The Lets Read Podcast - 212: I SAVED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE | 22 True Scary Stories | EP 200

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Halloween, Saving Lives, & Road Trips... �� 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 grew up in this tiny little village up in the Scottish Highlands. And when I say tiny, I mean tiny. Not counting the two farms with their big old farmer's houses. There were five homes, a farm shop, and a pub. That's it. At the edge of the village was a bus stop, and that was my portal to civilization for the first 17 years of my life. Life was the same for all the kids in the surrounding villages too. It wasn't just us that lived like that. We had nothing to do at home and only one notoriously unreliable bus service

to get us out of our various little hamlets. So when I reached my mid-teens and owning a car became an option, the prospect of getting my hands on one seemed like my golden ticket to freedom. I could go anywhere, do anything, get out of my drab little village for days at a time, and all I needed was a bit of petrol money. I worked my butt off, saving every penny I could, putting it all towards this little three-door hatchback I'd spotted in the local paper. Then on my 17th, my dad revealed he'd already put a deposit down on it, and all I had to do was pay off the rest out of my own money, and I owned the thing. I remember my mates being almost as happy as I was about the new car. After all, they were going to be reaping the benefits

of my newfound mobility too. We all drove up to Inverness for the day, went to Domino's, and tried getting served in a few of the pubs there, but as good a laugh as that was, it was hardly the big city or anything, and it was only for a few hours drive there and back. We started eyeing up a bit more of a challenging destination, somewhere none of us had ever been, as far from home as my car could take us. So, after some discussion, we decided on London. None of us had ever been to London before, and as much as Edinburgh was the center of our world, London seemed like the center of the universe. It was gearing up to be a real lads on tour kind of trip, so we decided to all save up for a few months, then we'd drive down in the summer to make the most of the daylight and the good weather. It took us quite a while, and the planning stage of such a big journey made it feel like we were going to star in our own Lord of the Rings spinoff. But when the time came to

pack up the car and hit the road, we could barely contain our excitement. We thought it'd be the road trip that would define our young lives, something to bridge the gap from boyhood to adulthood, and in a way, that's exactly what it was. And even though we wouldn't actually make it to London, none of us would ever be the same again. We planned on completing the ten-hour drive in two legs, one five-hour drive down to Blackpool, where we'd sleep overnight in a hotel, and then the next day,

we'd make the next five hours or so down to London. We picked out a travel lodge on the edge of town to get ourselves a few rooms, and the drive down was easy enough. But when we got there, we realized that we made a very silly mistake. Instead of actually booking the rooms and paying in advance, we thought that we'd be able to just rock up at a leisure. So when the nice lady at the front desk

apologized and told us that they were all booked up, we were less than pleased with ourselves. We drove around a bit more, hoping to find somewhere with a free room or two, but to our absolute horror, everywhere was booked up for the night and in the end, we just had to accept that we had to just keep driving. Which was well off the cards because I was completely exhausted, or try our best to get some sleep in the car after parking somewhere safe and discreet. And that's how we ended up in the car park of some service station, leaning the seats back and settling in for a few hours of terrible sleep before we got back on the road to London. I'm not sure how long later, but I woke

up to one of my mates, Alistair, tapping me on the shoulder saying he needed to go to the toilet. Given that it was a three-door, that meant that I needed to get out of the car and pull the seat forward so Allie had room to get out. I'm absolutely bandjacked by this point, so I grumpily get out of the car so that Allie could go and relieve himself in some nearby bushes. The noise woke the other lads up who weren't best pleased to have their sleep disturbed. Then I sat on the edge of my driver's seat, feet on the concrete outside, watching Allie walking off into this dark corner of the car park.

I remember rubbing my eyes, telling myself it would all be worth it once we were raising hell among the poor unsuspecting Sassanox. But then seconds later, I hear the bushes rustling, and I look up to see Allie bursting out of them, running full pelt back at the car. Before I can even say anything, Ali is just jabbering, start the car, start the car, start the car, while basically shoving me out of the way so he can clamber into the backseat again. This obviously had everyone in the car asking him what his problem was, but he's just ignoring them, focusing on telling me that we needed to get moving. Quite quickly, I worked out that whatever had him so freaked out had obviously been in the bushes he'd walked into to take a wee, and I remember turning back around to look at them before seeing the shape of a person suddenly walk into the orange lamplight. I could see it was a bloke. I could just tell from the look of him, but other than that, I couldn't make out much detail.

What I could see, though, was that this bloke was powerwalking over to our car, and not in a way that suggested that they were going to be calm or polite about their little encounter with Ollie. God knows what had happened, but it obviously wasn't good. I know it sounds a bit selfish, but the first thing that went through my mind was, he's gonna damage my car. But see it

from my perspective. Ollie was in the backseat by that point, so if the random blokes got plans for violence, it's either me or my car that's going to get it. That had me twisting the key into the ignition like a madman, then as soon as I got a decent rev going, I put my foot down and we zoomed out of the car park back onto the main road. Once we appeared to be safe, the lot of us are basically screeching at Allie to tell us how he'd managed to piss someone off in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night. Allie was a bit of a joker back then, still is to be honest, and he had this way of rubbing people up the wrong way.

He just couldn't help himself. Almost like he kept all his smart comments bottled up, he exploded. It was always getting us in trouble back home, so naturally our first assumption was that he pulled a classic Allie and gotten us chased away from our sleeping spot. He just about blew his top at the accusation, completely denied being rude to anyone, and told everyone to shut up so he could explain what had happened.

When he said it, I actually thought that he was lying to us, and that it was a way of getting out of the doghouse with us so he wouldn't start the trip and everyone's bad books. But then, when we made him swear on his mum's life, he did, telling us again, boys, I swear to god, I think I just witnessed a murder. It's about three in the morning at that point, on this quiet stretch of dual carriageway somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool, and we're all listening as Ali starts telling us his story. He said he walked into the bushes, walked right out of sight of the car park

for some privacy and then just as he was about to whip his bobby out, he heard something not too far away from him. Not wanting to start peeing until he knew he was alone, Ali said he creeped through the bushes a bit more, trying to work out what and where the sound was. He said it sounded like something was punching a pillow or something, like these muted strikes that lined up with someone making these soft grunting noises. Now, if your mind is building a slightly unsavory image of what that noise could be, you and Allie think alike, because he too thought that he was about to catch two people playing a wee game of hide the sausage. At least, that was his excuse

for why he was so curious and why he went skulking through some bushes in the middle of the night. But then, instead of finding two wrong-uns engaged in a bit of hanky-panky, he sees what he can only describe as a bloke kneeling over another, looking like he was slamming his fist down onto the other one's chest. The bloke taking it is lying on the grass verge, not making a sound, and that's when Allie realizes that the bloke isn't just hitting the other one with his fist, he's got a knife in his hand. He's not punching him, he's stabbing him. When he realized what he was looking at, Allie said he must have made a noise or something, what I imagine to be either

a gasp or a rustle of the bushes or something. The bloke hears it, turns toward Allie, and that was Allie's cue to come legging it back through the bushes and into the lights of the car park. Allie finishes this little horror story, and we're still in a state of disbelief. Only that time, it wasn't so much because we didn't believe him, it was because we didn't want to believe him. His tone of voice, the way he's telling us the story, everything about the way he was acting made me think that he was actually telling the truth. Allie was a brave lad. I suppose you had to be with a mouth like that.

So to see him so piss your pants frightened wasn't something we thought he could fake. We're still trying to pick apart his story, poke holes in it or get him to admit that he was exaggerating or something. But he wouldn't. He swore blind that that's what he'd seen, and that we needed to get to a police station or something. Then right as he says that about telling the Jakes, I look up into my rear view to see a pair of headlights coming up really, really fast on my rear bumper. I tune out of the conversation for a second, watching the headlights and expecting them to start passing me, but

they didn't, and the next thing I know, the headlights are so close and so bright that they're lighting up the whole inside of my car. This then gets the attention of the lads and as I'm panicking, wondering what the bloody hell this other driver is thinking, I just hear Ali say, oh no, it's him. A split second after that. Wham. The driver speeds up and smashes his front bumper into my rear. We all let out these shouts of terror as I kept my hands gripped on the steering wheel. I just about kept control of the car but another hit like that and I might not be able to stop from just careening off the road. It was like being stuck in this horrible catch-22. We'd speed up and try to get away, and I'd definitely lose control of the car the next time the driver hit us,

or slow down, try to pull over, and face the fury of whoever was trying to run us off the road. In the end, the driver decided for us, but the next time he hit us, he managed to focus the force onto one side of my bumper. Not exactly like a pit maneuver if you know what one of those is, but it was basically the same effect. I completely lost control of the car, and even though I tried to keep us on the road, we ended up smashing into a metal barrier at the side of the road, and the car went down a small slope on the other side and flipped over a few times in the process. I just remember closing my eyes and thinking, this is how I'm going to die. And I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I possibly could while I waited for something to

just switch my lights out. And suddenly, the car was still. Everything hurt, but I was still awake, and I was still alive. Somehow, we'd been lucky enough to land wheels down, and the first thing I did was turn off the engine because I could see smoke coming out from under the bonnet. We're all in agony, but I knew from the various groans and curses that everyone was relatively okay. But then I suddenly realized that I can smell petrol and I knew that we were in serious trouble. Only the passenger side door was working and only one of the seats would come forward and we did actually manage to get everyone out of the car. There were also no fires at all but we didn't know that at the time so even though we were in a

considerable amount of pain, we did manage to get out. I feel like now would be an appropriate time to tell you all of this happened back before mobile phones were an everyday time. This meant that if we wanted to contact the police, we had to either find a roadside phone which could be used in case of emergencies, or we had to hope that another driver was passing so we could send them to get some help. Only two of us, me and Frazier, were good enough to walk anywhere, but that meant leaving Allie and our other mate Connor alone by the roadside. If the bloke who smashed us off the road came back and saw Allie there sitting all helpless at the side of the road, he and Connor would be in quite a bit of trouble.

After all, if the bloke really was trying to get rid of any witnesses, he might not hesitate to hurt the both of them or even hang around and wait for us to come back. Luckily, that didn't happen though because a car came around the bend just as me and Fraser were heading off and the woman driving had one of those old-style mobile phones that looked like a brick with an antenna on the end of it, so she was able to get in touch with the Jakes for us. And we just about begged her to hang around until they arrived, and although the van that drove us off the road didn't reappear, we were terrified that he was going to come back to finish the job he'd started. In the end, we all spent the rest of the night in a hospital in Greater Manchester, with two police officers hanging around to get all of our stories. Each of us had a collection of sprains and other injuries, but nothing that

a few days rest wouldn't see on the mend. We were incredibly lucky, and that goes without saying, and one doctor in particular reminded me of this, saying if we'd been going 10 or 15 miles over, or if the car had stayed on the road, we probably wouldn't have survived. That part really played out in my mind because like I mentioned, I was actually trying to keep us on the road thinking that that was our best option. I stand by it, because if we'd have crashed into a river or something, that would have been far worse. But if I had gone a bit faster to try and get away, and then lost control, none of us would have walked away from that crash that night. I was able to call my mom and dad from the hospital, and although they were horrified at the news that we'd crashed, they were just as relieved as we were to hear that we'd walked away with just a few sprains and bruises.

Obviously, I was gutted about my car. Months and months of work had been almost a complete waste of time. But somehow, given how serious the situation was, I didn't feel like I'd really lost anything. I still had my health, all of my mates were okay aside from serious whiplash, and I could still borrow my dad's car if I ever really needed it. Losing my car was crap, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter. Only much later did we find out that the police had found evidence of a violent crime near the car park we'd been trying to sleep. They didn't find any dead body or anything, but there was enough blood to corroborate Allie's story about seeing a person getting stabbed.

The van that had crashed into us was found about a week later, abandoned in some woodland on the other side of Manchester. There were bloodstains on the inside and the registration matched one that had been sitting in the same car park we'd tried to get some sleep in. All in all, we'd narrowly avoided permanently being silenced as witnesses to a murder. But beyond that, we didn't learn much else for quite a while. We had no idea if they ever caught the guy who chased us, why he killed the bloke Ali saw, nothing more than we were very, very lucky to get away alive. But then, my parents get a call from Frazier's parents because Frazier's aunt was working down in Leeds and had been following the story. The murder victim was the joint owner of some builder's firm in Blackpool,

and he'd recently taken his partner to court over some kind of fraud thing. Not long after the bloke's body was found, i.e. the one we found, this sticky fingered partner of his goes missing and becomes the prime suspect of his partner's murder. That was the fellow who chased us in his van, and Allie had actually stumbled across him, finishing off the partner he'd robbed. The worst thing though, is that Allie had been mistaken about the murderer stabbing his partner in the chest, because the actual cause of death was strangulation. The bloke had brought a knife along because he wanted to make it as hard as possible for the police to identify his partner's body. He wasn't stabbing the bloke in the chest,

it was just too dark for Allie to see the victim was being stabbed in the face. We didn't learn that little detail until much later on. Fraser's dad had told my dad, but my dad just didn't have the heart to tell me something that horrific. It took until we were all in our mid-twenties for it to make its way around to me and my friends and when it did, let me tell you, chills. This all happened so long ago that me and my three old pals are mostly married with kids and stuff and living in other places so we don't get to see each other as much as we'd like. But every so often, we're all back home at the same time and we'll go for a pint in one of the locals. Spirits are always high during these wee reunions, but at some point, the conversation inevitably turns towards the crash and how lucky

we all are that we got to go home alive after it. When there's one bloke who never got to go home at all. Leah Roberts was born on July 23rd of 1976 in Durham, North Carolina. She grew up with her parents and two older siblings, Heather and Kara, who later described her as a sociable, laid-back young woman with a love of soccer and live music. Yet as Leah progressed into her teenage years, her family was hit by a series of sudden and unexpected tragedies. When she was just 17, Leah's father was diagnosed with a long-term respiratory illness, and three years later, her mother suddenly passed away as the result of an undiagnosed heart condition.

After briefly taking some time off of school to cope, Leah was nearly killed during a serious traffic accident in the fall of 1998. She suffered a punctured lung and shattered femur, meaning doctors needed to insert a metal rod into her leg to aid the healing process. Just a few months later, in the spring of 1999, Leah temporarily withdrew from school again in order to spend more time with her dying father, who would go on to pass away a few weeks later in early April. In some ways, the barrage of tragedy had positive effects on Leah, who became intensely interested in philosophy, spirituality, and artistic expression as a way of coping. But unsurprisingly, there were

many negative effects too. Leah struggled to catch up with her schoolwork and dropped out of college in the early 2000s, just months before she was due to graduate with a degree in Spanish and anthropology. Shortly afterward, Leah pursued a fresh start in the neighboring city of Raleigh, and by her 23rd birthday, she was living in a small apartment with her best friend, Nicole. She often spent time in local coffee shops and was said to be fostering a passion for writing, but without a doubt, Leah's true passion was for travel. After two separate backpacking trips around Europe and Central America, Leah developed a serious case of wanderlust, satisfying it through regular road trips with friends.

It's not difficult to see that the thrill of discovery was very therapeutic for Leah. She was escaping the old in search of the new. March 9th of the year 2000 was a day that started out like any other for Leah and Nicole, and they made plans to babysit together the following day. Leah didn't seem distressed or worried about anything, and evidently felt comfortable enough to make plans for the near future. But then for some reason, at around 6pm that evening, Leah packed a suitcase, withdrew $3,000 from an ATM, then embarked on what appeared to be a 3,000-mile road trip across the United States. Nicole was surprised at Leah's abrupt departure. It wasn't unusual for her roommate to head off on extended road trips, but to leave so suddenly was

definitely out of character. After failing to make contact with her for three days, Nicole contacted Leah's sister, Kara, to ask if she knew where she was. A concerned Kara then joined Nicole in searching Leah's bedroom for any clue to where she'd gone, and it was then that they found an envelope containing cash and a handwritten note. Dated March 9th, the note read, Dear Nicole, This is to cover bills for while I'm gone. Remember, everyone is together in thoughts and prayers and time passes quickly. Have faith in me, yourself. Help Shep with Easter at Lotta House for fun for the children. Give Peter my laptop.

Give everyone my love. See you soon. Tell Kara don't worry, even though she will. Cookies in the freezer. Love, Leah. Underneath the main body of text was a few scribble addendums, some of which read, I'm not going to take my own life. I'm the opposite. Remember Jack Kerouac? I'm on the road. This was a reference to one of Leah's favorite authors, Jack Kerouac, who'd authored a book named On the Road, which detailed his road trips across the United States. The reference further convinced Leah's loved ones that she simply departed on an impromptu road trip, an opinion shared by a friend named Janine Quiller. Janine had met Leah on a visit to her favorite coffee shop, and the pair had bonded over their love of Jack Kerouac's writing. Recalling the last conversation they had, Janine didn't remember Leah acting unusual,

but she did note that Leah had mentioned a desire to visit Desolation Peak in rural Whatcom County, Washington, a place mentioned in Jack Kerouac's autobiography, Dharma Bums. Kara gave the search a head start by revealing that she had power of attorney over her sister, a precaution she'd taken while Leah was backpacking around Costa Rica. This meant she could access Leah's bank records, then use any ATM transactions to paint a picture of her movements. It seemed that Leah was working her way west, and after starting in Raleigh, North Carolina, she made her way to California before her route turned north into Oregon and Washington. It seemed Leah did indeed have Desolation Park in mind, and having already mentioned this to

Janine Quiller, the cohesive thinking Leah displayed encouraged those who were concerned for her. Yet Nicole and Kara still found Leah's sudden departure to be deeply worrying and were still desperate to see her safe return. Nine days after Leah went missing, during the early afternoon of March 19th, a man named Lionel Packett and his girlfriend were jogging through the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest in Whatcom County. At some point in their run, Lionel noticed an article of clothing hanging from a tree, and on further inspection, he discovered a white vehicle at the bottom of a roadside embankment. The 1993 Jeep Cherokee was heavily damaged and was surrounded by a haphazard collection of clothing and other personal belongings. Several blankets were draped over the windows as if someone had been camping inside the car, but it was abandoned at the time of Lionel's arrival. Based on the amount of damage, law enforcement believed that the Jeep had been moving at about 30-40 mph when

it crashed into the embankment and flipped over several times. Anyone inside would have been seriously injured or killed, yet there was no evidence that anyone had been inside at the time of the crash. There were no traces of hair or blood, the seatbelt was not strained, and no sign that anyone had struck their head against the wheel or windshield, all details which gave hope to those who wished to see Leah's safe return. Following the discovery of Leah's Jeep, two full search and rescue teams combed the surrounding area using dogs and a helicopter, but were unable to find a single trace of their missing person.

A search of the Jeep revealed $2,500 tucked in a pair of Leah's jeans, along with various empty food containers and plastic bottles. Yet the search turned up two items which Leah's loved ones found very concerning. The first was an ornate wooden box containing a ticket for a showing of the movie American Beauty. Such a simple item having such a decorative container indicates that the ticket was of significant sentimental value to Leah. But why would she bring it with her on her cross-country road trip? The second item of concern in Leah's jeep was her mother's wedding ring. Nicole described the ring as being nothing short of sacred to Leah and again, it's not clear why she had chosen to

bring it along, but its presence in her jeep was something that investigators found deeply disconcerting. Given that Leah's vehicle was so close to the road, it was highly unlikely that she'd wandered off into the woods, and investigators suspected that she'd managed to hitchhike in pursuit of assistance. This theory was backed up by the fact that there were several reported sightings of Leah throughout the state of Washington in the days following her disappearance. One man claimed to have seen a young woman matching Leah's description at a Texaco gas station in Everett, about 70 miles south of where her Jeep was abandoned. The man claimed Leah was visibly disoriented and that she had no idea

who she was or where she lived. The man offered Leah help, but she refused it, then disappeared from view. On March 21st, Nicole and Kara traveled up to Washington State to look for their sister. They were unsuccessful in finding her, but managed to raise enough awareness of Leah's disappearance that a man ended up reaching out to Nicole and Kara in relation to their search. The man claimed to have spotted Leah at a restaurant and described her as being friendly and talkative before leaving the restaurant with a man calling himself Barry. The restaurant in question is located less than an hour's drive from where Leah's abandoned jeep was found, meaning that she was probably in the company of this mysterious man when she ran into trouble.

The man's description of Barry was so detailed that law enforcement arranged for him to meet with a sketch artist, and a composite drawing of the suspect was subsequently created. Yet frustratingly, the police were never able to verify that Barry actually existed. After searching Leah's car, detectives asked her sister what she wanted them to do with the vehicle. Kara told them to keep it, hoping that technological advances might someday glean more evidence from it. The decision paid off back in 2006 when two detectives reviewing the case realized that the jeep had not been searched as thoroughly as they previously thought. Although the interior had been processed for blood, hair, and fibers, no one had thought to explore underneath the hood of the car for any evidence.

When they opened up the hood, they found that someone had messed with the engine so that a person could turn on the ignition, push a switch, and cause the jeep to accelerate into the embankment on its own without anyone actually being present inside the vehicle. On top of that, the police also found a set of unidentified fingerprints under the hood of the car, fingerprints that could well have belonged to the man calling himself Barry. Barry was discovered to have previously served as a mechanic in the US military and it's reasonable to assume that he was capable of engine tampering. Yet after tracking the man down and securing a copy of his fingerprints, investigators were amazed to find that they

didn't match those on the jeep. Barry has since claimed to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing and merely bumped into Leah at the restaurant. He mentioned her talking a lot about Jack Kerouac, but otherwise seemed in perfectly high spirits as she climbed into her jeep and drove out of the parking lot. Barry insisted that this was the final time he saw Leah and was devastated to hear that such a charming young woman had disappeared. But given that he was one of the last people Leah interacted with before her disappearance, Barry has never been completely eliminated as a potential suspect. There's one school of thought which purports a very curious theory indeed, one which revolves around the idea that Leah had tried to fake her own death. The nature of the tampering which occurred on

Leah's engine leads us to believe that someone wanted to move Leah's jeep without actually being inside of it. Then, since the jeep was sent crashing down a steep embankment, it's safe to say that whoever was responsible wanted people to believe that there was a driver inside at the time of the crash. This means that Leah hired someone capable of rigging her car's engine, and that Barry might well be involved in a secretive underground group who offered to help a person to disappear in exchange for cash. This would explain why Leah had made so many ATM stops on her way to Washington, but again, it's never been something investigators have

been able to confirm. The fact remains that more than 20 years after she disappeared, we're still no closer to learning the truth behind Leah's disappearance. Perversely, the best case scenario is that she faked her own death and for some reason found it in herself to deceive and terrify those closest to her in order to do so. But then the worst case scenario is that Leah's trip to Washington really had been as innocent as it was spontaneous, and that just outside of a small mountain town, she'd been snatched up, murdered, and then entombed somewhere that no one might ever find. Perhaps there's someone in rural Washington still going

about their daily lives, who still carries a little piece of Leah wherever they go, as a reminder that they've gotten away with murder. On May 18th of 1935, George and Laura Laurius joined their friends Albert and Tilly Haberer on the cross-country road trip of a lifetime. From their home in southern Illinois, the group planned on driving across 2,000 miles of plains and desert, before finally finishing up on the coast of California, and by May 21st, they had arrived in the small town of Vaughan, New Mexico. After prowling out of George Lorius' Nash sedan, the two couples checked into the Vaughan Hotel before sending off several postcards to friends and family. Then, after a small dinner at a local diner,

the group retired to their rooms for the night before continuing west the following morning. In their postcards, the group seemed to be in high spirits and reported nothing untoward occurring during their most recent drive. But after the couples continued driving west on the morning of the 22nd, neither was ever heard from again. It wasn't until the morning of May 26th that the Laurius' car was found abandoned in the business district of Dallas, Texas. The vehicle's keys were still in the ignition, the gas tank was full, and numerous postcards lay in the passenger seat. But there was no sign of any of the Illinois road trippers. Gas station receipts confirmed that Mr. Lorius had purchased fuel in a place called Socorro on May 23rd,

but after that, their fate was anyone's guess. The following week, the couple's families were notified of their disappearance, and an official investigation was launched. Police initially believed that the absence of $400 worth of traveler's checks indicated that a violent robbery had taken place. However, investigators soon discovered that the couple's car had been involved in a minor accident shortly after arriving in Socorro. Since the accident could have angered someone enough to do harm to the road trippers,

police began questioning the handful of witnesses to the crash. Instead of describing the vehicle as containing two middle-aged couples, witnesses stated that the lone occupant was a young man with dark colored hair. Detectives managed to track the vehicle from the scene of the accident to a small local repair shop. Mechanics changed a tire on the vehicle and completed other minor repairs, then whoever was driving the car paid with one of George Lorius' traveler's checks. Detectives then followed the trail of cash checks to a motel in El Paso, and then to Dallas, which is where the vehicle was found abandoned on May 26th.

The investigation briefly stalled until June 29th when a report came in of a small desert bushfire on the outskirts of Albuquerque. The fire department arrived to discover a piece of burning luggage. Inside were the smoldering belongings of George and Laura Lorius. With the man responsible for the couple's disappearance still actively disposing of their belongings, law enforcement rushed into action in the hopes they might still be recovered alive. The FBI headed up a multi-agency task force which searched rivers, lakes, mineshafts, wells, and numerous spots around the desert. Yet despite the vast reach of the well staff search teams, not a trace of the missing couples could be found.

Unable to apprehend the suspect, detectives found themselves diverted to other investigations, and the case eventually went cold. But as recently as 2010, the case files are still revisited by various state police officers, each hoping for a flash of inspiration. According to one such officer, Agent Norman Rhodes, the case has never been officially closed, but the low probability of it being solved means that the New Mexico State Police can rarely afford to pay it any mind. Yet despite the perceived difficulties of the case,

Agent Rhodes has since made it his personal mission to discover what happened to the four Illinois road trippers. Rhodes stated that perhaps his most daunting task has been trying to locate the remains of the road trippers' bodies, which are most likely nothing more than desiccated bones today. It will also be no small feat to locate the couple's killer, who will have probably died of old age since the crime took place, but such a prospect hasn't seemed to have deterred Agent Rhodes. Perhaps his zeal comes from the ongoing support and assistance provided by Laura Lorius' great-niece, Barbara Ashcraft, who is desperate to see the family mystery finally

solved. When pressed on what are theories regarding his relatives' fate, Ashcraft believes they were murdered in Vaughan, possibly in the very same cafe that they had their breakfast in on the morning of their disappearance. The purpose of their stop in Vaughan was so that the Lauriuses could visit an old friend who just so happened to live there, but it's unclear whether or not this friend actually met with them. Not only that, but in 1963, a private investigator named Walter Duke received a letter from a woman claiming to have witnessed the murders. The woman said she watched the two couples being escorted into the basement of a cafe, and that she had later heard that they'd been robbed, murdered, and then buried in wet concrete. The tip has led Barbara Ashcraft to suggest

that the investigation should focus on the concrete slabs lining the site of the former Vaughn Hotel, but agent Norman Rhodes has another theory. After combing over stacks of reports in the State Police Records Division, Rhodes has created a timeline of events and interviews that's an incredible 141 pages long. According to him, two postcards in particular have convinced Rhodes that the couples actually left Bonn on the morning of May 22nd with the intention of driving to Albuquerque via Santa Fe. A postcard marked May 22nd was mailed to Albuquerque, and a clerk at Albuquerque's Sturgis Hotel told investigators that the couples visited her hotel that afternoon to ask about renting rooms. Agent Rhodes believed that the couples rented one of the smaller rooms at this hotel so that each of them could take a shower and intended to travel over to Gallup by nightfall. Yet shortly after

leaving town, they suffered their run-in with their mysterious killer. It's very possible that the couples misjudged the distance to Albuquerque and had ended up driving around in the dark when it's much harder to properly navigate. Rhodes believed that this is how they became vulnerable to a potential predator and that the couples simply misplaced their trust in someone who brutally and violently betrayed them. Although spotted by a handful of witnesses, the police are no closer to identifying the man who took George Lorius' car as they were almost 90 years ago. But even if this person was identified, they're probably in no fit state to answer questions about something that occurred back in 1935, and it's unlikely that there's any surviving forensic evidence.

The truth behind the disappearance of George Lorius, Laura Lorius, and their friends Albert and Tilly might well have vanished along with them, and the mystery of how four regular, wholesome people simply disappeared one day is unlikely to ever be unraveled. Back in my early 20s, me and my bestie went through a phase of going on road trips every other weekend, and this one time, we planned on driving all the way to San Francisco with a few stops in between. So first day, we're about four hours into the drive and we're going along I-70 in Colorado, coming up on the state line. Around 8pm, we pull over at a gas station and while I'm fueling up, I notice these other two girls pumping gas. They looked around the same age as us,

like they could have been on a road trip just like we were. But just behind them at the other pump was this guy. He looked like he was in his late 30s or early 40s and the girls can't see him doing it but he's just staring at these two girls with a blank expression on his face, eyes darting back and forth between them as they pumped their gas. It was really creepy, but after a while, the guy went back to seeing to his car and I went inside of the gas station to grab some snacks as fuel for our night drive up to Salt Lake City. When I walk back out of the gas station, the girls are just leaving in their car and when I take a look around for

the creepy truck guy, he's staring at their car again. Then in a move that seemed so full of bad intention that it actually freaked me out, he suddenly jumped in his truck, then went speeding off in the same direction as the girls did. I'm like, no. If that happened to me and my friend, I'd want someone to have our back too, even if it was just to trail us while dialing 911 or whatever. By the time I caught up with them, the guy was riding their butt with his high beams on, flashing his lights every so often like he was trying to get them to pull over or something. Then right there in front of me, the guy speeds up around the side of the girl's car.

Then I can see him leaning over in his seat so he can shout stuff over to them. The next thing I know, the girl's car starts to pull over and I'm thinking, oh god no, don't do it. But the guy in the truck just passes them and keeps going, maybe because he saw me in his rear view and knew that he couldn't do anything with witnesses. Then me and my friend also pull over right up behind where the girls are parked and after putting my hazard lights on, we got out to see if they were okay. And they were not okay. The guy was so obviously not a cop, but apparently he'd been yelling at the girls that he was a deputy and that if they didn't pull over they'd be going to jail.

That was when they decided to actually do as he was asking and if they pulled over without us being behind them there's no telling what would have happened that night. I think it says everything that the guy just fled once we realized that they weren't alone. He must have known that his little cop impersonation wouldn't have stood up to scrutiny but then he obviously wasn't planning on keeping his little charade up if he actually got the girls to pull over. If he'd have gotten his hands on them, they would have been in a whole world of hurt. We told the girls that they were welcome to stick behind us until we reached the next gas station or any place they could stop and link up with

the cops to tell them what happened. They took us up on the offer and we parted ways not long after, but not after some very grateful hugs. Stuff like that made me wonder just how safe me and my friend were. Someone else had gotten unlucky that time, but how long would it be until it was us that had attracted the attention of some highway psycho? We tried to cut down on the amount of time we spent driving at night after that. It always made it much easier to get around, what with the roads being less busy, but I think we can all agree that there's something about the darkness that makes creeps feel more comfortable being creeps. There's a wilder point in there too, and it's something that'll always scare me as a young

woman. We can take all the safety precautions we want, go on as many take-back-the-night marches as we can organize. Heck, we can go ahead and carry a gun if we're so inclined. But we'll never be able to stop people wanting to hurt other people. Some are born that way, some are made that way. And sometimes, when they really want to inflict pain or misery, there's really nothing anyone can do about it. To be continued... to San Diego to see family and friends. It was a solid five and a half hour drive but sometimes I'd get so homesick that I drove home on a Friday and be back home late on the Sunday. The point is, I used to spend a lot of time driving at night. So this one week, my mom calls me with some pretty bad news. My grandpa was sick, like really sick, and had to be rushed to the hospital for treatment,

so she wanted to know if I could visit him with the implication being that it might be my very last chance to see him. The call came at like 11.30 at night, so I quickly packed my bags, told my roommate where I was going and how long I'd be, then started the night drive back to California. A few hours later, I'm driving through dry, dusty rural Nevada when I decide to take one of my usual stops that I take when driving that route. For clarity's sake, it was just an hour or so before the California border, and I'm still very familiar with that particular stop because I used to perform the same little ritual every time I was getting ready to enter California. Since I was often driving alone a lot in Arizona, I used to conceal carry and at the time, I had my extended permit which allowed concealed through several states except of course,

California. So, I park my car and I start disassembling and putting away my gun to be in compliance with Cali gun laws. When I'm done doing that, I step out to go to the restroom and grab some coffee before I go out on the road again. What I didn't know was that someone had managed to get close to my truck and was hiding along the passenger side. When I walked past them, whoever it was grabbed me from behind and I let out the loudest, most blood-curdling scream I could possibly muster. Kind of to alert anyone nearby but mainly because I realized there was basically no one else around to see what was going on. I did all I could. I fought and tried to buck the guy off of me but I wasn't doing very well.

I tried kicking back at him but he countered by lifting me off of me but I wasn't doing very well. I tried kicking back at him but he countered by lifting me off the ground where I couldn't get him. Then I tried to break through the grip his arms had on me but that just made him bend me over with him still behind me. I'm not sure how long I was screaming and fighting but when I heard tires screech, my fear ramped up like a thousand times. I figured the guy had a partner, but it was about to be tossed into the back of a truck or something and I'd never be seen again. In reality, it was a Toyota Corolla full of local teenagers. God knows why they were at that gas station so late, but I thank God that they were, because I think they literally saved my life that night.

The teens jumped out and ran towards us, and the guy who grabbed me took off. Two of the kids chased him through the desert beyond the gas station on foot, and the driver and the other kid made sure I was alright. They waited with me until the cops arrived and I could tell them what happened, even brought me a cup of coffee and let me bum a smoke. I didn't even smoke, I just felt like I needed one to calm myself down. For years afterwards I used to send each of these guys thank you texts on the anniversary of my near miss, and if I hadn't lost the phone their numbers were saved on, I'd still do it. Because as much as those kids decided to be heroes that night, there are just as many people in the world who would have turned a blind eye and pretended they didn't see it. And I thank God that it wasn't one of those kinds of people who just so happened to pull into the parking lot

when I needed them most. I was once driving down these narrow dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, and it was pouring rain in the dead of night. The rain and the roads were so bad that I was slowing down to 15 miles an hour sometimes and couldn't see any of the signs, and this was before GPS. At one point, I had to pull over to the side of the road to try and see the sign to see if I was going in the right direction. I didn't get out due to the rain, so I was craning my neck of violent crimes and hijacking so I instinctively started panicking and yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs, putting my foot down

on the gas and speeding away before the guy had a chance to really get in. First chance I could, I quickly leaned over and closed the passenger door then carried on off down the road. I was breathing so heavily and my heart beating out of my chest at this point and trying my best to calm down, nearly in tears. I kept seeing it in my head the whole rest of the drive. It was definitely the scariest thing that's ever happened to me here and I try my best not to drive at night anymore. Next time, I might not be so lucky. After finishing up high school in the summer of 2007, most of the kids we graduated with

were either headed to college, the military, or otherwise had some kind of plan. But me and my little four-man friend group had absolutely nothing lined up. We had passions in life, just nothing that inspired us so much to actually do anything about it. So by the time the new school year started, we were still slacking and partying while other kids our age were actually growing up. But then, one thing that we did have in common with the other college kids was that, when mid-October rolled around, we started putting out feelers to find out where the best Halloween parties would be. Eventually, I heard through a mutual friend that this one guy he knew was planning on throwing some big house party.

His mom and dad were off visiting relatives over the weekend before Halloween, so even though the Saturday fell on like the 28th or whatever and it wasn't exactly Halloween, the kid had decided to throw this huge costume party that was just bound to be wild. All we had to do was secure an invite and think up a costume, then we were all set. When it came to picking out costumes, we decided on a group costume that involved us dressing up like the characters from A Clockwork Orange. I remember scurrying around in the days before trying to beg, borrow, and steal this mishmash of boots, white clothing, suspenders, canes, and bowler hats, but there was just enough of a theme there for people to actually recognize what we

were aiming for. So after assembling at one of our parents' houses, we began the 30-minute walk across two neighborhoods in order to get to the party. We get there at maybe 9.30pm and the place is just jumping, like off the chain crazy with what looked like a hundred costumed 18-22 year old kids just drinking and dancing and having a good time. The place had an amazing atmosphere and most people were pretty friendly even though we didn't know them but then one of the things I noticed was there was a lot of illegal substances going around. These rich kids had way more money for stuff like that than we did so it was pretty crazy seeing so much of it

in one place. But we still had our cases of beer, our cheap vodka, and some smoke, so we just enjoyed what we brought with us, and a good time was had by all. At around one in the morning, we found ourselves sitting in some deck chairs near this guy's pool as the rest of the party started to die down. We decided to finish up what we were drinking, then we walked back to our neighborhood with the last few cans of beer that we had. We started shuffling our way towards the backyard side gate, which led out into the driveway and was a quicker route than walking through the house and stepping over people, etc. Then right as we get to the back gate and we're about to leave, one of my buddies, we'll

just call him Jason, tells us all to wait a minute because he needs to use the bathroom before we leave. He heads back into the party, we stand around waiting for a minute or two then he reappears telling us that we're good to go. We then head out into the dark, empty streets to begin walking back towards our neighborhood, feeling bold enough to just stroll through the night drinking from open containers. Then, about five or ten minutes into our walk, I remember being suddenly lit up from behind by the headlights of a car. I figured it would pass, but then I hear the car gun its engine and speed up,

almost like it was coming right for us. I started thinking that it might have been a cop about to bust us for underage drinking, but then as it gets closer, I realize it isn't a cop car, and instead of identifying themselves as cops, the people just jumped out and screamed, that's him, get him, and started sprinting towards us. We didn't ask any questions, all we knew is that we were suddenly in danger for some reason, so we start running as fast as we possibly can, away from the people who obviously wanted to beat the crap out of us for whatever reason. Thankfully, we seem to know the area better than the guys chasing us, because after the four of us pulled some evasive maneuvers using some

alleyways that ran between backyards, we suddenly found that we were alone again. With a moment to stop and catch our breath, we started discussing what the hell just happened. One of my buddies said that he'd gotten a good look at one of the guys chasing and said that it looked like he was wearing a costume or at least had been at some point during the night. We realized that there was a good chance our pursuers had been at the party with us, but whatever we'd done to offend them was still a complete mystery to us. Most of us, anyway. After catching our breath and making sure the coast was clear, we headed back onto the streets to try and get home again, all the while acutely aware that we were being hunted. I think we made it about 5 more minutes before headlights reappeared again,

and at first the car drives at a normal speed towards us, so we figure that it's just some other person. We didn't mind if it was the cops either at that point because we tossed out our last beers when the chase began, in which case we might even be able to get the cops to help us. But then suddenly, the car starts racing towards us again, and we realized we'd been found. The first time we actually had somewhere to run, but the second time, there was no way of escape other than to hop backyard fences. We're all running at full pelt, adrenaline pumping and I swear the fence we climbed was one I'd never be able to climb otherwise, but the fear of getting stomped on propelled me over it. Once we cleared the fence, we just kept running and running, out of

the second backyard and into a wider, more open street, until I suddenly looked behind me and saw that it was clear. By this time, we're near a small strip mall so instead of being out in the open, we run behind the strip mall where we can hide in the dark, then take the opportunity to catch our breath again. We're all really freaking out at this point. The guys chasing us obviously want us hurt, but we still have absolutely no clue what we did to deserve it. I think in the heat of the

moment, we didn't really think about that particular detail too much as there seemed to be every chance that we'd just been singled out to be beaten by some idiots that wanted to fight and had spotted us leaving. Maybe they didn't want to get kicked out of the party by starting a fight and instead decided to run us down, beat the snot out of us, then head back to the party. It sounds random, I know, but people are cruel and it wouldn't be the first random assault to happen just because someone was feeling drunk and aggressive. We didn't figure there was an actual concrete reason why they were chasing us, or rather, a reason they might be chasing one of us in particular. Once we caught our breath and were trying to plot a route home that wouldn't leave us too exposed for too long, my friend Jason finally speaks up.

He'd been unusually quiet since we left the party, but I honestly just figured that was a combo of being out of breath and just scared. So when he says, guys, I messed up. We had absolutely no clue what he was referring to. Then he says No you guys, you don't get it. I really messed up back there. It then clicks that Jason did something back at the party just before we left that he was the reason that we were being chased down. I didn't even know what he'd done yet but I already wanted to punch him in the face. But when he finally owned up to what he did, my stomach started tying itself into knots.

Jason gets up, reaches into his jacket, and pulls out this big plastic baggie of sandy looking powder. I don't know if I should say exactly what I thought it was, I don't want to get any of your videos removed or whatever, but let's just say it was a very large amount of something very expensive that can make someone very, very angry if you stole it from them. I honestly don't know what Jason was thinking, and he didn't have much of an explanation for us either. He said that he was just trying to find a bathroom, walked into a room where a bunch of people were hanging out and using, and then thought that he had an opportunity to snatch some without being seen. So, he swipes the baggie off the table thinking no one is looking, then quickly walks but calmly back outside to where we're waiting for him. Thing was, someone had spotted him stealing

the baggie, but instead of just rushing after him, they must have rounded up their boys to come after us in force. Realizing that Jason was the whole reason we were being pursued was probably the first real crack in our little friend circle. We'd all been tight since elementary school and as much as we had our ups and downs over the years, that was the first time I actually realized that not only did I not really like Jason, he was a terrible friend too. We'd been chased twice by that point and at any moment, Jason could have just given back what he'd stolen. I get doing so would have probably come with having his maybe teeth kicked in, but instead of just taking out on the chin, he'd chosen to pull

all four of us into danger. What's worse, he didn't seem to be remotely sorry for it. We tried talking him into coming back to the party with us so we could return what was stolen, but he refused. I don't know if he was legit scared of getting beat up or was just playing on our fears because it felt better than admitting that he was just some greedy thief. But either way, he refused to even try and do the right thing. And this meant that Ryan, the only guy who I'm still friends with all these years later, had to step up and be the hero that we needed. Ryan says that if Jason wouldn't man up and return what he'd stolen, then he'd do it for him. But if he had to do that, he swore to make sure that the guys knew exactly who had stolen from them and was too much of a coward to face up to it. This apparently convinces

Jason to do the right thing. If we didn't try to make things right, there was a very high chance that whoever he'd stolen from would just find out who we were, find out where we lived, and would come looking for us. If we returned the stuff, there was a chance that we might get away with it, especially if we showed up in force to deter any confrontation. I know that might sound overly hopeful, and it was, but that's just what we told ourselves while we walked back to the party like condemned men heading to the electric chair or something. We knew it was going to suck walking back into that party, but run away and we'd be risking a much worse alternative. We didn't even make it to the

party. We were just about coming up on the street that the house was on when the process of a car zooming up beside us repeated itself. It was the same car, same dudes, and let me tell you, it was very surreal thinking that I was about to get jumped by a guy that I'm pretty sure had been dressed as Spongebob Squarepants a few hours before. As soon as they approach, Jason just bails, and I'm not proud of it, but my instincts also told me to run. I think I actually would have just ran off if it wasn't for Ryan just standing his ground and holding up what had been stolen so the guys could see it. The guy who'd been drinking, who I'm guessing the stuff belonged to, he just stops dead in his tracks when he sees the baggie, then gives Ryan this look of pure confusion.

Ryan then holds it out, takes a few steps forward, and hands the guy his stuff back, explaining that it was our stupid friend who stole it, same dude who ran when they showed up and we knew nothing about it whatsoever. The driver snatches the baggie back, then asks Ryan to tell him the name of our friend who stole from him. By that point, I was actually rooting for Ryan to just snitch on Jason for all the crap that he put us through that night. He seemed more than willing to put his friends in danger, so why should we care about what happens to him? Instead, Ryan just goes full ride or die, says he can't say the guy's name because

he knows what'll happen to him. I remember thinking, don't do it dude, just tell him. But Ryan stands his ground and keeps refusing to tell the guy the name of our friend. The driver then passes what was stolen to one of his boys, walks back to Ryan, then starts smiling right in his face. He starts saying how Ryan had had balls for not ratting the guy out, and he'd let him walk away if he just passed a message on to him. Ryan asks what the message is, and the guy just smashes his forehead into Ryan's face so hard it straight up knocks him off his feet. The guys are

just laughing as they get back in their car, and I got so frightened that they'd try to drive over Ryan while he was down that I hooked my hands under his armpits and started dragging him off the road. I guess the headbutt must have just knocked his lights out because all he did was groan and keep his hands over his nose while I dragged him. After that, the car that had been chasing us for over an hour by that point just drove off into the night and away from the party. Ryan ended up with a broken nose and I guess that motivated him to pass the driver's message on to Jason. He didn't headbutt him, but they punched him so hard and so much that it

bust his lip and gave him a nasty black eye. I didn't see the fight itself, but I heard it only started because Jason once again refused to apologize for what he'd done and that he told Ryan that he was stupid for going back to that party in the first place. We didn't see much of Jason after that, and over the years, the other guy who was there kind of faded into the background too. But like I said earlier, me and Ryan still keep in touch because a guy who'd be willing to do the right thing and have my back like that is a friend worth keeping. Just so you know, I changed Jason's name for this. As much as I hated him for what he did that night, I'm not petty enough to try and name and shame him

on a channel as big as yours. On the other hand, Ryan's name is really Ryan because guys like that deserve shouting out. So thanks buddy. Here's to saving our butts that night. You were the hero we needed when we needed one most. Okay, so back when I was in my third year of uni, me and all my mates decided to go to this massive Halloween warehouse party as a group. For reference, we were five girls between the ages of 20 to 22. We all got dolled up in our various costumes, do some pre-drinking after meeting up in one of our flats, then we get a taxi into the town center to head down to the club at about 11 at night. We get there, the music is great. Everyone looks lush and aside from the steep drink prices, we were all having a better night. And then out of nowhere, some absolute bellend decides to ruin my night by harassing me wherever I went.

I'm not one to turn down a drink or a dance if a lad is fit enough. But this wanker thought that it would be funny to act all creepy around us in a spooky clown outfit. And let me tell you something. I hate clowns. I'm serious. I'm 100% terrified of them. And I have been ever since I was a little girl. So for him to come up and think it's funny to actually scare me by making his mask stare at me was not my idea of a laugh.

When I told him to F off, he kept saying, oh come on love, it's only a joke. But I wasn't in the mood for him so I walked off to the bar and ignored him. After that I kept noticing him looking at me from across the bar, keeping his mask on and staring at me because he knew it bothered me so much. I tried to just ignore him and focus on having a good time but he really made it difficult and I never felt 100% safe. Later on that night, after a few more drinks, I started to need a wee so I asked my friend to come with me to the toilets. I had to basically drag her away from the bar because she was chatting and then just when we're outside the girls' toilets,

she sees some guy that she'd fancied so she asked me to wait a minute while I got his number. I tried to wait for her, I really did, but when I started to feel like I'd wee myself, so I just went into the toilets to find a cubicle. And this was later on at night, the last hour of the club night, so it was already emptying out and the toilets weren't that busy. I find myself a cubicle, then text my mate while I was having a wee to tell her where I was. I finish up, open the door of the cubicle, then walk out in the direction of the sinks to wash my hands, and then I see him. Clown boy had just walked into the girls' toilets, still with his mask on, and he's making it stare at me again. There's no other girls in the toilets, and he's not laughing and trying to

be funny like he was on the dance floor, and we're completely alone, and him just staring at me. He starts saying, I was only joking love. No need to be so uptight. And all this, but all I've got to tell him is to get out of the bloody girl's toilets and how he's a perv for following me into them. I'm trying to act all tough and angry, but inside I'm absolutely terrified, and I'm praying that another girl comes in and joins us soon. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait that long, and soon enough these other girls walk in and start berating this horrid clown boy for being in the girls' toilets. The noise then attracts one of the bouncers who radios his mates, and before long, the clown boy is being thrown out of the club for having gone into the girls' bathroom.

I was buzzing, honestly. He seemed really angry at me and acting like it was my fault for getting him kicked out, but he couldn't do anything about it because he was basically being dragged out by the bouncers. What started as quite a scary situation ended up with a brilliant ending because now I could enjoy the last hour before closing time without worrying about getting harassed. The club night finishes, but in the chaos of what spills out of the club and into the kebab houses across the road, I manage to lose all my mates. In the end, it's just me on my own struggling to get a taxi and because it's October, I'm freezing my nips off. None of the black cabs had their lights on and the ones that did got snapped up before I could

even get a word in. I started to look like I was going to have to walk home, which would take about half an hour and since I was wearing heels and a miniskirt, there was no chance of that happening. It was either walk, stand around waiting for a taxi around sleazy lads trying to chat me up or a third option. There was a lad I'd been dating on and off that lived in a flat quite close to the town center. A flat that was maybe only a five minute walk away from the club I was at. I could call him and ask him to sleep over but the problem was that he might think it was something that it wasn't. That and I was still into him when I honestly wasn't anymore. Point being I was still in two minds when I actually called him, woke him up, and told him my problem. He said it was fine, that he'd get up and get me a blanket so I could sleep on his

couch. Knowing I could leave the chaos outside the club felt like such a relief. Definitely not the kind of place you'd want to be as a girl on her own. But then, as I'm walking away, I feel a bit guilty worrying about where my mates are, so I'm walking away, I feel a bit guilty worrying about where my mates are, so I'm calling them and texting them, trying to get a response out of any of them, but no one will reply to me. So, picture the scene. I'm drunk, wobbling in my heels, trying to get my mates and remember how to get to this guy's flat, all at the same time. It put my multitasking abilities to the test but I just about managed it right up until I saw someone sitting on some steps not far ahead of me.

They looked quite young, about my age and they were absolutely plastered. They were sitting on the stone steps of a building but they were leaning up against the wall next to them looking like they were just completely out of it. I instantly got a bit nervous about walking past them on my own so I crossed over to the other side of the street and just tried to get past them without drawing any attention. But in my heels with that bloody clacking it was almost impossible just to walk past without the drunk man noticing. I knew the moment he saw me because he starts drunkenly saying, Oi, where you going? But it was so slurred that I thought he just stays sat there on the steps,

slurring to himself. But then the next thing, he's shouting Oi even louder, and I look over my shoulder to see a lad who looked like he was half wearing a bowler suit from the waist down and who was carrying something in his hand. I couldn't work out what it was about him, but he looked oddly familiar, and it was only when he brought the thing to his hand up to his face that I realized what it was. He was carrying a mask, that same creepy clown mask that had been staring at me all night. It wasn't just some random drunk I'd been walking past, it was Clown Boy, and he was not happy to see me. I just kept walking at first, hoping that he was too drunk to follow me, but all it took was one look over my shoulder to

see that he was. Granted, he was only stumbling towards me, trying to work one of his arms into his boiler suit costume thing, but he was definitely trying to follow. Again, my go-to move was to get bullshy. I turned around to shout at him that if he came anywhere near me I'd call the police and have him arrested. But that only seemed to make him laugh. His laugh in the club had been cringy, but now, with him being as drunk as he was, his laugh sounded all unhinged, a sound that was made even creepier when contained in the plastic clown mask that was creeping me out harder than ever. I tried walking as fast as I could in my heels, powering it towards a left turn that I knew

I needed to take. I turned, acting like I was still going at walking pace, then I took off my heels and ran as fast as I could along the cold, wet pavement, hoping I could recognize where my date's flat was in the dark. I think that was the one move that saved me from something unspeakable that night, as Clown Boy didn't realize that I put some distance between us until we finally turned the corner and saw that it was running. He shouted again but I didn't look back that time, I just kept going, keeping my eye out for the right apartment building. It felt like forever but in the end I spotted the right building, crossed over the road, then was almost at the buzzer when I felt it. This sharp stabbing pain right in the center of my right foot and I let out this really loud

yelp of pain before basically hopping up the rest of the steps. I rang the guy's buzzer, he let me in and I just about got myself through the big heavy door before I had to sit down and call him to come down and get me. As part of my black cat costume I was wearing black tights that night and there was blood just dripping off my heels as I was sitting down and holding my foot in the air. I didn't see it, but I knew what it was. I'd stood on some broken glass and it had cut me really, really deep. Weirdly it didn't hurt at all, even though there were loads of blood and I knew it was a deep cut, I think the adrenaline just kept me going, that and knowing that I was actually safe.

The guy ended up driving me to A&E at about half past four in the morning and we had to wait in a waiting room that was almost entirely made up of other people in costumes who'd hurt themselves while drunk. The guy had been dating on and off, stayed with me the whole time, even held my hand when it was my turn to be examined. I thought that I might just get away with stitches, but I ended up having to stay in A&E for hours because the doctors wanted to make sure that there was no leftover glass in my foot. Thankfully, there wasn't. The doctor had got it all out on the first exam, but then I needed to get my foot stitched up, so that was more hanging around and waiting for something that was really, really unpleasant. Finally, after about three hours of sitting around and

getting treatment, I was free to leave. A doctor told me to stay off my foot for at least a fortnight but other than that, I was okay. I ended up going back to Leeds to stay with my parents while I was healing up but the whole time I'd been texting Joe, the guy who'd given me the lift and had been so nice during such a horrible time. We agreed to go on another date when I got back as I thought giving me a second chance after all that was the least I could do and I think that's where our relationship really started. When I realized how supportive and loving he could be during a crisis, I'd been incredibly indecisive about any potential relationship with him but that sealed it and we've been dating for coming up on eight years now. Bit of a weird origin story for a relationship I know, but it makes

total sense in my head. That run-in with clown boy was without a doubt the most unsettling and frightening thing that had happened to me during my university years, probably the one time I ever truly felt unsafe in Sheffield town center. I'm still eternally grateful to Joe for everything he did for me that night, and I'm hoping he'll keep me feeling safe for many years to come. Back in 2014, when I was in my senior year of high school, my mom joined my dad on a business trip over to Chicago for the weekend, which meant that I'd be home alone for Halloween night. I asked them super nicely if I could have a very small party, emphasis on very small,

where I could have some friends over so we could dress up and watch horror movies. They told me I could have a very and that if anything got damaged or broken, I'd be grounded till New Year. Seconds after promising them that it'd be nothing more than a sleepover, I start organizing a full-on house party. But to save on it getting out of hand, I enlisted my boyfriend to help out. Me and his friends would basically act as security and ensure the party didn't get out of hand or receive any unwanted guests, and we'd pay them in wine coolers or any beer me and my girlfriends could get our hands on. They agreed, then in as secret a way as we could manage, we started planning the Halloween party.

It was almost a total success. There were no gate crashers, no one puked anywhere they shouldn't have, and for the most part, everyone had a great night. The only stressful thing at the time was that way more people showed up than I first expected. Over the two weeks or so that we'd been planning it, various friends had been asking me, oh, can so-and-so come to the party? And I'd say yes, not wanting to be mean. I guess I did that so many times that I just lost track of the number of people who'd show up, and as much as there wasn't any permanent damage, there was definitely quite a mess afterwards in terms of empty containers and leftover food. The place looked a real mess when me and my friends woke up the next morning and we all felt so sick from

eating and drinking so much that we were in no mood to clean up for quite a while. Then finally, after heating up some leftover pizza and finishing off my boyfriend's Red Bulls, we felt ready to face the cleanup. A few hours later, everything looks as good as new. We'd been real thorough too, walking the lawn over for any cigarette butts, making sure all the trash was out and the kitchen didn't smell like beer, and everything is fresh and clean again. There was just one place that I hadn't realized to check, and that was the en suite bathroom in my parents' room. I was maybe 90-95% sure that it'd be fine, as everyone seemed pretty respectful of the places that were off limits. But then when I opened up the door and looked into the bathtub, I literally recoiled with horror and walked right out of the room.

One of my friends starts asking me, oh god, did someone puke in your parents bathroom? I just told her to go look, and when she did, she started yelling for everyone else to come look. There in the bathroom, with god knows how much having already gone down the drain, was all this dark red, sticky looking fluid that looked a lot like clotted blood. One of my friend's buddies made a piggish comment about one of us having our time of the month and I had to hold back from slapping him as I explained that's not what it looked like. The guys checked the bathroom out too and after seeing it himself, my boyfriend was the person who suggested that we call the cops.

The whole thing was just so weird and creepy though. We couldn't work out who had been hurt. We were calling around to the people who'd shown up that night to ask if anyone had been hurt but everyone said they were fine and what a great party it was. We also hadn't found any blood anywhere else in the house while we were cleaning up and it was one of the guys who said that there's no way someone would be that injured to not leave blood anywhere else in the house. That's when someone raised the idea of the whole thing being a prank. The cops were on the way when someone said it, and there was a moment when I felt like maybe we just overreacted a little. We didn't know if the blood was human, we didn't

know if it was actually even blood. It just looked a hell of a lot like it, the way it was all dark and kind of thick. Either way, it was better to be safe than sorry, and to just get the cops involved so we didn't look guilty if anything really bad had happened. The cops immediately called for backup so they could search for clues and take samples or whatever, and there's guys in white plastic suits coming in and out of my house all day as we're feeling anxious and hungover. The whole thing was horrible. And to make things worse, my mom and dad were so worried when I told them that they cancelled their business trip and came back home right away. I just felt like everything had been going great and suddenly it was like a straight up disaster. And I remember having this horrible guilty feeling that someone might have actually been hurt and no one helped them.

It was my party, my house, I should have helped them. You can probably guess from how horrible I feel that blood came back as being human but there was no DNA match to tell who it belonged to. The cops made us give them the names of everyone who was at the party, which turned out to be almost 70 people. Then they went about the long, slow process of interviewing everyone who was there to try to work out who'd been hurt, as well as who hurt them. But then every single person at the party told the cops the same thing they'd told me and my girlfriends when we'd asked. They were fine, they hadn't seen anyone get hurt, and they hadn't heard about anyone getting hurt either, not until the cops came calling.

We were only allowed to clean the en suite bathroom at the beginning of the following week when the cops said that they were finally done analyzing the room for DNA and all that stuff. Until then, me and my parents stayed in a hotel downtown and stayed in touch with everyone via phone. When the cops said that we could finally go home, we thought the whole thing was over for the most part. But the truth was, it was only the beginning. The rumors came first, people saying someone had been murdered at my party, and making up dumb theories on which one of us would get away with murder. It was really hurtful, not gonna lie, but since the cops seemed to have our back at first,

we didn't worry about any false accusations or anything. But then came the day when the cops showed up at our house with a search warrant. I don't know if they paid attention to the rumors or if the whole thing was just like part of their procedure, but when they showed my dad the warrant and asked if they could search the house, he couldn't exactly say no. That marked a whole shift in the atmosphere though, thinking that we as a family were now somehow suspect of hiding evidence or worse. I totally get that telling the cops that we cleaned up the next day made us look a little guilty, but since we didn't have anything to hide, we didn't have anything to worry about. That doesn't mean it didn't feel awful though, having the cops search all of our stuff like we were criminals, but like I said, we didn't have anything to hide and they didn't find anything, so that was that.

After this search, the cops left us alone for a while but eventually called to tell us that we'd be kept updated with how the investigation was progressing, which I'm guessing meant they trusted us all to be innocent again. We expected to hear about a body being found in the area, one whose DNA matched up to what had been found in her tub, but we heard nothing. My parents had to actually get in touch with the cops to be told that the investigation was steadily progressing and that they'd be contacted if the detectives needed help. My dad said that he could tell the case had stalled. The cops didn't have a body. They didn't have the victim's ID.

There's no DNA in the bathroom except for the mystery person, my mom and my dad, but my parents were ruled out as suspects because of their Chicago trip. They had nothing to go on, nothing at all. Until some new information came and changed the situation the whole thing was just going to remain a mystery. There's been times in the years since where I feel like my mom and dad think I've been lying to them. The rawest moment was when the subject came up in conversation with my mom. She struggled to find the words to say it, but she basically told me that if something bad had happened, and I was doing something to protect someone from going to jail, that the best thing I could do for myself was just to come out and tell the truth. I can see where she was coming from. It wouldn't

make any sense to me either, and I had to swear to her from my heart that I had no idea whose blood it was, that I hadn't lied and that I wasn't covering for anyone. She didn't ask me anything like that again as much as I think she wants to and mostly does believe me. I know there's a little seed of doubt in there that tells her I know more than I'm admitting. I just hope that one day we actually find out the truth of how that blood got there. In fact, I'm quite confident that at some point in the years to come, the owner of the blood will be identified after the cops somehow match the samples with something new that comes in. I just hope we find out that it was all just an accident someone had

survived, and not that someone was murdered in my house while we were all partying downstairs. I don't know who that person is, who hurt them or why they ended up in my parents bathroom that night but if they really were murdered I feel like that makes it all my fault. But even worse is this feeling of waiting. I'm so sick of waiting and I truly must know. I went to a Halloween party in my early 20s that went really wrong really fast. The host was a mate of a friend's brother and he seemed like a really nice lad at first. Didn't seem to mind his flat getting a bit messy for the sake of a party and otherwise seemed like a really chill guy. But as the party went on and things started to get a bit madder, you can tell the guy was starting to get a bit stressed out. He asked people to only smoke on the balcony but they were wandering indoors with lit cigarettes.

He asked people not to make a mess of the food he laid out, but it was trash before midnight. He asked people not to use his bedroom to get frisky, but again, that request was ignored. And by the time we got our first noise complaint, you could tell that he really was at the end of his tether. The final straw was this guy puking up in his sink, like really chunky stuff too that clogged up the plug hole. I watched the whole thing happen. The guy started puking, the host heard the sound of it so he went running, then when he found the guy vomiting in his sink and not the toilet, he gave him this kind of half-hearted shove.

The guy was so drunk that he actually turned at the host with this annoying look on his face, but then another wave of puke came up. Only, instead of turning back to the sink, the drunk guy puked up all over the host. It was like this proper record scratch moment. Everyone went quiet, no one dared laugh, and the host just walked off to the flat's bathroom and to change his clothes. It was absolutely disgusting, and the guy who had puked was so drunk that he didn't even really seem to know what he'd done. He just stared off into space, then down in his puke, and went back to the sink to carry on retching.

A few people got up to try and take charge of the situation, going to see if the host was okay while telling the drunk guy that he needed to leave, but the whole time I'm watching, I can just feel the mood of the party shift. Then the next thing you know, the host has reappeared in the kitchenette thing, soaking wet with no top on. Clean it up, then get out of my flat, he screams. And again, it's this record scratch moment of everyone going quiet as the host storms off again, presumably to get dressed. People are looking around at each other like, yeah, it's time to leave, as the mood went from uncomfortable to people feeling like an actual fight was about to kick off. To his credit, the drunk guy was apologizing and offering to clean up his puke at this point, but he had people telling him that

it was best that he just leave as soon as possible, because it seemed like the host was going to deck him. I think the drunk guy was just too wasted to understand how much trouble he was actually in, and he just kept stalling for time because no one wanted to physically lay hands on him. But then right as the drunk guy seems to be agreeing to leave, the host reappears wearing what looked like one black glove on one of his hands and punches the drunk guy right in the face. I didn't find out until later that it was a knuckle glove, which is basically brass knuckles but concealed in a glove, and that's why the punch made the drunk guy go flying back and why a massive gash on his face started bleeding soon after he fell. It all happened so fast that by the time anyone realized what was happening, the damage was done.

And even though some of the other partygoers managed to restrain the furious host before he could get a second shot in, it didn't matter. The drunk guy was out cold with a serious facial injury. People just freaked out. We later found out that his wound wasn't that bad, but at the time, the floppy way that he fell back onto the floor combined with all the blood, it made people think that his injuries were much more serious than they were. Me included. I'll hold my hands up, I thought the guy might have been dead at first, especially after the way his head smashed into the tiling. I'd like to be able to

say that I did the right thing, that I dialed 999 and stuck around to tell people what I'd seen, but let's just say me and my mates had something on us that police frown upon, so we didn't fancy rolling the dice on the whole upstanding citizen thing. Besides, we knew other people had already called an ambulance for the drunk guy, which probably meant the police were going to turn up, in which case, that was our cue to skedaddle. I wouldn't say I was scared in the moment, we hadn't done anything wrong, and we got along well with the host as we talked and smoked with him so I wasn't scared he'd turn on us or anything, but it's just scary to me how house parties involving alcohol

can be such powder kegs like that. Not to take away from the host's share of the blame, but it was like a slow-moving car crash. You watched this bloke winding up like a spring as people just kept trashing his flat all night. Then eventually he just snapped. I wouldn't have reacted by hitting someone, but I can't understand why he was so stressed out. The drunk guy needed stitches for his gash and I heard that he also got a pretty nasty concussion from hitting his head off the floor when he fell. He ended up pressing charges against the guy who hit him though and that was an ongoing thing for a while. I'm not sure how it ended but hopefully with Ho's getting anger management classes or something.

I get why he was so stressed, but to try and do someone serious damage like that, it's truly frightening behavior. To be continued... Calling this the worst party I ever went to seems kind of reductive because what I'm about to tell you constitutes one of the worst events of my life. It was a Halloween party that I went to with my girlfriend back when we first moved to Boise. I was working from my laptop at home while she got a job down at this live music bar and this meant that she was making new friends and socializing while I was cooped up indoors. When Halloween comes around, she asked me if I wanted to come to a party with her, one hosted by a friend that she'd met through work. I said sure, that'd be cool to try and make some guy friends to watch football with. So the night rolls around and I join her at the party. The weather that night was absolutely

awful, just rain on top of rain, and the guy whose party it was had a whole BBQ setup planned which was ruined by the weather. We ended up having to grill up some onto the backyard and the guy whose home it was asked any smokers to head out back to where he'd set up a kind of smoking area. Those that wanted to crush butts had to head out back and face being soaked, but one or two didn't seem to mind. So as I'm plating hot dogs for people, I ask if anyone wants one. Some guy out back smoking a cigarette says he wants one, so I meet him at the doorway, hand him a hot dog, then he runs back under the little umbrella that

constituted the party's covered smoking area. I then go handing out hot dogs, grab myself a beer, then get talking to people. I'm not even sure how long later, but one of the smokers comes running in from the backyard smoking area yelling at people to call 911. The guy who I'd given a hot dog to had choked on it in the backyard. By the time he realized he was actually choking and needed help, he only had time to walk halfway across the lawn before he collapsed. Then, with a whole crew of people partying inside just meters away from him, he suffocated right there in the mud. I know it wasn't my fault, but knowing that he choked on the hot dog that I gave him just really messed me up for a while. It was just a really, really bad night from there on, and everyone was traumatized, and I feel absolutely heartbroken for the guy's family. To be continued... city we went to school in was considered a very safe university town. The most we had heard of

happening was drunk morons doing typical drunk moron things. This is also the first time that we were all really living on our own. First year residents are nice, but it's basically an extended summer camp rather than a typical living situation. The four of us girls lived in a nice townhouse that never once had a creepy vibe or weird neighbors in the months we had lived there. The only eerie part was that every weekend we were the only people who stayed in the complex. All of our neighbors either went home or stayed elsewhere until returning Monday for classes. This was never something we had given a second thought to, considering that was fairly normal for our uni town. Especially because our complex was only made up of about four other townhouses. The complex was surrounded by walking trails and farm fields, which we loved. It was like a quiet spot away

from the chaos of college kids. There were a few farmhouses we could see from our backyard, but other than that, we were fairly secluded. The university was about a 20 minute bus ride away, which was never a big deal for any of us, especially because the rent was far cheaper here than in places that were within walking distance to campus. Being 5'6", I was the tallest by a considerable amount. I was also the only one out of the group who had been in a handful of scary situations. Due to this, I was the only one up to this point who would lock the doors, windows, and garage before leaving or going to bed. My roommates all grew up in small,

very safe towns so it was uncommon for them to lock doors back at home. They were also incredibly kind and trusting to everyone, never considering hidden bad intentions. The night in question started very normally. We had planned on having a wine and a movie night, and this was all kind of like a weekly tradition for us. We would pick out some stupid movie, get takeout, and get a little buzz after a long week of classes and work. At this point, it was early November so we had been doing this for several months with no issue. By 8.30ish we had all settled on the couch in our living room and had started a comedy. With it being November it was already completely dark outside other than our porch light we could see from the small window at the very top of our door.

None of us were tall enough to see anything out of that window anyway, so we relied entirely on our peephole. It took a great amount of effort for me to convince my roommates to check the peephole before opening the door. This is a talk we had after one roommate had opened the door for our neighbor's very drunk friend, who threw up all over our main floor. Not long after ordering our takeout, we heard banging on our front door. Jess made a joke about how the delivery guy must have taken a helicopter to get here this quickly, especially considering the place we ordered was very close to campus. It was not a typical delivery guy's knock either, but between the few glasses of wine and carefree attitude of that night, we didn't really pay it too much mind.

It was my roommate's turn to pay this week. I'll call her Meg for the sake of this story. Out of the group, she is the smallest, barely 5 feet, and she is also the most trusting person I think I ever met. She ran up to her room to grab her wallet, and this took at most 30 seconds, and during this time the banging continued and was getting more aggressive. I figured maybe it was cold or he had other stuff to do so we yelled to get her to hurry. The banging continued to get harder and harder and I started to feel a bit uneasy. When she came back down I told her to check the peephole before opening it, as she was usually the one to just open up. She got to the door and looked out the peephole, and she could barely reach it on a good day,

so when she said she couldn't see anything, my other roommate and I got up to help. My second roommate, I'll call her Jess, is a very funny person. There are very few things that she would not turn into a joke. Jess got to the door before I did and looked out the peephole, the person on the other side still banging away. When she turned to look at me I knew something was wrong. She looked incredibly confused, a look I had rarely seen from her as she was very clever.

Within a second she had gone back in for another look. This time her face was not confused, she looked afraid, and this made my stomach nod up. She is a horror movie fanatic and she doesn't scare easily. I think someone is covering the people, she whispered shouted at us. This time I looked out the people seeing that, yes, something was covering the people. We could still see the porch light shining through the window at the top, so we knew it was not a case of it being too dark to be able to see what was going on. By now, our other

roommate, whom I'll call Anne, had walked down the hall trying to find out what was going on. She was easily the drunkest of the four of us. Even sober, though, she seemed to think that she was invincible. What's your problem? Just open the door, the poor dude has his hands full, was Anne's wise idea. Jess and I explained what was going on. At this point, Meg, Jess, and I all had a gut feeling that something was wrong. That's when Jess asked Meg to check the website that she had ordered food on. Meg had not placed the order, and between the wine and the silliness of the earlier night, she had selected our food but didn't finish the last step. The banging continued as our situation started to sink in.

Anne, still not seeming to grasp what was happening, and tried to unlock the door. Stop! I snapped at her. Immediately I knew it was too loud. For the first time, the person on the other side of the door spoke. This is the police. Open the door now. We have a few questions for you. A man's voice practically growled back at us. This sobered me up right away.

I looked over at Meg who was already welling up, then at Jess who had gone completely pale. At this point, Anne also realized something was not right and froze which is the least Anne thing she could have done. The banging was getting increasingly harder to the point we could physically see the door breathe with each hit. Meg took Anne upstairs trying to calm each other down and check if there was a police car parked outside and make sure our windows were locked. Though it was hard to do, it was possible to get onto part of our roof that made it possible to get to Anne's window. We heard a window slam, immediately knowing that it had been Anne's window. Being a bit of a thrill seeker, Anne had taken out her window screen in order to sit on the roof. For some reason, this made what was happening very real.

Uh, show me your badge and then we'll open the door. I yelled back. Instead of a response, it sounded like the guys started to kick the door. I told Jess to call the police and ask if they had an officer dispatched to our address. Jess was shaking so badly at this point that it was hard for her to dial. Now Meg had come back down the stairs, sharing that there was no police car parked outside. Anne trailed behind her standing on the stair landing trying to get a look outside the window at the top of the door. At that moment, my blood ran cold, remembering that the man at the door had said,

we, and not I. Jess had just come to the same realization. She sprinted to our back door, a large sliding glass door which she double checked that was locked and thankfully it had been. She drew the curtains as well, trying to minimize the chance of them seeing in. Within a minute, the knocking started at our back door as well. Thank God she had closed the curtains because the idea of seeing whoever was doing that still gives me chills. Uncover the peephole and show me your badge! I yelled, trying to sound as intimidating as a young college girl could. We were met with silence, which was so much worse than the banging.

What's your badge number at least? Just prove to us that you're the police! I screamed, trying to keep my voice from breaking. The only response I got back was a gravelly, I can't do that. Jess had handed her phone off to Meg, who was now sobbing, trying to speak to the dispatcher. The banging now, coming from both sides of the house, must have been heard by the operator. Is there someone trying to break in? She asked Meg, obviously being unable to understand her. Meg frantically asked if police had been sent to her house. The answer we all knew by now was no.

Meg babbled that at least two men tried to get us to unlock the door by impersonating a police officer. Try to stay calm. Stay on the phone with me. Police are on their way to your address, the operator told Meg. How long will they be? Meg answered back. No more than ten minutes, she responded. That made Meg cry harder, realizing just how long ten minutes really is. The door was being hit so hard I worried it would break, and Jess ran back toward our back door making me worry that our kitchen window had been opened. Trying to think, I put a chair under the doorknob and sat down hoping the door would hold. Jess came back to the front

door holding a kitchen knife and a fire extinguisher, which were the only things we had to protect ourselves with in case they got in. Anne, now sitting on the landing, flinched with each hit. Anne was farm tough and had no issue dealing with animals three times her size. What was happening now, though, was entirely different. We had nothing to really deter whoever wanted in. No prods and no backup until the real police show up. Not like what she was used to. She grew up having a family as her neighbors her whole life. If anything was happening, her uncles and grandfather were at her front door in a minute flat. Anne's un-invincible attitude was long gone. She was now as scared as the rest of us, only having some wood

and glass keeping these men out. Each hit to the back door made me expect whoever was there to break through the glass. Open the door! The man yelled at us, not caring if we thought they were the police anymore. Then it got very quiet again, which made me want to throw up. The only thing worse than what was happening was not knowing where the men were. The idea of both men moving to the back door made me absolutely terrified. If they really wanted to, it would be very little effort to smash through the plate glass. Instead, the knocking at the back door had completely ceased. Within seconds of that, the front door started being hit again.

Trying to wrap my mind around why they would leave the easiest entry for a heavy wood, I realized the back door was visible to the main road where they had seen a car or heard us talking to the police and they were smart enough not to want to be seen by anyone. Jess then said something that I'd not thought of. I don't think they want to rob us. There's so many houses that are empty. Why would they come to the only house with lights on? She hissed. My whole body went cold, and I didn't have an answer, and all I could say was, you're right. Meg clearly felt the same because at this point she was practically hyperventilating. The three of us stayed quiet for a while, awful scenarios running through our heads. Anne moved back to the last few steps and out of sight.

The operator, who we had forgotten was on speaker, spoke which practically made me jump out of my skin. She must have felt how terrified we were and tried to calm us down. The police are two minutes away. They have their sirens turned off and lights are on. You should be able to see them very soon, stay on the phone with me so I can confirm when they're outside for you, she said. The men outside were starting to seem desperate. The sound of glass shattering had me turning to the back door, fully expecting to go into offense. The door was still intact. Instead, our Porsche light, the only light illuminating our dark street, went out,

which put two and two together for me, understanding that they had destroyed the only way we would have been able to identify whoever was on the other side. Screw you! A voice which we hadn't heard before, whoever was at the back door spat at us. And this was worse than the initial speaker. It was full of so much hate and venom that it scared me more than the beginning. It was so calm and tense on whatever his goal was, it didn't feel like how the first man had sounded. Up until this point I could have convinced myself that they had wanted our valuables,

but this voice made me understand that he had wanted us. To this day, I had never heard a voice come close to that level of malice. It sounded like he wanted to inflict serious harm on us, and if he had gained entry, I know he would have. Somehow, I wanted the first man to speak again instead of whichever sick freak had just spoken. I looked at Meg. I know how terrified I must have looked. Until now I may have done a half decent job at hiding how scared I was, but that voice ruined my ability to stay stone-faced. Meg looked like a little scared girl and that had me panic. If they got in, there was nothing I would be able to do to stop them. Not for me and not for my friends. We would have been at the mercy of the monster outside. Jess had practically stopped breathing. It was like the

oxygen had been sucked out of the air. It was so quiet it sounded like a gunshot when our mailbox opened. Anne ran back down the stairs. I see the sirens, but they're coming down the main road now. She whispered, hoping not to have the men hear. The same man spoke again one more time, so slowly that

I almost thought he was done after each word. In that same awful calm voice he read out a letter addressed to the four of us. Our neighbor must have put it in today. She had planned a potluck for the next week, and none of us thought to check the mailbox after we had talked to her in the driveway this morning. Jess. Meg. Anne.

Sam. Those are nice names. Meg Anne Sam Those are nice names. I'll be back soon, girls. And then we'll have some fun. I felt tears rolling down my face. I hadn't realized I had started crying, but I knew he meant what he had said. I tried to pull my mind

out of the dark pit that sentence had sent it to. Waiting, praying that the police had surprised them, hoping that they would not get the chance to come back. The silence continued and none of us dared to speak, worried that we would not hear if they moved to another point of entry. Instead, the silence persisted for what felt like a lifetime. The operator was the first one to speak, telling us that the police are out front. She told us to stay in the house until the police knocked on the door. The kind woman stayed on the phone with us for several more minutes while the police searched around the area. Finally, the real police showed us their badge through the peephole before even knocking to try not to scare us.

The operator told us that we had done well and that we were in good hands now. We opened the door to be met by two kind-looking older police officers who we let in. Glass shards covered our front stoop from our porch light. It looked like it had been ripped out of the wall and smashed onto the concrete below. There were several police cars out front of our previously quiet home. The headlights on all the cars were shining down the street towards the walking trail. We spoke to the officers who took a report from us. They asked us to describe the night's events in detail.

They asked us if we saw them at all and we explained how the people had been covered and the light had been smashed before moving away from the door. The officers advised us to speak to our landlord about at least installing security cameras. The older officer then closed the pad that he'd been riding in and looked up at us. He then spoke a phrase that made me understand how much danger we had been in. Look, if any of you were my daughters, I would have wanted the officer to tell her. If you can get out of your lease, do it. They know where you all live, and they also know the response time for us,

especially after telling all of you that he would be back. After that, they asked if we had heard a vehicle, and that was something I had not considered. We didn't hear any type of motor until the police were there. Even when Meg and Anne had looked for a police car, they said they saw no cars on the street at all, so likely that meant that they had come from the walking path, which would explain how they left without passing the police on their way back to the main road. The older officer of the two had a look that told me he had an idea of what was going on. He looked sad, which was worse than

if he had looked scared. I knew that he had seen the situation end far worse in the past. We pushed for an explanation, but we were only told that this had seen the situation end far worse in the past. We pushed for an explanation but we were only told that this had been an issue ongoing for years but didn't elaborate past that point. The officers stood up, exchanged a glance that I didn't know how to read and then spoke again. We'll have a cruiser parked in the driveway as well as a plane car parked out back. They're not going to have a chance to try again. They didn't catch the men in the two more weeks that we lived there. We had a few creepy things, but nothing close to this.

The reality was that they had not been caught, and they could come back at any time. After this night, we spoke to our landlady, who was incredible. She owned several properties around the city and when we explained what had happened, she let us move to an apartment closer to campus. She told us that our safety is more important than making a few hundred dollars and she even left the house empty for many months in order to make sure that cameras, better locks, and a reinforced back door were installed. Thankfully, they never came back and we were able to enjoy our new apartment without worrying.

This is still so scary to me because of that voice. Just make sure you lock your doors and check who's there before opening the door. I I figured I'd post about an experience I had when I was 17. I'm 25 now. I'm a woman, dress size 24 to 26, and that will be kind of important later. I used to work at a popular women's wear plus size store and it was my second ever job and I worked there three times a week after school. I usually worked closing with my manager and one other woman. However, our manager would leave around 6pm and I'd be there till about 8pm with my co-worker.

I should mention here that I was the youngest of our team. Everyone else was in their 30s and 40s and there was some internal mistreatment as a result. A lot of it was them speaking to me like a toddler and making snide remarks about my appearances. I had piercings, dyed hair, stretched ears, etc. I had two core workers who I loved dearly. They were in their 30s and 60s. Fabulous people who were also alternative but sadly the rest were competitive and mean-spirited. There was one particular co-worker who I was closing with that night and she was very fend

for herself with almost all of the staff members. She was very proper, very religious so she hated me and she took everything super literally, a real peach. It was about 7.30pm and we were just starting to do our closing tasks. I was putting clothes away, cleaning tables, etc. and my co-worker was behind cash. A woman came in, maybe mid-50s, skinny, lanky, short hair, skin damage level tan, colorless eyes, I'm talking pupils and nothing else, and it looked like she lived in a fire pit. She didn't say much at first but made a beeline for the lingerie which is where I was cleaning. She looks over at me a couple of times and I get

the feeling that she's trying to steal. I subtly let my co-worker know by using our code word in a sentence and she notes the same thing. The evening goes on but now under a more watchful eye I kept an eye on the woman for about 15 minutes. During this time, she would shuffle between racks almost like a crab, side to side, back always facing me, muttering to herself, and her hands would move jaggedly and sharply towards different items. She almost looked animated, her movements just felt so unnatural. Eventually she turns around to face me and she has a pile of lingerie hanging over her arm and she smiles widely and says, My wife and I had an argument. She won't let me back into our apartment until I get her a gift.

I'm thinking something will benefit us both if you know what I'm saying. It's at this point she nudges me. I, a nervous teenager, nervously laugh and ask if she knows her wife's size, pointing out that she has grabbed multiple differently sized items. She ponders for a moment and says, you got more brains than me. I don't know her size actually, but come to think of it, she looks a bit like you. As she's saying this, she begins holding up lingerie against my body, sizing me up. This made me extremely uncomfortable for obvious reasons. Any person touching me against my consent is a big no-no for me already, especially in a sort of objectified manner, regardless of who they are. I take a step back, turn to my coworker and gave her the help me eyes.

It was at this point my coworker shrugged and turned the other way. I could swear she was giggling at the situation. I realized I was now alone in dealing with this woman. I gently offered the alternative option, a bathrobe, a pretty safe bet and more flexible if it's oversized or undersized. Plus, you can return a house coat. You cannot, however, return a lace thong. The shopper practically jumps at the idea, still giddy and animated, and I start to think she merely had a lapse of judgment before. But boy was I wrong. She takes the rope from my hands and goes, oh, this is perfect,

but I'm still hesitant about the size. Say, you guys offer try-ons, don't you? We did. We would sometimes model products for customers with limited mobility who wanted to see garments in action. She took my head at this and examined that we can do that for business attire but not casual wear or lingerie. She sighs, shuffles around and goes, well, you're about the same size as her. Let me hug you to be sure. Before I could react, she had her arms around me. I froze, couldn't feel my arms or legs. I remember my heart racing as she patted my back. Something kicked in and I took a quick step back, but I couldn't say anything. I was shocked. She smiles and goes, that wasn't so bad, huh baby? And I was right. You're exactly like my woman,

curvy in all the right places. You're sure you can't amuse me and try this on? Every word put me on edge. I began stepping back to the safety of the cash counter where my co-worker was, and it was at this time my co-worker decided to go clean the fitting rooms. Once safely behind cash, I checked the time and said, Uh, I... No, I can't do that for you. Again, store policy. Are you buying the robe? We close in five minutes. She seems surprised at my change of tone.

I'm in full freeze, flight, fight mode, and my emotions are all over the place, and I just want her gone. Yeah, I'll take it. She said something like that, it's kind of blurry, and she goes to pull out her wallet and surprise, surprise, no wallet in sight. She fumbles around to find cash for a good five minutes or so, and during this time she decides to go into extensive detail about her and her wife's intimate life and how it got worse after they married. Eventually, she finds a crumpled up $50 bill and buys the robe, confirming that it is returnable. As she's leaving, she says, if she doesn't like this, I'll be back tonight. If you're

not here, I'll come back every day until you're here. I like you. I told her we were closed, and my co-worker unlocks the door at this point and gestured for the customer to leave. She didn't have any parting words after that, but did blow a kiss at me on the way out. I winced at it, and that's all I know. My co-worker giggled when the woman left and said, She sure did like you. I didn't say anything back.

I got my stuff and left. About two weeks later, I put in my two weeks notice following a similar incident involving a serial pooper using our changing rooms as a bathroom. He would also try on our women's lingerie, and that's a story for another time. Thankfully, the robe woman never showed up again while I was working, although at one point my manager told me a short-haired woman was looking for me during the early hours of the following day, and I'm certain it was probably her. This just happened this week. I was on vacation with my family and they were driving me insane after day three. I decided maybe I'll take a look on Bumble and see if there were any cute locals to meet up with for an hour or two while my family went to more museums, which is not at all my interest. My family at home also thought it would be a funny story to meet up with a local.

For reference, I'm a 25 year old female and I was with my parents and younger sister for a week. We were in a remote-ish area in a small town out west, visiting a lot of national parks, so there weren't a lot of people nearby on the apps. I started swiping and soon came across a guy who was my age and looked cute, had similar interests as me so I felt like I would be down to meet up with him. We started talking on the app, then eventually moved to Snapchat and he suggested that we go to the next town over, which is about 30 minutes away to see the fireworks. I couldn't that night since I had plans with my fam and I was also hesitant about meeting a guy 30 minutes away when I was so already out of my element and we were in what felt like the middle of nowhere. He knew I was

there doing hiking and parks so he suggested we go for a local hike nearby the next day. A lot of great hiking trails around here apparently. Now important side note, I deleted my last name on snapchat before he added me so he does not know it. I don't know if I had a bad feeling in the back of my mind or what but I didn't want him knowing much of my info. However, it did show his last name which is important later. I had hesitations about going into the woods with a random guy especially since I had been around the hiking trails the day before and my cell service was cutting in and out. But the trails were well populated and I did want to see more out there and my family was going to some museums that I had no interest in so I agreed to meet them the next day.

That night I got a bad feeling and kept getting more nervous about meeting a random bumble man far from home in an area I don't know too well. Even though my family knew where I would be, I was feeling uncomfortable and decided maybe I should just google this guy and see what other info I could find out about him like his Instagram or LinkedIn etc. So I could give my family his info while I was gone in case anything happened. I also wanted to verify what I knew about Tim, like his workplace and alma mater, etc. Well, I type in his first and last name and town that we're in, into Google, and I click on the first link. The next thing I know, I'm looking at a registered offender profile with his full name, address, photo, description of his offense, etc. And it was

fairly recent. I'm not sure if I can go into detail here about his offense, but I can assure you that had I not googled this man, things could have turned out very, very badly for me. Or maybe not. But nonetheless, I'm shook that I almost met up with him. Please make sure to do your due diligence when meeting people off the internet. For the past 14 years, I've worked as an airline pilot out of Hartsfield-Jackson here in Atlanta. Thankfully, I've only experienced a handful of out of Hartsfield-Jackson here in Atlanta. Thankfully, I've only experienced a handful of in-flight emergencies during my career, and most of them were fairly easily dealt with. There was only one incident in which I felt my life was in danger, where I found myself faced with the real, I might not make it out of this, moment that all pilots dread. And this is the story of that incident. To properly tell this

story, I need to explain something about how commercial aircraft operate, and for the sake of brevity and comprehension, I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. On most 737s, there are three sources of what we call bleed air that are used to pressurize the aircraft's cabin. Cabins are pressurized because the air is so thin at 35,000 feet that people can't breathe it, so these sources of bleed air ensure there's enough breathable air in the cabin for safe travel. In theory, you only need one source of bleed air to keep a cabin pressurized, but modern aircraft feature three so two of them can essentially function as backups.

So, on the day in question, the aircraft I was due to pilot only had two sources of bleed air, as the one on the second engine wasn't functioning. The maintenance guys had taken a look at the plane and were unable to repair the bleed, but since our two other sources of bleed air were functioning, the aircraft was deferred. This means that it was declared safe to fly, because the chances of our two remaining sources malfunctioning were slim to none. No pilot is 100% happy flying an aircraft that isn't completely malfunction-free, but that's just the world we live in. If every plane on the planet was grounded every time something went wrong,

the global economy would simply just grind to a halt. Well, immediately after takeoff, our APU failed, meaning that we only had one bleed source to pressurize the cabin, that being from engine number one. Obviously, this made me very, very nervous, because if that source failed, we'd have nothing to keep the cabin pressurized, and that can be deadly. However, since the scheduled flight was due to be a relatively short one, I was optimistic that I could get us up to our low cruising altitude, and keep us there for the remainder of the flight to minimize risk. So once I got the plane to just over 8,000 feet, I messaged dispatch and maintenance using the ACARS system, which is basically just satellite-based text messaging service that the aircraft uses to communicate with ground crews.

They replied saying they believed the flight was still safe to continue on one bleed source, as we reached 25,000 feet, I remember trying to inhale and feeling the telltale sensation of air gently seeping out of my lungs. Finding myself unable to breathe normally, my eyes shoot up to the cabin altitude gauge, which was showing that cabin altitude was rising at the exact same rate of climb as the aircraft, meaning that we'd somehow lost all pressurization capabilities, resulting in rapid depressurization of the cabin. Seconds later, I hear the warning chime as a message appears on our crew alert system that simply reads, Bleed 1 Fail. With no sources of bleed air at 25,000 feet, I needed to get us at a safe altitude as soon as possible. If I couldn't, we'd be out of breathable air, and we'd be in a whole

world of trouble. Rapid cabin depressurization is a deadly phenomenon, and is actually the reason that Helios Airways Flight 522 crashed back in 2005. A loss of pressurization incapacitated the crew, leaving the aircraft flying in a loop on autopilot until it ran out of fuel, at which point it crashed into a mountain range, killing all 121 passengers and crew on board. The incident pretty much went under the radar of the mainstream media and very few people remember it these days, but the Flight 522 incident constitutes a living nightmare for anyone in aviation circles, and it scared the crap out of the Greek government and the military too. Because no ground crews could contact Flight 522, it was marked down as a renegade aircraft which had possibly been hijacked by terrorists.

Two Greek F-16s were tasked with intercepting the aircraft and faced the possibility of having to shoot it down before it could be used as a weapon against civilian targets. The F-16 pilots eventually flew close enough to the aircraft that they were able to observe the first officer slumped motionless at the controls while the captain's seat was empty. They also reported that oxygen masks were dangling in the passenger cabin and were unable to spot any passengers who were utilizing the oxygen masks. It was a bittersweet moment for all involved because as much as the F-16 could safely declare that Flight 522 wasn't a renegade aircraft, they were then forced to observe what was essentially a ghost plane. No one was in control of it, and it just flew

in circles on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed. Like I said, it's an incident that very few people remember outside of aviation circles, but I was haunted by such a prospect. And that day, when I realized that exact same thing was happening to the aircraft I was flying, I felt a kind of terror that I'm not sure I can put into words. Knowing I had to act quickly and decisively, I started by throwing off my sunglasses and headset before donning my full-face oxygen mask and smoke goggles. The mask provides breathable air with a forced flow and can do so up to an altitude of 41,000 feet. Naturally, my first officer did

the same thing which gave everyone in the aircraft a fighting chance of making it out alive, because as you can imagine, unconscious pilots means everyone is screwed. We then informed the cabin crew of the emergency and began initiating an emergency descent, pushing just over to our maximum speed while deploying the speed brakes to generate maximum drag. Once the ground crew became aware of our situation, we received clearance to descend to 10,000 feet before executing a 180-degree turn to land back at Hartsfield-Jackson. To their credit, air traffic control did an incredible job at vectoring aircraft out of our proposed flight path, meaning they went about clearing the airspace so we could land safely. This was no mean feat either, as I'm sure some of you know just how busy the airspace around Atlanta can be, given how almost every flight around the southeast has a connection there.

About 5-10 minutes into our ordeal, the cabin pressure had almost reached hazardous levels, but not quite high enough for the oxygen mass in the cabin to automatically deploy. During emergencies like that, we tend to not inform passengers of every little detail, as it tends to just make them panic. But I'd be willing to bet that many of them noticed something about the level of breathable air on board, just not enough to realize that something was seriously wrong. Besides, at the rate we were descending, we were pretty much in the clear, as with every thousand foot drop, the cabin pressure became more and more normalized. Minutes later, we landed back at ATL on the longest runway with fire trucks rolling in to assist us, just in case something really went wrong with the landing. Unfortunately, none of the passengers or crew reported any injuries from the

sudden increase in cabin altitude, as people with certain medical conditions can suffer complications during such an event. Once we were safely on the ground, I parked us up at the gate, then made an announcement to the passengers about what had just happened. I made sure to use plenty of layman's terms as well as downplaying the whole thing so I didn't scare the crap out of everyone with the details of how we almost just lost our lives. By happenstance, we had 12 Japanese tourists on our flight that were on a tour of the east coast and in their ignorance, they were very upset that their trip was inconvenienced by the emergency. Without knowing the full details, they had somehow gotten into their heads that we were just being overly safety conscious and that the flight could have continued if it wasn't for overbearing health and safety protocols.

I ended up personally talking with them via translator and I gave them a full and very detailed explanation of what happened while we were up in the air. As I explained what happened, their facial expressions morphed from disgruntled frowns, to surprised and fearful, then finally to outrageously grateful and thankful. Before I walked away, all twelve of them, including the translator, were thanking me in a mix of Japanese and English, and all bowed out of respect and gratitude. I tried telling them it was no big deal and that I was just doing my job, but they saw right through the downplaying and the display of humility and straight up thanked me for saving their lives.

Following the averted disaster, I ended up swapping airplanes to one that was fully functional and we completed the flight as planned, albeit around 3 hours behind schedule. After getting home later that day, I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep properly, so I just didn't try. I stayed up until the early hours of the next morning, knowing I had the day off, and thought about the several complaints the airline received about the flights being delayed for three hours. I think only the Japanese tourists actually knew how close they were to dying mid-flight, and while the majority of passengers were probably indifferent to the inconvenience, there were certainly a handful that complained after having dodged a huge bullet. I don't blame them, not one bit,

because as we all know, ignorance is bliss. I'm a 19-year-old female, and today I was freaked out on my walk home. I live not too far from my favorite coffee bean, and I really wanted to go since I had finished school already. I'm going to community college and still take the bus everywhere, but since this coffee place was right near my house, I decided to walk like I usually do. It was around 2pm when I got there and everything was normal. It wasn't until my walk back that I felt uncomfortable. I live probably half a mile away and when I crossed the street leading to my block, I saw a man with red hair, box dyed bright red, who seemed youngish but had growing stubble and looked older than me.

He had a drawstring bag and was walking opposite to me on the crosswalk. While I was passing, he asked me if I had cigarettes and I said no and continued walking. I figured it was just some random guy who couldn't afford cigarettes considering there was a smoke shop about half a block away. As I kept walking, not more than probably 20 steps into the next block, I hear a very fast walking behind me and immediately I assume it's someone on a run or something and move to the side, but it's the same man. I guess he walked the opposite way of where he was originally headed just to talk to me because he started saying something and I didn't understand him. I looked and suddenly he was asking if he could use my phone. He told me he was a college student and needed to call his mom. He then asked if I go to school here and I said what school and he just said the college near here. I could tell something

was up and was scared he was even talking to me in the first place since it was an empty neighborhood and I'm a young looking girl by myself. I lied and just told him no. Just for reference, the college I went to and nearest to my location was a mile away and I felt weird that he didn't even name the school. I didn't want to be talking to him but I was just trying to walk away and I guess I was nervous. He then asked to use my phone again and I was so nervous. And I stood there for a few seconds contemplating what to do and I don't know why I just said okay. I was half expecting him to run off with it or something but he dialed a number and held it to his ear. He didn't say hello or tell anyone it was him. He just said okay bye and hung up.

And then he handed my phone back and I told him I was leaving now and he told me that she said that she'd call him back. Why would his mom say that if they barely spoke for one second and he never even introduced himself? I said there was a restaurant down the street and he should ask for their phone instead and he just replied with, oh yeah. Next Next I started walking to my house, mind you, we were on the corner of my block already. He started walking the same way, he asked if I lived here and I said no and that I was waiting for a friend. And then he asked if I was walking that direction, the one I was already headed toward and he followed behind me, probably

about 10 feet. I ignored him and he asked if I had a boyfriend and I told him yes. And it was true, but mostly I said it for him to leave me alone. I know it was stupid, but I didn't go around the block or anything because he was walking pretty fast and I didn't want him to talk to me. It's a pretty empty neighborhood during the day. When he was around 20 feet behind me, I decided to not go around the block and just go inside. I guess I just felt so weird and I didn't have a car or anything so I couldn't just wait there. I pretended someone was talking to me on the phone and grabbed my keys out of my bag and I walked so fast to my house and unlocked my door and closed it.

Within a minute of me locking it, knowing he was still behind me and hearing his footsteps, the doorbell rang. I was so scared because I was home alone, and this has never happened to me before in my neighborhood. I decided to look at the call log on my phone and found the number. The person never picked up, of course. It just said call cancelled. I blocked it in case he called himself or something, but I just felt so scared. Just thinking about his footsteps getting louder and faster each time I went in front of him made me start to freak out when I was about 16 years old, so over 20 years ago now. I have five younger siblings and my little sister would have been five years old.

We lived in a bad neighborhood, in the housing projects. Our neighbor was nice but she always had sketchy looking people hanging around, especially men. One day these two new guys started hanging out there every day. They'd always be outside smoking or just sitting on her porch. They made me really uncomfortable. They were always staring at me and would sometimes try to get me to walk over and talk to them. Or they'd come over into our yard when my parents weren't home and talk to me, asking me if I had a boyfriend and asking me if I wanted some beer or weed. I was a goody-two-shoe Mormon girl so I always was like, no thanks, I have to go inside now. And they were probably both around 30 years

old or so. Then they started coming over and asking to use our phone when my parents weren't home. My parents always let the neighbors use our phone so I never said no but I would just pass it through the door and make sure they stayed on the porch. They'd sometimes ask to come in or try to talk to me but I would tell them no because my parents weren't home. And now I realize how dumb that was because they could have just pushed the door open. But I was raised to ignore red flags and be polite and sweet at all times. Anyway, we had a little dog and I always took him outside early in the morning on a leash. I was out one morning and one of the guys came outside and stood there

staring at me for a few minutes and then went back in. I brought the dog inside and just a few minutes later there's a quiet knock on the door. I opened it and both guys are there and one says, we just saw your baby sister out by the highway. You need to come get her. I panicked and ran outside with them. I started to run down on our street toward the highway and one of them says, No, we'll drive you down there. We need to hurry. I seriously took two steps towards their truck before I realized what I was doing. I stopped and said that I needed to go back

inside and tell my parents and the man closest to me grabbed my arm and jerked me towards the truck yelling, we have to go now, she's going to get hit by a car. I instantly felt sick and just yelled, let go of me. He dropped my arm and I ran back inside my house I ran into my parents' bedroom to wake them up And my little sister was sleeping in their bed with them I woke everyone up because I was freaking out And my dad ran outside And the guys in their truck were long gone I never saw them at my neighbor's house again

I wish I could say that my parents called the police or something But they just shrugged it off and made excuses like maybe they saw another kid that looked like your sister. To be continued... This only happened yesterday and it's been driving me crazy. It's not as wild as other stories on here, but it's by far one of the creepiest things that's ever happened to me. So my husband and I are walking home from having a beer at the local pub at around 6pm. In terms of setting the scene, we live in a small New Zealand town, around 2,000 people in population. It's a real mixed bag in terms of residents. Older folk, meth heads, low income, but increasingly commuters from the capital city have been settling here,

and we fall into the latter category. It's spring here, so there was still plenty of light, and we're just chatting as we walk the ten minutes or so home. About three minutes into the walk, at the first intersection on our walk, I spot a cat sitting on the fence of one of the corner houses on the other side of the street behind us. I say meow, and it meows back. It then starts stalking a bird, so my husband and I continue watching this house, the cat really, as we walk past. Suddenly a person with a brown paper bag mask on their

head kind of stumbles out of the front door of this house into the yard. Their mannerisms and how they're moving are so strange, but not what I'd associate with being drunk. The house itself seems completely dead, so there's no party or anything going on. The person then turns to us and makes eye contact, well, the eye holes in the mask are staring at us, and they slowly start backing away to the front door alcove of the house and disappear from view into the alcove. We've been slowly walking this whole time and at this point I have literal goosebumps and an intense sense of dread. When I write it down it sounds so silly, but there was something so creepy about this person. We're still looking as we walk past the house and the paper bag face slowly emerges from the alcove, watching us before disappearing

from view again. As we walk and get further and further away, we keep turning around to look, and the same thing happens over and over again. Nothing, and then slowly but surely the paper bag face emerges out to watch us. And this continued until we were at the end of the street, about 350 meters and rounded the corner out of sight. It still makes my skin crawl, thinking about it. In 2015-16, I moved to Florida from California to go to college, and I was around 18 at the time. I was staying in a small studio by myself, pretty far from my university, but close enough to where my apartment was the hangout spot. To paint a picture of how it looked, it was in the shape of a rectangle with only one window. So you walked in and it's the living area, then the kitchen,

then the bathroom with closets on the right side of the wall. One particular night, I had about six friends over at my apartment. So it was four guys and three girls total, including me. We're partaking in illegal activities, drinking and smoking, but we're all under 21. So when I got a knock at my door I thought it was my neighbor about to complain either about the smell or the noise. I checked the peephole and saw a lady whom I instantly recognized as a panhandler that's always at the corner street of my apartment complex. So I opened the door and asked her if I could help her with anything.

She had a towel over her shoulder and said, Hi, I've been going around door to door, but everyone keeps turning me away. I was wondering if I could please just take a shower. I promise I don't want anything else. I just want to clean myself. Any sane person would have said no and told her to keep moving, but I was a dumb 18-year-old empath that was high as balls and panicking in the moment. So I said yes, and I walked her into my bathroom, told her how to turn on the water and where the soap was, and walked out.

The look of terror on my friend's faces was priceless. All at once they started asking why I had done that and if I realized how dangerous the situation could be. Was there someone waiting for her outside? Did she have a gun? Was she about to rob us? One of them even went to the kitchen to grab all the knives and then hid them just in case she tried anything and we were all so quiet just anxiously waiting for her to finish showering.

When she was done and came out of the restroom I walked her to the door and she said may god bless you and I never saw her again not even at the corner. You could say what I did was stupid but I know good karma will come for me, one day. My friend, a 25-year-old female from college, told me a harrowing story that happened to her and her friends in high school. She's from Buffalo, New York, and often went on camping trips to local upstate campgrounds. When she was a senior, her and her four of her friends went to a campsite fitted with rows of cabins on the water that people could rent. As the sun went down, the girls noticed that their neighbors, a few cabins down, a group of guys similar in age, were playing music and grooving around the campfire, drinking beers. One of the guys asked

them if they all wanted to join. When they got over there and started hanging out with the guys, everything seemed completely normal and they were having a fun time. As the night progressed, one of the guys then started to get blackout drunk and eventually pulled out a revolver that he said belonged to his dad. He started waving it around and playing with it. This obviously freaked everyone out, his own friends included. Eventually he started pointing the gun in his head and laughing while his friends were yelling at him to put it away and how that wasn't funny. The girls at this point were fairly disturbed and told the guys that they should get back to their cabin and say their goodbyes.

When they got back to their cabin, they talked about how freaky that was and expressed concern for the drunk guy. They then moved on to other topics of conversation and forgot about it for the time being. A few hours later sometime in the middle of the night, they heard a loud bang coming from the direction of the neighbor's cabin. Shortly after this, a brigade of cop cars showed up to the scene. One officer came to my friend's cabin and started asking them questions about the cabin they visited earlier that night. When my friend asked the officer what happened, he explained that the kid had shot himself in the head in front of his friends. They weren't able to discern if it was them taking their own life or an accident,

and my friend to this day still has PTSD over this incident and explained that she rarely goes camping anymore. To be continued... alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm Eastern Standard Time. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash Let's Read Official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data,

located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon. Thank you.