The Lets Read Podcast - 211: HALLOWEEN COMES ONCE A YEAR! | 23 True Scary Stories | EP 199

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about being Halloween, Camping, & California...   HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS & Bonus Content!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

The I live in Indiana and work a very boring job that takes up more of my time than I'd like. Word to the wise, choose a profession or career path you love. Don't do something you hate just because it pays well. Misery for the rest of your life just isn't worth it. But anyways, this took place about 15 years ago when I was in my late 20s. I had about a week of vacation days lined up and I decided I'd take a fun vacation to Southern California to get my mind off the fact that I absolutely hated my life. Part of me wanted to go there and never come back, and nothing was really keeping me in Indiana.

Well, I flew down to San Diego and had plans to drive up the coast to Santa Barbara over the next week. I'd rent a car and check out the many beaches and restaurants I'd seen people rave about in the blogs I'd read online. So many bloggers in those years of the internet. After I picked up the rental car, I pretty much headed straight for the beach. I didn't have a hotel booked or anything. I never really was the type to plan everything out. I thought it would be easy to find a hotel with a room. I spent that whole first day at Pacific Beach. I quickly realized it was a big tourist spot since the nearly two mile stretch of sand was packed with people. It was fine and I liked feeling the sand between my toes and watching the waves so I really had nothing to complain about. That night I went out to a

Mexican restaurant and before leaving I asked around about another, possibly more secluded beach that I could go to so I could get away from the crowds. They said they really had no idea and I was about to leave feeling kind of defeated when a guy pulled up to the side and said that he knew a place where I could go. It was a little ways up the 5 freeway in a more secluded part of the coastline. He told me not many people went to that beach anymore since there had been multiple shark attacks there in the past few years. Thankfully none that were fatal. He told me it was once a nice beach to go to that wasn't

packed with tourists and that I should give it a chance. Him mentioning shark attacks occurring there freaked me out but he did say the last one was over a year before there and he's been there since and come out of the water perfectly fine. He even told me that he and a few of his friends were going to be going the next day and that I could tag along if I wanted to. I told him I'd love to take him up on the offer and we agreed where to meet so I could just follow him there. Not booking a hotel ahead of time was a mistake, I guess there was a convention happening that weekend and all the hotels were booked.

I ended up having to stay in a nasty pay-by-the-hour place that I honestly thought was going to give me a disease of some sort, or at the very least, lice. Halfway through the night, I couldn't take it anymore and decided to check out and sleep in my car. Morning couldn't come soon enough. I drove to the gas station we decided to meet at and grabbed a coffee while I waited. They were over an hour late, but finally, as I was about to leave, they showed up. The guy from the restaurant, whose name was Jose, introduced me to his friends. There was a bigger, more muscular guy named Angel, and a smaller, skinnier guy named Jesus. I mostly remembered since I thought it was interesting that they both had heavenly names.

They told me to follow them as closely as possible once we pulled off the freeway since in his words, the roads get a little sketchy. It didn't sound promising. We pulled off the freeway and made our way closer to the coastline. There wasn't much out there on that stretch of land and I started getting excited when I could see the water. The road did get a little iffy the closer we got but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. Once we got down to the beach, Jose told me to just park right on the sand. No one else was there and he told me that he did it all the time. He pulled out a few surfboards from the back of his truck and asked if I wanted to use one but I declined, telling him that I had

no idea how to surf and wasn't really keen on learning that day. He then asked if I wanted a paddleboard instead since he had brought one along as well. I saw it sticking out of the back of his truck but thought it would be rude to ask so I was happy when he told me I could use it. They made fun of me for wearing a long-sleeved swim shirt but I didn't care. It had a cool pattern anyways, black and white stripes down the front and back with white sleeves. I dragged the paddleboard into the water and struggled to climb on top of it. I eventually did and realized trying to stand in balance was even harder.

I fell off multiple times before I finally got the hang of it. I paddled out about 100 feet from the shore. I say 100, but I don't really know the exact number, of course. I noticed how the beach was this small cove-like beach, surrounded by sharp, jagged rocks on both sides. It was really cool. I was hanging out in the water, watching the waves go by, and enjoying the views when I saw a shadow move directly underneath me. I, being stupid, thought it must have been a dolphin. I started yelling toward the other guys that were surfing that there were dolphins but they couldn't hear me at all. They looked my way but just pointed to their ears and shook their heads so I gave up. I sat in relatively the same

spot for another hour, just soaking in the sun and sights. I saw the guys getting out of the water and packing up their stuff. I decided to paddle to the shore and see what was going on. Once I reached the edge of the water, I asked Jose why they were leaving so soon since it was only around 2pm. He said Angel's mom was taken to the hospital and they had to go. I understood, but was kind of disappointed that I wouldn't be able to use the paddleboard anymore. The disappointment didn't last long though. He told me that I could keep using the board and when I was done with it, to put it behind some bushes and he'd be back for it later that day.

They left and I got back out in the water. It didn't take long for me to see that shadow again, only this time it was bigger. And not just bigger, but closer too. I was about 100 feet from shore by that time and I started worrying that it wasn't a dolphin that then had its eyes on me. I thought back to what Jose had told me the day before about the shark attacks and I started to panic. I remember that you aren't supposed to make a lot of waves in the water so furiously paddling back to shore, no matter how much I wanted to, it wasn't an option. Thankfully it was July, so the sun wasn't going to set any time soon. I looked around for a place that I could get out of the water that wasn't too far away.

To the left and the right was just a cluster of those sharp jagged rocks that I had noticed earlier, but getting to them was my only option. I sat on the paddleboard with my arms and legs out of the water, trying to mentally prepare myself for what I'd have to do. Just as I put the paddle into the water, I felt something bump into the board. Hard. It threw me off, and in the blink of an eye, I was in the water. I never even saw it coming, and I panicked. I swam to the surface and was horrified when I saw the board was further away from me than the rocks even were. I knew that there was no way that I was getting that board back, so, against my earlier thoughts, I swam as hard and as fast as possible to the rocks. I cringed in pain as the sharp edges of the rock cut my arms and legs as I pulled myself into them.

I tried getting as far on them as possible just to get away from the creature I had not actually laid eyes on yet. I sat in the rocks for what seemed like a couple of hours before actually seeing it. At first, I only saw its fin, and that was scary enough. Then I saw it clamp onto the paddleboard floating close by. My heart began to race as I watched it tear its way through the board like it was nothing. I knew I had to get out of the water. There were two options. Slice up my body by wading through the rocks that led back to the beach or enter the water with a shark and risk being sliced up by its teeth instead. I think it's obvious which one I chose.

The feeling of the rock digging into my flesh was awful. It was like swimming through a pool of little knives. Every so often I would look into the deeper water and see the shark's fin breach the surface of the water. The smell of the blood coming from my cuts was probably what was keeping it around. After what felt like forever, I reached the beach. Feeling the sand under my feet was the biggest relief. When I looked up, I saw Jose, back at the beach to collect his paddleboard. He saw me across the sand and asked me where the board was. When he could finally see that I wasn't in the best shape, he ran over and asked what had happened.

I told him about the shark and how I had to swim through the rocks. He called the Coast Guard and reported the shark sighting and he was nice enough to drive me to the closest hospital. I had to get many stitches, but was told that I'd be back to normal in a few weeks from then. I just had to stay out of the ocean and pools for the time being. The shark wasn't spotted later that evening by the Coast Guard. They even had a chopper go up to look for it, but either way, put out a warning in the area that there was shark sighting. They put out a warning at that beach not long after that,

and I spent the rest of my trip out of the water. I still went to the different beaches but just had no desire to get in the ocean. Even if I could have I wouldn't have wanted to. I flew back home to Indiana and met my now wife at the airport of all things while I was waiting for a cab. She finds the whole thing actually pretty hilarious looking back on it and she always wonders how I was so clueless that I'd been told about the sharks, but still thought the first shadow was a dolphin and stayed in the water with it. But I can tell you one thing.

You will never catch me a hundred feet from the'm still not totally over it. I was 18 and just starting my freshman year of college in a small town in central California. It was a small local college but thankfully had an on-campus housing for the lucky few who applied for it. I was able to get a private room that didn't cost too much which made things so much easier. I preferred being in a room alone as opposed to having a roommate. I liked my privacy and I was extremely introverted back then, still kind of am. Move-in day came and my mom didn't even see me off. She was too busy with work, like she always had been throughout my whole childhood. She barely made it to my high school graduation on time. I loaded my car, which I bought myself by the way,

and made my way onto campus. I guess they have these move-in helpers that bring your stuff up to your room for you, but no matter how much I begged them not to, they still did. I never liked the thought of a stranger being alone with my stuff. I don't think anyone would like that. They unloaded my car and told me that they'd put all my things in my room while I found a place to park. I just kept stressing about whether or not these people were nosy enough to go through my personal belongings. I didn't have anything crazy that I was bringing with me or anything, but who wants a random person going through their clothes or jewelry? I finally made it up the stairs, breathing heavily and mad that the elevator was out of business and was shocked to see someone still in my room. I saw him peeking into one of the boxes and quickly shut it when he noticed me enter the room.

He then introduces himself as Derek but told me everybody called him Skids. I already knew at that moment that I'd never be calling that guy skids, but I humored him. I just wanted him out of my room as soon as possible, and to achieve that, it meant not asking him any more questions about himself. Unfortunately, my plan didn't work. Turns out I didn't even need to ask any questions to get this guy to tell me all about himself. I politely asked him to leave after around 30 minutes of him telling me his life story, but instead of doing the normal person thing and leaving when someone asks you to, he just pointed to something in my room and went on a long story about how it related to him

and his life in some way. After about an hour of Derek blabbing on and on about himself, I was finally done. I may have been really shy, but he was really getting on my nerves and he had to leave my room before I actually wanted to murder him. Not for real murder him, but imagine it in my head to make myself feel better about him not understanding boundaries even in the slightest. I guess it's important to mention that Derek wasn't the most attractive guy in the world, not even close actually. He was short, maybe like 5 foot 3 and maybe weighed 110 pounds soaking wet. He told me that he was 20 which was shocking since his almost completely balding head made him look about 35. He also wore those really huge Jeffrey Dahmer style glasses which of course

just added to the creep factor. His face was covered in acne too and the longer I looked the worse I felt for him. He obviously didn't have many friends and I say obviously because he literally told me that he had no friends. I realized that he had stayed in my room for so long trying to talk to me because he had nowhere else to go and no one else to talk to or listen to him. Even though I felt bad for him I still didn't like that he wouldn't leave my room after almost begging him to. He only left once the RA noticed that he was still in my room and told him to leave. Derek said goodbye to me after trying to awkwardly hug me, which I was definitely not going to do.

The RA, a really nice senior girl, came in my room and told me to sit down. I thought that she was going to tell me all the rules about staying in the dorms but instead she told me I should stay away from Derek. Apparently they tried to get him banned for helping people move in because in the years before this he ended up becoming obsessed with the girls that he helped. The school gave him a warning and I guess if he did it again he'd be kicked out. Three strikes rule applied. She also said that I should just straight up ignore him if I saw him again. That talking to him would only send him the wrong signals, no matter what I talked to him about. She also told me his nickname, Skids, wasn't something everyone called him because it was cool. It was a nickname he picked up when he went to use the

urinal, pulled his pants and underwear down completely, and the other guys in the restroom noticed that he had skid marks in his underwear. The worst part was that he completely embraced the nickname even after knowing why he was being called that. It made me feel even more weirded out that he told me he liked being called Skids instead of his actual normal person name. The next week, Derek would come by my dorm, almost shoving his way through the door to come in and talk to me. He'd stay even after I'd asked him multiple times to leave. Each time I would have to get the RA to come get him out of my room, and it got so bad that he actually ended up being banned from that floor and if he was caught coming back, he would have been banned from the whole building and forced to move. I heard from other people on campus and in the dorms that Derek was telling everyone that I was his girlfriend.

The attention this creep was putting onto me was awful. People would come up to me throughout the day to ask why on earth I was dating skids and how gross they thought it was. I told everyone that he was lying and thankfully they believed me. Derek was angry that everyone found out that he was lying and thankfully they believed me. Derek was angry that everyone found out that he was lying and he was waiting for me after class one day and the second I stepped out of the door, he was in my face. I felt his gross, slobbery lips on mine and I shoved him away as fast as possible. He shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and as I was wiping my mouth, he looked around at all the people that were staring at us and said, see? I told you she was mine. She's my girl and none of you can have her. A guy I had become friends with in the class that I had just exited

came up to me and asked if I was okay. Derek shoved him in the back and loudly told him that he wasn't allowed to talk to me, that no guy was ever allowed to talk to me again. My friend pushed him to the ground, and it didn't take much though. I think a feather floating in the wind could have knocked him over. I walked away almost in tears and my friend came back to my dorm with me to make sure that I got there okay. I told the RA what happened and thankfully that was enough to get Derek kicked out of the dorms. It turned into a much bigger deal than what I'd planned because the school ended up giving him a notice that if he didn't leave me alone, he'd be expelled. I considered going to the police but that would mean more attention would be on me and I didn't want that.

For the three months after that, I heard nothing from Derek. He left me alone, barely looked at me actually, and I was extremely grateful for that. The friend I mentioned earlier in the story asked me out a few weeks after everything had happened, and we'd actually been dating just over a month when I got a letter from Derek. It said, Hi beautiful, I know you've missed me. This has been the hardest three months, four days, and nine hours I've ever been through. I know it's been just as hard for you, and I can't believe you have to date that awful guy

just to make people think you don't love me. They're keeping us apart, but I promise we'll be together again, no matter what it takes. You're mine. I was thoroughly creeped out and my boyfriend told me I needed to show someone. I showed it to the RA who'd become my friend and she took it to the dean. Derek was then kicked out and I was able to get a temporary restraining order against him. For a while I got notes from someone telling me about the life they wanted with me and that I'd be a perfect baby maker. But because I couldn't prove who they were from, Derek was never actually caught violating the TRO. One night though, I was riding my bike home from the other end of campus when my upper body was suddenly wrapped in a blanket.

I felt arms sneak around my waist and a voice whisper in my ear, Now we can finally be together. Of course, I began screaming, but there was no one around. I felt something sharp go into my stomach, and I immediately fell to the ground in pain. I managed to get the blanket off of me and I wasn't shocked at all to see Derek standing there and the dim light from the lamps overhead staring at me. He looked insane, well, more insane than usual. He had a knife in his right hand and I gasped when I noticed that there was already blood on it. And that's when I realized the psycho had stabbed me. I grabbed my side and slowly brought my hand away and saw it covered in blood. He was standing over me, laughing about how we couldn't be together in life, and we could

be together in death. I watched him cut his throat and fall to the ground, bleeding profusely from his wound. He tried reaching for my hand, but I backed away. Finally, someone walking by noticed the scene and called the police. We had paramedics on campus and thankfully my wound wasn't deep and no surgery was required but I definitely needed stitches. And believe it or not, Derek also survived. I guess he hadn't severed the major artery in his neck so he was actually going to be fine. He was afterwards arrested and I was just happy to be alive. Later on he was charged with attempted murder and he ended up doing 12 years in prison. Would have been less had he not had time added on for his use of a deadly weapon during the crime.

And this was a long time ago. Long enough that so many things have happened in that town that barely anyone even remembers what happened to me that night. But I remember everything. I think I always will. I should mention, Derek isn't his real name. I wanted to remain as anonymous as possible and changing his name seemed like the easiest way to go about it. Apparently he got into a fight in prison in his fourth year and was subsequently killed. I don't feel anything to be honest. If anything, I'm happy that he never had the opportunity to get out and possibly want to finish what he started with me. I'm a 25 year old female and even now I spend most of my days working at my city's no-kill animal shelter. I originally started out as a volunteer but after a few years a job opened up

that they offered me the position before even posting about it online or on social media. I was so happy and excited to finally get paid work for the work I'd been doing for free. Now that isn't to say that I volunteered wishing that I got paid, it was just a nice plus that I would begin to have from that moment on. Helping the animals and showing them someone cares for them was always payment enough. I like to think that I was very in tune with all the animals that came in, dogs especially. I work in Southern California so most of the dogs that came in were pit bulls. A lot came in with aggression issues but I never let that stop me from trying to gain their trust. It turns out a

lot of people lie about the dogs they bring in to make themselves seem like less of a horrible person for abandoning a dog that obviously loved them. I understand some people have no other choice but to surrender their pet, but the amount of people that came in and surrendered their pets because they were old, smelly, or their kids got bored of them may become really close to losing all hope and humanity. These same people usually came back when they noticed we had a puppy on our website too, but our shelter doesn't allow adoptions from people who surrender their animals. Some people may find it unfair, but it's a policy that we have to protect everything that's in our care.

One day, a man brought in a very sick pit bull and before saying anything else, asked us to euthanize him. He said the dog was mean and no one would ever adopt him. Now when I tell you this dog was sick, I mean it was really sick. He basically dragged it in on a leash since it was too skinny and malnourished to even walk on its own. I looked over the counter at his sad, scared dog and all I felt was anger for the man who was bringing him in. Then even more angry when he kept insisting he be euthanized. Someone should have euthanized this guy to be honest. Lord knows the world would be better off without a man who abuses a helpless creature that lives its life just wanting love. I processed the dog's intake

and informed the man that we would not be euthanizing the dog and that it was no longer his decision or responsibility now that the dog was property of the shelter. The dog was rushed to our side vet as the man was leaving and I was allowed to choose his name. I decided on Morpheus. Turns out Morpheus had a lot of stuff wrong with him. He had multiple broken ribs and a broken back leg, a fractured skull and more lacerations to his body than you could even count. He'd been through so much but but through all the exams and x-rays, he never showed any aggression. We knew that this must have been the case of animal abuse or cruelty, so we filed a report with the local police station who'd said they'd follow up with him. About two weeks after Morpheus was brought in and doing much better, we finally heard back from the police.

They told us that they had gone to his house and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The guy said the dog got in a fight with his other dog and had gotten pretty roughed up. The officers also told us that he had other dogs that looked perfectly healthy so unless we had proof that he had actually abused this dog, there wasn't much they could do other than keep an eye on him for any future complaints. I stupidly just couldn't leave it alone. I'd grown super close to Morpheus and even volunteered to foster him during his road to recovery. Although I was already 99% positive he'd become my first foster fail and I'd end up keeping him. There was something truly special about him. Anyways,

back to me not giving up on finding out what happened to Morpheus. I was at work one day, thinking about what the officers said about obtaining proof to be able to charge the guy for the obvious abuse he inflicted on Morpheus and I thought to myself how I could get the proof. I looked up the intake paperwork for that day and found his name and address and being the absolute idiot I was, decided to take a drive by his house and poke around the yard possibly to see if I could find anything, maybe even trail this guy for a few days. I will say, I'm not a small girl by any means either. I'm on the heavier side and just over 6 feet tall so I like to think that I could handle my own if I need to. The next day I didn't have to work so I took that as a sign to try to get the proof that

I thought I desperately needed. The guy lived almost an hour from the shelter in a very urban area. That was something I definitely wasn't used to. I pulled in front of his house and was grateful for my very tinted windows when I saw him begin to pull out of his garage only 20 minutes later. He had a dog in his back seat, another pit bull it seemed that did not look very healthy. I followed close enough behind him where I could see where he was going, but not too close to make myself seem suspicious. We ended up in a more industrial part of the city and I parked far away when I realized that he was stopping in front of an abandoned building.

After I watched him go in, I figured that it would be smart of me to wait at least 15 minutes to follow. He's taken the dog in with him and I could hear the faint sounds of barking coming from the building. After 15 minutes, I carefully got out of my car, being cautious of any noise I heard. Now I tiptoed over to this building, peeked inside the windows and was confused to see nothing. The barking was slightly louder but not so loud that it would have prompted someone to call the police or anything. I'm sure no one would have cared anyways. I slowly opened the dilapidated wooden door and cringed as it creaked. I stepped forward inside and had no idea what to do next when all I saw was a completely empty building. To my right, down a small hallway, I heard the voices of two men speaking to each other. Now, I don't speak

Spanish so I couldn't understand what they were saying but I did know that I should probably hide. They exited the hallway and I watched as they both put wads of cash in their pockets. They exited the building and I made my way over to the hallway. It led to a doorway that had a sign on it that said basement. The barking coming from behind the door was loud enough and I knew that it had to be what I was looking for and where the man with the dog had gone. I opened the door just a crack to see if there was anyone standing behind it and sighed in relief when there was no one there. I opened the door and stepped onto the top step of a set of stairs that went down to a more well-lit area and that's when I began hearing what I recognized as not just dogs barking, but it was dogs fighting. I got my phone out of my back pocket and began to record as I made my way down the stairs, inch by inch, trying not to make a sound.

There was a section of the stairway where the wall to my right ended and a railing was the only thing that separated the stairs to the room below. I bent down and looked through the railing and was horrified by what I saw. Nothing could have prepared me for what I would see that day. In the small basement of that dirty, abandoned building was a small dog fighting ring and a group of about 20 men all standing around as these dogs fought each other to near death as they cheered. Now the man that came into the shelter from earlier was still holding the dog from his car on a leash and I made sure to zoom in on his face to later prove to police that it was him. What I hadn't realized was all the adrenaline running through my body at that moment. I felt myself getting dizzy and I felt

like I was going to throw up so I knew it was time for me to get out of there. As felt myself getting dizzy, and I felt like I was going to throw up, so I knew it was time for me to get out of there. As I was getting up from my position kneeling on the stairs, my hands slipped from the metal railing, and since it was all so sweaty, the sound of slipping off was just one big squeak. My eyes went wide, and I hopped up quickly and ran out the door at the top of the stairs. I knew they heard me. As I was running out of the building into my car, I heard multiple men yelling. Again, it was all in Spanish so I didn't know what they were saying. As I was driving away from the building, I made a call to the police, informing them of what was happening in that building and

that I had video evidence. I was then called back by a detective the next day who came to my house to talk and hear about what had happened. He began the conversation by letting me know they found no dog fighting ring but that there was blood and hair found at the scene. I told him everything, starting with the guy from the shelter bringing in Morpheus and everything I'd done after that and that's when I showed him the video. He was just as appalled as I was. Thank God, that man was arrested later that week. Everyone was surprised that he hadn't tried to run. He was charged with animal cruelty, and after ratting out all of the other guys involved, he ended up getting no jail time and only a year probation with the condition that he never be allowed to own a dog again or live in a house with someone who does own a dog.

I was happy with the outcome, and even happier no one attempted to hurt me after my testimony like police warned me was a possibility. Over 50 dogs were seized from several locations and all were placed in rescues or at no-kill shelters across the state after getting proper medical care. And I wouldn't change a thing. I may have put myself in danger and it might have been stupid, but even if it saved the life of just one dog, it was worth it. I of course did end up adopting Morpheus, he's my best friend and the sweetest boy in the whole world. He doesn't know it, but he's the reason all those dogs were given their freedom. To be continued... average day, I'll just say that. Most days were always very average for me. I'm a woman in my

early 30s living in San Francisco. Not married, no kids, I don't think that really matters, but as a woman I figured people would ask. I worked for a law firm, but I was just an assistant to one of the partners. It surprisingly paid really well. It's the only reason I could afford to live in the city. I want to start off by saying I love where I live. San Francisco is a gorgeous city and I've never once taken it for granted. If anything, I defended it a little too much. I'd walk the more dangerous streets or neighborhoods just to prove to my friends that they weren't really all that bad. Or eat at sketchy restaurants for the same reason. I guess you could say that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Well, on one of the very few rainy days of the year, I decided to go on a walk with my friend along the city streets that I love so much. It was sunny when we left, so wearing flip-flops seemed like an okay idea. Wrong. Only 45 minutes into our walk and it started to rain. My friend and I thought that maybe it would be best to get back to my apartment as quickly as possible so we decided to jog back. We were moving at a steady pace when one of my flip-flops fell off and I felt a sharp pain in the bottom of my foot just between my toes. I almost face-planted when the pain hit but luckily I was able to catch myself on the nearby telephone pole.

I grabbed my foot and raised it to about waist level and was sad and scared to see that a hypodermic needle was what poked into my foot. My friend was scared too and suggested that we pull it out and take it and me to the closest urgent care to maybe get tested for diseases that I could possibly have gotten. After waiting for a bit to be seen by a doctor, we were finally called back. I had my friend come with me in case I was told some bad news, and I didn't want to be alone. But instead of bad news, the advice I got was to wait. The most common diseases contracted through sharing needles, such as HIV, AIDS, or hepatitis, can't be detected for a few weeks, at the very least after exposure. And even when I could be tested, he was sure that it would be negative since I didn't physically put it into one of my veins.

It was possible, definitely, but less likely than, say, someone who actually shares needles for the purpose of using drugs. I felt slight relief, but was still scared for the weeks to come. Around three weeks after the incident I noticed that I'd get dizzy more often and had started to lose weight unexpectedly. Well, maybe not so unexpectedly since I hadn't eaten much in those few weeks and the wound on my foot had healed fine given that it didn't get infected and it was a small puncture wound. The symptoms that I was having made me slightly nervous but I wrote them off as best I could as general malaise or maybe a cold. The symptoms only seemed to get worse as the weeks went by. By week 10, I finally decided that I was ready to get

tested. I called my doctor's office and scheduled an appointment. If I did catch something, maybe there was something I could do about it to at least get me on the right track to feeling better. It should come as no surprise that I tested positive for hepatitis C. I was devastated, of course, but was hopeful the treatments would make me feel better. My aunt had Hep C and after many years on antiviral medications, she was fully cured of it. I was praying that it would be the same for me. I was put on a bunch of different medications that I was told would make me feel better and I joined a support group. In my support group I ended up meeting a lot of really amazing people.

People who were going through the same thing as me. It helped me feel like I wasn't so alone. Of course there were some not so amazing people there too. A lot of drug addicts have Hep C and I think it's obvious why so I won't repeat myself. We were all encouraged to share our stories and when I told the group of how I contracted the virus, multiple people laughed. Like getting a life-altering disease is funny. I was bothered by it but figured if I had ignored them, they wouldn't bother me. After group one day, one of the guys who laughed at me caught up to me in

the parking lot. He asked me if I wanted to try the real thing since I had nothing to lose anymore anyways. He told me my health was already compromised so I could just try it for fun. I wasn't exactly sure what drug he was talking about. On the short drive home I noticed a car taking the same turns as me. I felt like I was being followed but I was also known to be a little paranoid at times so I tried not to think about it. I parked along the street in the one spot that was left and got out of my car. I made my way up the steps of my building and after realizing I forgot my keys, I had my roommate buzz me in. As I opened the door to my building, I looked to my left and

saw a man walking along the sidewalk, coming in my direction. I get spooked easily so I rushed inside and shut the door quickly behind me. As I was walking up the stairs I heard the door to the building buzz once again and saw the same man heading inside. Only this is when I realized it was the guy from the support group who tried convincing me to do drugs with him. As I was looking down at him, he looked up the stairwell and right at me. He started sprinting up the stairs after me and even though I was trying to run up the stairs quickly, there was no way that I could get to my apartment in time to escape him. I finally made it to my floor with very little space between us and just as I reached the door to my apartment, I felt him slam himself up against my back and push me into the hard wood door. My roommate must have heard it since it didn't take her very long to open the door to see what

was going on. He shoved me and my roommate inside and was quick to tell us to be quiet as he pointed his gun at us. We sat on the sofa and looked at each other with tears in our eyes. He kept asking me the same question and he kept saying it over and over again. Where is it? Just tell me where it is and I'll go and you'll never have to see me again. I kept asking him what he was talking about but he never elaborated any further. Instead, he pretty much ransacked the place looking for whatever it was. We watched as he yelled in frustration and threw different things around the room. He got in my face and yelled at me saying I was hiding it from him.

He started talking to himself. I know they're hiding it from us. They must be in on it. She's one of them. She wants us to suffer. I started freaking out when I realized this guy wasn't just a dangerous drug addict. This guy was certifiably nuts. After about five minutes of him saying nothing and only staring at us, he got up and walked over to me. He grabbed me by my hair,

pulled me to the small utility closet in the corner of the room where we kept most of our cleaning supplies. He shoved me inside, locked the door and told me I could only come out if I told him where the medicine was. Finally, I understood. He wanted my medication. I told him it was in the nightstand next to my bed and he could take it and leave. My roommate said that he ran into the room, got the medicine and was out of the apartment in under a minute of me telling him where to look. My roommate locked the door after he was gone and let me out of the utility closet. I called the police and we both held each other and cried while we waited for them to get there. They were at our apartment for hours collecting any evidence and taking

our statements. They were able to get the man's name from the support group leader who actually knew him personally. He was arrested, charged with home invasion, assault, and kidnapping for not letting us leave and threatening us with a deadly weapon. It was concluded that he was not fit to stand trial due to his diagnosed mental illnesses that were not disclosed. He was sentenced to five years in a mental institution with possible release after two years if he improved. In that time, he would receive help for his drug addiction and medical care for his hep C. It turns out that he had no insurance and felt like the only way that he could get treatment was to take someone else's meds, and unfortunately, I was the person he decided to steal them from. I don't know how he's doing now,

only a year later, but I really do hope that he got the help he needed. My cousin Mary and I decided that we wanted to go camping in Yosemite in May of 2016. I was 25 and getting married later that summer and she was 30 and looking for an excuse to take a break from her stay-at-home mom duties that became slightly overwhelming for her. She loves her kids, don't get me wrong. Everyone just needs a break once in a while. Both of us live close to each other in Redding, California, so we made plans to drive there together and I booked one of the last open reservations at the campground we both agreed we wanted to stay at. We wanted to spend at least four days in the national park to hike and just get away from everyday normal lives. When we finally pulled into our campsite, we were honestly relieved we weren't too close to the campsites beside us. There were some trees separating our spaces which gave us some much needed privacy.

We decided that we'd sleep in a tent but we also brought air mattresses so we weren't roughing it by any means. A lot of people around us were in campers or RVs but we did our best not to feel too out of place. The people camping directly to our right came over to introduce themselves. They were a family of five. A man named Ted, his wife Lois, and their three kids. The kids were on the younger side, all under ten, which meant they'd probably be loud, but both I and my cousin didn't mind. It was comforting knowing there was a family nearby and we wouldn't just be surrounded by just random dudes.

I don't say that to offend anyone, it's just that we were two women camping alone. It's normal to be scared of people you don't know. We didn't get too lucky though. The two people camping in the spot to our left were men in their late 30s, already drunk at 10 in the morning. When they saw Ted and his family introducing themselves, they must have taken that as an invitation to come over too. They introduced themselves as Taylor and Mateo. They were definitely not the kind of people I wanted hanging around us so I very nicely informed them that we were going to set up our campsite and kind of hinted for them to go away. They didn't take the hint though. Instead they took their chairs out, set them up next to where we were laying out the pieces of our tent that we were about to build and continued drinking their beers and asking us questions

about ourselves, mostly just questions about us not having our husbands with us. At one point Mateo said, Beautiful women like yourselves shouldn't be out camping alone like this. Don't you know there are men who'd take advantage of a sweet opportunity like this one? I really didn't like how he worded that, saying it was a sweet opportunity. It felt like that's exactly what he was thinking. I started getting a really bad feeling about these guys but I didn't want to ruin the trip

by saying something to Mary and risk her feeling uncomfortable too. I just made a mental note of my initial impressions of these guys and told myself if they did anything else to make me uncomfortable that I'd mention it. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that though, but of course it did. That night when we were sitting around the small fire we had built, Taylor and Mateo stumbled their way over, drunk again, only this time more handsy than they were before. Mateo sat right next to Mary and I on the blanket we were on and Taylor sat next to Mary. I think I can confidently say that we were both absolutely shocked and appalled when we felt a touch that wasn't welcomed. Mateo

slung his arm around me and I almost gagged when I smelled the BO coming from his armpit that was now sitting on my shoulder. I looked over at Mary and saw that she wasn't having any better time than me. Taylor had his hand tightly gripping her thigh as he tried to whisper something in her ear. As if we were both thinking the same thing, we jumped up from our spot on the blanket now occupied by the two men I knew weren't good people. I hopped in the car, along with Mary and both of us, went down to the ranger's office together to report what had just happened. And believe it or not, they were amazing. They took it very seriously and offered to have the police called, but both

Mary and I insisted removing them from the park would be more than enough action and enough to make Mary and I comfortable again. The rangers escorted us back to the campsite and we watched when they asked Taylor and Mateo to leave. Once they were gone, we finally started to feel comfortable again. We went to sleep that night feeling safe and excited for the days ahead of us. The next day we spent with Ted and his family since they had invited us on a hike with them and it was great. They were truly incredible people and we were sad to hear that they were leaving that afternoon to head to the Grand Canyon. Surprisingly, neither of the campsites next to us were filled that evening and by that night

were still empty. We were in our tent by 11pm and Mary, like usual, fell asleep before me. By 1am I was still awake and I started getting this really bad feeling like something wasn't right. I laid there in total darkness, not even able to see my own hand and heard the voices of someone outside our tent. I couldn't make out what they were saying but I could tell that they were close. I flicked on the lantern to ensure that I'd be able to see what was going on around us so we wouldn't be completely vulnerable. Our tent zipped, but when you were inside you had the choice to kind of lock the zippers

so it couldn't be open from the outside. It gave me very little peace of mind though since the tent walls were literal fabric. A sharp fingernail could cut through it. I heard branches snapping and leaves crunching as they got closer. I shoved Mary, laying beside me, as my heart began to race. She woke up a lot louder than I would have liked, but the sudden force of my hand over her mouth made her shut up, and I pointed to the door of the tent and mouthed, someone's there. They tried the zipper, and when it didn't budge,

we thought they'd leave. Soon we saw the tip of a knife cut through one of the tent walls. It was slicing further down until there was a large hole in the side of our tent. It wasn't a small tent either. It was one of those tents that were tall and wide that you could easily stand up in with room to spare. What these people didn't realize was I'd brought a baseball bat with me in case something like this were to happen. Of course, I didn't expect anything like this to happen but I was grateful that I'd taken precautions. I slowly stood up, grabbed the bat from next to the air mattress, raised it, and the second I saw the head of the person come through the hole, I swung.

The sound of the bat slamming into his head was unlike any sound I'd ever heard. He was immediately on the ground, and whoever was with him was gone by the time I stepped out of the tent. Mary and I quickly recognized the man to be Mateo, and he was bleeding from the wound on his head, and we wasted no time in calling the police this time. He was taken away in an ambulance and handcuffed on the gurney. They found Taylor not far away, about to get on an ATV and leave. Thankfully, he was arrested as well. I was investigated for hitting Mateo in the head with a bat but it was found that I had acted in self-defense. Mateo ended up completely recovering anyway so I really didn't do anything wrong I suppose. And both were charged for stalking and malicious intent after they discovered texts between the two detailing what they were going to do to us to get revenge for having kicked them out of the campsite.

They both got less than a year in jail and two years probation, which we were happy with. Luckily, they were from another state and lived nowhere near us, so we were confident we'd never see them again. From that moment on, Mary and I decided that we'd never go camping alone again. To be continued... out of the house and see the coastline. We knew that we wanted to take the Pacific Coast Highway. The PCH is a gorgeous drive that goes all the way up and down the California coast. It's considered one of the most beautiful drives you can make. We'd both driven it before with our families when we were younger, but never together. I was so excited. I packed like a week before we were even going to leave. My boyfriend was excited too, just not as much since he'd be doing the driving there. I was going to be driving back. Anyways, the day came to leave and even though we said that we were going to leave early,

we ended up leaving at around 2pm. It took us three hours to go from Sacramento through the awful traffic in San Jose down to Gilroy. We would cut into the coast from there. We stopped in Gilroy to try the touristy garlic ice cream and whatever else garlic stuff they had. For those who aren't aware, they grow a lot of garlic in Gilroy. They have a garlic festival every year and when you drive through the city, if you roll down your windows, the air smells like garlic. It was a fun quick stop and by about

5.30 we were back on the road. After another hour on the road we were finally on the PCH and looking out on the beautiful beaches of our gorgeous state. We were amazed once again by its beauty. The only problem was this was in late fall or early winter and the sun sets kind of early around that time. The sky started to turn dark and it was getting harder and harder to see the ocean. I was kind of upset by this since we specifically were driving that way to see the views. My boyfriend and I ultimately decided that we'd pull off the highway into a small RV parking section along the beach and sleep there for the night. We weren't in an RV of course but there were very few people there and we figured it wouldn't be a problem. The evening was going by

wonderfully. We had brought some snacks on the road with us and both of us weren't too upset about there not being anywhere to get something to eat. We were just happy to be there with each other and I couldn't wait to see the sunrise over the water. Our car wasn't big though. It wasn't an SUV or something big enough to lay the back seats down and sleep. It was a Honda Civic. Still a nice car that was relatively new. We laid our seats back and covered ourselves with the blankets we'd brought with us.

My boyfriend cracked the windows slightly to get some fresh air in the car and we went to sleep We were only asleep for a couple hours when my boyfriend was woken up by a tapping on the window The glass was fogged up with condensation so it was hard for him to see out He shook me awake and asked if I heard tapping, but I didn't Then we heard it again We looked at his side window. We noticed slightly that there was a figure of a person standing outside his door. My boyfriend rubbed his window to clear it off and see who the person was. The second he did that, we knew we were screwed.

Standing outside of his window were three men, dressed normally from what I could see. The one closest to my boyfriend reached into his pants and showed a gun. There technically was glass between my boyfriend and the gun, but that's not going to stop a bullet. Maybe the glass being there gave my boyfriend some peace of mind or something because somehow he was brave enough to reach for his keys and start the car. They didn't appreciate that though. They screamed at my boyfriend to get out of the car or they would kill us. And that's when the guy with the gun stuck the barrel into the small, open part of the window and pointed it right at me. I began to shake and cry and beg my husband to get us out of there but neither of us doubted they would kill us.

There really was nothing we could do but give them what they wanted. My boyfriend and all of his terrified wisdom unlocked the doors. Before I knew it, they opened the door and pulled him out. And that's when they started beating him. I watched in terror as they threw him to the ground and kicked him, everywhere. The stomach, the legs, the arms, even in his head. I couldn't look away. I kept screaming at them to stop, but they weren't even paying attention to me. In the middle of all of what was happening, he looked at me, and in his beaten and bloodied state, he didn't even have to say a word. I knew he was slightly telling me to run.

As silently as possible, I unhooked my seatbelt and opened my door. I didn't bother shutting it since that would make too much noise and I mouthed the words I love you to him before jumping over the small partition and running on the sand along the beach. There was a small section of beach covered in large rocks. I knew if I made it over there without being noticed, I could hide and possibly make it out of there alive. Just as I was about to reach the rocks, I heard the men begin to yell that I was gone. One kept shouting, find her, you have to find her or we're screwed. I made it into the rocks and found a small section between some that would keep me hidden.

Unfortunately, half of it was underwater. It was dark and I had no way of knowing what I might be joining in that small hole but I had no other options. This was it. I slowly lowered myself in and cringed as half my body became submerged in water and I listened as one of the men made his way to the rocks. He called out to me. He was telling me to come out and that they wouldn't hurt me. That I'd be okay and could join my boyfriend and they'd leave us alone. And there was absolutely no way that was going to happen. I heard him climb onto the rocks. He got closer and closer to where I was hiding. I started getting nervous that he was going to

find me until I heard him fall. He landed far enough away from me where I couldn't see him. I held my breath and thankfully he was so focused on his injuries from the fall that he just got up and started cursing. He yelled back to the other guys that he couldn't find me. He made his way off the rocks, and once I knew he was far enough away I raised myself slightly out of the hole to see what was going on. The moon was bright and I could almost see clearly where our car was parked. They all got into our car and sped away and there on the ground was my boyfriend lying completely still. I couldn't tell if he was still breathing from where I was so I made my way out of my hiding spot and ran as fast as I could back over to him. He was still breathing but completely unconscious. Our phones were in the

car they'd just stolen so I had no way of calling for help. I ran to the closest RV that was still a ways away and banged on their door and finally after what felt like forever they answered. I used their cell to call the police and an ambulance was sent over. My boyfriend was rushed to the hospital on a life flight when they realized how serious his injuries were. He was in surgery for hours with internal bleeding, a collapsed lung and multiple broken bones. And he was in the hospital for months. But thankfully, thank God, he made a full recovery. The men who nearly killed him and stole our car were never found. They did find the frame of our car a few months later.

It had been completely scrapped and obviously sold for parts. And I wish you could say there was a better outcome. That the men had been arrested and we got justice, but we didn't. Maybe someday. But for now, I'm more than okay that our reward was escaping with our lives. It was November 2018. My husband came inside and told us there was a fire warning in the area and we had to be ready to evacuate immediately in case it became necessary. I wasn't that worried since it was Northern California and there were fire warnings like that practically every summer and we were always fine. We lived just outside Paradise, California. Both my husband and I had been raised in the area and had planned on raising our kids there as well. I told our oldest son, Lucas, who was 13, to pack a bag of his most important things

in case we had to get out of there quickly. He understood but commented how he wasn't concerned. The day after, we got the official voluntary evacuation notice. My husband and I looked at the fire map and from what we could tell, it was still a ways away from us and not a real threat, so we stayed put. My husband sent the boys to my mom's about an hour away since he said that just because we thought nothing could happen didn't mean we were totally safe. He thought our youngest children would be safer somewhere out of the way of the fire in case something were to happen. Lucas was adamant about staying with us, but not because he wanted to stay with mom and dad,

but because he wanted to make sure that we all got his games and his consoles and the off chance that we would have to leave the house. We sarcastically thanked him for his concern and the day went on as usual. Every so often, I'd check the fire map and grew slightly more worried as I saw it getting gradually closer to where we were. It didn't take long for the emergency mandatory evacuation notice for our neighborhood to kick in. My husband was out at work when I got the notice and I didn't want to leave without him coming home first so I made a decision that would haunt me for the rest of my life. I decided to wait. I texted my husband about the mandatory evacuation notice and he told me that he thought it would be fine for me to wait for him to be home only a couple of hours from then. Seeing that he had

the same idea made me feel somewhat better about it. I looked out our front window and Lucas and I watched as the rest of our neighbors drove down the road and out of sight. I started feeling like I made the wrong decision and that maybe we should have left the same time as everyone else. But I trusted my husband's intuition and Lucas and I sat on the sofa in the living room with our bags packed, ready to go when he finally got there. After an hour and no word from my husband, I looked at the fire map again, only this time it said the fire was now practically on top of our neighborhood. I got a text from my husband that said they were letting him through to get us and that we needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

I grabbed Lucas and we slung our bags over our shoulders and rushed out the door. And it was like walking into a wall of pure smoke and ash. My lungs immediately started to burn and my eyes felt like they were completely coated in the ash flying around us. I told Lucas to hold his breath and close his eyes. I led him to the truck and shoved him inside. I ran to the other side and hopped in as fast as I could. I started the car and ran the windshield wipers to clear the windshield of ash so I could see, so we might actually have a chance of getting out of there alive. I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road and instead of the neighborhood I'd

come to love so much greeting me, I saw flames, higher than the smoke would allow me to see. Both my son and I could feel the heat, even in the car it was almost unbearable. The paved road seemed to be clear up ahead and I honestly thought our only option would be to barrel through. We called my husband and through tears I told him I didn't think we were going to make it. Lucas was sobbing and I was trying to get him to say goodbye to his dad. I know a lot of people may say that maybe I wasn't right to tell him that we were going to die but I really believed that we were and I was panicking. And if we were, there was no reason to sugarcoat this anymore. That moment could have been the last time his father ever heard from us and he needed to tell

him at the very least that he loved him. Instead of saying goodbye though, my husband told me that he loved me, but that I needed to suck it up and brave it out for our son. He told me the firefighters at the checkpoint only 10 miles down the road said they didn't know if the road was completely clear, but that they should try it anyway. I kept begging him to send the men to come get us, but they couldn't. They literally weren't allowed. I told my son I loved him and slowly let on the gas. We watched the trees on either side of the road burn as the flames billowed higher. It was so hot in the truck and Lucas kept yelling and screaming at me for us to just go back and wait for his dad to come get us. I told him to shut his eyes, to get on the

floor in the front of his seat. There was no reason he had to actually see what was going on around us. I told him to shut his eyes, to get on the floor in the front of his seat. There was no reason he had to actually see what was going on around us. Besides, I knew there was no going back. I'm sure our house was already up in flames at this point, and tears were streaming down my face as I began to silently blame myself for this situation that I put my son into. We had become completely surrounded by the fire and I was losing hope. All around me was just some apocalyptic hellscape and I knew we weren't that far from my husband though but the thought of getting sucked up by the fire and never coming out alive was just too terrifying but I pushed on. Lucas had stopped screaming and started to hum. I could tell that he was

still scared but trying to calm himself down. No one tells you how bright a full-blown fire is. I never knew until I was in the middle of one. Thankfully, the smoke in the air seemed to dim it enough for us to not bother my eyes too much, but it was so hot. I had no idea how the truck was even still running. I was waiting for it to overheat and die on us, but it was so hot. I had no idea how the truck was even still running. I was waiting for it to overheat and die on us, but thankfully, thank god it never did. The further we drove, the more the fire lessened around us. We were almost at the checkpoint when I noticed a downed tree in the middle of the road, and I tried calling my husband again, but could get no service. The fire was still raging around us, enough where getting out of the truck and walking to the checkpoint would not be an option.

We had to wait it out and hope we would survive what I'd unintentionally put us through. Finally, through the smoke we saw a fire truck in the distance heading towards us. They immediately sprayed our truck with water and then did the same in the area surrounding us. They had us carefully get out of the truck and gave us masks to wear as we made our way to their truck and got inside. They drove us back to the checkpoint and we were tearfully reunited with my husband. He said that he was able to track our location through an app we all had on our phones and after showing it to the firefighters they agreed to try to come to us. Turns out that we were only a few hundred feet from where the nearest unit was. We drove straight to my mom's house where our other kids were and like the rest of the people in that community we waited to see if we really had lost everything.

And we did. Our house was destroyed in the fire and every bit of life we built there along with it. It's known as the Camp Fire and ended up being the deadliest and most destructive in California history. 85 people lost their lives and a whole city was destroyed. Lives were destroyed. Every day I regret staying longer than we should have, but in the same moments of regret, I'm unbelievably grateful Lucas and I everything went down, I had just turned 17. I live in a relatively small city in Southern California called Camarillo. I guess it's not that small, but when you compare it to the cities out here, it's not big by any means. It's fine, I guess. It's about an hour outside of Los Angeles, and a lot of people come here for the outlet malls,

but when you grow up here, it's just boring. Plus, I never had the money to go anywhere outside of Ventura County, so I was stuck trying to find things to do close to home. I live in a single parent household growing up. My mom left when I was around three years old. My dad raised my sister and I by myself. He was a good dad, but busy. It's really expensive to live here, so he worked three jobs and wasn't home much. This also meant my sister and I got into things we shouldn't have.

We both started smoking and drinking around 13 years old, and my sister started dating a guy way too old for her. But my dad never knew. By the time he came home every night, he was so tired that he just collapsed in bed. He always made sure that we had a safe place to stay and that we were fed but he never took any interest in any other aspect of our lives. I dropped out of high school when I was 16. I didn't have any friends who went to camp high with me since they lived on the side of the city that went to Rio Mesa and Oxnard.

It makes more sense if you're from the area. Going to school every day was a chore and I was just done with it. My sister and I got really close and me being a horrible influence on her convinced her to drop out when she turned 16 too. I regret that now, obviously. We started partying almost every night. My sister had a lot of older friends because of her boyfriend so it wasn't hard finding somewhere to go when we wanted to get out of the house. One night my sister's boyfriend took her and I to his buddy's house after insisting that it was just a small get together in Oxnard. We pulled up and of course there were hundreds of people piling into this kind of small house in a

not so very safe neighborhood. Now don't get me wrong, I like to have a good time. That just didn't include pressing myself against random sweaty bodies just to reach the kitchen and get drunk. I tried telling my sister that I just wanted to leave and find somewhere else to go, but when she asked her boyfriend to even just take me home, he refused. He said there was a guy inside he had to do business with and told us to just wait in the car. My sister and I talked about some stupid stuff while we waited for almost an hour for him to come back. Then we heard screaming and saw him running out of the house as he shoved something down his pants. He got into the car and my sister was screaming at

him, asking what just happened and all he could say was that we needed to get out of there. As he was gunning it down the street I looked back and saw a large group of men get into a car and speed off after us and the whole thing was chaos. I kept telling him to pull over and let my sister and I out of the car but he wouldn't. He just kept saying that we were a part of this now and whatever happened to him at the end of the night would also happen to us. He managed to lose the people following us and I was actually a little relieved when he pulled up to another house in one of the nicer areas of the

city. We all got out and as much as I wanted to just start running, I couldn't. I knew my sister wouldn't go anywhere without him and I wasn't going to leave her alone with him after what had just happened. He knocked and some really unsuspecting old woman answered the door and asked what we wanted. He said some random words and she just sighed and let us in. She called the name of whom I'm assuming was her son who came downstairs a few minutes later. He and my sister's boyfriend went into the other room and even though I was trying my best to hear what they were saying, I couldn't. Only when I looked at my sister's face, I just had this feeling she knew exactly what was going on. I stared at her for a few minutes, trying to find the words to ask her calmly what she had just gotten us both into.

I knew screaming at her wouldn't work, so as nicely as possible I asked her what we were doing there. It took her a minute of me begging her to tell me until she finally nonchalantly said, He sells meth, okay? Now shut up about it. Oh my god. I was furious. Not only were we probably in a meth den, we were there so her boyfriend could sell back the drugs he'd stolen from the guys at the party. That was literally his supplier's house. Apparently he owed him a ton of money and they made a deal. If he got the drugs from the party and delivered them to this guy by midnight, they'd be even. Only I guess he wasn't aware I'd be coming along.

Now, I was doubly scared for my life. I was trying to be strong but the anxiety was building up and I started to panic. All I was thinking about was my dad and how hard he worked for us and now he was going to have two dead daughters. Finally, her boyfriend came back out and told us we were leaving. I kept begging him just to take me home but still he refused. Instead he took us to where he usually sells and we sat there with him for four hours as his customers came through. A few of them even asked to buy my sister and I from him, like we were property. The worst part was it seemed like he may have even considered it. I felt gross. His car stunk of weed and cigarettes and part of me started to

hate my sister for the part she played in all of this. For allowing me to be in that situation that she had to have known was entirely possible from the very beginning. Finally, around 4am, he dropped us back off at home. I ran inside and locked my door and cried for the rest of the night. It was like an epiphany. It made me regret every decision that had brought me to that night. It made me appreciate my dad a lot more than I did and unfortunately, it also forever changed the relationship I had with my sister. She ended up moving with her boyfriend later that year even after I tried to talk her out of it. I went back to school and graduated a year later than I originally would have but my dad was still proud. I still live

with my dad and both of us haven't spoken to my sister in years. Last we heard, she and her boyfriend got arrested for possession with intent to distribute almost a year ago. I can't help but feel partly responsible for the way she turned out. I try to get in touch with her, but it never works out. I hope she does change her life around. And who knows with addiction though. I realized something recently. I survived that night, but in a way, she never did. Halloween of 2005 will always have a special place in my memory, but in this case, special doesn't altogether mean good. Me and my circle of high school friends were all high school sophomores, which meant that there was a lot of transitioning going on in our lives and the way we celebrated Halloween

was changing too. We'd spent our childhoods trick-or-treating and a lot of the time that was in the company of a chaperone. Then from like 12 to 14 we'd been allowed to go trick-or-treating on our own. But now that we were like 15 going on 16, we figured that we were too old to go begging for candy. And unlike the year before, there was no Halloween parties, at least none we'd been invited to anyway. This meant that we were stuck for something to do on what had become one of our favorite nights of the year, and the way we saw it, we needed to fix that, and fast. I know we could have just met up at one of our parents' places for pizza and horror movies,

but trick-or-treating had conditioned us with a need to be outside on Halloween. On such a special spooky night of the year, we needed to be out there, in the dark, soaking up that feeling of excitement in the air. The night before Halloween was a Sunday that year and I remember that very well, because I spent almost all day glued to MSN Messenger, checking to see if anyone had found anything fun for us to do. Then, out of nowhere, our friend Brian came in with a clutch, telling us that we could hang out with his older cousin Cody and his friends over at some abandoned school down by the river. Cody and company were a few years older than us, and they went to a different high school,

but we'd hung out with them before. And word was that they were getting a few twelve packs of Bud Light that they didn't mind sharing if we each pitched in a few bucks. And it was music to my ears. Who cared if we weren't invited to some dumb costume party with other sophomores? We were going to have a campfire, tunes, and most importantly, beer. Halloween itself fell on a Monday, and the whole day at school me and my friends were all super psyched for that night. I get home, eat some food, and get some homework done, then right as I'm getting ready to head out, my mom pokes her head into my bedroom and drops a bomb on me. She wanted me to walk my little brother around the neighborhood so he could go trick-or-treating.

It meant that I'd be an hour late to our Halloween hangout, at the very minimum, and I was not happy about that. But since mom told me it was that or face being grounded, I just sucked it up and did as I was asked. Maybe an hour and a half later, I get my brother back home, then immediately rush out again, calling my friends to make sure that they're at the hangout spot. I find out that they are, so I practically run the whole way, hoping there's still a few cans of Bud Light with my name on them. When I arrive at the hangout spot, I find it's this abandoned kindergarten that's all fenced off and derelict.

I can hear the music playing already and I can smell the campfire smoke too, but after finding the hole in the fence and rocking up to the hangout I don't see any beer except for what's in people's hands. And that's when the guys tell me that they've stashed the beers in some abandoned house behind the back fence and that since I was late it was my turn to go get everyone a fresh one. They said that their logic was that if the cops showed up, they wouldn't be able to take all the bud, just what people were drinking If we got busted, we could just bail and circle back and grab the beers and carry on with our night somewhere else This made perfect sense to me at the time, so I go off towards the fence where there's yet another hole in the plastic chain link fence. I don't know what the deal was with there being two abandoned properties so close to each other but the back of the kindergarten basically led right onto the empty

home's backyard. It was all overgrown and stuff so I had to basically wade through all this long grass as I walked towards the back door and these two big panel windows. It was dark but I'd been given a flashlight and directions on where the beer was stashed, but then as I'm walking towards the open back door, I hear someone moving on the inside. Seconds later, under the beam of my flashlight, I see a figure emerge in the doorway. They were limping, trying to move as fast as they could, and as soon as they came into view, I recognized them as one of the older kids from Cody's group.

Immediately I'm panicking because not only did they appear to be hurt in some way, but they had this look of absolute terror on their face when they realized that I was there and he cried out, dude help me. I'm too freaked out to even ask what's going on at first, but then as I'm about to do something, the guy screams as someone behind him starts trying to drag him back into the house. I knew that I had to help, but I also knew that I couldn't do anything just on my own. I had to go get the other guys.

I bolted back towards the rear of the yard, pushing myself through both sets of fences, one wooden, one plastic chain link, until I'm back at the abandoned kindergarten. I run the whole way there, hurtling around the corner of one of the derelict buildings until I was back in the company of my friends. Then right as I'm about to tell them that we need to go get help, they just crack up laughing. I'm talking wheezing, wailing, screeching, rolling on the floor kind of laughing and I realize that I'd just been pranked hard. Everyone's all like, you should have seen your face, doing dumb impressions the way I was running and to be fair, it was pretty funny.

At least for a moment or two. I remember just standing there, taking it on the chin, nodding along asipped to be like, alright, you got me. Then after a while, one of Cody's buddies calmed down enough to ask me what Jay had done. Jay was the one I'd seen in the doorway, the same guy who had begged for help in such a convincing way that it was nothing short of Oscar worthy. And when I told them all that, they started cracking up again. Apparently, they'd been up again. Apparently,

they'd been planning to prank me as soon as they found out that I was going to be late and as soon as I'd placed my little confirmation call on the way out, Jay had gone off to hide in preparation for my arrival. But then, I mentioned to the guys how the thing that had made me run was how Jay had gotten grabbed from behind and dragged back into the house. I assumed that they'd send someone else with him to make the whole thing more convincing, but then when I mentioned the grabbing thing, the laughter started to fade. I remember Cody being all like, what? Who got grabbed? But I took this as him playing dumb, a prank within a prank if you will, prankception. I repeated what I said about Cody being grabbed and the laughter peters out completely. Cody gives one of his buddies this worried look then turns back to me like,

please tell me you're kidding me. I told him no, swearing that I'd seen someone grab him and that the whole screaming for help thing seemed a little too convincing. And then it hit me. Someone attacking Jay had not been part of the prank. What I'd witnessed wasn't some well-executed way of frightening me. It had actually been real. The thought must have hit everyone else right at the same time, but instead of standing there all dumbstruck like me, they just went hurtling off in the direction of the abandoned house.

I followed, feeling extremely guilty that I should have done something right there and then instead of rushing back to get help. We pushed our way through the fences as fast as we could, and I can hear the older kids yelling ahead of us, Jay? Jay, where are you, man? Flashlight beams are zooming everywhere as they piled into the house, checking every room until they found him. And when they did, they found a total mess. Jay had been beaten up so bad that I could hardly recognize him. I'd seen his face maybe only a few minutes before, but in that time, someone had seriously worked him over. There was blood all over

his mouth and some of his clothes were ripped but the thing I really remember was how he was awake but he'd just been lying there because he said that he couldn't move. Every time someone tried to get him up he'd clutch his chest and cry out. There were a few seconds where we thought that he might have been stabbed or shot or something and we had to make sure that the only blood was coming from his mouth before we were able to breathe a small sigh of relief. But still, it was only a small one. If he was hurt so bad that he couldn't get up, there was seriously something wrong with him. Because we were on some old abandoned property, the firefighters had to cut through

chains that were holding the gate shut in order to get Jay on a stretcher. And because the 911 call had mentioned some kind of violent assault, the cops showed up not long after the firefighters did. Thankfully, they weren't interested in the fact that we'd clearly been drinking and were much more concerned with how Jay had ended up being taken to the hospital. Obviously, I had the most to tell them but even then, it wasn't much and we had to wait until Jay was out of the hospital to really figure out what happened. Not that we didn't visit him when he was there, he just wasn't in any mood to talk about it. Whoever had attacked Jay broke his ribs, broke the bone around his eye and had kicked him so many times in the stomach that he had internal bleeding. As you can imagine, he was in the hospital for

quite a while afterward and in that time, the cops conducted a full investigation, keeping his parents in the loop the whole time so they knew what was happening. Long story short, the empty house across from the derelict kindergarten was being used as a stash house. The other guys said they checked the place out earlier that evening but hadn't heard anyone moving around upstairs, so they just assumed the place was empty. Little did they know, there was some guy upstairs, probably some low-level dealer or something, and of course he's paranoid and losing his mind because he can hear voices coming from downstairs. Then later on Jay decided to explore the house a little to work out the best place to jump scare me which is how he ended up walking up the stairs. He said when

he got to the top it was just like wham. The guy came out of nowhere and basically kicks him back down the stairs and that's about the same time I appeared in the garden and turned on my flashlight. Jay gets up, limps to the door, sees my flashlight, and the rest, you already know. I think what happened that night amounts to the single scariest thing that's ever happened to me as a kid, or as a teenager, and to this day, I've never seen anyone look as scared as Jay did when he looked into the beam of my flashlight and cried out to me, help. I just wish I did something. The scariest thing that ever happened to me was on Halloween night of 1999. I remember it fell on a Saturday that year because I was a 22-year-old bartender at the time

and whenever Halloween fell on a weekend like that, you just knew you were in for a crazy night. Back then I was living in Morgantown, West Virginia, so Halloween was always a big event for the college kids, especially the seniors who were old enough to buy booze. Each year we ran costume competitions, came up with spooky themed cocktails, played horror movies on the bar's TVs, it was a whole big event. But since Halloween was on a Saturday, the local crowd was going to be mixing with the college crowd and it'd be one of the biggest Halloween parties the bar ever saw.

Naturally I'm pretty excited about this, so imagine my disappointment when on the day itself I get a call from my boss who had a huge favor to ask me. My boss and his partner owned a few different bars and restaurants and one was down in Fairmont, about 50 miles south of Morgantown. Somehow, they'd come up incredibly short staff that Saturday and my boss asked me to drive down there to work the evening shift as their bartender. I could have just said no and he did just ask someone else to do it, but I knew that him owing me a favor like that would put me in a very, very good situation when it came to getting off time around Christmas. So, I said yes.

I picked up the smartest shirt and slacks combo I could find, given that the place was way more upmarket than the bar I worked at, and then I drove down to Fairmont around 3.30pm to set their bar up. I decided it wouldn't be so bad because since the place closed at like 11pm and the kitchen staff said everyone was usually on their way out by 11.40, I figured I could just drive back home then walk around to the bar to catch the last few hours of Halloween as a civilian. You know the deal. The shift at the restaurant dragged but when it was finally over, I hopped back in my car and set off for Morgantown. Now what I should have done was take the 79 back, same way I've gotten down there before. But once I was in Fairmont, getting onto the 79 would have meant going back on myself so I figured it'd be quicker to get onto the 19 and head back on a different route.

That probably means nothing to people who don't know the area so let's just say that I took a shortcut. This shortcut proved a big mistake in terms of route choice. The roads were much more winding and considerably less well lit so anytime I made up and not doubling back on myself was lost trying to drive as safely as I could. I made it about 80-90% back to Morgantown, still driving super carefully, and I'm literally just considering what a dangerous stretch of road I'm on when this other car comes into my headlights. It's off the road, on a patch of grass, not moving, and the passenger door is open. Reaching into the passenger door is a guy who briefly shoots

me this look as I drive past him, one that makes me think that he might have needed help. I could have just kept driving, pretending that I didn't see anything and made it back to Morgantown with time to spare. But part of me knew that I'd feel like a total douche the next day, just leaving someone stranded at the side of the road when all I could think about was myself. So I slowed down, pulled a u-turn, and drove back to see if the guy needed any help. I'm not gonna lie, it did occur to me that going back might have been a bad idea. It was Halloween after all, creepiest night of the year, but I figured if I pulled up and the guy looked like an axe murderer, I could just reverse the heck out of there and speed off before they turned my skin into a mask or something.

I knew that the person was wearing a white short sleeved shirt of some kind so I cut my eye out for it as the car came into my headlights again, but as I pulled up, they were nowhere to be seen. There was someone in the passenger seat though, so I kept a bit of a distance, opened up my car door, leaned out, then called over to her to see if she was okay. She didn't reply. She kept staring off into the near distance like she couldn't hear me. She looked okay so I got out of my car to walk over to her but with each step I took towards the car, I realized more and more that something wasn't right about the woman I was looking at. It was the look in her eye, this glassy, half-awake look, and before I even got over to open the door, I realized that she might not even be conscious.

If I'd have parked my car up at another angle, I'd have seen it way before I got close to her, but it took me until I was within touching distance of the car to realize that she was dead. Someone had stabbed her over and over again in the stomach, groin, and thighs. Her t-shirt was a dark color that didn't really show it, but her jeans were just completely drenched. I couldn't quite believe what I was looking at for a second. I mean, there was just so much blood, so much it was dripping off the seat and onto the floor of the car. I don't know if that's where she died or if someone had posed her in the seat like that, but I remember how frighteningly peaceful she looked. Not peaceful like content,

peaceful like she'd just chosen to give up at some point. I remember actually being frozen for what felt like a good few seconds, but that could be my mind just pumping with adrenaline, making it feel like it was longer than it was, because it sure did feel like I'd been standing there for too long when another thought occurred to me. Where was the guy that I saw in the white shirt? I can still remember how the question made my flesh creep, and I'm not just saying that as a means of conveying how scared I was, I could actually feel it. It was like I could actually feel the terror running through me, and as I turned back to my car, I prayed that I wouldn't see him standing near it, blocking the route to my escape. I couldn't see it, but

you gotta remember that I'd left my car running with the headlights on and you better believe that I was looking at those dark patches around the lights thinking he could be right there and I'd never know it. Just looking over my shoulder made me feel incredibly exposed and vulnerable, so I turned back towards the car, only to see something that made me jump out of my skin. There was a tree line maybe only 10-15 feet away from the car and even with my night vision ruined by the glare of the headlights, I saw something pale shift among the tree trunks. It was the white shirt. It had to be. He was watching me from the darkness. I'm still not 100% certain that that was the case, but I didn't stick around to find out. If my worst suspicions were true,

and the guy had stabbed that poor girl to death, there was no telling what he'd do to me in the name of eliminating a witness. I just ran back to my car and put my escape plan into action, feeling a deep sense of relief when I finally put the pedal to the metal. And needless to say, I didn't end up going out that night. I just drove back to my apartment, called the cops, then spent the next few hours either on the phone with dispatch waiting for the cops to arrive at my place, then telling them what I'd seen when they finally arrived. I told them what kind of car I thought it was, what the woman looked like, the exact stretch of road that I was on at the time,

and when they're done taking notes they relay everything I'd said to their higher ups. And from what I can gather, the goal was to get another patrol car to head out of town to find where I was talking about, but since it was a Halloween weekend, the department didn't have anyone to spare. That's when they asked me if I minded taking a ride with them to show them the exact location where the car was. If I had gone off road, there was a chance that it had left tire tracks, and if they really were dealing with a murderer, the kinds of tires used on the car could end up being the difference between a conviction and an acquittal.

And that's why they needed my help. They weren't so much looking for the car, which they figured would be gone already since I'd stumbled across the scene. They needed the exact spot it had been stopped at so they could potentially take an impression of the tires. Once that was explained to me, I had no problem giving up my time. If my testimony was going to be the difference in catching a guy and having a killer on the loose, the choice was an obvious one. So I followed the

cops downstairs and climbed into the backseat of their cruiser. They were right about the car not being there, but I did manage to retrace my steps, so to speak, until I was looking at the exact patch of grass and trees where the car had been. After that, we had to wait a while until another unit showed up to secure the scene, but eventually I got a ride back to my apartment, even if it was way after all the bars closed, and let me tell you, I've never needed a drink so much in my entire life. Thankfully, my co-workers and boss were still at the bar I worked at, hanging out after closing time and enjoying a few drinks of their own. I stopped by, they let me in, and boy did I have a scary Halloween story for them that night.

I managed to get a few sympathy beers out of it and they did a great job of taking the edge off, but going back to my apartment on my own was a different story. I didn't have any nightmares about finding that woman, but it definitely played on my mind for a long time afterwards. The cops only called me once to confirm a few details about the car and the guy I'd seen, but following that, I didn't hear a thing about it aside from a few pieces on the local news. I still think about it though, all this time later, especially around October and November each year. I wonder if the cops ever caught the guy, if he actually killed the girl or was just trying to get her to the hospital after someone else attacked her.

Sometimes I think I really do see a ghost every Halloween, just not in the sense people might expect. I'm not haunted by some translucent spirit floating around dark corridors. Instead, I'm haunted by that look on the woman's face. The one that looked almost like she'd given up on life. The one that made her look like death didn't scare her anymore. When I tell people the place I grew up is haunted, they tend to give me understandably skeptical looks. But when I explain it's not haunted by a literal ghost, but rather by the memory of an unsolved murder that occurred on Halloween night, that skepticism starts to abate.

I tend to follow up by telling them this story, and although it might be a little long-winded, those who hear it invariably agree that Silverton, Colorado has every right to consider itself haunted. And by the end of this, I think you will too. The murder itself happened before I was born, but it definitely left its mark among my parents' generation. They were a little more protective than most and completely forbid me and my friends from playing down near this creek that we had just outside of town. Years later, I'd come to learn that the creek was where Jane Doe's body had been found, and I understood why they didn't want us hanging out there.

By the way, I'm not calling her Jane Doe to protect her real name or anything, it's literally what everyone had to call her because her body was never ID'd. The only thing the cops knew was that the cause of death was consistent with murder, which obviously caused a huge scandal in our little tiny mountain town which barely experienced any crime at all. I think if the killer ended up getting caught, things would have been different. The town could have put the whole thing to bed, relegating the incident to a bad memory instead of an ongoing crisis. Only, the cops didn't catch anyone. Tips started drying up and the case went cold.

Silverton didn't get any closure, so no one in Silverton ever really got over it. I mean, if you thought you had a murderer in your midst, someone who'd killed and gotten away with it, would you ever really relax? But as they say, time is the best healer, and with time, the bad memory of Jane Doe faded into the background. Cut to my junior year of high school. Me and my friends are young and dumb. Halloween just crept up on us and we're stuck for something to do. We can't exactly go trick or treating. There are no house parties in our town and for whatever reason, none of our parents wanted to drive us to the blockbuster in the next town over.

We were either doomed to a boring Halloween which was just not an option for us or we could live up to our age bracket and do something stupid and sensitive and inappropriate. I'm not proud of it but we chose the second option and for some godforsaken reason we started dreaming up ways to scare ourselves. There were a few good suggestions thrown around, most of which included trespassing or petty theft, and as much as we were all dumb as a bag of rocks, we weren't bad kids. So instead of doing something thoughtless and illegal, we did something thoughtless and legal instead. Something like heading down to the creek where Jane Doe was found, on the very same night that

she was thought to have been killed, to see if we could see her ghost. Yep, I know, it was heartless and childish, not the kind of behavior I want my own kids exhibiting, but that's what we did. We loaded up on flashlights, each stole a fistful of candy from our respective home's trick or treat stash, then met up on the edge of town to head down to the creek. We'd lied to our parents about where we were going, which is probably the stupidest thing we did all night, as if anything had really happened we would have been screwed. But in the end, that didn't matter, everyone found out where we'd been anyhow. So like I said, we walked down to the creek with our flashlights in hand and the closer we got, the more genuinely creeped out we were getting.

This wasn't some suburban legend or whatever, this was an actual murder and, as stupid as it seems now, we figured that the best chance that we had of seeing a real ghost. Not only was it the anniversary of Jane Doe's death, but she'd been murdered, and murder victims always leave ghosts behind. So off we went, like thoughtless little turds, completely unaware of what we were about to find, not to mention how horribly significant it would come to be. By the time we got to the section of the creek that we believed Jane Doe had been found, we were in complete silence. Our flashlight beams wandered back and forth across the creek, almost like we were about to be ambushed by some vengeful spirit at any moment. But obviously, that didn't happen. Jane Doe was long gone. The problem was, her killer wasn't. When we saw something breaking the surface of the water it took just about every fiber of courage we had not to just go off running into the opposite direction, but somehow we

managed to keep it together long enough to work out what it was. The reason it had scared me so bad when I first saw it was because it looked like a person's hand sticking out of the water and the reason it looked so much like a hand is because that's exactly what it was. Just not a person's hand. It was a mannequin's hand. Lying in the water right there in front of us was a fully clothed plastic mannequin, the kind you see in clothing store windows.

We went from terrified to just downright confused. I mean, who just tosses a mannequin in a creek like that, especially one that seemed to actually have clothes on it? I think we were so dense at that age that we couldn't put two and two together to really see what we were looking at. I suppose there was a lot of stuff we didn't know and if we had, we'd have gone running the moment we saw that old thing just lying there in the water. I don't know exactly what possessed us to do it, but one of us had the bright idea to drag the thing out of the water for some reason. Maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was the boredom-induced sense of adventure, but either way, we made the faithful decision to actually pull it out of the

water to get a better look at it, and this is where my buddy's video camera comes in. He begged his parents to buy him one so we could make our own little Johnny Knoxville style videos, but we ended up just using it to document almost everything we did as a group, amateur ghost hunting included. So, after pulling the mannequin out of the water, my buddy starts recording it with his night vision turned on, creating this creepy green and black image on the little fold out screen. We didn't know what we were looking at, we just thought it was trash. We were so psyched on looking for ghosts that we didn't even stop to think about who might have done something like that, or why they might have done it.

I guess we were a little too naive too, small town innocence or something like that, so we just left the mannequin lying there in the mud and walked back home still looking for ghosts. I think the thing that really scared us was the fact that we'd definitely be in trouble if our parents found out that we'd been down there. We didn't actually believe in ghosts or monsters or anything, it was kind of a collective madness designed to stave off boredom. But it was that fear of getting caught that made what came next so much more difficult. In the days after Halloween, it was business as usual, and I was in science class with one of the other guys I'd found the mannequin with. Suddenly, the principal's voice comes

over the school intercom telling each class to assemble in the auditorium for a special presentation. Now, this never happened, or rather was the first time I'd ever experienced it, so we were definitely very curious as we followed off to the auditorium. When we walked inside, I knew it was serious, because there was a cop stood there with a vice principal, obviously just waiting for everyone to arrive. Normally teachers had to blow a whistle or something to get us to shut up before a presentation like that, but on that way, it was as quiet as the grave in that auditorium, not a single one of us made a sound. We listened as the cop told us about how something real bad had happened in our town a long time

ago, and we didn't know it back then, but he was about to tell us about how something real bad had happened in our town a long time ago and we didn't know it back then but he was about to tell us about the Jane Doe murder. A lot of us already knew the rough story but the police officer filled in a lot of the gaps for us and most importantly reminded us that the killer had never been caught. I was definitely freaked out at this point and I'm assuming my buddies were too. One night we're looking for Jane Doe's ghost and a few days later we're getting a special I was definitely freaked out at this point, and I'm assuming my buddies were too. One night we're looking for Jane Doe's ghost, then a few days later we're getting a special school presentation about it. It was just too weird to be a coincidence. Anyway, the cop keeps talking for a while before he gets to his point,

which was that if any of us had ever saw anything weird around town, especially around the creek where Jane Doe's body had been found, we were to go to the cops right away, no matter how small it was. As you can imagine, my face is just straight up burning at this point. Not so much because of what we'd found, and not even because I knew we were going to have to own up to our little ghost hunt, but because I realized we'd found something really, really bad, and that a lot of people were going to be very unhappy to hear about it. I almost didn't want to say anything, pure cowardice and selfishness on my part, I know, but I knew that we were about to open up one hell of a can of worms. But then again, it wasn't even my decision to make, because once our friend with the camera showed his parents the footage, everything started to pop off. We each had to talk to the cops a bunch of times, telling them over and over exactly what we'd seen, and they confiscated our buddy's

camera footage so they could take a good look at the mannequin. From what we understood, what made it clear that something really bad had happened was the fact that we knew the mannequin. From what we understood, what made it clear that something really bad had happened was the fact that we knew the mannequin was placed in the exact spot that Jane Doe had been found. But what we didn't realize at the time was that whoever had put it there had dressed the thing in almost the exact same outfit Jane Doe had been wearing when she was pulled out of the creek. It was the difference between just being some cruel prank and having serious significance in relation to an unsolved murder. But that was something we didn't learn until much later on.

This is what I mean when I say that Silverton is haunted by Jane Doe. All the little developments, all the little trinkets and clues left by the person that killed her, they all keep coming in stages. It's a story that happened before I was born, but now, I'm a part of it. A small part, sure, but a part nonetheless. I honestly hope the case is closed one day. Just saying the name Jane Doe is kind of painful in a way. In murdering her, Jane's killer robbed her of her identity,

turned her into a nobody, turned her into a way. In murdering her, Jane's killer robbed her of her identity, turned her into a nobody, turned her into a ghost. Maybe one day, that evil monster that killed her will face justice, and God willing, it'll end with Jane getting her name back. Her real name. About About ten years ago now, I used to work for a company that specialized in low-income home weatherization. They're basically giving people free stuff in order to help lower electricity and gas bills, not to mention making the home more comfortable to people who really needed it, you know, older folks and the like. We installed doors and insulation and so forth, then collected a big fat check from the government at the end of it. Not that it mattered to me, I was just on salary, but it was great business for my boss, and it wasn't too hard of a job for me, so I was just happy enough to do it for a while as I

figured out what I wanted to do with my life. So a big part of making sure a home qualified for free insulation was testing combustion appliances to make sure that they're not emitting carbon monoxide. Because if they are, we seal up the house and it could actually kill people. It's a really, really serious issue, as you can imagine. So it's pretty much the first thing we check every time and generally speaking, it's people's gas powered water heaters that can be the main culprit. So this one visit, on Halloween of all days, I'm doing a pre-inspection of a home on the outskirts of the city when I ask to see the owner's water heater. The guy tells me that it's in the basement, a fairly regular occurrence,

so I ask him to grant me access because I have to inspect it before work can start. This is about the same time the guy starts looking a bit nervous and I had no idea why at first but all I'm interested in is getting to the water heater so I can get on with my job. But the guy doesn't seem to want to let me in and I have to actually remind him that without the inspection he's not going to get free insulation. Only then does he actually cave and agree to show me the basement. He walks me into the kitchen, shuffles up to the fridge then asks me to give him a hand moving it. Turns out the entry into the basement is some little trap door that this guy has decided to hide beneath his fridge.

I feel like I should note that I went and did literally hundreds of homes over the years and I'd never seen anyone hiding a basement like that. But then as much as it gave me an inkling of suspicion, I just wanted to get the job done so I could get out of this guy's house. It wasn't exactly the nicest place to be in, the guy had obviously really let himself go over the years, but a lot of vulnerable people had homes like that and I never felt like I was ever one to judge. Anyway, I pull out my light, open the hatch, then shine the light down the stairs to check the layout. There are a few cobwebs down there, but nothing that jumps out at me, either physically or metaphorically, so I turn around and climb down into the cellar. Only when I'm at the bottom do I suspect the boiler is actually leaking gas because all over the little cellar there were

dead rats in various stages of decay. That's a pretty common thing if there's a gas leak. The first thing to feel it are the vermin, but then when I checked the boiler, there was no gas leaking from it at all. The pressure was near perfect. So then, what was killing all those rats and mice? I didn't see any traps or poison down there and the guy didn't have a cat or anything. Besides, nothing could get down there except for the vermin that were tunneling in somehow. So why exactly were they dying down there and in such tall numbers? I remember looking up and seeing the guy looking down at me, still with that nervous look on his face and still with his hand on the cellar hatch. Seeing his hands on the hatch like that, it made something click in my brain and

I suddenly felt this intense sense of imminent danger. I have no partner on the job with me, there's tiny animal corpses all around me and I realized just how hidden the entrance to the basement really was. If the guy wanted to just slam the hatch shut and push the fridge back over it, there's a chance that I'd never be found in time. Before I even realized I was doing it, I practically jumped out of the cellar before telling the old guy that I needed to grab a few pieces of kit for my van and that I'd be back in a few minutes. Then, as much as I'm not exactly proud of this, I just ran. I got into the van, backed out of his driveway and just drove off while making the job as non-feasible

for health and safety as I was driving away. Honestly, I have no idea if I was actually in any danger. It could have been completely innocent and I just had a fit of paranoia for some reason, maybe even because it was Halloween and I was, I don't know, overcome with the spirit of the season or something. But I still remember the adrenaline rush and that sense of impending doom, and when I think about how that felt, I realize it's always better to just be safe than sorry, because sometimes your gut feeling is far sharper a sense than your eyes and ears. Occasionally whenever I tell this story I get asked if I reported this guy to the police as

people tend to show a lot of concern about the dead animals. I feel a bit weird having to tell people that I didn't file a formal complaint with the police mainly because nothing I saw was entirely out of the ordinary. Crawl spaces and basements have venting at the base of the house and it's really common for animals to squeeze in and not be able to get back out. If you have space under your house there's a decent chance something has died down there and honestly you just get used to it when your job takes you down there frequently. On paper it's totally normal but being down there frequently. On paper, it's totally normal. But being down there was a completely different story altogether. Those animals were not trapped down there and rats are very, very clever.

They don't go places where dead rats are because it's basically a massive warning to them. I don't know what that guy was up to, but it definitely wasn't natural. But again, on paper paper it was totally normal. So I could only really tell my colleagues how I felt unsafe and not about my little rat murder theories which would definitely make me sound like I was losing the plot. So like I said, I just said it was unsafe and I didn't feel comfortable going back to that guy's house again. Someone else could go have that fun, but it wouldn't be me. Okay, so I went to college only about a four-hour drive from my hometown, which meant that I'd drive home fairly regularly during weekends and holidays to visit family,

high school buddies, etc. Sadly, my parents got divorced around the same time I left for college, although they still lived in the same county. But since my dad was living in a small apartment at the time, I would stay at my mom's ranch house out in the countryside. So this one weekend I'm driving home fairly early in the evening in the hopes of catching some of the hometown Halloween parties that were going on. I planned to make a quick stop at mom's, get showered, get changed, then I'd be out of the door again and on my way to party. Being that my mom lives out in the middle of nowhere, it wasn't uncommon to just not see any other cars on the road during the drive. And that's what made it all the creepier when, as I'm driving along these country roads,

minding my own business, I notice there's another car behind me. At first, I don't think much of it. Like I didn't just assume that they were following me, but then I notice the car in my rear view and how it's starting to swerve behind me. Immediately I'm thinking, uh oh, this isn't good. But I'm still just hoping it's nothing but a dumb prank. Bored teenagers on Halloween or something and to my relief, they keep their distance. But then gradually, the car eats up the distance between us until it's way too close for comfort. And still, it's constantly swerving and weaving back and forth.

This goes on for a couple of miles on these deserted, dark country roads with no one else around and I'm getting more and more nervous with each passing minute. Things get to the point where I'm actually starting to really freak out. The car isn't making any move to pass me, despite having ample opportunity to do so, and there's no way that I'm stopping, pulling over, or going home, just in case they actually intend to do me harm or something. To try to shake them off, I start basically driving in circles, making as many turns as I can trying to lose the car behind me, but no luck. He's glued to my bumper and still constantly swerving like he's trying to find an opening to force me off the road. In the end, I decided to start heading back towards town where I'd been hanging out with friends, at least as a way of buying myself some time. I also figured that since the city is

serviced by a state highway, which today is a three-lane interstate, if I got up onto a higher speed on a well-lit road with maybe some other cars around, I might actually be able to deter them or at least lose them in the stack of cars. But again, no matter what I pull, the car still follows me, matching my speed, just not swerving this time so as not to draw attention. This all carries on for several miles until I, in a fit of panic and severely not thinking about potential other options like going to the police department, pull a fit of panic and severely not thinking about potential other options like going to the police department, pull a move of questionable safety and legality. I swerve all the way over from the fast lane to an exit ramp at the last minute, surprising the car behind me

enough that he missed the exit and presumably had to go up to the next exit a few miles down the road. Having shaken my swerving unwanted traveling companion, I zoomed it back through town on the regular roads, driving probably 30-40 over the speed limit in a total panic and a rush to get back to my mom's house. I make it back to her house without further incident, though my flesh is crawling at this point and every pair of headlights I see behind me is making me incredibly paranoid. To this day, I can't drive at night back to my mom's house in the countryside without thinking about it.

Even typing this story out now is making my skin crawl, knowing that it's a minor miracle that the faceless swerving driver didn't cause a major accident. No idea what the swerving car's deal was. Never saw it again. That I know of, anyway. I went to Penn State, which, relatively speaking, is in a pretty rural area, and almost completely surrounded by trees. The town estate college itself is real nice, and I know this might make me sound like a douche, but I'm from Manhattan,

so the younger me thought the relative isolation was pretty lame initially. At least that was until I actually got out onto some of the trails with a classmate of mine. Then, over the course of maybe three or four months, I developed a huge passion for the outdoors. My friends back home were stunned as they'd never have guessed in a million years that I'd turn out to be one of those trail hungry hiking enthusiasts that we only ever usually saw on our insta timelines. I think it was all down to having hiked up and down the Loyal Sock Trail which was about an hour's drive away from my area.

My buddy ended up inviting me this one time and I was just bored out of my mind so I figured I'd join him. Little did I know that but a few months later I'd be suggesting that we hike the whole 50 something miles of the trail over the course of 4 or 5 days. My roomie turned hiking buddy used to be an Eagle Scout so he had way more experience in the woods than I did Nighttime on our first few trips basically consisted of me hearing spooky noises like coyotes, raccoons or owls Then freaking out until he assured me that there was really nothing to be scared of He always said there were really only two things you had to worry about out in Pennsylvania,

black bears and bobcats, everything else you would more or less deal with. But later, on our four-day hiking trip through Loyal Sock, we found out that there's something else you should worry about when in the middle of nowhere, and that's other people. By the end of day two of our trip, we're about 20 miles into the trail, and with us being in a particularly dense part of Loyal Sock, we're able to pitch our tent in this real secluded spot about 100 yards off the trail. It was next to impossible to spot our campsite while walking on the trail, so we thought we were pretty safe in that respect.

Only thing was, the spot we picked out was a kind of miniature peninsula where a creek met a river, so although that was great for getting fresh water, it meant that there was only one way into our camp and only one way out. Anyway, we set up camp, started a fire, cooked ourselves some food, then took turns sipping a little sour mash while we watched the fire burn down. By the time it was just embers, all was quiet, apart from the ambient forest noises of course, and since it was coming to the end of spring, it was just about warm enough to make for

comfortable sleeping. I know I slept for at least a few hours because one minute it was coming up on midnight and the next time I checked my watch it was just past 2 in the morning. I rolled over in my sleeping bag then tried to get back to sleep but then the next thing I know I'm hearing the really faint sound of people talking and it sounded like it was coming from the direction of the trail. My first thought was, who hikes at 2 in the morning? And when I realized that they weren't actually passing us and were just hanging around on the trail near our campsite,

I started to get really nervous. I mean, we were in the middle of nowhere by that point, and the nearest town was maybe 3 or 4 miles away. If anything happened to us all the way out there, we'd basically be screwed. I slowly get out of my sleeping bag, then slowly unzip my tent, trying to make as little noise as possible. Then the second I emerge from my tent, I see my friend peeking out of his tent in the exact same way. The moon was really bright that night, and although I couldn't exactly see him perfectly, I could see enough to know that as soon as I looked at him, he basically moved a finger to his mouth, telling me to keep quiet. Then he used the same hand to motion in the direction of the trail. Seconds later, the voices go silent, but they're replaced by the sound of footsteps getting louder and louder as whoever it was got closer and closer to us.

Then, we see them. There were four dark shapes, moving slowly and quietly directly towards our camp. They had no lights, they're obviously trying not to be heard and although I couldn't quite tell how big they were or what they look like, the fact they outnumber us was enough to have me straight up panicking. I shot back inside my tent, not really caring if they could hear me at that point, and immediately grabbed the survival knife that I kept stashed under my bedroll. It wasn't much in terms of something to defend myself with as the blade was only maybe three inches long, but it was either that or just rely on my fists. We were then forced to watch as the dark shapes walked right up onto our campsite,

then all just stood there for a moment before my buddy finally switched on his flashlight and shined it in their direction. Instantly this one guy was like, Get that flashlight off me! But I got a good enough look at the group to know that they were not your average happy-go-lucky trail walkers. I then asked the group what they wanted, and they didn't answer us for a few seconds. They just sort of looked at each other in the low light before the same guy spoke up again, asking if we had any food to spare. Having packed as lightly as possible for the long trip, we only had a few extra mountain house MRE style meals. I remember neither of us responded at first and I know we

both had a really bad feeling that these people wanted way more than just food. But eventually, I kinda backed up in my tent and fished around for one of my MREs, which I then tossed in front of the group while still holding my survival knife tight in my hand. I think my suspicions were pretty much confirmed when one of the group just picked the food up and held on to it. You'd think that someone hungry enough to beg for food would just devour any given to them right then and there. But these guys didn't seem even remotely appreciative or in need of the food we gave them. They obviously wanted something else. After we gave them the food I didn't think that they'd just thank us and walk away, and I was proven right on that one. The group of four just stood there in complete silence as the

tension in the air ramped up. The silence was only broken again when my buddy asked them why they were out so late. They told us it was better to hike late at night, which is most definitely not true. Then, when we asked them why they weren't using a flashlight, they told us that they didn't need one, and that they knew the trail well enough to navigate it in the darkness. Now, on paper this might sound like harmless, even friendly conversation, but I can promise you, the tone of the guy's voice, who was the only one who ever spoke, was definitely not friendly. It was this dry, emotionless tone, with just a hint of mischief to it,

almost like the guy was enjoying the fact that he could hear anxiety in our voices. He then asked us if we had any money, and although we had a couple of bucks each on us to spend when we finished our hike, we just told them no because we knew they'd just ask to have it. The guy is then like, you sure you don't have any money? Then before we can even answer, one of the other shapes speaks up and asks, you guys got any girls with you? That one really sent a chill through me. No man has ever asked that question with innocent intentions and it gave us both an idea of what the group were really after. After telling them no, I really wanted to just ask them to leave,

but at the same time I knew doing so would be a show of complete weakness. It was basically a standoff at that point. Either we did something to actually get them to want to leave, or they might just hang around until they got tired of checking us out and got to do something we really wouldn't want them to do. But right as I can feel myself starting to literally shake with adrenaline, my buddy says something like, so you guys don't have food, don't keep a flashlight, do you guys even have a gun? At the word gun, each of the shapes turns to look in the direction of my buddy's tent. They didn't say anything in response.

They just looked as if waiting for my buddy to produce one. We didn't actually have a gun with us at the time, just a can of bear mace for any wild animal encounters, but that didn't stop my buddy from talking a good game. You guys don't have a gun, he continued. Dude, it's not safe out here without one. That's, I hear, black bears get real hungry around this time of the year, so we always make sure to come here packing. Isn't that right? I ended up murmuring something in the affirmative just to keep up the

charade. Then I listened to my buddy yammering on nervously about how he was packing a rifle and a pistol while I had his shotgun stashed in my tent. Again, I just agreed and went along with it and started to feel real hopeful when one of the shadowy group took the tiniest step backwards as if they hadn't been expecting us to be armed. A few more moments of silence passed before one of the shapes who hadn't spoke yet whispered something really low to his group. I couldn't hear exactly what it was, but I can take a real good guess. But seconds later, the main guy said something like, Well, we'd love to stay and talk, but I think we should be on our way.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief at hearing that. Not literally, of course, but knowing we might have talked our way out of a very sticky situation was just a weight off my shoulders. As the group walked off, my buddy kept up the confident facade and then told them something like, Well, that's a shame, but feel free to come back and visit during daylight tomorrow. It sure would be nice to see all your faces. Yeah, maybe we'll do that. The guy responded, and I swear you could hear the frustration in his voice. They were obviously hoping we were just a couple of clueless hikers, which I suppose is exactly what we were, and that they were planning on either robbing us, beating us, or something bad like that. And they couldn't risk it if we had guns, though, and they knew it.

Even if they had ones themselves, they must have been relying on the prospect of us being unarmed, scared, and helpless. You know, as they say, have a monopoly on violence. As soon as they were out of sight, we got to packing up our camp as quickly and quietly as we could. At one point, I remember whispering to my buddy about how they might still be watching or listening to us, and this was his cue to start bluffing again. He started talking loudly about how much ammo we had left, how I should be careful with that shotgun as we were packing up. Even throughout the... Those guys were lucky I didn't just light them up as soon as they walked into camp.

I don't know what the hell they were thinking rolling up in the middle of the night like that. I definitely felt a little more nervous at how seemingly confrontational he was being, but if it gave us a fighting chance of getting out of there without having to fight, it was good enough for me. To this day, what happened that night remains the creepiest, most unnerving thing that's ever happened to me on a hiking trip, and I've been on so many that I've literally lost count at this point. I'll always bring a gun with me these days, whenever I'm able to anyway, because,

God forbid, if anything like that ever happens again, I don't want to have to bluff about being able to protect myself. I've had a stalker for about four years. He was never aggressive or sent me proper threats, so, stubborn as I am, I did my best to ignore him and not give him the satisfaction of showing him any fear. To be honest, after a while I also wasn't scared anymore since he almost never came close to me. I know being stalked can affect people severely even in a case like mine and that's totally valid, but I guess I just got lucky and was never really

psychologically affected by it. His stalking behavior mostly just consisted of sending me letters and gifs such as photos of my own apartment building from the outside, things he dug out of my trash can and so on. I called the police many times but they weren't able to or really tried to be honest to catch or identify him. About three weeks ago I discovered the German version of r slash ima and thought that people might want to know about what it's like having a stalker. Since I barely use any social media aside from Reddit

and have no personally identifying information here, I didn't think that he'd ever see it. One person even asked, doesn't he know you're putting him on blast on Reddit? And I answered, maybe. Maybe it would make him angry. Maybe he'd be turned on. I don't know.

Don't care. Well, I know the real answer now. He did see it. And he did not like it. Like I said, he was never aggressive and never came close to me. The closest I know of was when he sent me a picture of myself unlocking my apartment door taken from the corner of my steps above. Sorry if that doesn't make sense, I'll continue to explain here, but I consider myself a pretty

vigilant person and I'm thinking that he might have hit a camera there instead of being there to take the photo himself. I think I would have noticed him if he did. I don't know how he got wind of the AMA, but he did. The next week was quiet. No letters and I didn't see him anywhere. Then he left me letters with printed out questions in my questions from the AMA. He also left me a long hateful letter towards my boyfriend about an issue I had posted on the German version of AITA. His letters were never hateful like that, though he never seemed happy with my boyfriend. He wrote about how I should share the spotlight with him since I got so much attention thanks to him. A few days later I got a gift, but this time he didn't leave it in my mailbox or at my car like

he usually did, no. This time he left it inside the apartment building right in front of my door. I didn't take it inside my apartment but opened it up outside. It was a pretty big box which was also unusual and it was taped shut. As I'm typing it out I realized that it wasn't a good idea at all and could have ended really badly for me, but lucky he didn't send me a bomb or anything. He did, however, send me several zip ties, a roll of tape, the kind you use to tape off walls when painting, nothing you could use to restrain someone, a TV remote with most buttons picked off, a pack of band-aids with a few used ones,

not actually, just made to look like that way according to the police, and a framed picture of me. I could tell the picture was taken a few days ago and my boyfriend was next to me but cut out the photo. The frame was shattered and the package was full of glass shards, clearly more than just what could have fallen out of the frame and they were also intentionally put inside the crumpled newspaper that was stuffed in there to keep it all in place. I called the police right away and gave it to them. They were more concerned this time, finally thank god, and told me that they'd send patrol cars more frequently. He didn't show up or leave me any letters or gifts for about another week and a half. But eight days ago, it started again. I found letters in my mailbox where he wrote about

how he wasted his time on me, how I haven't been appreciating his effort, how he was wrong about me being special. Five days ago, I left my apartment in the morning and I heard a crunch sound as I stepped on my doormat. He put broken glass under it in the night. I went off to work because I was in a hurry and was just going to make my boyfriend call the police, but then I found my car had also been vandalized. The sides were scratched, lights smashed, and the windshield had a phrase painted on it. It's time soon, miss, and then my last name. I went back inside and called the cops myself. They found the same phrase on a note under the doormat. This time they really,

really, really took me seriously, which might have been because I was just angry at that point, which I made very clear. If for some reason you're like me and just too stubborn to be afraid of a stalker like mine, then all of this, the letters, gifs, photos, even the glass under my doormat are just really annoying and inconvenient. But my car was useless to me now and the threat actually scared me. I did however have a dashcam in my car and it caught everything. The police said they'd take the footage as evidence, even though the dashcam footage wasn't of it caught everything. The police said they'd take the footage as evidence even though the dashcam footage wasn't of high quality and I had given them photos of him that were just as good as before but they said it's not enough and they told me that they'll look

into it further and promise to send more patrol cars again and then it was quiet for two more days. Until two days ago someone rang the doorbell at just after 4am. My boyfriend and I got up but we were both hesitant but I saw blue lights outside and just as I got up I heard them shouting, this is the police, please open the door. They told us that they were called by one of our downstairs neighbors who came home from his night shift about a few hours earlier and heard someone else enter the building after them right before they felt the door shut. My neighbors know of my situation and I ask them to make sure that they don't let strangers into the building. This neighbor then went into his own apartment and looked through the peephole.

We have motion activated lights in the stairways so he waited to see if they turned back on. And they did. Then he saw a middle aged man walk upstairs. Above this neighbor is only me and my boyfriend and a single mom with three kids who probably won't be getting any visitors at 3am. So we called the police. They came and found my stalker one half floor above me on the stairs. He should have been able to see the cop cars since there's a little window up there and they had their lights on but he either missed them or wanted to get caught. They found a pocket knife on him and he confessed to being my stalker

right away. He's finally caught. They got him. It took four years, a provocative reddit post, and one very vigilant and caring neighbor, but he's finally done. For now, at least. He's facing several charges, and I've collected every single piece of evidence over the past four years. I don't know what kind of outcome I can expect, but for now, I've finally got some peace. I'm a 28 year old female and have lived in the same apartment for 4 years. My neighbors in the unit above me are a couple in their 30s who have lived there for about 3 years with no issues between us. During the past 6 months I've noticed some changes in their behaviors. At first, it was just a few days per week. I'd hear music with heavy bass accompanied by rhythmic

jumping. I assume they bought an exercise bike or something, but sometimes the jumping gets so intense that it shakes my overhead light fixtures. The jumping routine has been escalating to the point that it takes place every day, normally between 8am and 10am. I also noticed that they called 1-800-JUNK and got rid of a lot of nice possessions. However, I figured none of this was my business, so I kept my observations to myself. About three weeks ago, everything escalated. Multiple times per week, on weekdays and during working hours, it sounds like they're

hosting a mini Burning Man event in their apartment. The music is so loud and clear that it sounds as if though I'm at a concert while sitting in my living room. There's clearly a lot of people involved because the jumping and stomping shakes multiple light fixtures and cabinets. The music is a mix of new age and spiritual vibes, dance beats, and a male voiceover giving weird instructions like, rebrand yourself, surrender yourself, stomp stomp in response. I've taken audio recordings on my phone and one video from the hallway during these events, and I still didn't complain to the building, but I wanted evidence in case it became a regular thing. This week I've encountered a big problem.

The couple above me has a private patio which is directly above my bedroom. I came home from a three day trip out of town yesterday and my ceiling is legitimately collapsing in one corner. Big chunks of plaster had fallen to the ground and I saw a little water. I immediately called my superintendent since I don't want to be buried alive by ceiling rubble if it gives out. When he came to check it out, he was shocked and livid. He said that the woman in the couple appears to be working with some people doing workshops or something. He can see their patio from his apartment window and has

watched the group do these dancing and jumping and dirt rituals out there on a weekly basis. He said they all dance and jump to the music and then spread dirt, along with something else, he doesn't know what it is, across the patio on a weekly basis. He believes that the dirt, or this unknown substance combination is getting through the wooden cracks, absorbing water, and weighing down my ceiling. In order to fix my problem, my super has said that he had to go talk to the woman, check out their patio, and ultimately hire a contractor to pull up the wood to scrape out whatever the hell is causing my ceiling to fall. I could hear them talking from my room, and the woman sounded distraught and defensive. When my super left, he called me and warned me that she might try to come down to my apartment and demand to see the damage, but don't let her in.

This was a little concerning to me. Is she a threat? The damage is real, I wouldn't mind showing her. She started playing her music again relatively loud, kind of like a warning shot. I mentioned the music and jumping to the super and said that I had audio recordings, and he started begging me to send the evidence to the front office. It sounds like he wants them evicted. I said, okay, sure. I hate to be a rat, but if I had to choose sides, I'd side with the building that dictates my annual rent price. And he called me twice more that afternoon to confirm that I'd shared my evidence and I said yes.

Shortly after everything went down, I left my apartment to run an errand. The woman was outside just standing on the sidewalk and stared at me the whole time as I walked by. I ignored her. This isn't my fault. Today, I went to run another quick errand in the neighborhood and when I returned, the couple was again standing on the sidewalk, both of them this time, and they followed me into the building and then waited until I was opening my apartment door to confront me. They were both wearing creepy fake smiles. The woman has horse girl hair down to her waist and started interrogating me. They asked, is your ceiling really collapsing? When did it start? Do you think it was related

to the recent rainfall? Because our patio is just fine. I was a little uncomfortable. Were they waiting for me outside? How did they know that I even left the building? Why were they both standing there? I'd literally never seen them enter together in their three years of living here. But I have nothing to hide, so I confirm the damage is pretty bad. I just don't want it to fall during the winter. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully the work will be done quickly for everyone's sake. They seem satisfied enough, so I said for them to have a good day and shut my door. I'm getting the sense that they're nervous about what the contractors will find when they tear open their patio.

I mean, what the F is up with the dirt rituals? Who are these people that she's working with? I don't know what they look like or why they're available to stomp around on weekdays. The repair work has started on both sides, but the contractors will come on Wednesday for the grand reveal of what's under the patio that's making my ceiling collapse. In the meantime, I feel like I need to be alert and keep my eyes out for these people as well as the couple. It's unusual for me to see them in general, especially twice in two days. They seem scared and in denial of the problem. They also literally ambushed me and hopefully it's over soon.

My only question is, do I live below a cult leader and did I just anger them? The contractors came today and reported that there was, in fact, dirt and sludge visible below the neighbor's patio. However, thanks to the help of my internet sleuthing friend, I've gained a lot more insight into the realm that dwells above me. As one redditor suggested, and nice work, my neighbor is affiliated with multiple ecstatic dance communities, both international and local.

The international group has planned events during which all cells of the organization host dance sessions simultaneously. It also has a YouTube channel that streams psytrance music 24-7. I've listened to a portion of it and a female voiceover declared, you are becoming the game master. Meanwhile, the local groups seem to be more exclusive and more radical in their mindset. One of the local groups, hosted be more exclusive and more radical in their mindset. One of the local groups, hosted by my neighbor's good friend, conducts three-day events that cost upwards of $400 for admission. Participation in all three days is mandatory. I get the impression they all sleep in the studio space, and the event description mentions that it begins with a ritual. The last and darkest affiliation that I have confirmed via social media footprints is that my neighbor and a few members of the local communities are also involved with some

compassionate death groups. There is no way for me to verify at this time if these affiliations overlap in a meaningful way, so I will simply state the facts that I have evidence to prove. My super asked me about the jumping again when I saw him today. He remains eager to act. He agreed with my new game plan to wait for another large event to happen and then call him to check on my dishwasher so he can intervene. So for now, the ways in which the puzzle pieces of ecstatic dance, compassionate death, patio dirt rituals, and ceiling collapse connect will remain a mystery. For some context, I'm a 32 year old female.

This happened to me when I was about 25 or 26. I worked full time as a researcher at a university, which is where these encounters took place. I'm not a professor or anything, and because of my age at the time, I could have easily been mistaken for just another student wandering around campus. On some days, when the weather was nice, I would prefer to spend my lunch hour strolling around the university grounds outside or sitting underneath a shady tree on a bench, enjoying the time that I was not sitting in a cramped corner of a lab. On one of these days, I was sitting on a bench enjoying the fresh air

and a male student walking by asked if he could sit next to me. I'm a pretty shy and awkward kind of person, so even though I really would have preferred sitting alone I said sure. He initiated simple conversation to which I obliged but being careful to not be too forthcoming. He mentioned that he had seen which department building I came and went from which slightly alarmed me given that I had never seen this person before in my life but I pushed the thought from my mind. After all, the weather had been decent lately and I had spent nearly all my lunch hours for the past week

outside. He asked if I was studying within the mentioned department, to which I told him that I was not a student, but rather I worked there. He told me that he was an engineering student, and then followed up with asking me out to coffee sometime. I apologized and told him that I had a boyfriend and would have to decline. We parted ways after that and I assumed that I probably wouldn't see him around again. About a week or two went by and I was spending another lunch hour outside on campus, sitting on a different bench somewhere. Seemingly out of nowhere, the same man from before asked if he could sit next to me again. Admittedly, I don't remember what he started talking to me about at first. My mind was

reeling and I was rather uncomfortable having to potentially turn this guy down a second time. Sure enough, he asked me again if we could go out for coffee sometime. I apologized and reminded him that I had a boyfriend and would not be meeting him for coffee. Again, he left after that. I was feeling rather anxious now, but it still hadn't reached a level where I felt that I had to be too concerned. A few days later, I had finished work and was leaving the building to walk to where I had parked my car. The universities charge a fortune for parking passes even if you're employed by them, so I had always opted for free street parking about a 10 minute walk

away from campus. My walking route would take me down several quiet residential streets with minimal car traffic. Even pedestrian traffic was pretty sparse on the busiest of days. It wasn't until I was about halfway to my car down one of these quiet back streets that I noticed someone walking directly across the street from me but keeping a few paces behind. I noticed him from my peripheral vision and didn't want to flat out turn around to stare at him. It wasn't uncommon to see someone else by any means, I was just always trying to be aware of my surroundings when walking the streets alone. I had to make a few turns coming up anyways and the chance that they would be going the same way as me was slim.

But he did. He made all the turns I did, still walking on the sidewalk across from me, a few steps behind. I still did not want to look at whoever this was. I didn't want him to know that I was aware of what I thought he was doing. I quickened my pace to a speedy walk. I was approaching the first of two busier streets before I would reach my car. His pace quickened to keep up with me, and this was the moment that I panicked. The moment that I was sure that he was indeed following me. After that, I started a full out jog to cross the first of the busier streets. He ran to keep up behind me and was now on the same side of the street I was.

I was now nearly at my car. I had to cross the last busy street and get about a hundred meters and I would be there. But it was crossing the street that worried me. I often had to stop and wait a good minute or so before it was clear enough to do so. If this were the case, he would catch up with me. As if the stars aligned, as soon as I made it running to the busy street, I had a gap to cross. I booked it as fast as I could, finally turning around once I had made it to look and yell at the man who had been pursuing me.

It was him. I could have suspected, but now it was confirmed. It was the engineering student whom I had turned down for coffee. Stop following me, I yelled at him from across the busy street. Can I just talk to you? He yelled back. I didn't even answer him. I mean, the answer should have been obvious from the start, and I was certainly never going to give my time to anyone who would just follow and then chase me for about a kilometer. I keep moving quickly to my car, so determined to get the hell out of there that I didn't even care if he saw which car was mine. He had given up following me and never tried to cross the road too, to my relief. I got home and broke down. I mean, worse things had happened to other people no doubt and I wasn't

harmed fortunately, but I was shook. I had some anxieties walking to and from work after that. It wasn't long before a co-worker and I would walk most of the distance back to our cars together after work. I even changed where I started parking for a time. A few weeks had passed since the incident and I had not seen him around campus at all. I had started spending my lunches in the lab instead of outside, but occasionally I would go to the student center to buy lunch instead. This one particular day, the food court in the student center was packed, almost shoulder to shoulder. I was standing in line at a burger stall and I heard a guy try and get someone's attention through the crowd. I look up and it's him again, waving to me and trying to

make his way through the people. I panicked, and even though I'm terribly shy, I started a scene and yelled at him to leave me the F alone. His face dropped instantly as people stared at us and he slinked back into the sea of students. My heart was pounding and I was shaking. I don't even remember if I ended up getting food after that. I went back to work and from then on was even more focused on my surroundings than I ever was before. It's been five or six years since then now, and I still work at the university. I'm so relieved to say that I never saw him again after the food court and hadn't had any other harrowing accounts on campus.

I'm still diligent about being aware of my surroundings, especially when I have to walk to and from campus alone. I never asked the guy his name, so I couldn't even report an incident to campus police or anything. All in all, I'm just glad that I never saw him again, and I can only hope he never did this to any other girl before or after me. To give a little context, I used to work in an apartment complex. As a result, I've had my fair share of creepy encounters. Most residents keep to themselves and don't cause issues, probably about 95%. But the other 5% took up almost all my time. Isaac was one of the 5%.

When he first rented his apartment, he definitely had stoner vibes, but he was nice enough and passed his background check. Almost immediately, however, he started causing issues. The lady next door complained that she could smell his smoke constantly. The guy downstairs complained that he could hear his stereo all hours of the day and night. Another resident accused him of following him home one night. The police were regularly there breaking up fights between him and his girlfriends. We caught him hiding two large dogs in his apartment and he regularly let them run loose, which ultimately resulted in another dog

and two people getting attacked. He accidentally discharged a gun in his apartment once. Needless to say, he caused a lot of issues. At first he was very apologetic and said that he would make an effort to remedy the problems. But things kept getting worse and after a year of weekly calls or notices from the office, he eventually became standoffish. One morning I received a call from Isaac letting me know that he'd broken up with one of his girls and she wouldn't leave the apartment. He asked me to personally come up and remove her. I'm a small woman, so even if I wanted to take the risk, I physically wouldn't be capable of wrestling an angry woman out of his apartment.

I suggested that he call the police. He then asked if I could make a maintenance man come up to remove her. I ordered to call the police on his behalf, but Isaac said that he didn't want to involve them and hung up. A few hours later, Isaac came down to the office with a jump drive and said that he needed to print out a 50 plus page document. Residents weren't technically allowed to use our office printer, but on the rare occasion someone asked to, I usually didn't say no. It was an easy way to build up good rapport. But between Isaac becoming such a problem tenant and how large his document was, I told him I couldn't print his document. I gave him the excuse that our

paper slash toner slash print history was monitored and we would get in trouble for printing such a large document out for him. Not liking my answer, he started screaming about how it was BS and he accused me of being useless, bringing up my refusal to fight his ex and power tripping. He called me all sorts of terrible names multiple times and said someone needed to bring me down a peg. I was pretty over him at this point and told him that if he was going to behave like a child that he needed to leave. He told me that I couldn't make a move and bluntly I told him that he would leave or I would call the police and have him removed. I also told him that I would ban him from the office going forward. Normally I tried to kill the residents with kindness but his lease was ending in a week and I didn't care anymore if

he hated me. My threat seemed to work. He angrily knocked my pen holder over then slammed both doors hard as he left. The following morning, a cop was waiting for me when I got to work. He asked if Isaac was a resident and I confirmed he was. The officer explained that the body of a teen had been discovered the day before and Isaac was the prime suspect. He was the last person to text the kid asking him to meet him where his body was found shortly after the message. The police believed Isaac had been paid to kill him

and based on the timing of the text and when the boy was discovered, Isaac would have had to have left my office and gone directly there. Ultimately, the police wanted to use Isaac's move-out day as an opportunity to try and catch him. To nobody's surprise, he didn't show up. When I walked to his apartment to inspect for damage, there was a lot. I found a bank receipt from the day of the murder. Someone had wired him $17,000. I thankfully never saw Isaac again, and he was caught in another country a few months later, and thankfully is rotting in prison. So I'm not exactly sure where to post this, but I feel like this might be the best spot for it.

I recently moved out into an apartment building all the way up to the top floor. My balcony is at the back of the building, and the view is mostly trees, but there's some houses and a street directly behind the apartment building so I can see that too and I hope that makes sense. I usually sit out on my balcony at night getting high and listening to music. At night the view is just darkness aside from the house porch lights and the road lit up by street light. Most of the road view is covered by trees but I can see a good amount of it. There's also no light for my balcony so at night I just sit in the dark aside from the light coming from my phone. So anyway, I was sitting there at around 10pm or so like I usually do and I noticed movement from

the road. When I looked down, I saw someone running down the road, like really fast. From my distance, it looked like this person was running faster than any human should. I was just watching when this person just stopped under a street lamp. Under the light, I could tell this person was a man. I also realized this person was now looking up at me. I got nervous, but I didn't move because I thought I could just be overthinking and maybe this guy wasn't actually looking directly at me. How could he? My phone wasn't on so I was pretty much sitting in complete darkness. Could he really see me from all the way down there?

I just kept sitting there, hoping the guy would leave but then I saw him waving at me. Now I knew he was looking at me. I was too uncomfortable to do anything and couldn't even go back inside. I just sat there, getting increasingly nervous. My thoughts started running wild. I thought this guy might find my apartment and try to break in. I also thought that they would somehow just sprint forward and climb up the building to get to me or something.

But as I kept staring at this guy waving at me, a sudden feeling of dread came over me. That was when I started grabbing my things to go back inside. But then I saw that he stopped waving. He reached both of his arms out to the side and started swaying his body side to side, bending his knees as he moved and wiggling his arms around like a weird dance move. At this point, I was incredibly unsettled and just wanted to go back inside, but I was also slightly intrigued in a way and I guess I wanted to see what he might do next. Soon, the feelings of dread and unease took over and continued closing up all of my stuff and I went inside. There was a window in the room next to the balcony where you could see down to the same area so I peeked outside trying to stay hidden behind

the wall. I saw this guy still moving around, side to side, but he soon stopped and I saw him just start booking it down the road again. I made sure my front door was locked and I went back to my room, locking the bedroom door as well. The bedroom window looks out to the same direction so I made sure that the guy was gone and closed my curtains. I didn't really sleep that night. I couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that I had. This happened a couple of nights ago and I haven't seen this guy since then. I've still been sitting out in the balcony but I've been getting really paranoid when I'm out there at night so I don't stay out for as long as I but I've been getting really paranoid when I'm out there at night, so I don't stay out for as long as I did.

I don't really know what to make of this whole thing. I don't know who that guy was, or maybe what he was. I get really uncomfortable and paranoid when I think about that night, like I'm back in that moment feeling those exact feelings again. Also, since then, I get occasional waves of dread, like at times throughout the day I get the feeling that I'm being watched. I hope this feeling goes away soon, and I'm really hoping I don't see a girl named Lucy. She was a very lonely kind of girl whose parents were, well, honestly, really bad.

Her mother was verbally abusive and her father really couldn't care less about anything. Because of the lack of love in her life, Lucy searched through dating sites for love and comfort from strange men and she was not afraid of meeting them face to face even if they'd been chatting for only a few days. My friendship with Lucy was a strange one. I found her quite annoying sometimes but I also felt awful for her because of her loneliness and lack of friends and love in her life. Sometimes I really didn't want to hang out with her and some days I would accept her offer to hang out. When it was just her and I together she was normal and okay to be around but also very appreciative of having someone giving her attention. We had a small group of friends and she would try to get all of us together as often as possible

and honestly the whole group together was really quite fun. When we were all together Lucy was very hyper and you could just tell that she was happy to be around people who didn't insult her as much as her mother did. Suddenly, Lucy tells us that she has a boyfriend and we were all surprised because we knew that she had met a lot of guys online but we had never heard her say that she was dating someone. A few days later, she sets up a day for our friend group to meet Trevor. None of us were looking forward to it because we thought that he was just going to be like all the others, just some temporary boy toy. When we met him, we all felt kind of awkward. He barely spoke a word,

he wouldn't look directly at any of us, Lucy would try to be funny, but he would just give her dirty looks. Needless to say, we thought that he was a weird one and could tell that he didn't care much for her. As the days went on, Lucy kept telling me how much Trevor did not like me. And this was weird because no one ever really did dislike me. I'm always polite, respectful, and I smile a lot at everyone. But for some reason, he did not like me. He kept saying that he thinks I'm using Lucy for her money. Not sure how he thought that since I paid for everything for Lucy. And to keep this piece of the story short, I think he was trying to find reasons to convince her to get rid of me. I got a terrible vibe from Trevor. He dressed like he

didn't care about life and he never smiled. He didn't shake our hands when first meeting us and he stank of weed and really had an overall uncomfortable feeling about him. After months of Trevor trying to convince Lucy that I am a terrible friend and she should not hang out with me anymore, she started to do as he said. She would start to hide me from him. If she and I were together and he would call her on her phone, she would lie and say that I wasn't there. If she was with a group of friends, he would have her swear that I wasn't there. When he was going to be joining the group on an outing or just hanging out at her place, she would tell me that I couldn't come. Lucy would do whatever a boyfriend says just to keep pleasing him so she doesn't lose them.

And now here's where it gets scary. Lucy calls me one day and says that she wants me to come hang out at her place. I agreed. She came to pick me up and we went to her house and watched TV for a bit. We then decided that since it's a nice day outside that we could take her two dogs for a walk to a nearby pocket park and would later return to the house to have lunch together. While at this park, she receives a phone call. Now let me say that Lucy is not a private person whatsoever and has never ever walked away to answer a phone call until this day. She walked far enough away that she knew that I would not be able to hear anything she said. This was suspicious to me, but not enough to question it. The call ends and she begins walking towards me

with a look on her face as if she was trying not to smile. She tells me, So, I need to bring you home now. I was slightly confused as we had only been together for about an hour when we usually spend the entire day together and she would never want me to go home and she would even frequently beg me to sleep over to avoid being alone. So anyways, I said okay and we walked to drop off her dogs at home and we got into her car and off we went. About ten minutes into the car ride I realized that she isn't going in the direction of my house so i questioned it where are we going she smirked but didn't respond i asked again laughing uncomfortably

seriously where are we going she continued to smirk but didn't want to answer i started to realize that she was heading in the direction of where her boyfriend lived. Oh god no. And I asked one last time with anger in my voice. Where are you taking me? Her only response was bone chilling to me. Trevor wants to talk to you. No.

No, no, no. I wasn't having any of this. I insisted and demanded that she let me out of the car, but with her evil smirk and same response, she said it again. It's okay, he just wants to talk to you. I was furious at this point because this creepy guy who looks like he wants to kill someone, who also despised me, wanted to talk to me. Why can't he talk to me on the phone? Why do I need to go to his sketchy apartment? She absolutely refused to

let me out of the car. She had the doors locked, as if I wasn't able to unlock my passenger door. I waited until she reached a red light. I grabbed her wallet from the back seat and took out her bus pass and bolted out of the car. I had no idea where I was or where the nearest bus stop was, but I was not about to let her crazy boyfriend do whatever he wanted to me. She yelled for me to get back into the car, but of course I ignored her, and she sped off furiously. I immediately blocked her number on my phone and removed her as a friend on social media

and immediately warned the group of friends not to talk to her because she's gone nuts. I've not spoken to her since that very day and she also lost the other five friends of the group as well. After this situation, Lucy, I hope you're truly lonely now. Yesterday my daughter, who's 8 years old, and I went to one of those app-based games. It's like a scavenger hunt, but digital. We had to follow the map. It asked questions and we had to solve riddles and things like that. The theme is one of our favorite books and movies. She and I went to the game with some of our friends and their kids

about the same age. There were hundreds of people in costumes roaming around downtown, trying to save the person in the game. My daughter has a very rare health issue. I won't go into details for privacy reasons. Everything was fine and then she wasn't and we had to leave early before the game was done. So we start our walk back to our car that was in a parking garage ran by the city. We took our time. The elevator was broken so we had to walk up three floors. I tell the daughter that we will take our time and her equipment is in the car. As we are walking to the stairwell, a man follows us in. The hair on my neck stands up. I get a chill and goosebumps all over. I carry pepper spray on my key ring. I tell my daughter to walk in front of me and take

her time. I unlock the trigger on the pepper spray. This man could have walked around us at any time, but he didn't. He stayed right behind us. When we got to the third level, I had my arm locked right around hers. Our car is the first one, right there next to the stairwell. He follows us out to the door. I quickly unlock my car and pretty much toss her inside and close the door. I turn around to face him. He looks at me, doesn't say a word, and walks back into the stairwell. There was no one in the parking garage. All the employees had already left for the day. There are no cameras in this specific garage. If I would have known that, I would have picked a different one. Now I even wonder if the elevator was really broken

because I don't remember seeing signs on the door when we got there. We didn't ride the elevator down because my daughter likes taking the stairs, but going down is way easier for her than going up. I've been meaning to post this here for a while, and I wrote my first draft back in April, so it's taken a long time and a lot of therapy for me to be able to think about this experience. I've noticed how many people's stories take place over weeks, months, even years, so I'm here to tell you that mine was 12 hours of my life. I managed to block out a lot of the memories surrounding this night, but early this year I was mugged and my PTSD returned, as did a lot of the missing memories of those 12 hours. This is the first time I'm telling anyone the full story of what happened to me. I haven't told my partner, my therapist, my parents.

No one knows the details. If there's anything that should be taken away from my story, it's this. Remember that you don't need to be polite to everyone you meet. In October 2018, I was age 18 and my first year at university in a big city in the UK. I had always lived in the countryside before this, so was never very street smart. About a year before I went to university, I had started a relationship with this guy, Jimmy, now my ex. It was my first real relationship and I thought the world of him but it was not reciprocated in a loving and compassionate way. Jimmy started off as very emotionally abusive and got progressively worse but that's a whole other story. At this point Jimmy and I had

been together just under a year and had applied to universities in the same city mostly by coincidence and both moved to the same city. I wanted to have a proper student life so got accommodations in a student block on the other side of the city to him. Jimmy had been using drugs for quite a while initially starting off just smoking weed, but this progressed rapidly and by the time we were at uni, he was regularly doing a lot of hard drugs plus smoking weed multiple times a day. Honestly, I don't think he was ever not high. When we moved to university, we still saw each other every couple of days and he found a regular drug dealer, Mark, that had been

using continually since we got there in September. Jimmy used to buy from Mark multiple times a week so on a handful of occasions I had briefly met him. Mark lived a lot closer to my student accommodation than to Jimmy's so a couple of weeks before this all happened, Jimmy had started picking up drugs from Mark when he came to see me, meaning Mark would often be outside of my accommodation. Jimmy had asked me a few times if I would pick up the drugs that he bought from Mark, but I always felt weird speaking to Mark on my own, plus I rarely smoked weed, so I felt very weird picking up drugs in general. 6pm. One day, at the end of October, Jimmy had plans to come and see me that evening and asked me again if I would pick up some weed for Mark. I was in a good mood

that day and feeling more confident than usual, so for the first time I agreed to it. Jimmy gave me Mark's number and said that Mark would message me when he was on his way. Only around 10 minutes later I got a message from Mark saying that he was nearly outside my apartment and I needed to go outside, so I did. Outside of my accommodation there was a quieter area with a lot of benches, so I sat and waited for him. Behind me was only a wall and a small contained area that had all of the bins for the building. Out of nowhere, I felt someone's hands on my shoulders in a really weird, creepy way. I jumped, obviously, and realized that it was Mark, who I barely recognized as I had only briefly seen him a couple of times.

I realized now that my back had been to the wall and the bin storage, so he must have been waiting there. I was immediately on guard because of how he touched my shoulders especially because i didn't know him so i shifted away from him as he sat down next to me he began talking to me as if we were buddies asking me a million and one questions about myself like deeply personal questions the whole time i was deflecting not wanting to give out any information so i started asking him questions instead. He began a really deep monologue about himself and his life where he openly told me that he had just gotten out of prison a few months before. It was for armed something, some kind of violent crime.

I engaged his ramblings, just nodding along, but still trying to get back to the whole point of just picking up drugs for my boyfriend. 7pm. I've always been able to talk to anyone and was always taught to be nice when someone is talking, so I ended up sitting there for around an hour trying to get the conversation back to the reason I was there, pick up drugs for my boyfriend and go. It was so long that it actually started getting dark. This guy just kept talking. I knew my boyfriend was going to be coming over soon, so I kept looking at my phone to see if he was on his way, but he hadn't replied. Eventually, I told Mark that I needed to get back inside as I was meeting up with my boyfriend soon, and then going clubbing after with some friends, so I needed to get ready, and I could just please pick up those drugs.

He then said, Oh, well, I could just please pick up those drugs. He then said, Oh, well, I can't give them to you here. There's CCTV everywhere. We can go inside and I'll give them to you, okay? I had witnessed him giving my boyfriend drugs in that same spot countless times before, so I knew this was nonsense. I didn't want Mark to come back to my apartment, so I told him that

he could go into the lobby of my building where there was a disabled bathroom and he could give them to me there. He agreed and followed me inside. He went into the bathroom, it was a very large room so I didn't have to be too close to him, and he locked the door behind us. He then began fiddling with something in his pocket, I assume the drugs, but instead pulled down his trousers, fully, and started peeing in the toilet. I was hugely freaked out. This guy just presented his entire self to me and began peeing, but I rationalized that there was no way that he had any sort of motive because he had just met me and my boyfriend together so he knew that I was in a relationship. I figured that he just really needed to pee.

I had kept my eyes shut the whole time and when he flushed I thought that he would finally give me the drugs that I was there to collect. And this whole thing had been going on for about an hour and a half by this point. He said, I really want to roll myself a joint but there's no space in here to do it. Can I come and roll it on your desk and then I'll give you Jimmy's stuff? I asked again if he could just give it to me now and he said no, saying that I was being rude for not inviting him in. By this point, I was wanting to get ready to go out with friends later that evening and knew my boyfriend would be coming by any minute, so figured that it'd be okay even though I didn't want this. It's worth noting that I was emotionally abused by my boyfriend and

knew that he would be mad at me if I didn't collect his drugs or if I annoyed Mark because he was his favorite dealer. I honestly figured that Mark was harmless despite him telling me that he was a violent criminal, FML, and just assured myself that he was only a bit creepy and it would be fine. 8pm. Reluctantly I took Mark up to my apartment, opened the door and let him in. I said that he had to roll his joint fast because I had to get ready. Finally, he gave me the drugs that my boyfriend wanted so I felt better at that point. He walked over to my desk, moved all my things to the side and sat down, getting out the things to roll his joint. I cannot roll a joint but I've seen Jimmy do it countless times so I know that it doesn't take more than a minute or so.

Mark keeps trying to talk to me but at this point my answers are getting shorter and shorter. He rolls this joint so slowly I can't even describe it. He then said, well, I can't smoke this outside, so is it cool if I just stay here and smoke it? It'll only take a few minutes to smoke. I said no and told him again that I had to get ready, and he replied, it's okay, you can get ready with me here. By this point I was over it. Messaged my boyfriend again to tell him to hurry up. Mark asked me again and in my frustration and wanting this guy out of my apartment I just said, Okay, sure, but be quick.

I then went out of my room into the shared kitchen. I only had two flatmates and no one else was in the apartment that night. I grabbed some wine and a glass so that I could have some solitary pre-drinks and return to my room. I sat for another 15 minutes being increasingly less polite but he kept talking to me. I drank my first glass of wine pretty fast and I just decided if Mark was going to take ages then I would just get ready to go out with my friends. I told him that as soon as he's finished smoking that he could just leave on his own, so I left him sat at the desk, took some clothes into the bathroom, and jumped into the shower. 9pm. Maybe a minute or so into the shower I heard some soft footsteps outside the door, and like a scene from a freaking horror movie, I saw the door handle slowly being

pushed down. Thank god I remembered to lock the door. All of a sudden Mark began banging on the door. I turned the shower off and just said, um, hi? through the door. And he shouted through the door asking to let him in because he needed to pee again. I obviously said no and just got dried and dressed. Thankfully I took clothes to the bathroom and as fast as I could. By this point I figured that there was no way that he was going to leave my apartment until I did so I did my makeup as fast as I physically could and messaged my friend that I'd be coming to theirs sooner than I had planned. I still hadn't got a reply from my boyfriend so I just told him that I was going out early and not to come over. I got ready to go and told Mark that I was

leaving now and he needed to come downstairs with me. He was still sat at my desk and ignored what I was saying. He asked if he could stay in my room while I was out because he was tired and wanted to take a nap. Finally I was firm with him and after a lot of convincing he left with me. I made sure to order an Uber to my friend's place so that he couldn't try and walk with me and by the time we got outside my Uber was nearly there. He stood with me, looking over my shoulder at my phone the whole time. Then the Uber arrived. I got into it and Mark straight up walked around the other side and got in. I was in disbelief and laughed, then told the Uber driver that I didn't know who

this guy was and that he wasn't getting in with me. The Uber was not as polite as me and told Mark to get out, and he did. 10pm. I sat there on the way to my friend's house and finally felt calm that I had gotten away from Mark. I called my friend from the Uber and told her what happened, so she said that she would come outside of her building to get me with a group of her flatmates. My friend's accommodation was not far from mine and took longer to get to by car than on foot because of the one-way system in the city, but I didn't care at this point. Maybe 10-15 minutes later I arrived and my friend came over to my Uber, then brought me back to her group of friends. She had quite a few people with her and I suddenly noticed that one of her male flatmates was talking to someone slightly away from the group. I looked over and suddenly realized that he was talking. To Mark.

I guess he was looking at the address when I had the Uber app opened earlier. I whispered to my friend and she freaked out and went inside with me straight away. I was super freaked out that this guy wouldn't just leave me alone. He refused to leave my side for the last few hours and now he had followed me to my friend's house. Honestly, I felt much safer now and met a few creeps in my time so just decided to get over it by having a nice time with my friend. So we sat in her kitchen having a chat and some drinks. 11pm. After a while talking to her, I almost forgot about what happened just an hour ago and was getting increasingly tipsy from the wine. The kitchen door opened and her male flatmate comes inside announcing that he invited a guy in who had given him free weed. You guessed it,

Mark walked in. Mark addressed me by name and walked over putting his hands around my waist from behind. I get pretty confident when I drink, so I had no problem pushing him off of me and announcing to everyone in a jokey way, yeah, this is the guy who's been following me around all evening. Don't even know him. Even in this room with all of my friends' flatmates, I still didn't feel safe. And he stayed away from me, looking at me for a while from the other side of the kitchen And I just ignored him My friend could tell that I was uncomfortable, so they suggested that we go and drink in her room Around 30 minutes after going into her room, the door slams open suddenly

And Mark is standing there He says, oh, I was looking for the bathroom. Can I use yours? My friend had an en suite. She tells him to get the F out, and he does. I'm honestly just bored of this guy's constant presence at this point, so we decide to just go to the club early. Midnight. We grab our stuff, run past the kitchen door and outside. My friend orders us an Uber and we get in and go to the club. After a while some of her flatmates join us but Mark does not, thank god. The people who had been in the kitchen said that Mark left shortly after he saw me and my friend leave but there was no sign of him now.

I just try and enjoy the night but being a poor student I can't afford any more drinks at the club. As I began to sober up I realized how shaken up and creeped out the whole evening had made me and I don't feel safe. 2 AM After only a couple of hours I decided I just wanted to go home and sleep because this whole experience freaked me out. I take an Uber back, use my keycard to get in my apartment building, go upstairs and into my apartment. I started getting ready for bed, put on some PJs and started taking off my makeup. All of a sudden, I hear a loud knock on my door. I had no clue who it was, but since it was still early-ish for a Friday night,

I thought that my boyfriend maybe finally decided to show up. My door didn't have a peephole so I walked to the door in my PJs, unlocked it, planning to open it a tiny bit to see who it was and then bam. The door flew open so fast that I was pushed backwards into my apartment and then shoved into my room which was directly across from the front door. In my panic I froze and looked up only to realize that Mark was now standing in my apartment. The realization started to sink in. Mark had just forced his way into my room and I was trapped here with him. He was visibly angry and very high. He locked the door behind him and began rambling about how I was so rude for not inviting him in with my friends, for ignoring him, for not letting him

in the Uber, etc. I was terrified, so I ran over to my bed and grabbed my phone. He walked over behind me and began grabbing me, touching me as much as he could so I shouted him to get off. He saw my phone in my hand and immediately smiled and told me to open the camera. I was terrified so I did as he said and he said he wanted a picture of us together. I did as I was told and took a selfie with him when he posed with his arms around me and then kissing my cheek and my neck. He then screamed at me to unlock my phone so I did. He made me open up my messages and send neck. He then screamed at me to unlock my phone, so I did. He made me open up my messages and send Jimmy the selfie of me and Mark

sat next to each other on my bed, so I did. He waited for it to send and then grabbed my phone and put it down on the desk. He sat at my desk for the next four to five hours talking at me, continually, saying how I was so rude, I needed someone to teach me some manners, how I had to do what he said because he was older than me, how Jimmy wasn't good enough for me, how I was so beautiful and how he knew that I needed to be with him. He told me that his girlfriend knew that he had been at my house that evening and now she said that he can't go home and

it was all my fault. The whole time I continued bargaining with him, trying to get him to leave, but it didn't work. Occasionally I would just lie down on my bed or sit and not speak. Each time I did, he would get up and wrap his arms around me and try and spoon me, stroking my face, trying to kiss me, and trying to take my clothes off and touch me. Every time I fought him off, he would get angry again and go and sit at the desk and keep shouting. I knew that this guy had previously been in prison for some kind of violent crime and so I didn't want to make him angry. I just sat there for hours and quietly sobbed, too scared of trying to leave because I would have had to have walked past him to get to

the door. I was out of options. I didn't know if I could get out without angering him. I couldn't call the police because he had my phone, and my flatmates weren't in so my screams meant nothing. 6 AM. While he was sat at my desk, he kept smoking more weed or taking a line of whatever drug, so he's becoming more and more out of it. It was becoming more sleepy as he smoked more weed until I was able to speak between his ramblings so I gently said that I was going to the bathroom. I noticed that he had his eyes partially closed and figured that I only had one chance so I took the opportunity and grabbed my phone off the desk as fast as I could,

unlocked the door and ran out of the apartment. The only thing I will always remember is being in tears, pressing the button for the elevator to come probably about 50 times because I was so scared that it was going to come after me. As I got into the elevator, I heard him come out of my apartment, shouting my name, but the elevator doors closed as he looked at me. I was able to get downstairs and out of the building. I ran around the corner of the building in my pajamas and manically dialed the number for the police and told them what happened and that this guy had been in prison until recently and the next thing I knew, around five police cars showed up. I was in such a state and called my boyfriend to tell him what happened. He was still

awake and hadn't come to visit the night before because he was with a girl who is his friend and said that now that he didn't want to come to be with me because he had some weed on him and didn't want to be near the police. I told him to get to my place now and he reluctantly did. The aftermath. The police had to force entry to my apartment because Mark had locked himself in and barricaded the door. They arrested him and he ended up going to prison for drug charges but not for what he did or tried to do to me. The police said they couldn't prosecute him because I had willingly let him into my apartment earlier in the night and he hadn't physically done anything. After I had given my statements to the police, I went back inside to see that after I had escaped, my room was trashed.

Mark had thrown things around and mashed things in anger. I'm so glad that I got out when I did because I can't imagine what would have happened if I was trapped in the crossfire. I don't know what happened to Mark after that, but I moved out of that apartment a couple of months later and away from that city as soon as I could when COVID hit to make sure Mark could never find me. I actually stayed in my abusive relationship for another year

or so until I realized that I was too good to put up with Jimmy's nonsense. I had such severe PTSD from the incident that I couldn't go outside for months after, which messed up the whole of my first year at university. It has taken until now for me to be able to walk around at night and being alone in public is still really difficult. I'm well aware that the ending is very anticlimactic and I wish that I'd been able to advocate for myself but I just shut down emotionally afterwards. I can't get too much into the details of the assault and all that kind of stuff because honestly, thinking about it makes me want to throw up. But I realized that I was so lucky to be able

to fight him off every time because, without a doubt, he wanted to hurt me. After this all happened, I started volunteering with people in prison for these types of crimes to try and prevent them from ever re-offending. I think it's my way of advocating for others because I couldn't advocate for myself. If you take one thing away from me, stop being so polite. I was raised to be nice to everyone and I realize now that being polite worsened everything. I wish I had never been polite enough to pick up drugs for my ex or polite enough to let Mark in my apartment when he begged. So to Mark, I hope you rot in prison. To be continued... bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday,

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