The Lets Read Podcast - 166: NEVER TRUST A WHITE VAN | 36 True Scary Stories | EP 154

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Sleepovers, Trick Or Treating, & Creepy Vans... 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

If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from Tread Experts. Conquer rugged terrain with on-road comfort. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find a Kumo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at tread experts.ca slash locations. I was hiking in the Olympic National Forest a few years ago, myself and my two dogs. We were four days in and around 20 miles at least as a crow flies from even a known mountain road. I was camping at around 7k feet that night or right where the tree line started thinning out. So when we got to the campsite, a big open meadow on top of a secondary mountain,

it was about an hour from sunset. My big dog usually runs around within proximity of the camp as I put the tent up and make dinner, but I noticed this time it was a little different. He kept staring up at this steep tree-filled mountainside, tail straight up and barking. Not the bark when he sees marmots, not the excited, oh you MFers are lucky because I'd rip you all apart if my master wasn't here high-pitched barks, but unsure, concerned barks. Now, the day before I had found a note left under a rock at the last landmark saying that there was a problem bear in the area that was harassing a party of campers a few days ago. And I myself had seen big cat tracks the day before, so I was rightfully concerned that this may be more than just ground squirrels. I decided to go climb some of the boulders at the

foot of the hill while I took my time looking up the hillside for movement before I went to go hang my bear bag up there. They were really the only trees around to hang the bag. I didn't see or hear anything, but my dog kept quietly whining like there was something up there. So while still concerned, I started hiking up this really steep hill to hang the bag. It was so steep I had to use the trees to balance and lean against so I didn't go tumbling down, before making another 5-6 step push to the next tree that I could lean against so I didn't go tumbling down before making another 5-6 step push to the next tree that I could lean against. Anyways, I'm slowly making it up this hill and ridge, hopping from tree to tree to keep my balance. Then I get about 100 feet up the hill and I hear a whole lot of

big movement about 50 feet in front of me. My dog immediately goes from a deep low growl to a savage, slobbering, flying everywhere type barking now. My heart starts pounding out of my chest and I start to panic. A million thoughts go racing through my head in a matter of seconds because if this is a bear, my dog is going to try to save me, in which he will most likely die. And I'm stuck here. If I had to get off that hillside fast, I almost 100% am going to trip and fall off the 12 to 15 feet cliff onto the boulders below,

like hundreds of 5 to 20 foot boulders, so I'm feeling pretty screwed about now. Then I hear my other little dog start barking and freaking out down at my campsite, which was just out of sight. I had zipped her up in the tent so she didn't wander off while I was away. So yeah, I'm absolutely panicking at this point. A few seconds after I kinda snap back to it and I take another few seconds to start to put my survival priorities in order and call my dog back to me, named Loki by the way. He comes and sits

against my feet as my back is against a tree, so I'm kind of pinned and stuck there for a moment. But my dog was seemingly trying to separate me from something up there, so I let him lean against me while I try to collect myself. This is when I realized I had completely forgot that I had my headlamp on. I reach up so fast up to turn my lamp on I basically punch myself in the face. I'm having some serious adrenaline dumps going right now, so much so that my knees are starting to shake. I get my lamp on and peer up the hillside. I figured I'll at least just get a reflection of the eyes of whatever is up there. Peering, peering, and nothing. But I had just heard something. We both did. And whatever it was didn't get away or sound

like it had made it too far. I knew something was up there, so I'm kind of just steadfast at this point. I need to know what is up there because I have to sleep here tonight, and you know, I'm out here in the middle of nowhere, alone. Better to face it than wait like a sitting duck all night is my thought process. So yeah, as I'm looking up this hill and at one point my dog lunges forward, unpinning me. He does a fake bluff charge up the hill about 15 feet, I mean, he's snarling and foaming at the mouth at this point. As he does this, I finally see movement, something moving up and breaking the line of the horizon and sunset. My dog's bluff made whatever it was blow its cover,

so I'm zeroed in. I call my dog back and silently watch, and what I make out made my heart completely drop. There was a man, crouched about 75 feet directly in front of me, wearing not camo clothes, but some raggedy stuff with a hood that blended into the environment perfectly. Actually, almost like a makeshift ghillie suit, but with his face exposed. I couldn't see his eyes and his face was covered in dirt or something, but I knew we were staring right at each other at that moment. So, I stare. For what seems like minutes. No words.

I felt like I was trying to subconsciously convey that I was going to stand my ground. I wanted him to know I saw him, but I guess I was just too shaken to speak. As I'm staring, my little dog back at the campsite started to bark her head off again like she was scared. But I also had to get off that hill before total dark where I could be seriously hurt slash risk dying trying to get back down. So carefully I start heading down the hill with my dog who doesn't want to leave but listens. Periodically I would stop with my back against a tree holding me up and look in that direction again just to make it even more clear

I saw him and eventually make it down to the boulders at the bottom. By the time I finally jumped down and hit the boulders, my little dog had stopped barking. I could only see the top of my tent from the bottom of the boulders. I thought she was barking just to bark. Dachshunds do that, or just barking back at my dog. But when I got there, my little dog had somehow gotten out of the tent and was walking around the camp growling, with her tail sticking straight out. Still trying to hold it together, I thought, okay, maybe she's just got her nose between the zippers and worked her way out,

but I was positive. I had zipped it so the zipper and tap and openings was at the very top of the tent, out of reach. So in a mixture of being terrified, angry and the feeling of needing to do something, I reached into my day bag and pulled out my.40. I fire a single shot into the air as the sun was setting, climb into my tent without eating and lay with my gun next to me until first light. As soon as the sun came up I was packing on my stuff and leaving, heading back down the mountain. It sucks, it was all downhill back but still couldn't cover the ground to get back to my

car in one day. It was dark by the time I made it to the last camp, about 4 miles from my vehicle, but thankfully there weren't other people there. We sat around a fire they made and I felt pretty relieved and safe. They start to tell me that they are planning to head that way where I was the night before in the morning, so I tell them my story in detail. Needless to say, we were both walking back to our cars in the morning. Screw all that. The thing that still creeps me out to this day though is when I got home and started reading reviews of the same hike I was on, other people had had similar experiences like mine as well. Even a man found dead from a fall around the same boulder range two years ago,

and a woman found murdered last year. To be continued... This happened a few months ago to my friends and I. We are university students in Cape Town, South Africa, so when we aren't trying to just get through the semester, we like to let our habits get the better of us and go out for drinks. On this night, we had just finished what felt like an extra long day at university and decided to head to a bar about five minutes from campus for some much needed stress relief. The evening was going well, although a bit slow. It was enjoyable with everyone having a drink and getting a bit restless. So me being one of the more outgoing ones in the group,

I suggested we head to the pool bar not far from where we were. Everyone agrees and we get our stuff to go. We all jump in my car and we get to the bar, but being a Thursday night, parking was a bit scarce. I finally managed to find a spot about a block away from the bar, but in a secluded side street. I should also mention that this bar is in one of the sketchier parts of town, but is normally quite safe due to the amount of nightlife associated with being so close to a university. We walked to the bar and no one really felt uneasy, nor did anything happen to make us feel that way, which was quite surprising. After a few hours of some pool and just relaxing, we decided it was time to go grab some dinner before restaurants close,

as being in South Africa means that most restaurants, even fast food, close really, really early at around 7 or 8pm to comply with the curfew. We decided to stop at the pizza place below the bar to grab some food before we all decided what the plan was for the end of the night. So because our group was so large and the pizza place being so small, we decided to have those getting food go inside while the others who didn't would just wait outside on the street. This was an easy decision as the pizza place had a massive open window with built-on counters so we could still all talk to each other. This is where things started getting a little weird. While we were waiting for our friends inside the piece of place to come out, this massive white van pulls up past us and stops. The driver wasn't an intimidating looking dude.

He was skinny, looked to be about average height with shoulder length blonde hair. A pretty standard looking dude for the kind of area we were in. He calls me and asks me if I think his van could fit in a parking spot just behind him. Per perspective, this parking spot could probably fit like a small hatchback, maybe. This dude is driving a full long sized panel van. This makes me kind of uneasy as I thought that as a driver of a car you should know where your car can definitely not fit and this is one of them. I explained to him that I didn't think it was even worth attempting. He responds by telling me that he has faith in his ability and I should come stand behind the van and direct him in.

This gives me major red flags and after a few back and forths, he just pulls the emergency brake up and sits and stares at my friends and I for what felt like an eternity. He then thanked us and drove off. This sparks my friends to come outside from the pizza place as they just saw what happened and were very confused. We all were kind of weirded out but think nothing of it and everyone gets their pizza and we try to decide what the plan is for the last hour or two we have before curfew cuts things short. Most of us decide this is where our night is probably going to end as we're all kind of weirded out by the guy in the van. A few others decide that they were going to stay and just Uber home a little later in the evening. With our group number cut down to four, we decided to walk back to the car and just head home. When we left the pizza place, a homeless person called at us

and was insisting we had nothing to worry about with the guy in the van, which didn't help with anyone's nerves. We then decided to head to the car but as soon as we turned the corner to approach the side street where the car was parked, we see van man again. This time, not so happy as he seemed in his encounter earlier. I made a cheeky comment about him finally finding a parking spot so he could fit in while we were walking past each other and he just stared at my friends and I not breaking eye contact even when we passed him. I turned around to see if he was still looking. He was but as we turned the corner of the side street with the car I saw it and my heart sank. The van, horribly parked half on

and half off the sidewalk, back door slightly open. Upon seeing this, I turn around and see van man is now walking towards us, but he said something that confused me at first, but immediately made sense after. He said, hey, please just watch my car. Which confused me, but when he said that, four men sat up from leaning on the wall next to it and began following us. My friends and I were slightly ahead of them, so we were trying to discuss the game plan because it was obvious if we did nothing, something horrible was going to happen. My friends start walking faster and I remain at the same speed, frantically searching my pockets for my car keys, all the while shouting at my

friends to wait up and asking what the rush was. All this was in hopes that the guys behind us, who were gaining on us at that point, were oblivious to us knowing that they had sinister intentions. As soon as the car came into view, we booked it, jumped in and drove away. But we were only mere seconds from not being that lucky. After locking the car doors, I saw the men surrounding the car. I managed to get us out and looking back in the mirror, I saw a fifth man by the van at the bottom of the street. I still have no idea what their intentions were that night, if it were to rob us, or just beat us up, or worse. I don't really like

to think about it, and really do consider how lucky we were that night. I ask that when you're out, no matter how innocent an interaction with someone can seem, always pay attention to the little things. Growing up, my parents were the stereotypical overprotective immigrant parents. But after that encounter, I understand why. I'm the youngest of three and I have an autistic older brother and one who was also unfortunately born with mental disabilities. We are fairly close to the same age so we did pretty much everything together when we were children. It was easier for my parents. I always took care of my brothers in general, but I always kept an extra cautious eye on my autistic relative. My mom is the strong but always nervous type, always trying to think ahead, trying to do the right thing, trying to protect her own. An incredible mama bear who never tires.

She taught me to never trust strangers. Don't get in someone's car you don't know. Never follow someone you've never met before who tells you that mom and or dad has sent them to pick you up She would always have a meeting with our school to allow me to travel by bus with my brother because We live close to school and the government rarely let me take the yellow bus, but my brother was allowed this state-funded privilege In the end, even if I didn't have permission the bus drivers were so nice, they'd let me tag along with them anyway. So with that said, in primary school, we would always take the yellow school bus to go to and back from school. One day, as usual, the bus dropped us at the end of a street and we had to walk to our apartment. Usually my mom would open the door for us, even my oldest brother was home.

She never lets us answer the door when we were kids for obvious reasons. That day however my parents weren't home. We were ringing but we never had any answer. A car eventually pulled over in front of the building. Luckily we had a relatively long walkway that separated the sidewalk from the stairs so they couldn't get to us easily. Suddenly a woman came from about halfway from the passenger seat and waved at us, probably to signal us to approach. While she was gesturing, the rear door opened, and that's when I realized she wasn't alone. I couldn't correctly identify who that person was since her overall shape wasn't familiar and the car was a little far

from where we were standing. So I went down a few steps to slightly approach her and them, but I just couldn't recognize her face. I really felt uneasy, so I took my brother's hand and we started running. Pure instinct, and the voice of my mom in the back of my head, imagining her reprimanding me if I took the risk to approach these strangers. It was winter and we stumbled on ice but we were quick to get up and keep on running. I'm actually not even sure if my brother understood the whole situation. He's still a smart cookie even with all those difficulties so I always wondered.

Mind you, we were barely even 11 and 12 years old at the time. Yes, the car chased after us but thankfully they weren't able to catch up. We arrived fairly quickly to the neighbor's house. The car sped off when the neighbor opened the door, which made the situation even more, well, accurate with what I thought it was. It clearly was a kidnapping attempt. When my mom was made aware of the situation, she almost had a heart attack, feeling like she could have lost us. She spent days afterward calling everyone she knew to ask if the strangers were in fact just family or friends. No one came that day, and even so, they'd always call to be sure we were home before passing by.

Actually, everyone was completely dumbfounded. But the story doesn't end there. A few weeks before this incident, we were getting a bunch of random phone calls with no one at the other end. It would ring about 2 or 3 in the morning, 6 in the morning or in the middle of the afternoon and happened so frequently, but being a child, I never felt any red flags from these phone calls. At most I found them annoying. A few months ago I put all the pieces together. My mother was especially protective and always on alert mode probably because she knew that someone was trying to see if we were home alone when they called. I think those people were watching us for a while before trying to take action. I don't think we just happened to be

alone when they were passing by. I don't think the phone calls and the right timing is a coincidence. Shortly after the phone call stopped, we moved out of the apartment a few months later and we never had anything like this happen to us since. Growing up, I always wondered what would have happened if the bus drivers weren't nice enough to let me ride with my brother. Would he have gotten in their car? I'm actually grateful I was with him that day. I can't imagine what would have happened if he was alone and targeted by those monsters. So that was the security guard for this local company in my area. I was assigned to a water park with another guard who was a regular there keeping watch.

He was to train me and show me around and tell me what codes open what doors. I first noticed how quick he was to enter and leave the property he never wanted to spend more than maybe 10 minutes inside the property before he would be eager to leave. Our first night was simple. There was nothing exciting or interesting going on so our night dragged on. After a few hours I asked him if he'd experienced anything unusual while working there. He told me he's had some problems with people trying to enter the property without permission but that's about it. He also told me he hated working there because of his encounters with these people. He said they creeped him out because of how sneaky they were. He didn't really want to tell me much because he was afraid that I would leave the post. That should have been a red flag for me, but I was too excited to let anything like that scare me.

A few more hours later and our shift is over so we clock out and go home for the day. The next night my boss calls me to explain that the security guard, my partner, had resigned. I was a little upset because now I was to work a two-man post all by myself with barely any knowledge on the place. Fast forward a few weeks, I started to get the hang of the place and created my own routine with no issues at all. No break-ins, no vandalism, nothing. It's now 2am and I was outside at the front of the property completing my rounds when I heard a door slam from inside. I jumped because of how loud it was. As I started to walk back into the property, I continued to hear doors opening and closing.

I could feel myself getting nervous because it was my first situation I've ever had at this place. As I walk inside and started to check the doors and complete a round to make sure that there was no one on the property, I get to this corridor where there was a set of stairs that led down to a door that was wide open. I walked down the stairs to close and lock the door because I was too scared to take a look inside. As I turned around to head back up the stairs I noticed a man dressed in all black standing at the top of the stairs. I take a step back and realized I'm cornered if he was to try anything and that I would have nowhere to run or hide. So I politely ask him if he needed any help. He doesn't reply.

I then asked him how he got into the property. He still didn't reply. He slowly turned his head and snapped his fingers. Then from the left side of the staircase, another man slowly crawled to his side like a dog on all fours. I then turned around and kicked the door open and ran inside and locked myself in the bathroom as I called my boss and told them what I witnessed. They sent an armed security guard to my position to complete a walkthrough to make sure that I was safe.

As I got the call that that area was clear I came out and told them everything from start to finish. I realized that they probably wouldn't believe me so I just clocked out and went home for the night. The next morning I received a call from my boss explaining that they checked the security footage from the night before and what they told me horrified me. Every hour when I would complete my rounds inside the property, those same two men would follow me through the facility as if though they were stalking me. Like as if though it was a game to them. After that, I asked for a new position because I was too horrified to work at that water park.

I now know why my trainer didn't want to work there anymore. I'm a big fan of tea and cookies and the convenience store near my house is a 4-5 minute walk. They also sell them. On the way back home from other stuff we were doing, I asked my mom to stop there so I can buy some. I'm a regular at this store and by that I mean I go there almost every day since 2017 and I had never seen this man before. I just walk past him as he stops me and points to the entrance to the store asking if that's the entrance. I tell him yes and keep walking towards it. But he keeps walking beside me and says something in another language. I thought it

was Romanian since I kind of recognize some words in that language, I'm a native speaker, but he told me he was Bulgarian. At this point I'm already a bit creeped out by him because I'm generally scared of everyone, but in that moment I just thought he needed help translating, as we currently live in Italy, so I was trying to calm myself down. As soon as we enter the store, he grabs my arm and pulls me closer to him, and I'm just screaming inside of my head, but I keep calm. My power walk inside and try to get rid of him, and when he asks me a question about bread, I just kind of try to understand what he said since I'm still thinking that he needs help but at the same time I'm scared and I just want to go back home. I try to lose him again through the aisles of the store but he keeps following me and I was scared of asking people to help me because like I said I'm generally

scared of everyone. He then grabs me again and starts touching my face saying beautiful, very beautiful, young, in Italian and then tries to take my mask off. But I just start running for my life at that point. I get my cookies and immediately go home. I told my mom about it and she said I should have told her earlier so we could have confronted him but honestly, I just wanted to be home. Tomorrow I'm bringing something to make me feel more secure and I'll go back to tell whoever works there to keep an eye out for this guy since I don't want this to happen to anyone else. You may think some of the things I did were dumb and I completely agree with you but I was really scared and I barely make eye contact with strangers so this was a completely new experience for me.

Now as an update, I went back to the store again and told a cashier what happened to me, described the guy, and she was very understanding. Apparently this isn't the first incident. Either there are two creeps that operate near the store, or this guy has harassed someone else in the past. This didn't happen to me, but to my roommate earlier today. For context, she just recently started working in a clothing store and it's within walking distance from our place. We don't live in a terrible area, but she's very small and adorable, so I worry about her. Especially after reading so many of

the terrifying encounters in this subreddit. Her name is Sarah. At around 5pm today I got a call from Sarah and she sounded like she was panicking. She just kept saying over and over again please pick me up. I calmed her down and asked her what had happened. Apparently while she was working, two men walked in that immediately gave her the creeps. They were significantly larger than herself and wore all black clothes with their hoodies pulled up, literally textbook bad guy clothes. As Sarah was stocking items in the men's section, these two men approach that same section and start meandering the aisles, but their eyes keep darting around the store as if they were nervous or they were looking

for someone. One of them looked directly at Sarah before nudging his buddy and saying something in his ear. Started to get officially weirded out, she began to walk toward another department to continue her work. As she walked past the men, she heard one of them quietly say to the other, did you do it yet? Unsure of what it was, she did her best to put a good amount of distance between her and them and continued restocking. After a few minutes, she looked up to where they had been in the men's section and they were no longer there. She looked around and it looked as if though they'd actually left the store, so she felt a bit relieved. And that relief was short-lived. After about five minutes, she began to get a strong feeling that someone was staring directly at her.

She quickly turned around to find that one of the men was standing directly across the aisle from her, holding his phone up in a way that made it very obvious that he was taking photos of her. As soon as they made eye contact, he turned around and sped walk out of the store as though he knew he'd been caught. Sarah immediately filed a report of the entire encounter to the store's security guard and he did a sweep of the store to see if the other man was still there. He had taken off too and neither of them could be seen in the parking lot so the security guard just took note of their appearances and that was it. Having read about how human traffickers will sometimes take photos of their victims before attempting to abduct them, I'm horrified. I wish that I could have

been with her all day at work to make sure that those idiots don't come back but the best I can do for her now is drive Sarah to and from work every day. There's no way in God's name I'm letting her leave that store alone and risk getting picked up off the street. When I was a kid, I had a creepy encounter with a grown man. His half of this was much longer than mine. I think this is important to the story, as I was a preteen when this happened, but I hit puberty early enough that I looked like a younger teenager. Now the story goes, we used to have a tiny barn on my property and it was my job to milk our dairy goats every morning. So, every single morning,

at almost the exact same time, I'd be in the back corner of our lot to milk. It was a fairly isolated area of our yard and between three neighbors' fields and pastures, which was intentional since goats can be talkative, so it was right beside our neighbor's chainlink fence and grapevines. I'd sing fairly loud every morning since there was generally nobody to be bothered and it calmed the goats down. So I suppose it was easy to know that there was a girl back there every morning and night. This particular morning my mom had a bad feeling and made my brother go with me.

He was bored so he messed around and collected eggs while I milked. There was little windows around, including a wide one right behind me, and the doors were wide open so I figured he'd come back eventually. Well, I saw him walk past the doors and start talking to somebody. I figured it was the neighbor so I didn't worry when he said, okay I'll get mom, and he took off. Then I heard the chain link fence behind me rattle and I turned around just in time to see a man launch himself over the chain link fence into the neighbor's yard. He'd been watching

me and waiting since before I got into the yard. I don't know what he would have done if my mom hadn't made my brother go with me that morning. The only good news was I did get out of goat milking duty. I'm super creeped out right now. I, a 27 year old female, was home completely alone and sleeping in my bed in the middle of the night last night. I was woken up by the sound of someone trying to push up on my locked bedroom window. I couldn't see the window because it was past my footboard on the other side of the bedroom and I was lying down. But I knew that unmistakable sound of the window being locked and the jiggling sound it makes because I've locked myself out plenty of times and have tried to get through that window before. I sat up to get a look and saw a dark silhouette of a person looking in the window.

I laid back down for a second, really confused and tired, and when it actually clicked what I had seen, I sat right back up. They were gone. I tried to get back to sleep, but was spooked for the rest of the night. In the morning, I thought I may have dreamed it, after I called everyone I knew that it could possibly have been. And nobody knew anything. Nobody was at my house. Nobody I knew would just try to get into my bedroom window in the middle of the night anyways.

Especially when I don't think this person even knocked on the front before trying to open the window. I went out to investigate to see if I was just crazy. I looked at the window and there I saw the handprints of whoever was trying to slide up on the glass. Also, it had rained so I could see muddy shoe prints going to and from the window. I have no idea who they were or what they wanted, but I'm so glad my window was locked. I grew up in a place called Fells Point in Baltimore. It's like an old Polish neighborhood, mostly low to middle income housing, but it's about a 15 to 20 minute walk away from Mount Vernon and the Arts District, which is where some of the nicest

neighborhoods in the city are. Back when we were kids, I'm talking like maybe 9 to 13 years old, our parents wouldn't let us trick or treat anywhere too far away from Fells Point or Little Italy. But first year of high school, right when we're on the cusp of being too old to even trick or treat in the first place, our parents tell us we're allowed to go out unsupervised and with a later curfew. By us, I mean my friend Nick and my friend George. We know we have to make the most of this newfound freedom, which is when George comes up with a plan that we all thought was a pure masterstroke of genius. Instead of trick-or-treating around some broke neighborhood, we could walk over to Mount Vernon and farm all the rich people candy instead.

I mean, in actual fact, we've found the nicer neighborhoods to be even less down with Halloween than friggin' Greektown, but at the time, we got it into our dumb heads that we'd be getting like full-size candy bars, whole bags of loose candies, dumb ideas like that. So, we got into our costumes, then met up on the corner before heading over to Mount Vernon. But before we left, Nick stops us, puts on some cartoonishly spooky voice and says something like, May the dark lord Satan bless our journey, brothers. George, whose parents were like hardcore Greek orthodox and brought him up the same way, starts trying to give Nick a stinger telling him to stop invoking the name of Satan and stuff.

We just started laughing, and he always thought that Christian stuff made him look righteous, when in reality it just gave away that he was a total mama's boy. Anyway, the more George is getting mad at all the Satan stuff, the more Nick is doing it, and almost every time we got candy around Mount Vernon, Nick would wait until the person had shut their door before being like, hell Satan brothers, the Dark Lord provides. It was super funny, and seeing George almost burst a blood vessel every time he said it was even funnier. So we're just walking the streets of Mount Vernon, running out of doorbells to ring,

lots of art galleries and other stuff eating up whole blocks there, when we have an idea. The whole time, we hadn't been walking past anything that even resembled an apartment building. We'd have to buzz someone to let us in, and hope the person whose buzzard we pushed had some Halloween spirit about them. You get it, it wasn't an ideal trick-or-treat setup. But given we were running out of real estate and we were still entertaining this idea of there being these stashes of super candy or whatever, we decided to roll the dice on it. We walk down the path of one while we're studying the windows to see if anyone has any Halloween decorations on show.

Nick just walks up to the little pushpad thing and just mashes all the buttons. Lo and behold, a few seconds later the door to the apartment buzzes and audibly unlocks. Somebody's always expecting somebody, I remember Nick saying. I know we got that from a movie, I just can't remember which one. Anyway, once we get inside the building we start knocking on apartment doors, getting told to buzz off by most people and by the third floor, we're getting pretty tired of walking up each flight of stairs. That's when George has the bright idea of catching the elevator up to the top floor then working our way down. Trust the

fat kid to come up with that one, necessity being the mother of invention and all that. So we get in the elevator which was a little sketchy but otherwise okay looking and hitched a ride to the top floor. This place only had like 8 or 9 floors, we're lazy, sue us, so it was a very brief ride to the top of the building. But for the 30 seconds or so that we're in the elevator, Nick is putting on this deep voice, rolling his eyes, holding his hands out in front of him like a wizard or something and being like, Hail Satan, may his candy gifts be bountiful. George just loses it, punches him in the arm and starts yelling at him about how he shouldn't be messing with things like that. The elevator reaches the ninth floor. Nick says,

whatever, then goes to step out. But George grabs him by the arm, pulls him back, and starts shouting at him. And I swear to God about if he keeps talking about Satan and... Right when he says Satan, the freaking elevator just dropped into free fall for like a split second before stopping again. It was enough of a drop that maybe only like half of the opening was still visible, but my god did we freak out. Scrambling out through the opening that remained, each assuming it'd be us the elevator dropped on. We all got out okay and the elevator didn't drop anymore, but we were just out of our minds, man. People were coming out of their apartments to see what all the fuss was about and then asking who let us in.

It was a whole thing. Then one of the residents made a comment about calling the cops to have us taken home. We all just made a break for the stairwell. Like it probably would have been a good idea to get a ride home, but we were just so on edge after the whole elevator thing that we just bailed as soon as anyone mentioned 911. After that, we all went our separate ways and dealt with the trauma alone for the night. I want to make it clear at this point that I totally understand what happened was nothing more than a total fluke. Yeah, it was really freaking scary, but I don't think anything supernatural was at play. It doesn't matter if it was Halloween and it doesn't matter anything supernatural was at play. It doesn't matter

if it was Halloween, and it doesn't matter that Nick was hailing Satan all night, but that's not what George thinks, no siree. I mean, some of you might have been able to guess that George saw the whole thing as a huge affirmation of faith, and I wish I could say that he got tired of saying, I told you so, but he didn't. The thing that gets me though, is how instead of being like, don't be a baby, there's no such thing as Satan, Nick seemed to actually believe it. He never came out and said it, and it's not like he started going to church or anything, but he wasn't his usual cocky self whenever the subject came up, and he always just went quiet whenever George suggested he had actually invoked Satan.

Couple that with the fact he definitely picked up an interest in spirits and the beyond after the incident and I don't know, I think Nick really did start believing that something else was at work that night. So So me and my brothers have a weird relationship in that there are a whole 15 years between us. Yeah, you read that right. 15 years. Basically when our parents were like 20-21 they had me by accident and waited until they were in their mid-30s to try for another kid. I think they were just so shell-shocked by my arrival that they didn't think they wanted anymore. Well, they were wrong. I was like 3 months off being 16 when my mom welcomed baby Tyler into the world and as much as it was kind of weird having a baby brother at that age,

it was actually kind of cool too. Mainly because my parents were too wrapped up in taking care of him to give me any strict discipline. But also because I got to kind of vicariously live my childhood again through Tyler. Okay, that might have come off sounding a little bit weird and I'd like everyone with an image of me in an adult diaper to put it right out of their mind. Just put it this way, I got to go trick-or-treating again. Like legitimately trick-or-treating, costume and all, way past when I thought I'd ever get to go again. The first time he really wanted to go was when he was either 5 or 6

and when my mom asked if I wanted to take him around the neighborhood in this little Buzz Lightyear costume, I practically bit her hand off. Not only would I get to try out my Leon S. Kennedy cosplay, but I'd also be able to take a cut of Tyler's candy. Not a huge cut, just something to wet my beak as that dude in Godfather 2 says. Anyway, I change up my costume last minute and get together a yellow shirt and cowboy hat, enough to pass myself as Woody from Toy Story and that just about makes Tyler the happiest kid ever. Sure, I had to keep correcting people that he wasn't my kid, but it felt great to see my baby brother so happy. Then, maybe like 45 minutes or so into our little candy mining session, I noticed Tyler hasn't touched a single piece of candy. I turned to him to ask if anything was wrong or if he was saving everything for later. He replied that he was scared to eat any and I asked him why. He said

it was because a kid in kindergarten had told him that people give out poison candy. What kind of evil devil kid tells other kids that Halloween candies get poisoned? Or I don't know, maybe they believed it themselves, but either way, I was horrified. I wanted Tyler to enjoy Halloween just as much as I did, and I wasn't about to let some dumb rumor ruin his first spooky night. I stopped, kneeled down to his level, look him in the eyes, explain that everything that dumb kid said was complete nonsense. I then reach into his bag of candy, take out a Reese's cup, unwrap it, then put it in my mouth. It was legit adorable. He looked terrified for a second, but then as I started chewing and started making these theoretical

yum noises, he started to loosen up. He then takes out a mini bag of M&M's and starts shoveling them into his mouth with this look of pure joy on his face. So, thinking that problem was solved, we continue on our merry way. Cut to maybe 30 minutes later and we just rang at a house not too far from our own We ring the doorbell These older folks answer with a big bowl of candy in each of their hands And we begin the old ritual of them telling Tyler how great he looked Asking him what his favorite candy is and all that good stuff Then right as they're talking

I get this kind of dull ache in the upper right side of my abdomen Nothing too unpleasant, but enough to have me gently massaging the area like, oof, definitely ate too much candy. But then, I hadn't eaten too much. I'd hardly eaten any at all. And as Tyler and the older folks continued their back and forth, this dull ache got more and more intense until all of a sudden, I get a pain so sharp that it literally had me doubled over, grunting from agony. The older couple are like, are you feeling okay young man? And I swear to god, I was in so much pain that I couldn't even answer them. It felt like someone had stuck a red hot piece of metal

into my side and was slowly twisting it. Obviously the older couple had the good sense to call 911 but as soon as one of them mentioned it, I heard Tyler scream, Poison candy. I'll admit I wasn't thinking rationally at the time. Intense amount of physical pain can do that to someone, but just for a second I thought Tyler might be right. I mean, I had literally zero clue what was going on. It really did feel like I was dying or something. And okay, spoilers, but it wasn't poisoned candy. I think that only ever happened one time with those poisoned pixie sticks or whatever and the rest is just an urban legend. What happened though was a gallbladder

attack. Yep, I didn't know what a gallbladder attack was either, but please believe me when I tell you that it was the single worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. The EMTs shot me so full of painkillers in that ambulance that I had no idea what was going on by the time I got to the hospital. I was high as a kite. But honestly, anything seemed far better than feeling that kind of pain again. The doctor said I was the youngest person he'd ever seen have gallbladder problems and that it was partially due to my ongoing weight issues. He said unless I put myself on a diet and exercise routine to reduce my body mass or the gallbladder problems would be coming back. I'd been meaning to do so for years but finding

the motivation was always the hardest part. Trust me, there's no better motivation to go out on that walk or to skip the pancake breakfast than remembering how much pain I was in that Halloween night. But still, I'm just glad it wasn't actually poison candy. Because the only thing scarier than gallbladder attacks is the idea of my baby brother growing to hate the best holiday of the year. About ten years ago now, I was living in my first real apartment and it was Halloween night. I lived on the ground floor and we had a bunch of neighborhood kids walking around the complex, going from apartment to apartment and collecting candy. It was kind of annoying

after a while, I'll be honest. I was trying to play Modern Warfare 2 and getting up every five minutes to give out candy was seriously messing with my KD. So in the end, I just put the bowl of candy outside with a little sign that said, help yourself, and then went back to gaming. About a half hour goes by with no knocking so I'm pretty pleased with this until out of nowhere I hear someone knocking on my apartment door. I figured some kid had just stole the entire bowl and here was the next set of kids wondering if they could get some candy. Either way I'm thinking like nope not answering it. But whoever it is keeps knocking over and over again like they're just

not stopping. So I get up and rummage through my kitchen to try to find something sweet to give the kids. Then when I head to the door, I open up to see that all the candy is still right there in the bowl. Well, most of it anyway, and the kids are still knocking. It's then that I look down and see this one kid, had to be maybe 7 or 8 years old and he's holding one of his sneakers in his hand, standing on one leg and there's this little drip drip drip of blood coming off his foot. Before I could even ask, one of the kids says like, my friend hurt his foot, could we have a band-aid please? Of course, I ask the kids to come inside, prop the one kid on a chair to see his foot. Turns out he stood on a nail or something

that's gone right up through the sole because he has this perfectly round little poke wound that was bleeding something fierce. Now I wanted to call 911 but at the same time I'm thinking, what if I burden some family with medical bills they can't afford? So instead I ask if any of their parents are around and the wounded kid says his dad was out in the neighborhood with them but they don't know where he is now. I then ask the non-wounded kid to go find the wounded kid's dad and bring him to my apartment. Okay, they say, and off they go. In the meantime, I give the kids some candy, clean up their foot as best I can, and put wrap and gauze around the kid's foot. I know I'm not exactly an EMT, but I feel so bad for them. It was just this

little boy, just fighting so hard not to cry in front of his buddies. And my god, was he doing a good job of it too. Anyways, like five minutes later, someone starts banging on my door. Not knocking, banging on my door. I know it has to be the kid's dad, and I figured he was just agitated because who wouldn't be, but when I open the door, this absolute unit of a guy just launches himself at me and throws me against a wall. Guy's a total skinhead, at least three bills and couldn't have been an inch before 6'5". Like he could have eaten me alive in one gulp if he wanted to and he's screaming in my face, where's my kid? Tell me where my kid is or I'll freaking kill you. You understand me?

I could barely get a word out. I just pointed into the TV room and we both just heard his kid say, Dad? He looks back in the direction of the room, looks back at me and then runs into the TV room to check on his kid. I'm too scared to walk into the room and I'm just standing there in the hallway as the guy asks his kid, What did that guy do to you? Tell me right now. The kid starts crying, not being able to get his words out which was

freaking agony because I'm thinking, tell him kid, tell him I'm a good guy. But I think the kid was so worried that they were in trouble that all they could do was burst into tears. Every second that went by that guy was gearing up closer and closer to kill me. You could just see it in his face. And in the end, I had to jump in to explain what had happened. That his kid had cut his foot and all that had happened is that he had knocked at my apartment to get some medical attention. The dad only believed me when his kid started nodding along with what I was saying. Turns out those kids I sent to look for his dad basically told him two things. One, your son is hurt, and two, that he's in some strange guy's apartment.

That's when the guy puts two and two together to make five, then just zooms over to my apartment to rip my head off. Once the guy calmed down, he apologized and offered me 50 bucks out of his wallet to say thank you i know i should have just taken that idiot's money but honestly i think i had like stockholm syndrome at the time or something because i rationalized the whole confrontation away like of course the guy wants to keep his kids safe from weirdos. I guess I just never understood what the phrase, no good deed goes unpunished until that night, and honestly, I just wanted or treating for the first time without any supervision. All these years later, I can still remember how psyched I was that I was allowed out on my own for the first time. But little did I know, it would prove to be my first and last time trick-or-treating on my own.

So at around 5.30, me and a few of my middle school buddies all got together and started walking from house to house. But we were faced with something of a problem. Some of the fancier houses, the ones with spookier decor, were so jammed up with kids that some had literal lines forming down the driveways. So, not wanting to line up for our candy, we figured we'd be smart and knock on the houses that no one else was knocking at. This was not a smart idea for obvious reasons, as the houses with no decorations sometimes just tell you to get lost or pretend not to be home at all. Anyway, we knock on this one house instead of getting some grouchy grown-ups. Some kid the same age as us answers the door.

We didn't recognize him from school or from hanging around the neighborhood so we're kind of confused like, trick or treat? All before the kid just slams the door in our face. Feeling suitably rejected, a few of us go to just walk back down the driveway but one of my friends is like, nah, screw this kid, and knocks on the door again. The kid answers and my buddy sings, trick or treat, before striking this dumb pose as if to be like, screw you. The kid then absolutely explodes and screams like, you knock on the house again and I'll

kill you, before slamming the door again. Again, most of us are like, dude, let's just go. But this one friend of mine is basically like, oh, it's on, shoves his finger into the house's doorbell and keeps it there, resulting in this long solid brrr sound. Even over the buzzer, you could hear the kid running back towards the door from the other side, only this time when he opens it up, he has this huge, gnarly looking blade in his hand, like a sacrificial dagger in design but at least the length of his forearm. As soon as we see it, we just bolt up the driveway and out into the street, but I kid you not, this kid follows us. We managed to maintain a steady distance between us as we ran,

and the kid wasn't all that fast of a runner. But in all of our dumb costumes, we couldn't run as fast as normal, so we're in serious danger of maybe tripping, falling, or just slowing down enough for this psycho knife kid to catch up to us. I think the worst part was when we saw some lady taking out some trash and we ran to her for help. She just looked at us like we were playing a prank. And then when she saw the knife, she just bolts back indoors too. I swear to God, that was the worst feeling thinking, my god, no one's gonna help us. Then I remember seeing the fastest of us like swerving over to some house on one side of the street we were running down. Then only when I got a little closer did I realize he was bolting

into an open garage. We all follow and we manage to pull the manual door down just in time to shut out the knife kid who then starts kicking the garage door. This summons the homeowner into the garage who's obviously like, what are you doing here? But once we explain the situation, the guy runs off to call the cops. We're still in the garage, shaking and panting, still terrified the kid is going to break into the guy's home somehow. But the next time the homeowner reappeared in the garage, he has his cell phone in one hand and a gun in the other.

Only then did I actually start to feel safe, like I'm not even a gun guy or anything like that, but I saw that thing and just thought, okay, if the kid gets in, he's done. And in the moment, that actually calmed me down. Kind of scary that it did, but we move on. Anyways, the cops showed up pretty quick, which meant we had the pleasure of watching that stupid psycho get slammed into the pavement. Kind of a sad story in a way because we heard the kid was super neglected by his parents and that he had a bunch of mental problems too. His parents used to leave him alone for weeks

at a time because they traveled a bunch for work. Kind of like if Kevin from home alone had just suddenly lost his mind or something. I feel for the kid in a way but honestly he was lucky he didn't get shot either by the homeowner or by the cops and we all hate that kid to this day because after that we weren't allowed to go trick-or-treating until we were way too old for it anyway. So I don't know if y'all remember, but in 2015, Halloween fell on a Saturday. I was 14 back then, first year of high school, and it turned out to be the last time we ever went trick-or-treating. So I'm glad we made the most of it. And we made the most of it by organizing a trick-or-treat sleepover party.

I.e., we'd all get together, go trick-or-treating, and head back to our friend's place for treat sleepover party. I.e. we'd all get together, go trick or treating, then head back to our friend's place for the sleepover. So on Halloween night, we got given a curfew of 9.30 and we intended to use this spare time for something a little less wholesome. We planned to trick or treat until like 8pm, then after that,

we'd head over to our high school. Why visit high school on a weekend, I hear you ask? Well, we knew the older kids had a place they'd sneak off to smoke cigarettes and we heard they kept a stash of nudie magazines somewhere around the same spot. And before you start going off about who has nudie magazines in the age of the internet, I got two words for you. Parental locks. Anyways, we head down there, start rustling around the bushes looking for the mags when one of my buddies walks off to find somewhere to pee. He comes back a minute or so later with this horrified look on his face like, run. Seeing that look on his face, we didn't ask any questions.

We just ran as fast as we could until we were back under the relative safety of some nearby street lights. We all stood there, panting as our buddy struggles to get out that he told us to run because, when he was peeing, he looked around and saw some guy watching him go, and the guy was doing stuff to himself. We all accused him of trying to pull a prank on us at first, but in hindsight, I think it was more that we didn't want to believe that it was true, as opposed to us actually not believing him. Like yeah, we pulled pranks on each other all the time, but nothing like that. Besides, you could just tell from his reaction that he wasn't kidding. We weren't exactly the best actors and if this whole act was just a performance, it was Oscar winning.

So, as much as the official line was that he was trying to just scare us, we all had our suspicions that he was telling the truth. Like when one of us suggested that we go back because he'd probably just spooked himself somehow, he was adamant that we just go right back to the sleepover. I mean, he told us he'd walk back to our buddy's house alone if that was what it took. Anyway, it was pretty intense, but we moved on from it pretty quickly. Even the kid who apparently saw the guy just did his best to forget about it. Amazing how easy you can compartmentalize stuff at that age.

Then, like a year later the following summer, a kid goes missing two towns over. It was a whole thing, missing posters and TV appeals, and I remember feeling so bad for the family. Then when the cops found someone they wanted to talk to, they go to his house and he pulls out a gun. Cue a three hour standoff that ends with cops trying to bust into his home and the guy shooting himself when they did. They never found the kid who went missing. Long story short, my buddy thinks it's the same guy who was watching him pee that night we were trick-or-treating. And as much as I don't want to, I think I actually believe him.

I don't think he'd ever make something up like that and honestly, sometimes I think my friend sister trick oror-treating in our neighborhood. Long story short, there was a lot of trouble back home between my mom, my dad, and my stepdad, this guy called Craig. Craig was a jerk, my mom was a drunk, and dad was fighting for custody of us. As you can imagine, it was incredibly stressful and it definitely accounts for one of the most miserable times of my life. But that night's trick or treating ended with an absolute low point that I feel very lucky to have escaped. So I took my sister around the neighborhood and we did okay in terms of our candy haul. Then by curfew time I walked her back to our house where we found Craig was waiting for us. He looked livid but we weren't

late coming back or anything so as my sister walked back into the house I gave her my bag of candy while Craig walked off toward the garage. I kept asking him what was going on but he wouldn't say anything to me and as he handed me some gloves, a shovel and a trash bag, it felt a whole lot like I was being punished for something I didn't do. Then as I followed him into the woods behind his house, I saw that he had a little hatchet in his hand. The last time I saw anyone with these items in tow it was some neighbors going to butcher a deer that had been caught on their property. Poor thing had almost disemboweled itself on some razor wire and bled out during

the night and our neighbors must have had a heck of a time getting rid of it. So as much as I'm kind of nervous about what's going to greet me at the end of our little walk, I couldn't have any idea how horrible it truly was. After about 10-15 minutes of walking, Craig tells me to stop and start digging a hole where I'm stood. I ask why and he tells me to shut up and do as I'm told. Which wasn't out of the ordinary but after only a few scoops of dirt he stops me. He asks if I want to know why I'm digging and of course I told him yes. And he tells me that I'm actually digging my own grave I thought it might have been a Halloween prank or something One in bad taste, sure, but a prank nonetheless

Then he starts telling me about how my dad has a custody hearing coming up in two weeks And that it's my job to make sure that he doesn't win. If he did win, the hole I was in the middle of digging would become my grave. I was 11, dude. 11 years old. And this grown man is telling me how I need to like, stop some entire legal proceeding or whatever. That or he'd kill me, presumably with the hatchet he had in his hand. After that, we picked up all the stuff we'd brought out with us then walked back to the house. All these years later, parts of me wonder why I didn't react more viscerally to actually being threatened with murder. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I just sort of accepted it. I imagine this is what my

therapist calls my childhood traumas and that I was just so burned out with the abuse and fear and the misery that I just took it in my stride. But I'm sure you'll all be pleased to hear that my dad ended up winning custody purely on the basis of him not having any kind of criminal record while my mom's and Craig's rap sheet was like a mile long. Craig wasn't so smart either as when the judge ruled in my dad's favor me and my sister went right home with him. We never saw Craig again and since my mom refused to leave him I haven't actually seen my mom since the hearing. We've talked on the phone a bunch, but I've no desire to see her in person. Not if Craig is still around. Halloween night.

I'm 12 years old, growing up in Fontana, California. I'd arranged to ride my bike over to my friend's house. We'd go trick-or-treating in his neighborhood and then ride back home with my candy by 8.30. All goes to plan. I get a fat sack of minis and I'm riding my bike back along the sidewalk. I come across this guy leaning up against a wall lit up by a street light. He's smoking a cigarette, wearing a dark hoodie and as I get near him, he looks at me and calls out like, nice costume kid, then steps out into the sidewalk to check out my costume and ask me about it. He was being real friendly and I was way naive so it's not like alarm bells were going off. He then asked for some of my candy and only then was I worried that I might actually take any of it. I'd have been absolutely

heartbroken if I'd gone to all that effort only to get jacked for my candy on the way home. So I reach into my bag, pull out a few minis and then hand them over. This seems to satisfy him and he thanks me for asking what my costume was. My last memory is of me explaining who Nightwing is and then the next thing I remember, I'm waking up on the concrete and my legs hurt. I turn my head and see my legs are all wrapped up in a bike frame, but I also see the same dude who stopped me pull out a knife and be like, give me the bike. I was so dizzy and stuff that I have to like kick the bike away from me just so he could take it and I realized then that I'm on the floor because the guy knocked me out somehow. I'm guessing with a sucker punch or whatever because I could taste blood in my mouth.

He picks my bike up and I somehow find my feet and I know I should have been scared but I was only so hazy that I honestly couldn't feel anything but just like a resigned numbness. The whole thing only really hit me when the guy told me to take my shoes off. I had these sick Nike Air Maxes on that were my brother's, navy blue and perfect for the nightwing costume.

They weren't mine so I told the guy no and they couldn't give them away because they were my big brothers. That's when the guy hit me again. And although it didn't knock me out, it definitely knocked me on my butt. Then as I'm sitting there, fighting back tears, he actually takes them off my feet and I'm too scared and upset and mad that I just didn't do anything about it. I just let him. The whole time I'm thinking, this guy might stab me just because, so I just couldn't fight back at all. Then he says something like, I'll leave you with your candy though.

Like he's saying I'm a good guy really, sure I just knocked out a 12 year old but I'm a good guy really. Sure, I just knocked out a 12-year-old, but I'm a good guy at heart. It's one of the few things from my childhood slash teenage years that actually still really bugs me to this day, and I still remember walking home in my socks like it was yesterday. My mom and dad called the cops for me as soon as I got home, but they never caught the guy to my knowledge. Sick thing is, the guy is probably still out there, thinking he was a good guy for punching a 12 year old, but leaving him with his candy. To be continued... party back in 1993. So my mom and auntie were at this Halloween party at a place called the Rising Sun Bar, a little function room slash pub in their hometown of Derry in Northern Ireland.

They had just turned 18, this was going to be one of their first proper legal nights out so they were obviously just ridiculously excited and this excitement only got more and more intense as they dolled themselves up and got ready. It was sort of like a coming of age and when they arrived, all the older folks were so happy to see these two young ladies becoming women. Anyway, as the night goes on, everyone was having a lovely time, the booze is flowing and the Halloween-themed tunes are thumping over the pub's PA system. People are in costumes.

There's a prize for the best one. The whole night sounded just brilliant. Then suddenly, at about 10pm, a man walked into the bar in a rather unusual-looking costume, and he just stood there for a moment, looking around the pub at all the people. My mom said it was like one of those record-scratch moments where a person walks into the room and everyone kind of stops to look at them.

The man is wearing a blue boiler suit and a balaclava and he's soon joined by two other men dressed in similar attire. I don't think it was like the entire pub that stopped to look at him nor did the music stop as he walked through the doors. But enough people were paying attention that they heard him shout, trick or treat, at the top of his lungs. At that, they all pulled out guns and began firing into the crowd. Mom said it was absolute chaos. There was glass shattering, people falling, everyone was screaming or crying over fallen friends or relatives. I think the only reason they survived was because they had ran behind the bar when all the shooting started going off. Then suddenly, as quickly as the whole thing had started, the gunmen were gone. They killed eight people that night and wounded just short of twenty others.

They destroyed people's lives, changed others forever, all as part of some tit-for-tat revenge thing with the local branch of the IRA. I'm glad most of that stuff is behind us now, but it still threatens to rear its ugly head every so often. I just hope that we as a people have the good sense to leave that kind of thing behind us, so that no one ever has to hear the words trick or treat again and actually fear for their life. They caught the blokes that done it too, but the political situation here is so dire that they ended up getting released early as part of the peace agreement. God knows where they are now, but that's just one of the really scary things about living in this island. There are all kinds of monsters walking around,

ones that should still be locked up behind bars. But they're free to walk around like they're as good as you and me, when I promise you, if you could have been back in that bar to see what my mom saw, you'd know they deserved anything but freedom. Back when I was 12, me and my buddies got to go trick-or-treating for the first time on our own. We had a curfew of 9pm sharp and by around 8.30, we suddenly decided that we didn't have nearly enough candy for our liking. So we started going really quick from house to house, trying to cover as much ground as possible.

When our watches hit 845, most of us are suggesting just call it a night, but I had my heart set on one more house. No one wanted to get into trouble, but I'm insisting, like, just one more house. Think of the candy. That's what tips the balance, so we walk over to this one last house, up of the candy. That's what tips the balance, so we walk over to

this one last house, up the driveway and to the front door. I remember just instinctively pressing the doorbell, not even really looking at the door itself, so it took one of my friends to be like, dude, look. I look and I see the front door is actually open. It was only ever so slightly ajar, but it was open. I gave my buddy a look as to say, What? But we didn't push the door open or anything. I just carried on buzzing the doorbell. Like maybe it had been left open on purpose.

Another one of us called out, Hello, but we didn't hear anything back and we were just about to walk away when we heard something from inside the house. It sounded like a thud, like someone, I don't know, kicked a couch or something. Not a super alarming sound but enough to have us stop, turn back and wonder if we shouldn't maybe check it out or something. Again one of us calls out, Hello? Is anyone there? Only this time, I step forward to push open the front door.

What we saw was a long, cream-colored carpet with what was obviously blood on it. There was blood on the carpet and blood on the door and its handle. We all see it, and for a second, we're all just totally dumbstruck. Then one of us just sprints off in the direction of a neighbor's house and bangs on the door. Within about 20 minutes, the street outside is just flooded with blue and red flashing lights and me and my buddies are sat on the curb outside answering some cops' questions. The worst part was when they wheeled someone out with a sheet over them so we knew whoever's blood it was probably wasn't with us anymore.

As you can imagine, our parents must have been pretty livid with us cause we didn't get home until about 10.30. But since we were with cops they knew something must have happened. I remember my dad kept checking the newspaper for any info but all he could find was this tiny mention of a home invasion on Halloween. I guess the perps had knocked on the front door or maybe fooled the guy into thinking that they were trick or treaters. We didn't even get to save the guy. Like I was hoping that yeah our whole year had been messed up with this thing,

but at least we get to take credit for saving somebody whenever the EMT showed up, but... We didn't get there in time, and he must have bled out pretty quick. All that after me insisting one more house. Just one more house. To be continued... who had a job lined up elsewhere and had otherwise totally checked out. I was angry. The least he could do was be professional about it and if he was mad at the firm, why take it out on me? Anyway, it's like 8pm, I'm starving and admittedly, I'm doing about 50 in a 30.

Then out of nowhere this little trick-or-treater steps out in front of my car, then freezes, legitimately like a deer in headlights and just stares at me as I slam on the brakes. I was so sure I was about to hit her, and I know this is low, but I covered my eyes with my hands cause I just couldn't bear to see this little girl or kid get smashed. But then, by the time I stopped, I open my eyes to see she's still standing there. She looks terrified and you can hardly blame her. So, I open my car door, step out just enough to talk to her and ask her if she's okay. She just sort of blinks at me and I assume she's just in shock so I ask again. But yet again, she doesn't answer.

She just sort of looks at me and doesn't say a word. Then right as I'm about to ask her where her mom and dad are, this big black van, the kind with the sliding door, appears out of nowhere and skids to a stop next to her. The middle door slides open and a man gets out and I think this might be the kid's family or something but the way the guy grabbed her, the way the girl screamed when this strange man picked her up, it gave me the distinct impression that whatever just happened was far from wholesome. I found somewhere to pull over, took out my cell phone and immediately called

the cops. I told them everything, what the girl looked like, what her costume looked like, the make and model of the van along with as much of the license plate as I could remember. I sat there in my car, eyes closed and tried to picture everything I saw in intimate detail. I assume I'd be seeing something about it on the news. I mean, whenever a kid goes missing, especially a violent abduction or whatever, it's normally all over the news, right? Not this time. I didn't see a single mention of it anywhere. I tried searching online too and I didn't find a single report about black fans or child abductions anywhere around Kansas City.

It makes me think I misunderstood what I saw. Makes me doubt myself. Maybe the kid was just, I don't know, disabled in some way and gotten lost while trick-or-treating. There's a hundred different ways to rationalize it, but every time I remember the way the guy grabbed her and the way that kid screamed, I don't know. I think I witnessed something terrible and whoever's responsible had gotten away with it completely. I used to do a lot of babysitting work in my teenage years and one Halloween I got an

offer good enough that I legitimately cancelled my party plans. Not my party obviously, and I won't brag by telling you how much I got but the family's first choice cancelled last minute and they were desperate. Anyway, the job is a dream one, the kid is adorable and there's minimal trouble at bedtime. Then after the kid fell asleep, I'm left to kill some time in the usual way, watching TV, texting, ordering pizza, etc. Anyway, since it was Halloween, I'm watching a few spooky movies and shows on TV. Shout out to the Treehouse of Horror marathon on Fox. Then all of a sudden, I start hearing something talking in another room.

Now bear in mind that I think I'm home alone there, so hearing another voice while knowing the kid was asleep. Jesus Christ, I remember how my heart raced all those years later. It wasn't even just normal talking or whispering either, but this low, almost demonic voice speaking to another one. Ugh, it put the fear of God directly into me, I swear. I just jumped in, ran to the kitchen to grab the cordless phone and a knife and then started edging towards the room I heard the voices coming from. The whole time I'm like, I need to protect this kid. But the fear of knowing I was going to be the first one to get got was honestly one of the worst things I've ever felt. Then right as I hear, 911 what's your emergency? And I know the dispatcher will hear whatever

happens. I burst into the room with the intruders, brandishing the knife and shouting, I got the cops on the phone. Furbies. It was furbies, talking to each other in the middle of the night, in the dark. I had to explain to the dispatcher that there had been a horrible mistake and that I was so, so sorry. I honestly thought that they'd be mad that I called for a false alarm, but the nice lady explained it's better to be safe than sorry and then hung up. Definitely the single scariest thing that's ever happened to me on a babysitting job and yes, I am embarrassed. But I'll never forget that feeling of vulnerability and still knowing I had a responsibility to protect someone. Anyway, it all worked out in the end because I admitted the whole thing to the kids'

parents when they arrived home just in case the cops called by to warn them about the calling. They didn't obviously and I was just paranoid they would and that I might end up losing any future work from these two. Luckily, they were actually kind of impressed that I'd protected their daughter like that and only ever called me in the future when they needed someone to babysit. So, all's well that ends well, I guess. I live out in the country. More woods and fields around me than houses. And back in the day, when we went trick-or-treating on Halloween, we'd basically walk about three miles to knock on maybe ten houses. Luckily, all the surrounding families compensated by giving out about buckets full of sweets, and we still had to walk around

dark fields to get at them. So, around where we lived, there were several dirt paths through the woods that farmers used for their tractors and all that during the day. Me and my friends used to use these paths because they're usually quiet and have no traffic unlike the road. So on Halloween night, when we're all about 15, it had rained during the day so the paths were all muddy. We'd collected a fair amount of chocolate so we're heading back, just messing around when we just so happened to go in a big loop so we could stay out longer. That's the best way of describing it anyway because the point is, we were able to follow our own footprints through the mud knowing we'd been the only people walking that way.

Or so we thought because as we're following them, we see this much larger pair of footprints that appear from the tree line and seem to follow us for a bit. We were definitely a bit creeped out by this, but it didn't mean they were following us. But then we saw that when we walked back into our loop, the bigger footprints followed us and that basically, whoever it was must have still been behind us. That was a pretty chilling moment, honestly, and we all agreed to just stop messing around and walk home as soon as possible. And then right as we do, we hear something moving in the darkness behind us. I felt the tension creeping right up my spine as we all just stood there, too scared to move,

just waiting for something terrible to happen. But thankfully, we were able to get home without incident. We never actually saw anyone, no one attacked us or anything, but that sensation that came after realizing we were being followed is one I'll never forget, especially with it having happened on Halloween of all nights, too. To be continued... I'd gotten from trick-or-treating in front of the TV. I also had this thing where I'd like to put a bunch of Skittles in my mouth, chew them up, and make like a Skittle ball that I would chew on. Gross, I know, but will I apologize for it? The heck I will. Anyways, something on the show I was watching made me laugh and swallow the ball,

which got lodged in my throat. I then experienced a few seconds of absolute terror because I realized I couldn't actually call for help and that I was probably going to die. Thankfully my dad heard me knocking something off a countertop and came running in to help. He grabbed me, put me in a Heimlich maneuver thingy and I coughed that skittle ball right up as I felt like I was going to pass out. It was super lucky because I really had no idea what I was doing but one of the worst feelings I'd ever experienced. Definitely never ate Skittles that way again after that and to this day I'm still a bit paranoid about eating certain things when alone. Back when I was a kid, I had this friend in elementary school.

We were super close, sat next to each other in class, hung out every recess and lunch. So, at one point, we planned a little sleepover. My parents' place was kind of small at the time, but she lived in this big old house with her grandparents. So it was arranged we'd have our sleepover there instead. I never found out why she lived with them or where her parents were, but I distinctly remember my mom and dad telling me not to ask her questions about them for obvious reasons in hindsight. The only thing was, my friend seemed really really set on having the sleepover at my place. I mean to the point where

when we had no choice but to have it at her grandparents place, she seemed to not want to have a sleepover anymore. I had to convince her to have it at her place just because I was so excited about the idea of having the sleepover in general. Anyways, it comes to the night of the sleepover, I go over to our grandparents' place and it's every bit as fun as I imagined. We watched movies up in her room, had pizza delivered, ate ice cream right out of the tub, and her grandparents seemed really sweet and nice. Then I think it was around 9pm. Her grandpa knocks on the door, pokes his head in and tells

us that he and my friend's grandma are headed to bed, so we're to keep the noise down. We're like, okay, goodnight. He leaves and we carry on with our night. A little while after I get up and head over to the door, telling my friend I needed to use the bathroom. She jumps up, throws herself between me and the door and is like, you can't go out there, you'll wake up grandpa. I tell her not to worry and that I'd creep down the hall on tippy toes so as not to wake him, but my friend still refuses to let me leave the room. I think she's actually playing around for a second and I'm like, quit it, and try to get past her, but she actually shoves me back away from the door with this angry look on her face. I didn't want to start a fight with her after all, the whole objective was to keep. She reaches under her bed and pulls out one of the plastic stationary trays. You know, like the in-box not-box kind you put paper in?

Yeah, that kind. She points at this paper tray and is just like, go in this. Again, I think she might be playing a weird and cruel sort of trick on me, but she's deadly serious. She actually wanted me to pee in that stationary tray. So I did. It was super gross but I did it and instantly the mood is just destroyed. I had nothing to clean myself up with. I'm pretty sure I peed a little on my nightgown, it was just all kinds of disgusting. But still my friend won't let me go to use the bathroom to wash up. The weirdest thing was, she acted like it was normal. She never did anything like that at my

house and she definitely didn't seem like that kind of kid, like she wasn't known as the stinky kid in school or whatever. The whole thing just kind of blew my mind and although I didn't let it affect our relationship or friendship or anything, I definitely didn't like to stay over at her house again. We stayed close for a long time after but ended up going to different high schools because she moved in with her aunt over in St. Paul. We kept in touch using MySpace back when that was still a thing but I never got to the bottom of her weird nocturnal bathroom habits, not until well after her grandpa passed away. When he died, she seemed to take it really bad. When I called her, she broke down crying so bad that she had to hang up and she wouldn't return any of my texts,

no matter how much I begged her to get in touch. In the end, me and my mom looked up her aunt's home phone number and called ahead before we drove over. The aunt seemed more than happy to talk to us, but with the caveat that she had something very, very serious to tell us. My friend's grandpa had been doing stuff to her. Whenever her grandma was asleep, she got up to use the bathroom or whatever, her grandpa would hear her come out of his room and... God, I can't even bring myself to say it. Turns out he'd done the exact same thing to her mom too and that's like half the reason she wasn't in the picture anymore. One of the other reasons was the drug use, which is why no matter how much she insisted on custody not being given to the grandparents, a judge ignored her and did it

anyway. I think they were just so terrified of him that they just couldn't talk about it, ever, and it was only after he died that it all came spilling out in various forms. The aunt that she was living with was her mom's cousin, so obviously wasn't around for what was happening when they were kids. It was absolutely horrifying hearing about it just as her friend, so I can only imagine how terrible the aunt felt, knowing she was so close to the abuse but just not being able to see it. And then it all made sense to me. Why she didn't want me walking down the hall at night. Why she'd taken to peeing in a stationary tray that she kept hidden under her bed. She wasn't being mean or weird when she made me do it. She was protecting me. No wonder she didn't

want me to have this sleepover in her place and I'm really not trying to make this whole thing about me when I say this but I feel horribly guilty for not saying anything to my parents at the time. I didn't want to embarrass her. She was my friend. My best friend. But that's just the thing about being a kid, isn't it? That naivety. You do dumb stuff even if you don't mean to. And that's what my therapist tells me anyway, and I try to believe it. I really do. But part of me will forever remain convinced that somehow,

I'm kind of to blame, too. We're going back many, many years for this, but I grew up in Northern California in quite a poor rural area. Some of my best friends from elementary and middle school lived like 10-15 miles away, so on weekends, instead of just going over to visit for the day, we'd have sleepovers to save our parents driving these crazy round trips. So I had this one friend called Star, whose parents were like old school hippies. Their house always smelled of patchouli, they were vegan before vegan was even really a thing, and aside from a few unusual recreational activities, they were basically just as good as being parents as any other couple. They were sweet, loving, and attentive, and I always had a ball whenever

I went to sleepovers at their place, mainly because they'd let us stay outdoors in a tent at night, which was just such a huge adventure for a little group of pre-teen tomboys. Anyways, this one night we're staying in a tent in the backyard, but it was a backyard that extended to one side of the house. Where we're camped is in the view of the TV room window, so Star's mom and dad could keep an eye on us, but it also meant we could see the driveway from the flap of our tent. It was summertime, so it was still incredibly warm at night, so we ended up leaving the tent flat unzipped to let some cool air in.

It obviously wasn't open all the way because bugs, but we can still see outside the tent. Then, in the middle of the night, Star shakes me awake and whispers, There's someone in the driveway. I'm thinking it might have been her big brother who was a few years older than us and was attending college.

But when I suggested that, she said, No, it's a bunch of people, look. I started getting real anxious hearing that, so I quietly creep up to the tent flap to peek out, and that's when I saw that Star was exactly right. In the little bit of moonlight that we had, I literally lost count of the number of people I saw creeping up her driveway. It was seriously one of the scariest moments of my life, mainly because there was absolutely nothing to do but keep as quiet as possible. We couldn't call the cops, this was way before cell phones. We couldn't warn Star's parents without revealing our presence. We were just

powerless, forced to watch people who obviously didn't have good intentions slowly approaching Star's house. I think in the end, Star just broke and in a move you could either call real brave or real stupid, she just ran out of the tent shouting, get away from my house, and then, mom, dad, call the cops. As soon as she started screaming, a bunch of flashlights burst into life, obviously held by the guy sneaking up the driveway. And oh my God, there were so many of them. At first glance in the darkness, it looked no more than about five or six people, but when they all turned their flashlights on, it was clear the number was more like 15 or 20.

I'd just hear, Sheriff's Department, show me your hands. And that was incredibly confusing because we were all about calling the cops to get help, but like, the cops were already here? Anyway, Stardust as she's told, while me and our friend start climbing out of the tent with our hands in the air, that's when the person approaching us started saying, Jesus, they're just kids, man.

And with them being closer, I could see that they really were cops, with caps and badges and all patches on their arms, all that stuff. Then I hear, Go, go, go, get in there. And the cops started bashing the front door to the house in while other cops fanned around the backyard and headed towards one of the barns. We were scared, obviously, but we're so focused on just staying down and watching that we're not really freaking out too bad. But when

the cops started dragging Star's mom and dad out of the house and arresting them, she had to be restrained by the cop that was guarding us. After that, the cops drove me and our friend back to our respective homes. Then, I don't know what they did with Star. I think they took her to her grandma's or her aunt's or whatever. Then a few days later, we find out that Star's mom and dad had been growing something they shouldn't have in one of their barns. I get that it was illegal and stuff, but the aftermath was just so sad. Star had to go live with her relatives because her parents were sent off to prison for a few years. It was messed up.

And I get that the cops were just doing their job and stuff, but it was definitely one of the scariest times of my life. Seeing all those figures in black just creeping towards my friend's house. So, back when I was a kid, me and my best bud were having a sleepover. His mom and dad had gotten a divorce a couple months prior, so to counter all the stress of it, he pretty much got whatever he wanted. Not like his mom was spoiling him or anything, she was just being super nice to make sure he wasn't too bummed about his dad leaving. Did it work?

Yes and no. Getting to have his friends sleep over, getting an xbox, a cell phone and getting much more personal freedom was all well and good, but every so often you could tell the whole thing was getting to him. The good thing was, I got to spend a whole bunch more time with him to give him the support we needed. Which coincidentally meant that I was there for one of the worst moments of his childhood. Actually, make that both our childhoods. So, we're having a sleepover, and his mom is having a friend over. We're upstairs, they're downstairs.

At one point, I wanted a glass of water, so I head downstairs, but he had to walk through the TV room to get to the kitchen, and when I do, I see my buddy's mom's friend is a dude, and're getting kind of close, if you know what I'm saying. They jump off each other when I walk into the room. I walk through like, don't mind me, and it's incredibly awkward as I walk back through with my glass of water. Then, I make the mistake of mentioning it to my buddy. He's clearly not happy with the fact that it's a dude. Like, we're 9th graders at this point, so we're pretty savvy to, you know. Anyway, my buddy isn't happy, but he just does his usual thing of internalizing it before distracting himself. Not the best coving mechanism in hindsight, but it is what it is. Then, remember that cell phone I mentioned? Well, his mom bought it for

him so he could keep in touch with his dad, which he then does. And guess what's the first thing he tells him? Yep, that there's a strange dude over at his house. I totally blame myself in the moment. It sucked so hard and when my buddy hung up, turned to me with a smug grin and said, dad's on his way over. I just knew something bad was going to happen. I kind of wanted to leave but at the same time, my whole reason for being at that time was being a good friend to Ryan. I had a really healthy family life at home, like my mom and dad were a loving, dedicated couple, right up until the day my dad passed. And I'd like to think they raised good kids. But Ryan, his parents were turtle morons, and good god did that make me feel guilty.

So I stuck around. I knew something horrible was going to happen but I had zero freaking clue to how bad it would really be. My buddy's bedroom window overlooked his driveway so when his dad finally did show up we could see and hear almost everything that went on down there. His dad, and I'm not embellishing here, hurdles up the driveway at like 40 miles an hour, screeches to a stop, and then doesn't even shut his door when he climbed out of his car. Ryan is watching him, looking at him like his dad is a knight in shining armor for a few seconds,

right up until he says, Oh crap, I think my dad has a gun. Hearing that final word sent this razor sharp icicle running right through my guts. I knew there'd probably be shouting and fighting, but shooting? Then all we hear through an open window is, Where is he? It was Ryan's dad. He'd banged on the door until his mom answered, then demanded to know where her guy friend was.

Ryan's mom's all like, I don't know what you're talking about. But then Ryan's dad goes from zero to a hundred in a second flat. Don't lie to me, Linda. Where is he? He says. There's this very real palpable pause and me and Ryan are just on this very tense, nervous feeling, then his mom says, Who told you? Again, a shiver of ice through my stomach, because I'm basically the one who told, and in that moment, I told myself that whatever was about to happen was completely my fault. See, Ryan's dad exploded at the admission.

You're a freaking liar, Linda. Now get out of my way. We could hear Ryan's mom screaming for a second. Then we heard another voice, only this one is definitely inside the house. The guy friend. Get off! He screamed. You heard the guy start to shout something at Ryan's dad. Then he just went totally silent.

And all you could hear were feet beating against the floorboards downstairs. All before, bam, bam, bam. Three distinct gunshots that echoed around the house. Me and Ryan are just bawling at this point because we could still hear his mom screaming and we had no idea if she'd been shot, if the boyfriend was dead, if the boyfriend had a gun and fired at Ryan's dad. The whole situation was traumatic enough, but the not knowing, man, that was just the worst. I had to grab Ryan's cell phone off of him to call 911.

He just totally shut down from the stress. He'd had a rough enough few months while the whole divorce thing went on, then now he had to deal with potentially a dead mom or dad. I don't blame him honestly. It was bad enough for me and it wasn't even any of my parents. The three shots were all heard and before the cops showed up, the only sounds we could hear were Ryan's mom crying downstairs. We should have gone to check on her, I know we should have, but the dispatcher told us both to stay put because we didn't know if there was still an active shooter or whatever, so we did as we were told. Thankfully, everyone turned out to be okay and no one was even shot. Ryan's dad had aimed the gun at his mom's friend as soon as he'd laid eyes on him,

but the guy was quick and just bolted out the back of the house as Ryan's dad pursued. He fired three shots, but it was basically just to scare the guy away at that point, and I heard none of the bullets even went near him. But still, it was terrifying, and Ryan's dad ended up going back to prison for a long while because of it. way back when I first started middle school it was in a different part of New Jersey, so I didn't really know anyone. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to make any new friends, so imagine my relief when I met Jenny. Jenny isn't a real name, and I'm not going to use any real names in this for reasons that will become obvious. So me and Jenny became fast friends, so we decided

to have ourselves a little sleepover at her mom's place. Our parents talked it over and we arranged for me to go home with her on a Friday after school, then my mom would come get me on the Saturday morning. The Friday arrives, I catch the bus back to Jenny's place with her and this marks the first time I ever met Jenny's mom. She seemed weird to say the least. Jenny's dad wasn't in the picture anymore and I don't think her mom took it very well because she was the kind of woman who was into crystals and reiki and all that other spiritual stuff. Maybe she was into that stuff before he left her. The point is she was that kind of before he left her. The point is, she was that kind of witchy woman, I guess you could say. The evening started off with Jenny's mom being

quirky but nice. But at a certain point, she started opening bottles of wine and drinking them super fast. Like even at 13, I'd recognize that there was something not right about the way she drank. But given I was spending most of my time in Jenny's room, I didn't think it'd really matter. Wrong. Because at one point Jenny's mom walks into her bedroom where we're hanging out and half collapses down into the bed with a, what you girls doing? I don't know if other people can relate to this, but I always used to find drunk adults to be really, really creepy. Seeing how something as simple as a drink could change them so much, and not even for the better. Ugh.

It made my skin crawl. But a scary story about, oh poor me, I don't like drunk people, that's not what you guys are here for. So I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that that's not the scary part. The scary part was when Jenny's mom started channeling spirits. It was legitimately one of the creepiest freaking things I'd ever seen. Seeing this grown woman trying to change her facial features and her voice to make out what the dead were talking through her. I knew it wasn't real. I was 13, not dumb, but seeing her like believe it was happening, it was honestly one of the most disturbing things I'd ever seen. She'd pretend

to be some long dead murderer and talk about the murders they committed. Then she'd pretend to be a child cancer patient talking about how scary it was to die so young. Sick stuff like that. And we had to listen to her drone on for like an hour or so telling us all kinds of things that 13 year old girls should definitely not be hearing. Eventually she tired herself out and passed out on Jenny's bed. She just excused her mom and we continued to sleep over in the TV room. I was mortified for her, but to Jenny, this was the most normal thing in the world. Then, about four or five months later, just before summer break, Jenny's mom suffered a complete nervous breakdown and tried to stab her with a bread knife.

It was a whole thing in our town and I don't think I'd ever seen Jenny again. Thankfully, she did end up getting adopted by a distant cousin who lived a few towns over and so we still got to hang out every once in a while. But her mom was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and I know that had a really negative effect on her. Me and Jenny lost touch after high school but if she's out there and she just so happens to be reading this, I hope you're okay. I miss you and I hope you and your mom are doing just fine now. I I think all kids think their parents are strict. It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? Like, I used to think my parents were strict because I had to set bedtime and curfews on weekends,

but then I stayed over to a friend's house for the first time when I was 13, and it changed my entire view of my parents. Because his mom was an actual tyrant. Like, it was scary to watch. We live in a rural area, my friend even more so. Like again, I thought I lived out in the sticks, but he lived miles from even the smallest towns, like right on the outskirts of Galloway Forest Park. It was a nice wee gaffe, but it was old school, proper old school. Like all the locks were latches instead of key locks, which meant all of the doors were accessible from the inside and outside, including bedrooms and bathrooms. On the evening in question,

we had a nice enough time, watching James Bond movies in between rounds of Deathmatch on N64's GoldenEye. Admittedly, I was a proper little mummy's boy at the time and I was pretty uncomfortable at sleeping over at a friend's place, more so because of the distance from home. But like I said, the evening was good up until a point. We were both immersed into the whole Bond lore, stuffing ourselves with pizza and arguing over Brosnan vs. Connery. Then, as we're talking, my friend's mom comes into the lounge, calmly walked up to him, then gives him the biggest, loudest, hardest slap in the face I'd ever seen. Like it was almost more like an open palm smack than anything else.

I'd never seen anything like that. I mean, not a parent hitting a child anyway. So, in the seconds that followed I was literally just like, what just happened? My mate burst into tears, crying, gets up and runs upstairs with his mom in hot pursuit and the whole time she's screaming stuff like disgusting at him. I was just dumbstruck. There I was, chilling with my mate when his mom just comes up and annihilates his face for apparently no bloody reason whatsoever. Anyway, they both disappear upstairs and I'm left on my own to wonder what's going on. I just stay there, not knowing what else to do waiting for them to

reappear. When they do, my mate just plonks himself on the sofa, red in the face, eyes all puffy from crying. Then when his mom is out of earshot, I asked what happened. Turns out that she smacked him square in the face because he was eating with his mouth open. Yep, eating with his mouth open. That's all he did to deserve that open palm punch to the face. After that, I was petrified at this guy's mom. I mean, we didn't have very many sleepovers at his place, and I have a few more stories involving the absence of any privacy

because of those old locks situation. Don't get me wrong, I know there's way more harrowing things out there as an adult, but the way she treated him was the most abusive parenting I'd ever seen. This guy's parents were some of the scariest people I'd encountered in my life, let alone my childhood. If he was punished that bad for just eating with his mouth open, what else did the poor kid suffer through for other seemingly minor infractions? It made me feel very, very lucky to have the parents I did. Let me just put it that way. To be continued... I remember going to my first ever sleepover in fourth grade. The night time was great. We played Nintendo, made a fort out of the couch cushions in his TV room.

Everything a kid could dream of. We went to bed way later than usual. Told spooky stories while we shined flashlights at the ceiling. It was every part the Norman Rockwell cliche. Right up until the next morning. We wake up bright and early. He heads out to the bathroom, but when he does, I hear his mom whispering something to him in the hallway outside his bedroom. Then, he comes back in and really somberly says,

my mom says you gotta go home. Naturally I ask why but he shrugs and tells me my mom is already on the way to give me a ride. As you can guess, we were real sad about it but we'd had a whole bunch of fun the night before and even kids know that the good times gotta come to an end sometime. Anyway, my mom shows up. I say bye to my friend Mikey and his mom but I notice that his dad isn't around. He'd been there the night before and he was a really cool guy so I asked them to tell him I said bye and thank you so he didn't think I was rude or anything. Mikey said sure but his mom just kind of looked off into the distance and stayed silent. I thought that was kind of weird, but it was really early

in the morning so I didn't think much of it. But I definitely noticed how the really fun, warm atmosphere of the night before had been replaced by something much colder. Then when I got into my mom's car, she too was acting like something terrible had happened. I might have been just nine, but I wasn't dumb, so I remember asking her what was going on, that I knew something weird had happened and I'd rather just know. So, she tells me. She tells me that while me and my buddy were sleeping peacefully in our pillow fort, his dad had an aneurysm in the next room and was dead before anyone had woken up.

It was bad. I know that seems like an understatement, but it was worse than I could have imagined. His mom pretty much fell apart and she and my friend left town shortly afterward to go live with relatives. It's something that haunted me for a long time, knowing I was so close to a death like that as well as seeing how a sudden death can just wreck someone's mental and physical health. Like the last time I saw his mom, she'd lost a whole bunch of weight, a complete shadow of her former self.

My buddy looked pretty bad too, but he was definitely taking it much better than she was. That was the last time I saw either of them, when they came over to break the news that they were moving away. It sucked, and we promised to stay in touch, but I guess things don't always turn out the way you want them to. Please don't think I'm trying to throw myself a pity party here because I'm doing much better in my adult life. But back when I was a kid I had an incredibly toxic home life and as a result I went to school basically with little to no social skills. I made just one friend and even then it was only on accident because she was being nice to me after I tripped and broke my toy on the bus. Her name was Rachel. Rachel's BFF was named Emily and Emily was the prettiest, coolest girl in class. So imagine my

delight when one day I find myself getting an invite to Emily's birthday sleepover. To this day I can remember how excited I was. My first sleepover. It was indescribably validating. I beamed at that invitation over and over again like it was a trophy or something and begged my mom to give me a ride to the sleepover early. I didn't want to miss a single minute of it. Then, on the night of the sleepover, I found it wasn't quite as enjoyable as I thought it would be. It was a real fun atmosphere and all, but Emily and Rachel weren't exactly being very warm with me and I could really obviously detect it. Then, right as I'm lying on my back with a pillow under my head just relaxing, I feel Emily straddle my stomach while Rachel seems to hold my legs down. Emily then grabs the pillow out from under my head, shoves it over my face, then proceeds to tell me how ugly I am and how she never wanted to invite

me. It hurt. Emotionally, I mean. It cut really, really deep. But that feeling was nothing to the one I felt when I realized I couldn't breathe. I struggled and struggled but still that horrid little girl kept that pillow over my face until I felt myself passing out. It was only when her mom walked in to see what all the fuss was about that she took it away from my face. I still can't see their names without remembering how awful that memory is to me, but I'm glad to say that there were definitely repercussions. Rachel was grounded for a long time for letting it happen. I know that, but Emily ended up getting

like a psychological evaluation or whatever which revealed that she had some serious personality disorders. This was all part of her being arrested as a juvenile and she only narrowly avoided attempted murder charges. It caused a huge thing in our community and it was so bad that in the end, Emily's parents had to just pack up their family and leave town. But before I end this, let me say it again. I'm not looking for sympathy here. All that stuff is long in the past. Childhood was not kind to me, but I promise you, these days I'm in a much better place and surrounded by all the friends a girl could possibly wish for. And only two of them are cats. The single most messed up memory from my childhood involves dictaphones.

You know those little voice recorder things with the little tiny tapes? Yeah, I used to think they were so cute. Now they trigger me super hard. And before y'all call me a snowflake or whatever, listen to my story. When I was around 11 years old, 5th grade anyway, I went to sleep over at a friend's house. We stayed up late, doing all the stuff you'd expect young ladies to get up to at a sleepover. Then we all passed out and slept through the night. The next morning, the girl whose house it was, her dad comes into the kitchen with a little dictaphone in his hand. He's got a big smile on his face and right in front of us, he starts playing the tape back.

We all hear our own voices, talking about our crushes and all this other stuff. He'd been recording us and apparently he'd hidden the recorder in one of her stuffies or something. I'm honestly kind of freaked out by this but I'm too shy to actually call him out on it so we all just sort of let it go and chalk it up to a weird dad behavior. Years later, the girl and her weird dad move away and we all lose contact as we go our separate ways. Then about 14 years later, the girl finds me on Facebook. We do a little small talk, catching up on this and that and then the girl drops something heavy on me. She asks if during that sleepover,

all those years back, if I remember anything weird involving her dad. I'm all like, sure, he recorded us, that was incredibly weird, little bit of a total invasion of privacy maybe. She's like, no, anything else. I had to tell her no because honestly, nothing else did happen. But the question sparked off a little online reunion with all the girls who had social media getting in touch with one another because we'd all been asked the same question. It took a while for the truth to come out, but to our horror, we discovered that the girl had been getting abused by her father. The whole idea of recording our conversations that night wasn't part of some kooky prank or whatever.

It was him making sure she didn't say anything about it to her friends. Of all the darker, scarier incidents from my childhood, that one takes the cake. Not so much because of how horrible it is, and it is horrible, but because of how he basically gloated to us, playing it back because he knew she didn't say a freaking thing about it. I think he escaped justice in the end. I'm not even sure she started investigating, I guess, or whatever you want to call it, until he was long gone. She's doing fine by the way but I still think about her from time to time and hope she really is doing okay as she says she is. I went to a sleepover when I was a kid.

I think I was like maybe 7 years old, maybe even 8. It's late at night, we're playing with stuffed animals in a room. At one point I got up to go to the bathroom. As I said be right back to my friend, she replied, make sure you lock the bathroom door, in a happy, chipper voice. Kind of a no-brainer, so I just left the room without even thinking about it. I passed her parents' bedroom, walked into the bathroom, then, you guessed it, locked the door. Then I heard some shifting outside, so thinking someone else needed to go,

I tried to pee as quietly as possible. Then the doorknob starts twisting, but obviously it's locked, so it doesn't open. You'd think the person on the other side would have gotten the message, Occupado, you know? Then, whoever it was started twisting the doorknob, like, manically or something. I know this sounds kind of naive all these years later, but I thought it was maybe my friend playing a prank. So, not wanting to seem like a coward, I just finished my business and

tried to remain unshook. I tried to breathe silently, waited a few minutes until the coast was clear, then bolted back into my friend's room. I figured I'd find her reveling in the chaos, she'd rot, muahaha, or something to that effect, but when I returned, she didn't seem to have moved. She just smiled and asked me to shut the door behind me. Now, I know that seems pretty routine, but there was something kind of odd about this request. I slept with my door shut too, I mean, who doesn't? But when she asked me, it seemed like her smile was off just a little when she spoke, like her grin was pitched to the edges almost like it was forced, almost as if though she was scared. I couldn't sleep at all that night. I stayed awake, watching the door in the dark. I never went back for another sleepover.

The next time I returned for a playdate, she mentioned that her dad had punished her recently for not locking the door to the bathroom. She was in the shower, he threw open the bathroom door and started filming her on a camcorder to teach her about privacy. Can you believe that? No wonder she was so on edge all the time and I shudder to think about the punishments I didn't hear about but honestly what really scares me is thinking about what her dad would have done had he gotten his hands on me that night. To be continued... nine, me and my best friend were watching the Scooby-Doo episode with the creepy voodoo dolls. We're having a whale of a time, enjoying all the wholesome spooks, but when she sees the voodoo dolls, I can see my friend getting visibly nervous. I knew her mom was hardcore Christian and looked

down on all that kinds of magical or satanic stuff, but I had no idea just how bad she'd fly off the handle when she caught us watching freaking Scooby-Doo of all things. Bearing in mind it was my friend who put the show on in the first place but when my friend's mom wanders in to see what we're watching she just assumes it was me that put it on. She yanks me up from sitting then proceeds to scream in my face that I was disgusting and that I was going to hell for making her daughter watch that kind of filth. Then right as I'm about to burst into tears she slaps me so hard across the side of the head. I just lost it, bolted up to her bedroom, locked myself inside and called my dad. She's banging on the door telling me she's gonna beat me for being a sinner.

My dad can hear this and just yells, I'm on my way into the phone before passing it to my mom. I was so scared, more scared than I think I ever was during my entire childhood and the minutes of waiting in that locked bedroom for my dad to show up were some of the longest of my whole life. When he showed up, I was in the back bedroom, so the only way I knew he was there was when my friend's mom answered a banging at the door and started screaming at someone. I ran down the stairs and as soon as he saw me, my dad basically pushed the woman on her butt, grabbed me, and then we got out of there. It was a whole drama after that. The police were

involved, charges were filed, but the worst part, it totally soured my friendship with the girl who I was having a sleepover with. I wasn't ever allowed to visit her house and her mom pretty much ordered her not to hang out with me anymore. It was sad, really sad, but I guess that's just how life is sometimes. This was at least 20 years ago now, back when cyber security wasn't as good as it is now and anonymous chat rooms were still very much a thing. I was 12 years old and my friend was sleeping over at my place. We went online when my parents were asleep and signed on to MSN chat rooms. Whenever we got asked our ASL, we'd always put something like 15 F US because we didn't want people to think we were kids, so we thought we'd put 14 years or 15 years to see if we could get some cooler, older boys to talk to us. Think 15 to 16 year olds.

But to our surprise, we started getting a crazy number of messages from guys in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s. And like 90% of these guys went from high to very lewd messages in mere seconds. It was so gross. It was basically a deluge of super inappropriate questions and the worst thing was, when we told guys we lied and we were only 12, most of them didn't even seem to care at all. One of them even got super excited and asked if we wanted to see him over webcam, which we most certainly did not. We were just horrified and ended up closing the window once we were suitably creeped out. Now that I'm older, I think back on stuff like that and realize just how badly we were playing with fire. Not only that, but it makes me wonder just

how many people are out there who enjoy stuff like that. How horrifyingly easy it can be back then to do those types of things to kids online. I just hope it's a lot safer these days because I want kids at some point and obviously they're going to have access to the internet. I just worry how I'm going to keep them safe when there are so many predators out there trying to take these kids away from those that love them. To be continued... but me and my maid were having a sleepover in my room, me in my bed and her on a mattress between my bed and the window. Out of absolutely nowhere, we hear this massive bang and my wall-length window totally shatters. Chars of glass fly clean across the room and as much as it wasn't painful at the time, I knew I was being absolutely cut to ribbons as all these pieces hit me. Me and my maid both start screaming and going mental as we ran out of the room.

Both of us are covered in blood and we're cutting our feet as we run which only makes the screams worse. My dad flies into action, shuts us into the pantry to keep us safe then grabs a kitchen knife before running into the back garden to look for the person who may have been behind the window smashing. But apparently, there wasn't a soul to be seen. So he rings the police, tells them what happened, and two coppers turn up at our house to check out my room. It's then that they find a huge solid ball bearing presumably from a truck or an airplane. It had landed less than 20 centimeters from where my friend's foot had been. If it had hit one of us, it could have killed us. There are no roads or anything near us and I room faced into the back fence so to this

day we still have no clue where it came from or how it was traveling at such a speed it cleared possibly multiple fences and smashed a window. The only other way is if it fell from an aircraft but even then the police said it would have done considerably more damage if it would have fallen from thousands of feet up. My mom had been out getting us happy meals while this whole ordeal went on so she was more than a little shocked when she arrived home. Needless to say, those happy meals were sorely needed. Back in elementary school, I was invited to a friend's birthday for a sleepover. It was an awesome time, but I woke up the next morning feeling really sick with a really high temperature. My dad comes to give me a ride home and honestly, I just thought it was all the candy I ate the night before.

But I just get worse and worse throughout the day and by the next morning I'm in a really bad way. So mom takes me down to the doctor's office. I tell him how I'm feeling and he gives me a look over. Then right where my ankle meets my knee there was a little spot that was all puffy and red, kind of like a pimple. Then I remembered that on the night of the sleepover, I'd tripped and fallen on some old wooden stairs and grazed my knee. But that was literally all it was, just a graze. How in the world could whole body aches and pains be the result of a grazed knee? The doctor even suggested I might have been bitten by a brown recluse spider and just

like not noticed, like that was even possible. But then it was correctly diagnosed as a staph infection. Only it had been diagnosed too late and was spreading fast and was also literally eating at the muscle inside my leg. The doctors had to actually tunnel into the kneecap and the whole thing had to be kept packed with fresh gauze every day. I don't think words can even the kneecap and the whole thing had to be kept packed with fresh gauze every day. I don't think words can even broach how painful the whole thing was and I'm not even exaggerating when I say that I almost lost my leg over it. All that over tripping on some old wooden stairs. It makes you realize how fragile life really is. Back when he was 12, I dropped my son off at a new friend's house for a sleepover.

It was his first friend after we had just relocated from far away, one of the downsides of the Marine Corps. They lived on the outskirts of a town that is already super rural and a house with the backyard leading out into some woods. The plan was the boys would be camping in a tent in their yard. I met the dad, dude seemed chill enough. But then I met the man's girlfriend and the risk of sounding a little rude, she was a sour-faced toothless hag,

complete with a lit cigarette hanging from her mouth who didn't have a single nice thing to say about anything. I figured the dad had a terrible choice in women, but that my kid would otherwise be okay. At least the boys would be in the woods, in the tent, away from the hag, so I thought. When I got home after dropping my son off, I did a CCAP search, for those who don't know, it's a circuit court public record, and discovered that the man just got out of jail for assaulting a woman in a public bathroom, and that his first wife had a restraining order filed against him. Ten minutes later, I'm back at my kid's friend's place, telling them how I'm really sorry, but that there's a family emergency.

And, you know, in my mind, it's not paranoid to run those kinds of checks. It's diligent. To be continued... Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get 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. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big

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