The Lets Read Podcast - 187: ABDUCTION & SURVIVAL | 22 True Scary Stories | EP 175

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Walmart, & Kidnapping... 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 Update Description

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Then MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice Rinse garment bag. And with Rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll reclean my clothes for free.

Best of all, Rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. Quite some time ago, my wife passed away from a brain aneurysm. Since then, it's just been me and my daughter. As you can imagine, I'm very protective of her and my brother says my protectiveness verges on unhealthy sometimes. Truth is, he has no idea how right he is. You see, I've gone to some real extremes to ensure my daughter's safety.

In fact, I've gone to some real extremes to make sure everyone's kids are a little bit safer. And if you think that sounds a little cryptic, it won't for long. And honestly, I don't care if people don't believe this. If y'all don't believe this, then the cops won't believe this. And that means I'll get to spend longer with my daughter, and that some might feel I have the right to. Being a single father with little in the way of formal education, I've really struggled to make ends meet at times. Some years, almost all of my purchases have been made at either flea markets, second-hand stores, or Walmart. And the last of these are where my story begins.

I remember picking out school supplies for my daughter and she couldn't decide on which stuff she liked the most, so she kept asking for more than one set. I was faced with the humiliating and painful situation of telling her that we just couldn't afford to buy her everything she wanted. Trying to put that into terms a kid can understand without having it damage their sense of self-worth, that's one of the hardest things a parent can ever face. Then out of nowhere, I hear a guy behind me saying something like, maybe I can help with that.

I turn around to see a middle-aged man smiling at me and my daughter. He explained that he could give us financial help. All I had to do was take a chance and keep an open mind. I'm checking for someone recording us on their phone in case it was one of those social media charity things where they're expecting me to break down in tears and hug the guy for offering to buy our groceries or whatever, but we were the only people in the aisle and unless someone happened to be recording from some hidden vantage point, it seemed like we were totally alone.

I won't lie, I could have done with some financial aid at that point, but I didn't exactly feel comfortable just taking a handout. Then on top of that, something about the situation just didn't feel right. So as much as I thanked the guy for the offer, I straight up told him that I wasn't some charity case. He then tells me he isn't offering me any charity, but rather an opportunity, and since I needed the scratch so bad that, at that point, I was willing to hear the guy out. I ask him what he was offering, and he takes a few steps closer to me and just says, I'm from a modeling agency, and I'd like to take some pictures

with your daughter. Only a complete lunatic would just approach a total stranger in a Walmart and ask to take pictures with their seven-year-old daughter if their intentions weren't pure. That's what really caught me off guard. Like I didn't immediately assume the guy was some kind of kiddie diddler. Those kinds of scumbags don't just reveal themselves in broad daylight like that, right? And if he was, if the offer was genuine, then there was some kind of seedy motive to the whole thing. I wanted to take it as far as I could reasonably go so I could report the guy to the

cops. But then, what if he legitimately was from a modeling agency? I knew that was a thing and I'd actually had another parent whose kids went to the same elementary school suggest I take my daughter to an open casting, since all the other parents talked about how adorable she was. So I played along, asking him what kind of pictures and how much he was offering. He told me he'd pay me a thousand bucks for what he called a photo shoot with my daughter. But then again, if I wanted to get paid, I'd have to keep an open mind about the nature of the shoots. I press him on what he means by open mind, and he starts in on how they'd be artistic, but tasteful. I think that's what swung it. I've only heard terms like artistic but tasteful used in reference to a very particular kind of modeling, and it was mostly, certainly, not any kind I wanted my kid to be a part of.

I think it took every shred of mental composure to keep my skin from visibly crawling, but I put on my best appreciation face and nodded, then asked him for his cell number so I could inform him of when we'd be free. That's when he insists on taking my number instead, presumably so I couldn't just go straight to the cops with it just in case I was, well, doing exactly what I was planning on doing. Again, I pretty much sealed it in my mind. If the guy was legit, if he had nothing to hide, why not give me a card or just be cool with giving me his number?

Once we parted ways, I felt disgusting for even faking any kind of enthusiasm. I know the guy just thought I was adult and that he could just manipulate me based on a dire financial situation, but even so, I was actually kind of disgusted with myself for just not strangling the guy as soon as I worked out what his game was. I never figured myself as any kind of vigilante or amateur detective, but once the idea of getting the guy caught and arrested had entered my mind, there was just no shaking it. And that's how I ended up hatching a plan. I'd meet up with the guy, earn his trust, get a name, maybe even a full name, a photo or his cell,

along with any kind of location the guy hung out at, and then I'd just pass all the information on to the cops in the hopes that they'd be able to get the guy in cuffs. The worst case scenario, the guy was just a socially awkward freelance photographer. Best case scenario, I'd be helping to get a predator off the streets. I'd be doing the local community a huge, huge favor. Heck, I'd be doing the whole world a favor. A child's innocence is something that is beyond sacred, and anyone who'd dare take that away from them, they belong in a cage for decades or more. Once I was set on my little plan, I remember sitting at my kitchen table practically staring at my phone for the entire evening. He didn't tell me exactly when he'd call, just that he would call, and that it'd be sometime later on that day.

I got two unrelated calls that evening and I either cleared the line when it was someone already in my contacts or just hung up immediately when it was some cold calling numbskull wanting to know if I was happy with the internet service. The call didn't come until just before midnight and when it did, I once again had to summon up all my strength not to scream obscenities down the line at him. The worst part is when he let slip that he figured that I was basically on level with the whole thing and that I'd just be cool with exploiting my daughter for cash. He even hinted that I might be like him, so to speak, and that I could make even more money very quickly if I was open to having her do other things.

I had to quickly move the negotiations along to keep from smashing my phone to pieces against the table. I'm sure you can understand. It took way longer than I'd have preferred, and I guess he just wanted to probe to see if I wasn't a narc, but eventually, we arranged a time and a place to meet and I promised the guy I'd bring my daughter along so he could take his pictures of her.

Again, I can't be too liberal with the details here, but let's just say the meeting was at an extremely isolated location that took me a long drive to drive out to. That might have suited him, but unknowing to him, that suited my agenda too. The only problem was, he wouldn't be alone. I should have known that guys like that wouldn't work alone and I was foolish for thinking that they'd be some kind of soft target. Up until that point, all I wanted to do was get as much info as I could, maybe smack the guy around a little, maybe even perform some kind of citizen's arrest, I don't know. But that was all predicted on him being dumb enough to conduct his little operation on his own. And when I showed up without my daughter

and found that there were three guys running the little studio, I threw a gigantic wrench into the works of my plans. Obviously because I showed up alone, their first question was asking where my daughter was. Luckily for me, I was able to think on my feet and they seemed satisfied with my answers that my daughter was back in the car and I wanted to make sure everything was legitimate before I brought her up to the studio. In order to seem more convincing, I acted as if I was keen to see what kind of outfits they had in mind for her and when they showed me, I once again had to mask my disgust. I also pretended like I was concerned about security, wanting to see what

kind of measure they'd put in place to ensure that they wouldn't be found by the cops or uncovered by some FBI agent trawling the internet for underage content. I didn't really understand any of the more technical stuff they told me, but I've seen enough episodes of Mr. Robot to know what TOR masking was and that it helped them stay off the grid in terms of law enforcement detection. Not long after that, the moment of truth arrived. But like I said, I was only prepared for one guy, maybe two at the most. I wasn't prepared for three, especially not the guy they'd obviously picked out to act as security. He was a bear of a man, at least six foot and change, and

as soon as I noticed he was open carrying, I knew I'd bitten off more than I could chew. I had my own pistol, of course, hidden, stuffed in the back of my jeans, but I only kept the thing around the house in case of home invaders. It's not like I took it down to the range every week. Whereas the bear man, he looked like a real type of gun guy. The kind of man who took pride in being able to shoot the butt off of a fly at 300 yards. I remember telling the guys that I'd go fetch my daughter from the car and that I'd be back in a minute or so. I wasn't planning on going back, of course. I was going to get out of there with 911 on speakerphone.

But as you can imagine, it wasn't exactly those guys' first rodeo, and as soon as I told them that I was walking back to my car, the bear man politely announced that he'd walk with me, and I knew I was screwed. I knew that as soon as he saw that my car was announced that he'd walked with me, and I knew I was screwed. I knew that as soon as he saw that my car was empty, he'd either beat me to a pulp for having wasted their time, or worse, he'd think I was a cop and empty his clip into me before I even had a chance to tell them the whole truth. As we walked, I kept my mind ticking over, answering his small talk questions with nothing but pleasant sounding grunts as I tried to work out how I was going to get out of there in one piece. When he noticed that there was no one on the passenger side of my car,

I bought myself a minute by telling him that she'd gone asleep on the back seats. Long early morning drive had taken it out of her. He smiled at that, then put on my best sleazebag impression and told him that he was welcome to check out the goods. He smiled again, but that time it was a different kind of smile, a smile that no man should ever have in relation to a child. It made me want to smash his teeth in, but even then, I didn't want to kill him. I didn't think I had it in me to kill anyone, even over something as evil as exploitation. But like so many other things in life, I was wrong. The bare man walked over to the rear door of the car and lowered himself down so he

could peer through the sun glare on the window. When he looked back at me with this look of confusion on his face, it quickly changed car and lowered himself down so he could peer through the sun glare on the window. When he looked back at me with this look of confusion on his face, it quickly changed to a look of fear, because he saw my gun, and he saw it pointed at him. I told him to take his gun from his hip and toss it over to me, which he did, and as scared as he looked he somehow managed to look a hundred times as fearful when he asked me if I was a cop and I said no. He then asked if I was going to kill him and again I said no but in that moment I also realized that I hadn't brought anything along to restrain the guy. I also wasn't dumb enough to think that I'd be able to tie the guy up with nothing but the rags of his shirt or whatever not without him being able to rip his way out of it or overpower me in the process. I guess what I did next is the result of watching

too many movies, but I figured I'd just be able to knock the guy out by hitting him around the head with the butt of my pistol. I walked towards him slowly, made like I was reaching for some handcuffs or something, and then just hit him on the side of the face as hard and as fast as I could. On TV, the hero just hits the bad guy in the face and then he falls down and just doesn't get up until it's convenient for the plotline. But that's not what happens in real life. That's not what happened to me either. Because when I hit the guy, he did hit the ground.

But he didn't stop moving. He laid there, groaning, cradling his head in his hands, but he didn't just lay still like I figured he would, so I hit him again, harder that time, just behind his ear. I remember seeing a trickle of blood leaking out of his ear as he started violently shaking, and then it hit me. If he died, or even if he didn't, and his partners could burn everything incriminating from their studio, they could have me in cuffs before the end of the day. They had my number, had seen my face, they probably had pictures of me if they had security

cameras installed in their studio. I'm not saying I was certain that these scumbags were about to pretend like they were law abiding citizens, but I knew I'd put myself in a difficult position, and even if they didn't go down that route, if the guy woke up and I was still working his buddies over at the studio, it could be game over for me. Like I said, I was never planning on killing anyone, but things just sort of escalated. I rolled the guy over, still in mid-seizure, and knowing that his partners would hear if I shot him, I stood on his throat and leaned into my step until he stopped moving. Then, once I was sure that he was done for, I couldn't let

the rest of them live and that was a risk I just wasn't willing to take. With their security gone, the rest of the task was much simpler. As soon as I knocked on the big iron door and the little latch slid back, I just told the second guy that bear-man was making sure my daughter was ready and he let me back inside. Guy was dumb enough to keep his back to me on the walk up to the studio and as soon as I had my eye on the smiling man from Walmart, I put my gun up again, aimed it at the back of the second guy's head, and then pulled the trigger. Walmart guy just about saw it himself and was begging me not to kill him by the time I had the gun trained on him I asked him where the duct tape was or the riot cuffs

where they used to restrain the kids if they tried to escape or for when they wanted to do other things to them and lo and behold they had a drawer full of the stuff and when I told the guy his only chance at saving his life was binding his own ankles, he complied. I made him get started on his wrists too, then approached slowly and gave the duct tape a few loops around his hands too.

I tried to make him talk me through how to delete everything they'd had uploaded on their servers but unfortunately I'd already killed the guy who knew all the technical computer stuff. The best I could do was pile up all their computer stuff in the center of the room, head out to my car to grab a gas can of emergency gas from the trunk, and set it all on fire. But not before I attempted to extract every piece of information I could from the guy about where he was uploading to, contacts he might have, everything that might help shut down whatever network he was a part of. He talked for exactly 47 minutes, and I know that because I put my phone down in front

of him and recorded everything he had to say to me. And when he was done, I put a bullet in his head, and then one in his heart to make sure he was dead. Then before I left, like I already said, I doused all their computer equipment with gas and set the whole place on fire. Then I went back home, showered, and called my sister to see if my daughter was okay staying over another night at her place. The studio was so remote that I don't think anyone even noticed the fire. I certainly didn't see anything in the news about it, let alone the mess I'd left back there. And I like to say that the only real anxiety or worry I felt was the possibility of some kind of brush or forest fire, but honestly, that's not the case. I hear a lot of people saying things like,

I could hang a predator and sleep like a baby that same night. And maybe for them that's true, but not for me. No matter how exhausted I was, no matter how much I drank, I kept seeing a looping reel of three different things. The first was how the bear man went into a seizure when I hit him the second time. The second was how the contents of the into a seizure when I hit him the second time. The second was how the contents of the second guy's skull just sprayed out of his face when I shot him from behind. And the third was how the Walmart guy literally squealed as he begged me not to shoot him when he was done spilling his guts out about all the people he'd worked with. I was left in this limbo of not regretting what I'd done, but also being haunted by it and wishing it never happened. Wishing it never had to happen either. I could have gotten everything I needed from just one guy without having to kill anyone. I mean, I doubt they would have gone on to turn

their lives around or anything and I know the world is a better place without them, but I just wish it wasn't me that had to do a job of removing them. I ended up writing down almost everything the Walmart guy said to me, and I figured out a way to anonymously tip off the cops about it. Two years later, I read a news story that described how Interpol had worked on something called Operation Black Wrist, a worldwide operation that led to the arrest of abusers in America, Australia, and Thailand. I also read how it all started with an anonymous tip from somewhere in the US. I know some of you might say that I can't be certain, but I know in my heart of hearts that the tip was mine. And as much as I know that what I did that day was a sin, I feel like the people

would help put away, and the closure that some of the victims might have gotten, mean that in the grand scheme of things, my actions and reactions kind of balance each other out. But still, I now live with the fact that I'm a triple murderer, and it's without a doubt my deepest, darkest secret. My daughter's in her teens now and people see me as some kind of exemplary father figure, a gentle soul who couldn't even hurt a fly. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish they knew how wrong they were about that, and I wish I could just unburden myself of what weighs on my soul. Maybe that's why I'm writing

this and sharing this. And like I said earlier, the more people that call this out as fake, the safer I feel in my mind. Because every day I get to spend with my daughter after putting everything I have at risk is nothing less than a perfect day. day We're going back maybe 20 years for this story. Back when cell phones were Nokia bricks and Google Maps didn't exist. My mom used to take me with her to Walmart most trips since she didn't want to leave me home alone. I actually used to really enjoy it and most times I'd use my allowance money to buy something I wanted. I know that might sound a little strange, thinking a trip to Walmart was like an event or something,

but this is living in the small town of southern Missouri, so there really wasn't exactly a lot for me to get excited about. Anyway, this one time we visited the Walmart pretty late and we happened to have one of my friends with us. About halfway into the journey, we found our regular route was closed because of some horrible drunk driving incident, so we had to find an alternative route. We weren't too concerned about this though because mom tended to be a pretty good navigator. We were more concerned about the poor family of the person in the car wreck because from the way it looked, no one could have possibly survived a crash like that. We ended up driving for like a half hour more and then my friends started to get all worried

because she had a curfew. Mom assured her not to worry because there were obviously exceptional circumstances and she'd have a talk with her parents if they said she was in trouble to make sure they understood that her being late home couldn't be helped. A short while later, she asked what time it was as she had to be home by 9.30. After checking my watch, I vividly remember telling her that it was 8.42, but then my mom overruled me and said it was 8.45 because she had just checked the clock on the dash. I remember this very very clearly because we ended up getting into a little discussion about why the time was slightly off. Not exactly the deepest conversation ever but it made me remember

what time it roughly was which made what happened later all the more jarring. A few minutes later mom slows the car down and decides to turn us around because she was pretty sure she was taking us completely the wrong way. She pulls into the side of the road and I remember seeing this big metal arch with the name of some cemetery on it, something like St. Paul's or St. Jude's or something like that. Then, out of nowhere, the car just completely shut off. Engine went out, the dash lights are gone, the whole battery had just burned out in like a second. Mom tried starting the car a few times, but nothing turned. No stuttering engine, nothing. So with a sigh, she got out a pack of cigarettes from her purse and put one between her lips,

obviously because she was stressing out and needed a minute to like mentally regroup or whatever. Then right as she flicked her lighter, something flashed in the car, way brighter than the spark her lighter should have made. It made my head hurt and mom actually let out an audible little chirp as we all started to complain that we had headaches. It all took place in like a fraction of a second and as weird as it was, we didn't think too much of it because it was all over in a short space of time. Mom then lit up her cigarette and tried the car's engine again and that time it worked, so we started to drive off and get back on the road.

My head was still kind of aching and my friend was actually rubbing her eyes and complaining about it so I know it wasn't just me that experienced those weird symptoms. Then a few seconds later, mom put the brakes on real sharp and was like, What? We then asked what the problem was, if she'd seen something or whatever and she just pointed to the clock on the dash.

It only felt like a few minutes since it said 8.45, but when she pointed, the clock clearly said 11.33. At first, I figured that the time changed because the car's battery had suddenly died or whatever, but then I looked at my watch and saw that it read 11.30, still just three minutes apart, only somehow we'd lost like three hours. We kept talking it over and assumed that we were just being paranoid, but when we got home, which was about 45 minutes from the Walmart, it really was well after 11pm. We went from feeling kind of confused about the whole thing to legitimately terrified because we had no way of explaining how we'd lost that time.

To this day, neither me, my mom, or my friend have ever been able to logically explain what had happened that night. Everybody we've ever told about it just assumes that it's a made-up story, and even when we confirm it all happened to us, and we all experience the same thing, they just think we experience some kind of shared mania or something. We're not, like, traumatized by it or anything, and I mean, what choice did we have other than just to go on with our lives? No one was physically hurt by it or anything, and there must be a reasonable, rational explanation for what happened. But every so often I hear about or read about other people experiencing that same sort of time loss, and I wonder if we experienced the same exact phenomenon. Some people have suggested we were the victims of some kind of noxious swamp gas, and that the flash was it igniting and emitting fumes that made us all pass out and kind of forget

what actually happened. But I still have no idea. And if anyone has any suggestions that might explain what happened to us, I'd appreciate a DM or comment on this post to let me know. Like I said, it's not something that's given me nightmares or that affects me these days, but still, it's definitely the single most freaky thing that's ever happened to me in my life. I remember walking out of Walmart with a cart full of gardening supplies a few years back. My mom had sprained her wrist and needed stuff picked up for the start of spring, so it was down to me to go grab some stuff for her. I'm loading the stuff into the trunk of my car when

I happen to notice someone walking past me out of the corner of my eye. Kind of took me off by surprise, so I turned around out of instinct and ended up making eye contact with this younger looking guy. He looked like 20 something, workout gear, shaved head, totally normal looking guy who looked like he'd been out for a run or something. I didn't want to seem all confrontational or whatever so I smiled and said hey and just carried on loading all the stuff into my trunk. Next thing I hear is someone saying, Was it you? I turn again, and it's the same guy, smiling back at me, having asked me that question.

I'm like, Was what me? And the guy responds like, You know. I sort of chuckle, thinking it was an honest mistake on the guy's part, thinking I was just someone else or whatever, so I tell him I don't know what he's talking about, then just carry on loading the stuff into my trunk. That's when I hear him walking towards me from his footsteps, so I turn around, hoping things aren't about to get confrontational.

But those hopes were totally dashed when I saw the look on his face. He looked livid, and as I'm getting ready for the unfortunate event of having to fight a total stranger for no reason, the guy starts screaming at me. Don't pretend you don't know. You got me transferred. It's because of you I got transferred. He said a bunch of other stuff that might have you censoring this post, so I won't repeat it, but trust me when I say it was language that would have made a stevedore blush. I remember one of the scariest things being how he was still sort of smiling as he started shouting about being transferred and then as he carried on screaming at me he went bright red in the face, got this look about him like he was about to murder me and he

actually started spitting as he was screaming due to how out him like he was about to murder me, and he actually started spitting as he was screaming due to how out of control he was getting. I'm telling him to calm down that there's been some kind of mistake, and that's all without even asking what he meant by got me transferred. But then every time I try to reason with the guy, he almost takes it like I'm trying to gaslight him or whatever and it just makes him angrier. I don't even know how he managed to conceal it on him but he pulled out this extendable baton from somewhere and whips it open right in front of me before charging at me. I just reacted, running around my car and screaming for other people in the parking

lot to call 911. That was the other scary thing, how most people just stood and watched with their mouths open instead of either calling someone or actually getting involved to help. Then the other really scary thing, the guy screams as he chased me, they went from actual words to this wild psycho babble, just stuff that barely made sense and only had an actual understandable word every three or four screams. He was completely manic, and it really didn't hit me at the time, but I later found out that he was suffering from a complete mental break. He was way faster than me too, so if it wasn't for me being able to duck and dodge around parked cars, he would have caught up with me in seconds.

And then because I didn't have anything to defend myself with, just bags of compost and seeds and whatnot, he might have actually been able to bash my head in and there's not a thing I've been able to do about it too. Eventually, some hero of a security guard from a movie theater of all places, he actually ran over and tried tackling the guy chasing me but this psycho kid swung at him a few times with his baton and then the guy was forced to back off and try to tackle him when he had his back turned which obviously wasn't easy because the kid was in this like super saiyan manic state. Every time he got close the kid just clocked him, turned, and started

swinging. But then that gave me a window to put some more distance between us. The guy might have actually saved my life in that way. Anyway, the cops showed up after what seemed like way too long, but when they tried tasing the guy, it just had absolutely no effect on him. That was the other thing that scared me. I've actually seen a guy getting tased before, it's a long story, and when the wire things hit him, he just seized up and hit the floor like a statue. But this guy, it just had zero effect on him. Maybe it was a broken taser or whatever, but it was still pretty terrifying to see. The cops wouldn't go into too much detail with me, but the kid was known to him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and I went from hating the kid to actually feeling really sorry for him incredibly fast.

They'd been getting calls about him for the past two days, but he kept on running from the scenes of the calls and getting away before they could actually take him into custody. I don't feel any ill will towards him, and I hope he got the help that he needed. But I'm not kidding when I say he legit could have killed me that day. Easily the scariest thing that's ever happened to me at Walmart. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice Rinse garment bag. And with Rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, Rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. and for the most part, it was the most boring, soul-crushing job I had ever worked in my life.

Working with the public sucks hard, and as much as you can meet some super nice people on the job, the worst of the worst manage to spoil the entire experience somehow. Most of the worst people are just annoying, making insane complaints about stuff we have no control over. But every so often, someone or some group of people did something that genuinely makes you question whether humans even deserve to exist. Like when someone decided to edit one of the children's books. So, I'm walking down one of the aisles one day

when some lady marches up to me like, excuse me young man, but I want to speak to the manager of this place right now. This was way before the whole Karen thing, but this woman definitely seemed like a Karen. I mean, who complains about something in a kid's book? If you don't like it, don't buy it, right? That was my thought process at the time, but honestly, I was really wrong to assume that about her, because she had every right to be angry and disgusted about what she was about to show us, and I actually feel really guilty admitting that right now. Anyway, I knew our store manager was in his office, so being the

nice guy that I am, I invited her to follow me to where the staff area was, then wait for him to grab Tim, the manager that was on duty that day. I walk into Tim's office and say, hey yo, Tim, some lady's about to blow a gasket over a kid's book. Tim rolls his eyes, sighs, then follows me onto the shop floor to talk to her. It was kind of funny to see him go from screw this lady to good afternoon ma'am, how may I be of assistance today with this really sunny smile on his face and I swear people who work with the public like that could out act Hollywood actors sometimes. Anyway the lady thrusts the kid's book at him and then

starts yapping about how we should be ashamed that stuff like that book was out on the shelves. He takes the book off of her, opens it up, and is clearly about to ask what the problem is, when all of a sudden, I watch his eyes go all wide as his mouth just drops open. He slams the book shut, turns to me and says something like, Robbie, go check every single kid's book that's on the shelves. Take everything that's been defaced and just put them on the office desk. I remember thinking like, defaced? What do you mean, defaced? But I didn't say anything out loud, I just did as he asked, walked back to where the kid's books were, then started flicking through them to see what the deal was.

That's when I saw that same sick-in-the-head idiot had not only defaced the kids' book, but they'd done it in the most obscene ways imaginable. It wasn't just that they'd drawn huge, well, let's say, extras on the groin areas of some of the characters, like those were just dumb and gross. It was the characters they'd drawn X's on the eyes of, with captions like, I'm dead, and your mom and dad are gonna be dead soon too. Then there was this one picture that had like a dad and young daughter playing on a swing set. He was pushing her, and she was all happy, smiling, saying hi her daddy. I don't even want to repeat what they'd changed the speech bubbles to. It genuinely was sickening the kind of stuff that they had written in there, stuff that

honestly doesn't bear repeating. Like think of the worst possible thing a dad could say to his little girl than times it by a hundred, and I remember wondering how seriously messed up a person has to be to even think of stuff like that in the first place. Whoever had done it, they hadn't just done it to one book either. It was every single one on the top of each stack and they'd even slip some into the backs of the display units too, like they wanted to slip a few in there that we might have missed and still sell or something. All the violent death stuff was one thing, but it was the x-rated stuff that made me feel actually sick as I flicked through the books to make sure all the defaced

ones had been removed. Once all that was done and Tim had given the offended lady some coupons as a way of an apology, he went about checking all the security camera footage to find the person or people responsible. That's how we found out something seriously shocking. It wasn't just some messed up customer that was doing it. It was one of our own associates that was editing the books with all that evil stuff. I'm not sure how they run things these days, but back when I was working there at the North Topeka Walmart, we had our own dedicated cleaning team that would clean the place down before opening hours. They'd come into work for a few hours before anyone else

was there and get all the cleaning done before the rest of the team showed up. That's how they had a chance to be alone with the kids' books like that and when no one was watching them. No one except the cameras, of course. They would grab a pen from the office supply section, then head over to the kids book to deface them in that evil messed up way. I know they got fired as a result, and I think the legal department tried to sue them for the stock loss or something, but the whole process was really long and drawn out, and whenever I asked Tim about it,

he just told me that upper management hadn't updated him on anything. I ended up moving jobs just before I found anything more out and how it stayed out of the news I have no idea but I know for certain that the cops couldn't press any charges because she hadn't actually committed any actual crimes I guess. I think obscenity laws only applied to publishers or public displays or whatever but you'd think there'd be something you could charge a person like that with, especially because they were trying to expose kids to such evil stuff. Last January, I was working as an associate at the Walmart over in Lake Charles. I was working second shift so that's 1pm to 10pm and it was about 7pm when people started to notice some kind of drama going off in the parking lot. The greeter noticed it first and was actually getting ready to have someone call the cops. But the whole thing seemed to die down and then, from what I heard, things sort of

just chilled out. I asked a co-worker if anything juicy had happened and she said no, but that the drama was between two groups of teenage girls and that one of the groups had walked into the store. They weren't being loud or obnoxious or anything, not at first anyway. They were just walking up and down the aisles, talking among themselves, and one of the girls seemed to be making a video of them just hanging out. I remember hearing one of the girls saying something like, man, I need my taser back. But I just put that down to them talking smack after almost getting into a fight or something. The other thing I know is that loss prevention was watching them after

one of them seemed to take something out of the kitchen utensils section but they were just keeping their distance and observing until they tried to make an exit for the store. This is actually super relevant to what happened later on too so keep it in mind. Anyways, I went back to what I was doing then the next thing I know, there's all kinds of screaming coming from near the front section of the store. I walked around to see what was going on and that's when I see a group of girls in the doorway shouting at the group that was inside. They were all saying all this stuff like, where are y'all at, come out.

They knew the other group had walked inside the Walmart and were obviously trying to find them. They knew the other group had walked inside the Walmart and were obviously trying to find them The greeter was trying to get them to calm down or leave Saying they could either stop making a scene or he was going to call the cops But neither group was paying him any mind Then, one of the girls in the doorway group starts saying something threatening And the other is all like, I'm about to come out as soon as my sister gets here But the other girl didn like, I'm about to come out as soon as my sister gets here. But the other girl didn't want to wait for that. She just walks inside the store and marches straight over to this girl with dyed blonde hair. I'm like, ah snap, this is about

to go off right here. And honestly, just like that, the two girls start throwing hands at one another in that typical girl fight way, just flailing their hands at one another. Then the girl with blonde hair, she reaches for something in her pants, and although I didn't see it clearly, she swings at the other girl's chest and it looks a lot like she just punched her. But then as soon as the hit connected, the blonde girl like backed up then ran off while the other girl just sort of staggered

back then looked down at her chest. I didn't see the blood, not right away, I just heard the screams. What I did see was the girl who had been hit stagger a few steps then just collapsed on the floor. Then when her friends dropped down and rolled her over, that's when I saw the blood on the floor. The EMTs were called, the girl was taken away in an ambulance, and we were all basically tasked with comforting the girl's friends as they were absolutely all shooken up that

they just watched their girl get stabbed. Then, about 9pm, because we had to empty the store out so the cops could do their thing, I was told I could finish early so I could go home and basically try and get the whole thing out of my head. But then like a half hour after I walked through the front door of my parents' place, I get an Instagram DM from one of the younger co-workers that I was tight with. They ask something like, you were working second shift tonight, right? And I respond, yeah, some messed up stuff happened.

Then the next thing they send me is this long link that had Facebook in there somewhere. I figured it'd just be a sharing of a news story about the whole stabbing thing, but when I open up the link, it opens up one of those Facebook live videos and instantly I knew what I was watching. I knew what I was watching because, one, I recognized one of the girls from the stabbing at work, and two, they're saying things like, that was too much and if she killed her, she killed her, then like shrugging it off as if though it was her fault for coming at them and her friend was just defending herself.

And then it got way worse. They were literally bragging how they killed someone, and they knew they killed someone too. I mean, I just thought the girl would be taken to the ER or something, but they knew she'd stabbed her in the heart because she aimed to stab her in the heart. We didn't find out until the next day that the girl who got stabbed had died on the way to the hospital. The most effed up thing though, none of those girls looked older than my little sister, who was a high school freshman at the time. Some of them barely looked like they'd gone through puberty yet. I mean, these were literally kids, literally effing children and they just killed somebody and were proud of it. I think maybe it was just that they were trying to hide how scared they were

or trying to establish the whole self-defense thing before the cops came looking for them. But my god, seeing that kind of savagery coming out of the kid made my heart break for humanity a little. Those girls had ruined their lives with one little fight, and even worse, they'd literally ended another girl's. Taken her away from her family, friends, all she had going for her in life, all because of one stupid fight. I used to work the late shift at a Walmart here in Jacksonville and every night after finishing at like 1 in the morning I'd walk to the exact same bus stop to call an Uber. Now this whole story would never have happened if my dumb self didn't just get picked up from work, but I always liked having a smoke as soon as I finished and it wasn't the

kind of thing that management would have taken kindly to, me smoking right outside of the Walmart. It was the arrested and fired kind of smoke, so I used to walk to the bus stop. Anyway, this one night I'm sitting there, smoking away and the Uber is maybe only 3 or 4 minutes away. Seconds later, when i see the student in the distance walking towards the bus stop i immediately started getting bad vibes getting bad vibes from people when i was smoking up was hardly anything out of the ordinary but i still figured that i'd keep an eye on him as he walked past just in case he tried anything funny he walks past me but only by a few, and then he stops and leans against the bus

stand like he's waiting for the bus with me. Now I know well that there's no bus coming, so why is he just standing like there like he's waiting for one? That's when the bad vibes about the guy seriously intensify because he was definitely acting weird, the only question was if they had any bad intentions for me. I'm getting more and more nervous watching the little blip on my phone screen getting closer and closer and as much as I'm trying not to make eye contact with the guy, I can see him looking over at me every so often, like he's sizing me up or something.

I'm feeling pretty thankful by the time my Uber rounds a corner and I start to see its headlights, but as it pulls up, I actually think that maybe my paranoia might be starting to get the better of me, and maybe it's just me being the judgmental one instead of the guy actually posing any kind of threat. Then literally as I open the door to the Uber the guy says, You lucky kid. I look back and he has this grin on his face that literally made my skin crawl. That's when I realize he did actually have something in mind for me. I don't know what it was, whether or not he planned on robbing me or just beating me up or whatever it was. I just know it wasn't good, and I thank

Christ that my Uber showed up when it did. The End Born on May 3rd of 1980 in Arcadia, California, J.C. Lee Dugard had it rough from the start. Her mother, Terry Proban, neglected to tell her father she was pregnant, so he spent the majority of his adult life ignorant of the fact that he had a daughter. Just five months after J.C. was born, her mother relocated to a small town south of Lake Tahoe named Myers and later married a man named Carl. She believed that moving out to a small town south of Lake Tahoe named Myers, and later married a man named Carl. She believed that moving out to a quiet rural setting would give her small family that peace it needed to prosper. But she couldn't have been more wrong.

By the summer of 1991, Terry was working as a typesetter at a small print house, and on June 10th of that same year, she left for work early in the morning, leaving 11-year-old Jacey to catch the bus to school. Wearing her favorite pink outfit, Jacey walked out of her house then began trudging up a nearby hill towards her regular bus stop. But when she was around halfway up, a gray mercury monarch pulled up alongside her and the driver began asking her for directions. Jacey didn't know the area very well so she began by apologizing to the driver. Then as she racked her brain to come up with the correct directions, the man's friendly demeanor shifted completely. He reached out of the open window, grabbed Jacey by the arm, then thrust the business end of a stun gun into her chest, incapacitating her before dragging her into the vehicle with him. Back at Jacey's home, her stepdad Carl had noticed the grey vehicle pulling up alongside her.

I'm not entirely sure of the layout of the proven house, but wherever Carl was standing, he had a view of the steep road which led to J.C.'s bus stop. This meant he was forced to watch in absolute horror as his stepdaughter was tased and abducted right before his eyes. He rushed to a bicycle he kept near the front door and proceeded to pedal after the gray mercury as fast as he could, but it was no good. The car sped off out of sight and J.C. was gone. Within just a few hours of J.C.'s disappearance, journalists from both local and national media outlets were buzzing around the sleepy streets of Meyer like flies around a corpse. They interviewed J.C.'s distraught parents, as well as local school children who had also witnessed the gray mercury speeding off towards a nearby highway. A few days later, the entirety of Southern California was plastered

with flyers and missing posters depicting Jacey's likeness, and Meyer became adorned with ribbons and Jacey's signature pink as a show of support for her heartbroken family. Terry Probin quickly founded an organization known as Jacey's Hope, which accepted donations to fuel the search for her missing daughter, and the group also received financial and material aid from the likes of ChildQuest International and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Jacey's case was also featured on an episode of the television show America's Most Wanted, and although the episode generated dozens of tips and leads, not a single one led to Jacey's safe recovery. Police initially suspected that Jacey's biological father, Ken Slayton, might have

been to blame for her abduction and went to interview him in connection with her disappearance. Little did they know, but Ken had no idea he was even a father and the revelation was nothing short of heart-wrenching to him. Not only had he spent the last 11 years being completely unaware of his daughter's existence, but he had been incapable of protecting her when she needed it most. In order to determine if he was telling the truth, the police subjected Ken to several polygraph tests, but since he passed each and every one of them, they were forced to rule him out as a suspect.

However, without Ken Slayton as their main suspect, the police had no idea who might be responsible for Casey's abduction, and after years of false leads and investigative dead ends, they were forced to divert their attention elsewhere. And the case of Casey's abduction became a cold one. 18 years later, on August 24th of 2009, a man walked into the San Francisco office of the FBI with an envelope in his hand. He handed it to a bemused secretary,

telling her the envelope's contents were of the utmost importance. The envelope then found its way onto the desk of an FBI agent, and when opened, they found it contained a four-page essay detailing the nature of religion and how certain criminal behavioral problems could be solved by subjecting the perpetrators to intense sessions of Bible study. A few hours later, the same unhinged writer walked onto the campus of the University of California, seeking an appointment with the special events manager. With him were two young women that he claimed were his daughters, but the event manager harbored some rather sinister suspicions.

Lisa Campbell later stated that the girls seemed sullen and submissive, and were so pale that it was as if they'd not seen sunlight in quite some time. Campbell then contacted the head of campus police, who in turn ran a background check on the man in question, who told them that his name was Philip Garrido. That's how they discovered that Garrido was a registered offender, who was on federal parole for kidnapping and assault. Not only was Garrido barred from associating with minors,

but traveling to Berkeley exceeded the 25-mile limit he was allowed to travel from his home without his parole agent's permission. Having broken his parole conditions, two federal agents paid a visit to Garrido's home on the island of Antioch in Contra Costa County. Garrido was briefly questioned and ordered to accompany the two pale and timid girls to a parole office in nearby Concord on August 26th. Garrido did as he was told and arrived at the parole office with his wife, Nancy, and a young woman he introduced as Alyssa. Alyssa told investigators that although she was aware of Garrido's status as an offender, that he was a great person, a changed man, and that he was good with her kids. Alyssa was then asked if she had any documentation which could prove her identity and she suddenly became very defensive and cagey.

When asked why she might react in such a way to such a simple request, Alyssa claimed that she was an abused spouse from Minnesota who was hiding from her abusive husband. Investigators then tried to corroborate this story with Garrido and pressed him on why he told the Berkeley special events manager that Alyssa was his daughter before quickly changing his story that she was the daughter of a friend. He too became defensive and agitated and when the police demanded to see some kind of identification belonging to Alyssa, Garrido broke down and told them the truth. Alyssa wasn't his daughter, nor was she the daughter of a friend.

She wasn't from Minnesota, she wasn't an abused spouse, and in truth, her name wasn't even Alyssa. Her real name was Jacey Lee Duggard. Only when she was confronted with Garrido's confession did Jacey admit who she was, and after a brief phone call with her mother, the first in 18 long years, she began telling police officers the story of her own mysterious abduction. After being taken back to Garrido's home, Jacey was kept prisoner in a small, soundproof shed that Philip and Nancy Garrido had constructed in their backyard. She was then told that if she tried to escape,

some specially trained Dobermans would rip her to shreds before she even got near the backyard fence. A few hours later, Philip Garrido forced Jacey to shower with him, grooming her for what was to be 18 years of pure torture. Just a week later, Garrido subjected Jacey to the first of many assaults and told her that if she behaved herself and didn't struggle, that she would be allowed to eat. As time went by, Jacey was rewarded for her submission with a TV to keep her entertained. It the Garridos had carefully disabled access to any kind of news channel so that Jacey would be unaware of the ongoing search for her.

Eventually, Garrido further rewarded Jacey by allowing her to live in a small bedroom, albeit constantly handcuffed to the bed it contained. Garrido then told her that she was only abducted because certain demon angels had allowed him to do so, and her purpose was to help solve the problem he had with his libido, problems that he claimed society had largely ignored. He sometimes dressed her up, put makeup on her, then spent time making her cut figures out of adult magazines. He also told her to listen to the walls of her bedroom because if she strained her ears, she too would be able to hear the voice Garrido could hear talking to him.

He told Jacey that these voices told him how he was the chosen servant of God, and it appears these beliefs were fueled by rampant methamphetamine binges which further separated him from both reality and sanity. Sometimes, Greedo would break down into tears and apologize to JC for all that he'd put her through. Other times, he would become violent and abusive, telling her that he would sell her to other people if she didn't behave people who wouldn't be nearly so nice as he was. Around five or six months into her captivity Garrido introduced Jacey to his wife, Nancy who took pleasure in mothering the child by bringing her stuffed animals or chocolate milk. Yet despite the veneer of motherly love

Jacey later said that Nancy was just as evil and twisted as her husband and took charge of brainwashing until she stopped using the name Jacey to identify herself. Jacey also said that, at one point, Nancy had brought her a kitten as a reward for what she called good behavior. But when Jacey began asking about her family, Nancy had somehow made the kitten disappear. Nancy also flat out refused to let J.C. see any kind of medical professional and that her health drastically suffered as a result. Just over three years into her captivity,

after being assaulted at least once a week, Jacey found that Philip and Nancy were suddenly acting rather differently around her. On April 3rd of 1994, they fed her a home-cooked meal for the first time and began allowing her freedom from her handcuffs for brief periods of time. Shortly after this bizarre shift in behavior, 13-year-old Jacey was told that she might be pregnant with Philip's child. Then, on August 18th of 1994, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Three years later, she would give birth to a second. After the birth of her children, Jacey coped with the prolonged captivity by homeschooling her daughters and tending a small flower garden with them.

Yet in a move that only the most depraved of villains could conjure up, the Garridos found a way to turn Jacey's own children into a cudgel to beat her with. They told her that both she and her daughters were to refer to Nancy Garrido as mother and that Jacey would teach her daughters that Nancy was their biological mother, while she was their older sister. Jacey was then told that if she failed to comply, both she and her daughters would be killed. By this point, Jacey was either so brainwashed or so terrified of losing her daughters that even when she had ample opportunity to do so, she made no attempt to rescue herself. Even when she began working in Philip Garrido's

print shop, where she had access to both a telephone and an email account, she never once indicated to anyone that she had been kidnapped as a young girl before being raised in captivity. Yet it wasn't just what they later referred to as Stockholm Syndrome that was to blame for Jaycee's prolonged captivity, as there seemed to have been several instances of what law enforcement called missed opportunities. Police not only failed to make the connection that Jacey was kidnapped south of Lake Tahoe, the same area as Philip Garrido's previous kidnapping offense, but in April of 1992, less than a year after she was taken, a legitimate sighting of Jacey failed to be seized upon. On April 22nd, a man called the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department from a gas station

less than two miles from where Jacey was being held. This man told police that he was almost certain he'd spotted Jacey Dugard at the gas station he was at, and he had been staring intently at a missing child poster of herself. The caller then reported seeing a man taking her away in a large yellow Dodge van. Sadly, the caller had been unable to make a note of the van's license plate, and by the time police arrived, it was long gone. Yet for some reason, there was no police follow-up on this call whatsoever. Then, in 2009, following J.C.'s recovery, an old yellow Dodge van was recovered from the Garrido property, one that was matching the exact description of the one spotted in 1992.

On top of that, in 2006, one of Philip Garrido's neighbors called 911 to inform them that children seemed to be living in tents in the backyard and that Garrido was acting psychotic. A deputy sheriff then drove out to the property and conversed with Garrido for over 30 minutes, telling him that there would be a code violation if people were living outside on the property. Not once did he even ask to enter the backyard to talk to the children living there. In addition, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation definitely deserves to shoulder some of the blame. They erroneously classified Garrido as needing only low-level supervision, and it can be reasonably argued that this was the mother of all their mistakes.

At one point, an inspector detailed an instance in which a parole agent encountered a 12-year-old girl at the home, but accepted Garrido's explanation that she was his niece and did absolutely nothing to confirm it, even after discovering that Garrido had no nieces. Time and time again, the California authorities wasted chances to rescue Jacey from her fate, and so she was forced to employ alternative methods in order to survive. In 2016, broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer conducted an interview with Jacey and suggested that she may have been suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. In response, JC replied, Stockholm Syndrome implies that hostages cracked by terror and abuse become affectionate towards their captors. But it's really degrading having my family believe that I was in love with this

captor and wanted to stay with him. I mean, that is so far from the truth that it makes me want to throw up. I adapted to survive my circumstances. I did what I did so I could survive. Needless to say, Jacey's reunion with her mother was an extremely emotional one, and thankfully, it seems that her two children had suffered almost no negative effects of growing up in captivity. Jacey's aunt Tina once said that the children are clever, articulate, curious girls, and despite their bizarre upbringing, they've always seemed healthy and well-adjusted. Unbelievably, when charged with their horrific actions, the Garridos pled not guilty on all counts of kidnap, false imprisonment, and indecent assault. Philip Garrido in particular claimed that in the end, this is going to be a powerful, heartwarming story. My life has been straightened out.

When you hear this story of what took place at this house, you're going to be absolutely impressed. It's a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning, but I turned my life completely around. Garrido seemed to think that he'd basically be able to talk himself out of the charges by helping the FBI prevent future kidnapping incidents, and cited the four-page essay that he'd given their San Francisco office in August of 2009. It was only when Nancy Garrido was faced with a 241-year jail sentence that Philip Garrido changed his plea, and while he was sentenced to 431 years, his cooperation meant that Nancy was only sentenced to 36. Since their imprisonment, Jaycee has begun an intensive course of animal therapy, which emphasizes the therapeutic nature of interaction with animals as a way of healing

past traumas. She undertakes this therapy with her mother Terry and her sister Shana, and is said to respond best to interactions with horses. News of her rescue prompted public statements from other survivors of kidnap and abuse, most notably Sean Hornbeck and Elizabeth Smart. Hornbeck commented that coming out of what she's had to endure is like entering a new world. It's like a door is open for her and she's emerged from a world that's black and white into one that's full of color. She was brainwashed.

She'll probably feel angry, but now she needs to move on with her life. Elizabeth Smart, on the other hand, stressed the importance of focusing on the future with a positive attitude as an effective approach to accepting what has happened. Those are undoubtedly some wise words from a woman who suffered a very similar trauma in her life, and it's advice we can all take in reference to moving on from the things that haunt us. If someone like JC can move on from 18 years of pure torture, then I'd like to think that we too are capable of surviving what haunts us the most. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that.

I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded, and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice rinse garment bag. And with rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com.

Stephen Stainer was born as the third of Delbert and Kay Stainer's five children in Merced, California on April 18th of 1965. By all accounts, Stephen had a happy childhood, and both his parents and siblings cared for him deeply. He and his brother often went exploring the nearby Yosemite National Park, and for a while, he had the kind of childhood that most of us can only dream of. Yet when he was seven years old, Stephen suffered through something that can only be described as a living nightmare, and to say it had a destructive effect on his older brother might be the understatement of the century. When his schooling convened on the afternoon of December 4th, 1972, Stephen Stainer began the short walk back to his childhood home. At some point in the journey, he was approached by a kindly looking stranger who claimed to be

collecting donations for a nearby church. Stephen didn't have any money to give, but the man claimed this was no problem and handed Stephen a small piece of paper that displayed a short Bible verse. It's understandable that this would generate a degree of trust between Stephen and the stranger, as he was raised to believe that men who followed the scriptures were good people. The man then asked Stephen if he thought his mother might be willing to donate to the church, and when the young boy replied in the affirmative, the man offered to give Stephen a ride back home so he could ask her. At that, a white Buick pulled up next to the pair, driven by a man that the stranger referred to as his minister. Again, it seemed Stephen had no reason to distrust the man, and as he climbed

into the backseat of the Buick, he believed the men were about to drive him straight home. But soon, Stephen began to realize that he didn't recognize the roads the men were driving along, and it quickly dawned on him that he wasn't being given a ride home as they'd promised. He was being kidnapped. Stephen was taken to a cabin in the nearby Cathy's Valley and the abuse began on the very first night. He was told repeatedly that if he behaved himself, he would be allowed to return home, but this was nothing but a lie his captors told him in order to keep him obedient. Then after a while, the men told Stephen another lie, explaining that they had been granted legal custody of him as his parents could not afford so many children.

They told him his name was no longer Stephen Gregory Stainer, but rather Dennis Gregory Parnell, and over time, Stephen began to believe that his parents no longer wanted him. Obviously there was an extensive search for the boy taking place, but the men who'd abducted him somehow managed to keep him completely insulated from it. They frequently moved the boy around California, enrolling Stephen in different schools while keeping him relatively sheltered from the outside world. After a year in captivity, Stephen no longer saw himself as a prisoner of the two men, as he was given a great deal of freedom, including the freedom to drink alcohol,

and he was also given a dog to look after. It's believed the Manchester Terrier, who was named Queenie, was a well-thought-out attempt to keep Stephen anchored to his captors. He couldn't bear to abandon Queenie, and even if he did realize that people were looking for him, he simply had no idea how to summon the appropriate help. The last part is taken straight from Stephen's own account of his kidnapping, and while it might seem surreal and almost unbelievable that a boy of nine wouldn't know how to call 911, we have to keep in mind that he was seriously abused by his captors and that under their guidance, reality was a fluid and shifting concept.

When Stephen entered puberty, his captors began searching for a younger boy to kidnap and abuse and Stephen was so mentally broken by them that, shockingly, he actually aided in the attempts to find one. Stephen later said that his failure to successfully kidnap anyone was down to his own deliberate sabotage. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he was too afraid of his captors to openly defy them. In fact, Stephen was actually building up to an escape attempt, and it was the successful kidnapping of five-year-old Timmy White that finally pushed him over the edge. On March 1st of 1980, while the lead captor was away at a night security job, Stephen took young Timmy by the hand and they hitchhiked into Ukiah, California

to hand the young boy over to the local sheriff. Once they arrived at the department, Stephen told them everything, including how he himself was kidnapped seven years previously. Sheriff's deputies immediately drove out to the place the two boys were being held, just in time for the man who'd taken them to arrive home from work. When they put the cuffs on him and rummaged through his pockets to locate some form of ID, the name on it read, Kenneth Eugene Parnell.

Kenneth was born in Texas during the Great Depression, but his mother had later moved the family out to Bakersfield, California after Kenneth's father had abandoned them. He spent much of his adolescence in and out of juvenile hall and mental institutions, and was arrested in 1951 for impersonating a police officer to abuse a young boy. He later claimed that he kidnapped and abused the boy because his wife was pregnant and that he, quote-unquote, had to find another outlet. Kenneth was eventually tried and convicted of kidnapping both Stephen Stainer as well as young Timmy White, but only ended up serving five years of his seven-year prison sentence. This was said to

have had a terrible effect on Stephen, who believed that a truly evil man had basically gotten away with ruining his entire life. After being reunited with his family, Stephen had a great deal of trouble readjusting to normal life. In captivity, he had been severely neglected, and his birth parents were incredibly protective and overbearing in comparison. In an interview with Newsweek, which took place shortly after his escape, Stephen commented that, I returned almost a grown man, yet my parents saw me at first as their seven-year-old. After they stopped trying to teach me all the fundamentals all over again, it got better. But why doesn't my dad hug me anymore? Everything has changed. Sometimes I blame myself. I don't know sometimes

if I should have come home. Would I have been better off if I didn't? Stephen attended a few therapy sessions organized by his parents, but refused to discuss the abuse that he'd suffered at Kenneth Parnell's hands. What's more, his father seemed to be in complete denial, refusing to admit that Stephen might be in need of some serious psychotherapy. Stephen began to drink heavily, and his relationship with his parents became highly strained as a result. In the end, Stephen's father kicked him out of the family home, forcing him to make his way in the world alone. By age 20, Stephen had married a young woman by the name of Jody Edmondson and the couple would go on to have two children together, Ashley and Stephen Jr. Stephen made a living by working with

various child abduction groups and would visit schools to discuss personal safety with the students. He joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and supported his family by working in a Merced pizza place. But tragically, on September 16th of 1989, Stephen was driving his motorcycle home from work when it collided with a car. He suffered catastrophic head injuries, and although EMTs rushed him to a hospital in less than an hour, he was declared dead on arrival. More than 500 people attended his funeral, and a then 14-year-old Timmy White featured as a pallbearer. It was a heart-wrenching end to Stephen's story, but the stories of Kenneth Parnell and Stephen's family were far from over. In January of 2003, Kenneth was once again arrested on abuse-related charges

after trying to convince one of his caregivers to buy him a four-year-old boy. Kenneth was almost 72 years old at this point, suffering from both diabetes and emphysema, and his extremely poor health meant he required round-the-clock nursing care in his ramshackle apartment in Berkeley, California. The caregiver was a woman by the name of Diane Stevens, and Diane was acutely aware of Kenneth's evil past. As such, she immediately reported his request to the police, and would eventually cooperate in setting up the sting operation that would lead to his arrest. On February 9th of 2004, Kenneth was convicted of attempting to purchase a child, as well as attempted abuse. The prosecution argued that

illicit materials found in the apartment were evidence that Kenneth's intentions toward any child were criminal in nature, and as a result, Kenneth was sentenced to 25 years to life. He remained in prison until his eventual death in 2008, which apparently came about as a result of natural causes. Bizarrely, the only other person eviler than Kenneth turned out to be Stephen's older brother, Cary Stainer, who was said to be so affected by his brother's abuse and death that he grew up to be one of California's most notorious serial killers. In 2002, Cy was convicted of murdering four women between February and July of 1999 and was eventually sentenced to death for his crimes. During the sentencing hearing, Carey Steiner stunned the watching courtroom when he suddenly began sobbing.

I wish I could take it back, but I can't, he said. I wish I could tell you why I did such a thing, but I don't even know myself. I'm so sorry. I wish there was a reason, but there isn't. It's senseless. I believe there is a reason. I believe that Stephen's kidnap and abuse at the hands of Kenneth Parnell had a ripple effect on those who surrounded the case. All that senseless torment, pain, and neglect echoed back on Cary, who simply reflected it all back onto a world that he didn't understand. I'm not saying Cary is totally blameless for his actions as they are undoubtedly of pure evil. But without his brother's kidnap, without the deep sorrow it imposed on his family, maybe Carrie wouldn't have sought out those poor women whose lives they snatched away. To be continued... to write as I'm not much of an author and this is quite painful for me to relate and but I hope you can fit it in somewhere as it's something I've wanted to share with you for quite some time.

It involves two days in my life that I always thought were fun but weird and how when I grew up and was told what really happened have haunted me ever since. It started when my dad's business partner came to pick me up from school. I knew him as Uncle Todd and although I wasn't expecting him, I trusted him when he told me that my mom and dad were busy and that he was in charge of looking after me for a few days. I remember feeling kind of reluctant to get into his car and mom and dad hadn't told me anything about it and I didn't really want to be away from them. But he started promising me ice cream, a game boy, all this other fun stuff, saying mom and dad had said I could watch whatever I wanted on TV and that I was allowed to stay up

until whenever I liked. Music to a kid's ear, right? So I got into his car and we drove off to his apartment, stopping to get some ice cream on the way. Todd was serious about the TV thing too, as he pretty much left me in his apartment on my own for hours on end. I remember he seemed pretty stressed about something, but I just assumed it was like grown-up stuff or something, and I didn't really care much because I had all the Nickelodeon and McDonald's I could ever want, so I didn't think too much about it. That's how I spent the first night, and although it was also weird to me that Uncle Todd's apartment was so small that we both had to sleep in the same room, I still didn't really question anything because he was a regular part of my life and I trusted him. Then, the next day,

after more McDonald's and a bunch more Nickelodeon, Uncle Todd comes back all super stressed again and tells me to go get into the bathtub. I thought he meant that I could take a bath or whatever, but that's not what he meant, as he walked me over to the bathtub and made me get inside it without any water in it and without taking any of my clothes off. I can then hear talking into the phone in the other room, trying to keep his voice down, but I could hear how angry and stressed he seemed to be at someone. But eventually he goes quiet, puts the phone down and comes to get me out of the tub. I remember him putting me back on the bed and telling me he was going to get more McDonald's and ice cream for me. But then as he went to walk out of the room,

he picked up this pokey looking thing in his hand to obviously take it out to his car. I remember asking, Uncle Todd, what's that? And he told me it was a thing for getting his car started on cold mornings. I remember it wasn't even that cold that morning or the morning before, but hey, at that age, grownups know best, right? Anyways, the few hours later, he drives me back to my parents' place and they gave him a present for looking after me while they were gone. Mom and dad seemed really happy to see me, but I was really happy to see them too. They said they missed me and I missed them

a bunch too, so I didn't really think any further into it than that. It was only when I was grown up that I was told what actually happened. You see, Uncle Todd and my dad really were business partners, but my dad wasn't exactly a good or honest person. He'd actually stolen a bunch of money from their business right under Todd's nose and he'd actually tried to rearrange some accounting things so that Todd wouldn't notice. But Todd did notice and Todd was really angry about it. But when he told my dad to give it back or he was going to call the cops, my dad told him that he'd already spent the money and if he called the cops and got him thrown in

jail, he was never going to get it back. Pretty scummy, I know, but my dad is generally a pretty awful person so we won't go into that too much. But either way, Todd turned out to be way more of a psycho than my dad could have possibly figured because instead of calling the cops and actually getting him arrested, he came up with another plan to get his money back. That's how he ended up showing up at my school and convincing me to get into his car. So another little aspect of the story, my dad actually begged Todd not to go to the cops, hence why he basically threw out that threat that if he did, he was never going to get the money back. He tried to give Todd all these promises that he'd pay him back and get all squared off,

but Todd just didn't believe him. He wanted his money back and he wanted it soon, so he took me, let my mom and dad sweat it out for a day, and basically told them that if they didn't come up with the money in like 24 hours, that he was going to kill me. Not exactly the best plan, but like I said, Todd was way more of a psycho than anyone could have possibly imagined. He fed me McDonald's, gave me ice cream, and let me watch as much cable as I wanted, just to keep me from leaving what turned out to be a motel room. That's why for the longest time, I just thought motels were places that people actually lived, and not places where people would rent a room only for a few days or whatever. But then there's the whole bathtub thing. Todd put me in the bathtub that day and brought an ice pack into the motel room because he was going to torture me with it while making my parents listen on the phone.

That was what made them break and they ended up selling a bunch of stuff and doing other shady stuff in order to get like 10 grand's worth of cash together in the space of almost a day. When they called to say that they had the money, Todd took me back home, took the cash, which I thought was just a gift for taking care of me, and then we never saw him again. Mom and dad got a divorce not long after, which was sad but a few of my friend's parents had gotten divorces too so I knew it was a thing that moms and dads did. I had no idea it was all because of the stealing and kidnapping thing. It was also because dad basically refused to go to the cops about what had happened because he was too scared of going to jail, that she just completely resented

him for that. She also told me that he told him that if she tried to press charges against Todd, that he was going to tell the cops that she was in on the accountancy scam or whatever and that she would end up catching charges as well. I always kind of doubted that part of it though as surely she could just prove that she didn't have anything to do with it and it was all my dad being a scumbag. Sometimes I think she was actually part of it and that's why she didn't just go to the cops right away when she found out that Todd had taken me. I mean think about it, why not report me missing straight away unless she had a good idea of what was going on and who had taken me. A lot about her side of the story doesn't add up but since I don't see my

dad anymore and mom is like the only member of my immediate family that I'm close to, I don't really want to confront her on it too much. So yeah, that's the story of my super messed up family and now one of the weirdest, most fun times in my childhood turned out to be something completely horrible and kind of traumatic. It seems all the scarier to me now because I had no idea what was happening to me at the time and something that seemed innocent but kind of unusual could have turned into something out of a living nightmare, with my uncle Todd doing all kinds of evil stuff with that ice pack, making me scream into the phone for my parents to hear. For a while, I wanted to actually confront Todd about what had

happened but we found out that he died in a car accident maybe ten years ago now, so there's not going to be any real closure for me on that front. And like I said, I don't want to go ruining my relationship with my mom. Not when I'm not really sure how long I even have left with her. I wanted to tell you the story of a friend of mine named Angel. Angel is 19 and was honestly one of the brightest, cleverest, most bubbly people I've ever met. She was obsessed with true crime stuff and would have loved your channel if she'd ever had a chance to see your videos. She loved that TV program CSI and wanted to join the police so that she could get into the forensic side of investigations. She loved the idea of using science to catch horrible criminals, but we never thought that she'd end up being the victim of one. She had everything going for her

in life, but then she met her ex-boyfriend Che, and we all saw a change in her. Che made everything about him and he abused Angel physically and mentally until she made everything about him too. She was miserable with him but kept talking like he was just a tortured soul who needed a girl like her in his life to help fix him. We had to intervene time and time again to get her to see that he was a scumbag who'd never be any good for anyone, as he was only ever interested in himself. And it took ages to do it, but we finally managed to convince her to leave him. She told us all in a group chat that she'd finally told him that they couldn't be together anymore, and we were all so proud of her. But she also said that she was terrified of something he'd do to get back at her for it. And as much as we knew that her dad, Patty,

would never let anything happen to her while she was under his roof, we knew he couldn't protect her all the time. We also knew that Che was absolutely terrified of Patty as they'd almost gotten into fights a few times before. And Patty is well bigger than Che and could beat the life out of him if it came to it. So we always stayed away from the house, just not far enough. I remember the day we found out that Angel was in the hospital and we were all hoping it wasn't anything serious. But then we heard that she'd been hurt in a serious incident, and that she'd somehow fallen out of a van that was going down the highway, and we just knew that Che had something to do with it. As it turns out, Che had gotten the help of

one of his friends, and they'd waited in a van near Angel's house, waiting for her to come out. When they spotted her, Che ran out, picked her up, and basically carried her to the van and threw her into the back of it. We still don't know exactly what went on inside the van, but Che insisted in court that he didn't just throw her out of it. But whatever he was doing or saying, it scared Angel so much that she somehow found a way to open the back doors as it was traveling down the highway and she must have thought her only chance at survival was jumping out the back of the van. Some people think Che pushed her out of the back as a way to kill her but at his trial his lawyers were somehow able to prove that Che had pushed her and all he wanted to do was keep her inside the

van. He must have admitted to just wanting to kidnap and scare her into getting back with him, but I know Angel wouldn't have done anything so drastic without being scared for her life. What happened next makes it clear to me that the justice system in this country is just completely broken, because the sentence Che got was nothing on what he deserved to get. He recently got his sentence more than doubled after this big public campaign headed up by her parents, which is all good and everything, but it still feels like nothing, because Angel's life is basically over now. She suffered serious head trauma after falling or being pushed from the back of the van,

and now the doctors think that she's going to be potentially disabled for the rest of her life. We don't know if she's ever going to walk, talk, or eat by herself ever again. It's basically a death sentence. But the sentence Che was originally going to get was just over four years. Can you even believe that? A guy kidnaps his ex-girlfriend. He might have actually thrown her out the back of the van going at 60 miles an hour. Her life is now basically over and he was probably going to get out of prison after four years. That's nothing. He deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life.

The driver of the van got next to nothing too and he also deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life. Angel once told me about a law in America where if someone dies while you're committing a crime, your charge automatically gets turned into murder. And I think we should have one here like that too. It would make people think twice about doing things like kidnapping or drunk driving or anything that could end up ruining someone's life. Sorry if this seemed to get a bit emotional or wasn't the best written story you've been sent. I got a bit upset writing it because it's still all so raw for us all. This all happened almost two years ago now but it honestly feels like yesterday that we found out that Angel's life was over. I hope you read this out in one of your videos

so that more people know what a rotten scumbag Che Boskill is. He deserves to be the one lying in a hospital bed, not able to move. Not Angel. I mean, he actually laughed during the court case. How can you even do that? How evil do you have to be to hear someone talking about how you took a girl's life away and then just laugh about it? Please read this out so more people hear about Angel's story. People need to know that if a guy is a psycho, it's not up to them to fix him or help him, because they'll just end up as a victim. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse

to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice Rinse garment bag. And with Rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, Rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse.

Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. I have a story for you, but it's not something that happened to me. It's something that happened to our neighbors back when we lived in Highgate in London. So I wasn't scared, but all the neighbors were scared for the family this was happening to, if that makes sense. Also, I've changed the man's name because my mom reckons that his parents would probably never talk to us again if they knew I told this story to a big YouTube channel like yours. Anyway, their son was taking a gap year before he went to uni, and he ended up going off to Thailand for a few months during the summer. His parents are keeping in touch with him and he seemed to be having a lot of fun the summer. His parents are keeping in touch with

him and he seemed to be having a lot of fun and then out of the blue, they got a phone call from some guy from Thailand. He asks them something like, are you Rob's parents? And they obviously say yes and then he tells them that Rob has been kidnapped. If they contact the police, they're going to torture and kill him. And if they don't pay them so many Thai baht, their currency, within a set time limit, they're also going to torture and kill him. Not just that, but they're going to feed his body to crocodiles or sharks or something, basically so they'd never be able to have a piece of him to bury. Pretty grim stuff, right? So Rob's mom is basically ready to get the money together, anything to keep them from hurting Rob.

But his dad just gets in touch with the Thai consulate right away and he gets the police involved. This caused absolute murder with the couple, no pun intended. Like, there were some nights that you could hear them screaming at each other in the kitchen with Rob's mom screaming like, you've killed him, you've killed our son. I mean, it got really intense like that. And just to let you know, it all ended basically okay, and Rob never got hurt or anything, but get this, Rob's dad kept telling the kidnappers that he was having trouble sending the money over to the account that they'd given him, as his bank kept flagging the transaction for fraud and refusing to send it.

He played like he was more than willing to send the money, but he was just having trouble getting it sent. That way, he could buy more time for the Thai police to track the phone calls and bank account number to the person they needed to arrest. In the end, Rob's parents get another phone call from the Thai police to track the phone calls and bank account number to the person they needed to arrest. In the end, Rob's parents get another phone call from the Thai police, telling them Rob had been found safe and sound, but that he's been arrested on fraud or scamming charges or something. As insane as it sounds, Rob was never in any danger. He wasn't in some chicken wire cage or handcuffed to a bloody radiator or whatever. He was actually in on the scam himself. Long story short, he'd run out of money and was too ashamed to ask for more, so instead he turned to some local scammers who had a proposition for him.

Pretend to be kidnapped, pose for a proof of life picture, then split the ransom money 50-50 with the so-called kidnappers. Turns out it was a proper little cottage industry where he was staying, and horrible little tow-rag backpackers would sometimes scam their own parents and each other's out of maybe a thousand pounds at a time. The exchange rate is massive between bots and most european american currencies so the kids would always be like it's only a few hundred quid in our money or whatever and then they'd just let them go then the ungrateful

buggers got a few more weeks of traveling in them with the money they just made like i might have mentioned we don't live next to this family anymore, but as you can guess, it caused a huge rift between the kid and his parents, and I'm pretty sure it's one that still has not healed properly. I totally understand why too. He put them through torture, all just because he was greedy and too proud to ask for money himself. So this happened to me at some point between the cusp of fall and winter last year, in 2019, and with no craziness rampaging through us yet. At the time, my husband and I both worked weekend night shift jobs, him at an IT service and me as a CNA in the local hospital's ICU.

As we had no reason to be up and awake during the day, we lived a rather vampire-like schedule, sleeping all day and staying up all night. Four days off, three 12-hour shifts a week, it just worked. The best part about being a night dweller is the fact that you can go, or used to be able to go, in the middle of the night to do your grocery shopping. No lines, no hustle and bustle. You just go at your own leisure and dodge the occasional pallet of stock or graveyard shift worker who's filling up the shelves and probably wishing everyone present would quit taking things away right as he stalks them. But anyways, it's 2am, peak energy time for me and the hubs.

This Walmart is in a pretty decent part of town, and everything's well lit, so I typically don't feel nervous walking around in the middle of the night. Hubs did tour us in Iraq, and has a good head on his shoulders, so even less reason to be concerned, right? Right. As we walk through the entrance, my eyes immediately drift towards the seasonal section. I have ADHD and am a pain to shop with according to hubs as I tend to wander off when something neat catches my attention. Unbeknownst to me, my hubby notices a small gaggle of young adults behaving rather immaturely, i.e. riding around in the electric handicap carts, intentionally smashing into displays causing some general havoc.

Oblivious to this all, I'm still wandering around while he patiently follows after, filling our cart here and there along the way. He sees these kid adults causing more trouble near the back of the store in the food almost shoes section, but once again, my attention was on more important things, like looking at the blind bag toys that I have absolutely no need for. We make it to the end of our shopping journey and head towards the self-checkout since they don't bother staffing the actual lanes in the middle of the night. While he scans in bags, I excuse myself to use the restroom and to go after a couple of Pokemon on my Pokemon Go game. I dilly-dally long enough that he's checked out and back at the car by the time I come out, so I make my way over to the compact SUV and modern-day station wagon that we own where he is busy loading the

groceries into the trunk. Hubs is very particular about how things are packed which is fine by me so we have a system. He loads, I return the cart to the cart holder thing. While I wait for him to finish loading I hear a bunch of snickering and laughter coming from the cart to the right of ours. So the cart and Hubs is between me and the other vehicle. I wasn't aware at the time, but these kid adults had been sitting in their car the entire time as he was unloading our spoils of war into the trunk, mocking and jeering at him for basic things, like what he's wearing on his shirt, who has a Pokemon logo if anyone cares, and other trivial things.

Once I got there, however, all focus turned towards me. It took me a second to realize that they were actually addressing us, but soon I could make out what they were saying. They were laughing at my husband, asking him if he actually censored a whale like me. Now, I'm no string bean by a long shot, I have some decent curves going on, so they honed in on my size and appearance, and my defense, and does anyone really dress up to go to Walmart at 2am and encourage each other to keep throwing pot shots in our direction, at the fact we were together, anything they could think of to make fun of us with. Being the sensitive self-conscious soul that I am, I could already feel my eyes start to water. I figured that we would just finish what we were doing and leave them behind in their gloating and

foolishness, but Hubs wasn't going to have any of it. It was one thing, according to him, for them to mock him, but when they started being cruel about me, he'd hit his limit. He's truly a non-violent man but he was so riled up by what they were saying that he balled up his fist, raised his voice and told them to shut up with a decent smack against their side window which had rolled up upon Hub's approach. My knight in shining armor coming to my defenses, I thought. That action caused a series of quick, chaotic reactions. The young men, three of them, started angrily yelling and I distinctly heard one of them ask the other if he wanted his gun, to which the ringleader said, yeah, I thought. I tell my hubs to get in the car and, in a panicked rush, decided to abandon the shopping cart in front of their car in hopes of creating an obstacle for them. I fling myself into the SUV and by this point, one young man has started smacking on the hood of our car while another steps behind it trying to block us in. I vividly remember through my blurry vision seeing a young woman in the backseat of their vehicle looking somewhat embarrassed as she mouthed,

I'm sorry in my direction. No time to think about that, not with the ringleader appearing from the car at any moment. Hubs pulls the car in reverse and the young man behind us had no choice but to move, lest it become a human pancake. I was drives off out of the parking lot like a bat out of heck, and it's clearly evident that my cart obstacle did little to delay them, as their dodged dart was right on our tail, flying down the road right behind us. We made it through one green light before they caught up to us, sidling up in the lane next to us as I'm trying to remember to breathe, thoughts going on in a hundred different directions, thanks ADHD brain. I see the passenger

window roll down and out comes a hand with a gun, pointed right in my, or rather, Hub's direction. I screen something to the effect of them having a gun, though I'm sure it came out as incoherent shrieking in actuality. Hubs got the point though and chose in that moment to swerve directly at them with our vehicle, leaving them no choice but to drive onto the median or be hit by a bigger vehicle going 70-80 miles an hour. They swerved, which slowed them down so Hubs hit the gas and kept driving, ignoring red lights along the way. Finally pulling myself together, I dialed 911 on my cell phone and since the police station wasn't exactly nearby, the operator arranged to have some cops meet us at a local church a mile or two from where we currently were. Hubs keeps driving forward, car still at our heels and he somehow

managed to swerve a turn in the middle of the intersection while making it look like we intended to go forward. Other car flies on while we tail it to the cops at the church. They took down our statements and sent a few cars out to try to find them. I was completely useless when it comes to details but Hubs came through to save the day and could tell them the make, model, color of the car, and describe details about the individuals. All I could remember in my mind was the face of the girl who mouthed the, I'm sorry, and lo and behold, I kid you not. One of the officers took us to his car, flipped through his fancy police computers, and the on-screen pops the image of the same girl I'd

seen in the Walmart parking lot. Another click and the same young men, save for one, were the one put on the screen. Apparently these upstanding citizens had been confronted by the police department only nights prior. I wish I could remember the charges but my mind was overwhelmed by that point. Most of the details are a blur, like my mind intentionally tried to redact things to protect itself or something. Now needless to say, I developed genuine anxiety about going to Walmart in the middle of the night after that. Thankfully, we've both transitioned into daytime jobs since then, so we share the pain of day walkers normal grocery store woes these days. I've always looked much younger than my actual age. Back when I was a teenager and rolling into my early to mid-twenties, this was a huge problem for me as I used to always

get carded for alcohol or get talked down to because I looked like a kid. But now I'm in my mid-thirties, it kind of works in my favor. But back when I was a teenager, the whole looking like a kid thing almost got me abducted once. And this is that story. It was just after my 14th birthday when my grandpa decided to take me and my little brother on a trip to the gas station to pick up diesel for the tractor. I know that doesn't sound very exciting, but back then, we all lived on a dairy farm way out in the sticks, so there wasn't much else to do. And seeing the shiny gas station with all the snacks and candy was something of a major event for us. Kind of sad, I know, but whatever. Anyways, we rode over there, three deep in his single-cab Chevy S10, with me in the middle seat and my little brother on the passenger side.

When we get to the gas station, my grandfather parks at a pump and heads inside. Only thing is, when he turns off the engine, he leaves the key in the ignition with us buckled inside of it. Considering we lived on the outskirts of a small town with next to nobody in it, and where basically nothing happens, this wasn't unusual. There was always a sense of trust and community where I grew up, and since everyone knew everyone else, it was totally normal to leave your doors and garages unlocked, leave your wallet and the local diner in view, and you get the idea. Anyways, just after my grandpa walked into the gas station to make small talk with the clerk,

like I said, everyone knew everyone, this guy just appears at the passenger side window and starts trying to talk to my brother. We'd been brought up to be friendly and polite to folks, even to strangers. But while my brother seemed only too happy to talk to the guy, even if he was a little shy, I got this straight up bad feeling about the guy, like deep down in my gut. I know it might sound a little kooky of me, but you know when people on the TV talk about how they can see people's auras floating around them as they're talking? There was always something clinging to that guy that, although I couldn't see it, I could feel it. Maybe it was the way he was looking at my little brother that set off my

spidey senses or whatever, but the second I laid eyes on him, I got to praying that my grandpa would come back, quick. I don't even think about the fact that he might see the truck keys still in the ignition. I didn't think that he'd do anything crazy at all for that matter. So when he did, geez louise, I just about freaked out in my skull. After talking to my brother with that devilish smirk on his face, he gets to looking around the inside of the truck, probably for something to steal or something. But then he sees the truck keys, how they're just dangling there in the ignition and oh my god, the smile that appeared on his face was without a doubt the absolute most evil, predatory thing I've ever seen in my life. But even then, my first thought

is he's going to take grandpa's truck. Like I really couldn't even fathom what he might actually have in mind. As the man started making his way around to the driver's side, I started telling my little brother, get out of the truck. He's all like, why? And then I give him my big sister look and say, that's a bad man, James. He wants grandpa's truck. And immediately my little brother starts trying to undo the buckle of his safety belt. But the moment he even went to do it, it was like I could see the disaster unfolding before my eyes. My grandpa's truck was all beat up and hardly anything actually worked on it except the engine that made the thing scoot. And one of the things that notoriously didn't work was the safety belt release button on the passenger side. A lot of the times it was just kind of funny,

like I remember my dad not being able to undo it and being like, well, I guess this is my life now, I live in my dad's truck. But let me tell you, the time my little brother got stuck in the car and I thought that he was about to be abducted, completely terrifying. Like I said, I still didn't think that he wanted anything but grandpa's truck, so I was just focused on getting my brother and me out of it so the evil grin guy could just drive off with it if he wanted to. But then as he opened the door and climbed into the driver's seat, he grabbed me by the arm so I couldn't get out, all the while my little brother is still struggling with the buckle.

Then with that same evil smile on his face, a grin that said he'd been gifted with the one thing he wanted in the world, he said, you two are my kids now. It hit me that me and my little brother were in way, way more trouble than we first thought, and I went into big sister overddrive to try and protect him. I remember how my grandpa kept a bunch of old tools underneath the front seat, mostly because his truck was just a mess, not out of any big desire to protect himself or stash a weapon or anything like that. Then even with the guy's hand wrapped around my arm, I had just enough wiggle room to reach underneath the seat and grab the first loose piece of metal I could find, which just so happened to be some kind of

wrench. Then I came up and just started beating on the guy, stopping him from starting up the engine as he tried to stop me from hitting him. I remember being scared for me and my brother, but I also remember being scared that I might end up killing the guy or something, that I'd have to actually bash his brains in to be able to keep us safe. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I didn't want it to be happening at all, but my grandpa wasn't there to help and I didn't think that he'd realize what was going on in time for him to stop it. Thankfully, he was wrong about that, as he and the clerk had noticed someone getting into his truck almost the moment it happened.

So maybe only a couple of seconds after I started beating on the guy, my grandpa appears at the driver's side door and just starts dragging the guy out of the seat before throwing him onto the ground. Both me and my little brother were crying and hollering by this point and I remember just throwing my arms around him and saying, it's okay, we're okay now, as grandpa just started beating the life out of this guy before he straight up sat on the guy and yelled at the gas station's clerk to call the police. I remember watching the clerk how before he ran back into the gas station, he gave my grandpa this big old six-shooter pistol, and although the guy was struggling on the ground at first with grandpa sat on him, all it took was him pointing the gun at the guy's face, and he just stopped bucking and trying to hit grandpa, and put his hands up above his head with a scared look on his face.

Grandpa then told us to get out of the truck and go inside the gas station to wait with the clerk. I found out years later that grandpa had actually planned on just killing the guy right there and he didn't want us to see it. He didn't though and somehow he found the restraint to just keep the gun aimed at his head until the sheriff and one of his deputies screamed into the gas station and took control of the situation. It was a huge deal back in the early 90s in our small town as, like I might have mentioned already, there was basically no crime at all back then. Only other thing I can remember that caused as much of a stir was when

three guys from Arkansas tried to start up a meth lab in our county and it ended up exploding on them and causing this huge fire. Lots of people were saying last time anything this crazy happened was when dot dot dot and then they'd give either me or my little brother a look and then just stop talking. Had me thinking about what happened to us a lot around that time. And as I got older I realized more and more just how lucky we really were. Years ago I was on my way to Minneapolis, Minnesota from Boondock, Egypt, Minnesota. I was making the trip alone. I drove as much as I could handle stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks. I was late at night and I decided to call it quits when I stopped in this little nothing town called Rothsay.

I checked into this little motel to regroup for the night and decided to bebop on over to this 24 hour truck stop for some food. It wasn't far so I grabbed my coat out of my car and went over on foot. So some background about me. I have always been super cautious about stranger danger. My mom was into true crime and drilled it into me that any situation could be dangerous so I need to stay vigilant and be prepared in case any sort of altercation happens with a creep. I always watch the people around me when I'm out and pay attention to what's going on. When this happened I had pepper spray clipped on the inside breast pocket of my leather and my stun gun, machete and baton in my car just in case stuff like this incident were ever to go south. I also had two gas cans, jumper cables, vehicle fluids, etc. in my car in case of an emergency. I felt okay with being myself because of all of this. To anyone who saw me, I was an 18-year-old

female traveling by myself in a dumpy 02 Ford Vic with out-of-state plates, and if they bothered to look into it specifically with a county number of a town with a population of like 600 to 700. So to creeps with bad intentions, I obviously had potential of being a vulnerable target on which to pull some nonsense with. I still was friendly with strangers and willing to help anyone in need but this incident made me a bit leery about it from then on. I really feel like something awful would have went down if it had not been for the red flags that I saw and me questioning my situation. I stopped putting myself out there like this after it happened. While I was walking to that truck stop I noticed a parked car with the door open and some dude just half sitting in it smoking a cigarette and messing with stuff in the car.

I took note because he looked at me and kind of put off sketchy vibes. A lady maybe 30 years old comes out of the truck stop and approached me. She was a little off, like I'm fairly sure she was an addict and was high at the time. I was an addict once and don't look down on them so I greeted her kindly when she walked up to me and she said, I am stranded here and need help. My car just died and I think I ran out of gas. So I told her that I'd be glad to help and offered to put 25 in the tank and she said the car wasn't here. It had died on the road. I was like, okay, no problem.

I always keep gas cans and jumper cables in case of something like this, so no worries. I could give her one of my gas cans and take gas back to it. And she responds, can I get a ride to my car? So I asked her where it was and she responds, oh, not that far, I suppose. It would just be nice to get a ride. Will you take me to my car? I told her I was actually about to head into the truck stop to get something to eat just now, but it would be no problem at all to let her take a gas can. She floundered and changed it to,

Well, um, actually I'm not sure if it's out of gas. It could have just died because of the bad battery. You said you have cables, so would you try to jumpstart my car? Odd thing is, the whole time I was talking to her, she kept glancing over at the dude in the car. She seemed insistent that I get in my car and take her somewhere. And these things just clicked. Alarms went off in my mind and I knew that there was no way I was giving this woman a ride anywhere. So many red flags and at this point I felt like it was some sort of scam to maybe rob me or steal my car or something of that sort just due to how

sketchy she was being. And because she kept looking over at the guy in the car throughout this, I did wonder if maybe she was afraid of the man for some reason. Maybe in a bad relationship and trying to get away from him. I don't know. I made one last ditch attempt on the off chance that she really did need help and I told her that I'd let her use my phone if she wanted to call someone. But I wasn't going to give her a ride with my excuse being that I had just driven all the way from two states over and I was going inside to get food. Honestly, I just felt weird about the whole thing and didn't want to give her what she wanted. She 180'd so fast. She started screaming and swearing at me, saying all kinds of terrible stuff and making a huge scene so I threw up my hands and said, fine, sorry I can't help you and I walked away from her

and went inside the truck stop. The woman hung around the lot a few minutes and as I was eating my caramel roll I saw her leaving the lot with the man who had been sitting in the car smoking a cigarette. I was certain that it was a ruse because why bother if she could have just met with him? I mentioned it to a lady inside and she said she saw the strange lady show up there with the man that she left with and she thought it was also super creepy and unsettling and it was very likely that they had bad intentions. I genuinely feel like she was right and my gut feeling was right. I feel like the point was for the strange woman to talk me into giving her a ride and direct me somewhere for the man to follow in his car for evil reasons. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do is make my

dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded, and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice rinse garment bag. And with rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes for free. Best of all, rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. At the time of this story, I had just finished my 6th grade year and was very athletic and took runs every day.

This encounter occurred in the summer and what comes with summer? Heat. So instead of running in the day when it was hotter, I began running in the evening when the sun was going down. On the day of the encounter, I followed my normal routine. I told my mom I was going to start my run and then began to listen to my music on my iPod shuffle. Now the way my neighborhood works is that there is only one entrance, which doubles as the only exit as well. I live in a suburban area, so the main road that passes the entrance of my neighborhood isn't very busy but it isn't empty either. On the day I was running down the main road of my neighborhood that all the small streets branch off of. I was close to the entrance and could clearly see all the cars passing by. I'm also clearly visible to all cars

passing by and I remember watching this gray Honda car slam on its brakes at the entrance on my neighborhood. This was done so fast and so hard that I heard the tires squeal over the song that I was listening to at full volume. I brushed it off as someone following directions that most likely nearly missed my neighborhood's entrance. The car began up the road I was running on, going extremely slow at least 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. I could make out three shadows in the car through the darkness and a little light from the house porch lights, two at the front of the car and some in the back seat. As I passed the car I saw the driver's side window was down. I gave the car a smile and a wave and I turned down a small street

that branched off the road I was running on. Now I remember feeling extremely on edge as I checked over my shoulder. I saw the car turn around in the middle of the road and then slowly down the street that I was running on. Again I chalked it up to misinterpreting directions and try not to think too much of it and I really began to freak out. As a girl of my age, I always would jump to the worst possible outcome. I wasn't very tall and only stood about 5'2", so I knew that I could be easily mishandled if the people in the car had any ill intentions. But I knew that was very unlikely, so I tried to tell myself to calm down. I reached the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, so I was now running on the opposite side of the car.

They were still going very slowly and what I do next may have saved my life and I can't imagine what would have happened if I didn't. As the car and I were about to be right next to each other I paused my music and kept my earbuds in giving the illusion that I was still listening. As the car and I got closer, I heard the two men speaking. One of them actually tried to speak to me, yelling hey or something like that to get my attention, but I didn't reply because I knew that it would blow my cover and that they would know that I was able to hear them. As the car drove a little bit behind me and out of my view I heard one of them say, We'll get her when we turn back around. I froze. Get me? I felt like something dumped a bucket of freezing water on my head.

I knew they had to go around the cul-de-sac so I did the only thing I could think of. I instantly sprinted. As I ran down the street I looked over my shoulder and saw the car had already went around the cul-de-sac and was now going a lot faster after me. I turned into the main road of my neighborhood and ran. I passed my street and just ran as fast as I could towards the end of my neighborhood. My house was the first in my street so I knew that they would see where I lived if I tried to go home. I was scared to death and essentially running for my life. I had no idea what I could do to get away from these people so I just pushed my body to go as fast as possible. I continued to check over my shoulder hoping maybe they wouldn't be there,

but they were. They were right behind me and I distinctly remember they were silent. I'd imagined them yelling at each other that I was going to get away, but they were chasing me in silence. To me, that was creepier than if they would be yelling. When I ran down the last street in the neighborhood, I started running through backyards. That was the only thing I had left to do. I heard the car slam on its brakes, turn off its engine, and three doors slam. My heart beat sped up. I was so convinced that they were going to begin chasing after me through those backyards. Get back in the car. We won't find her like this.

My heart dropped. As I heard three doors shut and the car engine start up again. Now that I was running through backyards, I would have to run across the streets too. This was the scariest part for me because I would be very visible to the people in the car if they were going to be driving down the main road. I remember staring at the street trying to decide whether or not I should try to wait it out or if I should just book it home. I went with book it home. I didn't even check my shoulder as I ran through backyards, jumped over fences, and ran across the streets. I was just waiting for car lights to light up

the area around me or for arms to wrap around me, but thankfully it never happened. Somehow the car must have turned down the wrong streets or completely missed me, and I truly believe that it's the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me. When I got to my house, I wasted no time jumping through the door. Once I slammed my door shut, I sat on the ground and thought about what had just happened and what could have happened. I never ended up telling my parents until years later, and I didn't call the police. But if they are still out there, I hope they are locked up somewhere so they can't ever terrorize a child again.

I can't imagine what they would have done to me if they ever caught me, and needless to say I hope I never in the UK. Currently at the time that I'm writing this, we're in the tier 4 lockdown. Stay in your home, only go out for shopping, trips, or exercise. No mixing with people outside of your own home and your own support bubble, etc. And with the current mutation rampaging through London, hospital beds are nearly a capacity and apparently the death tolls are starting to rise and it made sense to stay indoors as much as possible. But every human being has a breaking point and mine was 8 days of wandering around my

one bedroom apartment. I had talked myself out on zoom and run out of conversations to talk to myself about. At 10pm New Year's Eve I decided to get some air, which was allowed with the rules of tier 4, and I go out for a quick walk around the perimeter around the local park, all on main roads and it takes about 40 minutes. The plan was to stop at a local grocery store and pick up a bottle of red wine on the way back. I step out, with mask firmly affixed, and started walking. One thing that I was not prepared for was the eerily empty and almost silent streets. As it was just below freezing, I decided to hustle and cut through some side

streets first. On hindsight, a big mistake. Navigating myself through very quiet side streets, I neared the park when I saw a van, a Mercedes Sprinter size, and it turned in and rapidly approached me. Deciding to let them pass before crossing, I came to a halt. The van began to slow as it approached me. I could see the cab was occupied by two men between the ages of 25 to 40 years of age. Then it stopped, window rolled down, and one man leaned out. Hey friend, we're lost. Can you tell me where the station is?

The accent was not from the UK and I'm not going to state its origin as I'm not going to get into stereotypes, but alarm bells began to ring out immediately. What was a van doing out at this time and why directions to the local train station in the middle of a lockdown? The van had stopped so the side door was facing me. I stepped back a few paces and gave directions very quickly. I didn't understand at all. I think it's best if you show us. With that, he opens his door and the side door to the van opens to reveal another two men. I just turned and ran. I knew what was going on and I ran down the side street that I had emerged from. Take the van around, follow him. I heard them yell. Knowing that these guys were fitter,

younger than I, a foot race to my apartment building was out of the question. The only advantage I had was a head start and hopefully local knowledge of the streets. The side street leads into a larger street that has homes all with large hedges. I ran past a few homes and entered the front garden of a house that had the most imposing and opaque hedge. It was unlit. I ducked down. Lucky for me, that house did not have a motion sensor light. Within a few seconds, I could hear footsteps. They went past me and stopped. I peeked through the hedge vegetation with a very limited view to see the man who had asked for directions.

He was a few houses down from me and on the opposite side of the street. He was looking around, then the sound of the vehicle. I thought, oh no, the van. But luckily for me, it was a car. The man looked at his phone, looked around, pretending that he was just checking something and then walked, leaving the residential street as quickly as possible, and the car continued its way. I waited for another ten minutes, sitting behind the hedge in the front garden, practicing an explanation of the house lights came on. The house stayed unlit, and after my allotted time, I arose and quickly walked back to my apartment building, keeping to the shadows and reacting to almost every sound.

I made it back, bolted the front door, and only when I sat down did I understand what I had just avoided. All this for some air and a bottle of red. I poured myself a black coffee and debated calling the police, but what would I say? Had anything really happened that they could act on? Intuition of being kidnapped or being in danger is not enough evidence. Plus, being a man, this would not be a priority, especially on a night that they would be overstretched on. I just waited

in the new year realizing that I had a lucky escape and that I should stock up on red wine at a more decent time. I work at a retail store that sells parts, feed, and the like. On a slow night, the store manager and I were closing, but it was pretty slow, so he let me go home early. I jumped at this opportunity as I have two jobs that are extremely physically demanding and I'm always tired. It's important for you to know that I've been borrowing my brother's car. My mother stole my own car, long story for another subreddit, and this car has many electrical issues. I'll get into that in a moment. My drive home is 45 minutes and it's on those country roads you may have heard songs about. Sure they're great, but there are no streetlights.

They'll get me started about the quality of the asphalt either. So I'm in this little Kia which all the gauges and speedometer needles jump around on the dash depending on the humidity and temperature. Lucky me. And I have to manually keep track of how much gas is left in the tank by simply doing the math. The gauge cannot be trusted. I guess I messed up that week because on my way home from work that night, the car just started to sputter and just died right there. The electrical was okay, but the engine just quit.

I've been texting my other manager throughout the shift. He and I had become friends, he was close to my age, had similar interests, and was cute. But I had shared that our store manager had let me go early. So I texted him and said, hey, what if I told you I was stuck on the side of the highway? Now you may be wondering, why didn't I text this brother that I've spoken of or why I didn't call another friend? This is because, number one, I knew this manager lived close by and would absolutely be the guy to lend a helping hand. Number two, my brother turned his ringer off at 8pm so he wouldn't even answer. And number three, my brother and I had

just moved to this state and at the time, had not made friends with anyone yet. My manager texted back, hang on, for real? Do you need help? As I was typing a reply, a green Dodge Ram drove up, something like that, a little beat up but with a nice new set of LED headlights and a light bar on the top. Their high beams and light bar were on so I couldn't see their faces and as far as I could tell, at least two men were inside.

The driver's window rolled down and I hear an accented voice call out, Hey beautiful, are you okay? How about you hop in the truck, we'll take care of you. I'm a 5'10, 22 year old woman who in work boots is about 6 feet tall. I'm a 5'10", 22-year-old woman who, in work boots, is about 6 feet tall. I'm not as built as I was in high school, just athletic enough to handle someone my own size, but not two grown men. I had gotten out of my car to go see if I could tell where the nearest landmark was, but I couldn't. So I had walked back to my car at this point. I stood there with my feet planted. I reached behind my belt, above my rear end in an attempt to appear as if though reaching for a gun, which I did not have.

Foolish? Maybe. Desperate? Absolutely. I pointed up the road with my left arm and said in the meanest girl voice I could, Get the F out of here. Somehow it worked. I have no idea, but it did. The truck sped off like it couldn't get away fast enough, which made me laugh now. I called the police and told them roughly where I was, which took some figuring out since I was so new to the area. Maps wasn't helping a ton. I then called my manager to tell him what had happened. He got there before the cops did, with a full gas can. Turned out, he was literally

around the corner at a friend's house watching the game and his friend had a gas can. I later got to meet this guy and his girlfriend. They were very sweet people. He said it was perfect timing, as he had turned down a weekend trip with a friend and this other friend randomly invited him over just two hours before this went down. He poured all the gas he had into my car which started nicely and followed me to the nearest station and paid for the rest of my tank. He also bumped my car door closed, locking me out so we had to wait for a tow truck for three hours. Definitely a funny way to end the night. We sat on the back of his tailgate and talked the whole time and I even broke down crying after the adrenaline had gone down a bit. He held me by my shoulders and assured me that I

was safe. We actually had some good laughs that night which made it very memorable. He told me he admired my ability to see the humor in the situation and how I didn't let it get to me. We've been dating for five months now, and I'm almost glad that I almost got kidnapped. To be continued... My name is Emma, I'm from the UK and I have a story I think you might be interested in. I've loved horses and ponies all my life and whenever I can, I get out into the countryside to go pony trekking. This usually involves walking and trotting around a variety of forests here in England and Wales. Nothing too strenuous and I usually find it to be a very relaxing and centering experience. But the last time I went, something happened that was actually one of the creepiest things I've ever experienced. We were up in a place called Kielder Forest Park in Northumberland and although we had some experienced guides with us, it was my

first time up there. Kielder also has one of the longest pony tracks in the whole of the UK, which means you can literally ride for hours without having to loop back on yourself. I don't really mind having to repeat a trail, it's all the more time on a horseback, but it definitely does take a bit of the excitement away knowing that you're just going in circles. So with that in mind, you can understand why I was quite excited to get up there. Only about two-thirds into the ride, our ponies started to get a little bit skittish. Now, I know ponies can be some of the most temperamental creatures on earth, but if they don't like you or they're not in the mood to be ridden,

they'll let you know as soon as you try to saddle them up. It's not like they get halfway into a ride and decide, forget this, I'm done. They also tend not to be scared of much as they know a bite or a swift kick is the likely solution to any other problems. And honestly, they'd be mostly right about that. So, as you can imagine, we were really confused when our ponies started freaking out on this section of track that was lined with trees. They seemed absolutely terrified, and for no discernible reason it was so bad that at one point my pony, Shamrock, actually tried to throw me off. I did everything I could, but nothing could calm her down. She was whinnying and doing 360s trying to spot whatever was scaring them.

I was doing the same but I saw absolutely nothing among the trees. You'd think the ponies would want to get out of the area if they were so scared, but they all just huddled together on the trail and refused to budge. In the end, we had to dismount and literally drag the ponies along the rest of the track and one of the girls ended up getting a nasty kick from one particularly frightened pony so naturally she was very upset. We were all quite shaken by the time we emerged from the trail and one of the first things we asked the guides was what could have caused the ponies to freak out in such a way. Personally, I thought it might have been someone's dog running around the forest, then it could have been a domino effect with one pony after another getting spooked.

But according to the guides, a border collie lived on the same farm the ponies were stabled at, so it's not like they weren't familiar with them. The guides rejected the idea that it was a fox or a badger scaring the ponies too. I mean, they really had no idea what it was, hence why they were just as freaked out as us I suppose. I'm not saying that there was some bloody monster in the woods or something, I'm not one for ghost stories either, but sometimes I find myself wondering what exactly scared those poor ponies so much. We don't have bears or wolves or coyotes or mountain lions over here, and you're more at risk of a seagull attack than anything else in England. So what could have been out there, hiding among

the trees, that could have scared the bejesus out of the ponies like that? I'd always thought our woods and forests here are pretty safe places to be, but maybe I was wrong. All I know is that I'm going to be much more careful in the future. A few years back, I was working as a Lyft driver and some of my free time to make a little extra cash, but this experience happened when I was not expecting rides, ultimately confirming some of the horror stories you might hear. One evening as I was headed home from my day job, I stopped at a Walmart to grab a couple of essentials before getting home. While I didn't have the driver app operating, therefore not accepting rides at that moment, I still had the stickers in my windows indicating that I was a driver. After paying for my things, I headed to my car and began

putting my things in the trunk. Almost out of nowhere, a woman approached me. She looked distressed and a little disheveled, but no warning flags necessarily jumped out at me quite yet. She asked if I was the Lyft driver she requested, and I replied politely that I was not. Almost cutting me off, she began pleading with me to give her a ride down the street, stating that her sister was in serious trouble and she needed to get to her as soon as she could. Feeling empathetic for her situation, I tried asking what had happened and she blurted back that her sister was in trouble, but avoided my actual question. Although I felt bad for the woman, I began getting a little

suspicious of her story. As nicely as I could, I told her that I don't do rides outside of the app to which she replied, it's just down the street a few blocks. I can pay you more than the app would, please. I began backing up towards my door as I continued to tell her sorry that I wouldn't be able to help at this time, blaming the perishables in my trunk. At this time, I was not focused on the warning signs necessarily as I did feel empathetic to her situation. That is until her phone buzzed and she glanced at it quickly, almost in a way so I couldn't see her phone. Odd, I thought to myself. When she slipped the phone back into her pocket, it was when I saw how clunky and small the phone was, and clearly was not a smartphone that could

have been used to order a lift. I apologized again and tried not to clue her in that warning bells had gone off in my head. I told her, well, hopefully your Lyft arrives soon and everything's fine with your sister. I got in my car quickly. Luckily, my car has a feature where if you only click unlock once, the driver's side is the only door to unlock. Not that she attempted to open a door, but it did make me feel safer with that feature in this moment. As I backed up my car out of the spot, she moved hastily out of the way and I noticed that her face changed from distressed to what I can only describe as malice. As I got to the end of the aisle, waiting for cars to pass so I could merge and get out of the Walmart lot,

I glanced in the rearview mirror as two men got out of the Escalade that had been parked adjacent to me and approached the woman as if angry or annoyed with her, and I could see her angrily gesturing toward my car and turned to face them as they continued arguing about something. Finally, I was able to pull out of the aisle just as she followed them back into the escalade. So, I'm a bartender at a gentleman's club. Our uniform, if you can call it that, is a very short skimpy black dress and black bra. Due to my uniform being the way it is, I do my best not to go out in public directly after work due to dirty looks or perverted comments that I just don't have time for. Back before the current state of the world, I had just gotten off of work. It was around 2.30am and I decided to run to my local Walmart to grab some dog food and other household items that I

needed, thinking that there really wouldn't be anyone there besides staff. I ran in with a jacket to try and be a little modest and went directly to the pet aisle. There was a guy stocking the shelves. I gave a wave and smiled and proceeded looking for my dog's brand of food. I grabbed a 20 pound bag and the stalker asked if I needed help. I'm not a really small girl but I have a slight frame, like I'm tall but I have a small waist. I told him I was fine but thanked him and headed to the grocery section. I was in the freezer section when my stalker showed up again, this time with another guy.

They were just standing there watching me decide which pizza to pick and when I turned to leave, the stalker asked me again if I needed help. I told him no but thanked him again and smiled. I then made my way to the checkout aisle. On my way out I saw a man heading out about 10 feet behind me. I quickly walked to my car, threw my purchases in the passenger side and jumped in and locked my doors. I was worried that he would try and talk to me and I just wanted to go home. I felt dumb after realizing the guy went to his own car and wasn't even near me and started my 15 minute drive home. I was about halfway home when I noticed this black car behind me taking all the same turns as me. I live in a rural area and while it's possible he lived nearby, there aren't many people that take these roads. I turned a road after mine and he made the same

turn. It leads to a dead end road with a cow farm so I knew that he was following me. I get to the end of the road and do a quick three point turn and speed back out to the road and he's still behind me. I called my boyfriend and told him what was going on and that I didn't want to drive home where he would know where we lived and asked him to meet me at a Walmart. I speed the whole way there hoping a cop is sitting somewhere and will pull us over. Black car guy is still directly on my butt no matter how fast I was going. I pull into the Walmart parking lot and park under a street lamp. The black car pulls into the same spot across from mine and I'm freaking out. About 15 seconds later I see my boyfriend's truck and he pulls in, more like drifts in,

up next to me and asks if I'm okay and I point to the car. Now my boyfriend is not a small man, he's about 6'4 and pretty large, like his arms are the size of my head. He's very intimidating, but a very quiet and kind individual. He gets out of his truck and starts to walk over to the car and yells to them, you need to talk to her or something? And the guy in the black car just backs out and takes off. I don't know if it was the same man that was at the store earlier or what, but I don't go out after work anymore. These days, I can do anything from my phone. Book a vacation, order a meal from a five-star restaurant, buy and trade stocks. But maybe the most amazing thing I can do

is make my dirty laundry disappear and then reappear perfectly washed and folded. I have Rinse to thank for that. I just schedule a pickup in the Rinse app or at Rinse.com. A Rinse valet comes to get my clothes, and before I know it, they're back, crisply folded, and ready to wear. They even do dry cleaning, which is returned hanging in a nice Rinse garment bag. And with Rinse, my satisfaction is guaranteed. If for any reason I'm not happy, they'll re-clean my clothes

for free. Best of all, Rinse saves me tons of time each week. That's time I get to do something I love versus something I have to do. So if you want to save loads of time by not doing loads of laundry, remember, there's an app for that. Rinse. Sign up now and get $20 off your first order at Rinse.com. That's R-I-N-S-E dot com. This took place when I was about 17. I'm a female. I moved in with my brother and sister-in-law into their apartment in the city. I'll admit I was a very innocent 17-year-old.

I still had a lot to learn about the world and what people were capable of. I worked the evening shift at my job and they let me stay in their spare room while I saved up to get my own place. They used the living room as their bedroom because their other rooms were too small so when I got home from work I either had to park around the back of the building and go in the back door or park on the street out front and walk through an alleyway to get to the back door. One night, I got home from work and decided I wasn't ready for sleep yet. It was about 2am and I was still amped up from work so I poured myself a drink and walked around to the front of the building to sit on the front steps and enjoy the night air before bed. While I was sipping my drink,

listening to some music on my headphones, someone called out of the building next door and sat down on their steps. It was a young man around my age. After a few moments, he started to talk to me. I realized he was pretty drunk, but seemed harmless, so we chatted for a few minutes. He started telling me a story about how he chased some guy with a machete. Start queuing all the red flags. Then his friend also came out and also sat on the steps. His friend was fully wasted, gonzo if you know what I mean, just sitting there holding his head in his hands. So I said, well I better get going now, have a good night. And I stood up to walk through the alleyway between the two buildings.

I was nervous about going through there but I was either that or walk all the way down the street and around the block to get to the back of the building. So I said good night and started walking through the alleyway to get to the back door, trying to stay calm and not appear freaked out. I look behind me and realize the drunk guy is following me through the alleyway. He says to me, where are you going? I said, I have to go home. And he responds, are you going to leave me without a kiss goodnight? I say to him, I don't know you. And he says, come on, just one kiss. At this point I'm starting to get nervous about where this is going when he snags his jacket on a nail in the alleyway. And I use this moment to make my way out of the

alley into my door. He unsnags himself and catches up to me at the back door asking if he can come in. Mind you, I've never met this guy in my life. I tell him, I'm sorry, my brother and sister-in-law are asleep. I slowly close the door while he stands there staring drunkenly at me, half expecting this to go sideways. The way I figure, that night could have gone two ways. I was super relieved it ended with him on the other side of the door and me safely in my own house. I never saw him again and I never went out at night by myself to sit on the front steps. I learned a valuable lesson that night. Potentially dangerous situations can creep up on you. You don't always see them coming until

they're following you through a dark alley. Try not to put yourself in those situations and anticipate the creepy. I live 10 minutes away from Walmart, but I honestly rather drive 45 minutes to the next town's Walmart. The Walmart by me is just unpleasant. My brother and I one day decided to just go because we needed something quick and was short on time. We went and browsed the electronics section sometimes, they do have cool stuff. With nothing found, I browsed the computers while my brother quickly looked at LED lights. As I started walking away, I noticed a tall man with white-gray hair walking super close to an older lady I thought

that they knew each other. When I passed him, he got super close behind me. My eyes bugged out of my head because I knew how close he was as my older brother looked behind him because I was walking towards him. His eyes bugged so I knew I wasn't just imagining it. He got so oddly close that I decided to turn around to see who he was and I didn't recognize him and darted inside the next aisle where my brother came up behind me and said that I should keep walking but he's right behind us. Next to electronics, the next aisle is the art and craft supply. We kept walking. My brother peered behind us and he loudly whispered,

oh my god, he's still following us. Go, go. So we made it to automotive, which was the main reason of the visit to Walmart, which I was relieved when there was more people around than there was in the electronics. After getting what we needed, we made our way back to electronics to pay. It was over 20 minutes since we'd last seen that Danny Phantom looking guy. As we turned the corner, we see the guy again. Eyes darted right at me as I tried to ignore it. The ladies at the electronics looked a bit off and I noticed them speaking Spanish.

I picked up that they called security cause that guy was just standing there. Meanwhile in line to pay, security comes and asks this guy if he was waiting on someone and he replied no and turned away. After we paid I told my brother that this is why I don't shop around here. As we walked to the front of the store, the same guy was following us out. We ran to the jeep and locked the doors. My brother described his eyes as these predatory hunting eyes, just dead and soulless. I don't know what happened after we left, but I now don't shop anywhere near my home to avoid the weirdos of my city, and I'm fairly certain that human trafficking happens at that Walmart often. To be continued... Eastern Standard Time. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit,

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