The Lets Read Podcast - 224: SOVIET HOBO CANNIBALS! | 24 True Scary Stories | EP 212

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about the Soviet Hobo Cannibals, Being Home Alone, & Lake Houses... 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/LetsRead ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/

I'm a 29-year-old woman. At the time the following happened, I was 20. I'd only been living in this city for a few months and was still unacquainted with some urban habits. Earlier in the year, I'd gotten my first real job with a bank. I was still living in my hometown about an hour away. The bank even helped pay for the move, and it's a major reason that I was still living in my hometown about an hour away. The bank even helped pay for the move, and it's a major reason that I'm still there to this day. That kind of employee appreciation is rare, and during my time off, I tried to make things as homey as possible.

It was a bit of an adventure. I'd never lived on my own before, and I'd have to call my mom more than once. Actually, a lot lot for advice, but I figured things out for myself eventually. Now, back then, I was a smoker. That didn't mean that I smoked inside, though. To be honest, I've always hated the smell. You don't have to tell me how stupid that sounds and I'm well aware of it. Instead, I always smoked outside on the patio. For the first month or so, I would just stamp my butts out and throw them in the grass. I realized how thoughtless it was now, and apparently, so did my neighbors. The office put a note on my door notifying me that there had been some complaints and they demanded that I clean up the butts immediately.

I did, of course, and from then on, I left my butts in a coffee can to dispose of the proper way. After returning inside, I would leave the back door unlocked. It never entered my mind that this may be a bad idea. If it wasn't something my parents did, I never considered doing it. Sadly, but true, I'm sure some of you may already be seeing where this is actually headed. What I'm about to describe occurred maybe six months after I'd moved. It was my day off and I'd be catching up on laundry. After lunch, I slipped out to the patio for a smoke. Nothing special happened. I do recall it was unseasonably warm. When I finished, I came back in and returned to my chores.

I'd been playing my radio loud all day and wasn't really focused on my surroundings. I had just brought another hamper of clothes from my room and loaded them into the washer. I added the detergent and started it. As I turned the corner into my living area, I came face to face with a strange man. He stood motionless staring at me with a big toothy grin on his face. I froze. My eyes looked around for a weapon, and then I noticed his pants were around his ankles. Fortunately for me, his shirt was long enough to block the you-know-what, but now I was really scared. This must have meant that he had something particular in mind for me. I didn't dare speak until he stepped toward me. Something inside me caused

me to scream. And I mean really scream. Anything and everything poured out from my mouth. He must have been surprised by my reaction. His eyes got real big and he got a panicked expression. He was trying to say something but that just caused me to freak out even more. After a few seconds of my shrieking, he quickly yanked up his pants and fled out the patio door. I slammed the door behind him and hastily locked it. My knees began to buckle. I stumbled toward the couch before I could collapse, and my whole body just vibrated with fear. The shaking was so bad, the telephone slipped from my hands. After several minutes, I was calm enough to

actually dial the phone, and the police arrived and took my report. Now, I'll give them credit, they were more compassionate than I expected. That being said, I had little hope that they would actually catch the guy. Even back home, cases like that rarely come to anything. I was surprised to hear from them later that week. After work, the same officers showed up with a plain-clothes cop and showed me a book of pictures. About a third of the way through, I saw him. The cop said that I had been lucky. The same man had assaulted another woman a year before. He'd only been out of jail for a few weeks when he barged into my house. Lucky seemed like an understatement at

the time. Another month passed when I was notified the man had been arrested. Fortunately, I didn't have to testify or anything like that, and the sleaze took another plea for 16 months and was probably out in about half of that. For some reason, I was never worried about him coming after me. I marked it down as a learning experience and moved on. After that incident, my door was locked 24 hours a day. It was one of the first things I taught my daughter when she was old enough. I don't leave spare keys laying around outside or any of that stupid crap. The price of a locksmith is more than worth it in an emergency situation.

I'd like to end this crazy story on a positive note though. For anyone who may be wondering, another far more important thing came from the break-in. I had a very hard time feeling safe standing alone outside from then on, and as a result, I quit smoking not long after. Although it was hard, I don't regret it for a second. It seems, even in dark places, we can find the bright spots. I was around 15 when my dad got a job with the railroad. Now before then, he was an over-the-road truck driver. This job kept him away from home during the week, and mom and I were lonely a lot, but the money was just too good to turn down.

The two of us got used to dealing with things on our own. I learned to cook and do my own laundry during this time. This skill would serve me well later. Neither of my roommates in my first apartment had any clue how to do really anything, and it would be an eye-opening experience and made me appreciate my mom that much more. Neither of my roommates in my first apartment had any clue how to do really anything, and it would be an eye-opening experience and made me appreciate my mom that much more. Maybe we can discuss that sometime later though. Today, I want to tell everyone about something that happened to me during that time of learning. This was when I was about 12. I woke up for school as usual but quickly realized that I was sick. Now to keep this PG rated, I had stuff spewing out of both ends, if you get my meaning.

I tried to be an adult about it but I fainted in front of my mom and she put me to bed. Although not ideal, I was happy to have the day off from school. I was given a bunch of different medications and quickly passed out. I woke up once or twice to go to the bathroom, but I slept for most of the day otherwise. Just after 2pm though, I awoke refreshed and feeling great. The sick feeling was completely gone, but now I was starving. My first instinct was to run into the kitchen and gorge myself. I decided that that was probably a bad idea. Instead, I took a page from my mom's book and tried some saltines. I'd had good luck with those in the past,

and I also grabbed a Sprite while I was there and brought them back to my room. I was close to the bathroom if things went wrong. I had nine or ten crackers and half a glass of Sprite, and I waited thirty minutes to see if I'd barf them up. Nothing bad happened, but now I was even hungrier. I thought for a minute before choosing ramen as the safest option. I finished off the bottle of Sprite and made for the kitchen. My mom would be home soon, and under normal circumstances, I would have just waited for her to arrive, but I was so ravenous I couldn't wait any longer.

I made ramen for myself several times. I filled the pot and eagerly watched in hopes that the water would boil quicker. It didn't. When the moment finally arrived, I broke up the noodles and added them to the water. A minute later, I poured the flavor packet in. I impatiently stirred until the noodles softened just enough to be edible. I was done waiting. Now the events that followed were likely due to dehydration and overall weakness. I looked around for a potholder but saw none. There was a hand towel nearby though so I grabbed for that. The premise was the same, I couldn't see any problems, however today was not a usual day. I lifted the pot and set it on

the counter like I normally do. As I set the towel aside, I realized that it was on fire. I snatched it back up and tossed it into the sink behind me. My hand was slightly burned in the process. The time I wasted worrying about my hand allowed the fire enough time to jump onto the curtains. From this point, I was always a step behind. The water from the faucet extinguished the flames quickly. My split second of satisfaction was destroyed once I noticed the burning curtains above the sink. Having one of those sprayers in my sink would have been perfect for this, but we didn't have one. I attempted to splash water from my hands. It was useless, though. The curtains were already consumed and

the fire had now taken hold on the ceiling in the adjoining cabinet. I was so overwhelmed and incapable of coming up with any remedy now. When the fire alarm went off, I gave up and ran out of the house. I opened the front door and ran directly into my mother. She was very calm, and all I could say was fire, kitchen. She didn't miss a step after that. To my amazement, she entered the kitchen and opened the door under the sink. Flames were covering the ceiling now. A few came unnervingly close to her, and like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, she withdrew a massive fire extinguisher from under the sink and pointed it at the ceiling. And within seconds, most of the flames on the ceiling were gone. From there, she backtracked to the cabinets and put the flames there out.

If I had to guess, I'd say she had the fire completely extinguished in less than 30 seconds. It remains the single most amazing thing I've seen to this day. Mom ran over to check on me. It took a few seconds for me to regain my senses but once I did I broke down and cried. I was so relieved I couldn't speak. My mom got out the first aid kit and put some cream on my hands and the weight of my actions began to dawn on me. I started apologizing over and over and this made me cry again. Mom calmed me down and assured me that it wasn't a big deal. I couldn't see how it wasn't, but I'd have to rely on her judgment. Some time passed and we discussed what had happened. I expected her to scream at me any

second, but she never did. After the excitement had passed, we walked into the kitchen to get a look at the damage. I sheepishly asked her what was going to happen, and her answer caught me completely off guard. Don't worry about it, I only care that you're safe. I'll tell your dad it's my fault. He may grumble a little, but what's done is done. I could feel the weight lift off my shoulders in real time. Rather than cry like I wanted to do, I grabbed my mother as tight as possible and held her for a long time. And that's basically how everything occurred that day. After our little family moment ended, mom and I cleaned up as much as we could.

There wasn't really a lot we could do at the time. Dad would have to replace the cabinet before the painting was done. I recall that he wasn't as upset as we had expected. He simply asked if mom and I were okay and let out a big sigh. A few weeks later he came home with the cabinet and some cans of paint, and by the following week the kitchen was looking as good as new. I'm still amazed at how quickly things can go from light threatening to no big deal. Life's just kind of funny like that. Like everyone else, the last few years have been hard. In early 2020, I lost my grandma to pneumonia,

and it wouldn't be long before my aunt got sick too and came very close to death herself. It was a lot for a guy my age to handle but I knew once it was over I'd be able to see my Faith again. Now Faith and I had met in middle school and quickly fell in love. Our homes were too far apart to see one another very often. Her parents were also super traditional and didn't want her having a boyfriend. And besides school, our only constant form of contact was the telephone. We'd often talk all night and go straight into school without a second of sleep. And in spite of all the odds, we stayed together.

The biggest test of our relationship would be high school. Faith's dad bought a new house even further away. That put Faith into a different school district. Now we would see each other even less. I was sure this meant the end of our relationship, but Faith refused to give up. By now we both had computers in our rooms, and we were able to talk and see each other over the internet with webcams. Every day we'd race home from school and talk until early into the next morning. I'd do all my homework during school time so I wouldn't get in the way.

Faith did the same, and for the next three or so years, this would be our prime avenue of communication. I think we were only able to meet face to face a handful of times, and it was hard on both of us. I lost hope more than once, but Faith always lived up to her name and brought me back from the edges of darkness every time. Strangely, despite all the personal sadness that I experienced during the height of the pandemic, Faith and I thrived. Being quarantined worked great for our particular situation. Other than a few hours of school garbage every day, we got to talk uninterrupted all day and night. Even so, not seeing her in person for so long weighed on me. I was doubting our future together, as I had so many times before. Luckily by then the lockdowns had lifted, her father would be returning to work but school remained online.

This was the perfect chance for us to be alone together and I was going to take it. I brought this up with my brother and he agreed to loan me his car to go see her. A week later our opportunity arrived. I drove the 35 miles to her house. She rushed me inside and closed the door and we held one another tightly for a long time. The energy was a bit weird between us but we overcame it pretty quickly. We rushed off to her room for a little personal time, and I'd forgotten how great being with her was. Unfortunately, our time together was about to be cut short. I had just left her room. Faith was making us a snack when her dad walked in, and he began yelling at me instantly. Things like, where is my daughter? What did you do to

my little girl? Faith ran into the room and tried to calm him down, but it didn't help. In his defense, he'd never actually met me. Crazy, I know, considering we'd been together for so long, but our relationship hadn't exactly been normal. We tried to explain the situation, but her dad was just too angry to listen. He looked at Faith and I real closely and sneered, and this would be the point when everything came off the rails. What have you two been up to? His expression was so terrifying I didn't dare speak, and he looked back and forth at each of us, but we stayed quiet.

Answer me now! Did you put hands on my little girl? I remember him saying. Now Faith's dad looked at her and asked her if I'd force myself on her, and she, acting instinctively, blurted out, no. We loved each other, and we'd been together since seventh grade. He knew what that meant, and I knew exactly what his expression meant. He gritted his teeth and lunged at me, and he was too fast for me. I was overwhelmed by his size and power, and he grabbed me around the throat with one hand and lifted me off the ground. I was barely able to breathe or swallow. I tried to speak, but he told me to shut up and listen. I don't care if you two met in kindergarten.

You're going to leave here this second and never contact my little girl again. If I ever see you here again, I won't hesitate to kill you. And with that, he let me drop to the floor and shouted at the top of his lungs to get out. He didn't have to repeat himself. I was already out the door before he finished yelling. I started the car and sped away. I was already several miles down the road before I slowed down. I was shaking so miles down the road before I slowed down. I was shaking so badly I could barely keep hold of the wheel. The notifications were going off my phone but I didn't care. Odds were high that it was Faith and I was way too shaken to talk to anyone, especially her. Now back at home I locked myself in my room and tried to calm down. A few hours passed before I got the courage to check my phone, and just as I suspected, Faith had texted and called me at least five times since I'd

left. I wasn't sure what to do. I talked to my brother about it and he suggested that I sleep on it before deciding. It was hard, but I did get to sleep at around 3am. When I awoke the next morning, my mind wasn't any clearer. In fact, now that I had time to rest, I was even more traumatized by what had occurred. I couldn't get Faith's dad's angry face out of my head. I honestly believed that he really would kill me if I gave him the chance. I remain in this cycle of indecision to this day. It's almost been three years since I've communicated with Faith and I'm still unsure if I ever will. She still sends me texts from time to time and I read them.

It's hard to be out of contact after all the years we've been together, but as long as she lives at home, I'm not willing to risk my life or my family's. I looked into the eyes of evil that day and I'll never forget it. Faith, if you do hear this or read this, I love you. And always will. But your father's a monster. I suggest you get away from him as soon as possible. And until then, we'll be doomed to be apart. One heart, forever broken in two. It's been exactly 12 days since it happened, but I feel it would be a good idea to provide

a little bit of background before I go forward. I'm a 23-year-old male currently living in Colorado with my parents. Now upon graduating this past fall, I made a deal with my parents to take six months off before beginning my job search in earnest. Since my time is soon running out, I've been spending more and more of my days vegging out in front of the TV. Recently I was doing just that when I had a very peculiar experience. As I said, I was lying on the couch in front of the TV in our living room just watching Netflix. It was a nice cool breezy day. I had the sliding glass door open and the screen door closed. Off in the distance, I could hear a lawnmower. The area in which we live is basically out in the country. There are

large open fields between the houses and some of them taking up several acres. I was focused on the TV when I heard a quiet tick sound followed by a dull thud. I turned to the direction of the door and noticed a small hole poke through the mesh of the screen. My curiosity was now piqued. I paused the show that I was watching to take a closer look. Now up close you could see that the hole was round and about the size of my pinky. My attention now shifted to figuring out what the object was that made the hole. I roughly tracked the path of it from the screen to the side of the couch.

About two inches below my fingertip, I found a hole of the same size in the fabric of the couch. As I contemplated what the object could have been, the sound of the lawnmower got louder. A very strong possibility clicked in my head. Based on some past experience, I assumed the projectile was probably a rock or a similar piece of debris ejected from under the blades of the mower. I was now thoroughly pleased with the conclusion I'd come to, so I returned to the couch and the show that I was watching.

The following day, during a discussion with my mother about what had happened, I brought her over to the couch and the screen to show her the holes that the object made. She suggested that perhaps we dig into the couch to get a better look at what the object actually was. I went into the garage to get a screwdriver and returned to the living room to dig the projectile from the fabric and after about 30 seconds of struggling with the object, it popped out of the fabric and into my hand. Rather than being something so common and innocent as a rock, the object turned out to be what looked to be a.22 caliber bullet. My heart sank down into my stomach and my mom saw it and gasped. We discussed the situation for a moment and decided to call the police.

Now a pair of officers arrived and we showed them what we'd found. I gave them a short and basic account of what had occurred the day before. I spent the next half an hour or so answering questions from the officers. When the officers were done asking questions, they took the bullet and sealed it in an envelope. One of the officers gave us his card and assured us that if they had any information in the coming days, they would contact us. And that's pretty much where everything just ended. As things stand right now, the police have not come up with any leads to provide us. I got tired of waiting for them to call me, so I called them a few days ago.

One of the officers and I discussed some possibilities of how the bullet could have gotten into the couch. The leading possibility at present is that a neighbor or another person on one of the surrounding properties was doing some target shooting or hunting and the bullet somehow found its way onto our property. In my mind, this is the option that seems to make the most sense. The only other possibility is that someone purposefully shot at me and missed. I've been unable to think of anyone who would want to do that to me. To my knowledge, I have no real enemies. I've always done my best to be a likable and friendly guy. As far as I know, I don't have any ex-girlfriends that wish me ill will either. And most, if not all, of my past relationships ended pretty amicably. And to be honest though, even if I could think of somebody who hated me that much,

the thought of someone trying to kill me is just too terrifying to contemplate. Therefore, with all the facts weighed together, me and the police have decided to just rule it an accident. Unless some new information comes to light, that's our only option. On the off chance some new information does pop up, I'll be sure to put an update post in the comments of this video if it ever gets read or wherever else. And to wrap this up, I do want to urge firearms owners to be more careful and mindful of what they're shooting at. There are many bullets out there that can go up to a mile. Even if you're shooting at something solid, the bullet can go through and then into unintended objects. So please, for the sake of others, be careful. The story I'm about to tell happened in 2017.

I was 18 years old at the time. Although my grades had always been good, I had a bad habit of not doing my homework. So I found myself short a couple of credits at the end of my senior year. When all was said and done, I discovered that I would have to do another semester to make up for the credits that I was short. You would think because of this I'd be more responsible, but you'd be wrong. I was a stupid kid. To be honest, I just really didn't care then. My parents were naturally angry, but by the time they found out, there was really nothing any of us could do about it. I did what I usually did during summer breaks. Nothing.

When the next school year came around, I was ready to get it all over with and graduate. That being said, I wasn't about to let this small little setback keep me from having fun. Probably the number one reason, besides just not doing my work, that led me to being held back, was skipping school to go fishing. I love fishing. I still love fishing. It's the only thing in my life that I've been somewhat decent at. I fell in love with the sport way back in middle school and I've been cutting classes to do it ever since. And the story I'm about to tell took place after one of those fishing trips. Any days I didn't feel like going to class, we'd leave for school as usual. But rather than going to school, we'd hang out at the donut shop eating donuts and drinking coffee until school started.

The morning in question was no different. After leaving the donut shop, we drove the 30 miles out to the pond that we would usually fish when going for cats and crappie. The catfish in this pond were usually of average size, but the crappie were of a size that I'd never seen in my life, not even on fishing shows or in magazines. The fishing that morning was great as usual. I remember specifically my friend Mark caught two crappie the size of dinner plates. Several years before, we started the tradition of having a massive fish fry at the end of dinner plates. Several years before, we started the tradition of having a massive fish fry at the end of the year. All the families and friends would get together and stuff themselves with some of the best food on earth. When that day's fishing was over, we packed our catch into

a cooler with ice and headed home. It was a little after 1pm when we made it back to town and went our separate ways. I was exhausted, hungry, and stank like fish. I wanted nothing more than to get home, take a shower, and stuff myself. I made it back home a little after 1.30, and I entered the house and everything was quiet. My parents usually didn't get home from work until around 3.45 to 4 o'clock every day, so I was confident no one would be in the house when I got there. I entered into my room and began to undress when I heard a light bang back in my parents' room. I froze at first, but then called out,

Who's there? I sat still and continued to listen for a few seconds. When no answer came, I began slowly walking back towards my parents' room. As I turned the corner into my parents' room, I saw the foot of one person exiting through the window and a second man close behind. The second man had a black bandana around his face. Upon seeing this, I immediately booked it out of the house and ran over to my neighbor's home. I had to bang on the door for about 30 seconds until our neighbor, Mrs. Johnson, answered it and let me in. I quickly explained to her what was going on and she called the police. The police arrived and searched the house but, of course, the burglars had been gone almost 15 minutes by then. The police remained at the house

for about another two hours before leaving. Fortunately for me, the period between them leaving and my parents coming home gave me enough time to shower and get into some normal clothes before they arrived. I didn't figure that there was going to be any way I could hide what had happened from them, so when they came home I told them everything that had happened. They were both naturally very shocked and scared and concerned for my safety, but at the time didn't think to ask me why I was home so early. It was only a couple of days later when my mom inquired why I'd been at home at the time, but then I'd had time to come up with a story that I'd been feeling sick and came home early from school.

In the six years since that day, I've yet to hear anything from the police about them catching the people that were in the house. I did notice a small item on the news about a man being caught breaking into houses, but it was never determined whether he was one of the people that I'd caught in my house. I won't lie and try to say that I wasn't slightly shaken up by the whole situation. I did have a hard time sleeping for a few weeks and I never really felt safe for the rest of the time I was there. And if anyone reading this happens to wonder what happened with school, a few months after that I decided to quit and just get my GED. From there I went straight on to community college and graduated a few years ago and by some strange turn of fate,

I ended up getting a job with a home security company. My job for the last few years has been installing security systems in people's homes. The longer I've been doing it, the more important I think my job is. I believe in what I'm doing so much that I have a security system in my home too. Especially after what happened to me, I feel a lot safer having the security system in my home. I'm terrified at the thought of my own son walking in on what I walked in on. If you have children of your own, I suggest you do the same. Stay safe, everyone. I was recently forced to leave my last apartment because of some scary occurrences. It all began when I noticed a large clay planter on my patio had been knocked over. The planter must have weighed

over 200 pounds with all the soil and plants inside of it. Now, the vandalization had to have taken place while I was out or sleeping or something. It had to have been at night. I would have been awakened. Someone must have caught me on one of my rare times away from home. In the overall scheme of things, it was no big deal, so I just wrote it off. Unfortunately, this would just be one of many odd things to happen there. After the incident with the planner, things were quiet for a while. Then one Friday night, I decided to have some friends over. Everybody had a good time and as far as I know nobody broke anything. The next morning I woke up and went outside and noticed the word A-hole had been scratched into my paint on my door.

I'm not sure why it actually occurred but I went ahead and notified the front office about it. On my way back from the office I ran into a couple of my neighbors and asked them if they had seen anything. According to one, no one had seen anything. The other had been out of town overnight and couldn't be of any help. No one had seen anything, they said. And the choice of words struck me as somewhat odd. It was almost like they were speaking for more people than themselves. I'd never spoken to this particular neighbor before and just chalked

it up to an odd turn of phrase. I figured it'd just been a couple of kids being stupid and let it go. A few days later, a guy from the apartment showed up and painted over the words. As before, things went back to normal and all was quiet. I had to go out of town for business and expected something to be damaged when I returned. And everything looked to be as I'd left it when I got back. Things were normal again for about a month until I had my friends back over for some drinks and games. There was only about five of us and no one present left my apartment all night. The following morning when one of them left for home he quickly returned to the apartment to show me something. Apparently at some point during the night somebody had scratched a bunch of curse words

into the side of his car. It wasn't only his car though. My car and a few of my other friend's cars had also been damaged. And now, I was angry. I called the cops, but they told me that there was little they could do about it. Without any proof like video, for instance, we were just going to have to file it with our insurance companies. As usual, none of my neighbors had seen anything. My friends and I were left with little choice but to do as the officers suggested. Everyone went home and I returned to my apartment. I didn't go back out for the rest of the night. I thought things couldn't get any worse, until I woke up to a bunch of messages from my friends. They all had flat tires. They suggested I go out

and check my tires. Sure enough, my rear passenger side tire had a roofing nail stuck in it. It just so happened that the apartment complex had been having roofing done. There were scraps of old shingles laying everywhere. There were also other things like roofing nails strewn all over the ground. Under any other circumstances, I would have seen this as just some unfortunate accident, but considering all the problems I'd had lately, it was beginning to look a lot like someone didn't like me. After all I'd gone through, I'd finally had enough. The following morning, I went to the apartment complex and notified them that I'd be leaving as soon as possible. They attempted to threaten me, but I made it clear that they weren't getting off easy.

I'm sure I could have sued them and won had I been inclined to do so. By the end of that week, I'd found a new place and had everything moved in. Since then I've never had another problem. It appears everything that happened was directly connected to that specific apartment complex. It wasn't until I moved into my new place that the danger of this situation fully dawned on me. Somehow, someway, I'd made someone so angry that they were willing to destroy my property and had I been there long enough, they could have possibly even hurt me. It's not a good position to be in, I can assure you. Ever since then, I've constantly been looking over my shoulder, not knowing who it was is the

worst part of the whole situation. Hopefully they just wanted me gone and are happy now, and if not, I'm terrified at what they may have planned for me next. I've considered purchasing a gun and I'm curious what everyone thinks about this. Am I crazy or is it a good idea? This happened in 2019. I was in my second year of college and living in my hometown about a 10-minute walk from campus. I lived with two other girls at the time, but they were all back at their parents' house for the holiday. I work in healthcare and was working Christmas this year. Now a little backstory, there used to be four of us living there, but one girl had moved out due

to issues with her boyfriend. He was an idiot who abused our kindness on allowing him to stay there, was only supposed to come over every so often but basically ended up living there. We told her that she needed to kick him out after an incident with him one night after he got physical with her and verbally abusive with the rest of us. She wouldn't listen and we told her that we would have to talk to the landlord then. Long story short, she ended up moving out and left on bad terms with us. On another side note here, I've been in physically and mentally abusive relationships before, so I understand how things may have been going for her. I tried my best for two years at that point to help open her eyes to the abuse and get her away from him. At this point it was affecting everyone and we didn't feel safe with him there etc so she moved out. Now back to the story. It

was Christmas Eve and I worked the next day so I was getting ready for bed. Locked the doors, turned the lights off and went downstairs where my bedroom was. I was scrolling on TikTok for about an hour. It was Christmas day at this, when I heard what sounded like the chairs in the kitchen move. The kitchen is right above my bedroom. I thought maybe I was hearing the neighbors next door as we share the same walls and sometimes they can be loud. But I remembered one of them texting me and asking me to bring in a package that they were expecting while they were all gone at home. The noise was short lived so I just brushed it off. The next thing I know, my bedroom door is being opened slowly. In this moment I get a flashback and remember my second grade teacher telling us

about the time someone broke into her house and she acted as if she were asleep so if they were just there to rob her, they wouldn't feel the need to hurt her if she saw them. But my freaking phone screen is lighting up my scared jaw dropped face. So I can't act like I'm asleep. Where I'm laying in bed faces directly to the door so we're just looking right at each other. So there I was laying in my bed, soiling myself while this guy has one foot in my bedroom with the door cracked open. It felt like an eternity but in reality was probably no more than about 10 seconds of us looking at one another. He slowly takes his foot out and closes my door. I sit there just in complete utter shock.

I couldn't make out what he looked like as my eyes were adjusting to the dark again from the phone screen. All I could see was a backwards baseball cap. I knew I had to call the police but my anxious self knew if I called it, it would alert my parents' phone that I called. And me being dumb was like well I don't want to make them worry. Also I was scared that he might still be somewhere in the house and I didn't know what he would do if he heard me call. So I texted the guy that I was seeing at the time and tell him, quote, some random guy just broke into my house and came into my room.

He snapped me out of it and told me to call the police, and so I did. The dispatcher asked me if I felt comfortable to go unlock the front door for them so they didn't have to break it down, and I told her no way I don't care if the door is broken I'm not going out there alone. A couple of minutes later I see flashlights shining through my window. I hear the police knocking at the door and announcing themselves. They got in and asked me where I was. I came out of my room and they came and got me. They told me to wait on the back porch while two of them searched the house and one stayed with me. It was like that stuff you see in movies when they have their guns and turn the corner with their partner and everything. They didn't find anyone and I said

nothing looked like it had been taken. They even tried to get their fingerprints but were unsuccessful. They then started asking me questions and informed me that the back door was unlocked and had no signs that it had been broken and I told them that I had locked it. Luckily the guy I was talking to stayed with me that night but I still couldn't sleep. I kept having to go check every inch of the house over and over. I placed chairs under the door handles on the front door and back door in my bedroom and the next day I informed our landlord and she refused to come and change the locks and she never ended up changing them for the rest of the time we lived

there. Every time I go to bed I now triple check all the doors and make sure that they had been locked. It doesn't matter where I am. I got a dog now and he helps my anxiety with intruders as well as recent purchasing of a ring doorbell. I believe it was our old roommate's boyfriend. I think they may have had an extra key for him because he was basically living there, but I don't understand why he didn't do anything to me, the house, or our belongings. If it were someone random, I don't know why they wouldn't have done what they intended to do and there could be many different possibilities. I don't know what their intentions were that night, but I truly hope that that man that broke into my house never does it

again. I live alone in the country. I'm in a small town about 300 people tops, with a larger town hardly 3 miles away with a city further 10 from there. So while the town is quiet, the area is pretty dense. I live on the outskirts of town, typical country stuff. Large field out back just off my garden, small quiet roads and mostly older people in the houses around me. And for context, I'm about 18 to 25, so especially young for the town. This story starts in October 2019. So there I was in my room enjoying myself with some particular items at about 9pm, blinds open. I was never all too

concerned with leaving the blinds open, there are no buildings or paths or any sort of infrastructure etc. outback, so just a field with a line of trees and a random tree near my home in the field. So there I was, doing my thing, when I heard a slight tap on the window. The past few weeks were pretty stressful, so I needed this distraction, so I ignored it. A few months later, another tap. Again, ignored, but I took note of it, thinking that if I heard it again, I'd get something on and take a look out the window. A couple of minutes go by, another tap. So true to myself, I got my tracksuit on and

went to take a look out the window. I couldn't see much to be honest. The winter moon cast shadows and painted everything facing me a deep black. It was real horror movie stuff. I stand at the window, legs slightly shaking. I saw nothing. If there was someone there, I was either blind or they were in the shadows of either my garden or the tree in the field. I went over to the bedside table and grabbed my phone. Returning to my window, I switched on the light. The light didn't really do all that much, only lighting up the front porch of my garden. Two days later, a similar situation, though I was fully clothed and was instead on my phone.

A tap at the window. And this time, I acted on the first one. Getting up, turning on the torch on my phone. Again, nothing. Bushes, an outdoor table set, that tree, typical garden stuff, and I stood there for a few moments and again, a tap. Thankfully, I saw it this time. Someone was throwing a small pebble at my window every so often. I closed the blinds and headed to the room I use for my cousin whenever he stays over. Sleeping in that room didn't feel all too good anymore and it took ages for me to sleep. On waking up the next day I went outside.

I checked the garden, finding by the fence a backpack next to the tree. Now there wasn't a terror scare at this point but it was still on my mind so I hoped to god that this wasn't the setup for some kind of attack. After all, what would be the point of attacking this town where there is a city 12 miles from here? I opened up the bag and find a load of aerosol cans of all sorts. Links, spray paint, Febreze for some reason. I picked the bag up and dumped it in the bins outside. Looking back on it, I thought it was just kids looking to axe bomb someone out of pure boredom. The contents of the bag mostly fit that. Two, maybe three nights go by and I'm typing

stuff up on my laptop and again, another tap on the window. And by this point, this was starting to honestly worry me. I just stayed at the desk, which was out of line of sight for the window and by this point this was starting to honestly worry me i just stayed at the desk which was out of line of sight for the window it didn't take long for them to stop and move on to the next house next door fortunately or not i had managed to get downstairs into the living room to see the shadow of a person moving from in front of the tree to the house next door climb the small fence and take up a spot i assume somewhere near the tree to the house next door, climb the small fence and take up a spot, I assume somewhere near the bushes in the garden next door. Sadly, and I'm sorry to say, there was no conclusion to the story. I don't know what

happened with that weirdo. I don't know if this person had ever gotten what they wanted or had been caught, or maybe they had just given up. Either way, I keep my blinds closed and I hope to God I never see them again. In 2015, I lived in a beautiful lake house in my hometown. At the time, it was the first place that my ex-girlfriend and I rented together. The reason we decided on the lake house was not because of the beauty of the home, but because it was the only place we could find that would allow dogs. We had two big dogs and none of the apartments in my hometown allowed big dogs. The house was most certainly out of both of our price ranges, but we made it work because of the dogs.

The house was awesome. It sat right on the lake and had a dock and everything. The inside was nice and fully renovated. It wasn't one of those dirty old camps. The nicest part of the house though was just how quiet the street was that we lived on. It was our house and our one neighbor to the left and that's it for the entire street. The neighbor was a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Elsa, but told us that we could call her Mama Sol. I'm not kidding, she actually told us to call her Mama Sol. This woman was wild. She was about 4 foot 11 inches. She had insanely curly hair and these extremely bright green eyes. She was pretty for sure, but in a crazy type of way.

Of course, we acted polite when we met her, we smiled, and went about our lives after the introduction. The months rolled on, and we had virtually zero interaction with Elsa. A few times we'd see her outside, and we'd wave and then just go about our day. She wasn't married and wasn't in a relationship that I could tell. We would always see people going in and out of her house, though, and we would in a relationship that I could tell. We would always see people going in and out of her house though and we would usually never see that person come around again. My ex and I would constantly try and figure out what was happening over there. Sometimes people would be in there for two minutes and other times they wouldn't leave until the next day. It was always

either one or two people, never more than two. And these people were all different ages, races, you name it, really. And after months of joking around about it, I finally decided that she was most likely doing something with religion or self-help. I figured Mama Soul was trying to heal the soul, so to speak. As we closed in on the end of our lease, something happened. We received a package in our mailbox that was addressed to Elsa. A somewhat common mistake, we thought, especially the way our houses sat on the street with the lake in the background. Sometimes the numbers on the houses were messed up. I decided to be nice and just bring the package over to Elsa.

I went over and knocked on the door and she didn't answer. I knew she was home because her car was outside in the driveway. I rang the doorbell and knocked a little harder. I heard a crash from inside. I cuffed my hands and looked through the window. The house was practically empty. It was a massive living room right inside the door and nothing was in the room except for the couch. Straight back were windows that revealed the lake in the backyard. To the right was another door. That door was slightly ajar and I would find out in a second that the door was the door to the basement. As I looked

through the window, Elsa came barging up the stairs from the basement door and she looked tense and angry. I jumped back away from the window. Elsa furiously opened the door and greeted me with, yeah, what do you want? I froze for a moment because I had never seen Elsa take this attitude. I extended the package out and said, I got your mail. I just thought you might want it to have it. She instantly smiled and snatched it from my hands. As she grabbed the package, I noticed her hands were covered in something. I didn't want to think about it then, and I'm having a hard time typing it now, but it honestly looked like blood. She noticed me looking down at her hands, and she made some erratic noise and loudly said,

well, thank you, hon. I'll be seeing you. She slammed the door in my face and ran back into the basement. I walked back and I couldn't wait to tell my ex everything that had just happened. She was freaked out and I didn't blame her. The next night we had a fire outside in the backyard. Since our lease was almost up, we wanted to get as much out of this lake house as possible. My ex went to bed at around 10 and I decided I was going to stay outside later and just take in the lake. About an hour after she went to bed, I heard a door shut. I looked behind me and it was Elsa walking

toward me. I'm not going to lie, I was a little uneasy thinking about the day before. She stopped right next to me and sat down where my ex had been sitting, and she looked right at me and said, Sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to be rude. I'm working on this painting for a client and I dropped the canvas right before you knocked. I was frustrated and angry. I told her not to worry and that I understood. I felt some relief because that story did make me feel better. It would make sense why her hands were covered in this sort of red as she was painting. At the time it made sense to me why so many people were in and out of her

house as well. If she was an artist, she was probably being commissioned to paint all sorts of stuff for all sorts of clients. We talked for a while and then decided it was time for us to head our separate ways. As I started to walk into the back door, Elsa shouted, Hey, if you ever want to come over, my doors are always unlocked. I just waved and went inside and locked the door. I was pretty sure that Elsa just semi-seduced me but I didn't want to assume. I told my ex that the next day and obviously she wasn't very pleased. We only had two more days until we moved out so we just let it go. That next night we sat

outside again to soak up the last of the beauty of the lake and while we were outside we heard screaming from inside Elsa's house. We both looked at each other and contemplated what to do. They sounded like painful screams, but we weren't sure. I know it isn't right, but where we came from, you don't get involved in others' business. In hindsight, we should have called the police, but it seemed like an exaggeration at that moment. My ex talked me into going over and knocking on the door to make sure everything was okay. When I got to the door, the screams gave me goosebumps. They were so loud. Whoever was screaming sounded like they were in incredible pain. I knocked on the door hard and the screaming

stopped. I waited for a second and then Elsa emerged from the basement. Again, she was covered in that red paint as she said the other day. This time she didn't open the door. She came over to the window and shouted through the glass, sorry, this isn't a good time. I have someone over. We'll talk tomorrow. She then turned around and slammed the basement door. I ran back to my ex and told her that we should go inside and just lock the doors. The next morning, we started our move and I saw Elsa waving to me from her front steps. I waved but didn't want anything to do with her anymore.

I never reported Elsa and I never checked back at her house either. I hope she was just covered in red paint. As for the screams, I have no idea. I hope she was just into some weird things but not anything violent. And now that I'm older, I would have absolutely called the cops. Anyone out there who is younger and reading this, if you hear screaming and someone sounds like they're in trouble, chances are they probably are. And you could be the difference between life and death. Back in the early 2000s, before the Facebook marketplace, Craigslist was where all the action took place.

I don't recall the exact year that this story took place, I just know that it was in the early 2000s time frame. I was tired of living in my parents' house and was ready to move into my own place. Unfortunately, like many young people who don't come from a lot of money, I didn't have much capital to my name and my credit was horrible. So getting an apartment was not easy. In fact, it was almost nearly impossible. After constant rejections due to my poor credit, I was recommended to Craigslist by a work friend. He told me that you could find anything that you were looking for, even places to rent.

And that night I found a ton of places to rent. What I found great about a lot of these places was that they didn't require a single credit check and most places were even month to month. That style of renting was perfect for someone in my financial situation. I narrowed down my search until I was left with one place that I was absolutely in love with. It was a beautiful house located right on the lake. My hometown is beautiful and is home to dozens of lakes and rivers that run through the state. The pictures made this place look like a resort and not even an actual place to just live. The listing itself was almost too good to be true. The guy, whose name was Randy, seemed like a great guy and extremely flexible.

Throughout the post he constantly said things like, rent is $8.50 but if you're tight one month we can work it out some way. Or in other sections he would say, always looking for help around the house, would be willing to lower rent for assistance. I instantly emailed Randy and heard back several hours later. He laid out even more information in the email and told me to come meet him at the house tomorrow evening at about 9pm. I'm not sure why I didn't even notice how weird that late meetup time was. I think at that moment I was just excited at the prospect of moving to this lake sanctuary.

When I read through all of this, I assumed the guy was older or maybe just a genuine guy who knows money can be tight sometimes. What I would soon find out was Randy would not be the same man from the posting. Randy was something much worse. The next night came and I drove out to the lake house at about 9pm as Randy wanted and I was blown away by how much more beautiful the place was in person. It was one of those nights when the moon was so bright that it almost looked like it was a cloudy day outside. As I drove down the long driveway, one thing I noticed was that he had virtually no neighbors either. The closest house I saw was nearly a mile down the road. Being in my early twenties, all I could think about at this moment was the parties that I could have without disturbing the neighbors. I approached the door slowly so I could take in all my

surroundings. I could see the lake glistening in the moonlight behind the house. It truly was a beautiful place. Finally snapping back to reality, I knocked on the door and a middle-aged chubby man answered the door in a robe. He was bald and had a very well-trimmed goatee. We both just kind of stared at each other for a moment. I was taken out of my element by the fact that this guy was wearing a robe. Finally, in an annoyed voice, the man said, can I help you? Are you just going to stand there? I can only imagine that look that I was giving the man. I said with some hesitation in my voice, Yeah, are you Randy? I'm supposed to be meeting Randy about renting the house?

The man cocked his head back and groaned almost like he were in pain and said, Is this a joke? I didn't know at all what he was talking about. I feared for a moment that I may have had the wrong house, and as I pulled out my phone for clarification of the address, is when I finally found out where the misunderstanding was. The man looked over my shoulder at my car and said, Is Kim in the car, or is she meeting you here?

I laughed with a tone of irony in my voice and said to the man, Dude, that's my name. I'm Kim. Randy looked like he was going to explode with anger. I know people think that Kim is a woman's name and those people are mostly correct. I have only met one other male Kim in my entire life. It's something that I was constantly made fun of in school. It's something I've learned to overcome and I don't even realize it anymore. Randy, on the other hand, was expecting a woman named Kim and not big old country me.

Instead of letting me in or talking, he just continued to huff and puff in the doorway. And finally I spoke up. Hey man, are you going to show me the house or... And before I continued my sentence, the man pushed me off his front steps and because I wasn't prepared for that at all, I didn't brace and I fell right back. I jumped on my feet quickly and Randy stood in the doorway shouting. I was so confused. Was this man mad that I was a guy and not a girl? That push was enough for me and I decided that I was just going to get out of there. Even though the place was like something out of a

movie, I didn't want this freak to be my landlord. I grabbed the car door and started to make a string of poor choices, starting with insulting the man for what he was wearing. I looked right at him and said, you know what? Why would you answer the door in a robe anyway? If I was a woman, god that would be freaking weird. No woman would ever want you to be their landlord anyway. Still outraged by the fact that I wasn't a woman, the man shouted, I'm looking for a roommate. This is my home. No men are allowed other than me. I got into my car, just shaking my head in disbelief.

As I shut the door, the man ran toward my car and started to bang on the car door. I could clearly see the man's chest hair popping out of his robe. At this point, I was just done engaging with the man, and while I was trying to turn around in the driveway, he kept yelling, I had plans for the real Kim, not you! The real Kim! I didn't even want to think about what that meant. A few weeks later, my friends and I had a laugh about the entire thing, not for a second realizing just how strange and potentially dangerous this was. This man was expecting a young 20-something-year-old woman named Kim at 9 o'clock at night

and was expecting to greet this woman in a robe. Once my friends and I realized a few weeks later how messed up this was, we decided we were going to try and find out some information about this guy. At this point, the listing was removed and the email address was not valid. We even went as far as to drive out to the lake house to see if Randy was there and surprisingly, he wasn't. It was a family with no Randy in sight. The theories started to penetrate our minds. Was this even a real listing? A friend's dad worked with the police and we mentioned the entire situation to him and he seemed unresponsive, as if there was nothing he could do since there

wasn't any concrete evidence that anything malicious was going on. He can't arrest someone for wearing a robe. A year later, I went back to the lake house one more time in the middle of the day. I knocked on the door and was greeted by a pleasant woman named Lila. I asked if she owned the house or rented and if she knew anyone named Randy. She explained to me that she owned the house and had never heard of the name Randy. I explained the entire story to this Lila who was horrified and sick to her stomach about the story I just told her. She hoped that I was pranking her and unfortunately, I wasn't.

The night I met Randy, Lila and her family were in Florida for a family reunion. The house was unattended and they weren't supposed to have anyone watching the house either. Obviously we reported the situation for real this time and I never heard anything about it ever again. I never reached back out to Lila and after I gave the police all my information I never heard from the police either. I have no idea who Randy is, and most importantly, I have no idea what Randy intended on doing that evening. It makes me sick to think about it, and I can only hope that whoever Randy is, he's locked up somewhere tight and never gets out. And for the first time in my life, I'm happy to be a trip to Florida. We had qualified for some tournament down there. I was more excited about the trip to Florida, as we're from Tennessee and where I'm from,

there aren't very many amazing bodies of water. A few smaller lakes but nothing like the ocean. When we got down there I was amazed by the view from the back deck of the house our team was renting. We were staying right on the gulf coast. I'm still in love with the view from that house to be honest. Our first night down there we didn't do anything. We watched some basketball on tv and then the coach made us go to bed at around 10pm. Each room in the house had four kids, and then the two coaches each had a room. Shortly after midnight, my room decided to sneak out. Not to do anything too crazy,

we just wanted to go to the beach after dark. It was so easy since our room faced the bay and our room was on the ground level. So, we all jumped out the window and quietly snuck to the beach. We figured since the beach was about 20 yards from the house, we might actually wake the coaches. So instead, we walked further down the beach so we weren't in sight of our house. We hung out down there for roughly an hour and decided that we should probably head back since we had to wake up at 7am. Instead of walking on the beach and then heading straight into our open window, we decided to walk up the road. For some reason we thought it would be quieter and we would have less chance of being noticed, just in case one of our coaches looked out the back window. We made our way back down the road passing the other beautiful waterfront properties.

I was surprised by just how far down we walked on the beach. Our house was still at least 10 houses away. A few houses down was the one I saw on the street. The house just had a lot going on outside. It had a ton of plants, knickknacks, and a disturbing number of lawn gnomes. My one friend picked up one of the lawn gnomes and held it next to his face and said, look how creepy this thing is. Why would anybody own this? We all laughed because he was right. It wasn't just a normal lawn gnome. It was like a gnome in a bikini and she was posing like a model. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. We told him to put it down so he could just get back. We got inside undetected and the rest of

the night went by with no issues. We woke up at 7am and got ready for our morning slate of games. We got to the venue, which was an outside basketball court. It was nicer than most gyms I played in. While we were warming up, I noticed a strange little man standing under our basket. It didn't alarm anyone else. He wasn't directly on the court or anything like that. Around the perimeter of the court were guard rails so spectators couldn't just wander onto the court. But something was off about this guy, even standing behind the rails.

He was just standing there and he was staring at my friend, the same friend who picked up the gnome the night before. I watched as my buddy would warm up and move around the court and this guy's eyes just followed him wherever he went. I kept it to myself because honestly I was just so focused on the game. We actually won our game and as we celebrated the victory on the court, the man walked around the guardrails and approached our huddle. Our coach was in the middle of a pep talk and was thrown off by this man just standing right outside our huddle. Our coach stopped his talk, looked at the guy and said, Hey, you lost or something?

The man said nothing and just stared at my buddy. After a few seconds of horrible awkwardness, the man finally said in a quiet but angry sounding voice, Where is it? I want it back. Half of my teammates laughed and the other half of my teammates just stood there in confusion. My assistant coach went over to the man and walked him out of her huddle. The man didn't seem to put up any resistance and just kept looking back. It was strange and uncomfortable but we just moved on with our lives and went back to the house. When we got back to the bay house we spent a bunch of time on the beach, ate dinner, and just hung out. We didn't have a game the next day until three in the afternoon,

so our coach told us that we could stay up a little later tonight. Coach told us to get in bed at around midnight and just don't leave the property. Simple rules that I wish we would have just obeyed. I'm not sure exactly what time it was but after the coaches went to bed, we decided to sneak back to the beach. This time it was a group of 8 of us instead of 4. We got down there and did the same thing as the night before. We traveled down the beach several yards so we weren't in sight. And maybe 20 minutes after getting down there, we were approached by the same guy from the game. He walked right by all of us, went right up to my buddy and said, where is it? My buddy just looked at him, and then just turned around and ignored him.

Without hesitation, the little man screamed, hey, I won't ask nicely again. My buddy turned around and in an arrogant voice said, I don't know nicely again. My buddy turned around and an arrogant voice said, I don't know what you want, man. Sorry. And then he shrugged and just laughed, looking at us. My teammates that were down on the beach just laughed as well. And we tried to start walking away from this guy, but he kept following us. Then my buddy made his next big mistake.

He turned around and punched the guy right in the face, causing the guy to fall over. Rather than make sure that he was okay, we all just ran as fast as we could. Once we got inside, we shut the lights off and locked all the doors. We were scared this guy knew where we were staying and that he would show up at our door. Luckily, about an hour went by and we didn't see him. And we all shook off the excitement and decided to turn in for the night. At some point in the night, my buddy woke me up. He told me that somebody was in the house.

I told him it was probably one of the coaches and just go back to sleep. He told me that whoever was out there kept walking by the door and mumbling to themselves. He thought maybe he was just being paranoid so he locked the bedroom door. After locking the door he said whoever was out there kept trying to open the door every few minutes. I woke up everyone else in the room and we quietly talked about every possibility that it could be. Before we knew it, all the sounds had gone away. Maybe it was our coach, but that wouldn't explain why they kept trying to open our door. If our coach wanted to get in, he would pound on the door until we opened it.

And during our quiet deliberation, one of the other teammates shouted and pointed to the window. It was the man from the beach, standing out there. We never locked the windows, and the man jostled the window and eventually got it to open, and with no remorse, the man started to climb into the window. Our first instinct was to hit the guy, but as soon as he got in there, we started to wave a knife around. We all backed away with our hands up. We didn't know if we should scream or charge the guy. He was small but he was holding a knife. One of us could get seriously hurt if we made the wrong move. One last time the man said, where is she? This must have been just loud enough because our coach started to knock on the door and ask if we were okay. Thinking quickly we

unlocked the door and we all ran out of the room as fast as we could. My coach yelled at the man as soon as he saw him. The man chased us out of the room and jumped on my buddy. Instead of stabbing him, he bit his neck. He literally bit him on his neck like he thought he was a vampire or something. My coach tackled him to the ground and detained him for a while and before long he had the police there who thankfully arrested the guy. Our coaches handled all the police other than when they asked us guys a few questions and we told them everything we

could think of. Well in case you haven't figured it out, this was the guy who lived in the house with the gnomes. According to the officer, the man claimed that we figured it out, this was the guy who lived in the house with the gnomes. According to the officer, the man claimed that we took it. We told the officer that we threw it back on the ground right after we picked it up. My buddy swore up and down that that's what happened. After a horrible couple of days left in Florida, we headed back to Tennessee with a story that most people truly wouldn't believe. The worst part of the entire story was when we got home, in the locker room before practice, my buddy gathered us all around and said, yo, check this out, I brought the gnome back. Nobody found it amusing. We almost

died because this idiot took this guy's lawn decoration. He told the police we didn't have it, which I thought was the truth. We told the police we didn't have it which I thought was the truth. We told him to get rid of the gnome and not ever talk about it again. After graduating I didn't see that teammate for years and the reason I'm writing this now is when I was visiting home for the holidays I ran into him at the bar and the first thing he told me was, yo man, guess what? I still have that gnome in my bedroom. Crazy, right? I shook my head and left the bar that night and honestly, I hope I never see him or that stupid gnome ever again. Is it possible that some people are just cursed? I try not to dwell on all the horrible events of my past, but it's hard sometimes.

It seems like every time I get my life on an upward trajectory, something horrible happens. If curses are real, then I swear I'm cursed. Many years ago, I had struggles in my life. You name it, I have been there. I've done countless things that I'm not proud of of and I still pay the consequences of those things today. I'm 42 years old now for some context and 6 years ago I was finishing a short stint behind bars. While locked up I met a guy named Dre who just happened to be a doctor, as ironic as that may be. He was a doctor of psychology though, and his real name

was Andre, but he went by Dre to be more approachable. He used the name Dr. Dre as a new talking point every time he would meet someone new when he came to visit us in the jail. Talking with Dre helped me to overcome tons of my mental demons. I used to blame everyone else for my errors, never taking responsibility for my actions. When I was released from jail, I stayed in touch with Dre. He helped me in more ways than I can count. Perhaps the most important thing Dre helped me to accomplish was helping me to start my self help group. That first year I was released, I started to preach about love, peace, and just being an overall better human. I used my struggles in the past as a tool and talking point.

Dre would often come to my presentations and once or twice he even said a few words. I started to preach in parks, in front of nobody except the people passing through, and by the end of the year I was scheduled to speak in front of actual crowds. It seemed like my life was actually finally getting pulled in the right direction. I'm not sure if all these people that preach this stuff mean what they say or if they're doing it for the publicity, but I believe the main reason I became so popular so fast was that I meant every word I said. The folks that listened to me could feel my emotion and truth when I spoke. I truly wanted people to love their neighbor and grow as a community and ultimately as people. After consulting with Dre and receiving some

funds from him, I decided to hold my first retreat. I rented out a beautiful location that sat upon a crystal blue lake. It was a mansion for lack of a better word. I planned on holding a retreat at this beautiful lake house getaway to preach about empowerment and accomplishing your goals. I had speeches and all types of activities planned. To give you an idea of how gigantic this house was, I had 36 people coming to the retreat and the house could sleep about 40 people. So why am I cursed? Well, the retreat was to be held on Saturday. People would show up on Saturday afternoon,

stay overnight, and on Sunday, we would have breakfast as a community and then leave. On Friday, I decided to go up to the house with Dre and my fiancé. I wanted to scope out the area, see where I could do outdoor activities if possible, and just get a night for myself to prepare for the retreat. The house was even more magnificent than I imagined. It looked like an old Disney castle or something like that. The three of us checked the place out and decided to turn in early for bed. In the middle of the night, I heard screaming. It was faint, but it was for sure the sound of screams. I nudged my fiance and asked if she heard anything. She was groggy but could hear the faint screams. I opened the door and made my way through the dark house. The screams seemed

to be coming from down the hall. It was Dre's room. I ran back to our bedroom and I told my fiancé that Dre must have been having a nightmare or something and that I was going to go check in on him just to make sure that he was alright. With no urgency in my pace, I walked to his room. As I opened the door, I couldn't believe what I saw. Dre was blindfolded and sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. He looked beaten, and there were three other men in the room, and when I opened the door, two of the men lunged at me and held me down. They covered my mouth so I couldn't speak or scream.

They shut the door so Dre's screams wouldn't alert my fiancé. The men were masked, so I couldn't make out any details of them. And the man holding me to the ground had bright blue eyes, and that wasn't the only detail that I could really make out. It sounded like Dre was gasping for air and a pleading tone he said, Please don't do this anymore. I'm so sorry. I'll tell you anything you want to know. I could barely process what was happening. Dre then uttered something that made me want to cry.

He said my name, my full name, and begged me to stop. The man who just punched Dre deepened his voice and told him no. Whoever these men were, they were impersonating me. I tried to break free and I was grunting and making any noise I could, but it was no use. Dre just thought it was me and my accomplices, and we must just have someone else there. After a few minutes of this living nightmare, my fiancé investigated and opened the door, and before the men could react, she turned and ran screaming. She ran back to her room and slammed the door. She called the police as soon as she was safely locked in the room, and the men must have thought the best play at this point was to run, so all three men jumped out of the window of Dre's room and fled. I got up off the ground and knowing that my fiancé was safe for the moment, I decided to help

Dre. When I removed his blindfold, he screamed and tackled me to the ground. He ran out of the house yelling for help. The cops showed up much quicker than I could have expected, and Dre told the cops that I had assaulted him and that I was still inside. The cops then arrested me, and through all the confusion I was trying to plead my case but in the cops defense they were just doing their job. After getting my lawyer and the incredible eyewitness account from my fiance, I was eventually cleared of all the charges. Unfortunately Dre wasn't convinced, and even to this day he is convinced that I had some part to play in this attack.

Several months after that, one of the attackers actually turned himself in. It was the man with the blue eyes, and he was one of the people who were going to attend my retreat the next day. He never gave me or the police a reason why he attacked Dre and impersonated me. He also has never ratted out on his accomplices either. Fortunately for me, he did corroborate my story, but it didn't matter. I never recovered from this ordeal. People would never feel safe around me. If this happened to me once, it could happen to me again. At least that's what people think. Dr. Andre still thinks I had something to do with the attack.

He is convinced I staged this entire elaborate setup to rob him of his wealth. For the first time in my life, I had something great going. But unfortunately for me, that dark cloud seems to have a permanent spot above my head. Often when you think of a sleepover, you think of spending time with your friends, hanging out and playing games. Unfortunately for myself, I did not have any friends because I was constantly moving because of my father's work. Being a loner, I did not have any friends because I was constantly moving because of my father's work. Being a loner, I did quite enjoy though, if I'm being honest. Occasionally though, I would be intrigued by the idea of a sleepover with friends and I would get a bit sad that I never really got to experience that. That is, not until a few years ago when we were going to be cutting through Massachusetts for my dad's work. My aunt and uncle, alongside with my

cousin Jay, lived in a beautiful ocean front home in Cape Cod. We decided to stay there for a night as we were passing through before we moved to our new temporary residence. The prospect of having a sleepover with my cousin Jay, who was the same age as me, very much excited me. Jay and I had only met one other time, but we were friends on Facebook and we played online games together. So even though we didn't physically know each other, I felt like I knew him quite well from all the years we played games together. We arrived just before noon on a Friday. The day started off fantastically. He and I got along great right from the moment I got out of the car.

We spent the first couple of hours on the beach, swimming in the ocean. Around three in the afternoon, Jay took us to the local park and we played basketball. We played for about an hour and I lost every game of one-on-one. We went back to the house and spent the rest of the afternoon at the ocean. Now, I think it's important to note that I have never been to the ocean or even seen an ocean in my entire life and I was 16 at the time of this story. The work my father did usually kept us in the midwestern area of the United States. This was the first time I had ever made it to either one of these two coasts. So needless to say, I was in love with spending my time at the ocean and getting wrecked by the waves.

At about 6 in the evening, my aunt ordered some pizza and we ate so much that we felt disgustingly full. We spent the bulk of the night after this playing some video games and just talking about anything you can think of. Shortly after midnight, Jay went down the hall and made sure his parents and my parents were asleep. After a moment he came back to the bedroom that we were in with a menacing smile on his face and said, okay, they're all asleep. I'm going to show you something really awesome now. Not wanting to seem like a coward, I basically just went along with whatever Jay said. We quietly snuck out the sliding glass door that went out to the beach. Jay went to the fridge and threw something into his backpack. I couldn't really see what he grabbed, and once out on the beach, I was

immediately in a trance. I was in awe of the beauty of watching the moon dance on the surface of the ocean. Luckily, it was a beautiful calm night on the ocean, and the sounds of the waves breaking on the shore were almost hypnotic to me. The voice of Jay from several feet away finally broke me from my trance. Hey, come this way, he said, probably standing about 25 yards away. I followed Jay down the eerily bright beach due to the massive moon and the light reflecting off the ocean, and we walked for several minutes crossing over some rocky barriers that separated different properties on the ocean. After a few minutes, we finally came across some area that looked a bit desolate.

The houses on the coast ended, and there was nothing but sand and rocks now. I followed Jay into this rock formation on the coast of the ocean that led to a small cove of some kind. Objectively speaking, this was admittedly pretty cool. Once in the cove, this is where Jay admitted to me that he'd like to sneak down here at night with friends and drink some beers. I felt a little uneasy about this, but I didn't want Jay to think that I wasn't cool. I sat down on a rock formation that conveniently looked like a stool at a bar. I awaited Jay to open the bottle, and that's when I heard a shuffling noise of some kind coming from the end of the cove. I looked over into the almost pitch black cove.

I thought I could make out the outlines of a person, but wasn't sure. With all the excitement of the night, I just thought my mind was being paranoid and playing tricks on me. Jay handed me a beer as he took a swig out of his own beverage. I couldn't stop staring into the dark void. And finally Jay asked, Dude, what are you looking at? No one's going to know we're down here. You don't have to be scared. I didn't tell Jay this, but it was not my parents I feared. They trusted me. I was scared of this strange presence I was sure that I felt now. With a bit of hesitation

in my voice, I pointed to the back of the cove and said to Jay, hey, do you see something over there? Jay squinted almost sarcastically and told me that I was just being paranoid. For a moment I believed him until I saw a dark shadow shift at the end of the cove. I freaked out and I told Jay in a now more aggressive voice, I saw somebody over there. We need to go, Jay. I could tell Jay was annoyed but he obliged and we left. We got outside the cove and I was utterly surprised to see nobody following us and no sign that anybody besides us had been there. We made it several yards down the beach when I turned and saw the single most horrifying thing I had ever seen. There was for sure somebody standing there, and not just standing but almost methodically following us. I turned back around, trying not to bring alarm to the situation for some reason. I poked Jay's back and said,

Dude, there's someone following us. Jay stopped abruptly and mumbled some curse words under his breath. Almost more haunting was that, when we stopped to look at the figure, he also stopped. He stood still on the beach just staring at us. We slowly walked backward, keeping our eyes on the figure. As we walked slowly, the figure also began to stalk us slowly. This is when we finally went into full on panic mode and decided to sprint back to the house. I turned back one time and saw that the figure was now sprinting as well in full chase.

We made it back to the house and locked the door. We stood in crippling fear and tried to catch our breath. We killed the lights in the house so we could see outside on the beach, and this is when I got a good look at the figure chasing us. It was clearly some man. He seemed like he was in maybe his 60s if I had to venture a guess. He had a grisly white beard with mangy hair shooting out in all directions. He appeared to be wearing a captain's hat but not your typical souvenir one. This hat looked legit and very worn out, and he had no shirt on but was wearing an old military

jacket. I could see some sort of patch on the sleeve and jeans, at least I think they were jeans. The bottoms of the pants had been cut off. The man stood about 20 feet off the property and waved at me with this disturbing sense about him. I freaked out and told Jay that we had to call the authorities and just wake up our parents. Jay grabbed me and said in an almost irritated voice, No! We're safe! He can't get us now.

If we wake up my parents, we're going to be screwed. get us now. If we wake up, my parents were going to be screwed. I was young and stupid and for some reason I just agreed with him. Somehow Jay was more scared of his parents than being chased by some deranged ocean man. I looked one more time out the window and the man seemed to be gone and Jay interjected, see, it was just some freak messing with us, we're fine. Around 3am, I continued to toss and turn. I couldn't relax. Jay was able to fall asleep with ease, and I couldn't help but think this sort of thing happened to him often or something. I decided maybe some water or something would help me relax. I walked out of my bedroom and into the beautiful open living room and kitchen area. I didn't need to turn any lights on because the moon illuminated the entire downstairs.

As I made my way through the open floor setup, I turned to look out the windows that faced the ocean. I nearly dropped to the floor, immobilized in fear. That ocean man was now standing at the back door. He seemed like he was vigorously trying to break in, his face filled with this disgusting malice. I ran, I woke up my parents, and with no hesitation, they called 911 once they kinda came to. My uncle ran to the door and chased the man down onto the beach, and the man fled from my uncle. The police showed up about several minutes later, and we were still trying to come down from all the adrenaline. Before long, the sun started to come

up. We gave the cops our statement, but the man was long gone by this point. I regret it now, but in the moment, it seemed okay to leave the sneaking out long gone by this point. I regret it now but in the moment it seemed okay to leave the sneaking out part out of our story. We didn't tell the police that we were chased by this man and I remember Jay being over the top excited that we didn't get busted by our parents for sneaking out. Almost numb to the fact a deranged man just chased us down the beach and tried to break into the house. We left after breakfast. I stayed in touch with Jay but never went back to the beach house. From what I understood, they never caught that man either.

Whether he was homeless or what, I have no idea. I told my parents several years later what really happened and they couldn't believe that we didn't tell the authorities about that. The images of that night still haunt me. I have not returned to any ocean yet and I really never intend to. Who was this man? Where did he come from? But most importantly, where did he go? The End Now this is a story that is the culmination of years of wonderment and imagination. It's also a warning for those people who have a wild imagination to sometimes just let things go instead of giving in to it. That will all make more sense after I tell you the story about the house that sat across the lake from my grandparents house. I apologize in advance for the long story and long setup. I feel it's important to set up the backstory completely before I tell you what happened.

Just recently my grandpa passed away and my parents inherited the old lake house that my grandparents lived in for my entire life. I love that house. My entire family loved that house. Years of fun family memories are filled inside the walls of that house. One of the most special memories I have of the house was staying over one night with my cousins. We stayed up all night playing cards and telling ghost stories. We brought over the GameCube and didn't even play it because we were having fun doing other things. That night my cousin Gemma told us about an urban legend that all the people in the town believed and it scared the crap out of us kids. Gemma was around 16 years old at the time and we were all probably around 12. To understand Gemma's urban legend story, I have to paint a picture of the area surrounding my

grandparents' lake house. The house was mostly secluded. A couple of houses lined the street, but the people mostly kept to themselves. The backyard was probably 30 feet of grass and then a lake for as far as you can really see. The only exception was just on the horizon sat a small little island, and on the island was a house. Not a little shack either. In fact, it was a decently sized home. The most noteworthy thing to mention though was that the house was always abandoned. For all the years we went up to visit that lake house, the house on the horizon was always empty, never had lights on, and there were never boats on the property. I was in our family boat several times

with my grandpa and when we got close to the island, there was no trespassing signs all over the place. My grandfather would usually just scare his kids by simply saying, oh yeah, that house is haunted, just don't mess with it and you'll be fine. And he would laugh and continue smoking his signature cigar. And now that you can hopefully visualize the little island, I'll sum up the story that Gemma told us that evening. This is as close to verbatim as I remember from Gemma's story. She said, So you guys know the house across the lake?

Well, Grandpa's right. It is haunted. If you get close enough to the house after midnight, you can hear the wails and screams of the victims who died there. Nobody knew the guy's name or where he came from but he would abduct his victims from town and bring them to the house, never to be seen again. Then one day, the murders just stopped. The townspeople didn't know what happened to him. Some say he got caught, some say he fled and is still out there. Some even say he still lives there and he remained there for the rest of his life. But some, like myself, know the truth. The spirits of his victims rose from the dead and claimed his soul. Now his murderous, vengeful spirit haunts the house and if you get close enough after midnight.

And she screamed. She screamed as loud as she could to scare us kids. And she laughed as we all jumped out of her skin. And some of my younger cousins were crying, but not me. I was beyond intrigued and that story sent me on a course of wonderment for the rest of my days at that lake house. The reason why I remember that night so vividly was because that story changed my life in a way. I know that's ridiculous that a simple and impossible story can change my life, but it really did. That story opened my eyes to horror, and afterward, I became a lifelong horror lover. What actually came out of listening to that story was my fascination with that house across the lake.

My cousin soon forgot about the story, but I became obsessed with the house. So obsessed that I crossed into creep territory myself. I bought binoculars and when we visited the house I would bring them and study as many details of the island house as I could. I am a decent artist and that house would become my main subject. I would draw and sketch all sorts of wild abominations and other dark entities emanating from the home. Whenever I would bring up taking the boat to the island or anything in the arena of conversation, I would immediately get shut down by either my dad or grandfather. In recent years, I stopped trying to go to the island and honestly, I just lost interest. I was always so intrigued by the house but wasn't

obsessed anymore. The final summer that my grandfather was alive, we had a cookout at the house. That evening, when we were all sitting around drinking and having fun, for the first time in my entire life, I saw a light coming from the house across the lake. I jumped up and suddenly my love for the house was reignited. Was someone finally in the house? Was it the spirits like Gemma claimed all those years ago? I tried to get someone who could drive the boat to take me out there but no one would give in. Everyone had been drinking and it was dark on the lake.

Nobody wanted to take that risk for something so stupid. My dad said that whoever owns the place is probably just visiting and he told me to calm down and just hang out like everyone else. Fast forward to just recently when my grandpa passed away. As I stated earlier, my dad got the house in the will. Once the warmer months came, we went to the lake house and started to clean it out and renovate it. My parents planned on moving there and selling me their home in town. All the years of going to the lake house I never had my boating license and never even attempted to drive the boat. And this past summer I changed that. I was determined to scope out that island. One night after painting all day my parents went back to town for the night

and I decided to stay out at the lake with my girlfriend. Luckily it was a clear night so the moon was giving off some good amount of light and I could actually see. However, there was no light coming from the house across the lake. That night my girlfriend and I got the boat ready and made the extremely short voyage to the island. All the no trespassing signs were still intact and the house itself looked like it was ready to fall apart at any moment. Surely it was not safe for someone to live in. I was able to park the boat at a dock that surprised me was still standing. My girlfriend tried to talk me out of looking around the house but I had to see it for myself. Twenty years of curiosity was eating me alive.

I looked inside the windows first to make sure that there was truly nobody in there. The house was 100% unlivable. Garbage and debris was everywhere inside the house. I opened the door which was surprisingly unlocked. My girlfriend reluctantly got out of the boat and stood in the doorway as I stepped around all the hazards laying around the house. Nothing of note was inside. It was truly just rubble, debris, and some sort of trash. I started to hear creaks in the house.

My mind was fluttering with excitement and fear. Could it really be ghosts? That was a thought that admittedly crossed my mind. My logic was telling me that it was an old house and old houses make noises so it probably wasn't ghosts. Although the noises got louder and this didn't sound like any old house I'd ever been in, something felt wrong. I continued to explore the rooms in the house and I swear I could hear whispering or breathing. I was completely on edge. I finally entered the last room on the first floor, and the odor was awful. On the floor near the windows was food that had recently been eaten. It was something with sauce or ketchup because it was still saucy and not dried up.

There were sleeping bags on the floor of this room and candles that looked relatively new. I shouted to my girlfriend that we needed to leave right away. I didn't want to take any chances. My shouting I believe is what triggered the events that happened next. Two people emerged from the closet of the room that I was in. They pushed me to the ground and then shoved my girlfriend as they ran out of the doorway of the house. I got up and chased them and that's when I got a good look at one of the two. One of the mystery people I believe was a woman based on her voice and they got into our boat. The other one stood on the shaky dock face to face with me. It was a man who was likely in his thirties. He looked messed up, maybe even on something, and his beard was greasy and just

disgusting. His hair was buzzed and he was covered with boils or something like that, and he held out a broken bottle with jagged edges. The man started to slash the air just wildly and said, if you take one more step, I'll do it. Not wanting to test that theory, I let the man go. The two stole our boat and drifted away in the darkness of the night. Thankfully, we had our phones so we could obviously call my dad and alert the authorities. But after a miserable night of giving all the details to the police, they never caught those two squatters. They found my dad's boat several miles down the lake and it was right up on the shore of someone's property. Inside the boat they found the broken bottle I mentioned, a pack of cigarettes and even a pocket

knife. Other than the trauma I still live with, I also got in some legal trouble for trespassing on that property. I guess the signs weren't just for show. When they investigated the house more, they found a rowboat on the backside of the small island. The boat had a massive hole on the inside and they assumed this is how the attackers got on the island and were stuck there because of the hole in the boat. All of this happened this past summer.

There's still no signs of these attackers and I haven't been back to the lake house since. I'll never get the guy's insane face out of my mind. I understand the expression curiosity killed the cat more now than ever. Every year, my wife and I try to take a vacation in the winter. Instead of going to beaches like most people, we love to visit the snowy wilderness. Last year, we rented a beautiful lake house. Within miles of the lake house were dozens of trails for us to hike. It seemed like everything was going to be perfect.

Then something happened that I still cringe thinking about. Something that honestly still cringe thinking about. Something that honestly still affects me. I'll try to tell the story to the best of my ability and try not to leave out any details. We go to the lake house on a Sunday afternoon. We got all cozy and situated right away so we could enjoy our trip doing nothing. The living room of the house was basically just windows that overlooked the lake. Well, I guess you can call it a lake. It was completely iced over at this point, so it looked more like a barren desert, just with snow instead of sand. I know some people don't enjoy that, but my wife and I loved it.

The next morning when we woke up, we noticed that on our front steps was a small package. We found it interesting for sure, but not alarming. We assumed that the package was just left by the owner and he didn't want to disturb us, so instead he just left it on the steps. We opened the package. It was worth noting that the package was extremely sealed. It had layers of tape concealing it. And once we finally got it open, inside of the box was one post-it note that said, Welcome. We hope you enjoy your stay. Careful on the ice. We both looked at each other and just kind of laughed.

Was it necessary to put this note in a box instead of just writing an email or something along those lines? On the back side of the note was a hand-drawn picture of an axe. At least I think it was an axe. After our short amusement of the note, we went about our day hiking and exploring the snowy wilderness. The next two days were much like the first. Nothing but hiking and hanging out at the lake house. We decided that night that we were going to sleep in the living room. When we looked out the windows, the stars were so bright.

It was truly a marvel to look upon. At some point in the middle of the night, I was shocked to hear a loud sound coming from the lake. I don't sleep very well to begin with, so I was already awake. I jumped up and looked out the window, and it was someone on a snowmobile on a lake. Snowmobiling on a frozen lake is not out of the ordinary for anybody who doesn't live in a cold climate, but what is a little strange is snowmobiling on a frozen lake in the middle of the night. What was even more unnerving was that he stopped directly parallel to the lake house. I stared at the window for a moment and waited to see what this person was

doing. Finally, they got off the snowmobile and started waving at the house and shouting. I know he couldn't see me in the window. I think the person was just shouting to get someone's attention. My first thought was that this person must have run out of gas or something. I woke up my wife and told her to just watch me, just in case. I put on my coat and hat since it was well below freezing and headed toward the person. Once I came outside with the flashlight, I could hear the man shouting clearly now. He was saying, Hey, thank god you heard me. The ice is about to break and I think I broke my arm earlier. I need help getting off the ice, please.

The man sounded like he was literally in distress and pain. I rushed out there and the first thing I noticed as I ran onto the ice was just how solid the ice actually was. I shouted back to the man as I ran onto the ice. Hey, hang tight, man. I'm coming for you. When I just about reached the man, he breathed a sigh of relief and said in an almost whisper, You should have stayed inside like everyone else. I stopped quick and looked up at the man. It was an older man with a thick white beard and he had huge bugged out eyes and cheeks that kind of sank into his face.

In the seconds that passed as I studied his face he whispered again, I told you to be careful in this ice. Be careful in the ice is what the note said a few days prior. This was the guy who left the note. While I was putting those pieces together in my head, the man grabbed a knife and stabbed me. I looked right into those massive eyes as he sprung at me. I screamed and fell to the ground and he got on his snowmobile and drove off. The reason why I'm sitting here writing this story and not dead is because of the most improbable luck of all time. Either in the day when we went hiking we needed to stop at the store on the way back to the house.

I had put my wallet in my breastcoat pocket, which I never do. I had forgotten that my wallet was there, so I never removed it when we got home from the store. So it was still in my coat when I approached the man on the ice, and luckily for me, the man's knife penetrated my coat and stabbed my wallet. I'm not good with odds, but I'm sure those odds are remarkably low. I ran back inside as soon as the man was out of sight and we called the police. And after about an hour, I was still shaking. I couldn't get the man's face out of my head. We left first thing in the morning and the owner of the house actually refunded us our entire payment from the lake house stating that it was the least that he could do. I reported everything I could to the police.

Every detail I could think of from the guy's appearance, his handwriting and the color of a snowmobile. I had never heard back from the police and it kills me knowing that this man is potentially still out there somewhere. I'll never understand how some people are just pure evil. What's up guys, Russian Anon here to share some spooks. It's not paranormal, but still, I figured it's way scarier than some of the stuff I see here. I was 10 years old, it was my best friend's birthday party. Almost every kid in the neighborhood was here, with only my friend's mother to look after all of us. We went to a fast food joint which could be compared to a five-star Michelin restaurant for young Russian kids like us. After that, we went to the park

and pretty much had free reign to just go wherever we wanted. As we were playing with some rolling bugs in the bushes, we were approached by a hobo. Not naive, we already knew what it usually meant, so we were ready to bolt out of there if this guy would try to kidnap some of us or do something weird. He appeared to be sober and generally a nice guy, claiming to us that he used to be a biology teacher. Nothing special about his physical appearance, just your average middle-aged ragged guy dressed in some grey tatty clothes and a black beanie hat. His face was pretty

forgettable too, I'm pretty sure there was nothing scary or disturbing about it. He just stood next to us and told us about some stunning facts about the insects, never overstepping our boundaries. Once my friend's mom appeared to check on us, he simply walked away without looking back. We were a little bit weirded out, but well, I guess it could have been worse, I thought. Our little army of kids went back to my friend's place to end the day with a piece of a delicious birthday cake. Soon enough, my dad picks me up and we start walking back home as the sun starts setting. We finally get to our block and enter the building.

As I'm following him, he suddenly stops and I bump into his back. I look behind my father and see the same hobo from the park, to my great surprise. He just stood there, completely blocking the stairway, looking at us and giggling like some imbecile. Now the situation would have been normally terrifying, but I wasn't really scared because my father was right there. My dad used to be a candidate for the Soviet Olympic boxing team back in his youth. He's a massive guy, 6'4 and over 250 pounds, and to add to that, he had quite the temper. It wasn't unusual for him to beat up random guys on the street for the most innocuous reasons, so I'm actually praying for the homeless guy to just leave without making a fuss. He asked him to leave our block, saying that

homeless people are not tolerated inside the buildings. It was rude, but the hobo doesn't answer. He just kept giggling, then reached for his pocket and threw a handful of something at us. Hidden behind my father, I'm completely shielded from the projectiles and know that this poor idiot made a giant mistake. My dad, obviously enraged, ordered me to stay away, drags this man like a ragdoll to the bottom of the stairway and just starts mauling him. And now I'm curious. I look at the projectiles that he threw in the ground,

and just before picking one up, I stop myself. The little pebbles he threw appeared to be human teeth, still raw with some red tissue on them. I run to the ramp to peek at my father destroying this hobo, but I'm pretty impressed. The creep could actually defend himself. Compared to my goliath of a father, he couldn't have been anything more than 5'5 and was skinny but surprisingly resilient. He kept giggling all along during this brutal beatdown, further enraging my father to go even harder. At one moment he hit his head on the wall, emitting an insane resonating thud but still was giggling all along. Almost like an ultimate

finishing move, my dad picked him up and threw him through the opening leading to the building's basement. My father was huffing and puffing, looking like he had exhausted all of his rage which was a pretty rare sight. The man was still making some uncanny gurgling sounds laying on his back. It was almost superhuman to take such a beating and still be conscious. My father went to the stairs after making me promise to not tell my mother and we went back home acting as if nothing had happened. The next morning I woke up pretty early because I wanted to see if the guy was still there. I cautiously sneak out of the apartment and my feet bumped into a pile of teeth. I almost let out a scream, close back the door, and ran to my room to hide under my cover.

For a few days, I'm haunted by the thought of the hobo ambushing me whenever I go outside the house, but thankfully, nothing like that happened. A couple of days later, I heard a woman screaming outside, and I went to the window to see what was happening and saw one of the neighbors living in the same block in total hysterics, crying and screaming. What happens next is just a compilation of rumors that I've overheard as the adults would never let us know stuff like that. A young couple, one of them including that screaming woman, living several floors down came back home from their vacation to find their daughter dismembered and partly cooked in their own kitchen and her grandmother, who was left to look after the girl, completely missing. I guess I was lucky to get picked up that day, and I'm glad I never saw him around the neighborhood

since then. I'm still scared when I remember his inhuman resilience against my father. The Darknet is not really what it's hyped up to be. Tor and protocols like it are just there to give a semblance of anonymity and plausible deniability if you ever get caught. Actual Darknets are kept well and truly hidden, and cannot be found by any means available to the average user of 4chan. You can trust me on that. A friend of mine works at a small car insurance broker's office and asked me to fix a problem with his computer not recognizing the office scanner on the network. It was nothing out of the ordinary for me. I brought my laptop,

and as I start searching for a signal I notice a random Wi-Fi with high signal strength. No matter the curiosity I turn on one of my programs to get in and pick out the password while I'm working on the scanner. This wasn't very moral but I always like the rush of breaking a password. A few hours later after the work with the scanner was done I checked to see if the password had been cracked. Of course, it was, and I connected the network and started poking around. From what I can tell, it's a basic home network, one system online with internet access. No firewall, apparently no antivirus, nothing out of the ordinary.

And just for the hell of it, before leaving, I drop in a back door for good measure. Again, not very moral, I must admit, but you never know what goodies you can run across, and for some reason, I was in the mood for some digging around. After getting home to my main computer, I get myself comfortable with some hot chocolate, crack my knuckles, and really start scanning around this new network. So far, it looks like your average home computer. I'd say the most interesting stuff was just some tax returns. There are a couple of tax files that have what appear to be passwords, random characters, and a couple of names. Nothing really piqued my interest and I decided to leave a worm in it nonetheless. This malware would replicate itself in any network

coming in contact and maybe this time I could be able to catch something juicy and profitable. Weeks later while I'm arranging my programs I realize that there are four new ones that I hadn't set up myself. What I figured later is that the owner of that mysterious computer, my friend's boss, had taken a file from it on a floppy which my worm happily infected which then spread to a few more machines. And this is where the interesting stuff begins. Two of those machines had internet access, of course, but they had apparently never been used to actually access the internet. They both ran Windows 98, completely unpatched. The only reason they had internet access was only

because they were physically networked with other machines that were used for internet access. Each of these machines had about 3 terabytes of storage, but mostly appeared empty since everything in it was fully encrypted. Some of the easily viewable stuff included huge amounts of personal information, including social security numbers and tax IDs. There were names, addresses, lists of families and friends, sometimes pets, and sometimes an impressive amount of details such as vehicle, clothing, height, weight, and recent medical issues. Huge amounts of information. Not every listing had all of it, and some were just a name, but everything had a date and time with it. Couldn't make much sense of that.

What I could make sense of were the bank accounts. Thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of account numbers, institutions, and safety deposit boxes from all over the world. South Africa, Russia, Brazil, everywhere. Nothing but the basic identifying information and another date. No note of what they might be. My eyes start shining as I'm thinking that I hit a huge jackpot. And as I'm picking through one of these two machines, I notice a file being written in real time. I figured someone was using the computer at that moment, but having full access to the command events, I could tell that nobody was using a mouse or keyboard.

I figured it was an automated system, and I watched the process for about a minute. Then I realized the computer was communicating on another network that I didn't have access to. The file was encrypted, and after a few attempts, I finally cracked it open. It was a movie, MPEG format. The title was just a random string. I laid back on my chair, proud of my catch, and I launched the video. On the screen was an overhead view of three men sitting at a table, almost like an interrogation room footage. In the entire 15 minutes of the video, only one of them spoke.

It sounded like gibberish, and I figured it was code or maybe he was just a psychiatric patient rambling. He said things like, broken banana stung red boot, and would pause for a moment and then start saying another strange sentence. This strange scene kept going on for about ten minutes. The other two just watched him, one was drinking what I assumed was coffee. Finally, he leaned back and asked if they could leave his daughter alone. The guy drinking the coffee just shook his head quickly and made a motion with his hand telling him to continue. The man talking for a moment leaned forward and started saying those nonsense sentences while sobbing.

After the first video ended, I see that a new file just finished uploading to the server. I had a really weird feeling about it, but I decided to check it anyway, and to my shock, the man that had spoken in the first one was now on the table, naked, crying like a baby on top of what appeared to be the corpse of a young girl, with blood all over the table. The other two men were still in the room, standing on both sides, watching, smoking cigarettes. I didn't finish watching, only got about a few seconds or so in before it sank in what I was seeing. I've seen a lot of weird footage on the internet, and I can tell when something is a movie or not. Still in shock, I clean my traces from those systems and haven't looked back since. What I'm still finding hard to believe is that from the computer I originally

hacked, these other systems got infected by a floppy disk, meaning that someone had to physically move to the location. As far as I could tell, the two storage computers were on opposite sides of the globe, one in LA and one in Beijing. And as far as I know, my friend's boss had not left the country. His brother-in-law had straight out of the Truman Show. This was during the last summer. I was doing a cross-country road trip, hitting up some national parks and taking pictures to post to the outboards. I was driving around central southern Utah and was starting to feel tired since I had been on the road since about 6am to 9pm.

It was completely dark with no moonlight and I can only see what was lit up by my headlights. As I'm heading for an exit and a place to rest, I see a town off in the distance. I nearly missed the pole off as it was unmarked and unlit and I notice it's not even showing up on my GPS. As I glance at my phone, I I notice it's not even showing up on my GPS. As I glance at my phone, I see that there's no cell service too. The town is directly ahead though, so I keep going straight, and after a bit I notice that the road turns to dirt for about 5 miles, and just as I start wondering if I'd stray it off, the road feels like it turned pavement again. I start seeing houses and shops

but almost immediately the town strikes me as kind of uncanny. Nobody is on the streets and no cars on the streets or in the parking lots. Everything is really clean and I am able to hear some old school jazz music through the streets for some reason though I can't really pinpoint the source of the speakers. This town looked to be about 7 blocks wide and pretty modern. Out there was every major fast food chain I've heard of and multiple hotels on the main street but still, nothing's showing up on the GPS. As my stomach starts growling, I decide I'll go get food before anything else. I decide I'm in the mood for chicken so I go in the direction of the familiar looking KFC first.

Looking through the window, I can see that the inside was fully illuminated. And though the door was unlocked, nobody was there. I turn the corner and try my luck at Jack in the Box, but same thing there. I start wondering if there's some kind of emergency drill that I missed. I'm starting to get anxious, but those thoughts evaporate as I see movement in the McDonald's. I push the door open and see a cashier and a cook in the back. When I get to the counter, he greets me coldly, looking pretty annoyed for some reason. I order my usual nuggets and fries meal, and as I'm eating eating I notice that the nuggets and fries taste nothing

like classic McDonald's ones. Not bad, but nothing like the typical combo I ate many times before. At this point I'm not in a confrontational mood and can feel the cashier glaring at me, so I finish my meal and leave without saying a word. Now reassured that I didn't stumble into a complete ghost town, it's time to find a bed for the night. I drive up to the Hampton Inn to, again, a completely empty parking lot. I get to the reception and I'm greeted by another annoyed looking woman who, after going on her computer, informs me that they're all booked up. I take my chance at La Quinta and this time a familiar looking person is behind the counter.

I'm not certain of it but I think it was the cook at the McDonald's and he apologizes as I'm approaching. Of course the hotel is also fully booked. It's getting pretty late and this time I'm ready to throw a tantrum and even sleep in the lobby if I get rejected. I push open the door of the Holiday Inn Express, and I'm shocked as the person behind the check-in counter is clearly the mean-looking cashier who served me at McDonald's again. After looking at him puzzled, he just looks back at me and asks me, One room for tonight? I nod, and after booking me and handing me the key, I shyly asked him, Are you the guy from McDonald's? He cut eye contact for a second and answered,

No, that's my brother, yeah, we get that often. Good enough for me, I guess. At this point, I just want to roll with it and get to my room. I finally lay on my bed and I check my phone and still no signal. I take a quick shower and I just crash. I go out of my room the next day and I expect to see the lobby alive and full of people but again, nobody except the brother of the McDonald's cashier was looking at me. As I'm checking out I ask him how to get out of town.

Same road you came in, buddy. I leave the empty parking lot, and out of curiosity, I decided to go check the McDonald's to see this so-called twin brother, but it looked to be empty. The drive-thru was open, and I decided to order a griddle and coffee to start up the day. To my shock, the lady in the drive-thru looked a lot like the first hotel attendant from the Hampton Inn. She hands me what looks like a microwaved English muffin and some kind of instant coffee. I decide the place is just too weird to stay and argue and I head back to the only road out of town. Maybe three miles onto the dirt road, I notice a big metal wire fence on both sides of the road in the desert.

I'm met with a big motorized gate that starts closing as soon as I pass through. I get back onto the road and to my shock get onto 62 when I could have sworn that I was on 89 when I decided to pull off. My phone starts buzzing, finally getting cell service. Later when filling up gas I searched on my phone and nothing matched the description of the town. And even weirder, none of the charges for the hotel or food showed up on my card. I've told some people and somebody suggested it was Richfield, but I know that I was south of there and, you know, they would have actually charged me for my spending. This story reports back to 2004, which puts me at 19 years old at the time.

I was a pretty avid player of Habbo Hotel, and after getting noticed by some of the devs, I was promoted to community moderator. It was hyped up as a daunting task, but I have a lot of free reigns to keep playing as I like, so I could still chat with users like a regular player. I met this slightly younger girl called Julia. She was 18 years old, on the newly opened Dutch version of Habbo, where I was supervising the launch. My job consisted of preventing the English users from making too much chaos in the new Dutch servers and banning the bad apples, which wasn't too demanding of a task, I thought. As we chatted up, she seemed nice and we had no problem connecting, even though she had pretty bad English. She requested that I talk with her more often so she could pick up the

language. I decided to add her over on the UK version of Hoppo, which is where I'm based, and we get talking pretty regularly and become quite good friends. I had a hunch that she was getting increasingly infatuated with me, but I let it slide under the radar because I'm quite used to these kind of personalities. Now fast forward to 2006, which puts me at 21. I become friends with a guy she knows called Adam who, as soon as her name is mentioned, warns me that she's completely insane and that I'm an idiot for trusting her. One phrase I remember clearly was, just wait until she shows up on your doorstep dude.

I scoffed and answered something dismissive like, yeah right, like that's gonna happen. One day, Julia stops coming on MSN and eventually drops off Habbo for a week. Radio silence until one day, out of nowhere, I get a phone call. A woman's voice with a heavy Dutch accent told me in broken English, Yes, yes I'm here to see you. The caller hangs up and leaves the line dead. At this point, I'm going into full denial mode. It must be a prank call. I was wrong, again. Later that day, I hear a knock on my door, and wouldn't you know it, it was Julia.

Just as I opened the door, she threw herself over my doorstep and forced hug me. I didn't know how to react to this because I didn't give her my address and at this point, I'm terrified. What in God's name is happening right now? And against my better judgment, I awkwardly invited her in regardless and I started to ask her what she's doing there and how she found me. I try my best to keep my composure, but I'm visibly shaking at this point. Unbothered, she just smiles at me and explains. She got my address from a leak that happened on the customer support line five months prior, in which my address, work email, phone number, and full name were included with about 50 to 70 other people who worked for Salaki Habo. She finishes her explanation with an eerie, and now I'm here to be with you forever and ever.

I get a fairy here to be with you. I didn't know how mentally stable this chick was and obviously I didn't want to get my face peeled off. I also couldn't help but notice some self-harm scars which made me pity her so being the nice guy I am, I decided to just spend the day with her. I spent a full day with her glued on me. She seemed completely oblivious to my anxiety and kept acting like nothing is wrong, clinging on to me and calling me her boyfriend. When night came, I just pretended to be sleeping and she came n clinging on to me and calling me her boyfriend. When night came, I just pretended to be sleeping and she came nuzzling up to me. After the most surreal day ever, she thanks me and just goes home. I never hear from her and I don't even see her online.

About three months later, I learned from our mutual friend that she ended up in the loony bin. Apparently, the girl was extremely delusional, hearing voices and seeing things. The trigger for her transfer to the facility was her stabbing someone after he didn't play along with her boyfriend roleplay. I'm sweating bullets thinking of what could have happened, and needless to say, now I become terrified every time someone knocks on my door. I ended up having to move houses, and I still occasionally have nightmares over it. I was around nine years old. My parents divorced when I was young, so I was staying with my dad for the weekend. This house was a little bit outside of town and a nice change from the cramped apartment I lived staying with my dad for the weekend. This house was a little bit outside of

town and a nice change from the cramped apartment I lived in with my mom. Not only the house was big but there was also a large plot of land around it and though my father didn't own it I played on it nevertheless. One of my favorite parts was my bedroom with a direct view of the large forestry area behind the house. I could see all kinds of wild animals in the big window right after waking up, ranging from little rabbits to even majestic elks. One day as the weather didn't allow me to play outside, I decided to forge around the house in hopes of finding anything that would entertain me. I entered the large library my father owned and one book caught my attention.

The cover was made of leather and it had a pretty fancy look to it. I opened it and it seems to be a photo album. Mostly family photos, old pictures of my dad with mom, and they looked really happy and in love. As I flip through the pages, I start seeing photos of myself. Birthdays, Christmas celebrations, every event chronologically documented in there. Towards the end of the book, I'm starting to see pictures of my dad's house, just pictures taken from the back of the house, really nothing more to it. Every picture looked very similar. Flipping more, I see pictures of me playing around the forest. I giggle as I realize that my dad was probably taking those pictures documenting me like I was some little wild beast. I ran to his workstation with the book in hand and asked him, dad why do you have so many pictures of me? He held me up and sat me on his knees. You know I keep so many photos because I miss you so much when you're not there. We started to go through the pictures with him explaining to me every event going on.

He seemed a little nostalgic, but kept everything light, cracking his usual dad jokes and commentaries. When we got to the pics of the house, he started becoming silent. Dropping me back on the floor, he turned the book in a way that wasn't allowing me to see and started flicking through the pages. He looked bewildered and I noticed the color draining from his face until he stopped at what looked to be the final page. He closed the book loudly and got his composure back. Alright, we're going to go to the mail and then we're going to go back to mom, alright? How's that sound? I wanted to protest and ask what was in the book, but even my young self could feel the mood and we both packed our bags

and left the house. As he dropped me off at my mom's, I could see them arguing. After this event, I wasn't allowed to sleep at his house again and I noticed that he was particularly intent on following me everywhere when I come to visit. I never mentioned the book again until years later. After asking him about it, I noticed my dad's cheery persona drop again and he sat me down and let out a deep sigh. Apparently, the last pictures were of me asleep, taken directly by my bedside. The last picture was taken from the inside of my room directly pointing toward the window. Several people with animal masks were

standing outside looking directly at the camera. He told me he reported it to the police but there was little they could do so he ended up selling the house. In a way, I'm glad he kept it from me for so long because I wasn't able to sleep well for the next few months without making sure the window was locked and the curtains were drawn. I live in Northern Virginia, a town around an hour outside of DC. And because of Corona and quarantine, I've been at home with my parents delivering pizza for a job. So far, it's been pretty lucrative, at least $50 in tips every night. My store is a local one, which makes operations a lot less mechanical and a bit more organic, which serves as both a vice and a virtue. It had been around three weeks since

I got hired and I was enjoying my life as the new delivery guy. I love the job, it's one of the best I'd ever had. At the end of the night, perhaps ten or so minutes before closing, we get an order, of course for a single pizza on the edge of the delivery border. The location looks like an apartment complex way off the main road and my manager asked me, Hey, all the drivers are closing. You take that order and just head home, alright? The order is really simple. Just an extra large pizza with three extra cheese options. I put the pizza in the sleeve, hop in my car, and begin playing Underworld on the speaker, in the mood to drive fast and kick some butt. Now when most apartment complex are lit up with street lamps or other ambient light, this one had no functioning light sources

and the roads leading up to it were very serpentine and steep. After navigating the crooked roads, I finally arrive at the apartment complex. The room's on the third floor and since the elevator isn't turning on, I have to heave myself up these stairs. I get to the door and a little porch light is switched on, conveniently lighting up the room number. I can distinguish the sound of two or three children playing around inside. As soon as I knock, the door opens almost instantly. Taken aback, I see a small kid standing in the doorway, probably one of the little dudes playing earlier. I ask him,

Hey little man, are mom and dad home? He answers, No, but big sister is. This kind of put me on edge as I'm not comfortable having to deal with some little kid and money, but then my attention goes to the kid's clothes. He's wearing pajamas with pingu's all over them, and while they weren't super tattered or worn out, you could see a streak of this sort of brownish stuff that I took to be chocolate or something. The kid keeps staring at me while I'm getting gradually more uncomfortable, and I ask him, Well, uh, can you go grab Big Sis for me? He looks at me confused and explains, No, she's playing hide and seek. I can't find her.

Do you want to come inside and help me find her? At this moment, I get an actual look at the interior and I'm just stunned. The room is unbelievably dark with the walls painted either a dark grey or black, absorbing what little light is produced by this very old block style TV. You can feel how very cramped this room is even from outside and you can smell the awful cigarettes and dayold fish odor wafting out of it. I'm definitely not going inside, so I tell him, Sorry, little buddy, I can't come inside. It'd be rude and my boss to say I can't.

The kid looks back into the apartment and yells to his sister, Sis, he won't come inside! I notice that he's got a very concerned look on his face as if though he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Suddenly his face shifts to one of deep intent almost like he got turned into a trance somehow and he tells me calmly She says it's okay and that she has your money inside.

No, I didn't hear anybody here, and it was getting a little bit too disturbing, so I decided it was time to just get away. I nervously say to him, Listen, I'm just gonna go ahead and leave this here, okay? I gotta head back to work soon, so... Yeah, have a good night, kid. He loudly retorts, no, you can't go yet, sister hasn't given you the monies. I can tell that he is visibly upset as he runs through the foyer into the living room, almost disappearing into the darkness. The rancid, fishy cigarette smell from earlier

is getting even more intense and along with the pressure unlike I've ever felt before. I'm getting extremely uncomfortable at this point and I start kneeling to complete the contactless delivery procedure. As I take the pizza out of the sleeve and begin setting it on the ground, I notice a single cockroach emerging from the door. I get up to stomp on it as I don a single cockroach emerging from the door. I get up to stomp on it as I don't want it getting in the pizza box. As I raise my foot, it ceases moving like it had accepted its fate somehow. As my soul comes in contact with the insect, an ear-splitting inhuman wail reverberates off the walls of the interior, piercing my eardrums. I remember being overwhelmed by a primal fear and hearing the little kid inside saying something like, Sissy, no, he didn't mean

it. I started hearing scuttling from down the hall and I decided to evacuate. I was kind of surprised at my corporate senses being active still as I still took a second to put the pizza on the doorstep before bailing out. As I'm bolting down the stairs, I guess I must have stepped on another cockroach because another shriek chased me down the stairs. I faintly hear the kid's voice giggling. Come back, mister. I have your monies right here. I enter my car and I almost stain my seat right there. I'm sweating so badly and shaking more than Michael J. Fox. After a few attempts, I successfully start the car and bolt out of that cursed complex.

While driving, I feel nauseous and I arrive at a 7-Eleven parking lot and hurl outside the window. After simmering down, I drive back home and take a long shower. And that's my only real encounter with the paranormal, I guess, if that's really what it was. I can honestly say I never saw anything or had anything touch me, and maybe it was just some kind of elaborate prank from the kids, but I can promise you I will never be delivering within five miles of that apartment, and frankly, I might even quit my job. I never want to risk getting sent near there again. This happened during grad school. We had a program where we could get two classes worth of credit for simply doing a

two-week volunteer service mission in Costa Rica. Easy credits and a free trip? That's an easy decision for me. Now as June came, I flew to the location and I could immediately feel the temperature change. Not only was it pretty hot, but the humidity levels were extreme as well. The first order of business was helping this poor village so I took the bus and finally get to where my other classmates were staying. As I arrived at the location I'm greeted by one of my senior classmates who shows me around and introduces me to the others. After this little visit he guides me to a big brick hut. This place is a temporary dorm room. He shows me my bed and follows me to

it. The dude was pretty laid back but for some reason he got way more serious when explaining to me how to set up the mosquito net. He showed me how the net went under the mattress and hooked up above the bed, making it look like a great teardrop. He removes it and asks me to do it again. I oblige and he cheerfully says, yes, yes, you got it. After a long and sweaty day of work, I go back to the dorm room. I can feel and see a similar amount of mosquitoes buzzing around and I understand why my senior was so insistent on the proper setting of the net. I crawl into my bed, close the net, and let out a long sigh. It's pretty hard to sleep with the humidity and heat and I'm rolling around and turning on my pillow every minute trying to get more comfortable. At some point, the exhaustion makes me forget the

steamy heat and I just roll on my back and stare at the ceiling. Strangely, it seemed as if though the wall was moving or pulsating almost. Was I hallucinating from the fatigue or was it an optical illusion from the heat creating some wavy mirage pattern? Since everyone else was sleeping, I decided I'd take my phone out and quickly shown it on the wall. My brain started registering one thing. Legs. Legs in every nook and cranny of the wall. Small legs. Long legs. Hairy legs. And we're completely surrounded by spiders. I try my best to stay composed. I didn't want to be the rookie freaking out on his first night there. I'm wondering how they can sleep knowing what's around them.

Mosquitoes I can live with, sure. Even spiders, but this amount and this size. As my eyes start adjusting, I see something right next to me. I don't even need the light to realize it's a dinner plate-sized spider crawling on the other side of the mosquito net only two inches away from my face. Panicking, I hit the net so it gets knocked off. Not daring to use the flashlight anymore, I try my best to ignore it and spend the night absolutely terrified. I didn't dare ask anyone about it since, well, I didn't want to look like a cowardly rookie and I guess the work kept my mind busy. As the week went by, it didn't get any better, though I realized the spiders left you alone and the nets did their job pretty well. The only time I saw anybody acknowledge it was when I was coming back to the camp.

One of my heavier classmates came running by faster than an Olympic sprinter and puffs out a quick, spider behind! I'm confused and as I turn my head, I notice the leaves rustling in a straight line towards us. As I start running, I can finally see the shape of the most humongous spider I'd ever seen yet. We close the dorm room and hide in the nets. As I stared at the ceiling, I thought to myself, no wonder they gave us so many credits for just two weeks. I never told this story to anyone and, frankly, I needed to get it off my chest. I worked construction when I was younger.

I wouldn't say I loved the job, but it paid well and I was left alone listening to music most of the time. This time I was sent out to repave a residential road in a quiet rural area. It was early in the morning. I must have been the first to arrive as there was not a soul in sight. I prepare myself, put my headphones on and hop on the roller and start flattening the road. I'm going at a slow steady pace as usual though I must admit that I was still a little bit drowsy not really paying attention to my surroundings. Suddenly this little kid who looked around three years old bolts out from the tree line in front of the roller. I didn't even have time to react

to it and all I felt was this little unnatural bump shaking my seat. I went into shock for half a second, turned off the rig and started looking around. As I inspected the road behind the roller, you could clearly see a shape. I think the poor soul was so small that I squashed him and sank him right into the thick tar. It was still dark and frankly I didn't have the guts to shine a light on it. As I came to my senses, I started looking around nervously, expecting one of my co-workers to stare back at me in shock. But nothing. Only an oppressive silence, and it seems nobody saw the incident.

Now that the shock wore down, I became possessed by some kind of self-preservation demon. I climbed back in my machine and made what I can only describe as the most cold-hearted decision of my entire life. I started the engine and went back up and over until the road fell completely flat. I kept passing over the spot until the only thing left was my memory of the vague shape sunken into the tar. About half an hour later, as the workers kept coming in, a woman came running by, hysterically asking everyone if we'd seen her son. As the others were trying to calm her and looking around for the kid, I kept using my roller. I remember feeling completely numb, even as my seniors passed

by and asking me if I'd seen him, and I just shook my head and continued smoothing the asphalt, going at a slow steady pace, blankly staring in front of me. To this day that poor woman must have no idea what happened to her son, searching desperately when he's literally right under them. I feel immense guilt and I often want to apologize, but it's too late for it now. I guess the next best thing is sharing it with anonymous strangers. I was with my friends and we decided to go on a camping trip out in Carson National Forest in New Mexico. This is a spot that a lot of people recommended to us and we just had cleared some days off, so what better way to spend it than with the boys? We drove to the place, got out of the truck, and set up camp in the clearing. We start off an amazing day, drinking, hiking, and goofing around together. As the sun started setting down, we went back

to our camp and decided it was time to chill around a campfire. We cracked open a few more beers, started passing a blunt around, and munched on the snacks that we had brought with us. As the place was getting darker, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. At first, I thought that maybe the weed was getting to my head but after telling my friends, they all seemed to agree that something just felt off. We started drunkenly shifting around the camp, scanning for any sort of wild beast. I started to smell something kind of disgusting, a sort of sweaty body odor but couldn't pinpoint it to one of us. After a few minutes of this little paranoia session, clearing out most of the area around us, we looked at each other and just laughed it off.

Yeah, I think we're a little bit too high. We crawled back to our respective tents and after jokingly taunting and cursing our imaginary stalker, we fell asleep. As I woke up in the morning, I get woken up by my buddy shaking my tent. I use my feet to open the zipper and he gets his head inside and tells me, yo, all our stuff is gone. Still groggy, I stumble out of the tent. It seems everything had been cleared out. The packs, the food, even some of the roaches on the floor disappeared. I reach into my pocket and feel sudden relief that my keys and phone are still with me. Thankfully, it seems that most of the stolen goods were either just food or hiking gear.

After waking up the others and revealing to them the situation, our little detective crew notices some faint tracks leading to the tree line. We start following them while cursing the situation, our little detective crew notices some faint tracks leading to the tree line. We start following them while cursing the thieves, but most of all ourselves for leaving the bags outside. After a few meters, we see the track ending in front of a boulder. We check around the boulder to see if the tracks continued leading to somewhere but to our disappointment, nothing. One of my friends stepped on the rock. I guess they just jumped on the boulder and took off into the sky. After this failed attempt at breaking the tent's mood, he hopped back on the ground and we all heard a clear unnatural thud. We all bundle around the area and kick off the dirt and leaves, and we can see it

clear as day. It's some kind of rusty wooden trap door on the ground, around three by two feet. After looking at each other, we lift it open and are met with a pitch black tunnel, seemingly staring back at us. As we dumbfoundedly stared at the darkness, the familiar sweaty body odor stench started wafting out of it. One of my friends closed the hatch, rolled the boulder on it, and we went to pack up whatever was still there, and left with impressive efficiency. One important detail to keep in mind was that the spot was nowhere near the Mexican border, and even then it was way too narrow for any normal-sized human moving around it.

I still have no idea how long the tunnel ran, but it couldn't have been easy to dig. It must have required a lot of manpower and a lot of time. Hey friends, thanks for listening. 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, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt.

And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon.