The Lets Read Podcast - 213: I WAS LOST IN THE WOODS | 24 True Scary Stories | EP 201

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Trick Or Treating, Getting Lost in the Woods, & Halloween...   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

I've always hated Halloween. No offense to anyone that enjoys it, but all the imagery brings back some very traumatic memories for me, and I tend to turn into a total homebody and order a lot of takeout around the end of October each year. My phobia is rooted in something that happened one Halloween back when I was a kid and ever since. Seeing all the pumpkins and skeletons and creepy costumes every year reminds me of all the fear and confusion I felt that night. Back in October of 1995, I'd just started 5th grade and I was very excited about Halloween. My best friend's parents had agreed to take me in her trick-or-treating after school

and after taking us to a Halloween store that previous weekend to buy costumes, myself and Kayla were super excited to put them to good use. For some reason, we chose to wear black garbage bags with holes cut in them for dresses because we figured that that's what witches would wear. Then we painted our faces green, put on these black pointy hats that we picked up, then did a lot of cackling around this little plastic cauldron we'd insisted that Kayla's mom buy us. Once we were all ready to leave, Kayla's mom walked us around the neighborhood and we managed to collect a ton of candy before we decided enough was enough. After that, we walked back to Kayla's house, then sat in front of the TV watching The Simpsons while we ate our candy. I have this vivid memory of it being one of those treehouse of

horror episodes, and it was one where they're doing a Nightmare on Elm Street parody with groundskeeper Willie playing Freddy Krueger. It's weird because those moments before all the horror started, I think they were some of the happiest of my childhood. Or maybe it's just that they just mark a kind of threshold of innocence. Me going from all happy-go-lucky and carefree to realizing that the world is a much darker place than TV sitcoms makes out. I'm not sure what the next show on the TV was because right after The Simpsons ended, Kayla's mom walked into the room to stop us gorging ourselves on candy. Kayla's dad was already home by that point and as her mom helped us decide

what our two final pieces of candy would be before it all got stored away, the doorbell rang. I remember Kayla's mom calling out to her dad, asking him to see to the door because she was busy. Then I carried on trying to decide if I wanted my last two pieces to be milk duds and lemon heads or M&M's and a butterfinger. I don't know why I remember that, but I do. Even though it was just ten feet away from us, I didn't pay any attention to what was going on at the door, not until I heard Kayla's dad growl something like, what are you doing? He sounded angry, and I could hear some commotion coming from the hallway as Kayla's mom got up to see what was going on. The next thing, she absolutely screeches out Kayla's dad's name,

Ron. Kayla's dad yells for her to call the cops, then Kayla's mom starts wailing at me and Kayla to run upstairs to Kayla's room. The layout of their house meant that we had to briefly walk into the hallway in full view of the front door in order to get to the stairs, and as much as Kayla's mom tried to block us from seeing what was happening on the front step, I caught a glimpse before we scrambled up the steps and into Kayla's room. Her dad was wrestling with a person whose face I couldn't see. There was blood and something shiny in the faceless man's hand.

The panic of seeing what was happening propelled me and Kayla up the stairs and by the time we slammed her bedroom door closed and dived under her bed, we were both in floods of tears. All we heard for the next few minutes was yelling and shouting from Kayla's mom and dad. Her mom sounded terrified and we could hear what she was saying to the 911 operator, how a man in a mask had just tried to stab her husband. But then her husband's yells were nothing like I've ever heard before. He sounded savage, almost inhuman, and his words sounded more like barks, and I couldn't make out anything he said aside from a few curses. I remember being terrified, but the sound made Kayla sound so frightened that she started pulling at her hair and saying, I don't want my dad to die. Please God don't let him die.

I remember how heartbreaking it was to see Kayla wrenching at her own hair. I tried to do my best to comfort her, but as I did I heard Kayla's mom whining, Ron, what have you done? After that, I couldn't hear what was being said, but I could hear a man and a woman talking much quieter than they had previously. Still urgent, but not screaming or yelling or inhuman roaring like before. I was desperate to go make sure Kayla's dad is okay to reassure her, and since the volume of voices seemed to indicate that the situation had improved,

I figured that I'd go check it out so I could report back to Kayla, who was almost catatonic with fear by that stage. So I crawl out from under the bed, open up the bedroom door, and step out onto the landing so I can peek down the stairs. Again, I only caught a glimpse before both of Kayla's parents screamed at me to get back in the bedroom, but Kayla's dad seemed to be okay, and the man that I realized had a mask on was lying still on the floor at his feet. I was so relieved that Kayla's dad was okay that I didn't really think about the masked man just lying there. I just went back to Kayla and told her that her dad was okay.

I didn't want to say everything was fine. I knew whatever was happening was still, I don't know, ongoing. But I could at least confirm that her worst fears hadn't come true and that she didn't have to worry about her dad being dead. I think Kayla's mom realized we needed to be kept up in that bedroom to keep us from seeing what had happened. So she joined us maybe only a minute later to reassure Kayla that her dad was okay. She said everything was going to be fine and that everyone was okay, but we needed to stay up in the bedroom until we were told it was okay to come out. Kayla said that she wanted to talk to her dad, but her mom said that he was busy talking to the cops. Then she told us that they had caught the bad man, and that was the word she used, caught,

and that the police officers were on their way to collect him. And that was why we had to be kept safe upstairs. Obviously, I'd already seen the guy laying there at the feet of Kayla's dad, but just hearing that someone who'd tried to hurt us was downstairs was really, really scary to me. And even though we didn't need any help being kept in Kayla's bedroom, her mom carried the small TV slash VHS combo in from their bedroom so we could watch movies. She returned shortly after with the rest of our Halloween candy and told us that we could eat as much as we liked. Then after she told me that she'd call my parents to let them know

what had happened, we didn't see her again for a few hours. It's not like we calmed right down again after such a horrifying ordeal. We were still really freaked out and no amount of candy was going to make us forget about what we'd seen. But Kayla's dad appeared at one point to reassure us that everything was okay, having obviously changed his clothes and her mom kept checking on us every 15 minutes or so to answer any questions that we had. Granted, most of her answers were little white lies intended to keep us from getting too scared, but it all helped us to stay calm enough to eventually drift off when the inevitable sugar crash came. I don't remember falling asleep, but I do have a fuzzy memory of being woken up by my parents sometime later,

with my dad carrying me to his car before driving us home again. Both me and Kayla were kept out of school the next day, and if her day went anything like mine, it started with a very sanitized explanation of the previous night's events. The way my parents explained it, an intruder had attempted to enter Kayla's home, and Kayla's dad had simply defended himself. They said although it had been very frightening, and it was very sad that someone was hurt, Kayla's dad had done the right thing in keeping us all safe, so everything was okay. The reality was a little less sunny, and the whole truth trickled down to us over the years,

and here's everything I know now. The masked man was the husband of the woman that Kayla's dad was having an affair with. The same woman later said that she didn't believe her husband had actually wanted to hurt Kayla's dad and had only intended to scare him, but that's not what happened on the doorstep. Kayla's dad later told a judge that upon seeing the guy step towards him with a knife in his hand, he'd instinctively tried to shove him to buy him time to safely get back in the house. The guy responded by raising the knife and somehow, Kayla's dad had gotten cut. Kayla's dad claimed that he had very little memory of what happened next and said his only thought was for the protection of his family.

Kayla's mom, on the other hand, she had to testify in court that, although she hadn't actually witnessed her husband getting stabbed, he definitely had blood leaking from a cut to his arm as he basically beat the masked man to death right there on their doorstep. He overpowered him, pinning him down and then bashed his head against the stones until he wasn't moving anymore. The judge eventually threw out all the charges on the grounds that Kayla's dad was defending himself and his family, and this coincided with us kids being told that everything was going to be fine. But everything wasn't fine. Kayla's mom had witnessed her husband take the life of the man whose marriage he had violated. Sure, he'd protected them, but only from something he'd created in the first place.

Needless to say, their marriage was never the same after that, and as it slowly fell apart over the following years, I had to watch it having a terrible effect on Kayla. They ended up getting a divorce with her dad keeping the house while her mom got custody. But then, instead of finding somewhere to live around town, Kayla's mom decided to take her down to Florida so she could be closer to her grandparents. He had one last summer together, then by the time I started my freshman year of high school, Kayla was gone. It was sad, really sad, and although I moved on, I never forgot her. For a long, long time, we didn't talk or keep in touch, but then Facebook happened, and the only reason I created a profile in the first place was specifically to search for Kayla. I ended up finding her, and we had a very

emotional catch-up after exchanging cell phone numbers and eventually the conversation turned to that Halloween night back in 1995. That's when I got the full story of everything that had happened and why it suddenly made so much sense when I heard Kayla's mom saying in that terrified voice, Ron, what have you done? Ron hadn't just killed a man, He destroyed two families in the process. I'm not excusing what the knife man did, but none of it ever needed to happen in the first place. But I guess that's just not the world we live in. On Halloween night of 1957, 35-year-old Los Angeles hairstylist Peter Fabiano heard a knock at his front door. The evening had been a lively one, with groups of expectant trick-or-treaters knocking frequently after sunset. But this particular visitor had arrived just after 11pm, long after any child should have been roaming the streets.

Peter had been lying in bed with his wife when they'd heard the knock at the door, and although the disturbance irritated him, he knew the quick dispension of a treat was preferable to the receiving of a trick. Peter's wife Betty later said that she heard her husband walk down the stairs to open their front door before telling the caller, it's a little late, isn't it? Betty had expected to hear a child's voice in response. Instead, she heard the reply of a grown woman. Not too late for this, Betty heard, with the words followed by a loud gunshot. When she rushed to her husband's side, Betty found Peter bleeding to death at the bottom of their staircase, and sadly, despite being rushed to the nearby Sun Valley Hospital, Peter was pronounced dead on arrival. The sudden death of her husband shattered the young Betty

Fabiano, who felt as if her entire world had come crashing down around her. Instead of a bright future, loving husband, and a happy home, all that remained were her two burning questions. Who would possibly want to murder her husband? And why would they want him dead? Police quickly discovered that the only witness to the shooting was a lone teenager who saw a car speeding away from the neighborhood shortly after 11pm. Given that there was no valuables missing from the affluent Fabiano home, police speculated the motive for the murder was some kind of personal grievance, while the lack of any shell casing at the scene suggested the

fatal shot had come from a small caliber revolver. Upon reading through Peter Fabiano's criminal history, police officers discovered that he'd been picked up on a charge of illegal bookmaking back in 1948. Since most illegal gambling operations came under the wing of organized crime, some officers began to suspect that Fabiano's murder was a gangland execution. Betty Fabiano insisted that her husband had severed his connections to the illegal gambling circuit and had made his fortune running a series of legitimate beauty salons. Yet when asked if Peter might have any enemies, Betty was given pause for thought. In her opinion, there was one woman who hated her husband so much that she might consider killing him, and her name was Joan Rabble. Born in the city of Philadelphia in 1917,

Joan grew up to carve out a lucrative career as a writer and photographer. During Joan's early 30s, a whirlwind romance led to a fairytale wedding, but sadly, the marriage wasn't to last. The divorce was a vicious one, so rather than fight it out, Joan picked up sticks and moved to Los Angeles in 1957. Joan hoped that she might find a home among the city's world-famous creative industry, but in the meantime, she needed a job. And one day, she happened to be passing a hair salon with a Help Wanted sign in the window. A hair salon owned by none other than Peter Fabiano. It was through working at Peter Fabiano's hair salon that Joan Rabel met his wife, Betty. The two women had a lot in common and were said to share a wicked sense of humor, so it's no surprise that the pair were fast friends.

But over the course of the following few months, Betty and Joan's friendship blossomed to the point where Joan was almost one of the family. Then, when the Fabianos began to experience trouble in their marriage, Joan was a natural choice of temporary roommate for an increasingly bereft Betty. Peter was understandably upset that his marriage was on the rocks, but he assumed that Joan's interest in Betty was merely platonic. The reality couldn't have been further from the truth. At some point during Betty's stay with Joan, her host had made some kind of confession.

It must have been difficult to phrase during such a deeply conservative decade, and it's not clear exactly how Joan chose to explain it, but she told Betty that she was a lesbian and that she was in love with her. It was a huge gamble for Joan, but unfortunately for her it didn't pay off. Betty didn't reciprocate her feelings and the confession appears to be the catalyst for Betty giving her husband another chance. Upon returning to Peter, Betty was made a promise that she'd never see Joan again, and when informed of the decision to go no contact, Joan was devastated. Yet Betty wasn't the only friend Joan made that year. For a number of months, Joan had been

meeting with a woman named Goldeen Pizer, who had recently come out as a lesbian following the divorce of her husband, and after listening to Joan's tales of romantic woe, Goldeen came up with a chillingly psychopathic solution to her new friend's problem. She decided that Peter Fabiano had to die. The way Goldeen saw it, the grief of losing her husband would drive Betty Fabiano directly into Joan's arms, with nothing to keep them apart. Many have suggested that the idea was implanted into Goldeen's mind by a deeply manipulative Joan, but the fact remains that it was one that she was deeply committed to. Just days after listening to Joan's story of heartbreak, Goldeen drove over to a sporting

goods store in Pasadena where she purchased a.38 revolver under the pretense of requiring personal protection. Then on Halloween night, Goldeen drove Joan over to the Fabiano house to give her a front row seat for Peter's execution. Joan later told the police that Goldeen disposed of the gun in a Los Angeles department store and following the recovery of the murder weapon, law enforcement moved to arrest their suspect. When police officers arrested Goldeen in her Hollywood apartment, she reportedly told them, it's a relief to get this off my mind. After being declared fit to stand trial, Goldeen told a judge,

I had no motive personally. Whatever motive I had was to police Joan. I was always easily influenced. I have been impressionable and always trusting. One psychiatrist who took the stand appeared to take pity on Goldeen and seemed to confirm that Joan Rabble had subjected her to a despicable level of emotional manipulation. Initially, both women pled not guilty to all charges, but while Goldeen was eventually convinced to plead insanity, Joan Rabble refused to comment throughout her hearing and was said to wear an eerie, constant smile during the trial. After the court was convinced of Joan's intimate involvement in the murder of Peter Fabiano, Joan joined Goldeen in being convicted by the jury. Yet bizarrely, instead of first-degree murder, both women received

convictions in the second degree. Such a decision seemed inexplicable in light of how cold and deliberate Peter Faviano's murder was, but it comes with a degree of nuance. Having considered the level of manipulation she was subjected to, the jury weren't willing to convict Goldeen of a crime befitting a cold-blooded killer. And even though she hadn't pulled the trigger, the jury believed Joan deserved to be jailed for so heavily encouraging Peter's execution. The sentences handed out to the women were designed to reflect this nuance, as both were sentenced to five years to life imprisonment. Goldeen Pizer was eventually released, and she chose to stay in the greater Los Angeles area until she died at 83

in 1998. Considerably less information exists pertaining to Joan Rabels, but it's generally assumed that she was released from prison around the same time as Goldeen. Betty Fabiano ended up selling the beauty empire created by her husband and lived the rest in relative comfort in Palm Desert, California until she passed away in 1999. Her passing marked the end of a woman who was barely out of her 30s when the love of her life was stolen away from her, a tragedy that was engineered by a woman who she'd once called a friend. The End On the night of October 31st, 1969, 16-year-old Patty Spencer had arranged to join 15-year-old friend Pamela Hobley and her family for a round of trick-or-treating in their small hometown of Oscoda, Michigan. Yet at the last minute, there was a change of plan.

Pamela told her mother that she and Patty wouldn't be joining them for trick-or-treating and would instead be attending a Halloween party hosted by a high school friend. Patty's mother implored her daughter to not stay out too late, then busied herself helping her three young daughters to prepare for their costumes for the evening. Little did she know, it was the last time she would ever see her daughter alive. A few hours later, Pam Hobley's mother received a telephone call from her daughter's boyfriend. Pam's boyfriend wanted to know if she'd left for the party yet, and when her mother informed him that she'd departed hours ago, both became very concerned. Pam's mother then telephoned Patty

Spencer's mother, and after the pair conducted a brief preliminary search, they realized their daughters had gone missing. The police were informed and an investigation into the girls' disappearance commenced, with officers looking to build a picture of the girls' last known whereabouts. A number of eyewitnesses stated that the girls were last seen walking near Oscoda High School, yet a man later came forward to state that the girls had been hitchhiking and that he'd given them a ride from River Road into downtown Oscoda. That was quite a distance from the location of the party they were supposed to be attending,

and despite law enforcement's efforts to uncover a reason, the motive behind their sudden detour remains a mystery. As the investigation progressed, detectives found themselves transfixed with two specific details of the case. The first was that neither Patty nor Pamela wore purses with them when they left for the party that night. According to the mothers, the girls went everywhere with their purses as their entire lives were tucked inside. This struck investigators as odd and suggested that wherever the two girls went that evening was somewhere they didn't feel 100% safe. The second detail was that in the weeks before her disappearance, Pam Hobley had brought up the possibility of meeting a friend from the northern

town of Flint. Some have suggested this person is connected to the girl's disappearance, but not only have they never been identified, but Pamela's sister, Mary Burley, expressed her doubts that the Flint lead would be fruitful. Desperate for answers, Pamela's family posted a $1,000 reward for any information to locate Pamela or to bring any possible murderer to police custody. But despite the hefty sum, no promising tips came in from the general public. As the years passed and the case grew colder and colder, some investigators suspected that the girls might have been early victims of the Oakland County Child Killer. It was something of a shot in the dark, as the Oakland County Child Killer had operated primarily between February of 1976 and March of 1977,

and even skeptics found similarities between the cases to be chilling. The general consensus remained that the two girls had been abducted and murdered by whoever they had gone to meet, or by someone they'd chosen to hitchhike with. But for all intent and purpose, it was as if they'd simply vanished into thin air. The heartbroken families of the two missing girls had to wait until 1985 for a break in the case, when an anonymous tipster reported that Patty and Pam were buried near a barn, one noted for its popularity as a teenage party spot. This tipster also reported that the girls' killers had been two local men, although they didn't know the exact names of those

responsible. Police moved quickly to conduct a search of the area, but despite the use of highly trained cadaver dogs, there was no evidence that any human remains were buried in the barn's vicinity. Shortly afterwards, the police discovered that a second man had given the two girls a ride after they'd been spotted in downtown Oscoda. This man's reluctance to answer questions, in combination with his hesitance to approach the police, made him a major suspect in the case. If the police estimated timeline of events was correct, the man was the last person to see the girls alive. But despite an extensive investigation into his lifestyle and

whereabouts, there was no concrete evidence that he'd taken the girls' lives. In the years that followed, Pam's sister Mary had continued to raise awareness of the case, and had campaigned for it to be reopened and reexamined. She is a regular at the annual charity event known as Missing in Michigan, where family members of Missing Michigan residents work alongside detectives to share details of such cases. Both Patty and Pam have been entered into a number of national databases, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who used a technique known as age progression to illustrate an estimated likeness of how the pair could look if they were still alive. These images were circulated in the early 2010s, but unfortunately, they didn't yield any fresh leads. A new detective was assigned to the case in 2010,

and they proceeded to conduct fresh interviews with the case's witnesses in the hopes of generating new information. This new effort appeared to have led to the 2013 announcement that the police had a new person of interest in the case, but ultimately, they needed more information for the investigation to continue. As time goes on, it's increasingly unlikely that Patty and Pamela's disappearance will ever be solved. Physical evidence can be preserved, but the memories of potential witnesses cannot. If there is indeed an eyewitness account that could crack the case wide open, there's an ever-increasing chance it'll go to the grave with them. Michigan State Police simply haven't had the right resources at the right times to really make any steady progress, and combined with the soul-crushing bad luck the

investigation seems to have faced, it's doubtful that the final moments of Patty and Pamela's lives will ever be pieced together. I'm sorry. Back when I was still a junior in high school, me and my cousin used to volunteer with the local whose homes you stop at recognize you were the chaperone and offer you a piece of candy or two which meant you could still cop some free candy despite being way too old and out of costume. We'd been chaperones during our sophomore year so we knew how much free candy you could get and since we didn't have anything better to do on the next year's Halloween, me and my cousin figured we'd volunteer again. Just like the first year, we took charge of about four third graders each then walked them around the neighborhood, knocking at any houses that had decorations outside. We hit up this one cul-de-sac and we start working our way around the circle of houses when I noticed an older kid sitting on the

porch of a house cross from us. He was maybe about 12 or 13, older than the kids we had with us but definitely younger than we were and he's just mad dogging us from across the street. He did not look happy to see us there at all and I even gave my cousin a nudge to be like, what's that kid's problem? We agreed to maybe not knock at that kid's house on the way out of the cul-de-sac as we definitely didn't want some sort of confrontation occurring, but in the meantime, we could still knock at other homes so the kids could get some candy. My group had just finished up at one home and was in the process of leapfrogging my cousin's group

when I heard a snapping sound coming from the other side of the street. Having not recognized what the sound was, I had no urgency about me as I turned to see where it was coming from. But when I did, I could feel the blood draining from my face. The angry looking kid from the other side of the street was in the middle of reloading one of those break barrel air guns and I started to panic as I realized that he might have hit one of the kids in my group. And that's when the screams started. My head whips around to see a little girl who's in the middle of unleashing the most ear-splitting scream I'd ever heard. She's pointing at another kid, one dressed as the blonde girl from that Frozen movie,

who had a hand over her eyes with blood dripping out from underneath it. I remember going into complete panic mode, not so much because the kids were hurt or even that her injury seemed like it was really bad, it was because I'd already seen the kid reloading. He didn't just shoot and run away, he wanted to keep shooting. My first thought was to tell the kids to run for cover cover but before I could even get a word out, they were scattering in different directions. Meanwhile, my cousin had been wise enough to the kid shooting pellets at us from the moment he fired the first shot and the kid only barely got another pellet into the barrel before my cousin just slammed into him. Both of them were sprawled out on the ground for a second. Then just before I ran away to help,

my cousin wrenches the airgun away from the kid and starts beating the life out of him. I mean absolutely knocking the snot out of this kid over and over again. What came next was just total chaos. People were coming out of their houses, drawn by the sound of the screams. Most didn't seem to know what was going on and even tried to get my cousin off the shooter before he started yelling back at him about how he was the one who'd stopped the shooting. The cops took way too long to show up because there was no initial reports of gunshots or anything. That and I guess they were super busy with it being Halloween. The EMT showed up first and it was while the little frozen girl was being treated

that I learned her injuries weren't that bad. I thought the little pellet the kid had fired had taken the poor thing's eye out. It turns out it had struck her just around her eyebrow and although there was a nasty gash, she hadn't been blinded, thank god. Once the injured girl had been taken off to the hospital and I had made about a dozen phone calls to a dozen different people, I finally led the kids back to our church, leaving my cousin to wait for the cops while still sitting on the shooter. My cousin said the whole time his biggest worry was the shooter's kids' parents appearing, but he was in that cul-de-sac for just over an hour and not only did they not show up but no

one seemed to know who or where they were. He told me that after the cops arrived they arrested the kid, asked him a few questions and he passed on my cell number so they could talk to me too. I didn't realize it until talking to them but I don't think I'd taken the time to properly process what had happened. So as I was breaking down what I'd seen before the kid fired, I ended up breaking down too. Like I said, the shooter was only maybe 12 or 13 years old, meaning he probably is either in juvie or some kind of program as I'm writing this. I know kids his age can be mindlessly and thoughtlessly cruel, and that in opening fire on that little frozen girl, he hadn't properly thought through his actions. But I remember being that age, and I can't imagine having the hatred or malice in me to do anything like shoot an air gun at a

little girl's head. It's no surprise to me that his parents weren't around and I'm not trying to excuse his actions, but I've always wondered what the kid's home life was like for him to even think about hurting someone like that. I hope he was punished, don't get me wrong, but at the same time, I hope that kid gets the help he needs. Not so much because I feel particularly bad for him, which to be fair I do, it's because if he doesn't get help, that little girl might not only be the innocent young female he ends up hurting. On Halloween night of 1994, seven-year-old Tony Bagley was intensely excited to head out on his first real trick-or-treating adventure. For his costume, Tony had chosen to dress up as a skeleton and once he was looking suitably spooky, he accompanied his mother, aunt, and 10-year-old sister out onto Engelstad Street in his hometown of Las Vegas.

At around 6.15 p.m., the family found themselves near the intersection of Cheyenne and MLK when suddenly, a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark-colored joggers ran out into the street. The man appeared to look around for a few seconds before his gaze became fixed on the Bagley family. Then, to their absolute horror, the hooded man pulled out a pistol before opening fire on the terrified family. At the time the shooter commenced firing, the street was packed with costumed children and their accompanying parents, and chaos erupted as the multitudes of trick-or-treaters

were running for cover. When the firing ceased, a speeding vehicle pulled up alongside the gunman, who jumped into the back seat before the car raced away. One by one, the terrified onlookers emerged from their hiding places to witness a truly traumatizing sight. All four members of the Bagley family were lying on the asphalt, with each one soaked in blood from the gunshot wounds they'd suffered. Tony's 10-year-old sister was rushed into emergency surgery after it was discovered her liver had been damaged, while Tony's mother and aunt suffered wounds to her chest and leg respectively. Little Tony, on the other hand, had been shot in the head. He was placed on life support and despite hospital staff doing everything in their power to save him,

he later died as a result of his injuries. Local law enforcement made an urgent appeal for information, but despite a great deal of public outrage, only a handful of witnesses came forward to identify Tony's killer. They said the shooter was an African-American male in his late teens or early twenties, and was around 5 foot 8 inches tall. The eyewitness statements led to the arrest of several suspects, most of which were involved in gang activity, but sadly, there was never enough evidence to solidly identify them as having taken Tony's life. Upon learning of Tony's tragic death, casino executive Bob Stupak offered a $100,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest, and Tony's murder went on to be featured on the nationally circulated TV show,

America's Most Wanted. However, despite a fresh wave of public fury, not a single person came forward with any pertinent information, and the case eventually went cold. Some suggested that the Bagley family were involved in narcotic sales in the area, and the shooting was revenge for a drug deal gone wrong. Yet many close to the family insisted that they were innocent of such activities and that any link to organized crime was down to mistaken identity. Four years later, Tony's father was arrested and eventually convicted over the murder of a man named Curtis

Henry. Curtis was a degenerate gambler and by 1998, he had accrued such a vast debt among underground loan sharks that he was greenlit for execution. Somehow, the task fell to Tony's father, who was later described as an angry, evil person by his victim's mother, after a courtroom heard how he bragged of the murder. The father's illegal activities had somehow evaded the attention of law enforcement during the initial round of investigations, and a series of related theories began to emerge as a result. Even though Tony's father wasn't a part of his family's lives, it didn't mean his gangland rivals wouldn't target them for reprisals. Las Vegas homicide detectives later visited Tony's father while in custody, seeking to question him in relation to his son's murder. Yet the man himself refused any kind of police cooperation, and it was impossible for them to rekindle the search for Tony's killer. Some even speculated that the whole debt collection killing was merely a cover for Tony's father seeking revenge against his killer,

and that the reason he refused to cooperate with the police is because he knew for certain that justice had been meted out. Yet without any concrete answers or familial cooperation, it's unlikely that the whole truth will ever see the light of day. Until that day, Tony Bagley's murder will remain unsolved, and the memory of a brief but happy life will forever be overshadowed by his cruel and senseless slaying. I've been a police officer for the last seven years, and for three of them, I worked as part of an emergency response team in a busy London borough. On Halloween, we drove over to a suspected domestic violence incident in a block of flats. The informant was a woman who was in the middle

of taking her kids trick-or-treating when suddenly they heard screaming and fighting coming from one of the flats. Domestic disturbances like that are a depressingly common occurrence sometimes, and they can obviously make for very volatile situations. So as me and a colleague drove over to the address, there were quite an intense feeling of apprehension in the car. We had no idea at the time but the encounter we were about to have would become a bit of a legend back at the station and is something I've never really ever been able to properly explain. Once we arrived at the address, my colleague and I walked up a few flights of stairs, found the flat that the disturbance was coming from, then knocked on the door.

I hadn't heard anything on my way up the stairs and certainly couldn't hear any disturbance coming from inside once we were at the door. There was a good chance that things had simply died down, but that didn't mean that we didn't have to follow up with a welfare check and some questions. After knocking twice, we had no response and it didn't look like we were going to get to talk to anyone from the property so my colleague left me to go downstairs and speak directly to the informant. While he does that, I thought I'd be able to get one of the neighbors to talk to me but right as I'm about to buzz the next flat over, the door of the address we'd been given opens up, and this old lady comes to the door. It was only coming up at 10pm, but we'd clearly woken her up with our knocking, and she was naturally alarmed to see me standing outside.

I told her that someone had called, saying that they could hear a disturbance coming from within her address. I asked her if there was anyone else inside with her and she looked bemused and told me that she lived alone and had been sleeping. Confused, I then radioed my colleague to double check if I was calling at the right place. Then, when he confirmed that I was at the right one, I figured that I'd dig a little bit deeper. I asked the little old lady if I could pop into her flat for a minute so I could have a look around and make sure no one was there.

She tells me of course, that I'm more than welcome to have a look around, but when I walk inside, the flat is in almost complete darkness apart from her hall light and her bedside lamp. I begin searching through the flat just to be on the safe side. My big fear was that someone had broken in, then had threatened to hurt her if she didn't tell us everything was okay. So once I eliminated my own personal worst nightmare, I decided we'd just move on and wait for any additional calls. Then, right as I'm about to leave, my colleague called me up on the radio. He sounded a bit flustered as he told me that he was on his way back up,

then asked me if everything was okay. I'm obviously very confused as he seemed to be acting like I was in trouble when everything was just fine. He then told me that there had been a second 999 call from one of the flat's neighbors and they too could hear screaming and loud thuds coming from the flat I was in. I just stood there for a moment, listening to nothing but silence, while feeling this weird chill creeping up my spine.

There had to have been a mistake. There just had to be, because although we got in our second call stating that there was an ongoing disturbance occurring, I was in the flat itself, and I couldn't hear a bloody thing. Once I'd actually confirmed that nothing was going on, we left shortly afterwards, having made a point of apologizing to the elderly woman for waking her. The week between a Halloween and bonfire night tends to be a very busy time for us, for obvious reasons, so it wasn't like we had too long to sit and reflect on what had just happened. The next thing we knew, we were off chasing some teenagers who responded to a rejected trick-or-treat attempt with broken windows.

It was only much later on, when the night had quieted down a bit, that we started to go over what had happened back at the flats and why exactly the whole thing felt really creepy. The next time I was on shift, I was immediately greeted by a colleague who asked me, so what did the ghost look like then? Everyone was joking that we just visited a haunted house with some genuinely more convinced on it than others. I don't believe in any of that, but sometimes I wonder just what was happening to make people complain of screams inside that flat, when in reality, the place was as quiet as the grave. Okay, so I'm not exactly a 911 dispatcher, but I work very closely with them, although they'd never actually know it.

For the past four or five years now, I've worked as the IT guy for a law enforcement agency, and it's my job to bring up specific 911 calls wherever there's a big incident or a legal request coming in. I would listen to the calls to make sure that we got all the correct radio traffic, which would of course mean that I had to listen to all or most of the call. I also did this to make sure that we had the right 911 call that was being requested for review. The one that sticks out to me happened about a year into my job, on Halloween night of 2009. I was actually repairing some

equipment in our dispatch center when the call came in and had to immediately pull the recordings as we all knew it would have been requested. I listened to it all happen and did my best to assist. A 12 year old boy called in hysterical and asked for an ambulance because his mom was shot. We of course dispatched immediately but they were in the middle of nowhere and the closest ambulance was 30 plus minutes away. As the call continued, we got him to tell us what had happened. The kid was all set up to go trick-or-treating and for whatever reason, he decided that his dad's gun would tie it all together.

It was an older style bolt- action rifle with no safety and an extremely light trigger pull. He had just pulled it out of the case and accidentally hit the bolt on the side of the table which caused the gun to fire. The bullet went through the bedroom wall, into the kitchen, and hit the mom in the stomach, all while she was standing less than 30 feet away. I don't know where the dad was, but he wasn't home when this all happened, so the dispatcher had to direct the son on how to stop the bleeding. Listening to that call was honestly the most terrifying, traumatic, and heart-wrenching few moments of my life. At first, you could faintly hear the mom in the background saying stuff like,

it's okay, you didn't mean it, it's okay, I love you. She just kept repeating the stuff over and over while the son was sobbing and giving us all the info as we tried to assist. Towards the end of the call, the son was shouting over and over, mama, god, mama, I'm so sorry, mama, don't die, mama, mama, please. As far as I know, she was gone long before the ambulance ever arrived. The dispatcher I work with managed to stay cool while I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and they worked like a well-oiled machine during the whole call, but sadly, I don't think that story came with a happy ending. Dispatchers truly are the unsung heroes. The emotional and mental toll that it takes on people that do the job is crazy. I know for a fact that I couldn't do it. I'm just not

emotionally tough enough. But that just makes me all the more grateful for those that are. When I was just nine years old, my parents drove me over to my friend's house so I could go trick-or-treating with them and a few of our elementary school friends. I remember having dinner there and being told that after we'd eaten, we'd change into our costumes then head out for trick-or-treating. As soon as we finish dinner, my friends ask me if I wanted to go see his dog. I say sure, and then we all head out into the backyard to be greeted by this big black chow chow. Now, for those that don't know your dog breeds, chow chows are the kind with fluffy faces and little ears that kind of make them look like teddy bears. Some of them can grow to be pretty big, and given how small that I was at 9 years old,

that black chow chow seemed very big to me. My friend asked if I wanted to pet him and although I remember being scared, I didn't want to seem like a wuss in front of them. So, hesitantly, I reached down very slowly to pet the dog. They say that dogs can smell fear, and I don't know if it was me moving so slow or the fact that he could smell how nervous I was, but in a split second the dog went from all calm and docile to growling and biting at my arm. I started moving backwards trying to get away, but the dog leapt forward and brought its jaws down just above my wrist. I just remember screaming in pain, and how nothing any of my friends did got the dog to loosen its grip on me.

They tried their best, but weirdly it was only when my friend's mom saw what was happening and ran out to throw a jug of cold water over the dog that it actually let go. After that, there was a huge rush around me as my friend's mom carried me into the kitchen to start treating my wound and around that time I remember starting to feel really strange. My arm suddenly seemed to stop hurting and although there must have been a ton of adrenaline in my system, I felt weirdly at ease. I'd left a big trail of blood from the backyard into the kitchen and everyone was crying, even my friend's mom was struggling to keep it together while calling 911. But there I was, just all zen about it, just thankful that

the dog didn't bite my arm off, which I think was my deepest fear in the moment itself. If I still had my arm, everything would be okay, right? And while that was technically correct, I still had a terrible time when it came to recovering. All in all, I had seven deep cuts, three on the inside of my forearm, four on the outside of it, and this meant a total of 20 stitches up and down my arm. The doctors told my parents that the size of my arm compared to the dog's jaws meant that I was lucky a major artery hadn't been pierced, in which case I really would have been in trouble. Needless to say, no one ended up trick-or-treating that night. The dog wasn't taken away by animal control or anything. I grew up in a small town with quite a tight-knit

community and it was all understood to be just a horrible accident. I didn't end up playing at that kid's house anymore though and I'm still kind of nervous around dogs I don't know, even all these years later. My role in this story begins at 10. It was my first deer hunt with my dad and uncle. When my uncle pointed out a set of tracks, I became enthralled. My uncle noticed my fascination and fostered it. He was an accomplished tracker and shared his knowledge with me. I supplemented his teachings with books. Nature became my home and wildlife became my family.

My desire to hunt dwindled and I used my meager skills to guide those who had not. I don't disapprove of the practice, it's part of being an animal and make no mistake, we are part of that family. After my time in school was complete, I took to the road in search of the unknown, things not written in books or thoughts lost. My work as a guide kept me fed but it was my search that nourished me. I grew restless with my work and sought out a new challenge. A position with a search and rescue group became available. I applied for it and was immediately hired. We were close to a national park, one state park, and countless acres of public land. Despite being a moderately experienced tracker by this point, I didn't start out doing it

exclusively. Tracking people, although very similar to tracking animals, has its own set of challenges and I had yet to master them. You really never do. My job was to stick to our team leader and listen to everything he said. He's a patient and reassuring teacher. I've learned a lot from him. I would take part in countless operations before I would get my chance to lead a team. And it would not be with my group however. A sister organization in the neighboring state was in great need immediately, and I was to lead a team to find a lost hiker. He had been missing for almost a week

and conditions were forecasted to get very bad. I arrived the next day and went straight to work. The situation was well beyond ideal. The target had a four-day lead on me, and the area had already been churned up by countless numbers of people. Most of the morning was spent looking for fresh tracks. I came across some just before lunch and began the search. Everything about the trail matched the description I'd been given. Boot size, weight. As we grew closer to the objective, something began to change. Small discrepancies began to arise. I dismissed them as fatigue and continued. In near dark, I crested a hill and caught sight of a small tent.

I called out over radio that our lost hiker had been found. A feeling of satisfaction washed over me and it was short-lived, unfortunately. We called out to the tent and a small, well-groomed young man appeared. I was surprised at how fresh he looked. My team greeted and assured him he was safe. A confused look came on his face. What do you guys mean? I just arrived here this morning.

Did someone report me missing or something? Suddenly I knew why nothing had made sense. I asked the guy his name and it didn't match what I had on my paperwork. Just to be safe and I looked around at his things. Although similar in many ways, many differences also existed. Differences someone of my experience should have noticed. Shame extinguished the satisfaction. I couldn't look at my team. I reluctantly called in to explain my mistake. I could tell from the group's

leader's tone that he was unhappy. He said to me, So son, what you're telling me is that the lost man is still out there? For another night? After he said that, I felt fear and disgust. Because of a simple mistake, this poor man was doomed to another night alone in the woods, and a snowstorm was expected the following afternoon, and the man's odds of surviving another night was nearing zero. I was unable to face the rest of the team after that. I wanted to leave right then, but a man's life depended on me. I sent my team back for the night and camped alone near the camper. As soon as the sun broke, I was back on the trail.

My mistake was now crystal clear, and in my ridiculous hubris I'd ignored where one man's tracks had diverged from another's on the same trail. The lost hiker had been through the same trail just the day before but gone off in another direction. I should have listened to my instincts. I had been too eager and sure of myself. It wasn't the time to beat myself up though. As I grew closer I could tell the hiker was in distress. The skips and drags had as much and it was late morning when I finally reached the end of the trail. It was far worse than I feared. The man was now down on all fours, crawling like a child. Up ahead I noticed a mound of bright clothing and this had to be him. I rushed up to check his vitals. The coldness of

his skin made me retract. I hurriedly called over the radio and the team were with me in minutes. We all knew that he was gone, but the paramedics tried anyway. I could do nothing but sit with my hands over my face. It had been my first time leading a team and because of my arrogance, a man was dead. I seriously considered quitting right there and never returning home. No one would ever trust me again. Although I did return home, I was serious about quitting. I'd let a lot of people down. People had trusted me. My mentor had to have been ashamed of me.

I wanted so badly to call and apologize, but I assumed that he'd hang up on me. Why would he want to be reminded of such a big failure? And that's why I was so shocked when he called me. He wanted to know why I had not been in contact with anyone and this confused me. I mean, haven't you heard? I screwed up so badly a man died because of it. You can tell Mark, our boss, I'm not coming back. I'm a liability to the organization, him and everyone. His answer shocked me even more. He simply sighed and said, No, I'll not do that. So what if you screwed up?

God knows I've screwed up a lot. I screwed up yesterday. We fall all the time. You failed searches yourself before. I don't understand. Why throw away your talents over one mistake? You know a lot of people depend on us. You're willing to risk all of them dying because you made one rookie mistake.

Why don't you get your crap together and check in? If you want to quit, you can tell Mark to his face. I really thought better of you, son. And I was struck dumb. I felt foolish now. No one had called me out or tried me for my mistake. Yet I flogged myself constantly. Was it possible I was just a self-absorbed drama queen? I managed to eke out an okay and hung up.

I felt like a child who had just been dressed down by his father. I did just as he said though. When I arrived at the station, everybody was there. It appeared there was a training session that day. Mark noticed me and asked if I was joining them. I didn't sense any anger or distrust. Although reluctant, I just said yes and took an empty seat at one of the tables. The class went on as usual. Every day has been a wonderful experience since. Not once have I felt unwanted. Mark nor any of the other team have ever spoken about it. My mentor and I have never discussed that phone call.

I guess there is really no need to. I feel terrible about not finding that man but I know for a fact that we'd never be able to bury him in peace if we didn't at least try. Finding yourself alone in a strange place can be a traumatic event for a child. Now imagine it's a massive forest and you have no idea where you are. This happened to me when I was 8. Our family was on vacation in the Ozarks.

I think it was Missouri so there's a good chance it was at one of their state parks. I clearly remember how amazed I was at all the trees. Being from Arizona, it wasn't something you saw a lot of. Now that I'm older I realize there are forests here but trees weren't common from where I was from. I was only 8 and my life experiences were very limited. The mood of the trip was already dark even before I got lost. Although I wasn't aware of the divorce waiting just a year ahead, I could feel that something was just wrong. An air of tension permeated the entire holiday. My brother, just two years my senior, was

uncharacteristically quiet and well-behaved. Any attempt I made to provoke a fight was ignored. It all made for a long and boring trip. This meant I went crazy when we reached Branson. Our second day there we visited a place called Silver Dollar City. It's a theme park, very similar to some places like Six Flags. I ran my parents ragged. I wanted to ride every ride, even ones that was too small to ride. I threw a fit every time I was told no, and all in all, I was a giant brat. The following day, we drove out to the park. My parents planned on camping a few days before heading for home. Camping was a new concept for me.

I couldn't understand why anyone would do it. I spent most of the first day asking question after question. I demanded to know everything there was to know and I had to know it immediately. It had to be exhausting for my parents. I spent a lot of time later on wondering if I was responsible for the failure of their marriage. Could I be the reason my dad left? At the time though I only cared about myself and what I wanted. My great upheaval happened the next day. Sleeping in a tent was the coolest thing in the

world. I'd made a drastic change from the day before. Now, I wanted to live this way for the rest of my life. My dad had to practically drag me away from the fire at the end of the night, and this would prove to be an ominous sign of a future fascination. That problem would be a few years down the road. At the present time, I was eager to explore the woods around me. After breakfast, the whole family headed out for a hike around the lake. Every few feet I would have to stop and examine something. I wasn't concerned about keeping up or anything else. My dad did a really good job wrangling me but if you have kids, you know how good they are at disappearing. And that's what happened with me. One of the times I stopped to look, I wandered off the path. I have no idea

how long I was walking but at some point, my stomach growled. I paused to ask my mother for a snack and realized that I was completely alone. I looked around for anything familiar. Every tree and fern looked identical, and I figured I couldn't be that far away. I called out for my mom, then my dad. No one answered. That was when a sick feeling slowly began creeping into my stomach. I wasn't very scared at first.

I was sure mom and dad would find me soon, and for god knows how long I walked around looking for something I recognized. As the hours went by, the sun got lower in the sky and the sick feeling got stronger until I was in a full blown panic. I was running around from tree to tree, screaming for help, and just before dark I stumbled upon a trail. Off in the distance I saw the silhouette of a grown-up. When I screamed at them, they turned around and rushed toward me. They were moving so fast I wondered if there was some kind of monster coming to get me. I was seriously thinking about running off when I hear my dad's voice call back to me.

I was so relieved I fell down right there and cried my eyes out. The feeling of him scooping me up and carrying me away was the best feeling I'd ever felt. At least until my daughter was born, that is. We got back to camp and my mom hugged me until I couldn't breathe. A bunch of people in uniforms were standing around and talking. A paramedic even examined me. I was so exhausted I fell asleep in my parents' tent and didn't move until it was time to pack up the next morning. After my little adventure, my parents decided they'd spent enough time relaxing. We loaded everything into the car and hit the road.

Two days later, we were back in Phoenix and all was right in the world again. I quickly forgot about everything that happened. Like I said, my parents would get divorced the next year and that would be the end of family vacations. I would go camping with one or two of my friends over the next few years and by then I was old enough to know better. I'm 27 now, yet I still think about it on occasion. Regardless of age, every time I find myself alone in a strange place, I'm reminded of what happened in that forest. I guess some things, no matter how small they may minutes, no more than 20. There was no way to know how long I'd been running. At least ten minutes, no more than twenty. Either way, it would be faster and further than I've ever ran.

When you're running for your life, you can push your body far beyond what you could ever imagine. I shouldn't have stopped, but the burning was too excruciating, and he could be right behind me. He may not have made it more than a hundred yards, and I wasn't ready to find out. I saw him, that gun. The clip had to hold forty to fifty bullets, I imagine, and that had to be enough to turn you to dust. No one would ever be able to identify me, and maybe that's what he was counting on. I had no choice but to carry on. I could die any minute, and if I could just find a road or park employee I might survive. Daring to stop just long enough to regain my breath, I continued until dark. Only now I felt safe enough to stop. The night was warm,

starting a fire would have been foolhardy anyway, but with nothing to wrap in but the fleece in my pack, I zipped it all the way and pulled the hood tightly over my head. A rotting log laid near me. It had a large hollow place on the backside which I curled up into sleep. And sleep came quickly. I awoke once or twice but swiftly drifted off again. Awakening at dawn, I renewed my search. It had become more of a search now. Unless my pursuer made himself known, I must assume that he just gave up. The chill in my body soon faded with my exertions, and for the present, water thankfully was plentiful. Hunger was my true enemy. I had never gone more than one night without eating. It had been over twenty-four hours. Starvation was not a death I wished to experience,

and slowly wasting away lacked the romance often given to it. Maybe the gun would have been a better choice, I thought to myself, and neither would be my fate that day. As the sun drew high above me, I stumbled upon a road. The same road I entered in three days before, and my suffering ended soon after. A group of men out doing fire prevention work came upon me, and it was they who brought me to the main ranger's station. I recounted my harrowing experience to them, and this was when their search began. To properly express how I found myself there, I must begin three days prior. Most of my adult life, I lived near to a very well known national park in the United States. It never attracted me until I had a very difficult breakup.

I believed the isolation would provide me the peace that I needed. And late on a Friday afternoon I arrived at the park. Everything was set up before dusk. I spent the rest of the evening relaxing with a beer beside the fire. I used this time to plan my movements for the next day. The quiet was relaxing, and sleep came easily. Something I had been battling for many weeks. I didn't stir again until 8am. I enjoyed a small breakfast of oatmeal and packed a small bag for the day's hike. I was heading to a point five miles ahead. It was set above a pasture where many wild animals were said to graze. Here, I would have a quick lunch and enjoy the sights, and I hoped to make it back to my camp before dusk. The first leg of the hike went well. At some point, I took a wrong turn and got lost. I was unaware of this for some time. When I did this, I panicked. I only managed

to become more lost. Hours passed. I seemed to get deeper and deeper into the woods. About 3pm, I heard voices in the distance. I began running toward them. I tripped and fell on a hose of some type. I didn't appear to be hurt, and I stood up and dusted myself off. As I did, a man walked up behind me. He spoke English with a very heavy accent. I explained my situation and asked for help and another man walked up. This man was carrying an assault rifle and I became very nervous when I saw this. He looked very nervous also. The two men began talking.

They appeared to be arguing about something and neither man ever took their eyes off of me. As this happened a third man arrived. He was unarmed and seemed to be in charge. He spoke to both men in a gruff and confident manner. As he finished, he pointed at me and the man with the rifle said, okay, and frowned. All three stepped back a few steps. The armed man pointed the rifle at me and pulled something backwards. The handle slammed back with great force, and despite my ignorance of firearms, I had a good idea what was coming. A sick feeling welled up in my stomach. My heart began pounding. I had to run, but I didn't know where. As he raised the gun to

his shoulder, I took my chance. Fleeing blindly, branches and vines tore at my face and arms. Any moment, I expected a bullet to rip through my body. A few zips and cracks struck nearby. In seconds, my legs ached from the exertion. My lungs burned, fighting for any small amount of air. I wasn't sure how much I had left in me, and I was sure stopping meant death. Going back meant death. My only options were death. You're aware of the rest. The rangers contacted a few outside agencies to help with the search. It was two weeks before a member of the FBI contacted me. He had a few questions, I answered them and asked him for any news, and he was purposely vague, but I gathered that the men had evaded capture. He assured me that

there was no present danger to the public as long as they stuck to the marked trails. I'll not be returning there regardless. And that's the extent of what I know I do have some theories Illegal marijuana farming among them But I can't be certain at present I did fear my assailants would hunt me down to my home But it proved an unfounded concern PTSD is common to people who have such encounters

And I expected to be among them Yet it has been 17 years And I remain the same person for the most part Thankfully and I expected to be among them, yet it has been seventeen years and I remain the same person for the most part, thankfully, and I feel fine. The ordeal was a learning experience nonetheless. In light of the attack, the problems I was having at that time seemed petty in hindsight. In that capacity, I guess my escape to the woods served its purpose. The past year, something really strange happened that has stuck with me ever since. A co-worker suggested I post it here, under an anonymous name of course, and I wasn't familiar with Reddit. So I did a little research and found this sub. I think you'll guys enjoy it.

As all the creepy elements readers seem to like, and best of all, unlike most of what I've read here, this one is actually true. After high school, I had no clue what I wanted to do, and with no better options, I decided to join the Navy. Eventually, I became a corpsman, attached to a unit of marines in Afghanistan. After my time was up, I went to school to get my EMT certs and then my paramedics one a few years later. While attending college, I met an amazing girl and we began dating. We would go on to move in with each other not long after, and from all appearances, I would soon become a devoted father and husband, just as my dad had before me. It wasn't to be, however. Time flew by, and soon,

three years had passed. None of what I had hoped to happen ever materialized. Things slowly degraded to the point where the relationship ended and I was a broken-hearted loser, unlike my father before me. While doing my job, I was able to focus on my work for the most part. My free time was the hardest. I needed to find a distraction. After a bit of consideration, I came upon a volunteer search and rescue organization in my area. I contacted them and they were happy to have me. I jumped head on into the job. In many ways, it's like the military. You go out into the wilderness and help people in trouble. I like it so much, I'm hoping to make it a full-time job when I get the opportunity. I haven't thought of my ex in months. And that's enough about me. Let's get to why I'm here.

It's not out of the ordinary for citizens to report coming in contact with people displaying strange or odd behavior. This can range from a terrified Karen meeting an armed hiker, a more common thing as we get more and more refugees from states like California. It can also be something more concerning like this case was. I was loafing around the house when I got a call from my boss. A sheriff's deputy had received a call from a woman who had been walking with her dog on some public land. She ran into a gentleman on the trail. At first, he came across as a normal young man, but as the conversation went on, he became more detached from reality. He claimed he was being pursued by a group of men.

They had been chasing him for over a hundred miles. He appeared genuinely afraid. According to the lady, he was wearing a backpack and clean, expensive outdoor clothing. She didn't get the idea that he was homeless or intoxicated. The lady felt bad for the guy. He didn't seem dangerous. She was attempting to get him to come with her to the sheriff's office but he disappeared when she turned her back. She went directly to the sheriff anyway. The deputy knew we were better

trained for this stuff and hoped that we could track him down before something happened. The actual search didn't get going until the following morning. We found his trail quickly. He did seem to be in a bit of distress from his tracks, and it didn't take long for us to catch up to him. It was not the happy ending I'd hoped for. He appeared to have ended his life at some point during the night. The trail he had been on ended at a sheer drop of a thousand feet. A few of us retrieved his body and the search had effectively ended. I had returned to the top to pick up a few of the victim's personal effects he'd dropped. Our head tracker was kneeling down a few yards away from me. He was staring at something very intently and mumbling to himself. He saw me and called me over. He pointed at the

ground and asked me to tell him what I saw. Nothing grabbed my attention at first, but the longer I looked, something jumped out at me. The dry dirt had a spread out look, kind of like it had been swept with a broom, or a tree limb. Then I noticed the edge of a boot print. All but the heel had been swept away. The tracker, who I'll call Jack, stood up and walked over to a small tree with a broken stump where a limb had been. He pointed at it, and I nodded in recognition. I began searching for the freshly broken limb and quickly found it. It had been carelessly tossed away in some bushes. Jack told me to follow him to the cliff edge. We stood at

the precipice and turned back toward the approaching trail. Now in the bright light of day, you could see it. All the way up to the edge were visible sweep marks. The only remaining tracks belonged to the team. I hope I've been able to convey my meaning. If not, I'll be a bit less dramatic. In short, someone had made a sloppy effort to hide their presence. In doing so, they made a big mistake. Have you caught it yet? Well, I'll help a little. Why? If a man had come up a trail where his tracks had been visible for miles, would they suddenly disappear 30 or so yards from the edge of a cliff? The very same cliff he supposedly jumped from.

There was no other path to reach the edge. We even checked to be sure, in every possible direction. We had loads of questions but no answers. I looked over at Jack and asked what this all meant and his answer was less than satisfactory. I'm not really sure but I got a hard time believing that boy flew all the way from there down there. We decided that we'd keep it to ourselves for the time being. We didn't want to cause any undue stress on his loved ones by coming to them with some harebrained conspiracy theory. Even now, I can't come to a solid conclusion about that kid's fate. Had I not

noticed the partial heel print and missing tracks, I probably wouldn't have blinked an eye. While I do have my theories, I'll keep them to myself. You probably would think I was crazy anyway. No, I'll let the lot of y'all discuss some ideas among yourselves, and I look forward to seeing what y'all come up with. But I warn you though, any discussions of aliens or anything paranormal will be laughed at and mocked. They say the most logical answer is usually the most likely. So,

what sounds the most logical to you? Many of us did it or will do it at some point. You're riding in a car with your boyfriend and he does or says something stupid. Maybe he calls you by his ex's name. You fly off the handle and demand to be let out of the car that very second. He tries to initiate damage control but you aren't having it. He gives in and stops the car. You get out and start walking down the road. Do you have a destination? Did you consider that it may be freezing outside? No, he did not. Now you're stuck on a strange road freezing your butt off and your pride won't allow you to back down. In most instances,

cooler minds prevail and the indiscretion is forgotten. There are the few that do not, however. It's important to examine these occasions because they are when tragedy usually occurs, and I'm here to share my own example of when such a situation goes bad, and I hope it will drive home the importance of thinking before you act. This took place when I was 20. The guy I was dating at the time attended the same college as I did. He was a year older with his own apartment, and the two of us were coming back from a movie when he committed the unforgivable sin of laughing at my makeup. I was despondent.

Just as in the scenario earlier, I blew my top and demanded he pull over. I had to be anywhere but in that car with him. He attempted to defuse the situation but this just dug the hole deeper. I was screaming now. For a second time I ordered him to let me out of the car. I seriously tried to jump out while the car was still in motion. When he saw this, he finally pulled over. Saying an expletive, the car came to a stop and I got out, leaving my sweater and jacket behind. After a few steps I heard the sound of a car slowly approaching from behind me.

I ignored it and kept walking. He started calling out to me and begging me to get back in the car. The longer he went on the more desperate he sounded and he must have had enough. He ran up and tried to grab me and my fight or flight mode kicked in and I ran into the nearby woods. I had expected him to chase after me but he didn't. The last thing I remember him saying is something like, F this, if you think I'm spending the rest of the night waiting for you to come out, you're sorely mistaken. Which makes a lot of sense looking back. I heard the squealing of tires off in the distance and then complete silence.

Now, I was alone in the woods at night. I had no flashlight or knowledge of where I was. I'd fled so deep into the forest I'd lost my bearings. I searched around but the road was nowhere to be seen. No sounds of cars could be heard. And this was about the time I started to notice how cold it really was. Suddenly his little joke sounded a lot less serious. And here I was.

It's well after midnight. I'm stranded in the middle of a forest I know nothing about, and the temperature was dropping quick. My dire position was beginning to sink in. It took a run in with a pack of coyotes for me to move into a full on panic. My only friend was the moon, and it just so happened to be full or nearly full on this night. I've been stumbling my way through the woods for at least an hour. Suddenly, far off ahead of me, the howl of coyotes began and now I was genuinely freaked out. At the time I thought they were wolves. I knew nothing about coyotes. I can laugh now but I promise I wasn't at the time. Imagine being alone in the dark with a pack of man-eaters.

I turned around and ran in the opposite direction. All the while, I was convinced that I could hear them chasing me. Had they actually been chasing me, this would have been the worst thing to do. I can't begin to count the number of times a tree branch ripped or poked me in the face and arms. I was ultimately forced to stop out of mere exhaustion. The howls were far in the face and arms. I was ultimately forced to stop out of mere exhaustion. The howls were far in the distance now and I was too tired to go on. If I was going to die, I prayed it was quick. In hindsight, the coyotes likely didn't know I was there or didn't even care. Knowledge that did me no good in the moment, unfortunately. My escape had warmed me for a while, but I soon began to shiver uncontrollably. Without any way to start a fire, I assumed I'd be best off if I kept walking. I went on for as

long as I could, but my body began to give out. I was aware I may die if I stopped, yet I couldn't be bothered to care. I was minutes from giving up when I found myself on a gravel road. It was like a second wind rushed through me. I knew it had to lead to the main road, and based on intuition I picked a direction and followed it. At moments, I noticed I was almost jogging. I had to slow myself down, maybe half an hour into my walk. I heard what sounded like cars in the distance and I broke out into a full run. As I rounded the bend in the road, the highway came into view and not much happened after this. I followed it south until I came to a 24 hour gas station and there I called a friend to pick me up. We stopped at IHOP on the way home and this was where I watched the first sunrise of my life

and it was a truly beautiful sight indeed. After a good long sleep I called my boyfriend and just ended things. Judging by his reaction, he was relieved. Our relationship had been constant turmoil and drama for most of its existence. I was back on the market now but I didn't go find a new guy just yet. I took this time to focus on myself and what I wanted from an expected relationship. Although that brief time in the woods didn't amount to much in the end, it showed me how much I needed to mature. When I did begin dating again, I tried to change the

type of guys I went out with. If one or both partners behave childishly, there will be no end to the drama. It seems this was the right way to go. Less than a year after this happened, I met my husband by chance in the bookstore. He is the definition of chill. His energy is rubbed off on all of us, especially me. And that's it for me. I hope I got my point across clearly and it's able to help at least someone. A few months ago, I had a very unnerving incident involving my young son. It was the way it ended that has me so upset. Please forgive me for being long-winded. I want to be sure I present a clear and complete picture of that day.

For context, my husband and I are in our mid-twenties and we have two children. They are Lee, who is a boy of four, and Lynn, who is a six-year-old girl. The differences between the two have been an amazing thing to witness. Lynn is becoming more independent, whereas Lee is still very attached to his mommy. Most of his life was spent in lockdown and this has created its own set of problems. We were trying to fix those presently and he began learning to walk about the time the lockdowns began. He wanted to go outside and explore. It was sad to see him so eager to do something that he was essentially forbidden to do. It wasn't a situation you could explain to someone so young

either and that's why I was so relieved when things opened back up. My husband and I had a lot to catch up on. It was a year before we could take off any time for the family. In early June, we set aside a weekend. Lee would finally get to explore the world to his heart's content. We loaded up into our SUV and drove out to a local nature area. It covers 50 square miles of woods and nature trails. It was a beautiful day with clear skies. Lee was obviously very excited. I hoped a few hours running through the woods would give him a decent amount of the exercise he needed. The kids and I followed behind as my husband led us down the marked trails. Somewhere along the journey, Lynn fell and hurt her knee. It wasn't

a big deal and she dealt with it well. I was proud to see my little girl growing up right before my eyes. While I was cleaning her cut, Lee wandered off into the woods without us noticing. It took a couple of minutes for us to realize. I did not handle this well. Visions of grizzly bears eating him alive rushed through my head, even though we don't have any type of bears around here. My husband remained the solid thinking man he always is and suggested we began looking. After all, Lee was only four, he wasn't capable of getting very far. I took Lynn with me and went back down the trail while my husband, who has much more woods knowledge, searched the forest on both sides.

The longer the search went, the more panicked I grew. I was scaring Lynn so much that she began crying. This knocked me back down to earth a little. I took a big breath and assured her everything would be okay. This was as much to call myself as her. As I spoke, a lady up the trail yelled out to me. I looked up and saw her standing with Lee and holding his hand. I was relieved beyond belief. I ran up to him bawling my eyes out. He had a smile a mile wide. I didn't want to make him scared. He didn't seem to be aware of how serious things had been. I wiped my eyes and reached out for him. He jogged over to me with his little legs and I held him tight, probably too tight. I thanked the lady and asked where she had found him.

She said that she had been walking up the trail and noticed him walking alone out of the woods. They saw her and walked right up to her. All she had to do was put out her hand and he took it. She said he seemed very comfortable doing so. That was too relieved then to think straight, and it was only once we were back at home when her words began to bother me. And that brings us to my problem, friends. In the time since then, I have been consumed by what she told me. Please don't misunderstand me here, I'm unendingly thankful for her assistance.

I would pay every cent I have to get one of my babies back. It's the apparent ease at which she was able to get Lee to go with her. I'm sure you all can see how an evil person could use this to their advantage. No telling how many times this has happened. I've tried to let it go, but the fears always seem to work their way back into my mind eventually. I wish I could sit Lee down and explain the dangers to him. He's at that age where I'm not sure he would understand the nuances of my words. I don't want to scare him or make him terrified of other people. I'm afraid if I'm too straightforward, it could make him anxious and ruin his ability to make friends. Growing up is already so hard for these kids these days. I don't want to make it worse. So here I am.

My brain is twisted into a million different directions. And I'm open to any reasonable suggestions. And the ball is in your court, I suppose. What do you guys suggest I do about this? Just recently, I discovered my father has early stage dementia. I was on a week-long vacation with my family when I got a call. A police officer informed me that my father's car was found abandoned on a back road far out on the edge of the county. I lost my mind, as you would expect. We cut the trip short and hurried back home.

I had to wait until I met with the police to get the whole story. A deputy sheriff was on a regular patrol when he came upon a car haphazardly pulled over to the side of the road. The driver's side door was wide open. When he approached, he realized the engine was still running. There was no sign of the car's occupants. Per routine, the deputy called in the plate and it came back to my father. This set a missing persons case into motion. When I arrived, my father was still missing and there had been no reports of seeing him. Although concerned for his safety, I had no reason to be afraid. There was no indication at the scene that he'd been injured. The prevailing theory was that he had entered the surrounding woods for whatever reason and became a lost.

He's a very competent woodsman and hunter, therefore I had no end of faith that he would pop up whenever he was ready. During the time we weren't able to take part in the search, my husband and I spammed social media with photos and descriptions of him. Three days passed before there was a sighting. A woman had been outside her house hanging clothes on the line when she noticed a slightly disheveled older man walking through the nearby woods. She said that he appeared disoriented. She immediately ran inside to call the sheriff, but when she came back out, he was gone.

The tip proved to be enough to find him. A small group of volunteers came upon him hitchhiking on another road five miles away from where he disappeared. We raced over to the location as soon as we heard, and this was my first indication something was wrong. Just as the lady had said, dad was visibly disoriented and confused. He was very dehydrated and exhausted. I assume this was the reason. He was taken to the hospital where I spent that night alongside him. The following morning his condition was greatly improved but something was still off. I expressed my concerns to the doctor and he ordered some cognitive tests. Dad was released that afternoon and we decided to have him stay with us for a while,

at least until the tests could be done and we could assess his condition. The tests were done later that week and they were much worse than I'd feared. The neurologist said that there were several signs of cognitive decline. Dad had difficulty answering questions a normal person of his age can usually easily answer. During the time he stayed with us, I was able to witness these problems firsthand. It seems his memory gets worse as the day wears on. A small amount can be attributed to fatigue, but there is a marked difference in the way he was just six months ago. It's a very sad thing to see in one who was once so sharp. The past month or so has been an especially

disheartening time in all of our lives. At present, dad is back at home. He had no longer had access to his car and I'm not sure he misses it. My husband and I are currently torn between placing him in a facility where he can get the help he needs as he declines or moving him in with us. I'm not qualified to nurse him nor strong enough to help him with his daily things such as hygiene. All this seems inconsequential when weighed against a fate where you are surrounded by strangers as you slowly slide into oblivion. In times like this, I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have such a supportive family. Nothing has been set in stone as I write this, but the

time to decide is quickly approaching. Any suggestions from the comments will be appreciated, and please include us in your prayers. Thank you all for listening. I worked at a laundromat. That's already scary enough in itself. We do the laundry service here and you don't want to know the stuff I've seen. The stuff customers have the audacity to bring in here when the only solution would be to burn what they bring in. More often than you'd think, we have to tell people to come back to pick up their dirty laundry because we just can't wash it. Or we won't. They always come and end up washing the stuff in our washers anyway, but hey, if I don't have to touch the stuff, whatever. Now the story I'm about to tell you is one that still confuses me to this day.

It was Halloween 2007. We were supposed to close early, but my boss ended up telling me to stay late because he thought being the only laundromat open on Halloween night sounded like a good business opportunity. I don't think he would have thought that if he was the one that had to stay there though. So instead of closing at 6pm, we were going to close at 11pm. I was promised double overtime so I was all for it. My boss left around 7, gave me the keys and told me to lock up before I left. I really thought it would be a super slow night, but it wasn't. A lot of older folks came in to do their laundry. They said they were grateful for the late hours on Halloween since it meant that there would be fewer kids in the store than usual. By 10pm everyone was gone and I didn't expect anyone

else to come in that night. About 20 minutes before closing, a man came in. He was wearing torn up dirty clothes and reeked of alcohol and I think weed. I tried not to judge though and told him that he wouldn't have time to dry his stuff before we closed, but he was still welcome to use the washer if he didn't mind taking his wet clothes with him. I would have stayed longer for him to dry his clothes, but I promised my husband that I'd be home early enough to help put the kids to bed and Eleven was already pushing it. I didn't really know what to think when he pulled out blood-soaked clothing from the black trash bag he was carrying. And when I say blood-soaked, I don't mean dried blood. I mean, when this guy pulled the clothes out of the bag, they were sopping wet and dripping

with blood. I was staring at him wide-eyed. He must have noticed, because he turned to me and asked if we had any bleach, and that he was a butcher and those were his work clothes. He bought some bleach and all I could say back to him was, mm-hmm. His clothes smacked against the sides of the washer as he loaded them in and I watched the water and soap turn dark red as the machine swirled the clothes around. When the buzzer finally went off, signaling the cycle was over, I was relieved. He'd chosen the quick cycle so it was only around ten past when he was done and I was excited to go home. But when he pulled the clothes out, they weren't even close to being clean. He came up to the counter and asked, well, actually begged, to please let him run them again.

That meant another 30 minutes of me being there with this really sketchy guy washing gallons of blood out of his clothes, but I felt like I couldn't say no. I didn't buy the butcher's story and asked him again what all the blood was from and this time, I actually got a different story. He said that he wasn't buy the butcher's story and asked him again what all the blood was from and this time, actually got a different story. He said that he wasn't actually a butcher and just used that as an excuse. He said it was actually fake blood that he bought from the Halloween store for a prank that he was playing on his buddies that night. He slipped and got it all over himself instead. I didn't buy that either, but I didn't want him to know that, so I agreed to let him run them through again. He restarted the washer after adding more bleach and the water ran clear this

time. He asked if I wanted to hear a scary story and God knows I didn't, but again, thought saying no to this man wasn't an option, so I just said sure. And here's what he said. A man was walking in an alleyway at night when he got this urge. An urge he'd been feeling on and off for years. He always held back and learned to ignore it but this time he couldn't. He wouldn't. He had to give in. He had to satisfy this craving he'd been having. It felt like if he didn't, he would die. His soul would die. What was this urge? It was the urge to kill. The man had experimented with death since childhood. He would dissect dead animals he found and became weirdly fascinated by serial killers in the way they thought. He related to them. He even wanted to be like them sometimes. Well, the pre-prison

version of them at least. Killing animals was fine, but it was never enough. When he got into his later adult years and got a job, moving up a level was all he ever thought about. He found himself in that alleyway, fully prepared to go up to that level. He just didn't know exactly how. He didn't have a plan or know where to go, who to look for. He just knew that was the night. He walked through downtown and saw a woman standing on the corner. She was obviously a call girl and he asked her if he could buy her services and if they could go step into an alley

since he had nowhere else to take her. She agreed and they walked together into the darkness. As he walked behind her, he saw an old rusty metal pipe laying on the ground beside a dumpster. He picked it up and hit her in the back of the head with it. He hit her so hard she fell to the ground completely unconscious. Her head began oozing blood, and he'd never seen so much blood come out of the human body before and he was entranced by it. He sat down next to her and put his hands in the blood, rubbing it all over his face and clothes. He picked her up and laid her head into his lap and watched the blood drain over his body. The feeling he got was like no other.

It was like something he couldn't even describe. I told him to stop telling me the story since it was grossing me out and really scaring me and thankfully he did. Before I knew it, the buzzer to the machine went off again and he was loading his pink wet clothes into his bag and heading out the door. I was a little scared to leave after him but I just wanted to get home. I grabbed my things, locked up and rushed quickly to my car in the night. The next day when I went to open the laundromat in the morning, there were officers waiting for me and I instantly knew why. There could be no other explanation and they asked me if a man came in with bloody clothes the night

before and I told them everything. I asked how they knew he came in and they said that they were able to follow him on security cameras and street cams and saw him come into the laundromat from the camera across the street. It turns out the story he told me was true and it was of course about him. Thankfully the woman he had obviously tried to murder narrowly survived after someone found her lying there not long after she was hit. She lost a lot of blood from her skull area and was on life support but was expected to recover in time. They still haven't found the guy, terrifyingly enough, and thank god I haven't seen him since. There have been no other instances similar to that, so I don't know if he's attempted anything again. I keep a lookout in the news and pray he never

tries to hurt anyone again, even though with what he said I know he probably will. I'm scared for anyone who has to face that evil man. I don't know what I would do if I saw him again, but I do know one thing. I'll never, ever work late on Halloween night at a laundromatat ever again. I want to start off by saying I'm not one of those people that thinks kids shouldn't have candy on Halloween. Growing up, I even hated the people who would hand out apples and pretzels. It was always such a bummer. But one year, I was working so much that I forgot to get candy until literally the day of and when I went to the store to get some, there wasn't any left. The only thing

left was some stupid pretzels and the ghost spider in web shapes. I mentally screamed at myself but I had no other choice. To get those and hand them out tonight when kids would eventually be coming by. Throughout the whole night, every time I handed out the pretzels, I apologized to the kids and told them next year I'd have full-size candy bars. No one seemed to be upset by the pretzels and some kids even told me that they were happy to get pretzels, but I think they were just saying that to be nice. It was all fine and dandy until around 10pm. I opened the door to a group of teenage boys who were not at all pleased with what I had to give them. I was surprised that they actually had the audacity to complain and call me a fat loser for giving them pretzels instead of candy.

One of them even demanded I give them money for ruining their Halloween and not having the good stuff. After around the fifth insult, I just shut my door. I heard one of them kick it as they were leaving and one of them shouted, you'll regret this. They were just stupid kids though. I didn't think they'd actually do anything to me just because one of the many houses they went to gave them pretzels. I turned my porch lights off to signal that I was done handing out stuff for the night and went and sat on the sofa to watch scary movies and eat some popcorn as the night rolled on. A couple of hours later as I was watching the original Halloween movie, I heard a crashing sound coming from the front door. I went to see what it was and I found a rock with a note tied to it that said,

Do you regret it now? Believe it or not, I actually chuckled a little because it was so cheesy and set the rock and note down on the kitchen counter as I went to get a tarp to cover the window so no rain could get in, as we were expecting a small storm the next day. Obviously, I was livid. When I came back into the room with the tarp, I heard another crashing sound coming from the bedroom on the other side of the house. Again, there was a rock with another note that said, You fat pig. We'll kill you. This time, I felt my stomach sink, and there was no chuckle.

This isn't fun anymore. I picked up my phone and called the police who told me that they were really busy that night, and it might be a little while until someone could come out there. She told me to call back if the situation escalated but if no one was actually harming me they couldn't make what was happening to me a priority over anyone else who was calling them that night. They were very low staffed. So I put tarps on both the windows and sat back down to just try and enjoy the rest of the movie, I guess. But I just couldn't. The whole time I was thinking about what the notes said and the fact that I was just a sitting duck with my windows broken in like that.

I heard my car alarm go off next, but I wasn't about to open the door to go outside and see what was going on. Instead, I headed upstairs and looked out my bedroom window. The windshield had been completely smashed in and the rest of the car didn't look much better. All I could think about was how these kids must be certifiably insane to do this over some stupid pretzels. All at once, bricks and stones came crashing through every window in my house. One narrowly missed my head as it passed through the window that I was looking out of. Glass was flying in every direction and I was screaming as the sound of every window breaking was almost too much to bear.

I had started to become scared for my life, so I grabbed the phone and called the police again to tell them that they needed to get there immediately. I saw the neighbors come outside to see what the noise was and I yelled for them to call the police and get back inside. I rushed downstairs to get out of the house and take refuge with one of the neighbors but that was never going to happen. At the bottom of the stairs was the same group of kids from earlier. The same kids who had been terrorizing me that night. Only this time, they were holding bats and rope. I rushed back into my bedroom and locked the door behind me, but that didn't stop them. They broke through the door like it was nothing and rushed towards me, screaming like they were going into battle or something. They beat me while screaming insults and laughing. I remember laying there and becoming numb to every blow that came across my body.

And the laughing is what disturbed me the most. They were enjoying what they were doing. And eventually, all I saw was black. The police arrived some time later to find me curled up in the fetal position on my bedroom floor, bruised and bloodied. They called an ambulance that took me to the hospital. And I ended the night with 8 broken ribs, a broken collarbone, torn ligaments,

multiple lacerations to my body, a fractured eye socket, and fractured skull. They told me with the beating I got I was lucky to have survived with no internal injuries or major brain damage. I spent a couple of months in the hospital and had to move in with my mother during my recovery. Thankfully, those idiots were stupid enough to brag about what they did in school. They must have bragged to the wrong person because one of the people they told ended up going to the police with the information. All in all, 8 boys between the age ranges of 14 to 17 were arrested and charged with home invasion and attempted murder, as well as assault with a deadly weapon. They were all tried as adults and their sentences ranged from 12 to 25 years.

Some made deals to talk about what had happened to get lighter sentences, and I was relieved that they got the time they did. I had little hope when they were originally arrested since they were all minors. I have fully recovered and the only lasting injury I have has been PTSD from that night. All in all, I'm just glad I'm alive today, able to tell the story. Safe to say, I don't hand out pretzels anymore. I don't hand out anything. I refuse to answer my door on Halloween night and I don't want to risk angering the wrong kids and possibly repeat the scariest night of my entire life. To be continued... It was Halloween night, 2013. I was 13 years old and had just had a really awesome night with friends trick-or-treating. We figured it would be the last time we got to trick-or-treat together before we got too old. We all lived within a few streets of each other and on our way back we'd walk each other home.

I was the last person left walking alone after we got to Jackie's house and she went inside. She offered to have me stay the night but I knew my mom wanted me home since it was a school night. The town we lived in was small enough that none of our parents made a big deal out of us going out alone on Halloween and we were just happy we wouldn't be embarrassed by one of our parents following us around all night. After I watched Jackie shut the door behind her I started walking down street, hoping I'd get back before curfew at 10pm. It was usually at 9, but my mom made an exception for Halloween, which I was supremely grateful for. As I was walking down the dimly lit road, I started hearing a sound coming from the bushes right beside me. I looked, but without a flashlight I couldn't see anything.

I picked up the pace, but the sound followed. It was like a growling noise, and no matter how much I convinced myself I was brave, in that moment I felt like a little girl who needed her dad to come and save her. At some point, my fast walking turned into an all out sprint. I heard branches snapping and the growling turned to barking and by the time I made it to the end of the road, I realized what was following me was a very large, incredibly intimidating dog. It looked like a pit bull, but what scared me the most was its size and the fact that it was baring all of its teeth and growling at me through the very short fence separating us. It was like we both had this moment of realization where we noticed the height of the fence at the same time.

I kid you not, I swear this dog and I locked eyes like we both knew what it was about to do. I screamed at it over and over again as I backed away slowly. No, no, no, no, don't. Like this dog could understand me or something, but of course. The dog very easily, as if it was nothing to him, ran and jumped over the fence and rushed towards me. I began running, but of course I was no match for the dog. I did the only thing I could think of and hopped on a nearby car and screamed for help. I don't know if anybody heard me or everyone just thought it was a Halloween prank, but no one came to help me.

The dog was jumping alongside of the car that I was on top of, and I was literally praying to God the car alarm would go off and the owner would come outside to see what was going on and maybe call for help. But no, just my luck. The car alarm never went off and I was stuck. I was crying and praying that my family would notice that I was late coming home and they would find me. I was prepared to wait on that car all night. That is until the dog discovered that he could just hop into the truck bed to get closer

to me. It jumped right in and before I knew it, I was sliding off the car and being chased by the dog along the road yet again. The cape I was wearing started to slow me down and with it being tied around my neck, I felt like I was choking. I pulled it off and threw it toward the dog running behind me, but it flew right past it. I saw a tree I thought would be easy enough to climb and decided to take my chances. I ran full speed at the tree and like I was George of the jungle or something I made my way at least 10 feet up this tree in seconds. The dog was at the base of the tree still lunging toward me but I was safe for the time being. I did have my priorities pretty

straight at 13 though. I was clutching onto my bag of candy all the way up that tree. I was prepared to wear that grocery bag as a backpack if I needed to, to make sure not one piece of candy was lost. I sat up in that tree for what felt like at least an hour while the dog waited for me to slow down. After around 10 minutes of me being up there, it stopped barking and just sat there, staring at me, waiting. I knew it would be a bit before my parents would realize I wasn't home so I just started eating the candy and staring back at the dog. I started thinking about how I honestly felt a little sad for the dog.

I knew my parents would make a big deal about this and they'd demand something be done about the dog and I really didn't want that to happen. Right then and there I decided I was going to do whatever it took to get out of that situation myself to save that dog whatever life of misery was awaiting it if my parents knew what happened to me that night. Part of me thought just jumping down and running as fast as I could to my house would do the trick but then I remembered that dog was way faster than me and the couple times I'd outrun it were just straight luck. There had to be another way. I sat there for at least another ten minutes trying to come up with a plan until I finally thought of something.

The tree I was in looked right over a fence into someone's backyard, and right over the fence was a window that I was hoping was the bedroom. I thought if I threw the whole bag of candy, bunched into a ball at the window that maybe the people would wake up, come outside and distract the dog long enough for me to run away without it noticing. I was sad to do it, but this dog's life meant more to me than candy, even if it had terrorized me all night. I also figured maybe these people would be nicer when deciding what should happen to

the dog than my parents, so to me it was a win-win. I settled all the candy at the bottom of the cheap plastic grocery bag and tied it closed so it was in a tight ball. I took a deep breath and threw it as hard as I could against that window. Unfortunately for the homeowners, the window actually shattered. But unfortunately for me the crash did wake the people inside the window actually shattered. But unfortunately for me, the crash did wake the people inside and they came out. The second their door opened, the dog was running away from the tree and toward them, and I took that as an opportunity to climb down and start running home.

I was able to make it home in just under five minutes to cop cars in front of my house. I guess my parents had noticed I hadn't come home on time. I was three hours past curfew and my dad did go out looking for me, and he must not have seen me way up in that tree. I had no choice but to tell them what had happened since they got the police involved, but when they went looking for the dog, apparently they couldn't find it. The couple whose window I broke told the police it ran off when they went back inside their house and my parents, of course, had to pay for the damage I caused to their home. They never found the dog and honestly part of me was relieved. I know some people may be thinking that the dog deserved to be found and taken care of, but I'm just one of those people that believe it's not the dog's fault, but the owner's.

I would say that there was a moral to this story, but there really wasn't. It was completely random and unavoidable in my eyes and I'm just glad that I was able to climb that tree. Before I say anything, the most important thing I should mention is everything we did that night was supposed to just be a joke, all in good fun or whatever. I mean, there's no way we could have predicted what would happen. We never would have done it if we knew someone was going to get hurt, and we never meant to cause any harm to anyone, but unfortunately that's exactly what happened. Me and my friends, who we'll call Ren and Oliver, were trying to figure out what we wanted to do for Halloween. We were all 15 and figured that that meant that we were too old for trick-or-treating, but we also didn't want to stay in all night. Halloween was on a Friday that year, which meant all of our curfews were later than

during the week, so we wanted to spend that extra time out during the most fun night of the year doing something that was exciting at the very least. What we came up with was cruel, but at the time we thought it would be funny. If anything, it turned out to be scary for us and the person we had decided to target. We lived in a relatively big city in the suburbs. Ren, Oliver, and I lived in the same neighborhood as each other and a few blocks away from us lived a hoarder. And not the kind of hoarder that keeps everything confined to their house. This lady's whole property was full. Like at least six feet high piles of garbage on her lawn and in her backyard. It even piled up against the fence next to her neighbor's yard. We all knew who she was, but no one saw her very often.

The news tried to interview her a few times about the mess, but she always refused. We thought it was probably because she must have been embarrassed by what her house had become. And our plan went like this. We'd sneak around her house as best we could, and knock on the doors and windows, shake the doorknobs, make ghost-like sounds, whatever we could do to scare her a little. I know you're probably thinking this was just mean and I wish I had some excuse for our actions, but I really don't. Anyway, once it was dark outside, I met up with Wren and Oliver and, in costume, we all headed for our house. A few people asked what we were dressed as and the

only answer we could come up with was bank robbers since we were all dressed in black with stupid tights over our faces. I was mentally cringing at how ridiculous we must have looked. Looking back, I really should have been cringing at what we were about to do. We got to our house and I was already nervous. For the sake of the story, I'll call the woman Emily. When we walked into her yard, I'll call the woman Emily. When we walked into her yard, we were met with a smell I could only describe as garbage and death. It was so bad, I even begged the other guys for us to find something else to do because I thought I was going to puke through the tights covering my face.

I was gagging, but they just told me to suck it up. We tried looking through her window to see if she was inside, but there was no way we were going to be able to see anything. It was blocked with garbage on the inside. We could hear what sounded like a TV inside so we took that as proof that she was in there. Ren said the first thing that we should do was each of us go to different windows around the house and begin knocking to try to spook her. I went around to the backyard which was a journey through garbage and rotting food. I was regretting every moment we were there, but I didn't want to ask to leave again. I didn't want the guys to think that I was a loser or chicken or whatever, so

I got to the back sliding glass door that led to the kitchen and began knocking. As I knocked, I watched inside the house and saw movement coming from the room just outside my view. Making her way through the garbage and toward the door I was standing at was Emily. I hadn't actually seen her in years and actually gasped when she stumbled into view. She looked horrible, and when I say horrible I don't mean ugly. She looked sick, like physically ill. There were dark bags under her eyes and she easily gained at least 150 pounds since the last time I saw her. Her clothes were extremely dirty and she obviously hadn't showered in who knows how long.

I stood there still for a moment before realizing I needed to hide. Only my feet were caught in the trash that I was standing in and no matter how hard I tried to move, there was no way I could get out of there before she saw me. Then I heard a knock at her front door. She must have too since she turned in the other direction towards it. I was relieved. Oliver climbed over to me to ask what I was doing when I told him I was stuck. We started to get a little worried. Ren came over to see what we were both doing and both of them decided the funniest thing to do would be to leave me there and see if she caught me.

Some friends they were, I guess. They pounded on the back door and ran out of view as I watched Emily make her way toward me, climbing over the trash in her own home before she opened the sliding glass door and grinning this awful grin. When she saw me there, struggling to get up and get away from her, she giggled, like the kind of giggle a little girl does when she gets a doll for Christmas. It was like this lady had superhuman strength the way she picked me up and pulled me out of the trash heap. She practically dragged me inside as I squirmed and begged her to let go and that I was sorry. I kept screaming for my friends to

help me. I looked back at them as they watched her bring me further and further into her house until I couldn't see them anymore. They looked scared for me too and all I could do was hope that they would go and get some help. After dragging me through the filth in her house, she brought me to what I assumed was once her living room and sat me down in her fat, feces-covered sofa. The smell in her home was even worse than outside. I was gagging and gagging and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't hold it in. I threw up all over myself. The first thing she said to me was something that gave me chills. In a voice I could only describe as one someone uses when they talk to their baby, she said, Oh honey, that mommy cleaned it up for you. You spit up on yourself again.

God, I was freaked out. She waddled her way into another room and came out with the dirtiest towel I'd ever seen and as she got closer to me, I just started to cry. She brought the towel up to my face and wiped my mouth and clothes until she said it was clean. I could smell what was on the towel and it only made me throw up once again. She didn't seem to notice or she pretended not, since this time she didn't clean me up. Instead, she sat beside me and grabbed me, placing me on her lap as she cradled me. I shoved and kicked, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get away. I just kept begging her to let me go.

After what felt like forever, she set me back down to sit on the sofa as she got up and left the room once again. This time she came back with the corpse of a dead cat. I wanted to cry when she set it on my lap and told me it liked me and wanted to be petted. There was absolutely no way that was going to happen though. After what felt like hours but was actually probably only 30 minutes of being in that house I heard sirens. The relief that came over me when I heard the police knocking on the door was insane. She answered and when they asked if I was inside, she told them the only person in her house with her was her baby. They told her they needed to check to make sure and after they rounded the pile of garbage blocking me from their view, it was obvious

I wasn't her baby. They told me to get up and come with them but she didn't like that idea at all. She started screaming that they couldn't take her baby. She rushed in front of me and wouldn't let me go. They kept telling her to step aside but she wouldn't and when one of them took a step close, she charged forward. One of the officers yelled, tasaser, taser, taser and within seconds, she was on the ground. Well, she was in the garbage, but for the purpose of the story, I'll just call it the ground. They arrested her and got me out of the house and to the hospital. I had to shower there since I was covered in God knows what bacteria and disease that filled that house I fortunately never got sick and aside from the mental trauma that night

Ended up completely fine Emily was put in some sort of group home or mental hospital or something And her house was condemned and eventually torn down I haven't heard much about her since other than the fact that she's still in there. I can't help but feel somewhat guilty for what happened that night. If we had just left her alone, she never would have been put in the position where she'd be tased or hurt in any way, but I also can't help but feel like we helped her by getting her out of that house, and it led to her getting the mental help she clearly needed. It's something that's

been on my mind constantly. It's definitely the worst Halloween I ever had favorite nights of the year. Even now as an adult it's fun. Being a kid though, is the absolute best time to celebrate the most awesome holiday of the year. I try my best not to think about the night I'm about to write about but my therapist told me putting the words on a page and maybe even sharing it with people may help me move on. So here I am, trying my best to move on from a night that has caused me endless nightmares

and paranoia. I hope some of you can understand why I was left so traumatized. I was 16 years old. For reference, I'm a 5'2", very small woman, and I've been the same height since I was 15 and wish every day I would grow a few inches. This Halloween, my friends decided we were too old to trick-or-treat, which was disappointing for me to hear, friends decided we were too old to trick or treat, which was disappointing for me to hear so when we were trying to figure out what to do instead, my friend Jennifer suggested that we hang out with her boyfriend and his friends. They were going to walk around scaring kids and doing other dumb stuff that I really didn't

want to be a part of, but I was told that I had to go otherwise one of the guys wouldn't have a girl to hang out and I'd be selfish if I skipped out. So I agreed. We were all still going to be in costume and that year I had chosen to be Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Mostly because that meant that I could dress in a cute outfit and not be uncomfortable all night like I knew Jennifer would be in her sexy bunny costume. I mean come come on, we were teenagers. No one should have ever sold her that costume. Anyways, I met up with my friend and the guys and we set off on our walk around the city. I have to admit, it was unbelievably boring. I noticed over the years less and less kids would go out trick-or-treating on Halloween. So the plan the guys had of scaring

kids, I guess, wasn't seeming like it was going to work out. I was relieved considering I didn't want to force any mental trauma on kids in a night where all they wanted to do was have fun, as I wanted to as well. We made our way to the house of an older guy that I guess Jennifer's boyfriend didn't like very much. He said that he was just going to ding-dong ditch the guy and we'd run, but of course, that didn't end up being the case. We walked in front of the house and he picked up a rock and threw it through the man's window. He told us to run and as we were making our way away from the house, I looked back and noticed a figure in the front window that had just been broken.

It was someone wearing a Michael Myers costume from the movie Halloween. Creepy, yeah, but it was Halloween so I just figured it was coincidental. As we reached the end of the street we slowed down and I took a deep breath before yelling at Jen's boyfriend for the stunt that he just pulled. Then he mentioned how he also saw Michael Myers in the window and that the guy living there must have really been a freak since he obviously was just wearing it in his house when there were no kids out trick-or-treating. Everyone laughed about it, but I swear when I looked back toward the house, I saw him standing on the lawn, still as a board, staring at us. I turned around to tell the group and just like the movie when everyone went to look, he was gone. I will say, the movie Halloween was always one that scared me pretty bad so the thought of someone who looked exactly like the psycho in that movie watching us wasn't exactly the greatest feeling in the world.

When we turned the corner out of the neighborhood I couldn't help but to keep looking back, fully expecting him to be there following us, but he wasn't. We stopped at McDonald's a few minutes later and got stuff to eat and sat at one of the tables outside. I was enjoying my fries when I looked up toward the movie theater across the street, and there he was, standing under the light in the front almost like he wanted me to see him. This time, I didn't take my eyes off of him and when I pointed him out to the others, Jen's boyfriend yelled out to him that he was a creep and to leave us alone, but staying in character, he said nothing and just tilted his head as though he was confused. It didn't take long for him to discontinue his statue-like posture as he began to slowly make his way toward us.

Jen's boyfriend was screaming at him to stay back, but once he was halfway across the parking lot, I think we all just got scared enough that we all just started running away. Jen ran in one direction with her boyfriend and the other two guys ran with them. My friend Jane thankfully decided to come with me as we ran into the nearby neighborhood. After a few blocks passed, we came to a halt and between gasps made a plan to get to her house as fast as possible and if either of us saw the guy again, we let each other know so we could continue running if need be. We walked for around 10 minutes and saw nothing, well, except a few kids trick or treating here and there.

We were walking down a street when a kid coming from a house just ahead pointed behind us and said, whoa, cool Michael Myers costume, man. Jane and I looked at each other before quickly turning around, only to be met with the terrifying realization that he was walking only five feet behind us. Both of us screamed and took off running toward Jane's house, this time not stopping for anything. We burst into the house and through our tears explained to Jane's mom what was going on. We told her everything, about Jen's boyfriend throwing the rock into the guy's house, which she did not like and planned on reporting, and about the guy who had been following us all night. She actually thought it was funny that he was following us. She said we deserved it for what we did to the guy's house. We sat on the sofa after getting into our PJs,

and Jane's mom called mine to make sure I could spend the night. When she came back in the room, she was laughing and said our friend was standing on the sidewalk outside and that we should just say hi. We were confused. Tara ran through us as we peeked out the window and there he was, standing there, staring right back at us and we looked at him. Jane's mom was somehow still laughing as we started to cry again, telling her it really wasn't funny and we were scared. When she realized it wasn't a joke to us and that we were actually upset, she got her husband to go outside and tell him to leave. He actually did approach the guy and the guy just walked off. We thought that would be the end of it but it wasn't. After Jane and I had gone into her room to sleep, we talked about how awful the night had

been and how much we wished that we could go back and undo it. Jane had changed the subject and was talking about a boy she liked when we heard a knock at her window. We absolutely were not about to look at who it was. We weren't that stupid. So instead, we went and got Jane's dad and he walked with us back into Jane's room to look. He pulled back the curtains and there he was, the man in the Michael Myers costume, standing just outside Jane's window, staring in. He was completely unfazed by her father being there. He just stared right at Jane and I. We screamed and ran out of the room and watched as her father stormed out of the house to confront the man. Her mom told us to go into her bedroom with her as she called the police. When they arrived and arrested the man,

they told us the man in the costume wasn't the old man whose house was vandalized by Jen's boyfriend. In fact, he didn't know the guy at all. When they went to check the house, they found the man inside, strangled to death. The guy who had been following us had murdered him and eventually confessed he planned to do the same to us. He just didn't expect a man bigger than him to be in the home with us. He was sentenced to life in prison so thankfully I don't have to worry about him ever getting out and hurting me. But that night still haunts me. I hope one day I can find peace and be able to move on from what happened that night.

Maybe someday I will. I do still love Halloween. The day, not the movie. Halloween isn't my favorite night of the year, actually far from it. But I put up with all the decorations in my house and scary movies all October long because my wife, Laura, absolutely adores the holiday and I'll do anything to make her happy. Every year we hand out candy to the neighborhood kids and she and I dress up in cheesy couples costumes. It's fun for her and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it at all. The neighborhood we live in is extremely nice. My wife and I are both lawyers and we do pretty well for ourselves so when it was time to buy a house together we made sure to get exactly what we wanted. Now on Halloween of 2009 Laura and I were dressed as Sam and Frodo

from Lord of the Rings. She insisted and I thought it was hilarious. We even dressed up our baby as Gollum. We were handing out candy as usual and seeing what all the kids in the neighborhood were dressed as was pretty fun. We'd never had any trouble before while handing out candy but this night would prove to be very, very different. At around 9pm, Laura answered the door and instead of hearing trick or treat, she was met with a young boy, maybe 8 or 9, crying on our doorstep. She knelt down and was asking him what was wrong, but he wasn't talking much. In between sobs, he would say that he was lost and that he needed water.

Laura tried asking him where his parents were, but he wouldn't answer. She brought him inside and took him back into the kitchen to get some water. She motioned for me to follow her into the living room and when I did, she told me that she was going to call the police. I told her that was a good idea but we should also wait for the boy to calm down a bit and then ask him if he knows his parents' phone number as well. After our talk, Laura and I walked back into the kitchen and the boy wasn't sitting at the counter anymore.

He was standing at the back door. Both of us thought nothing of it, maybe he just wanted to look outside. We sat him at the table and asked him what his parents' phone number was or if there was anyone we could call to come and get him. He had finally stopped crying and told us he didn't know his parents' phone number, but he did know his brother's. He made the call and within 15 minutes, his brother was at our door. Sweaty and obviously worried. He told us he'd been out trick-or-treating with his brother and looked away for a second and he was gone. He thanked us more than he needed to and we watched as they walked down the road, out of sight.

I mentioned to my wife how his brother looked like nothing like him and was definitely way older than 14, the age that he said he was. We contemplated still calling the police just to tell them what happened but eventually decided against it when our little golem baby started crying and we realized that we had already had enough on our plates. The boy was with his brother now and he'd be fine. Laura was still worried so I spent the next few hours reassuring her everything would be okay and that we did our part by helping the boy when he needed it. By midnight, my wife and I laid down for bed with our baby in his crib beside our bed. Laura kept talking about how successful the night was but she still felt a little uneasy about the boy we'd helped earlier. I started to become somewhat irritated by her

bringing it up and that I eventually just told her I didn't want to talk about it anymore and that the situation was done and over with. The boy. Was I wrong? At around three in the morning my wife woke me up. She told me that she heard something downstairs and she felt like someone was in the house. Just as she said that, I heard what sounded like footsteps coming up the stairs. I whispered to the lawyer to take the baby into the bathroom that was attached to our bedroom and to lock the door. I went into our closet and shut the door behind me. It took me a second to remember the code to the safe but sighed a sigh of relief when I finally got it open. I took my handgun out and tried to stay as quiet as possible.

I was hoping my wife had brought her phone into the bathroom with her and was calling the police. I opened the door to the closet just enough to be able to see out toward the door that led from our bedroom into the hallway. I watched as a man in a really horrifying clown mask opened the door and came right into the room. He walked toward the bathroom and tried the handle on, that was all I needed to see. I slowly opened the closet door to not alert the man of my presence as I pointed the gun at his head. In a more shaky voice than I would have wanted I said, stop, I'm calling the police, you need to leave. I don't think he realized I was pointing a gun right at him because he turned around very quickly like he was going to attack me or something,

but the second he saw what I was holding, he froze in his place. My back was to the door, which was a little stupid of me. I had assumed the guy was alone, but I learned quickly that wasn't the case. Behind me, I heard someone clear their throats and tell me to put the gun down. I glanced in the direction the voice came from and to my shock, the boy from earlier was standing right behind me, pointing a gun at me instead. My mind was racing. I knew if I put the gun down, I'd have nothing to protect myself or my wife and child. I always knew I would risk my life for my family and I couldn't let them down by giving it to this man and child. In that moment, I decided there really was only one option, and it all counted on one thing, that the kid wasn't as confident as he seemed. I shot the man in the leg, and as he

collapsed to the floor, I turned around and tackled the kid, wrestling the gun out of his hand. Thankfully, I was right. I figured if I shot the guy, the kid would be way too shocked and scared to actually get a shot off at me. My wife was screaming in the bathroom, asking if I was okay and she started screaming when she heard me say that I was fine. The police were there only five minutes later since my wife had been on the phone with them from the moment she got into the bathroom. Turns out, the boy who we let into our house earlier that night unlocked our back door for his father to come in later to rob the place. I was right too when I said his brother looked way older. It's because it was really his dad

who had sent him into our house to make it accessible to him later in the night. The father was charged with home invasion and ended up getting 18 years in prison. And thank god he's still in there now. The boy, his son, was put into the care of his mother who was actually in the middle of trying to get full custody of him due to his father's criminal background and inability to properly take care of him. Laura and I moved out of that house a month later and we moved in with her parents for a while before finding another home. We just didn't feel safe in that house after then. Our son is 13 years old now and thankfully was too young to remember what happened that night. Laura and I still remember though, and we make sure to lock all of our doors

and windows every night before we go to sleep. This is going to sound a little bit far-fetched, but I wouldn't be telling it if it wasn't true. It was by far the most terrifying night of my life that I will remember forever. I was 17 years old and just coming to terms with realizing that I'm gay. I won't go too much into that, but it's relevant to the story. I had just tearfully come out to my parents who thankfully accepted me. The day before Halloween, I came out to my group of friends. A few of them looked at me funny when I told them but the majority were proud of me and hugged me. I was overwhelmed with the amount of love I received during a time of extreme insecurity for me. Well the next day at school

we were talking about what we should do that night for Halloween. A few people were having parties we could go to or it was suggested that we go over to one of our houses and watch scary movies. I just had a weird and intense couple of days so I wasn't too stoked about going out, but my friends were adamant that I join them and have fun being the person I was hiding for so long, as they said. I was happy to have their support, so I agreed. We went to a party and everyone was so welcoming and great to me. It was like nothing had changed and I was so happy. We left the party at around 2am and one of our friends, Dylan, suggested that we head into the woods to the old abandoned farmhouse. It's one of those places teenagers go to party or get high so we'd all been there before. Only now it was at night and I really just wanted to get home.

Most of our friend group declined but when I tried, Dylan kept telling me I needed to go, that he was having so much fun with me and that we'd have a lot of fun. I looked over towards my best friend Danielle and told her I'd go if she did. Danielle agreed which meant that we were quickly on our way to the farmhouse. We got there relatively quickly and were inside the building by around 3am. It was pretty structurally sound still and wasn't falling apart by any means so I felt safe in that regard at the very least. Dylan reached into his backpack and pulled out a Ouija board and started doing this dumb, evil laugh. There were five of us there and he asked who wanted to play.

I'm a pretty superstitious person so there was no way I was touching that thing. Danielle and the others agreed to play while I watched. Dylan was asking some stupid questions like, will I get laid tonight and when am I going to die? It was all really dumb and you could tell that he was moving the piece by himself to get the answer he wanted. I mean, the answer he got to when will I die was a date like 500 years in the future and he started bragging about how he was an eternal being or some stupid stuff. I tapped Danielle on the shoulder and told her that we should just leave and was surprised when she told me she didn't want to and was actually having fun. I stood around there for another hour before the others finally wanted to leave. As we were walking out of the farmhouse,

Dylan stopped me as the rest of the group kept walking and told me he had left his backpack inside and asked if I could go get it. I didn't see why not so I ran back in, grabbed the backpack and just as I was heading for the door, I watched as Dylan slammed it shut. I tried opening it back up but something was obviously blocking it from opening. The rest of the house was boarded shut. I was trapped with no way out. I tried my cell phone but just as expected it had no service. I started shouting for him to let me out but he was just laughing and calling me slurs. He told me I didn't deserve to live and he had hoped I'd die in there.

And this was exactly what I was afraid of. This is why I kept it to myself for so long. It was the late 2000s so being gay was more acceptable than in the past, but the people who hated us really hated us. I started crying and screaming for help, but we were at least half a mile into the woods and there was no way anyone would hear me. I didn't know if Dylan was standing outside, but it didn't matter. I couldn't count on him to let me out. Around 20 minutes went by and I heard a noise upstairs. It sounded like footsteps.

I started to panic. Then I got this feeling like something was watching me. It was almost completely dark in the house since I wasn't given a flashlight before coming inside and my eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness. The footsteps got louder and I crawled into the corner of the room and scrunched down as much as possible so maybe I wouldn't be seen. I listened as whatever it was made its way down the stairs and closer to me. I had my head shoved into my arms and no matter what I told myself I wouldn't look up. I began to shake as the sound stopped right in front of me and I could hear the breathing of whoever it was standing over me. It's not nice to summon demons in someone's house. I wasn't expecting a voice so when I heard it, I instinctively looked up. It was very

obviously a homeless man with ratty clothes and matted hair. He smelled horrible and I almost screamed when I saw him. I'm sorry sir, my friends were doing that. It wasn't me. I'm really sorry. I looked up at him as I spoke. I didn't dare stand up. I didn't want to get any closer to this man than I already was. Why are you in my house? Kids are always coming in here and I hate it. I don't come to your house and summon demons. He sounded relatively calm, but there was an anger in his voice that I was picking up on just slightly.

I would leave, but one of the guys I was with locked me in. How can I get out? Please, I just want to go home. That's when he smiled, this creepy, mostly toothless smile, and told me, You're not going home. You're mine now. I'll keep you as an offering for all the times people will come and vandalize this place. My heart started to race and I got up as quickly as possible and shoved my way past him, knocking him to the floor in the scuffle.

I ran up the stairs and wanted to scream and cry as I heard him barrel his way after me, screaming that I belonged to him now. I ran into one of the bedrooms and was grateful to see an open window I thought I could escape from. I looked down and noticed the jump was too far to the ground and when I looked back and saw the man in the doorway, I had no other choice. I jumped. I landed hard on my feet and was pretty sure that I had broken something, but the adrenaline and shock kept me going. I got up and started running. I wasn't going very fast, but what mattered was that I was getting out of there. I made my way home and knocked loudly until my mom came to the door. I lost my keys in the fall and was just happy to be in my own home, hugging my mom, knowing that I was safe.

She asked me what was wrong and what happened to me, but I was crying too much to say anything. She told me to take a shower and to calm down and then we could talk. I washed off all the dirt and muck from my body and began feeling the searing pain coming from my ankle. I got out of the shower, got dressed and told my mom we needed to go to the hospital since I think I definitely had broken something. On the way there, I told her everything. She even started to cry, not just because she was upset but because she was so sad that I had to experience something like that just because of who I am. I did end up having a broken ankle and wore a cast for like two months or something. My mom called the police on Dylan and reported him to the school.

He wasn't arrested or charged with anything, but he was expelled, which I was very thankful for. No man was found in the old farmhouse, and it was torn down only about a month later when the owners of the property agreed it garnered too much attention from the wrong crowds and was a safety issue. It's over a decade later now and I still get goosebumps when I think about that night. You'll be happy to know that I've been living very happily as myself for quite some time now. I've been married to an amazing person and we are expecting a son through a surrogate now very soon.

I'm happy I'll be able to raise a man who will be a good person. There's just no way he'll be allowed to stay out that late on Halloween night on a boat. It doesn't seem like the best way to spend your night, but my boyfriend wanted to go and I'm terrible at saying no to him. We were supposed to be in costume but I was already dreading the night without having to be in an uncomfortable, probably itchy outfit all night. I was just going to make my boyfriend happy but the night ended up very different than we had planned or than I had hoped. We arrived at the docks about 30 minutes early to make sure we got a spot on the boat. They were

selling tickets right then and there so if you showed up too late you wouldn't be able to go. We got on board and it was packed. People were already drunk and acting like idiots and I was not at all excited for the night to come. I've always been an introvert and my boyfriend at the time was extremely extroverted, pretty much the opposites attract thing, I guess. Looking back now, he should have understood how uncomfortable that night would make me and we could have compromised and done something both of us would enjoy. But with him, it was all about what he wanted. Most of the night I spent sitting at a table, waiting for it to be over. My boyfriend ditched me the second he saw one of his friends was there. It was proving to just be a horrible night. We were a mile off the coast and I had nowhere else to go. Then, to make things worse,

the boat suddenly stopped. The lights went out and the music stopped. People started to boo, like it was done on purpose, but I knew that there was something wrong. I started asking the crew what was going on, but they didn't know either. Drunk, bored people are the worst people to be around. A bunch of them thought it would be funny to run from side to side to try and sway the boat. It rocked a little but there wasn't much success. The captain came out and made an announcement that they were trying to get help from the coast guard but weren't having much luck getting through to anyone and told us that we might be there a while. It started getting cold and I couldn't find my boyfriend anywhere. It was so dark,

all I could see was the glow sticks people were wearing and the occasional phone screen light up. I sat down toward the front of the boat and all I could do was wait. And that's when a man sat beside me. He put his arm around me and with alcohol in his breath asked me why I was sitting there all alone. I shoved his arm off of me and stood up to walk away, but he didn't like that. He grabbed me by my wrist and pulled me back down so hard I thought my tailbone had broken when I hit the metal deck. He laughed and told me that I'd be staying with him for the rest of the night. I was scared and confused, but I knew the night would be over soon enough. The fear I had almost made me not able to move so I sat there with that man as he held on to me.

My boyfriend finally found me and asked me what I was doing with another guy. I tried telling him what happened but he didn't believe me. He actually thought that I was cheating on him. And instead of helping me, he just ends up walking away. I was immediately devastated. This only made the guy who was holding me think that I was his to keep for good. He said that because I was single now, I was his, and even had the audacity to tell me that I'd be going home with him tonight because he said so. I stood up again, trying to get away from this psychopath, but this time he said so. I stood up again trying to get away from this psychopath but this time he

joined me. He stood up next to me and grabbed me by the waist and whispered in my ear, you try to get away from me again, I'll make sure you never get off this boat. My heart started to race. I knew this was a situation I wasn't meant to be in. There had to be a way to get away from this man. We were walking through the crowds when I decided to make a run for it. I shoved him away from me and ran through the sea of people in front of me, eyes wide so I didn't run into anything that would slow me down. I found the woman's restroom and when I ran in crying, the other woman inside asked me what was wrong. I told him about the guy who had been following me and when he came in through the door looking for me, none of the women comforting me hesitated even a second to jump

on top of him, tackling him to the ground. It was so dark I couldn't see exactly what was happening but his groaning and screaming made it obvious whatever they were doing didn't feel good. I listened and watched as much as I could while they punched and kicked him until he was unconscious. As they were dragging him out of the bathroom, the lights turned back on and everyone turned to look. It must have been a sight to see since everyone gasped when they saw him. He looked worse than I thought. He could only see so much in the darkness but when the lights came back on, it was easy to see the damage they had done to him. His face had become barely recognizable and his clothes were torn almost completely off.

His body was red from the beating. He'd obviously had bruises the next morning. The captain had gotten hold of the Coast Guard and the police by using someone's cell phone and he made sure that we arrived at the docks as fast as possible to get the guy some medical treatment since he obviously needed it. The police were there to meet us when we arrived and I, along with the women who kicked the life out of him, were questioned on what happened. Other people who witnessed him holding me down backed up my story.

What really concerned me though was the fact that they had seen me struggling, sitting there with that guy, noticed it was a problem and still did nothing. The man was put in custody after leaving the hospital and was charged with harassment. He only received 90 days and a small fine of $400. He was also ordered to stay away from me and not to contact me at all. He never admitted to what he did. He denied everything and said that I made it all up to make him look bad. He even threatened to sue me for a while there. There were enough witnesses though and everything I said about what happened was proven to be

true. I broke up with my boyfriend the night after the boat party and haven't spoken to him since for obvious reasons. More than anything, I'm just grateful for those women who saved me. They knew I was in trouble and didn't hesitate to help me. I'm actually still friends with most of them and every Halloween, we go out together and we all have each other's backs if we need it. To be continued... Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official,

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