The Lets Read Podcast - 2: Episode 002 | Glitch In The Matrix & Ex Boyfriend Stories | 30 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: September 2, 2018

Welcome to the second episode of The Lets Read Podcast! This podcast includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Glitches In The Matrix, Crazy Parties, Midnight Stalkers& much more! HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON- ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ♫ Background Music: Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFvrqVSJE8E PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent any disease let me start by saying that i have no history of any mental disorders i have never done drugs and i haven't been drinking also on my father's side of the family we have a tradition that i've known about for most of my life. That every first born son has the initials JCM or JDM. Knowing this, I picked out my son's name a few years back and it's unique. One I've definitely never heard before. Let's move on.

About a year ago when I was 21 years old I shared an apartment with two female roommates, Kaya and Amber. It was late in the afternoon and I had just gotten off of work and was headed home. When I opened the front door there was a little boy crouched on the floor that I'd never seen before. I closed the door and he ran up to me with a smile and hugged my legs. I said hello and he looked up and said hi. I asked him who he was here with and he said with you. I called out to Kaya and Amber thinking maybe they had to babysit a brother or nephew or something but nobody was home, the place was empty. I asked who his mom was and he told me to stop being silly. Confused, I asked him what his name was and then my heart dropped. Daddy, it's me, Jgen. The same name I had picked up from my first born son.

I'd never told anybody that name. Nobody. I asked him where his mom was and he got a really sad look on his face and said, she's gone. Suddenly a rush of pure dread filled my body and I fell to the floor and began to cry like a baby, head in hand sobbing. I have absolutely no idea why. When I looked up, Jergen was gone and I felt completely devastated, like my entire world was falling down around me. I called out to him but there was nobody in the apartment anymore.

I've never told anybody about that night but I found this channel and felt like I should talk about it. If anybody knows what could have happened or has had a similar experience, please let me know. So my brother-in-law lost his parents within a few months of each other about three years ago. My nephew wasn't even six months old when they passed away so he didn't get to see them much.

Not long after their passing my sister would hear my nephew on the baby monitor laughing in his room by himself or his eyes would trail behind you as if though he was looking at someone else. Other weird things started happening around their house that they couldn't explain. They have some canvas pictures hanging on the wall in the hallway. One of them was hung completely upside down without any explanation. Another odd thing that happened around that time was even more out of place. They had a few cats and one morning they had found their grooming brush lying on the floor in the middle of the kitchen. Their black cat, like most, loved being brushed with one and comes running whenever someone takes it out, but it's actually kind of a chore because he always gets mats in his

fluffy hair. When my sister picked up the brush the black cat seemed scared and took off running. When they checked to see what brush, the black cat seemed scared and took off running. When they checked to see what was wrong with him, he seemed very spooked and his matted fur was gone, as if someone brushed the mats out. He still freaked out by that brush. Now my nephew is three and he can say a lot more words. My sister tells me that he points to the room just off of their kitchen and says, Gaga's in there, mama. My family calls ghosts spirits, gagas.

I don't know why, but he always says it's in that spot of the house. He also hates when my sister and her husband leave their bathroom door open. They have a bathroom that connects to their bedroom, and they always sit in there while they watch TV at the end of the night, and my nephew insists that they shut the door and acts really scared. He'll point to the dark bathroom and say, guy in there, door, shut door. So that creeps them out of course and he still does it all the time. So one night my sister was the only one awake and she got up to use the bathroom and kept the door open. She heard someone laughing and so she laughed back assuming it was her husband and turned to

see what he was doing. She called his name a few times and realized he was sound asleep. She freaked out and tried to wake him up to ask him if he was just laughing and he said no and just went back to sleep. She even checked outside the window because the laugh was so clear and loud. She's been burning sage every day because she truly thinks they're being haunted. I'll post any updates if stuff keeps happening. This happened when I was a kid around 2005 when I was 8 or so. I lived in a medium sized middle class home in central Florida that was built in the 80's. So when I was a kid I was home with the only other person in the house being my mom.

We lived with my grandma and my younger sister but they were out of the house when this happened. It was the middle of the day and my mom and I were sitting on the bed in her room talking about random things. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about but I do distinctly remember my mom pausing in the middle of a sentence and then asking me, did you hear that? After a moment. I didn't notice anything so I just said no and we continued talking. Not too long after that, the phone rang. Now, at this point in time, there were only two phones in the house, one of which was my grandma's cell phone, which she always kept on her. My mom was always between cell phones because she had bad luck with technology

and kept having service issues or breaking them in some fashion, these cheap flip phones. Anyways, the other phone was a landline home phone that was kept in the master bedroom which was on the opposite side of the house from where my mom's room was. My mom got up to get the home phone but by the time she got to it, it went to voicemail. She brought it back into the room, sat down and listened to the message that was left. I watched her as she was listening to the voicemail and I noticed she was becoming more and more visibly upset as it went on to the point of crying at the end. This obviously freaked me out and I repeatedly asked her what was wrong.

In response she played the voicemail back to me on speaker. At first there was a static type noise but then I suddenly heard what sounded like a recording of us talking shortly before the phone rang. Now this is where it gets freakier. When my mom paused and then asked me, did you hear that? A completely different voice then said, yeah you heard me right and then went back to static. At that point I freaked out a bit and felt very uncomfortable. My mom pulled herself together enough to search around both inside and outside the house to see if she could find anything or anyone but came up with nothing. She came back in and we just sat there trying to think about how that could have happened. In the end it never

happened again. My mom believed in the paranormal and thought it was some sort of malevolent spirit or demon. She even tried to record EVPs a few times, but I don't know if anything ever came of it. I still have no explanation for it to this day. I don't know much about the history of the house, not that it was that old to begin with, or anything that happened near it. Does anyone know why this might have happened? I joined the US Marine Corps in 2000 and by 2003 I was in Iraq. While in Iraq, we stopped at an RRP, a repair and replenish point, and dug in for the night. That night there was no moon and couldn't see any bright stars in the sky so it was ridiculously dark. You seriously couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

I was sitting in my dug position using NVG's, night goggles to keep an eye out for insurgents when I heard the loudest and scariest scream coming from out in the darkness. Then it got closer but it became clear that the scream was above our heads. There was something flying above us or hovering that every several minutes would scream in a loud screeching frightening way. I can't even give it justice on how frightening this scream sounded. A couple of us heard it but the weird thing is that not everyone that was awake could hear it. I tried to convince myself that it could have been a local bird or a type of screech owl. I even googled many different owl calls just to try and find something that sounded similar with no luck. To this day I have no idea what I heard.

Someone told me that it could have been a banshee but I truly don't know. Any ideas? Anyone who served in Iraq heard of anything similar? It's not evil or anything. I get the feeling it's a feminine spirit. I think it might be my boss's mom, after she passed away is when activity really started happening. I've kept a journal on the weird things that happen. First time I remember something unexplainable happening was when my co-worker and I were talking to each other from from across an aisle when right in front of us I saw a bottle knock off a shelf. Not like it slipped off but it was like it was picked up and was dropped. My first instinct was looking at my

coworker and asking her, did you do that? When obviously she didn't as she was a good 15 feet away. We have this neat stack of square empty boxes and one day it just slipped as if they were pushed out. We have it on camera too the other day that there was this very sketchy man in our store. We just made a big sale and he definitely saw all the cash we had put in the register.

He was next in line about to be rung up after that sale. Our UPS man came in and he always just takes two seconds to drop off stuff at our store. The sketchy guy was stalling, taking his time while being rung up to take out his wallet and stuff. The UPS man was about to leave when he got a call on his phone and he answered it. While he was waiting for an answer, the sketchy guy kept looking back at him quickly, probably to see if he was leaving, but he left right before the UPS man hung up. I asked him, was it a telemarketer? Because he didn't say anything throughout the call, and he responds,

no, it was just silent. Maybe it was our ghost protecting us. There's been a lot of knocking on doors in the store when no one is there and a lot of products fall off of their packages or getting really knocked off the shelves or racks and also my co-workers and I always see someone standing out of the corner of our eyes and we'll often feel someone is walking or running up behind us. I personally sometimes even hear a woman's voice saying stuff that I can't quite make out. I've had many experiences I consider to be paranormal, but I'm reasonable and open to the idea that the vast majority of those were tricks of light or my mind playing tricks on me.

Most of them, realistically, could have a very normal explanation. But this is not one of them, and it's the one experience I swear that is not human. It was not happy and it was not playing nice. In the summer of 2015 my friends, my girlfriend and I spent a week at one of my friend's house. She lives on the shores of the Isle of Arran, in a house that was half modern and the other half had been there for over a century. Her house was directly on the beach. I've always considered myself super spiritually sensitive. I usually get vibes, warnings or whatever as soon as I enter somewhere occupied.

When I entered the house, I was unsettled, but I had to pee incredibly bad and ran upstairs to use the bathroom. I passed a room and saw what I thought was my friend in the nude, but we're close and I really needed to pee so I just rushed to the bathroom, paying no mind. Came out into the room where my friend was, empty, and I could hear that everyone was downstairs, but I saw a female figure with long dark hair clear as day. Dismissed it to be honest, it isn't rare for me to have sightings although they're hardly ever that clear. Still, it wasn't anything to worry about, right? My friend slept in that room that night.

She was supposed to sleep there for the whole week. The house was gorgeous and pretty luxurious, every room was great. But after the first night my friend refused to sleep in that room and took the sofa instead. She said she saw a long haired woman sat in the chair across from the bed, twice. Almost every time I passed that room I saw the same thing. Sometimes the figure would be sat in the chair, other times standing before the dresser, sometimes looking out the window. The room my girlfriend and I were sleeping in shared a wall with that room and drawers could be heard opening and closing. I'd hear heavy sighs and thuds. This woman soon appeared all over the house. She'd

peer around corners. She'd show herself to almost every visitor, but it was merely bumps in the night or apparitions. But one night, something happened that completely secured my belief in the paranormal. My girlfriend and I shared a bed and we were having a little pillow talk at around 1am. Something catches my eye in the dark and I look up. At the window, clear as day, the woman has stood there, her mouth is gaping and her lower half is a blur. My girlfriend is still talking as I see this creature approach. The woman leaps up, shrieks as she flies maybe a meter above our heads.

My girlfriend, who was now aware of our visitor and I both see her zoom above us, out of the door and head towards the room. There's another cry, a sob and a loud bang on the shared wall. Both sounds she made sound utterly horrified, like someone had been delivering devastating news. Not horrified as in scared but like a devastating amount of pain, like an insane amount of sadness. The apparition was clearly visible to me for about 15 seconds straight. This wasn't a glance or a corner of the eye trick. I looked directly at her. I watched her run at us. I watched her fly above our heads. I watched her zoom out us. I watched her fly above our heads. I watched her zoom out of the room and heard her scream.

My girlfriend and my friends all saw her but only my girlfriend and I heard her scream and saw her in a more monstrous way. In fact, the only one unaffected was the host. She argued that there wasn't even as much as bumps in the night there but the rest of my friends all had several experiences during the week we had stayed there. I'm not sure if this is relevant or not but the host, the owner of the haunted house, turned out to be abusing her boyfriend in pretty much every way imaginable and she was the only one never to cross paths with the screaming woman. We cut off contact with her maybe four months after this trip,

after we had found out how she had been treating her boyfriend. Regardless, this was by far my most clear experience. I couldn't stop thinking about it and I still can barely get it out of my head. It was absolutely insane. I'd be happy to answer any questions or give any more information that I could remember to help figure out what this was. She was horribly sad, she was horribly angry, and I sincerely believe she meant us harm. Supposedly there is a haunted ghost town within an hour's drive and so after one night of libaceous excess, a few buddies and I decided to make a trip to see the ghost train that goes through this bunked town precisely 12.30am every night. We get to the town hastily, barely pulling up to the railroad crossing at 12.29am and stop the car. Sure enough, the crossing arms go down,

but no train is in sight. We sit for a solid 5 minutes at least before the arms go up. Now I'm extremely skeptical of there being a ghost train, especially since there was an SUV with its headlamps turned on less than a mile from the crossing parked next to the tracks. Supposedly, it had been increasingly popular to go park by the tracks and watch the ghost train, but I think it may be that it was a railroad worker testing the crossing arms. Supposedly, the ghost train goes through every night and putting somebody on watch every night seems unlikely, so maybe it was another onlooker. It's hard to say. The town in question is rumored to have been host to cult rituals

and gruesome child murders in the late 1800s to the early 20th century, according to multiple stories from various news sources at least. The town is now, as far as I know, abandoned, except for supposedly a lone landowner who was also caretaker on most of the land and town, the main road through a paved country road, hence the fancy crossing arms, although there is plenty of unarmed crossings in the area, mostly farmland. Still, one of the most unreal things I had ever seen was the lights. Almost like Christmas lights on a large cottonwood tree,

a big bunch of dim white lights reflected dolly off the back brush alongside the road. Perhaps none were bigger than a softball. We didn't notice these lights until we were out of the car and on our way to explore old buildings. Curiously, we crept carefully down into the ditch until we could reach out and touch the leaves. The lights didn't get any more bright as we got closer, just a lame glow from nowhere. Finally, we were close enough to inspect the glowing mysteries. All were rounded in shape, yet impossible to have been shown from afar. With the intrigue of casting shadow puppets, no hand could narrow out a projection from where the lights were cast. I wanted to believe that maybe a neighboring house had Christmas lights up, or at least a yard light projector to make a couple

platoons worth orbs of lights. But nothing would block the light. There was no bulbs in the tree at all. It was seemingly just a regular tree. The leaves would slowly move in the wind, yet the lights seemed to stay in the same place, yet only reflecting when the leaves were in just the right spot. We chickened out and left without exploring any buildings. Something just felt odd and we decided that maybe a car was coming and we should get moving. Had a light just come on inside the living room window of that strange looking corner house where a for sale sign was planted square to the road. Back home, further research indicated that crossways from the exact location of these tree lights, there is a gateway to hell at the site of an old church that supposedly was the place of cult rituals which burned down in

the 50s or 60s. A daytime exploration was short and luckily uneventful, but extremely creepy. As I entered the town, a minivan with two women in the front seat passed by me while I was going about 20 miles per hour. These women very eerily kept their gaze straight forward as I looked over at them passing me, in a freaking minivan nonetheless. Very strange how stone cold and solid their heads were fixed in that car so I stupidly pretended like I was just driving through as I looked around for the place I had in mind and then I came back past that corner house never before have I ever seen children so jovially playing ring around the rosy they were in the front yard of that house for sale I was creeped out but kept a little curiosity to explore an old farmstead on foot. A half a mile down the road from the light tree I stopped at a big abandoned looking building, rumored to have been the train depot before the tracks were rerouted.

This was approximately one fourth mile from where the tracks lie now. The old depot was eerily placed on the side of a big slough with cattails and standing water and this is where I got hashtag spooked. My first account. I walked around the back of the depot towards an old livestock stall and decided to turn around and leave the same way I came without walking behind the property for even five whole minutes because everything just felt too creepy. Old decrepit wood buildings that weren't worth exploring for fear that they may cave in on top of a person and possibly a hint of impending doom and anxiety. So I decided to turn back thinking, what am I doing out here

anyways? Then, plain as day, I saw a dead bird on the ground. It looked like it had been there for a long, long time, not even to attract a fly it was so rotten and sun-dried. Its wings were mostly featherless and greyish, and they stretched up towards the sky, making a V-shape. Certainly, most anyone would have noticed it on the way back around, yet it had seemed to appear out of nowhere. Surely it was picture-worthy, but only after doubting its existence for the split second walking past it. And of course, when I was done gawking at the stupid dead animal carcass, the local crazy guy showed up out of nowhere on a four-wheeler with a shotgun, holstered to get me moving along. From when I was much younger, my older sister would always tell me that she had been haunted

from a young age, for as long as she could remember. Now, I was an easily frightened child, so I was already scared out of my mind from the numerous stories she had to tell me, but what I experienced staying at her place still haunts me. It's not like one major event, but it's the buildup of multiple occurrences. To start off, there was a red flag that immediately caught my attention whenever I entered her home for the first couple of times. For the first couple of visits, I would notice she would get more and more religious decor and pieces placed around the house. Photos of Jesus, crosses, and that kind of stuff, you know. She had a Bible in practically every room, and when I asked her why, her first response

was, so he leaves me alone. At this point, I thought she was messing with me or just trying to rile me up, knowing what pushed my buttons, but she had this level of intensity in her voice that I couldn't even begin to try and recreate like she wasn't messing around. It honestly shook me to my core. Because of this, even though I'm not even a religious person, I would sleep with the bible under my pillow every night when I stayed at her place. She practically forced me to anyways. Fast forward a couple of years, I don't stay over and for good reason but now she's got a guard dog so I figure

it all is well. This dog is no pushover. He is a large and quite beefy German Shepherd. In fact, he was part of the canine unit as my sister's ex-boyfriend was a police officer so I knew this dog wasn't afraid of much. Now I'm over one night dog sitting for her as she's out of state for a week and although I am very uncomfortable because of my experiences in the house I thought I'd throw my sister a bone and cover this for her. That turned out to be one of the first mistakes I could have made. The dog and I are sitting on the couch watching TV in the living room where I was sitting you could see the far end of the hallway. That same hallway has

multiple doors on both sides but I hate having them open so I close them all before I do anything. Even though I should have felt somewhat safer I just didn't. I would sit on the couch just petting the dog trying to calm myself and I wanted to get an overwhelming sense of danger as if I shouldn't be in the house under any circumstance. The hallway has no light on and I'm just getting the feeling I'm being watched. I figured it was my mind just giving me excuses to be afraid but I felt like something was preying on me waiting for me to make a wrong move. Out of nowhere the dog jumps off the couch and immediately goes full attack mode, pointing towards the hallway looking straight down it.

This dog is going so ballistic, he's practically foaming at the mouth, barking and growling and snarling into the dark, obviously looking at something that I couldn't see. But out of nowhere he gets quiet and just stares, as if whatever he was looking at was gone. Then I was hit with one of the worst feelings that I'm sure others have experienced as well. You know that feeling of intense anticipation? The room is still, it's completely quiet and you're just waiting for something to happen. That's what I was doing. I felt the hairs on my arms and neck stand up and I just stone faced stared into the dark not wanting to look away, fearing that as soon as I did it would be all over.

My whole body tingled with anticipation and it felt like the longest 10 seconds of my life. As I sit in silence, the door at the end of the hallway slowly creaks, not like the door is being opened but like someone is slightly pushing their weight on it. But this happened multiple times in a short time frame within the span of another five seconds. Because it was so quiet the noise stood out to me and made it all the more intense. Normally I would brush it off as the wind or the house being generally unstable but the dog made it a dead giveaway that something wasn't right.

The next encounter was much more brief but happened the very next day. After that moment and that night, I kept all the lights on throughout the halls and refused to turn them off. I also didn't want to sleep or lay in the living room anymore because, to be frank, I practically crapped myself. At this point in time, it's probably dusk, maybe around 6pm so it wasn't too dark around the house where the lights weren't on. Because of this, I figured it was no big deal. The dog is trailing behind me and I make my way into my sister's room. I turned around halfway into the room because I realized I didn't hear the tapping of the dog's claws on the floor, meaning he stopped following me. This fierce police dog showed fear that I'd never seen present in another animal before.

The dog stopped dead in its tracks where the door frame met the floor and refused to enter the room. He would sit there and whine and bark in my direction. As long as the lights were off he would not step one paw into that room. In this moment I'm frozen with fear. There was something in this room with me and I could immediately feel the danger I was in. I felt so uneasy to the point I thought I was going to vomit. I went to walk toward the door to leave the room and the door immediately slammed shut in front of me. For a solid few seconds I was frozen and in shock. I thought this stuff only happened in movies. Not even a few

seconds after the door slams I hear the heavy pitter patter of bare feet running towards my direction from across the room where the bedroom's bathroom was. I didn't bother to look. I didn't want to. With tears welling in my eyes I jumped for the doorknob, ripped the door open, picked up that big pup with all my might and ran straight for the front door. I told my sister I'd continue the dog sitting at my house and then refused to step foot in that building ever again. It has been years since I've been to that house and I'm never going back. When my best friend and I were young, we had an imaginary friend that I named Joey. I could see, talk and hear them.

This went on from about ages 2 to 4. I was an only child and my parents did not want another kid at all and my mom was going through stages of menopause as she was 44. I drew a picture of her when I was 3 years old of her pregnant. My parents were so worried because they did not want another child and worried I was lonely because I drew her like this. But one day while me and my mom were at the store she fell ill and said she needed to go home. I told her it was because she was going to have a baby. Surely enough she took a test and was pregnant. My parents were then planning on naming my brother Dominic or Nicholas

but when he was born my dad said he looked like a Joey which they asked me if it was okay if they named him Joey to which I apparently of course said yes. I never saw my imaginary friend ever again after that. I'll jump to elementary school. I freaked out one day when I came home from dinner with my family and felt like something was wrong with our house. I sprinted upstairs and surely enough, a black cat was in our house, neighbor's cat. Now in high school, I got a Saab convertible for my first car. Every single time I rode in my car, I felt that there was something off, that I didn't want it, and that I felt like it was really not mine. Which is crazy, we bought the car for so cheap and in perfect condition. I felt like I was just being a brat,

but I really felt that something was off about the car and it never felt like it was mine. I crashed the car and had to get rid of it only after about a year of having it. Then college. I moved into an apartment with two girls into this nice apartment in the city I go to school in. We all decided that we wanted to live there again for another year. As I was about to sign the lease to say we would live there for another year, I looked at my roommate and said, for some reason something is telling me we are not going to live here for much longer. I feel that we are leaving soon. My roommate looked at me like I was crazy.

It was the middle of the school year and we still had to live through already assigned year lease. About a few weeks later we were forced to move into our apartment due to black mold. My grandmother was not doing the best but still okay. I went to visit her in New York but as I was saying goodbye I was the last one in her room my family went outside. I felt this eerie sensation and was almost scared. I felt like she looked so pale, almost hollow, and close to death. She held on so tight that it slightly scared me, that she knew also what was happening. I went into the car with

my family and didn't tell my mom what I experienced because I felt it was just so uncomfortable. I felt that I knew that was it, the last time I would see my grandma when she was herself. That was the last I saw her in her house while she was still able to comprehend things. She felt very ill with dementia and other illnesses and was in the home the last time I saw her and she died soon after. At this point in my life I had begun to try listening to more of what I was feeling, so now I moved into a new apartment. I felt that there was something

off there as well. However, this time I tried to listen more. I began to think about a fire in the apartment. I felt like I was going to set the apartment on fire. But thinking this made me go crazy. So I began to research to see if there was any fires previously on the property because maybe I was feeling this from previous energy there, but no fires were there. I heard that there was a huge fire next door. I then began to think that maybe this was the fire I was thinking of, but I knew in my heart it was not so and I scratched that idea. Then I thought maybe that it would be in the far future, but again I thought no, there will be a fire. I became so paranoid I would take out plugs,

check the oven and stove several times a day. Then one day I was cooking and started a huge grease fire that burned the ceiling. And ever since then, I don't feel that there will be a fire there. There are so many other occurrences, but I have never had a premonition that did not come true. Maybe sometimes thinking of who was calling me, which ended up not being them, but major life event ones that I began to think of out of nowhere always came true. Does anyone else have these types of premonitions also? I need advice. So this has been nothing more than a mild annoyance for years. I never really reached out, but I thought I should throw it out there since it might

be a bit interesting to hear what you guys think it could be. When I was fairly young, I think maybe around 10 years old or so, I was in the bathroom at my house and I was finishing up. I heard a noise that sounded like it was coming from the mirror. Reflexively, I looked and saw, only in the mirror, in broad daylight, a figure rising up, bent over forwards and with an incredibly long torso that made it seem like it just kept rising. Its arms, in stark contrast to the somewhat broad but skinny torso were like twigs and it looked like it had a skin tight spine on its back almost like the flap on some eels. The noise didn't stop either. You've heard the sound of a plane engine just before it takes off

right? Imagine that but it sounds like something is making the sound by breathing out. The noise continued for about another few seconds of me being in shock until I hightailed it, noping out from washing my hands into the room my mother was in and slammed the door behind me. The noise did actually stop as I looked away and was replaced by heavy footsteps which were so close to me I could tell it wasn't breathing making the sound because if it breathed I would have felt it. It was a very short dash to the room under a second and the experience over and around six seconds or so but I swear if you were to ask me how long it felt I would have said it felt like a whole few minutes. I'm no Matthew Patrick but I'd guess by the sound of the footsteps, if it were a person, they'd have to be well over 200 pounds and stomping.

When I opened the door, they instantly stopped, and as I shut the door, I saw the light in the hall, which was only about the size of a closet, was flicked off. But on the way there, being young, I turned the light on in a panic, hoping that it would stop. Obviously not, thinking back on it, because it showed up right around the time that the light was coming in through the window, and yes, there was a window in our downstairs bathroom. I've always wondered whose idea it was. To sum up the rest of the day, I stuck around people constantly, and eventually thought back on the beginning of the day when it was half dark out I'd gotten out of my bed in the upper floor and glimpsed downstairs. A dark figure going from out of sight on the right to out of sight on the left so quickly I couldn't even make out its shape.

I thought it was just weird lighting when I'd seen that a second time on the same floor going left to right while I was downstairs this time. I thought back to it and it seemed like the same thing considering the speed I'd heard it moving at. I also heard the footsteps on the sink and then the counter the sink was on in that order before the footsteps so I pretty much heard it jump onto the sink and off like it came out of the mirror and the dark coloration of it. It seems to be a polymorph to some degree, because over time after that I had seen it every now and again, and it had once appeared to be my shadow in the floor below me for a moment before reshaping to a shadow of the shape I'd seen with a visibly empty area that

looked like a digestive system, and it darted away. The head almost looked like that one SCP that appeared behind doors and caused people irrational fear of it. I know that I sound like I'm amalgamating a bunch of dumb horror tropes but seriously, this is what my very vivid memories tell me. I also recall the head particularly well because I would often glimpse it from behind door, peeking, and would snap its head out of sight very quickly often glimpse it from behind a door, peeking, and would snap its head out of sight very quickly when I looked at it head on, but it would wait until I did or until I came very close. I've grown very used to it by now, just being annoyed when it knocks over an object near the mirror, lifting an arm into view in objection to the strange noises

I make. That's why I called it passive-aggressive. It's very prone to slapping objects, usually ones near a mirror if it's in view. When I annoy it, which is hard not to do so being an aspie and with an attention deficit disorder, and oh yeah, that's another reason to take my word. I have Asperger's syndrome and none of that balding dude in my mom's basement self-diagnosing stuff. It's a medical diagnosis I got after a long while of suspicions of ASD from my family. I've actually had quite a number of run-ins with weird creatures like this, so nothing really surprises me by now, but this thing pulled exactly that off a few nights ago.

I was trying to get to sleep with this channel on my TV that had just played nature sounds, and I can already tell it's him without opening my eyes when I feel like I'm being watched. I say him because it seems like a male, but I don't know though, I could be wrong. Anyways, I open my eyes and see its head swing back into the bathroom where I first saw it, the nearly square hallway visible with my door open. So without even thinking about it, I spoke up in a last-ditch effort to spare some grief, being an insomniac already, so I say out loud, You know, if you like, you can just eat my scaredness, why don't you?

I could just give you my word that I'll play Soma this week. My new computer can handle the graphics and it's bound to be better than you trying because, really, you aren't scary anymore. You're just an annoying silhouette that follows all the TV tropes and horror movie cliches. And it surprised me when that vibe of eyes on me let up and nothing followed up that night. Now, as it comes close to seven days since that's happened, it seems to be getting annoyed because I'm just lazy. And that's pretty much it. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this. I don't mind it being here, but if you guys know something that might get it to tone all this crap down a little, that'd be nice. And I've even caught it off guard

and stumbled into it without meaning to and I felt nothing, it just wasn't there as soon as that happened. So there's that. This happened to me a little over a year ago, and up until this moment I've never told anyone about this. I'm a 21 year old female and was 19 at the time this happened. I'm short, 5'2", and while I'm not petite, I don't look strong or intimidating in the slightest. Most people say when I'm angry I just look like a grumpy 7th grader because of my baby face. I have a younger brother, his name is Kyle, who is about 2 years younger than me. He and I have always been polar opposites from one another. He was more popular and had a large group of friends, while I was more quiet and preferred

a smaller group of close friends. Being a popular teenage boy, my brother was really into partying, drinking, smoking, that sort of thing. Nothing too crazy, mind you. That had never really been my kind of thing, but I understood the appeal and didn't mind too much. My brother can be stupid, but I don't think he'd be stupid enough to do anything that could get him into serious trouble.

Regardless, it's not much of my business since my brother and I aren't particularly close. We don't fight or hate each other or anything, we just kind of coexist together if that makes sense. We are more of acquaintances who happen to live in the same house rather than siblings. Anyways, I was visiting home from college from spring break and my parents were going to be gone over the weekend so my brother decided to throw a party at our house. Everything looked exactly how I left it so I quickly threw on my pajamas and hopped into bed, making sure to lock my door so no one came wandering in here while I was trying to sleep. I fell asleep pretty quickly, exhaustion will do that too, but unfortunately I'm a notoriously light sleeper, so when I heard some weird thumping,

I found myself awake and annoyed. Now how my room is laid out is that my bed is positioned horizontally along the far wall, allowing me to see my door and my small closet, which is a double door that opens outward right next to it. I lay there in my bed, my eyes looking blurrily into the darkness as the weird noise continued. I tried to listen through my drowsy state to where it was coming from. Still not moving from my bed I scanned across my room. It was muffled, but clearly audible and seemed to emanate from the far side of the room. With a sinking feeling, I realized that the noise

was coming from my closet. I could feel my heart start to pound in my chest as I stared at it through the darkness. I'm sure it's nothing, I told myself. It's been a long night. I'm tired. I'm stressed. My mind is probably just creating things that aren't really there. I looked over the door to my bedroom and saw it was locked, so there's no way anyone could have gotten in while I was sleeping. Maybe it's one of my cats, I rationalized to myself. Maybe one of them got locked in my closet or something. But I never opened my closet, and I never let my cats out of the guest room. Suddenly the thumping turned into this gross, wet, slapping sound, and I could feel my stomach nod up. I strained my eyes through the darkness and stared at the

closet doors, terrified, and that's when I saw it. Through the gap of where the two doors met, peering out through blanketing darkness was an eye staring back at me. I felt my stomach heave and nearly lost my stomach right there, a scream trying to tear its way out of my throat. I didn't know what to do and even if I did I was paralyzed. A scared whimper began to build in my throat and I pushed it down afraid that if I made any sound whatever was in my closet would do something. I didn't know what. I didn't want to know. So I just laid there and stared back. The slapping sounds started to get louder and louder, soon being accompanied by the person's now audible heavy breathing. All the while I laid in bed screaming at myself to do something. It was when I heard the most disgusting moan I decided I couldn't take it anymore. I launched myself out of bed and sprinted to my closet, throwing the doors wide open. Sitting there was a guy, crouched on his knees and huddled back against my mass of stuffed animals staring back at me, a pair of my underwear in one hand and violently having his way with the other.

I can't remember much of what he looked like. It was dark and I was more focused on what else he was doing rather than his face, but I know he had to be around me or my brother's age. But the look in his eyes, that I will never forget. I have never seen anything like it and it still causes my stomach to churn to this day. The way he looked at me with those wide eyes, dilated and predatory and staring right at me and that lecherous smile on his lips. I can't. For a moment I was paralyzed, my eyes glued to him in shock, disgust and disbelief. Once again, I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to scream, part of me wanted to run and part of me wanted to fight. I guess now I know what I would do in a fight or flight situation because I immediately kicked him in the crotch and began to violently stomp on him.

He cried out and careened onto the floor, curling onto his side and trying to protect himself as I continued to beat him, both of us screaming and yelling at each other incoherently. Eventually all of the yelling caught my brother's attention and he began to bang on my door. Hey, what's going on in there Lindsay Lindsay? What's happening? Open the door! Kyle screamed, banging the door and violently jigging the locked door handle. Help! Oh God, please help! The guy cried out. I kicked him in the chest, hard. I could see his body curled even more in on itself as I knocked the wind out of him, but I didn't stop. In that moment I was...

It's hard to describe. I guess it's like a heat of the moment kind of thing, or tunnel vision. I couldn't really hear my brother or the guy yelling, or see the guy on the floor. All I could see was that image of him in my closet with that smile, and the sound of him in there just kept ringing in my ears and I felt so scared and angry and violated I couldn't stop. It wasn't until I heard the guy underneath me let out a legitimate sob I finally stopped. Looking down and seeing him blubbering on my carpet floor

for some reason snapped me out of my violent daze and I walked over to the door, turned on the lights and opened it. My brother immediately ran in and looked around my room, frantically asking what happened. Kyle was both drunk and out of his mind and didn't notice him at first somehow. I pointed to the floor in front of my closet and my brother's face turned white. Everything after that was a bit of a blur. My brother grabbed the guy and punched him several times before yelling at him and throwing him out of our house. Everyone had to leave after that and my brother went through every single room to make sure

no one was still here. I just sat on the staircase and watched everyone leave silently. After a while my brother came over to me and sat down. There was a long awkward silence between us. Are you okay? He asked. It was clear he felt guilty and was somewhat to blame, but since we were never really close he didn't know what to do to comfort me. Who was that? I asked him. My brother said he didn't recognize him, so he was probably just a party hopper who heard about it on social media. There was another long pause. Did he? No, I said instantly, standing up. I didn't want to talk about it. I still couldn't completely comprehend what had just happened and all I

wanted to do was to ignore it. I'm sleeping in mom and dad's room tonight. Clean up everything. I paused before looking my brother straight in the eyes. Never have a party here. Again. I went upstairs and let my dog in from outside to sleep with me, and though she's no guard dog, she did make me feel safer that night. When I finally did go back into my room the next day, there was a few drops of blood on my carpet from where I kicked the guy's face. I cleaned it as best as I could. My brother and I haven't talked about it since. I never told my parents about it and he didn't either.

He hasn't thrown a party when I was at the house since, thankfully, but whenever I'm home I no longer feel safe and have to check my closet every night before I go to bed. When I was around 7 or 8 years old, I attended a private school. When the school day would end, my mom would pick my brother and I up and take us home. Normally, we would be forced to change out of our uniforms so that our mom didn't have to iron it too much for the next morning. But the moment we arrived home, it was apparent that we had visitors. My aunt from Ohio was sitting outside on our bench in the backyard with a strange man, both of them smoking. She was definitely that cool family member that all of the kids liked but the adults rarely approved of due to her tendency to smoke, drink, be brazen and overall act younger than her age. It turns out that she was staying with us and that she had brought her new boyfriend

to share our guest bedroom with. One particular afternoon after maybe a week of them staying with us my brother and I arrive home from school and of course rushed to go hang out with our quirky aunt and her boyfriend, who also seemed fun. I saw them sitting on the bench again and of course ran into their laps, sitting on the boyfriend's while still in my uniform. My mom and dad joined us outside and I saw a strange look cross briefly on my mother's face. She called me over to her in a sharp tone and I remember feeling shameful but not understanding what I did wrong. Fast forward to me at the age of 20 when I was hanging out with my mom. I suddenly had a recollection of this event and prompted my mom as to why she had behaved so strangely all those years ago. She proceeded

to tell me the entire story from her point of view. That afternoon when she walked out with my father, she had experienced a strange gut feeling about my aunt's boyfriend. Apparently she got a vibe from the way he smiled as I sat on his lap in my skirt uniform and immediately felt uncomfortable. As if his smile was not out of joy, but enjoyment in something perverse. That night, she and my father had one of the biggest arguments they have ever had, with her telling him that she didn't trust the boyfriend. My dad discarded her strange behavior as a form of hysteria.

After all, the man had done nothing wrong to offend our family. She begged him to tell our guest to leave, and the next day, he told them that they had to stay elsewhere because his wife was having a fit. My aunt and her boyfriend broke it off some time later and I knew that he was a shady guy because he had been in prison before for something minor but when my mom said next chilled my bones. A few years after the fighting incident and my aunt and her boyfriend being removed from our home, my aunt called my mom up for a chat.

During the call, my aunt confessed that she had read a headline about her ex, who had just been arrested and sent to prison for child abuse. Whether my aunt had broken off the relationship because she had known about his fantasies, I don't know, but I do know that I am grateful that my mother listened to her intuition, despite the fact that no one believed her. When I was around 15, I guess you could say I was in a bad place. I had just gotten out of the hospital and was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, as well as drug-induced depressive disorder. I was completely rebelling against my parents, growing out of old friendships,

getting into experimentation and drugs and you know how it is. One thing I found myself absolutely fixated on though was relationships. I wanted to be in a relationship so badly. I love the idea of having a boyfriend, someone you could tell everything to and be intimate with. My body was still developing at this time so I had the body of a pudgy lima bean and the social skills of a retarded goose. Real-life guys wanted nothing to do with me. That's when and why I began my search for love on the internet. There was this meme page I began direct messaging, not going to say which. He had around 4k followers

at the time. Things were friendly at first. We'd crack jokes, we'd send each other memes, all while being totally sarcastic and silly. It was a part of me I didn't feel like I could show in real life. He made me feel welcome. He even followed my ugly self back. So back when the send nudes meme was popular, I thought it'd be a good idea to actually send this guy nudes. I don't know what kind of logic was going through my head when I did this. To my surprise, he was into it and sent things back. I filmed myself doing things and was telling him how badly I wanted him. Things you say and do when you're a wee teen and he went along with it. Once it was over,

he told me his name, we'll call him John, his age, he was 15 and where he was from. I told him mine and where I was from. I lived in Canada and John lived in the south of the United States so I stupidly figured since he lived so far away there was no danger. We began messaging pretty often, maybe five times a week or more. I was developing feelings for John extremely quickly even though I didn't know who he was. I had literally only seen naked pictures of him and the words he typed. When I realized this, I asked if he'd be down to show me his face. He was reluctant at first. He was telling me how insecure he was about himself and that he was afraid I'd find him ugly and that I'd stop talking to him if I saw what he looked like.

I reassured him that that wouldn't happen and I even gave him my Snapchat saying that the photo would disappear once he sent it and not to worry. He finally gave in and after we added one another on snapchat he sent me a five second picture of his face. He was pale, doughy, had beady eyes and a large nose with curly brown hair piled on top of his head all tied together with a nervous smile. Despite how I worded that he wasn't completely unfortunate looking. I found it charming and endearing how insecure he was. I told him he didn't completely unfortunate looking. I found it charming and endearing how insecure he was. I told him he didn't need to be nervous around me and that he was cute. He asked that I send a face back, and I did. He responded that I was gorgeous and that he was surprised I

was even talking to him. I blushed and told him that this made me blush. I spent the whole night talking to him after this. I told him my backstory and he told me his. We shared secrets and insecurities and bonded over our love of smoking. The two of us got really close. We began talking every day. We face called on snapchat and texted anytime we were free and on one faithful day he called me and asked if I would be his girlfriend. I was flattered and happily said yes. We then celebrated our new relationship by sending more nudes. For the first three days things were great. We called and messaged each other more than ever. I even introduced him to my best friend. My friend and I had known each other since kindergarten and she was pretty much my only friend at the time.

We were sitting on my bed, making awkward small talk with John, when suddenly she made me disconnect the call we were on and pulled me aside. The conversation went something like this. What are you doing? What? What do you mean? Why are you talking to this guy? You don't even know him. I do know him. We message each other every day.

He knows almost as much about me as you do. But he's... He's so ugly. No, he's not. You're just jealous because I have a boyfriend and you don't. She scoffed at me and laughed. Do what you want. Just be careful, okay?

Angry that she called my boyfriend ugly, I called John back and pretended that that conversation never happened. That night we had the deepest conversation we had ever had. He told me about how his dad was an alcoholic and how his mom was verbally abusive towards him. He told me about how his dad was moving to Utah and that he'd have no one once his dad was gone. He told me how badly he was bullied at school and how badly he wanted to die sometimes. I comforted him and told him about my sorrows and on that very call he told me he loved me. That's finally when red flags started going off in my head. We'd been dating for less than a week, three days, and he already said he loved me.

He was waiting for me to respond. We were on a call. I froze. I couldn't possibly love someone so soon and without even having met them in person. Yet I didn't want to reject him after he confided in me about his loneliness and sadness. So, regretfully, I told him I loved him too. This is where things took a turn. John began getting really passionate about our relationship, to the point where he was telling me how many kids he wanted.

How he had told all of his friends about me and how I should fly to his state so we could meet in person and lose our virginities to one another. I wasn't a virgin at the time and thought I should be honest with him about it, so I told him. John got really upset. He started calling me terrible names and randomly accused me of going around and sleeping with guys for drugs. I tried to remain calm and explain to him that this wasn't the case. After a long and heated conversation, filled with terrible shamery and insults, he relaxed and it ended up with him making me promise not to cheat on him, to which I reluctantly did. But you know, this was over text so he couldn't tell. I had taken a hiatus from school work during this time to focus on my mental health.

That being said, I still went to school since I wanted to be able to socialize. John and I used to text all day, even during class, but at this point I began to be able to socialize. John and I used to text all day even during class but at this point I began to get a little sick of it so I told him I needed a break to try and socialize with people and that I'd be shutting off my phone. I shut it off right after having sent that and when I got home that afternoon I had over 20 messages from him frantically stating how he was going to end his own life if I left him. How he could tell I had been distant and how he had almost bought a ticket to my city to come and surprise me but that he knew I was just using him for his picks. I admit I was being completely

terrible to this poor guy and I think I deserve what happened next to an extent but still it's just all messed up. At this point I was done. I didn't want him to end his own life, but I also didn't want to be trapped in an exclusive online relationship with him, so I decided to tell him I cheated on him. I figured that anger and resentment towards me was better than him thinking that it was his fault and potentially getting crazy over it. Long story short, bad move. He completely blew up at me. He called me terrible things, asking me why I had betrayed him. He called me a liar and everything under the sun. I made up a vague story and then told him I wouldn't be able to talk to him anymore.

I blocked him and tried to go to sleep that night. I was awoken around 2am by my best friend calling me. She told me in a panic that John has been harassing her over texts for my personal information and that he was super angry. I told her to block him on every social media platform and she did and so did I. For the week following our breakup, John made multiple accounts direct messaging me. Some he was telling me he was sorry for getting mad and that he loved me. Some he was telling me he was sorry for getting mad and that he loved me. Some he was calling me terrible names and that he'd punch me and beat me if he ever met me. I blocked every account he made and tried to let it all blow over. Things settled down a little

when I was suddenly messaged by this random girl. The conversation went something like this. She said, hey I know you don't know who I am. Just wanted to know, did you date John? I respond, Yeah, kinda. How did you know? I dated him too. He was very clingy. Oh wow, small world.

I just thought you should know. He's been sending me pictures of you. What pictures? Like at first it was just selfies of you, but then he started sending me me pictures of you. What pictures? Like at first it was just selfies of you but then he started sending me like nudes. My heart sank. I didn't know what to do. Oh my god. I think he was trying to make me jealous or something. He's crazy. I reported him. Have you blocked his account? Yeah. Do you know if he's sent them to anyone else? No, sorry.

Okay, well, thank you so much for reaching out to me. I deleted my Instagram account right then and there. I stayed off of Instagram for a solid year before remaking an account, and even then I never posted my full name. If you can learn anything from this story, don't send anything to strangers. People may seem friendly and warm online, but in the end the only thing you know about them is what they've been typing to you. Again, I reiterate, don't send anything. 2 years ago I had a religious studies teacher who would always tell us crazy stories about her life.

I remember one which put shivers down my spine and still shocks me to this day. Let's call my teacher Kylie. Kylie was in school when this happened to her. Every day she'd take the bus home from school, apart from the days that she'd have French classes after school, which instead she'd walk to a group of traffic lights to meet her mom. One morning, where she had French class, she told her mom she wasn't going to go, for whatever reason I wasn't sure, and said she'd catch a bus home straight after school. Later on that day Kylie was in

class when a teacher came and told Kylie her mom was ringing into school and asked if she was going to French classes. Kylie didn't want the teachers to know that she was skipping the after school activity and so she told the teacher she was. She was confused as she remembered she told her mom that morning that she definitely wasn't going, however thought nothing more of the situation. The end of the day of school came and Kylie jumped onto the bus home. When she got home she asked her mom why she had called in, to which her mom answered that she didn't. Are you sure? she asked, but her mom insisted that she hadn't. The only person that lived with them was Kylie's grandma who also said she never called in. Kylie's mom spoke to the school and police and made sure

Kylie never walked home alone after that instance but nothing else came of the situation. She's still wondering who was pretending to be her mom, why, and what would have happened if she really did go to French boosters and met the stranger outside of school. I'm a 25 year old female and I grew up in the deep south of the United States, Georgia to be exact. I love it here and don't think I ever will leave. I have experienced a lot of weird things, mostly because of the nature and history of where I live and partly because of my weird family.

Here's a little background. After an ugly divorce when I was 9 months old, my parents split and my mom moved back home with her parents with me in tow. My grandparents lived in an old plantation house on 10 acres in the middle of nowhere. months old my parents split and my mom moved back home with her parents with me in tow. My grandparents lived in an old plantation house on 10 acres in the middle of nowhere. That has been in our family since the late 1800s. My grandmother grew up there, her father before her and so on. The house is enormous and there are large implications about its history but I will point out that it was taken over by my family in the late 1800s post-Civil War. I didn't know much about the history of the house before my family took it over while

it was growing up, but I did hear family stories about my great-grandfather bootlegging with the grandfather of our town's now sheriff and profiting greatly from it. There were also rumors of my great-grandfather shooting partners of his moonshining endeavors on the property and my great-great-grandfather beating a man to death for sleeping with his wife in their bed. But that's about it. None of those things happened in the house. So I grew up in that house, and even when my mom got remarried, I opted to live with my grandparents. It was easier for everyone. No bitterness, just easy. My mom is wonderful and was still an enormous part of my life as she and my stepfather bought

the adjacent property to my grandparents. This story happened when I was 20. I was staying home while my grandparents' mother and her husband, uncle, and sister drove to Maryland for a week for my cousin's graduation from college. I was going to university in the next town over and it was finals week so I couldn't go. I had my ex-fiance stay with me since the house was so big and I only had one final that I actually needed to go to campus for so I'd be pretty lonely. He was also going to help me with the dogs. My grandfather is an honest to god-god farm boy who believes blue tick hounds are the only breed worth its salt, so of course we have two. Reba, named after Reba McIntyre, and Roscoe, named for Roscoe P. Coltrane of the Dukes of Hazzard. These dogs are pure

bred and all muscle. I also have a 150-pound razor's edge blue pit named Butch. The dogs, paired paired with the arsenal of guns my grandfather has left no need for a security system. My friends even now swear they get a creepy vibe from the house. I never had before this but the house has a reputation for being creepy. Rumors about lynchings, satanic rituals, clan meetings all before my family bought it way back in the civil war times. I never paid much attention because I knew it was all nonsense. Southern towns love to gossip, and that's what I thought it was. A couple of days after my grandparents left, my boyfriend and I were outside in the backyard, about to smoke, and while we were twisting up, I happened to look up at the house, the light in my grandparents room was on.

I hadn't turned it on or even been in there and my ex was very respectful so I knew it wasn't him. To avoid being paranoid I called the dogs behind me and went inside to check everything out. I got upstairs and looked around my grandparents room. The hounds wouldn't go in which I didn't think was odd at the time, which I should have because they slept in there. Butch stayed glued to me with his hackles raised. I didn't find anything, flipped off the lights, and went back out to smoke. The rest of the night went normal, me and my axe went to bed. I made sure all the lights were off before I went. The hounds wanted

to sleep in my room at the foot of the bed, which I thought was because we were the only ones in the house and Butch stayed right up on me in the bed which I thought was because the hounds were in the room. Butch is very possessive of me. Around one-ish in the morning I woke up. It was one of those out of a dead sleep cold sweat kind of deals. I had never experienced it before. I sat up and looked at the door across the room. It was open. I knew I had closed it before I went to bed. The dogs were also standing at the foot of the bed staring out of it. I assumed that Roscoe had gotten down and that was what woke me up. My ex had gone to the bathroom and left the door open. I shook him awake to ask. He said he'd been asleep the whole time and rolled back over.

I noticed while laying back down that there was a light on down the hall. I also noticed that the dogs were still staring at the door. I was so sure that there was someone in the house. I got up and grabbed the 12 gauge that my grandpa made me keep in my room from under the bed and called the dogs to follow me out of the room. It was my grandparents' room again. I searched the whole house, all six bedrooms, four bathrooms, attic, downstairs, all of it. Nothing. I grabbed my cigarettes and phone and went to the back porch to let the dogs out. I smoked a cigarette and went back to bed. I called my grandpa the next day, thinking there may just be an electrical short in the wiring or something. I called my grandpa the next day, thinking there may just be an electrical

short in the wiring or something. I told my grandpa what had happened, and he told me there was not a short and wanted me to talk to my uncle. When my uncle came on the phone, he told me a story that happened when he was growing up. Apparently, he had come home one night in high school and the house was empty. He went upstairs to his room and when he turned the corner from the stairs, he saw a man in a black suit at the end of the hall in front of my grandparents' bedroom door. He didn't stick around to see what happened next. He noped it downstairs and out the door to his girlfriend's house. He told me he hadn't seen anything since and that if I left it alone, it would leave me alone. I thought he was messing with me. I

talked back to my grandpa who said he believed my uncle and that he had seen the doors open and close by themselves and footsteps in the hall. I flipped out. I kept the dogs with me wherever I was. Nothing else happened until they got back. I asked my grandma if anything weird had happened before the family had bought the house. She said she didn't know and changed the subject. So I went to the library. This is what I found out from the librarian who also happened to be a local historian with evidence to back it up. Apparently in 1859 the man who built the house had a son who had become a minister and was the pastor of a local church. He had gotten a local girl pregnant and when the baby was born he killed it to atone for

his sin. When the mother of the baby tried to stop him he beat her pretty badly. The brother of this poor girl said he wanted to speak with the minister and was shown upstairs to his study which was, you guessed it, my grandparents bedroom. The conversation heated up and ended with the minister and was shown upstairs to his study which was, you guessed it, my grandparents bedroom. The conversation heated up and ended with the brother of the girl beating the minister senseless and pushing him out of the window. The brother was hung, and that's where the rumors of satanic rituals came into play. The rumor is that the baby was killed as a sacrifice to the devil to keep the minister

in power at the church because he was dipping into the offering plate on Sundays, and the mother interfered, and the baby died before the minister could finish the ritual. I don't believe the rumors, but there is solid evidence that the minister killed the baby and was then killed by the brother of the mother. So I saged the crap out of that house, against my grandmother's wishes, and anointed all the doorways with oil. There hasn't been another incident, but in my grandparents will the house is being left to me. My aunts and uncles all have their own houses, and I love the house. My grandparents really want to keep it in the family. So, wish me luck. I lived in Bellevue, Washington, which is easily one of the wealthiest cities in the Pacific Northwest. I am originally from Helena, Montana, so I grew up like a normal kid and then my mother got a job for

Amazon in downtown Seattle, so we moved to Bellevue. You can barely find a decent house here for under a million dollars. Now, I'm not trying to brag, but I want to set the stage for my story. We live in a nice neighborhood and have no problems with crime whatsoever. I also live on a hill which has a view of downtown Bellevue, so our living room and kitchen areas open up to a huge back deck with a view of downtown's glittering skyscrapers. I was 17 years old at the time of this story, about to graduate high school. I was out with friends cruising around the city and around 1am I decided I was tired and wanted to go home. A girl I had been flirting with said she didn't have a curfew and asked if she would come hang out at my house. I agreed and my friends

dropped us off at her place. She and I drove to my house so she could have a way to get home when it was about time for her to leave. When we arrived I pulled out my phone and disarmed the security system so we could get in without tripping the alarm and awaking the entire street. Once inside, we watched a couple episodes of Friends in the media room downstairs so my parents couldn't hear us, as I surely wasn't allowed to bring girls over this late at night. I remember getting a notification on my phone from our security system app that read, Looks like someone left the sliding glass door open for 10 minutes. It basically does that so you remember to close it. I didn't think much of it

and thought maybe my mom left it open before she went to bed hours earlier. I hadn't yet made the connection that the door had been opened 10 minutes ago. Neither me nor my sleeping parents could have done it. Fast forward an hour and I was pretty beat. Me and the girl that was over had missed the last episode because we had been kissing and then she asked if we could go outside and get some air. I agreed and then we went out to my deck and laid on a deck chair together enjoying the cool spring air. I left the sliding door open to the air out of the house and then my phone buzzed again, saying that I had left it open.

I then remembered the notification I had gotten earlier and got a weird feeling. I wondered how I'd even been open in the first place so late at night. I brushed the feeling off because this girl was practically throwing herself at me. And needless to say, about 15 minutes later we moved things into my bedroom. I promise this isn't a smut story and this is where it gets truly terrifying. We were on my bed when I suddenly heard movement come from what I thought was outside my bedroom door. I assumed it was one of my parents and quickly rushed the girl under my bed. I waited for a second and then she came back up. A few minutes later I heard the noises again

but I distinctly knew that it came from inside my closet. I sat bolt upright and was now scared. The girl asked what was wrong and I hushed her, my ears pounding, looking for another noise. What happened next still gives me nightmares. We sat on my bed and watched in horror as my closet door slowly creaked open, revealing the silhouette of a massive man standing there, watching us. We were both paralyzed with fear and disbelief and sat there barely breathing. The silence was deafening. The man moved his hand and we heard it brush into his pockets. He pulled out a lighter and flicked it on, lighting up his face in a long knife in the darkness. He was grinning.

The girl I was with screamed so loudly that I felt as if though my ears were about to bleed. We both sprinted out of the room and out into the front yard. The girl ran in track and was much faster than me because I only played tennis and golf. She pulled ahead and I turned back to see if he was running after us. He wasn't and then my fear instantly turned towards my parents asleep in their beds. I stopped in the road and decided if I should run back or try to have a neighbor call for help. I decided to run back and as I neared my house I heard a gunshot

ring out. By now I was starting to cry for fear my parents of being hurt. I heard my mother screaming out a name and I ran back to our yard to see her out there calling the police. I collapsed into her arms and sobbed. I was so completely terrified that I couldn't even think. My mom explained to me that my dad was fine and that he shot the man when he went into their room. The police and paramedics arrived in about five minutes, and my parents and I sat out in the yard together and gave up reports of the story. I didn't even care that my parents knew I had a girl over at that point.

As I finished, they wheeled out the man on a stretcher. He screamed profane things at us, saying he wanted to end our lives and bathe in our blood. Eventually the girl came back to fetch her car, gave her report, and went home as the sun started to rise. People in nearby houses had wandered out and been watching for a while. My dad told me a few days later that he had seen the man many times before. My dad had recently quit his job and been hanging around the house lately. He said the man had come to the door many times trying to sell things, but never went to any other houses, and when he was at the door, he would try to peer in and see

what was inside. What haunts me the most is that nothing inside our house was touched, which means that they came into our house with the one intention, to harm my family and I. To this day, my parents have been searching for a new house, and I had moved out for college in the Bay Area. I haven't talked to the girl since around the time of this story, and it was only to apologize to her. Now I always lock my doors and keep the closet door wide open.

I also keep a fan on at night, as the silence still terrifies me. I have a bunch of stories from my childhood as well as my parents' lives preceding my birth. You guys can believe what you will, but everything I share here has actually happened to either me or my family members. I'm a female in my late 20s. My parents, a charming lesbian couple, own a funeral home and a cemetery in a village on the outskirts of the Alaskan tundra. It was a small business that had been passed down from my mother, Agatha's father, who inherited it from his father and so on. Katie, my other mother, was terrified of the whole situation from the beginning.

She was positive that someone would get possessed with us living so close to a field of corpses, in her words. Over time, exactly eight years after they moved there, she grew to respect the land as well as the tenants resting in peace there. I was born shortly after her change of heart, but she still limited my access to the cemetery, and while no one was ever possessed, we still had our fair share of terrifying experiences at our home and throughout the property. I went to a tiny school house every weekday from the time I could walk. Only 30 or so children lived in our town, so we were all educated in one room by a small group of teachers. Katie and her twin sister Gloria were two of these teachers. The three of us

would walk to and from town every day, while Aga and her brother Cal took care of the property. It was a 20 minute trek, but on the occasional day without freezes, we got to take our bikes and that was generally the highlight of my life. However, on this particular day in December, we had to walk. We were only at the school until about 4 o'clock that afternoon, but the sun usually set at around 3.30, so we were shrouded mostly in darkness by the time we got to the dirt road leading up to our property. I was about 6 or 7 at the time and I still used my clumsiness as an excuse not to walk up the path, muddied by snow. Gloria had

drawn the short straw and was giving me a piggyback ride up the hill. I was resting my head against her back and staring at the cemetery that was beginning to come into view around the paper birches and spruce trees. It was a sprawling field filled with an odd assortment of mausoleums, colorful tombs of Inuit and the Russian Orthodox citizens. I was always entranced by the graves and tried to pick out ones that I had yet to see. We were nearly to the house when I saw a figure standing in the far right corner of the cemetery. It was hard to discern their age or gender, but I could tell from the build that it wasn't Aga or Cal. Visiting hours ended at sundown

regardless of the date, so I immediately pointed the person out to Katie. Now, most of the finer details are recalled by my parents and other family members due to my young age throughout most of these events but I can still clearly remember hearing Katie mutter, oh my god, quietly under her breath. She helped me off of Glory's back and ordered that I go inside to tell Cal to meet them in the field. Without hesitation, I suddenly found myself as sure-footed as a bunny on the icy ground and sprinted the last twenty or so yards up to the house. I swung the door open and went into the kitchen where I knew I'd find Aga and Cal and told my uncle to get the trespasser.

Groaning, Cal finished his cup of coffee, which was probably spiked with whiskey, and stood from the table. Angus Cal was a big guy, maybe about 6'8 with broad shoulders and what I called Fred Flintstone fists. Basically, he could knock someone out without much effort, and he did so time and time again. He was insanely protective of sisters and all of the other women in his life, Lori and Katie included. The entire town respected him and feared him at the same time. He was a nice at-home security system. Naturally, I was thrilled with this tiny bit of excitement in my normally humdrum life.

When my uncle charged out the back without so much as a coat on, I turned my pleading eyes to Aga who barely flinched at the activity. She stared back at me for only a moment before sighing and motioning to the rack by the door. I grabbed her parka and helped her put it on as we made our way outside. Knowing that her wife was going to be not too thrilled with my presence at the cemetery, Aga picked me up when we reached the cast iron fence that surrounded the property. We could see Cal's giant silhouettes approaching the tiny ones of Katie and Glory. The stranger was still a good 100 or so yards from all of us. Let's hide and watch, I whispered to Aga when I realized that Katie hadn't spotted us yet.

For a moment I thought my mother would shake her head and go to the others, but she surprised me by giving me a conspiring smile and ducking behind a mausoleum. We can get to grandma's grave if we are very quiet, she told me with a glint in her eye. She loved the graveyard and had spent her whole childhood playing in it while also learning about her ancestors and the people of her town. She wanted me to enjoy it as much as she did. We heard from grave to grave, pausing only long enough to make sure that the others didn't see us. Katie, Glory, and Cal were moving swiftly as well, but they were too busy eyeing the figure, standing only about twenty feet from the large tomb that encased my great grandmother, our destination. When we arrived at the tomb,

Aga sent me down and we crouched behind the rocks and wood that surrounded grandmother's altar. It was then that I began to feel nerves eat away at my gut. This was a stranger, I could tell. They were standing at the base of the mausoleum, built to honor the infants who had passed before being blessed by the tribe shaman. This was an old outdated site that didn't fully honor Inuit customs though and had been redone in the 1970s closer to the northern section of the property. No one came to the site because it would be considered disrespectful to their deceased but it would have been just as disrespectful to tear it down so it was just a derelict

memorial that loomed on the tiny hilltop of that section of the cemetery. Tension filled the air as Cal, flanked by Katie and Glory, approached the stranger. I could hear my uncle speaking to them, likely telling them our hours and asking if they'd like a ride back into town. He always started off nice, giving people the benefit of the doubt before going into hulk mode. Aga, who had initially been giggling at the sight of her brother looming over the trespasser, was beginning to cling tighter to me as time went on. It took us a few minutes to realize that the person hadn't been responding to Cal, nor had they even looked his way. They just continued to stare at the area just above the mausoleum.

Katie and Gloria were exchanging uneasy glances, and at one point, Cal told them to go back to the house. They refused and stepped closer to his side. When words failed, Cal resorted to the physical approach. He later recalled that he could tell the person, an old man, was frail, and that he didn't want to hurt him, but he wasn't listening and if he was deaf, he'd have to get his attention somehow. My uncle placed a gentle hand on the gentleman's shoulder and immediately he felt a wave of nausea overcome him.

He hunched over, clutching his abdomen, and cried out. Aga ordered me to stay put before darting out from behind the stones and over to her brother who waved her and the other women off. He insisted that they go inside, but they were all frozen in place. The strange man still hadn't moved, so Katie yelled at him once more. She stepped around in front of him and waved a hand in his face. You'll need to leave, I heard her command. You can't be here after dark, it's not safe. No, it's not, the stranger finally said. He lowered his eyes to smile at my mother. Are you alright, dear? He spoke so casually to her that she stood there

in shock for a good few moments. She looked back at Cal who was on his knees at this point. While she was distracted, the man turned and headed towards the exit. When he was coming towards my hiding spot, I had every intention of getting up and running away, but I was frozen in place. It felt like my body was being held down by weights and I was sinking into the earth. I whimpered and buried my face in my arms, praying to God and my great-grandmother for safety. The ice and leaves crunched in my ears and I knew Aga realized my predicament

and said something to the others because I could hear Katie shouting at her. Finally summoning the courage, I looked up to see the man walking right by me. He didn't so much as look my way, but as he passed, he said, Good night, blue eyes. And a dulcet whisper. Immediately, I relaxed and climbed to my feet. I watched him practically float out of the cemetery and towards the road. Katie came and got me, telling me that he had to take my uncle to the hospital.

As it turns out, Cal had to go in for emergency surgery because his appendix ruptured. He's convinced that the old man somehow cursed him on contact. Even Aga, sweet but superstitious Aga, had her doubts about his claims. There was nothing malicious in Cal's approach to the man, so why would he have cursed him? This wasn't the last time we saw the strange man. We actually saw him two or three more times in the following weeks. He was always at the derelict infant mausoleum, staring up at the sky. He never spoke or bothered anybody, and from that point on, he always came while it was light out. I would sometimes sneak out and watch him from grandmother's grave. He was a white man which struck a chord with me.

It was my theory that he was Katie and Gloria's real father who had abandoned them when they were still very young. Katie quickly disproved this theory telling me that her father died in the early 90s but that meant nothing to me. It could still be him. The last time I saw him was in early February the following year. It was snowing heavily and I was helping Aga and Cal go about and check to see if all the tombs and mausoleums were closed. Sometimes family members of the deceased would perform rituals of their newly departed, placing ceremonial offerings on their bodies, but they wouldn't always restore their tombs to the way they were. We did our best to

ensure that none of the graves would be flooded come next thaw. When we approached grandmother's grave, I heard Agus sigh airily but continue on. Immediately, I looked to the old mausoleum and smouted the back of the old man. Good morning, I called out to him. There's no such thing, blue eyes. I heard him respond over the wind. I began to laugh because it sounded like something Gloria would say after a night of drinking, but suddenly I felt a ball of sadness coil up in my stomach. I began crying and looked up at Aga with a sorrowful pout. It was the first time I had ever really felt dread and it nearly brought me to my knees.

Aga picked me up and took me inside where I instantly felt better. The man was never seen on the property again. I was a little sad about it but the adults were all glad. They didn't like the pull that he had on us. I'm from Singapore where healthy males are required to serve at least two years in the military. I was just out of basic military training and was training to become a signaler. In one of the training exercises we had to lay lines for our field telephones. How we did it was that wires would be released from a slow moving land rover. I was assigned to the inevitable task of following the rover on foot whilst making sure that the wires were

off the dirt path. I hadn't slept a wink for three days straight by then and had lagged so far behind the rover that it was out of sight. After a while I came to a peculiar stretch of road that had uniformly tall vegetation on each side of it that obscured what was then a full moon. I was quite some ways into the path when I noticed a white piece of paper on the ground. On closer inspection I realized it was a piece of paper on the ground. On closer inspection, I realized it was a piece of paper money that we Chinese would burn to appease the dead. Finding this here was very strange as civilians were strictly not allowed in this area and the nearest civilian housing was several kilometers away. I have heard of rites being

held for servicemen who tragically perished during military exercises though, which honestly made me feel worse. Then, the creepiest thing happened when the paper started to move slowly towards me. I stepped aside to avoid it, but it corrected its course at me. I took out my torch just to make sure that it wasn't a small animal tugging it, but the light from my torch was so dim as if I had a flat battery. It was at that moment that my tiredness immediately dissipated and my adrenaline kicked in as I ran for the rover ahead of me, not daring to look back. I was so relieved when I saw the rear lights of the rover and climbed on, panting heavily. I came up with the excuse to my

section mates that I needed a break. They were too tired themselves to probe any further. I came up with the excuse to my section mates that I needed a break. They were too tired themselves to probe any further. I looked at the torch that was still in my hands and turned it on again. It was as bright as it ever could be. I've been in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend for a couple of years, and every summer and winter break I am able to travel to go see her. This encounter happened about two years ago at my girlfriend's house. I should mention that my girlfriend lives on the outskirts of her city in Mexico, where houses are around 200-300 yards apart and surrounded by dense woods.

Usually, days and nights there go about peacefully, accompanied by the sounds of the woods and the occasional car passing by from others who live nearby. I had always considered her place to be perfect to spend time outdoors, until this occasion. Honestly, I don't think I had ever been this scared in my life. This sighting will be carved into my mind forever. On a chilly night in December, I was at my girlfriend's house. I had planned to spend the night with her since she would have been by herself all that day. Her mom was out of town and she didn't want her to stay by herself either.

We were having dinner in the kitchen at around 8pm. We chatted about activities we would do tomorrow, tasks her mom asked us to do, and how much we missed each other among others. After about an hour of conversation and laughs, we decided to go into the living room and cuddle on the couch, watching TV. We both got up and put the dishes in the sink. She went into her bedroom and I went outside to the bathroom. The house layout consisted of a long corridor that connected pretty much every room in the house and a back door at the end of the corridor which led to the patio. The patio was open, full of trees, plants and the only thing

separating the patio from the woods was a fence made up of stones and barbed wire that stood at around one meter tall. Halfway down the patio there was the bathroom, being lit by a single and weak light bulb, so if anybody wanted to go, they had to walk outside, even if it had to be in the middle of the night. I'm not coming here at night, I thought. I remember when I opened the back door and stepped into the patio, a cold breeze stroked my face and sent shivers across my back, so I heard to go back as quickly as possible because, to be honest, I was a little spooked going outside in the darkness, knowing that the woods were pretty much a few steps away. I finished doing my business,

washed my hands, and started walking back, being careful not to trip on something because the lightbulb was almost non-existent. I was about halfway when I heard a noise to my left, like someone stepping on a branch and breaking it. I stopped and quickly turned, trying to see what made the noise, but I could only see a portion of the fence and nothing but darkness beyond that. However, I had this weird feeling that someone or something was watching me, something on the other side of the fence. I stood there in silence for around 30 seconds, listening to the surroundings only to notice

the crickets had stopped chirping. I got a bit freaked out because I knew for sure they were chirping when I first got out. I was somewhat scared to move but I did anyway, almost running to get inside as soon as possible. When I returned, I went to my girlfriend who was already in the living room laying down on the couch with a blanket on top. She noticed I was a bit agitated and asked me what was wrong. Your patio is pretty scary, I jokingly said, not wanting to tell her what I felt because she hates anything that has to do with horror or scary stuff. I decided to brush it off, so I went around the couch and sat at the other end of it, putting my girlfriend's legs on my lap and asking what she was watching on TV. I turned to my right

and noticed that there was a huge window on one side of the wall that gave me a perfect view of the patio. I didn't see it before because it was next to a cabinet being covered on the way into the living room. Now that I knew about it, I kept turning to see outside, still thinking how scary it looked. As we were watching a boring documentary, I took off my girlfriend's socks and started to rub her feet below the blanket. After all, it was a chilly night and her feet were cold. We didn't have a conversation. I was getting sleepy, but after around 20 minutes I started hearing noises outside, noises that seemed to be coming from the patio. I grabbed the controller and muted the TV to make

sure I was hearing right, and I was. It sounded like tiny twigs breaking and grass being brushed. I quickly turned to my right to see outside the window, but I could only see the plants and part of the trunk from a big tree. The noise, although faint, stopped for a few seconds, and resumed a few moments later, and stopped again. I stood frozen, watching outside the window, almost as if waiting for a thing to appear. What is that noise? I whispered to my

girlfriend, but after I didn't get a reply, I turned around and stood up a little to see she had her eyes closed and had fallen asleep. I was a bit freaked out, but I chose to believe it was probably a coyote or some other animal that looks around the woods at night. I kept watching the TV, muted, waiting for the noise to start again, but after a while, I realized that it had stopped. I turned around one more time to see outside the window, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach. The first thing I noticed when I looked outside that time was a faint image of a grey, pale, and tall humanoid figure peeking from the side of the big tree trunk staring right back at me. I suddenly froze in fear, not wanting to even

slightly move or breathe. I watched this thing as it watched me, even though I couldn't see its eyes because of the poor lighting, but I knew it was watching me. I knew it was aware of me. I somehow felt it. The creature was, like I said, pale. Really pale. I could see the contrast between its skin and the bark of the tree. The creature was very thin, had skinny shoulders and torso, as well as an elongated neck. It looked like it was around six or seven feet tall. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, I could not distinguish in detail any facial features because of how dark it was, but I could perfectly picture in my head the shadowy areas around where the eyes would be for a person and another one where the mouth would be. It was sort of grinning. At this point,

I was trembling a little, and I wanted my girlfriend to know what I was witnessing, but I didn't want to move a muscle or break eye contact with that thing. I felt like I needed to remain still or play dead to lose its attention. But no, the creature kept staring at me, not moving an inch like it was trying to do the same. Then, to turn things worse, the creature started to make echoey clicking sounds, kind of like a frog but slower, and I noticed it began to turn its head to its left side and turn back to look at me really fast. I didn't know what to think anymore. All I wanted was my girlfriend to wake up to prove to me that

this thing was real. I began whispering her name in between my teeth and mouth, not even wanting to move my jaw. But she wouldn't wake up, and the thing kept doing the same, turning its head to the left and back to me really fast. The creature crouched kind of like when big predator cats are hunting and lay low preparing to attack. Oh my god, I whispered. I know, stupid. I didn't even think through the fact that if I woke my girlfriend up, she would start moving and that the thing would notice both of us, but I was too scared that I kept trying. This went around for maybe less than 15 minutes before I realized I still had my girlfriend's foot in my hand below the blanket, so the thing would not be able to see me moving, only using my wrist.

I slightly pulled her foot back and forth, whispering her name again and again, but no response. Then, I stood in shock when I saw the creature stand up again and started walking backwards, still looking at me and disappearing into the darkness of the patio doing the clicking sounds again. I passed saliva and blinked a few times, realizing my eyes itched from staring at the creature the whole time. For some reason I couldn't turn my head around. I kept looking in the direction where the creature disappeared, listening for sounds and waiting for it to appear once again. A few minutes passed and I took the chance to turn around. Slowly, as if in slow motion, I turned my head to my girlfriend and started calling her name louder, whilst pushing her leg and quickly scribbling my fingers on the sole of her foot to wake her up

fast. Her foot jerked and she started turning. I stood up to her shoulders and patted her whispering, hey, wake up baby. She opened her eyes and squinted at me, adjusting to the TV and wondering why I woke her up. I kept telling her to remain still and silent when I heard the sound again. She looked at me, noticed the concern in my eyes and asked, what's wrong? Shh, be quiet. I followed, putting two fingers on her lips and looking into her eyes. I could see she was getting freaked out and I don't blame her. I would be too if someone woke me up, looking scared and telling me to be quiet. The clicking sound went off again but it was louder this time, almost as if that thing was on the other side of the window. This time both of us heard the noise

and we stood looking at each other in silence getting more and more scared. What is that? My girlfriend asked but I remained quiet. Again in slow motion I started to turn my head toward the window to check. There it was. The thing was right outside the window, only a couple of feet away and staring right back at me. This time I had clearer vision of how it looked. I was wrong. I was petrified in fear when I noticed it didn't have a mouth where a person would have had one. Instead, the mouth was on its neck, which opened horizontally, not vertically. As its mouth opened, it vibrated with the clicking sounds and hundreds of small razor-like teeth shined with the window glare. It had oval-shaped eyes that were as dark

as the night. I felt its gaze pierce through my soul. I started shaking and breathing faster and not believing what I was seeing. My girlfriend peeked by my side to see what I was looking at and I instantly felt her body tense up under me as she started to ask me in a trembling voice what that thing was, but no answer came out of me. Now we were both scared to even move a muscle. After the humanoid noticed my girlfriend move, it gave a step forward and lowered its head, almost as if though it was scanning us. We jumped in fear after seeing the thing doing it because we thought it was starting to come towards us.

My heart was beating so fast I thought I would faint any time. Then the thing began to walk slowly to its right side, in the direction where the door was to the corridor, resuming the clicking sounds. If you have seen the movie Signs and remember the scene where the humanoid came out of the bushes outside of the house, that would be an accurate representation of what we saw. We took a good look at every inch of that thing's body. It walked with its head turned towards us. After we lost sight of it through the window, we both sat up and looked at each other when suddenly we heard something scratch the metal door that led to the corridor, as if the thing was grazing its finger on it. Without thinking twice, I grabbed my girlfriend's wrist and jolted out of the living room, locking ourselves in her bedroom. We sat on the floor right next

to the bedroom, hiding in case that thing got inside. The scratching sounds continued and my girlfriend started to sob, still asking what we saw. I felt powerless knowing I couldn't do much to reassure her. I could only hold her and hope for the thing to give up and leave. The noise continued for about three minutes when it suddenly stopped. Then we began hearing stepping noises all around the house and we kept turning to see whatever direction we heard the noise come from. Eventually the noises ceased and after an hour or so we figured the creature had left. My girlfriend, still with tears in her eyes, told me we could lay in bed. I agreed because

my back was hurting from being in that crouched position for over an hour. We slowly crawled into bed, making the least noise possible and covering ourselves with another blanket. Don't worry baby, everything's going to be okay tomorrow. Just try and get some sleep. I told her as I tightened my grip on her. She didn't reply, but after a while she fell asleep again. I didn't get a minute of sleep that night. I kept my eyes opened, listening to every sound around us. The next day we didn't even want to touch the subject. All we said was that the creature was not from this world. My girlfriend said she felt the creature's gaze pierce into her, almost as if that thing was feeling with its pure sight.

Nothing else was said. We were left sort of traumatized. I realized she was going to have to put up with that fear of going outside in the future, and I didn't want that thing anywhere near her again, or her family. Days after the encounter, we both suffered from nightmares. She mentioned that sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and trembling, and wouldn't be able to stop until her mom went to check on her. The fences that separated the patio and the windows had been redone since. They now stand at two meters tall, blocking any easy access from the woods. Before this, they had to make sure they didn't have to go outside at night. They haven't had any other

encounters again, but my girlfriend insists that the patio still gives her chills at night. This incident happened back in 2014 when I was last committed to a psych ward. A little background, I am female and was 19 at the time. I was coming off of three years of bipolar medication while at a peak of substance abuse facilitated by my first year in college, going crazy with newfound adult freedom. One night, I had a big mental episode and was committed for the first time in the adult ward. Previously, I had only been admitted in the minor's ward during my adolescence for similar episodes. Within this unit, you had to share a room with the same sex, but weren't given any proper introductions. The facility as a whole wasn't managed effectively,

nor did any of the nurses or doctors seem to care other than to prescribe and get you out. I was led to the room I was staying in and the nurse just said to the other lady in the room, this is your new roommate, and left. The woman appeared to be in her late 40s, early 50s, Hispanic, and just a little taller than me. She would not keep her gaze off of the floor in front of her and didn't say a word or move when I said hi. I noticed she had a tattoo of a cartoon version of the classic red devil, but as a baby. I figured I'd just leave her alone and stick to my area of the room. The first night went as normally in a psych

ward with a nightly group and my roommate declined to share anything yet again only staring at the floor barely moving an inch. While everyone was lining up to be given their medication before bed the ward across began to start banging on the glass of the door and screaming. One guy was smiling while banging his bald head against the glass window part while the guys behind him were screaming and jumping around. It seemed as if though they were almost going to break through but orderlies came and took them away with their screams still lingering through the halls. Being in a psych ward before I wasn't surprised by out of the ordinary behavior like yelling or fight starting

but this was completely different to me. I was with disturbed adults, now people who had years of illness deteriorating their mind, not little angry kids anymore. I actually felt scared for the first time because of the high level of unpredictability with these people. I knew I wasn't all there in the head but even these people had me anxious and made it difficult to try to get any rest that night. You know that feeling of being awake but you haven't opened your eyes yet? The moment when you are barely waking up and everything is kind of fuzzy. This is the state of consciousness I was in later that night. I felt like I was waking up but as if something was waking me up yet still tired

so I wasn't opening my eyes. The more I came to I felt pressure on my forehead and I could sense sweat dripping on my face. I opened my eyes to find the roommate standing over my bed staring me in the eye with one hand on my forehead and the other in a balled up fist on her chest while she speaks in what I assume is tongues. I look into her eyes and they are blank and empty of any emotion. She keeps speaking faster and getting louder. I am paralyzed at this moment and not sure what to do or what she would even do if I were to yell or move. It was only us in the room and the nurse's station is all the way at the end of the hall. She started wiping the sweat off my forehead while still speaking fast and erratic

and I wasn't sure what she was going to do or planned on doing next. She then put both hands on my forehead and at this point was screaming while shaking me but not long before a nurse came in and took her off of me. The nurse seemed more irritated that she had to get up and do her job rather than concerned about how I was doing or feeling. She escorted the woman out and said to not worry and just go back to sleep. I don't know how but I managed to fall back asleep. I assume she got transferred to the more severe ward because I did not see her again the next day and luckily I was able to leave later that day. This incident has since been a reminder for me never to go back and to manage my mental well-being because while I have issues I could be in a far worse state of mind.

I still wake up nights with lingering anxiety and have to calm myself down to go back to sleep. I never want to go back to a ward in my life to experience this again, or something far worse. So this happened when I was around 7 or 8, and 25 now so I'll do my best to drag up my memory as accurately as possible. I've told the story a few times, closer to when the event happened, so I feel somewhat confident in the major details at least. I was spending the night at a newish friend's house for the first time. She was a year or two older than me, so I really looked up to her and wanted to impress her. There was a party going on and her other friends were all there.

Someone decided it would be a good idea to go on a walk in the late evening, sun already down, while the parents were in the backyard having wine and beer and all of that. We ended up breaking into one of the girls' backyards to go play on her trampoline, which lasted all of five minutes before her folks discovered us piled onto the trampoline in the dark backyard. The whole evening was spent like this, me following this group of cool kids doing relatively harmless but kind of foreboding silly kid stuff. When the party was over, it was just me and my friend. We stayed up late watching what I considered at the time to be scary movies, gremlins and the like. The next morning my friend got me up kind early and said her folks were gonna take us to the movies. She said we should get some candy first and that there was a 7-Eleven nearby and it was

like a 10 minute walk if we took her shortcut. As we headed out the door, I was already outside my comfort zone, par for the course for the past 12 hours or so. But she took a moment to let me know that her shortcut went past this mean neighbor, but we might luck out not running into him since it was so early and the weekend. In order to cut through her shortcut, we had to go through the end of her cul-de-sac, cross through a little wooden gate, pass by this guy's property with a chain link fence around his trailer home, and over another chain link fence,

and cut through some minimal landscaping into the parking lot of the little strip mall area, or whatever it was with the 7-Eleven. I don't quite remember if we saw him on our way to the store or not, I remember him making a comment such as, What you two going that-a-way for? Or, What you coming from that-a-way for? Or, what you coming from that-a-way for? So I don't remember if that happened before we got to the store or on the way back. When we came back with our bag

of candy and hopped back over the fence, this creepy old guy was still out in his yard, right up against his fence this time. He started talking to us and we were as far away from his fence while still on the gravel path. He asked what was in the bag and we told him we had just bought some candy. I was already uneasy because I knew my friend thought he was mean and I was worried he was going to yell at us or something. He then asked if he could take our picture and I didn't like this but didn't know what to do. I was mostly following my friend's lead and I thought maybe if we did what he asked he wouldn't be mad and he would let us leave. He took our photo with a disposable

camera and then he asked my friend to come over. She hesitated and then handed me the bag and whispered me that if she signaled me that I should run back to the house and not look back. She went over to his gate and I have no idea what he said to her but a moment later she shouted at me to run. I began to book it as she caught up, the man shouting after us to come back. I didn't look back, through the little wooden gate down the middle of the cul-de-sac, through a front door which she locked behind her. She grabbed her cat and we rushed into her bedroom, which she locked behind us as well.

We let the cat on the bed and climbed into her closet on the top storage shelf. I don't remember how long we were in there but I was barely breathing, afraid to make a sound. Some time later her parents tried opening her door and then knocked demanding she open up, probably assuming we were getting up to some kind of mischief. She opened the door and her dad demanded for us to tell him what was going on. We told him our story and he ended up calling the cops.

We waited for them to arrive and had to go back outside to give our statement and show them where we were and where we had walked through to take the shortcut to the store. They went over to the guys house and had to knock on his door because he had gone back inside. He denied ever having been outside that day. The cops said they couldn't do anything official because they had no evidence to corroborate our story but they could tell we were freaked out. They said we should avoid ever going that way again and to report if we ever ran into that guy again. I still have no idea what the old man said to my friend and I'm kind of glad I never found out. I'm fairly certain this is one of the main reasons old men have continued to give me the he I tell my story, I'm a 28 year old married woman.

I live in a major city with a somewhat established and successful career I run from home. It involves several medium art forms that get messy, so due to my daytime responsibilities, I work outside a lot at night. I live right next to a gas station. The entirety of my property is wrapped in a privacy fence, except the very front, and I'm in a decent neighborhood, but kind of on the fringe. So the story starts in mid-March of this year. Once in a while, I'll walk to the bar diagonal from my house. It's a nice little place.

Great regulars, all older, not gross. I go in and drink and talk and never have to worry about them hitting on me or being weird. So it's a Friday night around 9.30. I walk over to the bar to have a few drinks. I'm not a super jumpy person but I am always cautious and aware of my surroundings. But when I left the bar, the first thing I noticed was a very tall guy across the street under a street lamp, face and body obscured by a ball cap and hoodie. I'm usually under the assumption that someone hanging around under a light is waiting to do some sort of shady deal. That's the thing around here.

So I just casually glanced at him every minute or so as I walked. It's less than a two minute walk from the bar to my house. I can see my house from the bar so nothing super treacherous, right? So I had gotten to the spot on the road I cross at and I glanced at the guy because I can feel him staring me down. But I'm not going to give him any reason to sense any nervousness or fear so I keep walking. As soon as I get to the same side of the road he's on, he starts catcalling me. Hey girl come here let's talk. Don't ignore me baby I just want to talk, quit walking away so fast. I didn't respond and he started walking towards me, cutting through the

gas station parking lot diagonally. Luckily once I passed my fence he couldn't see me anymore and I ran up to my steps and got inside and locked up. He came to the edge of the fence and then walked back to where he was standing. I was shaken up but I let it go and went to bed. The weeks pass and I am still cautious but I still go to the bar once in a while. No sign of him. Fast forward to the weekend before last. I walked over on a Saturday night around 10ish.

The first thing I noticed as I passed my fence walking to the bar was a man standing out of the lamp again. He didn't seem to notice me at first, not until I crossed onto the opposite side. I could still feel him staring at me but there were no calls and no movement other than his face following me as I walked. I didn't fret over it too much. I planned to be at the bar about two hours. So I have my drinks, chat with my buddies, all is well. As I go to leave, the guy pops back in my head and I decided if he was still there, I'd have the

bartender walk out with me and watch me walk home. He's a sweetheart like that and offers always. I usually decline as I don't feel unsafe. I stepped out and do a full 360 visual sweep. No weirdo under the light and off in the distance was someone walking towards the bar but they were a full block away and I couldn't even make out anything about the person so I figured whatever, I'm gonna go ahead and walk home but just for the sake of common sense I'll turn around and keep an eye but I wasn't feeling threatened as they were pretty far and my house is a half a

block away. As I'm walking I start feeling weird so I turn and check the location of the strange unidentifiable person and they've covered half a block already in about 10 seconds so I'm unsure now if they just walk super fast or if they were running when I wasn't looking. This weird little tension gets thicker until I'm basically staring behind myself at them as I walk. By the time I get to my crossing point they had already gotten to the bar entrance. They covered a full block in less than 20 seconds and I had gotten half a block in that time. As they passed in front of the bar, the light lit them up and it was the same guy who was under the lamp earlier that evening.

I was worried now because I am trapped between my house and the bar but unable to go back to the bar as the guy was in front of it so my only real option was to finish walking home. Now if I had any doubt about the situation and thought maybe I was being paranoid it was completely erased by what transpired next. As soon as I started crossing the street so did he. He stepped off the sidewalk and started making a diagonal beeline for me. I started walking faster but not fast enough to lead him to chase. He got to the gas station parking lot which I was halfway past at this point and he walked diagonal through the parking lot straight at me. As soon as I got around my fence I bolted and started banging on my door. My husband was home, he opened the door and I told

him what happened. We stood there staring out the door window. As he walked past my house he stared up through the window at us. It was my first time fully seeing his face. Now still the possibility that maybe he lives around there and I'm just being really paranoid was there. But that was completely stomped out by his next move which was to walk two more houses down from mine, turn around completely, walk back by my house, staring in the window at me again and proceeds back out into the main road. The bar isn't a concern as stated my bartender will gladly walk me home and the regulars often offer to walk me home as well. My biggest concern now is he knows where I live and I'm terrified of being outside at night alone when I'm trying to work. When I was about 6 years old Easter was rolling around and I really wanted a chocolate bunny.

I asked my dad to take me to Rite Aid to get me one and he said he was busy so I told him I'd just walk and he said that was fine because honestly he was a pretty terrible parent. So I embark on the mile and a half to two mile walk through rural Louisiana to the store. Houses are pretty sparse. I come up to a four-way intersection and can see the store in the distance. As I approach the four-way I see a small green truck which I think was a Ford Ranger. There are two men in it and the one in the passenger seat is blatantly pointing at me repeatedly and they are both looking at me. I was about to cross through a parking lot on the right side of the intersection

when I see this truck whip into it and park between two other cars. I then see the passenger jump out of the truck and crouch down with his hands out trying to hide between their truck and a vehicle they parked next to. Thankfully an older woman that used to babysit me when I stayed with my mom filled my young head with a bunch of stranger danger propaganda. I immediately flipped out, bypassed the parking lot and break out into a dead sprint to the right aid. Once inside I began to pace around the store a little bit to try and calm down. I took a glance through the glass door and see the truck with the two guys in it parked right in front of the Rite Aid.

At this point, I knew beyond all doubt what was going on. I asked the old lady at the cash register if I could use the store's phone to call my dad and she said the phone could only be used to call 1-800 numbers for some reason. I burst into tears and started getting hysterical and the manager comes to the front and lets me use his cell phone. I get in touch with my dad who sent my brothers to pick me up and by the time they got there the green truck had left. No one believed me. They nonchalantly just said, so what happened? Something about a kidnapping? And I told them what happened and everyone just kind of brushed it off and it

was never talked about again. This stuff still makes me furious to this day. I wonder what those scumbags were planning and the thing that troubles me the most is that they could have gotten some other kid on some other day, and done God knows what. The story happened quite a few years ago when I was a much younger and more naive individual. I wanted to preface this story by stating that I have learned my lesson. I am now in a happy and long-term relationship that has taught me a lot about my self-worth. Also, I apologize for the length and any unnecessary details. It has been a long time since I have let myself think about it and it was quite cathartic to write this out

here. This started my second year of university. I am a female and overweight. I am very focused on my studies while in high school, so even though I had a large group of friends and went to parties, I always put school first. I didn't date because I saw it as a distraction, and to be completely honest with myself, no one was really interested in me.

Most of my male friends were gay, and straight ones were already dating all my other friends. It wasn't until university that I decided maybe it was time for me to open myself up to the concept that I could start dating and share my time with someone. So about a week before school started I was heading to our local mall to hang out with some friends and buy some new clothes for the year. I just needed enough nice things for the week and then I couldn't care what I looked like. At this time, I had a license but I didn't possess a car so the only means of transportation available to me were walking, friends that took pity on me, and the bus. Unfortunately,

today I was at the mercy of public transportation. I was already on my connecting bus heading to the mall when I watched as a young guy walked onto the bus. He looked to be a few years older than me and was in quite good shape. As this bus was heading to the mall, the route was quite busy and my seat was the last seat open. He proceeded to sit next to me. I don't pay him much attention as I was texting my friend. When I finished texting, I did everything I could not to engage with the guy beside me.

My phone was an older phone that had a slide-out keyboard but no internet access or games. Like I said, this happened a while ago. I was able to avoid his stare for about 10 minutes more until he shifted his weight and I made accidental eye contact with him. It was at this point that he smiled at me and said that I looked quite beautiful. He commented on how pale my skin was and how pretty it looked contrasting against my dress. I smiled uncomfortably but began talking to him. It was nice to be acknowledged but I was still wary. I gave him a fake name, Olivia, and we continued conversing. When the bus stopped at the mall, he asked me what my number was but I told him that I didn't know him that well and I would see him around. I spent the whole day with my friends and then it was time to head home.

My mother had already arranged to pick me up at the plaza closer to her house but I still needed to take the bus to this location. As I'm settling down for the ride back back I see the guy coming on the bus. I hate to admit that I was a bit happy to see him on the bus and when he sat down beside me I was flattered. We talked the whole ride and when his stop came up he asked for my phone number. This time I gave him my Facebook instead. He actually laughed when he realized I provided him a fake name and credited me with being smart about it. I am a naturally cautious person and my Facebook didn't contain many private details or even pictures as I used it mostly to connect with friends for group assignments or private chat so I didn't feel as nervous about providing him that

information. That night he began messaging me and for a few weeks we only chatted on Facebook. After a few weeks of chatting I felt comfortable enough with him to give him my cell phone number and arrange a face-to-face meetup. To my excitement the meetup goes well. We meet in a public coffee shop and pay our own ways. At the end of the date we go our separate ways and I actually look forward to seeing him again. We make plans to go on another date but in about a week. Life is a bit crazy around September and I felt bad for putting off more time together but he seemed to understand and gave me space. This next date he planned on his own to give me some time to deal

with my personal life and I thought that was so sweet of him. He wanted to pick me up but I agreed to meet him at the movie theater instead. We still haven't known each other that long and I don't want him knowing where I live. I am still so thankful I made this decision. Also the theater was in a plaza not far from my house. We went to see Paranormal Activity 2 in the theater. I love scary movies so much and I find them more funny than scary. The entire movie I was laughing and having a grand old time but

when I would look at him he didn't look so pleased. This put me on edge but I tried not to worry and chalked it up to him not wanting to look scared in front of me when I'm clearly not afraid. When the movie ends he proceeds to explain his plan and why he was looking so sour. He was hoping I would get scared so that I would jump into his arms for protection and he would be able to use that as a segue to more intimate activities. The dinner plans we were supposed to have afterwards weren't real and he was hoping to take me home with him. I am not okay with his plans so I fake that my mom called me and I have to go home immediately. He asked for a ride as he actually walked over to the theater. I agree and we get in

my car and I drive him to his house. I figured out that he didn't have a car at his disposal and was originally going to pick me up in a friend's car. Also he lived a two minute walk from the theater. I drop him off at his house and he goes in for a kiss. I try to turn my face but he holds it in place. When he finished kissing me, he is talking about how much he loves me and is looking forward to spending all his time with me. I am floored and kind of disgusted with the situation so I laugh nervously and say goodbye. Before I reverse out of his driveway he tries to

open my driver's side door but thankfully it is locked. My window is slightly rolled down and he tries to push it down with his fingers. When I don't relent he proceeds to kiss my window and then lets me leave. I am officially creeped out and I want to get home as fast as I can. For the next few days after the date I felt very uncomfortable with the whole situation. He was texting me non-stop and his texts were getting progressively creepier. The text would range from I love you to I can't wait to marry you and our babies are going to be the most beautiful babies in the world. It had only been about a month and he was already talking about babies and marriage.

I showed a friend the text and explained the situation. She gave me a huge hug and told me her own story. She suggested that if I was really done with him that I could break up with him and just because he made the first move I wasn't a prude or tease for ending it. I didn't owe him anything. I felt so much lighter after talking to her that I messaged him right away and broke things off. I went to class thinking it was going to be just that easy, but it wasn't. He proceeded to flood my phone with text messages. At first they were concerned. He wondered where we went wrong and what he did to scare me off. When I didn't respond instantaneously, he changed tactics and began

saying he was going to end his own life and that I was his soulmate. At this point I was out of class and able to address his texts. I called him and explained that I didn't feel a connection, that it was better for me to end it early and that I didn't want to lead him on. I also told him that it was not worth ending his own life over and that if he was feeling that way he needed to speak to someone about it. This started a new barrage of texts and voicemails calling me various terrible names and blaming me for leading him on. He said that it was my fault that he was going to do this to himself and that I was a horrible person. He called my phone constantly causing me to flat out turn off my phone. This is the point at which I told my mom. She didn't judge me for not telling her earlier and she was supportive

that I tried to handle it on my own, but she was angry he was acting this erratic. She was a bit nervous at his escalation, especially as she works in criminal law and sees the worst of humanity on a daily basis. I followed her advice and texted him that I am not responsible for his choices of behavior, that I stand by my decision to break up with him and that I do not condone the way he is speaking to me, that I wouldn't respond anymore and that if he persists I will be forced to contact the police. The last part only made things worse and he continued to send me messages about self-harm. When I stopped responding he started threatening me and my family.

He threatened that he would find and hurt me and then hurt himself. I immediately removed him off of Facebook and warned all of my friends not to give out my personal information to anyone. I was comforted knowing he had no idea where I live but I frequented that plaza often with my family. I was scared he would see me on one day and follow me home. The scary thing was I lived only five minutes away from him so it was feasible that he would randomly spot me anywhere in their neighborhood. I became a recluse and the text messages continued. They were getting more and more aggressive. At first he was threatened he'd hurt me but then he began attacking my family. When he threatened to hurt my sister

I lost it. I had had enough and was ready to stand up for myself. I called him and waited. He picked up the phone and tried to act all sweet. I didn't give him any chance to try and smooth things over with me. I told him that threatening me was one thing but coming after my family was another. I told him he was a horrible person and absolute filth. I did say a few things I'm not proud of but in the moment they made sense to say. I told him it was over and that I was done with this crap. One more attempt at contact and I was going straight to the cops. I reminded him that I knew where he lived and that it would be easy to find him.

I like to think it was that last part that scared him because he hung up on me and never contacted me again. For the next little while I was very cautious about leaving my house and my family avoided that plaza at all cost. I saved all the threatening text messages just in case and kept my old phone even when I upgraded to a new one. About a year and a half later my friend decided to look him up on Facebook against my wishes. She discovered that he moved and I didn't need to worry about a chance meeting with him again. She also discovered that his new fiancé could have passed as my twin. It was unsettling to know that she was almost identical to me and he had started dating her not long after I told him to finally leave me alone.

I used to work across town a few years ago and I had to take the city bus six days a week to get there. I would usually read an ebook or listen to a podcast during the hour-long trip, mostly in order to look unapproachable or busy because I don't really like having to talk to strangers. One day during the third and longest bus ride of my commute, I noticed a man getting on the bus after shouting something at the driver and sitting down looking very agitated. I never noticed much so he must have been very loud. He was unusual to me right away. He was wearing a filthy winter coat in the middle of summer and filthier pair of cut off flannel pj bottoms. His hair was wild and his eyes lacked any reason or sanity he scanned the bus's occupants with a

small smile of amusement on his face he saw me and i nervously smiled back and returned to my ebook i kept noticing his erratic movements and behavior out of the corner of my eye but i didn't give him much thought this was after all the city, and he was by no means the first mentally ill passenger I had encountered. I finally got to my final stop and promptly forgot about him. Over the next few weeks I noticed him getting on the same bus route but at different stops, always wearing the same clothes, but I didn't fault him for that. He was obviously dealing with a terrible card in life. At least he smiled a lot.

Although he would sometimes scream uncontrollably at the driver, one time for getting kicked off for urinating on a bus seat, another time because he had bit his own finger so hard he started bleeding pretty profusely and ran off the bus. There were multiple people who took the same bus at the same time every day and he would occasionally say hello to them and go sit by himself. Sometimes I would notice him staring at me and I'd pretend not to notice. I felt bad because I was frightened of him even though he couldn't help who he was. That is until I had to come into work on a Sunday. I took my regular route to work but this time the regulars weren't on there and the bus was nearly empty. I went straight

to the back of the bus and put on my headphones. Here he comes, all smiles, looking around the bus and looks right at me. He came and sat right next to me on an almost empty bus and I keep pretending to listen to my music trying to ignore him. I was wearing a short sleeve shirt because I didn't have to wear my usual uniform and it was a hot summer day in the desert. He says, I see you all the time on here, you know. I smiled and nodded and said, Mm-hmm.

He responds, You know, you're really pretty and I just want to say that. My name is Ron. What's your name? I replied with my own and kept looking out the window. I could just feel him staring at me, ten inches away and I could feel his breath from his nose. Several minutes passed and he said, I wanted to tell you something. You have very beautiful skin too. Thanks, I said nervously.

You work at that dry cleaners, don't you?' I had to walk about a half a mile from my bus stop to get to my work and I had no idea how he knew that. My uniform was a plain black t-shirt and black pants, no indication of where I worked. I just nodded and cringed the rest of the longest ride to work in my life. Mercifully, we got to my stop and I couldn't pull the stop cord quickly enough. He then got up with me and exited the bus through the back like he was sneaking off. I sped walk all the way to work knowing he was following me about 40 feet behind. When I got there I ran inside and told my co-worker what happened. We were closed anyway,

we were just doing some makeup work so we kept the doors locked. My co-worker drive me home but only after I had found a couple of ripped out magazines with pictures of kids and babies under a styrofoam cup with my name frantically written on it. I started paying my co-worker to drive me to and from work after that and thankfully never saw him again. This whole thing started around a year ago. I was only reminded of it when last week the first occurrence in several months reminded me of the entire thing and of course sharing it with you all. I live in a ranch style home in the middle of Missouri on 1.8 acres of nothing but woods. We bought the house almost two years ago. The house was vacant for over eight months before we purchased it and the realtors had problems with squatters about three months

into the house being for sale but said nothing had happened since. My elderly grandmother lives with me as I am her caregiver. It's just the two of us and our dogs. We moved into the house in early October of 2016. The first incident occurred in March of 2017. We started seeing a bunch of plastic bags and trash around the back of our house, further out than either of us go. Didn't think much of it but did make a mental note that raccoons or something could be getting into our trash. I put some bungee cords on the cans to hold the lids down and wrote it off at that. One night I was coming home much later than normal at around 1.30am. All of the land is fenced in but there is one back gate. Near the back gate I saw a bunch of trees rustling.

There's a lot of wildlife in our area so I assumed that's what it was but I got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and decided to go check it out. The ground was dry enough that I was able to drive through the yard in my car with the doors locked. I shone my headlights on the trees and a man came running out of them. If that wasn't terrifying enough, he ran straight for the gate as if though he knew exactly where it was, opened it and left. I was absolutely terrified so I called my dad who lives in the area. He explained to me how large the population of homeless people is in our area and that he'd be over in the next day or so to put a lock on the gate. About two weeks after the first incident I was letting my dogs outside. The one had already went inside and the

other was playing hard to get as usual. I began calling her name. It wasn't even dark outside. After about three calls another voice, distinctly male, started calling out her name. She began barking aggressively and running for the house. I was freaked out but again let my family talk me out of making a call to the authorities. About a month passes my grandmother has a habit of forgetting to close the garage door behind her. Around 11pm our neighbor from across the street knocks on our door. He says he was outside smoking and he saw two men standing in our garage talking. I said as soon as he started walking over they ran off. What scares me the most about this event is

they stole nothing and it was plenty to steal. We have a brand new refrigerator, leaf blower, power tools and my grandma leaves the keys in the car. They were just talking. This time I called the police and they told me in the nicest way possible that they couldn't do anything. If there was another incident to call them and not to scare the men away. The final incident of 2017 happened probably three months after the prior one. We have a sun porch attached to the outside of the house, the door connects to the kitchen, and the outside door to the deck. I don't know if I explained that right and if anyone wants I can post pictures. Basically we left for several hours to go grocery shopping. We came home and all of our deck furniture was

stacked on top of each other and the screen ripped off the sun porch door. I called the non-emergency hotline from my area and again they said with no idea who these people are nothing could be done. About two weeks ago we had our white vinyl fence power washed. Because the fence is quite old a post came off of the fence and the company that power washes the fence didn't know how to fix it and we didn't blame them so they had no reason to. We left the post in the front yard but up against the fence. We came home a couple of days later and the post was nailed back up with a smiley face sticky note attached to it. This very easily could have been a kind neighbor but I was immediately spooked. Cut to

Saturday of last week. My grandmother is able to drive again but doesn't have her own car. I'm busy working around the house so she decides to take herself to the doctor. My grandmother leaves the house through our door connected to the garage and I lock it behind her. It never dawns on me to check to make sure she has closed it. About 20 minutes after she leaves, someone starts heavily banging on the door. When I say banging, I mean it sounds like the SWAT team. Someone was putting all their force into banging on that door. My dogs are going nuts and I don't know what to think. I start to think maybe my grandma left something and is trying to get my attention,

but the little voice in the back of my head stops me and tells me, there is no way that little old lady is banging on that door like that. Suddenly it stops and I hear a deep, again distinctly male, laugh. I grab the baseball bat out of my bedroom and lock myself in the bathroom with the dogs. I realize I've left my phone outside the bathroom but I was too afraid to go out of the bathroom and get it. I took the lid of the tank of the toilet so I now had two weapons. Nothing happened and I hid in that bathroom until my grandma was home again. That's the story. I know there wasn't some big confrontation or climax but I fear the story may not be over yet. I don't know if any of the events are connected at all but

I've got it in my head that they are and I'm driving myself nuts to a point where I'm afraid to be alone in my own house. The only reason I even included the fence is because there hasn't been a single sketchy thing happening all of 2018 and then someone fixes the fence less than a week later another scary encounter. I honestly don't know what to think. I will update if anything else happens. So rather this is one or multiple people, I really hope whatever this is, is over. Yesterday, my girlfriend and I, both female, were on our way to run some errands. In front of the house, which is part of a larger complex, was some furniture which was supposed to be collected by a garbage truck the next day. It is custom that people go through the stuff and take anything they want but when we passed

this pile there was this old topless dude sitting on a lawn chair from this pile. When we got close he got up and started talking to us. He started with, don't be afraid I start talking to you like this. I don't want to start some me too debate or anything. Which of course had the opposite effect but I thought whatever some older people can just be weird. He then started to talk for how long he had lived in that complex and how he had never seen us and asked us where we lived which I answered vaguely until he finally got what he actually wanted. He had found a mattress he wanted to take to his car in the underground car park but couldn't carry the mattress and his bag with him so he wanted one of us to carry his bag while he took the mattress. I felt really uncomfortable with this

right away but still didn't want to come off as paranoid or unhelpful so I suggested that we could just watch his bag while we got the mattress into the car. He first agreed but then started to, I suppose, pretend to struggle with the really lightweight mattress, once again insisting that one of us just go with him. When I tried to make an excuse that we really didn't have much time he sort of snapped at us that nobody had any time anymore, to which I decided to just come clear that I simply didn't feel comfortable following a complete stranger into an underground car park. At this point, he clearly lost it and started cussing us out and how we could be afraid to help a neighbor out, at which point we simply left. When we came back later he was still there, now with the car magically above ground and the mattress inside of it. But of course, he really needed our help, still had the nerves to shout obscenities at us as we passed. I'm a female, age 33. As a 90s kid growing up in Eastern Europe, my childhood was full of stories,

some of which cringeworthy, some hilarious, but some still managed to give me chills, especially now that I fully realized the potential harm I was facing back then. I had several instances when I got pretty close to being in real danger, but here I have picked only two of the most prominent ones because I don't want to bore you with too long of a post and because those two are imprinted in my mind and, weirdly, still very vivid with every detail. I am also combining the two in this post, as I have read that new users are not supposed to have multiple posts at once in case it gets mistaken as spam. Anyway, I was 10 years old and it was a hot summer day at

noon. I was allowed to play in front of my apartment building with other kids but I had to always stay where my mom could peek from the window and see me. And this day, maybe because it was noon and most of the kids were still having lunch or a nap, on the playground it was just me and an 8 year old boy, drawing with chalk on the ground. There weren't many people on the streets, but I remember noticing a man in his 20's walking past us, and I didn't pay much attention to him at first until I noticed that he started to stop and turned to look at us a few times, but then went away so I kept drawing. Some time passed and I suddenly saw a pair of male shoes standing next to where I had crouched down and when I looked up

I saw it was that same man. He looked around and then asked the little boy to go a little further away because he wanted to tell me a secret. The boy obliged and I was left alone with the stranger. I remember he was staring at me and even though he was smiling there was some undercurrent of tension in his whole demeanor which made me feel a bit uneasy. He leaned down propping his hands on his knees and I don't exactly recall what he said at first because I was looking around to see if anyone I knew was around but then he asked me if I liked kittens. My eyes lit up and I immediately perked up saying yes and then he said that he knew where a mother cat with her

litter of kittens was and asked if I wanted to see them. I immediately stood up, my uneasiness and all the stranger danger warnings immediately dissolving at the prospect of kittens. My mom didn't allow pets at home. He told me to follow him and I did, him walking in front of me and me behind, until I saw that he was actually going towards one of the four entrances of the apartment building. Back then the front doors of those buildings weren't locked and neither were the entrances to the basement areas which were on the inside next to the main door. He entered the building and started to descend down the staircase leading to the main door. He entered the building and started to descend down the staircase leading to the basement area and that is when some form of

self-preservation instinct started to kick in and made me hesitant at the doorstep. He was already on the last step down to the basement when he turned to check if I was following and beckoned me with a cheerful, come on hurry up. I took a few more hesitant steps in and he continued further into the basement corridor where it was dark, humid and a putrid smell of mold lingered. I could see half of him, the rest of him hidden behind the corner of the wall but then I heard a metal click sound. I was starting to descend down the stairs. I know, I cringe at my own stupidity when I remembered it too, when he peeked again, half of him still hidden from my sight, but the visible half revealed his belt buckled, dangling unbuckled, and then he came out a little more and his hand

moved, drawing my eyes down to where I saw. Yeah, you guessed it. His pants were unzipped. He was looking at me and I still remember the expression in his eyes. I wanted to scream but I was honestly so shocked. I had a deer in the headlights moment before he took a step towards me and finally, finally I felt the sudden adrenaline rush kicking. One moment I was standing frozen, the next I was running out of there with the speed of light. I didn't even turn to see if he was following. All I knew was that I had to get away. I climbed the stairs to my apartment, which was two entrances away from this one, just in time to bump into my very worried mom, who was putting her shoes on to go out and look for me. Worried sick because apparently the last time she peeked

through the window she didn't see me. She added my name a few times and got no answer so she had an unsettling feeling that something was wrong. She asked me what happened and at first I didn't tell her because I was ashamed and scared that she would get even more angrier if she found out that I was even talking to a stranger let alone about to follow him. I started feeling anxious after that and eventually admitted to what happened to my mom. Needless to say I was given an earful of lectures and wasn't allowed to play without adult supervision until years later. The second prominent story was when I was 12 and thinking back now, compared to today's 12 year olds being so outspoken and street smart, I was still a clueless kid.

I remember I was feeling insecure and self-conscious at the time because puberty is hit as if overnight and my previously scrawny little body was beginning to form curves, which also prompted unwanted attention from teenage boys and even older men at the age of my dad taking notice of me when I walked past them. It was during the spring vacation when my mom, my aunt, my cousin, a 13 year old male and I went to the amusement park in my city. My cousin was riding a bumper car and I was sitting on a bench with my mom and aunt when I spotted a man setting a big tin pot at the alleyway leading to the park and I immediately started pleading with my mom to give

me money because I knew that he was selling boiled corn on the cob. Now keep in mind that back then nobody seemed to care about checking health and sanitary permissions of street vendors and it was a very common sight to see little ice cream stands and old ladies sitting on a chair with a pot next to them selling boiled corn on the cob or cotton candy. My mom sent me to buy four corns on the cob for each of us, and I headed towards the man, my mouth already watering. When I approached him and ordered, however, I noticed that he hesitated and gave me a very unsettling once-over from head to toe,

and then, without even opening the pot to check, he declared that there won't be enough corn in there. I thought that was weird, considering I just spotted him coming, which logically was supposed to mean he had a full pot of corn. He didn't say anything, because I was shy and awkward, and it would have never even occurred to me to question an adult like that, especially a stranger. He quickly added that his car was parked at a nearby parking lot, which was right behind the alley leading to the amusement park, and told me that if I wanted to, I should follow him to retrieve another spare pot from his trunk. I looked back at the park and

thought that the parking lot was still close enough and it shouldn't be a problem. So relieved that I will, after all, get my corn, I followed him. He picked up the pot and walked carrying it towards his car with me walking a few steps behind and he was just opening the trunk to put the pot inside when two things happened simultaneously. My hand was abruptly grabbed by my aunt who shook me and started questioning my sanity for walking away with a stranger and then shouting at the man for being crazy to suggest to a child to follow him to a car and I caught a glimpse of the trunk and inside was no other pot of corn but the one he had just put inside. Now at that point I was still completely confused and frankly I'm ashamed to admit that I was even a little annoyed at my aunt

for overreacting because I still wanted my corn and didn't understand what the big deal was until my train of thought was interrupted. What happened next still makes the hair on my neck stand on ends. Instead of clarifying the situation, giving any semi-reasonable explanation or even attempting to respond in any way, the man suddenly rushed to close the trunk, ran into his car, and then took off in such a hurry that the tires made those screeching noises from the rapid acceleration. My aunt and I stood there dumbfounded. It suddenly dawned on us that what appeared to be an innocent yet cautionary situation was actually a very real, potential kidnapped attempt. Because if there had been any reasonable doubt before as to why the man would lure a 12-year-old girl alone towards his car,

his following reaction of fleeing the scene has left no room for it. My aunt visited us recently and that instance was brought up somehow. So she said that she still remembers how what drew her attention at first was the fact that the man was unusually dressed up for a street vendor, and so she was watching closely with a weird gut feeling at first. When she saw that he was taking me towards the parking lot, she sprinted into action. Thank God my aunt, being a P.E. teacher and a mother of a very wild boy, was wearing sneakers and was always prepared to jump into action. This happened when I was 12 or 13. I'm a girl. It was the morning of the 1st of January so because of celebration the street was almost empty. Since our family came

to town that year we were out of drinks and I was sent to the market to get some soda. I live in a small town and we had this one giant market that always worked so I went in bought coke and was headed back when this happened. Right after I came out I saw a man going to the opposite direction. He suddenly looked back and legit changed his direction towards me. He wasn't too far so he caught up pretty quickly. Even though he looked old I assumed that he was a foreign exchange student because he asked me what time it was in English. Okay whatever I took out my phone and answered but that's when stuff got weird. Before I could go he started attacking me with

various questions. Do you live in this neighborhood? Which one? Are you alone? Do you have a boyfriend? I didn't want to be rude or make him feel uncomfortable and so I lied that I was staying at a friend's house as a guest and that I was from the UK hoping that he wouldn't ask me to show him around. While he was talking to me I had my scarf on and was covering my nose to warm it up when he suddenly ripped it off of me. I didn't know how to react, so I just muttered that I had to go and went back into the market. I don't know if he got scared or just gave up, but he didn't follow me into the store. I stayed in there for a good 10 minutes and finally went home.

I've had many odd encounters in my time but this is the first I've written about. It happened today at around 1400. I'm currently sitting my A-levels and between revising I like to go on long walks, as I find that it helps relieve stress. I live in a semi-rural area of West Midlands, England, where there are many canals that were built to transport coal from the mines. Today I decided to take a walk along one of the canals, a route that I have taken many times before. At 2pm on a weekday, the Tao path is always deserted, apart from the occasional pensioner walking their dog. This means to bump into anyone is unusual, and also that there would be nobody to help you if you came into some

kind of trouble. I've been walking for about a mile along a long, straight section of canal that lies at the back of a large industrial estate. I hadn't seen anyone in front of me for ages, so when I eventually rounded a corner, I was surprised to see a man only a few hundred feet in front of me walking in the same direction as I was. He was wearing a black tracksuit and had a shaved head. I'd say he was probably in his thirties, but I can't be sure. Every ten paces or so, he'd turn around and look at me and slow his pace. This made me a little nervous so I walked as slowly as I could to maintain some distance

between us. When he reached a bend I decided to stop walking to see what his reaction would be. He disappeared around the corner for a few seconds then reappeared and crouched at the side of the water pretending to look at fish or something. I felt that if I turned and walked in the other direction, he'd have followed me, so I decided to keep walking, so that at least I'd be able to see him in front of me. I started walking again and he immediately stood up and also started walking, only about 50 feet in front of me now. Eventually we reached a bridge. I waited for him to go out of sight beneath it then scrambled up the embankment and climbed onto the bridge. To my relief the road was reasonably busy so I felt a little safer. I crossed the road and looked over the other side of the bridge.

The man was crouching just to the left of where I had come out from the bridge and I would not have been able to see him until he was right next to me. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. If you got a story be sure to submit them to my subreddit, our Let's Read official and give and receive feedback from the community, and maybe even hear it featured here on the channel. And grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch

on Spreadshirt.com, links in the bio. Thanks so much friends, and I'll see you again soon.