in his life. No prizes for the ones who guessed that Pastor John was the one who killed his family. I mean, why else would you flee and change your name? But it's the details of it that got him such a steep conviction. Because he planned the whole thing to a T first. For instance, he obviously didn't want the bodies to be found for a while after he killed them. So he went about canceling the newspaper deliveries, milk deliveries,

anything that might give away the fact that no one was alive in there anymore. I think he even told his kids' elementary school that they were going on vacation or something too. Like the guy covered all his bases for when he made his move. Seems like he almost escaped justice too. If it wasn't for some pesky TV show. I suppose that's why they call it the long arm of the law. You can run. You can hide. But Johnny Law is gonna get you. I had this math teacher back in 7th grade who was just an all-around creep.

Even worse, he doubled as my homeroom teacher, so I was around him about every day and sometimes for hours at a time. At first he seemed kind of quirky and annoying. Like, every day before the bell he blasted classic rock songs from his computer and stood outside the door in the hallway just bopping to the music. I guess to try and look cool or something. I don't know. I guess I just understand why he was so determined to impress us and it just came off as really cringe. But as time went by, he just got worse and worse. For example, he was also a girls volleyball coach and he once said to me that I should join a team next year because I look like I had good volleyball thighs. I was 14 years old at the time, just a kid. If that was me now, I'd have called him out on it in a hot minute.

But I was so shy and nervous I just rationalized it away as him scouting out potential talent, which in a way is exactly what he was doing. One day he asked me to stay after class because he wanted to have a quick chat. His class was my last class of the day, located on the opposite side of the school to the bus stop. If he kept me too long, there'd be a chance that I'd miss the bus. I told him that, but he reassured me that it wouldn't be any longer than a few minutes and I shouldn't worry. Class ended. I walked up to his desk. He was answering a very important email and refused to speak unless it was sent. I, having been taught to be respectful to elders, stayed standing there even as the minutes ticked by. Only once he finally spoke, all he said was

that I got a 70 on the test that we had just taken and that I should try harder next time. In hindsight, I should have said, why did I have to stay late for you to tell me that? You could have written it on the test. But again, I was young and naive. Needless to say, the bus lot was empty when I got there. I was absolutely furious. It was like he'd literally manufactured it so that I'd missed my freaking bus, but little did I know, that had been his exact plan the entire time. I walked back to his class and told him, to which he said,

ah darn, well if you give me a minute I can give you a ride home. I think I was too angry and naive to really see what that was, like of course he'd offer to give me a ride.. I think I was too angry and naive to really see what that was, like, of course he'd offer to give me a ride. It was his freaking fault that I missed the bus. I turned down his offer, telling him that I'd walk home. He insisted, but I marched off before I said anything I might regret. It took me 45 minutes to walk home. I was so livid, and after that, I tried to avoid him as best I could, purely out of spite. And for some reason, he was happy to give me that distance. Now I know with hindsight it's really easy to see what's going on, but you have to put yourself in

my shoes. This was a time when kids like me just shut up and did as they were told. Teachers always had your best interests at heart and punishments at school just extended home too. When your teacher was mad, your parents were mad and boy did they ever let you know it. So I just shut up about it and the following year, I didn't have any classes with him so I just sort of forgot about the whole thing, not really realizing the significance of it until years later. I think it was like four years afterwards that I'd heard. I was definitely in my senior year of high school, but the word went around some of the girls that had attended that middle school

that the old math teacher was a perv. I mean, tell me something I don't know, right? But then I heard that there had been an actual conviction. He was headed down to a state prison to do some serious time. But it was only when I'd heard how he did it that I was like, dear God. He touched one of his students after giving her a ride home after school. And when the cops talked to her, the girl said he deliberately kept her behind so that she had to accept the ride. The girl lived like 25 miles away, not walking distance like me, and it was scary thinking that as I walked out of his

classroom, he must have been like, need to adjust the plan. I was so close to being that girl. That poor girl he'd finally managed to corner with his sick little tactic, and to me, that's no different than dodging a bullet. I had a sixth grade teacher who turned out to be an actual psychopath. And the worst thing is, we pretty much called it too. Lord knows why a woman might get into teaching when she seemed to hate kids so much. Like I'm pretty sure Mrs. Warmus was never the most mature person in any room, and that includes classrooms full of 12-year-olds. She was mean too, incredibly vindictive,

and we always kind of joked about how she might actually just snap and go berserk one day. Like that movie Carrie but it's a teacher and she's barely been provoked before she just locks all the kids in the gym and burns the school down. As hard as it might be to believe, not everyone found Mrs. Wormus as repulsive as we did. And although we didn't find out until after she moved on, she was actually having an affair with another one of the teachers, a music teacher named Mr. Solomon. One night, Miss Wormus arranges a secret date with her married lover at their discreet downtown eatery of choice. But before she goes to meet him,

Miss Wormus drives over to Mr. Solomon's house, not to go meet him, but to go meet his wife. Now before all you girls jump the gun and think it's two sisters trapping the love rat, it wasn't that kind of visit. Miss Wormus knocks on the door and when Mrs. Solomon answers, she pistol whips her and proceeds to shoot her over and over in the legs. Not to kill her, more like to torture her before she bled to death. Then, she goes inside, wipes some of the blood off her legs, then goes to meet her lover like nothing had happened at all. I heard he wanted to break up with her and she'd been horrified at the idea.

So as a little screw you, she decided that if she couldn't have him, neither could his wife. The whole thing always reminds me that sometimes a-holes just seem like a-holes. Annoying, but kind of harmless. But sometimes, they actually go on to hurt or kill people. Unchecked, a person like that just continues to become less human and more monster every single day, until it's too late to do anything about it. To be continued... The caller replied that someone was trying to kill her. In a display of brutal honesty, the young woman admitted that she was a working girl and that a call to a client had gone horribly wrong. She added that she had successfully fled his apartment, but that she was terrified that he might be following her. When asked her location, the caller replied she was in the area of Ocean Parkway in Oak Beach,

a small community located on the eastern side of Jones Beach Island. Since Oak Beach is built around the small stretch of 15-mile-long Ocean Parkway, the dispatcher told the young woman to make her way to a well-lit, open space near the highway. The plan was to position the girl in such a bright and public place that it might deter her attacker from making a move, but it also allowed nearby police units to race down the highway until the caller could see and hear their blaring lights and sirens. Again, such police activity would surely deter any potential attackers. Towards the end of their conversation, the caller is said to have said to the dispatcher Okay, I can see the cops now, thank you so much

The dispatcher then relayed the information to the patrol car Telling them the girl would be just a few hundred yards ahead of them The caller once again thanked the dispatcher Then hung up the phone Apparently just seconds away from flagging down the incoming officers But those officers say they didn't see any female in her early 20s standing by the side of the parkway. In fact, they didn't see anyone at all. They continued to prowl up and down the highway for a while just to make sure they hadn't missed anything, but there was nothing.

The cops in question hoped for the best. After all, there was a chance she'd been picked up by a friend or a co-worker. Maybe she'd even caught a cab or found some other method of escape. But regardless, the girl's name and description were passed along to homicide and missing persons as the potential Jane Doe. Seven months later, their worst fears came true. On the morning of December 11th, 2010, Officer John Malia and his trained cadaver dog, Blue, were hard at work. They had been tasked with searching the surrounding area for any signs of the missing girl, and for the past half a year, they had been systematically searching and eliminating

grid square after grid square in a comprehensive search for her remains. Over the course of the summer, he had unsuccessfully searched several gated beach communities in the area for any sign of the missing girl. But each time, despite scouring one or two areas that he thought were of particular interest, he had no luck. This wasn't for any lack of trying or skill either. Blue, his trusted German shepherd, was a veritable expert in finding decomposing bodies. Even if they had been buried up to a depth of around six or seven feet, Blue would paw at the ground and bark, and he wasn't often mistaken. This is why, on that chilly December morning, when Blue began to alert towards the beach near Ocean Parkway, John trusted Blue to bring him results. Lo and behold, the decaying corpse of a 24-year-old

female were found in an unmarked, shallow grave in the sandy earth. But that wasn't the only set of remains that Blue alerted to that day. Even with the thick vegetation and light layer of snow, the area on the opposite side of the highway proved to be nothing less than a graveyard, with blue alerting every couple of feet. Not only were Shannon Gilbert's remains found, but the body of the missing Melissa Bartholomew was found, reduced to nothing more than a skeleton interred in a burlap sack. Police managed to recover three other bodies in the grassy area, that of Maureen Brainerd, Megan Waterman, Amber Costello,

and the missing Shannon Gilbert, who Officer Malia had originally been looking for. All were within just 500 feet from one another. The following March, during the recovery of the other five bodies, the remains of one Jessica Taylor were found in a shallow grave at the side of Ocean Parkway. This was extremely worrying for investigators because what they only described as partial remains belonging to Jessica had been found eight years earlier over in nearby Manorville. It was looking more and more likely that the cops had a serial

killer on their hands, as three additional sets of remains were unearthed over the following month, including those of an unidentified female toddler, an unidentified Asian trans woman, and Valerie Mack, whose partial remains had been previously found in Manorville in November of 2000. Despite mounting evidence of a serial killer being at work, it took until November of 2011 for law enforcement to announce that they believed one person to be responsible for all ten murders, that the person is most likely a native of Long Island, and that there'd be a $25,000 reward for any information leading to their arrest. As of December 2015, the Suffolk County Police had been assisted in the investigation by a number of FBI agents. The FBI stepping in was preceded by the disturbing revelation that former police commissioner James Burke

had been blocking FBI involvement in the so-called Long Island serial killer murders and had been doing so for years. Burke resigned shortly after the scandal broke, and his reasoning behind blocking the FBI is yet to be determined. But the fact that a man so high up in the police hierarchy could deny such cases of vital material and human resources is deeply confounding. Whether or not he was trying to cover up the murders, or it was foolish pride that had him eschewing any federal assistance, it's anyone's guess. But Burke was sentenced to 46 months in prison in November of 2016 on charges of assault and conspiracy. Local police and FBI agents worked steadily on the case for almost two years before

a Suffolk County prosecutor announced that John Bittroff, a carpenter from Manorville, was suspect in at least one of the murders. Bittroff had been convicted in May of that year of the murders of two female escorts in 1993 and 1994, and in June 2019, homicide detectives proposed steps to use genetic genealogy to identify the unidentified victims and possibly the Long Island serial killer himself. It's unknown that any such tests have taken place, but if they have, they certainly didn't implicate Bittroff any further, as no further attempts to charge him seemed to have been made. Those affected by the murders had to wait years for any additional information. But in January of 2020, Suffolk County police released images of a belt found at the crime scene,

one embossed with either the letters HM or WH, depending on the orientation of the belt, and posed in black leather. Police believed that the belt may well belong to the Long Island serial killer himself, but would not comment on exactly where the belt was found. However, they did mention the new scientific evidence was being used in the investigation, and they had launched GilgoNews.com, a website enabling Suffolk County Sheriff's Office to share news and receive tips regarding the investigation. Even though John Bittroff had a history of murdering working girls, the complete dearth of physical evidence means we're forced to consider other suspects and the murder of some, if not all, of the victims.

Homicide detectives briefly considered Joseph Brewer, an Oak Beach resident, to be a suspect given that he was one of the last people known to have seen Shannon Gilbert alive. It was he that apparently hired her as an escort from Craigslist on the night of her disappearance and told police that shortly after Shannon arrived at his residence, she began acting erratically and he made no contact with her after she fled his home. Shannon was reportedly seen running through Oak Beach, pounding on the doors of homes in Brewer's neighborhood. Around this time, Shannon called 911 saying that they were trying to kill her. Police, however, did not find any evidence of wrongdoing, and Brewer was quickly

cleared as a suspect. It does raise the question, though, if she was looking for refuge, would she not have simply stayed at Joseph's place? Why expose herself at such an apparently perilous moment? It also came to light that just two days after Shannon was declared missing, an Oak Beach resident named Peter Hackett had telephoned Shannon's mother to inform her that he was taking care of her. When she asked what he meant by that, he told her that he ran a home for wayward girls. When pressed, he hung up. He flatly denied this phone call ever took place when the police paid him a visit, but investigators proved though that Hackett had indeed called Shannon's mother using his cell phone records. It seemed all too much of a coincidence that Shannon's body was

found just a stone's throw away from Hackett's home residence too, and her family have stated on multiple occasions that they believe he had something to do with their daughter's death. However, police later learn that Hackett had a history of inserting himself into or exaggerating his role in certain major events, and that he had done exactly the same thing with a number of other high-profile murders and disappearances around the wider New York area. Hackett later left town and seems to have been completely rolled out as a suspect by investigating police. This leads us back to former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke,

who, if you remember, resigned his position and eventually went to prison for a series of corruption scandals. In December 2016, Shannon's family discovered that an escort had approached the police to state that she suspected that Burke might be connected to the Long Island serial killer case, confirming something they had long suspected. The escort stated that she had attended a party in Oak Beach in April of 2011, and it was at this party that she saw none other than James Burke in attendance. Not only did Burke proposition her at said party, but she also witnessed him engaging in some disturbingly violent behavior. According to her, Burke was seen dragging a woman of Asian descent along a carpeted floor by the hair. This appalling display was stopped by other partygoers,

but the other girls present came to learn that Burke's violent behavior was caused by him being unable to climax during his time with the girl. The girl in question wasn't even a working girl and the argument had only stemmed because he'd, according to her, tried to throw a few hundred dollars at me following the encounter. I told him I wasn't a working girl and that's when he got violent. It was evident that by this point, not only did Burke make a habit of soliciting and visiting escorts, he was also prone to violence whenever things didn't go his way. As of the time of writing, the identity of the Long Island serial killer remains a mystery,

and for all we know, he is still very much at large. The disturbing aspects of former police chief James Burke's behavior might well just be a coincidence, and the Long Island serial killer might well turn out to be someone entirely different. But given his attempts to block FBI involvement, the murderer of 10 to 16 young women might well be one of his own blood relatives, perhaps an old friend of his who might at one point have been involved in law enforcement. It's certainly disturbing to discover an active serial killer, especially one with apparent ties to police corruption. And even though the killing seemed to have subsided in the wake of intensive investigation, the Long Island serial killer may just be waiting and watching, biding his time, before he can strike again. I have family over in Australia, so for two Christmases when I was a teenager, we packed up our stuff and traveled all the way from the UK to Brisbane to spend a month with them.

The second month we spent with them when I was 19 was honestly the best four weeks of my life. The first visit when I was 14, not so much. It wasn't because I didn't get on with my cousins, they were wonderful, like little replicas of me and my brother, just with Aussie accents. And it definitely wasn't because of the weather or food or anything like that. No, my first trip to Australia was a nightmare because of, you guessed it, the wildlife. Because of the airy and the time of year, my Aussie uncle Tommy warned us of mostly about brown snakes. He told my parents to keep kids away from the garage, the shed, any overgrown areas because not only were brown snakes very venomous, they were really bloody aggressive too. So for the first week or so of being there, I'm avoiding any bushes or long grass like the plague, just praying I don't bump into anything slithery or bitey while playing in the well-pruned garden

with my cousins. Only this time, we're playing on the beach and I suddenly need a wee. But instead of thinking to go in the ocean, I slink off behind some trees to pull aside my bathing costume and do my business. But no sooner am I in the foliage, I see this massive snake all curled up. I don't know for certain if it was a brown snake or not, but I definitely wasn't about to stick around to find out. I bolt off back in the direction of the beach, screaming about the snake, and this freaks my parents out a bit while my cousin takes off to do a stand-up wee in the water. Not my proudest or most graceful moment, but far better than squatting next to a friggin' snake. My point is, I think I'm safe at

the beach. I can go deep in the water, can't go into the bushes, but there on the beach it was actually safe. So after a late lunch of beachside barbecue, I wandered off to some rock pools not far from where we were all camped under the shade of our canopies. I'm alone, just dipping my toes in the cool water while eating one of those cheap ice pop things, literally thinking to myself, this place is alright if you ignore the snakes, I wouldn't mind coming back sometime. Then as I'm waving my feet around in the water, the swirling is kicking up some of the sand at the bottom of this rock and suddenly I see something tiny swim

up around my toes. I obviously reacted with fear at first, pulling my feet out and peering down into the water to see what it was. Then to my absolute delight, I saw the tiniest little creature swimming through the water. A tiny little creature that I assumed was a baby octopus. I mean it was so small that it looked like it'd fit in the palm of my hand, and seeing its little legs kicking in such a cute coordinated way, oh my god, I just had to pick it up to get a closer look. I started trying to scoop it out of the water with cupped hands. It takes me a few tries but I eventually manage it. Only once it's

out of the water and I'm staring down at the cute little guy wriggling around in my hands, my mind is blown when it actually changes color. I had no idea that octopi could do that. Chameleons sure, but octopi too, that's amazing. It went from yellow with black spots to black spots being filled with these almost luminously blue colored rings and was honestly one of the most amazing magical things I'd ever seen with my own eyes. Then right when I'm in the middle of admiring the thing, I feel this tiny little nip in my palm. No more painful than a sharp pinch. The jabs I had to get to visit Australia in the first place were more painful, so I didn't really think all that much of it. Like maybe the little guy's tentacle had suckered me a bit too hard or something.

I dropped the little guy back in the rock pool then set off back towards where the families were. It was only maybe half a football pitch back to them and then halfway through the walk, I started to take a funny turn. I think the first thing I noticed was a kind of numbness in my lips and tongue. My mouth was dry so I tried licking my lips only to find I had less and less feeling in them by the second. I put this down to the ice pop but as I carried on walking, I felt increasingly nauseous and tired to the point by the time I got back to the families, I just collapsed down onto my bum. Obviously they were all saying, Jenny are you alright? And things like that but when I tried to tell them I wasn't feeling very well, I could barely get the words out. My throat was dry, I could

barely swallow and second by second I'm feeling more and more numb all over, until eventually I just collapsed back into the sand. Not everyone around it looked like I'd just passed out, but in reality I was wide awake and fully conscious. I couldn't move, but I could hear everything they were saying about calling 000, the Aussie emergency number. Those were some of the most terrifying moments of my life, not just because I was somehow paralyzed, but because it was getting harder and harder to breathe. I'm slowly becoming so paralyzed that my respiratory system is shutting down, but I can't tell anyone. Honestly, just writing this is so difficult for me because although it was so long ago and patches of the

next few days are blurry, I can still remember the feeling of terror that came from being certain that I was about to die. So like I said, totally paralyzed but my eyes are open ever so slightly, so I can't really feel what's going on, but I can see when I'm being moved around by people if that makes sense. I can also see when someone leaning down over my face and gets in really, really close. Then suddenly, that feeling of tightness in my chest is gone and it takes me a second or two to figure how, but realize that someone is giving me CPR. I start to make out actual voices at that point, sort of tuning into each one,

and I worked out that people were obviously trying to save my life, but they weren't family members. But the scariest bit was hearing one of them say, I think she's gone, mate. I'm thinking, oh my god, no, no, no, no, please don't stop, please, god, check my pulse or something. Obviously, that's exactly what they did, or I wouldn't be here now to write this. But the sheer bloody relief when I heard, she's still with us, before I could actually, suddenly, breathe again. I can't even put into words, really. After that, I don't remember anything.

I think I woke up in the hospital on a respirator, but I honestly think I could have just dreamed that because the next time I actually woke up, I was breathing on my own, and almost the entire family was in the hospital ready to welcome me back. I still had no idea what had happened to me, and my memory was in shambles. Even being in a hospital freaked me out at first, so that was one of the first things that I asked when I woke up. How did I get here? And the answer to the question came down to three little words. Blue, ringed, octopus. There are probably people reading this who are screaming, oh my god, no, no, no, as soon as I picked up that cute little eight-limbed guy. I thought it was a baby,

but no. Fully grown, adult blue-ringed octopus, and they're some of the most dangerous animals on the face of the earth. That was actually a story I saw a while ago from a tourist from America. She'd picked up a blue-ringed octopus just like I did while holidaying in Australia, having no idea what it was, only to be told after that it could have killed her in minutes. Hearing about that didn't half bring some bad memories. It's a tiny little animal whose venom can shut your entire body down in minutes, leaving you a prisoner in your own mind as your lungs slowly cease to function. Sounds like an absolute nightmare, doesn't it? Like

something out of an alien invasion film or something. But it exists, it happened to me, and I only barely survived it. So please, if you're taking your kids to Australia, please properly educate yourself on the various dangers that might present themselves in any particular setting. That's exactly what I plan to do with my kids anyway, so Australia for three weeks to help prep for the Cricket World Cup. basically amounted to a paid holiday as most days we'd finish whatever was on the agenda by noon and just take the afternoons off whenever we could, collecting full pay in the process. So one of these afternoons I'd decided to go to the beach. I'd heard the waves were quite calm at that time of the month and it made for some lovely gentle swimming conditions. It was apparently calm enough for a class full of school kids to have some kind of

swimming lesson, which was a far cry from the chlorine-stinking acid baths we had to learn in when I was a lad. So there I am, lounging in the surf, doing a bit of doggy paddle up and down, and generally just counting my blessings. Maybe 30 or 40 minutes go by and I'm having a whale of a time, probably looking like one too, when I hear this siren type thing go off. I look up and see all the school kids getting out of the water and I assume that their lesson is over. Me on the other hand, I'm not nearly ready to get out of the water so I carry on doing my gentle backstroke and generally soaking up the tropics. Again, the siren goes off, but I take no notice, having made up my mind that it didn't apply to me, so I carry on with my backstroke,

pushing myself further and further out of the shallows. Then, out of nowhere, I hear this voice blaring out over what I'm pretty sure was a megaphone. Oi, oi, mate, it said. I hear this voice blaring out over what I'm pretty sure was a megaphone. Oi, oi mate. It said. Might wanna get out of the water, siren's just gone. I reel up, feet touching the sandy bottom and do this kind of double take like, who, me?

Yeah, yeah you. It's then I see there's been a lifeguard on the beach the whole time and he's wandered down to the sand to shout at me. Time to get out. I shout back. No thank you, I'm not quite finished yet. The guy tried to call out to me again, but I think his megaphone seized up for a second because he gave it a little shake trying again. The whole time I'm just stood there awfully perplexed thinking, is this something that happens in Australia that can just call time when you're swimming? What kind of nonsense is this? Again, the guy starts telling me to get out of the water and it's at that point that I start losing my

temper and moving to get out just to give him a piece of my mind. Only right as I do, I hear the lifeguard say, You need to get out urgently. There's a great white mate, a shark in the water. Two people have walked on water to my knowledge, Jesus Christ and me. The day I heard that there was a shark in the water with me, I move faster than feces off a grease shovel, and I gave the lifeguard my sincere thanks and apologized that I didn't quite know the drill. Still makes me shudder just to think about it, knowing it was there but never seeing it. And next time I think I'll pay a little bit more attention to the rules and customs, especially what involves giant man-eating

fish. Many years ago, my husband and I took our kids on vacation to Sri Lanka. The flights were quite tough on them. I remember my son puking his guts up because his blood sugar was so low, and my little girl's ears popped so bad that she cried for the entire descent into Colombo. I promised them that it'd be worth it, but I was also terrified that they'd just end up hating it once we were there. But thank god, my son was sold on the idea as soon as he saw some of the wildlife, and when my daughter saw miles upon miles of gorgeous sandy beaches,

she too suddenly forgot how grim the 17 hour flight was. So, at one point, my husband is off taking my son down some jungle-side roads in what was basically a walking safari tour, while me and our daughter relaxed on the beach. Anna had just turned six, so she was just a little ball of energy who burned herself out digging in the sand and playing in the surf. So as long as I keep an eye, and plenty of sunblock on her, I was free to just relax and soak up the sun. Then at one point, I was free to just relax and soak up the sun. Then at one point,

I just hear, Mommy, Mommy, look! Doggy! I open my eyes and feel them straining from the intense sunlight, but there, clear as day, just a few hundred yards down the beach, was a dog. Anna loved dogs, and she'd point them out wherever she went, a trait that I can assure you has never left her. So I just gave her a, oh isn't that nice honey, just remember they might not want to be petted like our dogs. I know that sounds weird but one of the things we were warned was that there's no mass vaccination of animals in Sri Lanka, not to mention very little in the ways of formal dog training. That meant that not

only were they considerably more likely to bite you should you catch one in a bad mood, but it meant that that bite could lead to some very, very nasty infections. But try explaining that to a six-year-old. So me and my husband just went with what amounted to Sri Lankan dogs can get very grumpy because of the heat and they don't like being petted like Nana's dog does. Knowing how grumpy and tense heat made her, she ate up our excuse without many questions. So, like I said, I acknowledged the dog then just closed my eyes again and carried on sunbathing. A minute later I hear, Mommy, mommy, look, another doggie.

Again, I open my eyes, make myself a little sun visor with my hand and look down the beach to see two dogs this time. They're both these blonde mongrel things, their breed indistinguishable as the result of probably hundreds of years of unchecked breeding. They hadn't caused us any trouble at that point, because as much as they were actually wild dogs, they were still quite chilled out. The beach cafes fed them leftovers to keep them sweet, so they spent most of their days just sleeping to beat the heat. Trouble was, they were decidedly unpredictable, and could be your average tail wagging good boy one minute, then something distinctly different the next. So, as I said, I look up to see two dogs this time. They were playing in the sand, getting close to the water then rushing back

whenever a wave crashed in. Admittedly, it was very sweet, so I watched them playing for a minute before my eyes began to close over again. A bit more time goes by, longer than between the first two of Anna's dog sightings, then all of a sudden, I hear, Mommy, Mommy, look, look Mommy. This time, Anna is much further down the beach than the first two times she'd called me, and there's not one or two additional dogs in the beach. There's an entire pack of them. There must have been about 20 different dogs on the beach for the third time I opened my eyes. There was a tiny little Jack Russell, some long-eared Spaniel type, dogs of all shapes and sizes. But the one that was apparently leading the pack was this giant, moody-looking Doberman. It was quite surreal, actually, seeing a pack of feral dogs

just wandering around together like that. I can't speak for everyone, but where I'm from, you'd never actually see a stray dog roaming the streets, or not at least anymore. A lost dog maybe, but a legitimate pack of strays? Not a chance. But in Sri Lanka, seeing what appeared to be a live-action version of an all-canine Disney film was a relatively common occurrence. At first, I give a little chuckle and reach for my phone to get a picture. But just as I do, I give the whole scene another look. Six-year-old daughter, pack of stray dogs. She's slowly wandering towards them. They're paying her increasingly more attention as more and more dogs stop playing and begin to look in her direction. It was this huge uh-oh moment.

And as it hit me, I got up, took my flip-flops off in preparation to run, and started calmly calling out for Anna to walk back to me. I got up, took my flip-flops off in preparation to run, and started calmly calling out for Anna to walk back to me. I tried my best to keep calm, I really did, but Anna must have been able to just detect the panic in my voice. She stops to look around at me, this nervous look on her face, and as she does, the dogs start walking down the beach towards her one by one. I was saying, walk back to mommy, Anna. Walk back to mommy. Trying to emphasize the walking part because I knew the dog would only chase her if she ran. They were all staring her down, ears pricked up, and I'm praying for them to just stay put, but as Anna looked back, saw that they were closer, and started to run. They gave chase. What I felt next I don't think I can even call it fear.

I had to put myself in between those dogs and my daughter even if it meant me getting hurt. That's just what a mother does. I wouldn't even say I'm a particularly brave person, but I didn't think twice twice and I suppose that just speaks to the power of motherly instincts. I sprint forward, position myself between Anna and the charging dogs, then begin banging my flip-flops together, screaming. I wave my arms in the air, jumped up and down, banging the flip-flops intermittently and I must have looked like an absolute maniac but my god did it work. If all those dogs just carried on rushing me, they could have taken me down in seconds,

but my wild display had them literally stopping in their tracks. Or rather, once I'd managed to psych the Doberman out, the rest lost their spunk. I still remember it like it was yesterday. Seeing him or her make this goofy, scared dog face before it literally skidded in the sand, turned tail, and ran away. As I turned around to comfort the now hysterical Anna, I realized that pretty much everyone that was sunbathing, chilling in beachside cafes, or swimming had emerged to watch. And I do mean watch. Not a single one of them came to check on us and in the end, it was actually some little Sri Lankan surfer type that ran over to ask if we were okay. He was swiftly followed by the owner of the cafe we'd been

visiting. He checks us over, sees that we haven't been bitten, then invites us back up to the cafe's patio. Within seconds, he presents my daughter with a huge bowl of chocolate ice cream, and the man was a genius in my mind. She went from absolutely inconsolable to gently sobbing to fine within about 15 minutes. Don't get me wrong, she was still a bit freaked out following the whole thing, anyone would be. But we palmed her off by saying they just wanted to play. But they might get a little rough so it's best to stay near mommy and daddy whenever there's lots of doggies around. This made sense to her and she was back to thinking Sri Lanka was the best place ever in no time.

I suppose this has been a quite long-winded way of saying that no, it's not a terrible idea to take your kids on vacation to more exotic places. Yes, there can be risks, but I honestly feel like the net benefit is high enough to make it totally worth it. Just be sure to do your research, and remember that a seemingly harmless situation can turn into a dangerous one in a remarkably uncomfortable amount of time. To be continued... many of you have seen by now, I'm out of the hospital. Maddie's in critical condition, but he's stable, and I'm sure with any luck he'll be out soon too. I've got something serious to say though. A lot of people have been asking questions on here, and I've seen a lot of things flying around social media that just aren't true. I know this post might be a wall of text, but I really do

feel like I need to set the record straight on a few things. As you all know, me, Maddie, and my little cousin Paul went down to Crosby Beach over the weekend to enjoy some of the nice weather we've been having. We went down on Sunday afternoon with a few beers and a disposable barbecue, purely with the intention of having a nice little scran and some bevvies. I want to make that abundantly clear. We weren't going looking for trouble. This isn't part of some mad gang beef and we don't live like that. We're not thugs. We just went down to the beach on a nice sunny afternoon to have a good time and it turned into an absolute nightmare. We got there, had our little barbecue, then because the wind picked up a bit bit we moved into what was basically

a pit among the sand dunes. We were there for quite a while listening to music and drinking cans and it's coming up to nine at night. It was still dead sunny out and the beach was basically deserted apart from the last few families and groups packing up their stuff. We stayed long after they left and around about the time the sun was starting to set, Paul runs up to the top of the dunes and tells us he can see someone walking towards us from way off down the beach. Paul said the man was on his own, just walking down the beach. Then he stops and starts looking at Paul.

That's what he said anyway, like he stopped dead in the sand and turned a bit as if he just spotted him, and then he started walking towards us. I was asking who it was, but Paul said he didn't recognize the bloke and continued to watch him approach us before backing down into the dune pit with us, saying he's coming. I'm quite nervous at this point, but when the bloke appeared at the top of the dune, he looked perfectly normal and just said hello to us. We exchanged a few words, told him we were just having a few cans. He then nodded in approval, asking us if we'd had a good day. It was basic small talk like that.

Then out of nowhere, he asked if we believed in God. There was a bit of a pause where all three of us could tell that something was a bit off about him. I mean, that's just not something you ask someone seconds after meeting them, is it? I didn't want to offend the fella or anything, so I told him I keep an open mind. And Paul said no, but Maddy said yeah, he did, that he went to Catholic school and his nan was from Ireland and all this. The bloke didn't seem very interested in our answers, but hearing Matty say that he was Catholic seemed to get his attention. The fella just starts staring at him and it's so awkward that Matty has to ask if he believes in God in return, just to fill the awkward silence. The fella doesn't reply.

He just pointed at Maddie and said, It's you. Maddie asked if they'd met before, then started to apologize if he didn't remember him, but as he's doing this, the lad started walking down into the pit. As he gets to the bottom, he says, I'm sorry, I just need a bit, it's only a bit. And I think he's about to rob a can off us, or worse, mug us for our wallets or whatever.

But he keeps walking through the sand towards Maddie and that's when I hear our Paul shout that he had a knife. I only saw him stab Maddie once before I rushed him, but I know he was trying to stab him again as he went down. I tried to pull the knife away from Maddy, but the guy only used my momentum against me and brought it down into my leg just above my knee. Feeling it stop after hitting bone was the most horrible part, and I'm really, really lucky that it didn't cause more bleeding than it did. After he pulled the knife out of my leg, he actually looked down and said, sorry, but as he looked at the knife, which was covered in mine and Maddie's blood, he smiled. I honestly thought he was going to finish us both off there and then, like this man is obviously not well, but for some reason he didn't. He wasn't saying sorry because he was going to finish this off. He was just saying it before he ran up the dune and disappeared.

Paul got out his phone and started dialing 999 and for a minute I just focused on putting pressure on the stab wound near my knee. But then I looked over at Matty and saw that he was in much worse condition. He'd been stabbed in the stomach, so I used my t-shirt to soak up the bleeding and put a bit of pressure on it until the ambulance arrived. I thought they'd just send an actual ambulance out for us, but when I saw that they'd sent a bloody helicopter, like an air ambulance, I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life before. Like why would they send something like that if Maddie's life or my life wasn't in serious danger? I got seen to by nurses, but Maddie went straight for an operation to repair the damage the stab

wound had done, and that's the last time I saw him awake. I went to his room in the hospital on the day I was discharged, but he was out for the count and the nurses told me not to wake him up. The operations were a success though, I've not heard about any complications or anything, so I'm hoping he'll make a full recovery. He'll have a nasty scar on his belly though, same as I got on my leg. As for the attacker, none of us had seen him before, and as much as we gave the police some quite detailed descriptions of him, he's not been picked up to my knowledge. We haven't gotten some secret feud we're not telling anyone about, we don't sell drugs, we're not in a gang, nothing like that. This was a totally random attack. I need to make that clear.

If anyone saw a bloke walking around Crosby on Sunday night, wearing all black training gear, please contact Merseyside Police. He had brown hair, dark blue or brown eyes, medium height with a skinny build and spoke with a quite thick accent. You can contact DSO with any tips and the whole thing will be in Wednesday's Echo. Please don't hesitate to help us catch who did this. They're very, very dangerous and they almost took Maddie's life.

If we don't get them into custody, someone else could get hurt and it could be bad. Once, when I was a kid, my family drove me out to a relative's caravan so we all could go to the beach. This beach was nothing more than a seawall and some shale, but since the tide was in, you could actually get in the water, have a little swim in that. Hardly some white sandy Caribbean island or anything, but it was still good fun. I was a bit gutted that I wouldn't be able to build any sandcastles, but when I laid eyes on this little inflatable dinghy that my cousin had with him, I soon forgot about the sandcastles. My auntie suggested that me and Mark go for a little paddle in the dinghy, something I was only too keen to do. So we pushed out into the water, climbed in,

then pushed off with our two little plastic oars until we were actually rowing around. The grown-ups shouted over on more than one occasion for us not to paddle out too far, and I really do remember us trying to restrain ourselves. But the more we got the hang of rowing in unison and all that, the more we were just whizzing up and down the beach, and the more confident we got in our abilities. Before we knew it, our parents were getting smaller and smaller on the horizon and at one point, we both sort of freaked out about being out so far and decided to row our way back. We weren't too scared at that point, like it was more exciting than anything else, but then, as far as getting back to the shore, that proved much

easier said than done. There came a point where both of us realized that although we were rowing our hardest, we weren't really making much progress. I remember looking to my left and right trying to gauge if we were getting any closer but it was too hard to discern so I just shrugged it off and kept rowing. But then it got to the point where just rowing got to be really difficult. And no matter how hard we rowed, we just slowly started drifting off back into the open waters. Someone from the shore must have seen this and shouted for us to row back, but then my uncle Jack, who knew a thing or two about the sea and its currents and what not,

he kicks off his shoes, pulls off his shirt and immediately runs into the water to swim out to us. Seeing him act like that was what really clued me into the fact that we were in some kind of serious trouble. Because the whole reason we couldn't make any progress was actually because the sea was literally dragging us away with some current just below the surface. So, me and Mark are kind of freaking out by the time his dad reaches us. I think we must have been 5 and 7 respectively, so we were in total panic thinking we were about to be lost at sea for the rest of our lives or whatever and we only calmed down when my uncle starts dragging us back towards the shore. It was obviously quite a big

ordeal and I remember the next time we visited there were little signs up on the lamppost saying caution strong current or something. My auntie was all like, see that? That's because of you, too. Scared me half to death that day. We all had a little chuckle about it, but I distinctly remember thinking, but never saying lest I risk a beating, you weren't the one who was about to get sucked out into the Atlantic, Auntie Claire. And I don't know, as much as it's something we all laugh about now, I can't help but think that there's like an alternate timeline where the grown-ups didn't notice how far out we were, and by the time they did, it was too late.

I mean, sure, they'd get the lifeboat rescue out to find us, and knock on wood we'd have been okay anyway. But I always wonder how close we really were to becoming front page news the following morning, and not for good reasons. To be continued... Back when I was about 11, I was at the beach with my brother and cousins, just having a grand old time swimming and letting the waves take us out in the most comical ways possible. I wouldn't describe myself as athletic in any sense, but I've always been a decent enough swimmer, so when we all decided to start swimming further away from the shore, I was pretty confident of being able to get back. And so, we went on, the shoreline becoming smaller and smaller the further we went out and swam. Before we realized it, the sun was beginning to set and in what seemed only a few minutes, the waves, which were already very tall to begin with, were easily triple the size of 15-year-old me. Once our moms became aware of the rough waters, they hurried to call us back to shore and for once, no one argued. Everyone was getting freaked out at how powerful the waves were getting,

so having our moms call us was all the excuse anyone needed to abandon our little daredevil endeavors. For my brother and cousins, all of whom are taller and older than me, pulling themselves out of the water was a relatively easy task. But as I tried to follow, swimming and swimming with all my might, I didn't seem to get any closer to the shoreline. In fact, within a few minutes of paddling away, I was actually further away from the shore than I previously was. The waves had begun pulling my body backwards into the ocean without me being aware of it. I could even hear the lifeguard's whistle telling us to get out of the water. That's when I felt that particular heartbeat in my chest. The one you feel when you're about to ask a girl you like out.

The kind that you feel when you're about to reveal to your parents the bad grades you got at school. The kind of heartbeat that indicates fear. As soon as I felt it, I realized I was in big, big trouble. I was going to become another one of those drowned kid at the beach tales mothers told their sons as a way to keep them close to the shore. My brother was completely out of sight along with my cousins and I was still there, trapped by the waves that constantly grabbed my feet and pulled it deeper into the ocean. I was panicked. I wasn't sure when or if my family would go to the lifeguard for help.

Against uncertainty, I decided that I had no choice but to keep trying to swim back to shore, and that I did. It was hard, very hard, and if you ask me how I did it today, I'll tell you that I was one clever SOB. And maybe the problem wasn't as bad as I had believed it to be. Once I was able to calm down again, I knew that all those tales of drowned people always went bad when they started panicking. So I took a deep breath and began doing this little technique. Whenever the waves pulled, I'd swim slowly, trying to maintain the ground I was in, and when the waves pushed, I gave it all.

I swam as fast as I could, thinking, and to this day I have no idea if I was right, that the momentum of the waves plus my efforts would help me reach the shore again. Soon, I could feel the sand running across my toes once again. Only a few seconds passed before my chest laid on a thin sheet of sand and a few more passed before I could walk on it. It felt like pure bliss. I felt like aquatic bear grills for being able to come up with such a solution and was eager to tell my mom and cousins about it. Soon, of course, reality hit me again. I was received with a slap by my mother who continued to rant about how she told me not to go so far away, how they were about to call the lifeguards and how dumb I had been to disobey.

My family laughed at me as my mother yelled and I soon learned that I had only spent a grand total of about 10 minutes in the water. The point is, I know the beach can seem like fun, safe place to spend the summer but it has all kinds of unseeable hazards that kids really should know more about. If they did, maybe you wouldn't have so many tragedies involving kids getting swept away or bitten by sea snakes or whatever. I mean, you never know what's in there, lurking just beneath the surface, but sometimes, like in my case, it's the tide itself that wants to kill you. Okay, so this is going to be something of a wild ride, so strap in. I went to quite a well-known college in a major east coast city. I was on a four-year course and for my junior year I ended up living

with another student in an off campus apartment. I didn't actually know the guy, he was a local whereas I'm out from the midwest. He seemed chill enough and the room he was advertising in his big old apartment was a pretty sweet deal so I ended up taking him up on his offer. I don't want to give this guy's identity away. I made him a promise I intended to keep, so we'll just call him Roomie for the time being. At first, Roomie seemed like what you'd get if you gave human form to a cardboard box. The apartment was barely decorated, he barely talked to me, and he only ever ate the same flavor of ramen noodles in his room. Basically, people's idea of a dream roommate, but my god was he boring. The wildest he ever got was

having his hockey bro buddies over to watch the Rangers, but even his buddies seemed about as exciting as grey paint. Me on the other hand, I'm quite an outgoing person. A social butterfly as my girlfriend at the time called it. Although you can bet your butt I objected to the term. So as much as it was cool to live with Casper the friendly roommate, it did kind of get tedious. Living with him was great if all I wanted to do was study or work on assignments, but it wasn't like I was getting any decent anecdotes out of living with the guy. At least, that's what I wrongfully assumed anyway. So this one night, I'm out bar hopping with my girlfriend and her best friend, and like most of the other college kids, we're doing so off campus. As we're moving from place

to place, we start getting closer and closer to the city's alternative side. I think all it took was hearing one bar playing Lady Gaga before my girlfriend was freaking out and wanting to go dance. Okay, not my idea of fun, but if they sold beer, I didn't care where we went. So we walk into this gay bar where the girls have to pay cover, but yours truly gets in free. So I'm already laughing like best place ever when I see they have the freaking cults on TV behind the bar. Dude, $2 Heineken, no cover charge, and the cults on TV. I thought the girls were going to have to drag me into that place but it was looking more like they were going to have to drag me out of the place once they were done dancing. But anyway, I buy a few beers, sipping away while my girlfriend dances

and I catch up on the cult highlights when eventually I need to pee. So I get up, head off to the bathroom but blocking the hallway are these two dudes who are absolutely sucking faces off of one another. I mean, they were just going at it, totally unable to hear me saying, excuse me gentlemen, over and over again. I don't want to like scream at the dudes or anything, I'm not a jerk, so I ended up tapping one of the dudes on the shoulder like, dude come on, let a guy pass. The guy turns around to look at me, a genuine bonafide leather daddy, I believe they're called, and he looks like he's seen a ghost. Because out of all the people in this huge freaking city, who should be staring at me over his knockoff aviators? It's Rumi.

I'm halfway through saying, dude, I had no idea, when he just makes a beeline for the rear exit of the bar. It's pretty obvious what the deal is, he's still in the closet but no one on the college or family side of his life knew it so I'm shouting dude roomie don't worry bro I won't tell but nope he just goes leaving me standing there having totally forgotten about the pee I needed. The guy he'd been making out with is like, let me guess, you're the ex, right? I respond, I'm straight bro, he's my roommate. I didn't even know he was gay. The guy rolls his eyes like I was totally lying about it then walks off. But I am shell-shocked. You might call me homophobic or whatever, but I just didn't really think that there were gay guys like that. In all my ignorance,

I just kind of assumed like, if you're gay, you're flamboyant, however you want to put it. I'm sorry if that sounds terrible, I just didn't know. But monosyllabic east coast hockey bros could be gay? Dude, my mind was blown. Then, I don't know, it kind of made me a little sad. You gotta own yourself, you know? Embrace what you are. A person will never be really happy otherwise. So, I'm kind of drunk, explaining this to my girlfriend who is just like, what? And to make up my mind that I'm going to buy some beer, go back to the apartment, and then talk to Rumi about what happened. I was planning on saying all that to him, all poetic and free thinking and progressive, then we were going to hug it out and we'd be best friends forever.

But I most certainly wasn't ready for his reaction when I tried to talk to him about it. He didn't come home that night, so it wasn't until the following afternoon that we next saw each other. I wake up, feel like death from having drank the entire fifth of Jameson and six-pack that I was planning on sharing with the roomie, and shuffle into the kitchen area to find him eating at the table. Immediately, he gets up and walks his noodle cup into his bedroom. I don't, like, call after him or anything. Not at first, anyways. Jesus, I think my skull would have cracked open like an egg if I'd made any sound over ten decibels.

So, I wait until I've had some coffee and a stale donut, then I knock on his bedroom door. I hear, What? So I respond with, Dude, I think we should talk about what happened last night. Are we clear of the air a little? Silence. Not even so much as a mouse fart in there, and it's a silence that goes on for so long that, well,

I just already carried on talking, babbling about how I'm not going to say anything to anyone, but that he should really think about coming out of the closet for his own mental health or whatever. As soon as I mention the closet, I hear movement on the other side of the door, and I assume it's him having decided to come out and talk, which, in a way, he had. The door flies open, and out flies Rumi, hockey stick in hand. No, I got the beer fear real bad, so I'm jumping back away from the door almost as soon as he opened it, giving me enough distance between us that I manage to keep him at arms, or should that be sticks, length, all while he went on

this big rant about me not telling a freaking soul about what I'd seen. Now that I'm typing this up I guess there are some people that might think this is kind of funny, getting chased around an apartment by a closeted gay guy with a hockey stick. And yeah I suppose that is kind of a funny image but let me quickly and firmly reassure you that there was nothing remotely amusing in the moment, because Rumi wasn't just angry, he had murder in his eyes. Anyway, he's chasing me around, barking out stuff like, I swear to god if you ever breathe the word of what you saw ever, I'll end you. His voice was quivering while he was shouting it and it made me realize something that scared me even more. He was way more scared of being outed than he was of anything else in

the world and I mean anything, you could just tell. And when a man is that scared, when he feels that backed into a corner, he is more than capable of doing terrible, violent things. I told him no. I swore to him that I'd never, never give away his secret. And that's a promise I've kept, and one I'll always keep. Not because I'm scared of what he'll do, because it's the right thing to do. But please don't let that give you the impression that I'm not scared of Rumi because I was and still am. I thought he took me at my word, I really did, and after that, things slowly got back to normal. Better than normal sometimes, like when he ordered takeout for both of us and covered my half when I was broke. Weird behavior for him, but who turns their nose up to free food?

Not me, that's for sure. Things were looking up. Rumi was acting chill again. And so, what exactly had me moving onto my girlfriend's couch for two months with nothing but a few changes of underwear just days before that takeout incident? The answer lies in a little white plastic shopping bag that should have been in the recycling can. So, like I said, something like three days after he ordered me bulgogi, I'm taking our trash down to the dumpsters around the back of the apartments. There's a big green dumpster for general trash and then there's a smaller blue one for recycling metals, plastics, and stuff like that. Environmental stuff like that is like the

only thing I'm woke about so when I see a plastic bag in it with the general waste I'm like, come on Rumi, we talked about this. I reach in there, grab the bag and as I do, a receipt falls out of it and onto the concrete. Naturally I bend down to pick it up seeing that it's from Home Depot of all places. I didn't think Rumi had any interest in DIY at all, not if his sense of interior design was anything to go by, so what was he doing down at Home Depot? Then, as I uncrinkle the thing to see what he bought, I feel my heart just about skip a beat. Hacksaw times one, equals 695. Rumi had bought a freaking hacksaw.

And what in God's name did he need a freaking hacksaw for? He was doing a PhD in forensic psychology, for God's sakes. Seriously, just for a second, put yourself in my shoes Do you risk it? Do you honestly carry on living in that apartment with a dude who's already threatened you with violence? Who is for some reason now buying you things to keep you sweet While also investing in the one thing he'll need to dismember you And thus keep his secrets safely buried with your bones? I've had people accuse me of homophobia over this

in the past, but I couldn't care less if he was gay or not. He had a secret that he was terrified of people learning. It doesn't matter if he was cheating on his girlfriend or if he was into this weird clip-clop 4chan stuff. What mattered is that he was obviously willing to hurt me to keep it quiet. And yes, I know I might have just been blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe one of his hockey bros threw that bag in the trash and that's how it got in the general waste to begin with. Maybe I just came over all paranoid and there was a perfectly innocent explanation for his behavior. But, like I said, is that really the kind of chance you want to take really now?

Or is sleeping on a crummy folded out couch a small price to pay for knowing you're not just going to end up as a murderpedia entry? I I attended India's National Defense Academy in Pune, Maharashtra. It's basically like India's version of West Point. There are some minor differences, but both serve as our respective nation's premier military academies, so that's the easiest way to explain it. It was the middle of my second term of my first year at the NDA and we were all free to go home for the three-week break. However, instead of driving the almost 2,000-mile road trip, I decided to just stay in Pune and sign up for a three-week skydiving course instead. Seeing as I had aspirations of being a pararescue operator, flying up and jumping

out in broad daylight was not a huge deal. The first week of training was confined to the hangars and involved a lot of safety drills, theory, and failsafe procedures. It got kind of tiresome doing them over and over again, but we just needed to remind ourselves of the consequences and suddenly finding our focus wasn't so difficult anymore. The first jump was a tandem jump with an instructor and as much as it was a huge thrill, it got me looking forward to some actual solo jumps where I'd be free falling on my own. The second jump was solo and gave me a first-hand experience of the vast blue skies and how it feels to be just above everyone else, literally. The third jump was a cakewalk as well. But as they say, the scariest

things are usually the ones which we had not experienced yet, and I had no clue that jumping off of a plane at night would raise every single hair of my body for such a long time afterward. The night jump was compulsory if we were to complete the course and honestly, I had no clue that it would be like falling into an abyss and would turn out to be the single most terrifying few moments of my entire life. Don't quote me on the exact numbers as this all happened 10 years ago now, but we took off at around 0230 hours and in around 20 minutes had slowly climbed up to a height of approximately 13,000 feet. In preparation for our jump,

the plane slowed down substantially and the jump master gave us a 5 minute warning. Then, when the door was slid open, we got the 62nd warning and all stood there, watching the little red light, feeling our hearts begin to race as we waited for it to turn green. Then suddenly, go, go, go, go. There was a rush of movement and I saw people in front of me jumping one by one, shouting something which I could not hear due to the loud propellers and the wind. Until this time, I had felt really confident and I was only slightly nervous since it was my fourth jump by that point. But suddenly, it was the complete opposite. I saw the darkness outside and the fear hit me like a rushing bull. As I said, the fear really began when I reached the door and saw what lay outside the plane, or more correctly, what I couldn't see.

If you could picture nothing, it is what I saw that time, an infinite nothingness. We were jumping in a very rural area, you see, a place with not very much built up areas. This was great in one sense because we wouldn't accidentally be jumping on the power lines to die a horrible death from electricity burns, but it also had this completely unexpected effect on me, one of pure terror. And for a moment, it was almost as if I wasn't jumping out of a plane at all, more like death herself was waiting to engulf me into her deep, dark embrace. But what other choice did I have? I was the last one in line and if you fail one

single parachute jump, you don't pass the course. I jumped. I had to. I screamed. And I kept screaming, trying to scream away the fear as I felt myself plummeting into the abyss below. Suddenly, a layer of haze pierced through me and then another. There was no end to it. Time had stopped for me and I felt so scared that I just let go and felt myself peeing my pants. I was still falling down, down towards the earth at speeds that none of my organs were ever used to. I wanted it to end but it was not under my control anymore. I guess this was the worst situation to be in life, without control over yourself or your surroundings.

I was so scared that I could not even remember things I wanted to remember in my final moments. Time was still frozen. Suddenly, another layer of haze cleared and I finally saw specks of light in the distance. I had not even once looked at my height indicator, I was not in a state to, but seeing those lights helped me orient myself a little bit and gave me a sense of space. Then, bang, I pulled the cord and my chute opens and I finally begin to be slowed down. From there on it was all about my patience and my fear battling each other till I had landed abruptly on some farm outside a village. I was supposed to target a particular settlement of lights but in the rush of terror I had completely failed to navigate myself properly.

I know this isn't as scary as some of the other stories about haunted universities and whatever, but I can only say that I am glad we didn't have a ghost at NDA. But for some reason I think that night jump was my own personal brush with death, and it haunts me for almost the same reasons. A fear so great that I would rather never have to experience it for the rest of my life. I graduated from Sam Houston State University in Texas back in the early 2000s. Like most college students, I definitely encountered a handful of weird and quirky individuals, but none I'd remember like Bart. Bart wasn't his real name, it was Thomas, but since he had the middle name of Bartlett, he went by Bart because it suited him better,

and boy did it ever. He had a mischievous streak that was a mile wide and often verged on criminal. At best, he was the life and soul of the party. At worst, he seemed downright dangerous. Sometimes he got it into his head that certain people were just out to get him. And he always talked about his parents like they were the two evil tyrants in his life, when it was common knowledge that they spoiled him rotten with cars, gifts, and a free ride through college. One time, when this one kid made him mad, Bart broke into the guy's dorm and tried to steal his computer. I think he only dodged getting kicked out of school after he convinced everyone, including the victim, that it was just kind of a prank gone wrong.

But we all knew the truth. He really had wanted to hurt that kid. I just didn't think he had an actual violent bone in his body. But as it turned out, he actually kind of did. I remember he asked me out of the blue one time, How much money would it take for you to kill someone? We were always asking each other dumb questions like that, like who'd win between a bear and a lion, weird would you rather questions that were usually pretty not safe for work, so

as much as I didn't take the question seriously, I still gave him moments worth of thought. I remember telling him I wasn't sure, that it'd have to be at least half a million, but then he looks all annoyed and asks, you wouldn't kill someone for 10 grand? I responded, god no dude, it'd have to be like retirement money. He comes back with, 20 grand? I just laughed the question off at that point, but then he just ups it by 10 grand at a time until I gave him a definite no. A few moments of silence go by while he thinks, then he says, 50. I'd give you 50.

I'm literally about to ask him why he's obsessing when someone else appeared and called out to us and Bart dropped the issue. I remember thinking it was a weird question to begin with, but the way he asked it was even weirder. Almost like he was really thinking about trying to hire a hitman or something. But we always talked about dumb stuff like that, so I guess I just forgot about it after a while. Sometime later, Bart drops out of college for some reason, probably something to do with the fact that he barely did any of the work and that was pretty much the last we saw of him. I mean, we keep in touch every so often, planning to do stuff but never actually doing it. Then this one time, Bart is texting my roommate who in turn tells me that Bart was saying he was

going to come visit, only he was serious this time Bart was saying he was going to come visit, only he was serious this time. He said he was about to get his hands on some trust fund of his parents that he had kept safe for him and how he'd pay for us all to go down to Mexico for spring break the following year. I'm like, cool. I didn't believe he'd actually come visit but I figured maybe a cash injection might help him get his butt into gear. Bart never did come to visit though and we found out why when my roommate called me into his bedroom to show me something on his computer. Bart's entire family had been killed and he'd been shot in the arm in what seemed like a home invasion gone wrong. We tried calling him a bunch, but he didn't answer his phone, so we figured he either wasn't out of the hospital yet, or he just wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, which I found perfectly understandable at the

time. I can't even imagine how devastated I'd be if something like that happened to my family. Then, over the course of a few months, the truth came out. It started when Bart was arrested. We were just confused at first, but the only thing we could think of was that the cops had somehow found drugs or something else illegal in Bart's possession while searching his home. I mean, we knew he'd been shot in the arm. We'd seen it on the news, and they had a suspect in custody who'd fired all ten shots or whatever, so why arrest Bart? Long story short, they arrested Bart because the cops found out he actually knew the home invader. Then once they checked his phone,

they found text messages from the same guy where Bart was arranging for the guy to kill his own family. They even talked about how the guy would need to shoot Bart to make it look authentic and how the shooter had to make sure his entire family was dead, otherwise he wouldn't get paid out of the inheritance. I knew Bart was crazy and I knew he could be a little impulsive sometimes but, dear god, to have your own parents murdered in such a horrifyingly elaborate way. I had no idea he was evil too. And that's what freaks me out about it. You'd never have guessed that Bart was capable of something like that. At least I didn't want to believe he was. I heard one of his parents

actually survived and begged the state not to put him on death row. They succeeded too, so I guess that's some small silver lining from a horrifying little episode in my life. In In the summer of 2006, I was offered a place to study history at Bangor University in North Wales. It wasn't my first choice of uni, but I always wanted to move away for university. I mean, that's half the point of the whole thing, isn't it? See new places, meet new people, expand and enrich your intellect and all that. Bangor wasn't exactly Manchester or Birmingham but there was something very quaint about having

such relatively prestigious university built into such a small and storied town. In the end I only lived in Bangor for the better part of a year, as I ended up dropping out due to family problems. But my brief time there yielded a variety of different experiences, some I'll always remember and some I wish I could forget. So, much like most other students at that age, university brought a desire for, well, experimentation. And after I partook in a few puffs of the wise man's mint, as one of my mates called it, I decided that, yeah, it was something I was going to get into. I didn't take to drinking all that much, too much puking, and the hangovers just weren't worth it. But smoking up in a circle packed with intelligent, thoughtful people,

that was a different kettle of fish entirely. Alright, most of the stuff we talked about was just absolute nonsense, which prompted nothing but a descent into giggles. But it was fun, and on top of that, you weren't a soulless, dehydrated husk the next morning. So one morning, I get talking to this local lad called Ricky. Ricky had grown up in Bangor, but wasn't academic enough for university. However, that didn't stop him from walking up into the student areas to take advantage of the student-priced pubs, which is how I got talking to him.

Eventually, the conversation got on to smoke and where I could get my hands on some. The local dealers didn't always trust the students and even when they did, the chances that they'd just rip you off, assuming you were spending mummy and daddy's money, was very high indeed. Which is why Ricky's promise of, I'll get some for you, was like music to my ears. I took his number down, told him I'd give him a text sometime, then finished up my pint, lost my game of pool, then wandered back to halls. The next day I gave Ricky a text and we arranged to meet outside a block of flats on the other side of town. This seemed a bit risky, as it was in the lower portion of Bangor, where the locals lived, and not up on the hill where most of the lecture rooms and halls were.

But Ricky seemed like a nice enough bloke i considered myself fairly street wise and with me having no other connections i figured why not so i went to meet him gave him my last 20 quid and stood outside the flats while we went off to ring one of the buzzers. Now I'm not completely soft, so I actually end up peering over my shoulder to get a peek of which one he's ringing, just in case anything goes awry. The door opens, he says, back in a minute, and walks inside. A minute goes by, no sign of Ricky. Two minutes go by, still no sign of Ricky. After 15 minutes of standing outside those flats like an absolute plant pot, I try calling him, but as you can probably guess, he didn't answer his phone. I drop him a few texts like, WTF is going on in there?

And again, I get no replies. Obviously, I'm absolutely furious, thinking, I can't believe I'm actually getting mugged off here. And there's absolutely no effing chance that I'm about to just walk away without kicking off. So I march up to the little keypad near the front door of the flats and start buzzing the same button Ricky pushed. Hello? Some voice buzzes over the intercom. Uh, yeah. I'm a mate of Ricky's. He's got something of mine he needs to give back. Who? The fellow on the other end was obviously playing dumb. Look, mate. I've just seen him go into your flat so you can either let me in

or I'll come back later with my cousins and we can see what happens. It was a pure bluff. My cousins were like 60 miles away, but it worked. There was a brief silence and then the door buzzed open. I walk right up the stairs to flat 3, knock on the door and someone instantly answers it. A lad about my age who's keeping the door closed over because Ricky is evidently hiding inside. Mate, I know Ricky is here and he's got something of mine so... He was here, yeah. The lad cuts me off, but he's just gone out the back,

said he'd be back in a few minutes. Then I hear a voice that obviously belongs to someone older saying, Let him wait inside if he wants. The lad looks off to the right then opens up the door. I walk in to see about three or four guys, again about my age, and one older balding bloke, hair down to his shoulders with this big thick stash. In front of him, on this dirty wooden coffee table is almost every kind of illegal substance you can imagine. And after waiting there for another 15 minutes, tension rising the whole time, I decide to give them something of an ultimatum.

Because there is absolutely no doubt that I am getting scammed. And they just so happen to be in on it. Now I know, I know, what I did next was just stupid but please don't underestimate how angry I was and how I just refused to swallow my pride and walk away. So I turn to the older bloke and say something like, look man, let's just work this out. Ricky's got 20 quid of mine and I'm not stupid. I know what the crack is. I'm also not walking away without it so let's just say you give me an eighth of that green there and that way I don't have to file a police report saying some lad robbed me and ran into this flat. You get me?

Big mistake. Massive mistake. Sometimes it really is just better to swallow your pride and walk away, especially if the only other option is throwing around threats that you're unlikely to back up. But in the heat of the moment, that's kinda what I did, and by kind of, well, you'll see what I mean in a minute. Upon hearing my police threat, the older bloke just sort of nods as if to say, fair shout, then gets up and walks over to the front door. I'm thinking, hang on, what's he doing?

And when he locks the front door to the flat with a mortise lock and slides the key into his pocket, I just think, uh oh. You can imagine what came next. The three younger lads jumped me. I try my best to fight back but, as you can probably guess, three on one didn't give me a chance to throw so much as two or three solid punches before I was on the deck getting the absolute life kicked out of me. All to a soundtrack of, you come into my flat and threaten me.

Not happening. But the worst part was when I just heard, Grab his hand. Keep him still. I'm still in the middle of struggling, but I managed to get just a glimpse of the old bloke with a dumbbell in his hand. I know what's coming. This fella's gonna smash my hand to bits with that weight, and I'm probably never gonna be able to write or type properly ever again. Thankfully, he didn't go through with smashing

my hand up. Instead, he does this faint thing right as I think he's going to do it, then laughs his head off when I let out this embarrassingly girly scream. After that, I'm quite literally thrown out of the flat and as I manage to bring myself to my feet, I look back to see that one of the lads has my bloody provisional driver's license in his hand. The wallet must have fallen out or been swiped during the kicking. Ah, well, now we know your name and where you live. Go the filth, and you're a dead man. Now get lost. I wondered, but the story doesn't end there.

It just gets much weirder and arguably much more terrifying. If I'd have just walked away with a bit of a bruised ego, I'd have saved myself a good kicking. However, in actually laying hands on me, these lads had made a huge mistake. I wasn't some gangster bound to a code of silence and honestly, neither were they. I was from a big city and I definitely wasn't scared of some small town dealers. And if they thought they could just intimidate some kid into silence, they were dead wrong. Because the first place I'd go after I end up getting kicked out of the fella's flat is the Bangor police station. I was just dead honest with them. I told them I got scammed

trying to buy smoke, told them I'd been battered, with me thinking the whole time, they're gonna go round up this bloke's flat, and they're gonna know he's got drugs in there. The place stunk of them. And that's how I'm gonna get my own back. Solid plan, right? And quick side note, for anyone who says I'm a coward, a grass, or a snitch for going to the police, wind your neck in, Tony Montana. This isn't The Wire.

This is real life, and you fight with anything you've got available to you. Only, it didn't quite turn out like that. I was hoping the police would knock round, nick the bloke in his underlings, and then I'd see massive drug busts in the papers for a week or something like that. But when the police got back in touch, they said they'd nicked a lad for assaulting me, but that he was going to plead guilty so it didn't look like I'd have to go to court or anything. They gave me some leaflets on getting over trauma, advised me to file a victims of crime compensation claim, and then that was that. Yeah, it was some small measure

of revenge, but it wasn't quite the complete and utter take down I'd been hoping for. That being said, it would turn out that I didn't have to lift a finger to get my own back on Ricky. His own people would do that for me. Not even seven days later, I'm doing a bit of food shopping down at Morrison's when, who should I see, with a giant cast on his leg and bruises all over his face, but Ricky of all people. Almost everyone I spoke to about it was like, well, that's some car man action right there, and they still might be right.

It might have been a complete coincidence that one week the lad robs me, then the next, he's in a bloody thigh cast, which, how I know it, must have been a really bad break. Stranger things have happened, right? But there's the thing. I don't really believe in coincidences. I believe in cause and effect. I think the top dog down in that lower town flat was just that. Top dog in the area. And I think the trouble Ricky ended up causing him meant he was only a fanny hair away from being nicked for selling class A's. I think he was so angry that he had his little minions break Ricky's leg. I mean, how else do you explain his black eyes and all that?

He slipped and fell in the path of an oncoming fun run? Pull the other one. But then, the thing that really tickled me, the thing that honestly made my blood run cold was this. If they were willing to do that to one of their own, they wouldn't bat an eyelid at the idea of doing the same to some other idiot student, would they? It's only then did I realize how bloody lucky I'd really been. A few months after, I completely balls up my end of year exams, ended up dropping out and that was the end of that chapter. Needless to say, despite the relatively short amount of time I'd spent there, Bangor really did teach me a thing

or two. They just turned out not quite to be the kinds of things I imagined when I arrived. I grew up in quite a large college town, and since the university here is of a pretty good standard, I figured I could save a ton of money by living with my parents while pursuing my studies. The only real trouble was that the campus was literally on the opposite side of town than we were, so getting to and from campus proved quite a chore sometimes. So between my mom, dad, and uncle, they'd divided up the week and each picked a day or two where they'd give me a ride home. I'll admit, it did make me feel like an 18-year-old preschooler sometimes, and I still feel like I missed out on the party scene in many ways, but that kind of lifestyle would have definitely hit my grades hard, so I have few regrets. There was one time, though, something I'd considered a serious close call,

and if it wasn't for having to wait for a ride most nights, it never would have happened at all. So it was the second semester of my freshman year, it was about 4.30 and my uncle was due to come pick me up from the student parking lot. He normally arrived like 5 or 10 minutes late, rush hour can't be helped, but after like 20 minutes of waiting I decided to give him a call to see where he was at. Oh shoot, it's my day? Oh Lacey, I'm so sorry, please don't tell your mom, I'm on my way right now, I promise. He sends me. Hmm, no biggie, right?

Sure, I was kind of annoyed, but if he was on his way, waiting another half hour or so wouldn't be a problem. So I just sat my butt down on the curb, got out one of my textbooks, and started an impromptu study session. After about 20 minutes or so, the sun is almost set when I see the lights of a vehicle turning into the parking lot. But I'm disappointed to see that it's not my uncle. It's just this random white van that parks up and just sits there for a while. I figured it's a cleaning lady or a janitor or whatever, but when the guy gets out, he was wearing plain clothes. We made some awkward accidental eye contact and that prompted him to say, hey there. Being polite, I returned the greeting, thinking he's just going to carry on his way, but instead, he walks up to me and tried to carry on the conversation.

Waiting for someone? He asks me. I just nodded, kind of shy at first, and he says, Me too, I'm waiting for my daughter. For the next few minutes, he engaged me in a casual conversation about the college and about his daughter. I didn't mind at first, but it was actually getting dark by that point, so I was getting more and more nervous about my uncle getting there and ended up kind of zoning in and out while I kept an eye out. Then he started to come closer. Ah, look, it's going to rain, he pointed out.

And he wasn't wrong. Those big dark rain clouds had been gathering as the sun went down, another reason why I was worried about not getting a ride. Say, wanna come take shelter in my van if the heavens open up? Immediately I got extra nervous when he mentioned owning a van because I'm pretty sure everyone's aware of the whole stereotype about kidnappers using vans and whatnot. So I try to remain polite but at the same time I give the guy a resounding no and was relieved when he seemed to just drop the subject immediately. But he doesn't give up. After a few minutes, he asked if I wanted a ride home. I was pretty confused.

Like, wasn't he supposed to be waiting for his daughter? And when I asked him that, it was like he just remembered that, yeah, he was there waiting to give his daughter a ride. That's the point where the alarm bells start really going off. That guy was obviously lying to me and in the worst attempt to like distract me from it or whatever, he starts telling me, You know, at first I thought you were my daughter. You look so much like her. I just nod, praying for my uncle to show up so I can get away from this creep. When he starts asking me,

Hey, what's your name? Maybe you and her share a few classes. Then, as if he was heaven sent, I see my uncle's car appear at an intersection down the road away. Perfect timing. I mean, he legitimately couldn't have timed it any better. So I get up, wish the guy a good evening, then start walking to the entrance to the parking lot so I can just jump into my uncle's car. But as I try to walk past him, the van guy actually grabs me by the arm and stops me from walking away. Hey, I'm trying to talk to you here, the guy said, like I owed him my time. And no, if it wasn't for the fact that my uncle rolled into the parking lot, I'd have been in quite a bit of trouble. The guy only let go when he saw my uncle driving up, but by then, it was too late. I was so scared that I burst into tears. My uncle got out of his car and almost started like chasing the guy, demanding to know who he was. The guy just got back into his van and drove

off, but I made sure to let certain faculty members know so that a safety announcement could be made or however the college dealt with threats like that. I wasn't even the only girl he tried to kidnap either, and the cops honed in on the guy because a previous complaint had been filed against him. And I suppose all's well that ends well, but at the same time, I was so very, very close to not being okay at all. Who knows, I might not have ever gone home that night, and I'm eternally grateful to my uncle

for showing up just when he did. In my senior year of college, me and my boyfriend at the time lived in an off-campus apartment on the third floor of this big old townhouse, and the mudroom slash closet area right by the door was where we kept our cat's litter box. Now most people can tell you that unless it's right after your cat uses the box, it doesn't smell like poop. Usually just the cat litter smell. Clay, Febreze, whatever it is. So for about a week I noticed it smelled like death in that little corner, and I tore the area apart and the rest of the apartment looking for rogue turds but found absolutely nothing. Then right in the middle of the mystery stink ordeal, I had to leave for a week to go on a work trip. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a welcome break from what was massively a disgusting little problem, and I quite openly hoped that my

boyfriend might get the whole thing fixed before my return. But to my horror, it only got worse, with my boyfriend texting me one night with the bad news that the smell seemed to have spread into the hallway outside. I felt bad for him, but there was nothing much I could do other than advise him to just call the landlord and see what she could make out of it. He says okay and he'll call her in the morning and keeps me updated on everything that happens. The next morning I'm getting texts off of him like every 20 minutes stuff like just called landlady and she's on her way. Then I get stuff like she thinks it's coming from another apartment. Then okay it's definitely coming from another apartment. Which I was kind of relieved about, but oh my god, was that jumping the gun because things were about to get way, way worse.

The last text I get is, she just called the cops. I reply with, please don't tell me someone died next door to us. Then my boyfriend starts typing but then stops. I go into full panic mode trying to work out what it might be because I can't face the thought that our neighbor actually died and we were living next to a corpse for like weeks and partially because we were the jerks and didn't check on her. Then after about an hour, my worst fears are confirmed. The landlady gave some cop permission to bust the door down and when he did, my boyfriend said he and the landlady literally ran from the sight that greeted them. Our neighbor's dead body was lying there, face down in the hallway, with one arm out like they were reaching for

the door when they fell. That piece of hallway ran perfectly adjacent to our mudroom, where we keep the cat's litter tray, which is why it smelled the worst there and out in the hallway. The whole time I'd been thinking to myself, freaking cat, shaking my head and scrubbing the floor, and there had been a dead body just on the other side of the wall, not even two or three feet away. We always keep up with our neighbors now, even if they're more than capable of looking after themselves. Having that network, that kind of community, you don't realize how important it is until it's far too late. So back when I was in my first year of university, the halls I was in were in this horseshoe

shaped building with the rooms all around the edges. I was in the back of the building so I had a room which overlooked all the other inward facing rooms as well as the dorm's garden in the middle which was about 200 yards wide. It was quite a nice setup really, like if it was sunny out you could look down and see who was hanging out in the garden, see who's having parties later on at night or who's sneaking a cheeky doobie out their window. But ironically it's that same little setup that's partially responsible for my single worst experience while at university. So we're coming up to

end of year exams in late April and it's a nice day out. I'm sat in my room, lo-fi music on, studying my balls off when something catches my attention from across the garden. Some guys opened up his window, opened at about chest height and it looked an awful lot like he was trying to climb up onto the ledge. It looked pretty dangerous given he was on the second floor but eventually he manages it and he's dangling his legs out the window, just sat there like he's having a chill time. I just assumed it was part of a dare or something, maybe a guy trying to impress his friend by being a total mad lad as they say, but he wasn't waving at anyone or anything. No one was filming from below and he wasn't looking

over his shoulder like there was anyone in the room behind him. He just kept looking down, staring at the ground from below him like he was thinking about jumping. From my perspective, it obviously wasn't him trying to take his own life because he'd only sprained an ankle at worst from jumping from that height. So I'm thinking to myself, why in God's name would he want to escape his own dorm room? It's at that point that I get up, walk over to my window and open it up. I shout out, hey dude, what's wrong with you? What are you doing? As soon as the words leave my mouth, he looks at me and that's when I see he's got something tied around his neck. I don't know what I even shouted to him, I just panicked as he threw himself off the ledge.

I couldn't bring myself to look at it, I just ran and grabbed my phone to call 911. I literally had the chance to stop it. I was the only other person to see him climb up onto his window ledge, and all I thought was that he was being an idiot. I should have known that it was final exam time that was ramping up the stress for everyone and that some people just couldn't deal with it all on their own, but I just didn't think. He didn't survive, but I heard he didn't suffer at all. Broke his neck when whatever he used for a noose bought him out on him. Poor guy. I can't even remember his name either, but it caused a massive scandal at my university and eventually they ended up putting up safety bars

on the windows so you couldn't open them all the way. Not like they were prison bars or anything, they were quite discreet, but for me personally, they were a constant reminder of what had happened. To be continued... a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit r slash let's read official 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.