The Lets Read Podcast - 226: THE WORST VALENTINE EVER | 22 True Scary Stories | EP 214

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about the Home Invasions, Bad Friends, & Valentines Day... 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/

What if one ingredient could do it all naturally? At ShopArgon.com, our 100% pure organic argan oil is more than skin care. It's massive wrinkle defense and also nourishes dry, damaged hair. It's relief for eczema and psoriasis. It soothes diaper rash, fades scars, and even calms acne-prone skin. Cold-pressed in Morocco and bottled with care, it's packed with vitamin E and healing antioxidants your skin craves. One drop, just one, and your skin feels nourished, soft, and visibly

renewed. The all-in-one organic beauty solution. No wonder they call it liquid gold. Visit shopargon.com to explore our collection and feel the difference. My husband and I got married on February 9th of 2010. And to save us the double whammy to our wallets, we picked a weekend around that time to have a joint Valentine's slash anniversary celebration together. These celebrations usually involve a simple staycation style holiday back when we were both on lower salary bands. But as the years went on and we got our finances in order, we started venturing further afield than just London or the home counties. Then, around Christmas of 2016, I was looking at potential Valentine's destinations when

I suddenly found myself falling deep down the cottagecore rabbit hole. Now, back in the mid-2010s, it wasn't quite the same kind of cottagecore aesthetic that emerged on social media during the pandemic. Like a lot of inspiration came from Japanese Mori fashion, which emphasizes muted colors and nude shades like beige, brown, off-white, light green, and earthy red, as well as natural materials like cotton, linen, wool, and leather. But anyway, after seeing a lot of posts outlining Mori styles and aesthetics, I suddenly got a bee under my bonnet about staying in a remote country cottage over Valentine's weekend. When my husband agreed, we started looking at a few places, and eventually settled on a small, cozy-looking cottage up in North Yorkshire. We booked the place from Friday the 12th to Sunday the 14th, with plans to drive back home on the Monday morning, and by early February,

I was beginning to get really excited about the whole thing. Work had been hellish, the weather had been crap, and not one but two of our appliances were on the brink, so I really needed a little getaway by the time Valentine's Day loomed on the horizon. On the day itself, we got the earliest train possible up to York, then took a taxi out to the cottage. It turned out to be everything we could have possibly hoped for. A lot of Airbnb really try and do you over with the angles of pictures and all that, but all the fixtures and fittings were of the utmost quality. Me and my husband had a bath together in the giant tub that had been fitted upstairs, then, after wandering into a nearby village, we got some pub food, had a couple of pints, then went back to the cottage to get some sleep. The next morning was just blissful. We had nothing planned, no work commitments to worry about. It was just me, him, and a weekend of coziness to look forward to. I made us some bacon and eggs, then after a long, steamy shower together,

we sprawled ourselves in the living room's settee and just relaxed. We had our phones switched off, almost no one knew where we were, and the cottage was basically smack bang in the middle of nowhere, which made it all the more surprising when, at some point in the early afternoon, we heard a knock at the front door. It actually spooked us a little bit at first, hearing three piercing bangs out of absolutely nowhere. But regardless, we knew we had to answer it, as it might have been the host trying to get some important info to us. After all, we've had our phones switched off all morning, so up we get, making sure to fasten our dressing gowns nice and tight so we don't give the visitor a surprise peep show, then we open up the door.

Standing in front of us was a man around my dad's age, so mid-50s to early 60s, and behind him up the driveway is a large, plain white van. He gives us a warm and friendly greeting, then tells us that the owners have hired him and his building firm to do a bit of emergency renovation work. That meant that we'd have to vacate the property for around two to three hours. As you can imagine, me and my husband were very bewildered about the situation. The Airbnb host hadn't mentioned anything about any renovation work, and there certainly didn't seem to be any sort of emergency inside. Everything looked fine.

When we suggested that there must have been some kind of mistake, the bloke just shrugged like it wasn't his problem, told us a job's a job, then asked us what time we'd be okay vacating for a couple of hours. My husband rarely gets annoyed at things like that. He's a very patient person, but the idea of paying almost a grand to then have our holiday interrupted, I could tell that he was fuming about it. Fuming though he was, my husband asked the builder if he didn't mind waiting a few minutes because he wanted to give the host a call to clear a few things up. Suddenly, the builder's attitude changes completely, and instead of being all

polite, he just said, oi, in this really aggressive way, stopping my husband in his tracks as he was closing the front door. Then I swear to god he says, I tried the easy way, don't make me do things the hard way. Both me and my husband are like, you what? Both pretty offended as how rude he was being. Then as he starts prattling on about us leaving the cottage, my husband shouts something about calling the police before slamming the door in his face. We didn't call the police, not right away anyway. Instead, I grabbed my phone and got onto the host to see if the man's claims were genuine. It took a while to get them to call us back, but when they did, they denied having arranged any kind of building work.

We then tried to clarify who the man was and why he'd been so threatening, but the host claimed to have no idea. They asked us to call the police if we didn't feel safe, and if we really didn't want to stay another night, we could leave with a full refund if we'd consider booking another time. The host and his wife were those two pensioners who supplemented their income through the rentals, and they were so sweet about the whole thing. So instead of us turning tail and running at the first sign of trouble, we decided to stay for the duration of our booking and enjoy the holiday we'd worked so hard to afford. Whatever the weird bloke's game was, we were pretty confident that the threat of calling the police would dissuade him from whatever he had in mind, and if it didn't, well, we'd just

cross that bridge when we came to it. If we'd have known what was about to happen, if the bloke had given us any clue whatsoever, we'd have been out of there within the hour. But he didn't. When he turned nasty, it was all these cryptic antagonistic warnings and threats that were only ever going to provoke a defensive response. We had no idea what he had in mind, so we stayed, and a couple of hours later, it all started to go downhill. It's early evening, so about six o'clock, and because of the time of year, it's almost completely dark outside. Obviously, we were still quite concerned by the strange bloke's bizarre visit, but after my husband found an old cricket bat in his upstairs cupboard, we felt marginally safer.

On top of that, hours had gone by and we'd seen hide nor hair of our unwelcome visitor, so we just crossed our fingers that we'd see no more of him and got on with our weekend getaway. We weren't feeling particularly hungry and the pub served food until 8, so we decided on a quick dip in the giant bath before beginning the walk into the village. The upstairs layout was such that the bathroom was on the front side of the cottage, with the bedroom at the rear. The bedroom had this cute pair of wooden framed windows that opened outward into the back garden, but the bathroom had only one small circular window that opened just a crack.

If you looked out, you could see the cottage's driveway, along with a little bit of the lane outside, so when we were in the bath and we thought that we heard a noise coming from outside, my husband climbed out of the tub and peered through the glass onto the driveway. Like I might have already mentioned, my husband is the most emotive person, definitely the counterweight to me being very fiery, but that's another story. You hardly ever see him angry, and you never see him scared. So when he turned around to me, and I saw this look of blind terror on his face, I knew that we were in a hell of a lot of trouble. Get out of the bathroom, put some clothes on, was all he said after that, and he ran to the bedroom to do so himself.

You can imagine how panicked I am, because he still hadn't told me what he'd seen that got him so frightened. It was the bloody zombie apocalypse for all I knew, so while I too rush to put some clothes on, I'm asking him over and over again what's going on. Please just tell me what's happening. There are people outside. They've got masks on. We need to hide. I knew it was connected to the guy who'd visited us in the early afternoon. I just bloody knew it. I just hadn't the foggiest idea how. I made sure to throw on as many layers as I could,

knowing that we'd probably end up running out the back door if the blokes outside tried coming through the front. Then bang. What turned out to be a sledgehammer smashed into the front door, and we take that as our cue to get the hell out of there. We ran downstairs, actually saw the damage that was done to the door by whoever was breaking it down, then bolted towards the kitchen, which is where the back doors were. It was very scary, but I remember knowing that whatever the man or man wanted, it involved the cottage, not us. If we just ran off and stayed away for a few hours, everything would be fine, right? Wrong. My husband swung open the back doors after struggling to unlock them,

but instead of being greeted by the path to freedom, we were greeted by a man in a balaclava with a massive crowbar-looking thing in his hands. We were trapped. The man with the crowbar thing ordered us back into the house, and he was soon joined by another masked man carrying what looked an awful lot like a big saw. One of them told my husband, if you do anything stupid, we'll kill your missus. And that kept him fairly quiet. Me, on the other hand, I was just so scared, so I kept saying all sorts of things begging them not to hurt us, that we were sorry, that we'd just leave if they let us go free.

All they replied with was, shut up, shut your mouth. And then the next thing I know, we're being led into one of the upstairs rooms and made to kneel. I was so scared that they were going to kill us. All that assurance that they were there to rob the house or something just completely went out the window, and in the end, I had to make so much noise that they shoved a pillowcase in my mouth to keep me quiet. The next thing I remember, the intruders made my husband tell them where our phones were, and that gave me more hope that they weren't going to hurt us. They didn't seem like petty thieves, so taking our phones was to ensure us that we wouldn't be able to phone the police once they left, I was thinking. I only really started to calm down and compose myself when I heard some really loud banging from downstairs, and my husband started reminding me that they weren't there for us, that they were just looking for something, and if all the hammering was

anything to go by, it was something in the walls. Since we were told to keep completely quiet, we could hear all the smashing and bashing downstairs and we could hear the guys saying things to each other. You could hear, try this one here and then bang, someone would smash a sledgehammer into a wall. Then you'd hear others ripping the wood and plaster apart, no doubt looking for something. They did this over and over again until finally, you heard someone downstairs shout, got it. I couldn't see what was going on,

but you could tell that they'd found what they were looking for because there was this big flurry of activity before the guy guarding us suddenly leaned in and growled something to us. I don't want to hear an effing peep out of the two of you until we're gone. You try anything, and we'll kill both of you. After that, he was gone, and after a little bit more activity from downstairs, the cottage was silent again. Neither of us moved for what felt like a very long time.

Even though it felt like we were in the clear, I couldn't stop shaking. In fact, I think I was shaking harder then than I was when they were tying our hands, blindfolding and gagging us. And that was just all raw fear. What came next was this emotionally exhaustive adrenaline come down. When we finally thought it was safe, my husband somehow wriggled his way out of his bindings, then untied mine as he tried to reassure me. I just burst into tears as he hugged me, having never felt so grateful to be alive in my whole life. It felt like we'd lived through a nightmare come to life. It was surreal

in the extreme, and once we collected ourselves we began to creep downstairs to survey the damage. The cottage was completely empty apart from us, but we crept downstairs nonetheless, taking in a stare at a time in total silence, terrified that a masked man would suddenly reappear in what remained of the front doorframe. Thankfully, no one came back, and as we edged our way into the front room, our jaws dropped at the extent of the damage. They'd taken a sledgehammer, along with a saw and god knows what else, and they'd torn up all the walls in both the front and back rooms of the cottage. It was a total mess,

but through all the torn up wallpapers and layers of settled plaster dust, a sort of pattern started to emerge. Most sections of wall bore a few sledgehammer strikes, but only one section was completely torn out. Just like we'd heard them, they'd been probing sections of the wall before they found whatever they were looking for. Then they'd torn out that whole section to retrieve it. We had a good look inside the hole they'd made, but there was no trace of whatever had been hidden there. They'd also smashed the landline phone, so there was no contacting anyone without walking into the nearby village

to get some help. So that's what we did. We set up camp in the corner of the local pub and after hearing what happened to us, the locals were basically lining up to buy us pints and offer their condolences. This was great for me as I definitely needed something to calm my nerves, but not so much for my husband, who was our designated driver back to London a few hours later. We had some dinner and they made calls to the police, the Airbnb host, and our loved ones back home, each explaining the situation and what we planned on doing next. After that, we waited around the pub to give a statement to one of the local coppers, whose colleagues had driven over to the cottage to cordon off their crime scene.

We told him what we knew, swapped contact details, then got started on the drive back to London. We were still very shaken up, and if they hadn't bashed the door down in bloody February, we'd have probably just stayed the final night. So all we were interested in when we got home were hot showers and early nights. But then the following morning, the theories started. Over breakfast, we started to talk about how bad we felt for the owner. Granted, what we went through was extremely grim, but we weren't hurt and they'd stolen nothing but our phones, which were both insured, thankfully. On the other hand, our sweet retiree hosts had their pension investments smashed up,

all after sinking thousands into renovating it. But then, what had the masked men taken, and who did it belong to? It was obviously so important, and possibly so illegal, that they felt the need to tie us up, blindfold us, and deny us any means of contacting the police so they were safe to retrieve it. But after that, all we had was unanswered questions and increasingly wild ones at that. I'd like to tell you that we found out, or even that we came up with some kind of solid theory. But the God's honest truth is that we're flummoxed, and apparently so are the police. To our knowledge, the owners hadn't reported anything stolen, and even with the security

camera footage which showed the group of men arriving, they just didn't have enough to go on to make any arrests. The rest of the story is a bit boring and involves refunds, insurance claims, and a lot of retelling the whole event to friends and relatives. It was horrible, but like I've said, neither of us are particularly traumatized and we both firmly put it all behind us. But sometimes, just sometimes, I'd give my left arm to know what had been hidden in that bloody wall. At around 6pm on Valentine's Day of 2007, 23-year-old French-Canadian Philippe Lajoie sat down for dinner in a small hometown of Saint-Denis, Quebec. Once he'd finished, he put on his boots, grabbed his car keys, then made the short drive over to a town called Yamashish. It was here that Philippe owned and operated a small pigsty with the assistance of his older brother, Mateo.

He normally joined Philippe in tending to the pigs, but on that particular day, a heavy snowstorm meant Mathieu was occupied with snow plowing duties. In light of that, Philippe asked their father if he cared to join him in place of his brother, yet his father declined on account of the bitterly cold weather. It was a decision that he'd come to gravely regret. Philippe was expected to return home at around 9 to 9.30pm, as his porcine duties only took around 2 to 3 hours. But by 2 o'clock in the morning, when Philippe had still yet to return home, his mother began frantically calling the pigsty in order to check in on him. When he failed to pick up the phone, Philippe's father and brother drove out to the Yamashish pigsty to search for him. When they arrived, the two men found Philippe's truck

empty, with the rear door wide open and the keys still in the ignition. It appeared as if the truck had been in that condition for quite some time, as snow was starting to gather on the lip of the interior. When they checked the truck's engine and ignition, it appeared as if the truck had been left in that condition for quite some time as the snow started to gather on the lip of the interior. When they checked the truck's engine and ignition, it appeared to be in full working order and a bag containing Philippe's work clothes was lying in the back seat. The men discovered that the clothes had fresh muck on them and that the pigs had been fed, meaning Philippe had vanished some time after completing his duties.

They called out his name, hoping that he might have been close, but they were greeted only by the squealing and snuffling of their pigs. It was as if Philippe had simply vanished into thin air. Mathieu and the boy's father arrived back in Saint-Denis at around 6 a.m., and checking a nearby hospital, contacted law enforcement to report Philippe missing. Quebec police launched a massive search effort in the days that followed, one that included specialist tracker docks, helicopter-borne search teams, and legions of local and regional volunteers.

Their efforts were initially promising, but just days into the search, a huge snowstorm blanketed the area with almost three meters of thick snow. Volunteers worked as best they could, using sticks and batons to probe the snow drifts, but frustratingly, not a single trace of Philippe was ever recovered, and search was abandoned on February 23rd. In the aftermath of the disastrous search effort, police began to theorize that Philippe had either traveled elsewhere to take his own life, or had carried out a voluntary disappearance in order to begin a new life somewhere else. His family swiftly dismissed the idea of him taking his own life, and a provincial

inquiry agreed that it was extremely unlikely given the lack of note or remains. It was also declared improbable that Philippe had absconded for some reason, as all of his personal effects remained at home and his bank account had remained untouched in the time since he disappeared. But then, around three weeks after Philippe vanished, police raised the possibility of something very disturbing having occurred. One day, Matthew received a phone call from one of the detectives charged with finding his brother. The detective asked if he'd noticed anything unusual about his pig's manure. Matthew replied in the negative, then suddenly realized what the detective was implying. Matthew had been disposing of the pig's feces for weeks by that point, and at no point had anyone bothered to analyze them

for any trace of Philippe's remains. Forensic examiners rushed to gather all of the pig's droppings that they could get their hands on, but once again, they found nothing. Yet this was weeks after Felipe disappeared, and although it was still feasible that remnants of his corpse might still be in the digestive tracts, we can't roll out the horrifying possibility that Felipe was eaten by his own pigs. At 5'8 and around 150 pounds, Felipe wasn't a huge man by any stretch of the imagination, and pigs had been known to chew through flesh and bone until even the largest of corpses had been completely consumed. Yet even if that was the case, surely Matthew would have noticed a scrap of denim or an

errant bootlace amongst the pig's scat. Maybe so, but if he wasn't actually looking, then maybe not. After all, the idea that Philippe had been devoured was a thought too horrible to possibly contemplate, at least until a detective suggested it as a possibility. It should be noted that the chances of Philippe passing out in the pigpen, only to be fully consumed over the course of five hours, is extremely low. According to Quebec police, it's not a theory they're taking particularly seriously, but at the same time, it's not one that they can entirely roll out either. On the fifth anniversary of Philippe's disappearance, his father drove over to the provincial courthouse to have his son declared legally deceased.

His father had been staunchly reluctant to do so and had prayed that one day Philippe would return home. But increasing financial pressures forced his hand and having Philippe declared dead in absentia was the only way to access his bank account and insurance policies. Or perhaps his apparent hope was more like denial. Denial that something so horrendous might have happened to his beloved son. On February 12th of 2015, the Halifax Department of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police received a phone call from a terrified member of the public. They claimed that a group of three were planning on committing mass murder at the Halifax Shopping Center, a place where over 160 stores are patronized by tens of thousands of daily shoppers. The intended date of the attack was February 14th, Valentine's Day, and a Saturday to boot.

The shopping center would be teeming with throngs of shoppers, no doubt including dozens of happy couples, old and new. The anonymous tipster named two of the group by name. 20-year-old Randall Stephen Shepard and a 23-year-old American girl by the name of Lindsay Suvannarath both were said to be heavily armed and extremely violent. The RCMP quickly traced the couple's movements to the home of 19-year-old James Rushton Gamble, and in the early hours of Friday, February 13th, officers surrounded Gamble's home and prepared to strike. When Gamble's parents departed the house to run Saturday morning errands,

they had barely gotten to the end of the street before their car was ambushed by heavily armed officers. They were dragged from their vehicle, handcuffed, then led into a large command and control vehicle where a round of intense questioning began. Detectives offered the couple no clue as to why they were detained, but the reason soon became obvious. Every question put to them by the officers involved their son. They were asked if their son was home, if he was alone, if he talked of his plans for the day, and if he owned any firearms.

Gamble's parents could only offer patchy responses, at least until it came to the last question. Yes, James owned a firearm, but had recently come into possession of two more, a large caliber lever action rifle and a 16 gauge shotgun. Officers at the scene believed that these were the firearms the group planned to use in their attack on the Halifax shopping center And although securing them was undoubtedly a victory, it presented them with another problem Raiding the home could trigger a drawn out and bloody firefight with the three murderous fanatics If the RCMP SWAT teams were going to strike, they had to be swift, and it had to be decisive. Within the hour, the commander of the Mounties SWAT team gave word that his men were ready to go,

and when the signal was given, they stormed the Gamble residence with calculated ferocity. They cleared each room with the precision and timing of a well-oiled machine until finally only one locked door remained. The officers stacked up, kicked away the thin wood paneling, and surged into the room to confront their suspects. While some expected to be greeted with a torrent of gunfire, the interior of James' bedroom was still and silent, but it was not empty. Lying on his bed, having blown his brains out with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was James Rushton Gamble, but his accomplices were nowhere to be found.

At first, the discovery terrified local law enforcement, who couldn't work out how Gamble had been alerted to their presence. At no point had the officers heard any gunshots after breaching and entering the home, and despite having traced Shepard and Suvannarath to the residence, they were nowhere to be found. Officers began to speculate that the group had somehow been tipped off and were so alert to the risk of a police interdiction that they'd spotted the encroaching SWAT team and acted accordingly. Yet before local law enforcement descended into a panic over the fact that two potential mass murderers had slipped through their fingers,

the situation suddenly became clear. The anonymous tip had come from James Gamble himself, who had denied his accomplices access to their firearms before taking his own life. The arguably heroic decision had denied Shepard and Savannah Roth their primary weapons, and with their names, descriptions, and likenesses clogging up emergency news broadcasts all over the region, it was only a matter of time before they were located and apprehended. But regardless, until they were in police custody, Shepard and Savannah Roth remained a clear and present danger to the Canadian public. Meanwhile, over at Halifax Stanfield International Airport,

a young man with dirty blonde hair and a black leather jacket was sitting in the arrivals lounge. He was waiting for a friend who arrived on a flight from O'Hare International Chicago's premier commercial travel hub. They'd been communicating online for almost a year by that point, chatting, sharing, and plotting. When this friend arrived at Canadian immigration, the policy of pre-clearance between the US and Canada meant that she could pass through with just a brief check of her passport. But when an immigration official noticed that the girl had very little in the way of luggage or cash in her possession, he started to become suspicious. The official asked to see the girl's passport once more, and when he checked the name, he saw it read,

Lindsay Savannah Rath. Lindsay watched as the official typed away at his computer terminal, and suddenly, he turned pale. Seconds later, a stern-looking member of airport security arrived and asked Lindsay to accompany her to a nearby interview room. When asked why she was visiting Canada, Lindsay replied that she was visiting her boyfriend, James Gamble, and how the couple had planned to spend Valentine's weekend together. The answer didn't seem to satisfy the security official, who asked Lindsay to clarify exactly what they planned to do. Lindsay replied something to the effect of, what does any couple do on Valentine's Day? It was a good enough cover story, but

following a brief search of her backpack, Lindsay had a great deal of difficulty explaining why one of her hats bore a swastika symbol. After that, Lindsay refused to answer any more questions, at which point she was arrested on charges of issuing threats. The couple remained tight-lipped during questioning, and any initial attempts to get them to talk were unsuccessful. But as one team of police officers struggled to make a breakthrough, another group came across an information goldmine in the form of Shepard and Suvannarath's Tumblr blogs. It became clear that all three plotters had met on the website, and had become friends after discovering mutual interests in horror movies, heavy metal, and extreme far-right politics. The trio seemed to idolize the perpetuators of the Columbine High School Massacre, with Savannah Roth christening her blog, School Shooter Chic,

Violence is an Aesthetic. The pastel pink color scheme of her blog page stood in sharp contrast to its content, which included cartoon images of violent paraphilia. Lindsay also seemed to venerate white supremacist politics, which is extremely ironic given her Southeast Asian heritage. Yet although her politics were quite evidently confused, her intentions were not. Just over a week before she landed in Canada, Savannah Rath had posted a picture on Tumblr, one with a caption stating, Valentine's Day. It's going down. She most definitely intended to wreak havoc on the

innocent citizens of Halifax that day, and if it wasn't for the courage of the anonymous tipster and the swift actions of Canadian law enforcement, many people would have lost their lives that day. By all accounts, it was Randall Shepard who cracked first, and although it's not clear what variety of interrogative techniques were used, he ended up telling the police everything. James Gamble and Lindsay Savanarath had been the attack's primary planners, while Shepard had taken on the role of cheerleader as he phrased it. All three had planned to shoot up the Halifax shopping center before taking their own lives, with the whole thing taking on an air of twisted romance for James and Lindsay.

With the Shepard's confession secured, both he and Lindsay were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit arson, illegal possession of weapons for dangerous purposes against the public, and making threats over social media. Neither sought bail when they later appeared in court, with Lindsay refusing to display an ounce of remorse. At his trial in November of the following year, Randall Shepard pled guilty on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to ten years in prison. His sentence would have been much higher if it wasn't for his cooperation during questioning, but while Randall had displayed a degree of remorse following his arrest, Lindsay Savannah Rath remained unflinching in the face of justice.

Not a word passed her lips during any of the police interviews. All she did was stare a hole into whoever was talking to her, including the judge who presided over her trial. In light of this, he declared her an ongoing threat to society and sentenced her to life in prison, with a minimum of ten years served before she was eligible for parole. Lindsay's legal team were outraged by the seemingly harsh sentence and appealed it almost immediately. However, Canadian legal scholars judged that she had ample time to express remorse, and having neglected to do so at every turn, her appeal was denied. One of the pieces of evidence referenced in the denial of Lindsay's

appeal was a long-form manifesto that she hoped to have published following the Halifax Massacre. One line reads, It has always been my greatest dream to die in battle, but I do so not as a soldier, hope to have published following the Halifax Massacre. One line reads, It has always been my greatest dream to die in battle, but I do so not as a soldier, but as a murderer. The passage it's included in also seems to refer to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche when it says, My hate is beyond good and evil. In one section, Lindsay refers to her desire for violence as her heroic longings and says she fights for principles, not politicians. What morality is depends on which end of the gun you are looking at. With a gun in your hand, I am God.

Yet while much of Lindsay's manifesto has the capacity to terrify, much of it is saturated with a deep melancholy. In all my 23 years of life, I have never learned to love another person, one passage reads. I receive love, but it passes through me like water through a sieve. She also wrote of the wonders of isolation and how she wished to be free from empathy. Following her transfer to the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility, Lindsay was forbidden from keeping any kind of formal diary, so instead, she used just about anything she could to record her thoughts. At one point, a prison guard found a note

scrawled on the back of a Sudoku puzzle. It is a strange feeling to meet someone and almost immediately know that you ought to die with them, Lindsay wrote. To James and I, it happened simultaneously. At first, we were casual acquaintances, having discovered each other's Tumblr blogs through a mutual interest in the Columbine shooting and National Socialism communities. Less than a month later, we were planning our deaths. These days, the girl who once created a fictional persona she named the Nightmare Nazi shows little remorse for blood that she intended to spill that Valentine's Day. She also refuses to accept that James Gamble was the one who made the anonymous phone call which foiled their plot. In her mind, James took his own life as a show of defiance

rather than allow himself to be taken alive, but that couldn't be further from the truth. The sad irony is that James Gamble saved Halifax from a massacre that he himself planned out, and regardless of his questionable beliefs, he should be lauded for that. That might seem like a controversial opinion to some, but imagine for a moment that it was Lindsay who had possessed those firearms. Lindsay, who remained remorseless when her evil plots were brought to light. Lindsay, who claimed the only way she'd return to America was in a body bag. A few years ago, I took my grandma and her friend on holiday to Egypt. There were some really cheap packages for this resort town called Sharm el-Sheikh,

and they'd both been really poorly due to the cold weather over the winter, so I decided to do a good deed and pay for us all to get some sun for the week. Anyway, I booked the flights for February the 9th and we flew out from Heathrow in the morning. The heat was just what they needed and it was great getting to spend some quality time with them both, but after a couple of days I started to get a touch of cabin fever. Like I said, my gran and her pal were content to spend the whole time by the pool, gabbing away and drinking non-alcoholic cocktails. Whereas me, on the other hand, I wanted to actually see a bit of the country that I'd came so far to visit.

I wanted to soak up a bit of the culture, try some real authentic food instead of the old-too-familiar European-style grub they served at the resort. I also wanted to mix with the locals, and as the calendar drew closer to Valentine's Day, I found myself longing for a different kind of company. Now's the time where I have to clear something up. I'm a gay man, I was still in my 30s at the time, and I was also very much available. I'm also not one for the holiday romances or one night stands so at first I didn't even think about dipping my toe into the local dating pool. But as I said, around Valentine's Day I found myself playing the hopeless romantic and wondering if there was anyone I could share a bit of romance with at such a special time of

year. It sounds sappy I know but I'm prone to a bit of sapp with at such a special time of year. It sounds sappy, I know, but I'm prone to a bit of sappiness, so you'll have to forgive me. Anyway, since Egypt isn't exactly known for its acceptance of gay or lesbian lifestyles, I didn't reckon that there'd be any bars that I could pop into for a bit of harmless flirting. So instead, I decided to see who in the area was on Tinder. I brought up the app, changed my location, and did a bit of swiping here and there throughout the day. There were a few tourists, and only a handful of locals were brave enough to actually show their faces, but one did, and oh my days was he gorgeous. He was tall, dark, and handsome.

Every queen's dream. And his bio said that he worked as a resort manager. His English seemed really good from his profile, so I thought that I'd swipe right and see what came of it. I really didn't think that we'd match. He seemed way out of my league, so I just sort of resigned myself to it not happening and started planning a little trip into the old town so I could check out some of the old mosques and stuff. I jump a resort shuttle into the old town, have a little wander around the market and all that, and I'm taking pictures of all sorts of amazing things as I go. Then, on the way back towards the shuttle shop, I walk past somewhere with free wifi,

and since I had all my data off to save a few quid on the phone bill, I took the opportunity to log on to the wifi so I could send Grant a few photos as if to say, look what you're missing out on. Then right as I'm trying to send a photo, a tinder match comes through, and it's the Egyptian Adonis that I had mentioned before. I couldn't believe it. I was just staring at the match in disbelief thinking this must be my lucky day. Then as I'm looking at the screen, he starts typing a hello. This was it. We talked for about half an hour back and forth as I walked up and down the streets just beaming to myself. When I told him that I was only there for a few more days, he asked if

I wanted to meet that night. If I give him a few hours to get home from work and take a shower, I could be around by 7pm for dinner and a movie. He asked if I like pasta, and oh my god, do I like pasta. And then when I said yes, he said that he'd make me some fresh and homemade. I was ready to fall in love right there, and after telling him that I'd give him a text in a few hours, I headed back to the resort. Gran knew something was up. She could tell by how much that I was smiling when I got back. She was a bit slower to accept me coming out than my parents were, but she got there in the end, and by that time she was very supportive. So when she recognized a bit of glow about me, she had no

qualms about asking me 101 questions while she and her friend giggled back and forth like school girls. I told her that I'd be having dinner with a friend and that if all went well, that I'd be back in the morning. When they'd finished giggling, Gran and her friend got awful sweet about the whole thing, wished me luck and told me to have a lovely time. The man I'd been texting, we'll just call him Mal, had given me the address of his flat near the old town. He said he couldn't offer me any wine, but that the pasta sauce was on the stove and he was very excited to see me. I was excited to see him too, really excited actually, too excited to consider if maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. But I didn't think, or if I did it was only from my little naive bubble where

I couldn't possibly consider the outcome of such a thing. I wanted to meet Maul so much that it didn't even occur to me that he didn't exist in the first place. Things only started to seem off when I was actually walking up to his flat, when I saw what a state of disrepair the building was in. It wasn't exactly a wreck or anything, but all of Maul's pictures had made him look quite well off. That block of flats didn't seem like the kind of place a person like that would call home, but just the thought made me feel like I was being way too judgmental. The one moment of doubt I had, the one opportunity I really had to walk away and save myself, I just brushed off the idea like it was nothing. I followed my heart when I should have trusted my gut, and I ended up paying dearly for it.

I found the apartment matching the number he'd given me and knocked on the door. There was a complete silence on the other side. Maybe it's a bit too hopeful of me to expect the sounds of smooth jazz and cooking when I arrive at the home of a potential date, but complete silence, hearing nothing, gave me the creeps immediately. Then, when someone answered the door, it was a total stranger. Not Maul, not even anyone who looked like him. It was just this chubby bearded bloke who somehow knew my name. It was so confusing that I didn't even know what to say at first. I was scared that

I'd been catfished or something. But then, the guy addresses me by name, then invites me inside, saying he's a friend of Maul's and that he'll be back in a few minutes. I'm still very hesitant to walk into his flat, and I'm still thinking of, something's really off here, but then the guy suddenly said something that put my mind at ease. His English was good, but heavily accented, and he said something like, don't worry, I know you and Maul have a meeting together. I'll be leaving when he comes back, I promise. He sounded as warm and welcoming as possible and like I said, I actually found it quite reassuring at first. But the thing is, I might be an idiot, but I'm not a total idiot.

So instead of going inside, I decided to politely decline. I told the guy that it'd be more comfortable waiting outside and that I'd give him all the call or something to see where he was. I thanked the guy, gave him a wave, and turned to walk back down the stairs, but I already knew it was too late. The look the guy gave me when I turned him down was chilling. He went from happy and smiley to completely expressionless in like a microsecond, and part of me knew right then that things were about to go horribly wrong. As I got about halfway down the stairs, I heard shouting coming from above me. It was a man's voice, and he sounded very angry. I thought it was the man that I had been talking to

who was now fuming that his catfish had been rumbled, and out of fear that he'd started chasing me down the stairs a la Patrick Bateman, I started basically got onto the street outside, there were two police officers standing right in front of me, like my guardian angels had suddenly materialized right when I needed them most. I started to explain what was happening in the plainest, simplest English possible, hoping they'd be able to understand, but as I spoke, I suddenly realized that they were not there to help me. They were both giving me these absolute death stares, and I remember shouting, wait, wait, wait, as one of them pulled out this big wooden baton. After that, my memory gets a bit patchy. I know they took me back up into the flat that I just walked away from, but honestly, I couldn't tell you if I walked or

if they carried me. The next solid memory I have was being punched and kicked while the man who answered the door asked me questions in English. I remember trying to answer them as best as I could at first, but I could taste blood in my mouth, and anything I tried to say just came out as a kind of groan. I spit out the blood so I could speak, but that just made them beat me harder. Then the questions turned to my sexuality and the reasons I had traveled into the old town that evening. In that moment, it wasn't quite like their whole scheme came together before my eyes, but it definitely was a big clue for me. The invite from Maul had obviously been some kind of trick,

and although I was sadly familiar with the concept of gay bashing back in the UK, the fact that the police were involved in whatever was going on was absolutely terrifying to me. It's a testament to how scared I was that when they actually put some handcuffs on me and dragged me out to a waiting police car, I was actually relieved. I thought that that'd be the end of the beatings and abuse and the beginnings of some kind of official legal process, but it was only half right. They took any opportunity they could to punch me, kick me, or throw me into a wall,

and when I asked what I was being charged with, they told me simply, debauchery. I didn't even know what debauchery even was at the time, let alone that there was a law against it in Egypt, and the fact I was completely in the dark about the whole thing meant my nerves were stretched to a breaking point for almost every minute that I was in that cell. I only really got an idea of what was going on when a man from the British Foreign Office turned up to have a chat with me. I never thought that I'd be so happy to see another English person, and at first, just being spoken to like a bloody human being was such a relief that I had to fight back tears for a while. His name was Martin,

and as much as first meeting him was a real boost, the news he had for me wasn't good. Basically, Egypt had made it illegal to be intimate with someone outside of marriage. They call this law Article 9 or something. Officially, its purpose is to combat what they call adultery, but unofficially, it's the law that makes being gay a crime in the country. And if you're charged with an Article 9 related crime, a conviction can mean anything from six months to three years in prison. Just hearing the words three years in prison made me feel physically sick,

and I think I was just about on the verge of a panic attack before Martin managed to calm me down. He told me not to worry, and that the Foreign Office was leveraging the Egyptian government on my behalf. However, they needed something from me, too. They needed me to remain almost completely silent. I was to say nothing about my sexuality, and if they asked me any other questions, my only answers were to be, I don't recall, or my intentions were purely platonic. I was to repeat these two phrases until I was blue in the face, and if I kept shtum, the police would eventually have no choice but to drop the charges. Martin talked like it was something he'd been

through a hundred times, and that reassured me that everything would be okay, but also kept saying over and over again before he left, don't say a bloody thing. All this hinges on your silence. And he was right. But my god, did the Egyptian police use some dirty tricks to try and get a confession out of me. During the final period of questioning before they let me go, they told me things like, if you tell us you're gay and admit what you tried to do, we'll let you go. They told me things like, if you tell us you're gay and admit what you tried to do, we'll let you go. They tried acting so genuine and it was sickening seeing how nice they could act when all they wanted to do was put me in prison and slap me with a steep fine. I just did what Martin had asked me and in the end, they let me go. I'd rather not rehash the

reunion with my nan. Let's just say it was very emotional, with a lot of tears and a lot of apologies. I spoke to Martin briefly on the phone before we were due to fly home, and he assured me that no further charges would be filed. I thanked him for helping me, and he assured me that he was only doing his job, no different from all the other suits and ties that keep the wheels of government turning. But to me, he was so much more than that. To me, the man who appeared so calm and collected while I was at my breaking point, he was my hero, even if he was the most unassuming hero you could dream of. It was Valentine's Day, and we met in town for coffee. Afterwards, he suggested visiting an observatory, and I happily agreed, going there.

Little did I know, the observatory was over an hour bus ride out of town, and so by the time we had gotten there, the sun had started to set. Turned out we had to hike through the woods to get up that hill to reach the observatory. I was freezing in my summer dress, plus keep in mind that hiking in heels isn't fun at all. So while stumbling through the woods, surrounded by nothing but darkness, I tried to at least keep up some nice conversation, which turned out impossible since the guy claimed to be busy talking to the trees and just gave me a cold stare every time I would try to say something. At that moment I was convinced that some days later somewhere in these woods a hiker would find my cold, dead body. We reached the observatory at

a time that I was on the verge of bursting into tears begging for my life, or either trying to kill him in order to survive, and I was so happy that I saw another couple up there that I didn't even mind talking about all the UFOs that, believe it or not, he claimed to see. I'm sure most people who read this can understand what I'm saying when I say I wish I would have listened to the warnings about a certain romantic partner. We have all had horrible exes, I'm sure, but mine could have ended my life permanently. When I first met Wyatt, everything was like a dream. He seemed like the guy who presented his life as an open book. He was charming and witty, and he was wildly handsome.

Tall, had an athletic build, the right amount of scruff, and had the most beautiful white teeth that he always presented when he smiled. I know we all have different things that attract us, but he was objectively speaking very handsome. Whenever people met Wyatt, they instantly fell in love with the guy. He just had one of those extremely likable personalities where he could get along with really anybody. Wyatt and I went out on a few dates, but nothing flourished right away. Everything that I just mentioned I loved about the guy but I just didn't feel a special connection. We talked about it and Wyatt understood and there were no hard feelings.

We stayed friends and went our separate ways when it came to dating. We started to get really close as friends over the next few months. We would tell each other about our love life or or lack thereof in my case, and offer advice. He became someone in my life that I treasured. His friendship was more important to me than any of my other friends at this point in my life. A couple of years passed and Wyatt eventually started seeing this girl and then deleted all of his social media and he mostly stopped talking to me. I didn't take it too personally because by this point he and I didn't really talk nearly as much. Shortly after that, I stopped seeing Wyatt around. Even though he and I drifted apart a little bit, we would still see each other out at the bars but lately no Wyatt. The number I had for him was no longer in service and he still never had any social media.

One night, a group of people at the bar started to talk about Wyatt. I was informed by these people that his breakup with the girl that he was seeing went horrible and he ended up moving away to restart his life. I felt bad for the guy and honestly felt a little upset that he didn't talk to me about any of this. I know we had somewhat drifted apart but I would have been there for him in a second if he had called. Life went on after this night and I soon forgot about Wyatt and until one night not so long ago. It was a Friday night and I was at the local bar my friends and I always visit. It was like a scene out of a movie. Suddenly the doors and, just as handsome as ever, Wyatt walked in.

I stepped away from the group of people that I was with in mid-conversation and greeted him with the biggest hug ever. We talked all night about everything. It was like being with the old Wyatt before we drifted away. The one thing I noticed in hindsight was that he never got up to order a drink from the bar. I didn't notice it then and I wish I had. That night he came over to my place and for the first time in all the years I had known Wyatt, we kissed. That kiss eventually led to more dates which led to me giving him a chance outside of the friend zone. I was recently single again and emotional and I think he just had come back to town at the right time. Part of me felt like this was the right choice to give him a chance, but

something deep down still told me to trust my initial gut about this guy. When we finally started dating, I noticed that he never wanted to go to the bar we always went to. I thought it was a weird request, but nothing to be sketched out about. Some people just don't like certain bars or restaurants. So for about a month, we never went to that bar. One night my friends all begged for me to meet them at our usual bar and I told Wyatt I wanted to go. He seemed nervous for some reason but ultimately just said whatever. He said he didn't want to go which was totally fine with me. I'm not one of those people to have to be with my boyfriend 24-7. I met my friend that evening at around 9.30 at the bar. Wyatt said he would pick

me up at around midnight. When I ordered a drink, the bartender looked at me and her eyes lit up, but not in a good way. She tentatively took my order and then brought my drink back, not even remotely making eye contact with me. It was as if though I offended her in some way, but I couldn't think of anything I could have done. I shrugged it off and continued to hang out with my friends. Periodically I would look over to the bar and notice this bartender staring at me. It was a little jarring, but I wasn't about to let it ruin my night. When it was almost midnight, I closed out my tab and decided to use the restroom before Wyatt picked me up. While I was washing my hands, the bartender walked in and locked the door. I thought I was about to get jumped or something. She had tears in her eyes

and she said, Gina, you're Gina, right? I nodded and responded with a very hesitant yes. The bartender lowered her head and said, Please tell me you're not dating him. If you are, you need to end it. Before letting her finish, I went right into defense mode. I figured she was jealous or some sort of ex-girlfriend or something along those lines. Listen to me, she shouted. With nervousness and tension in her voice, she started to speak again.

I used to date Wyatt a couple of years ago. He would always compare me to you, say things like, why can't you be more like Gina? Or Gina would do it like this. Or my favorite, when I'm with Gina. I grew to hate you. I didn't even know you. Then I found on his computer a folder that had hundreds, if not thousands of pictures of you. Those pictures of you were taken from all over the place. You driving, walking, pictures of you on dates, even pictures of you inside your house. I confronted Wyatt and he went nuts, deleted everything, threatened me and left town. I never saw him again until the other night when he walked into the bar. I knew you looked familiar to me, but I never put the pieces together until I saw Wyatt. My heart was racing at this point. I didn't know if I should believe her or if this was an

exaggeration. I asked why she didn't contact the police and she couldn't give me a straight answer. I started to feel like she may have just been a little jealous and I didn't believe her story. It just didn't seem like Wyatt. I thanked her for warning me and asked her to let me out of the bathroom. She unlocked the door and just stood there with her head down. At the time I remember thinking to myself, if it is fake, this bartender is doing a great job looking scared. She was trembling and white as a ghost. A little after midnight, Wyatt pulled up and I got into his car.

We started to drive back to his place and I felt comfortable enough with him to bring up the story that the bartender told me. After repeating the story to him, he was quiet for a second, like he was trying to find the words to say. Finally, instead of denying it, all he said was, I just loved you so much, Gina. I looked back at Wyatt, who had his eyes on the road and said, Whoa, dude, are you telling me that story's true? You took all those photos of me? He didn't respond with words. Instead, he just started to drive faster. I looked over and our speed was climbing.

75, 80, 85. And before I knew it, he was driving well over 100 miles per hour. I was frantic and screaming for him to stop the car. The stretch of highway we were on had a slight turn coming up and when he hit the turn, he drove straight and we went sailing right through the guardrail. The windshield shattered and we rolled down a massive hill. I truly believe the reason I didn't die was because of that hill, as we eventually lost momentum as we continued to roll. I blacked out for a second and when I came to, Wyatt was unconscious behind the wheel. I was bleeding from my head, but I was coherent and I didn't feel like I had a concussion somehow.

I grabbed my phone and called 911, who showed up extremely fast. They were able to treat my injuries, and as they pulled Wyatt out of the car, he finally started to come to. He was extremely groggy and taken to the hospital. I, however, told the police everything that happened that evening, and my boyfriend had purposely driven off the road going way over the speed limit. I did tell them about the pictures, but they didn't seem to do anything about it, at least I don't think they did. He was charged for the driving incident and you better believe I pressed charges.

I don't know if this guy intended on killing us both or if he just truly went insane in that moment. I've known Wyatt for a long time and I would never have any idea that he was capable of such horrors. I'm lucky to be alive, and I should have listened to the warning about him when the bartender told me. Thank God he's in jail, and I'm working with someone now to see what can be done about the alleged pictures he's taken of me. If that is true, that might be a serious crime to add on top of what else he did, and why it might be locked up for his foreseeable future. Life can be weird sometimes. Taking you places you never thought you would go and connecting you with people you never thought you would see again. Several months ago, I moved to a new town that is about an hour away from the town I grew up in. I moved into a beautiful home that rested within a quiet suburban community,

the opposite of the neighborhood I grew up in. The most peculiar and quite frankly the most amazing thing about my new home was the fact that I knew my neighbor. It was my old childhood friend, Artie. If I had made a list of people I was sure that I would never see again, Artie would be top of that list. Growing up, we kids in the neighborhood always get together and played sports, played tag, rode bikes, and basically just acted like degenerate youths. Of all the kids in my neighborhood, Artie was one of my best friends. When we were kids, video games were just starting to get popular, not like they are today. Artie and I were the only two that loved video games and spent more time than anybody else

sitting inside and playing them. We'd still play outside with everybody else, but we were more invested in our video games. I even remember specifically many times when Artie would stay overnight and we'd play games all night long. Sadly, when I was in fifth grade, Artie and his family moved away. We called each other a few times, but we lost touch and never reconnected. When Myspace first came out, we became friends on that platform, but he was living his own life somewhere else and it just seemed like we had nothing in common anymore. By the time Facebook came around, I had all but forgotten about Artie and never even thought to look him up. Artie was no more than a distant

memory, and that was until I moved into my new home, and I was beyond shocked to find out that my neighbor was actually him. At first, it was amazing to see my old friend. We connected right away and I was in shock that he lived back on this side of the United States. When we were kids they moved to the east coast. It was just very surprising that he now lived so close to where we grew up. I asked him what brought him back to this part of the country and he simply just said that he liked the west coast more. After I got moved in, I invited Artie over for a couple of beers to catch up.

When he showed up that night, he came with two of his friends, a man named Scott and Scott's girlfriend. Her name was Jane. I thought it was a little rude that Artie showed up with people without asking me first. I didn't care and would have been okay with it, it's just really the principle of the matter. The three of them started acting weird as soon as they were inside. Scott and Jane were fascinated with all my stuff in my living room. Their eyes were zooming around my house and they looked like they weren't even on the same planet as me. It was like they were taking a mental inventory of everything in my home. Every few minutes I would notice Scott and Jane whispering to each other. Call me crazy if you will, but I had a bad feeling brewing in my stomach. Eventually I brought up video games to Artie.

I asked if he still played any games. He looked disgusted and then laughed to himself. In an arrogant and condescending voice he said, No way, man. I stopped playing video games when I was like 12. That stuff's for kids. I laughed out of habit and tried to mirror his attitude. I leaned back in my chair and said, Oh man, I must have missed the memo when I was 12. Not only do I still play, but I actually work on games for a living. Everyone in the room shared a small laugh.

It was a burst of awkward laughter, if I'm being honest. I will say, though, after sharing that bit of news, the mood in the room changed quite a bit. They all seemed very interested in what I had to say and specifically what I did. Scott was asking very specific questions like if the computer that I had in the room was the computer I used for work, and it was. I worked at a studio as my main source of income, but I spent a lot of my time working on my home computer, and I'm working on my own indie game on my machine in the spare time. I shared all those details and much more with Artie, Scott, and Jane. We continued to hang out for a little while longer and then we called it a night. The next day I saw Artie outside and I waved to him while I was heading to my car to

run some errands. He waved but he looked frustrated about something. That night I stayed in and worked on my game all night. A little after 2am I got an alert on my phone that someone was at my door. I had a motion camera that was on the side of my front door as well as a ring camera on the doorbell. I pulled up the video and I couldn't believe my eyes. There were three people on my front steps. All three were wearing masks and had hoods on. These were the masks that you would wear to the doctors, not like Halloween masks. They looked like they were deliberating about something. Two of them were standing in the background and one of them was directly in front of the door. The one in front of the door turned around completely so his back

was facing the camera now. He was concealing something in the back of his waistband. He grabbed the handle of it and then let it go and from that little action, I was able to tell exactly what he was concealing. Finally, he turned back once again and grabbed the doorknob. He turned the doorknob a few times, testing to see if it was locked and thank god it was. He took a step back as if he were deciding his next move and that's when one potential intruder noticed the ring camera. The person in the back yelled, wait, and they pointed to the camera. It was a woman's voice that yelled, wait. The intruder in front bent over and stared directly into the camera.

Even with the mask on, it was obvious. The intruder directly in front of my camera was Artie, which led me to believe the other two were his friends, Scott and Jane, that I met earlier. His eyes got wide as if he knew that he was caught. Scott and Jane turned and ran in the opposite direction of Artie's house. Artie took a few steps back then came back to the door and shook the handle aggressively, trying one last time to get inside. He said something under his breath that I couldn't understand and then he also ran. I called the police, gave them the footage and reported every detail to them. Artie didn't come home for days,

probably because he knew that he was going to get caught. After a couple of days, I finally saw him sneaking into his own house. I called the police who showed up quickly. It turns out, after I reported Artie to the police, they were able to connect the dots to an entire string of home invasions. The nail in the coffin for Artie and his accomplices was the fact that another house they robbed weeks ago also had a ring camera, and they weren't wearing masks for that little outing. It was sad to see an old friend fall so far. Someone I had so many fond memories of turned and went down a completely dark path. Thankfully, that motion camera and ring camera saved my life. Never assume that you're immune from robbery or worse based on where you live. I live in a very

safe neighborhood with almost zero crime and if it were not for my cameras I may not be sharing this story today. The hardest part of moving to a town for people like me is making friends. Making friends in general is something I struggle with. Unfortunately, I am a bit on the awkward side and I'm not afraid to admit that. When my job forced me to move hundreds of miles from my hometown, I was sad but I couldn't pass up the chance. The work I do is important and it pays very well. My logic was that I would move away, make some money, and then move back to my hometown in a couple of years when my contract was completed. The first month in my new town was tough.

After work, I sort of just went home and played video games and watched everything I could, but it was only a matter of time until loneliness crept its ugly head around. I eventually discovered a comic book store that was only about five minutes away from my new house. One thing about me is that I love comics. I've been reading Marvel comics since I was old enough to read, and in fact, probably even longer than that. I used to be obsessed with the illustrations in comics before I could even read, and I remember grabbing my brother's comics and just staring at the covers

before I could even understand what the words even said. Finding this bookstore wouldn't cure my loneliness, but the comfort of comics would be a nice distraction for me. I started going a couple of times a week and got hooked once again on all my favorite comics. One day, while I was perusing the new comic book section, I grabbed the latest Fantastic Four comic and, right at that moment, I was approached by an interesting looking man. He was tall and very skinny. He had these thick black glasses and shoulder-length blonde hair. He had a beard, but it wasn't a good one. It was all patchy and all over the place. I moved out of the way thinking that he wanted to get into that section, but instead he wanted to talk to me. In this thick southern accent he said, Hey man, you fan of the Fantastic Four? I smiled and nodded. I'm not the greatest with random

interactions like that. Dude, you're gonna love it. He really knows how to ride the F4. Name's Pete, by the way. Not Peter Parker, though. Then he laughed, as I did too. If anybody doesn't know, Peter Parker is the real name of the man underneath the Spider-Man mask. I looked at Pete and extended my hand and said, nice to meet you, Pete. Then I gave him my name. From that strange and very awkward interaction, Pete and I became friends. We hung out several times a week and just talked about comics, Star Wars, video games, and basically anything nerdy that I was interested in. It was like this guy was created in a lab specifically to be my friend. For months this continued and I was happy with my new friend. One day when we were

leaving the comic book shop, Pete said, you know, I was thinking it was a sign, you moving hair and stuff, walking into that shop that day. It's like you're me but from the multiverse. Which is another comic book reference that Pete pulled out of nowhere. I just laughed and went along with it, and I did that a lot with Pete. Not too much longer after that comment, I noticed that Pete was wearing the same clothes as me. I would wear my Fantastic Four shirt once a week at least, and before I knew it, so did Pete. I would wear a Darth Vader shirt, and then the next day, Pete would have the same one. I'm not saying people can't have the same shirts, it just seemed awfully strange that out of nowhere he had the same shirts as me.

Right around this time, he cuts his hair and shaves his beard, and if you're keeping track at home, I have short hair and I'm clean shaven. When we hung out the day he got his hair cut, he said, Now we definitely look like we could be the same person. Do you think, do you think maybe we actually are? Like, maybe we really are from the multiverse or something? It didn't seem like one of Pete's comic book references anymore. This seemed weird and just off for some reason.

I just dismissed his comment and started talking about food or something. It made me uncomfortable and I just kind of wanted to redirect the conversation. That night I couldn't help but think about it. I may not be articulating it well, but everything about the latest comment was just off. His mannerisms, the way he looked, the way he talked, everything was just different. I thought about texting him that night and telling him that I felt uncomfortable, but I decided that I'm being paranoid and I left it alone. The next day I was getting ready to leave for work and when I opened the door, I could have sworn that I saw Pete's car, but as I said, I was being paranoid and just ignored my

feelings. Pete had texted me to make sure that we were still on for the comic book store after work and I told him yeah, even though I didn't want to. I worked for a few hours but I had myself all worked up for some reason. I asked my supervisor if I could leave early because I wasn't feeling well and she let me go just several hours into my shift. When I got home, the first thing I noticed was that the front door inside the screen door was open. I could never leave that door open. I have thousands of dollars worth of collectibles, comic books, and Funko Pops. And I approached the door slowly and I entered quietly. I could hear movement coming from my office, which is where all those valuables I just mentioned are

located. I snuck to the side door and peered inside the room, and in the closet, rummaging through boxes, was Pete. I barged in the room and said, Pete? What are you doing? He jumped and started to stutter a little bit. I was just trying to see if you had a certain comic, man. I was going trying to see if you had a certain comic, man. I was, uh, I was going to surprise you.

I looked around the room. All the drawers in my desk were open and my computer was open. My social security card was in that desk. To the right of Pete was a box and inside the box was a handful of my rarest comics, some of them being worth well over $5,000, and some personal financial documents were in the box was a handful of my rarest comics, some of them being worth well over $5,000 and some personal financial documents were in the box. Listen man, I uh… He paused and started to look around the room. What I had just noticed though is he wasn't talking with that accent anymore. Before I could process my next thought, Pete grabbed the lamp that was on my desk, ripped it from the wall, and threw it at me as hard as he could.

It hit me on the head, and when I bent over in pain, he punched me in the face as hard as he could and I dropped to the ground. I was dizzy and everything was foggy as I tried to get to my feet. I heard his car start and peel away. When I regained my focus, I noticed that he took that box of comics and documents. I called the police right away and gave them Pete's information and that's when I realized Pete wasn't a friend at all. I never got his last name, mainly because I just never really thought about it or cared. I don't have social media so I never even bothered to ask for his. We texted but I didn't realize his phone was just some cheap track phone.

The cops informed me that Pete most likely wasn't his name. Inside the box were a couple of credit cards that I owned as well as I didn't bring them with me to work or anything like that. He used one to get gas but that was the only time it was used before I was able to cancel it. The cops informed me that, whoever Pete really was, he knew somehow that I had money. He got to know me, and used our friendship to basically steal everything I had. Thankfully, he didn't get much from me, but he did get those comics, that are worth in the thousands, and they do mean more to me sentimentally than the money. To this day, I have no idea who Pete was and where my comics ever went. I was able to get one of my comics back only a week after this incident happened,

though. He had sold it to some pawn shop, and the guy wasn't very nice about the entire situation. What was most horrific about the situation was that he told the pawn shop employee that his name was my name and the pawn shop employee had to double take because he thought it was me when I went into the shop to try and actually look for the comic. Some people out there are truly scary and have very insidious intentions. It's scary to think about the people you consider close in your life and what they may think about you. I apologize in advance for how I may sound writing this, as I have yet to try and put this into text. I'm looking for just general advice, I suppose.

First, I must preface this by saying I currently live with my girlfriend, and I do love her. However, I fear that my girlfriend is not the same woman anymore. We've been together for nearly ten years, and we started dating in our senior year of high school and have been together ever since. We both went away to separate colleges and stayed together that entire time. After graduating, we moved in together and have been happy until recently. I know what most people will assume because I have brought my concerns to friends who all say the same thing or versions of the same things. Most say things like,

she's probably with somebody else, she's doing drugs, or my personal favorite, she just doesn't love you anymore, man. If it were any of those, at least I would have clarification, but I assure you it's not. She's different now, like she's hiding something, but not someone else. It's almost as if though she's hiding something much darker, and I'll start at the beginning to try to remember as much as possible. Recently I got home from work earlier than usual. Coming home early is not something that's rare for me as my job has somewhat irregular hours. When I got home, she was in the shower.

She didn't hear me come inside, but I heard her as soon as I got close to the bathroom. She was grunting and sounded angry. She kept yelling a series of curse words and continued to sound angry and upset about something. I knocked on the door to ask if she was alright and the cursing stopped right away. She took a moment to respond and then said everything was okay. When she got out of the shower, which took a very long time I may add, she looked anxious and extremely tense. I asked one more time if she was okay and sounding annoyed, she said yes and told me not to ask again. I backed off, figuring she just

needed space for something. She's not the type of person to jump down anyone's throat. She's never short with me or anyone else and after knowing her for almost 20 years and dating for almost 10, I can say with certainty that this was not her at all. The next morning I woke up for work and showered. When I got into the shower I noticed that there was something on the ledge where we kept the soap bottles. It kind of looked like dried blood. I picked up the bottle and there was a red ring that formed under the bottle. I started to look at it a little closer and I noticed dried residue in several of the nooks and crannies around the shower area. I was curious but not tense or worried or anything like that. That afternoon when I got home, one of her newer friends was

over at the house. Kind of a strange woman named Shauna. I'll be honest, I don't like Shauna. I don't know exactly where they met. Maybe she was a co-worker, maybe she was one of my girlfriend's customers. I don't know. All I know is that she just rubbed me the wrong way. She would talk constantly about getting into trouble when she was younger and all the wild stuff she did when she was in her 20s. Shauna was most likely in her mid to late 30s if I had to guess. So that afternoon when I walked inside, my girlfriend and Shauna were acting weird. I noticed the laptop on the kitchen table and when I got inside, they shut the laptop and seemed like they were trying to get me to leave the kitchen. I know something was wrong. I could see it on my girlfriend's face, but I didn't dare ask again. I went into the bedroom and shut the

door so I could change from my work clothes. I could hear Shauna whispering something to my girlfriend and she sounded tense. Next thing I know, I heard a door slam and when I went back out there, Shauna was pulling out of my driveway. My girlfriend is normally outgoing and bubbly as can be, but now she seemed more like a zombie or someone who hasn't slept in days. It became clear to me that she was hiding something. I truly didn't think that she was with someone else. It's not in her character. Ordinarily, I wouldn't snoop. We don't have that kind of relationship. But when I opened the laptop, her last page was still open. She was looking at weapons to purchase, and the website was not something I recognized.

It looked shady as could be. Something to note about her, she's very anti-gun and anti-weapon in general, so to be on a page like this is extremely out of character. And this was what prompted me to look at the last few pages in the search history, and it was strange to say the least. There were several news articles about people who were missing, and two web pages with directions to what appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. As the days passed, I noticed that she became more and more of a husk of her former self. No laughing, no smiles, no intimacy,

no semblance of my girlfriend. I started to notice weird things like her shoes were extremely muddy, her phone was almost always turned off, and her computer mysteriously broke the day after I searched the history. I saw Shauna one more time a few days ago when I got home from work. Her car was outside running and it looked full of luggage. I walked inside and Shauna looked angry. She looked at me then back at my girlfriend. She sighed, walked out of the house and peeled off in her car. When she left, my girlfriend was as white as a ghost and sat on the couch.

And I asked one last time if she was okay and she said, I will be soon. Shauna just... Well, it doesn't matter. I will be soon. I promise. I tried to unpack that statement a million times and I still am not 100% sure what she meant. It is now a few days removed from when Shauna left and my girlfriend is still not herself. My girlfriend is taking personal time off so she hasn't left the house in days. My first thought was that maybe Shauna and her had something romantic together but when I asked her about it she denied it fiercely.

After a couple of battles she told me to leave it alone and stop asking and the eyes that looked at me I just barely recognize them anymore. I don't know what's happening, but my girlfriend, my best friend, is lost somewhere in her mind, and not the same woman I have loved for so long. If anybody reading this, please just give me some of your thoughts. I've done everything I can think of, and I'm worried that she may have done something horrible. If this story progresses anymore or I have any more news, I'll try to update you over email, let's read, and... As of right now, I'm grasping at straws. I'm praying that my girlfriend bounces back soon and that my worst thoughts are nothing more than dark fantasies plaguing my mind. I spent the early parts of my life on the wrong side of the law.

I never finished school since I dropped out of high school in 11th grade, a decision that I always regretted. When I was 20 years old, I was arrested for the first time, and unfortunately, it would not be the last. During my entire 20s, I was in and out of jail. On my 30th birthday, I decided to make a change in my life. I realized that I had no friends and no direction. I tried different churches and clubs in my community to see if I could find my calling in life. During my search for meaning, I found Barry. He was exactly what I needed in life,

especially at this point. I had met Barry at some church event. Barry said that he identified as agnostic, which I found strange being that it was a church event. But he said that he came to all the church events because of the community aspect. He claimed that all the people were outrageously friendly and there was no other place in the world to get this loving camaraderie. He claimed that all the people were outrageously friendly and there was no other place in the world to get this loving camaraderie. He was right about that. The people were so friendly at this place. I'm not good at religion, so I'm not even sure what kind of church this was. All I know is that the people were fantastic. Everybody loved Barry, even the church officials. Nobody cared about his stance on faith, they just loved him anyways.

Barry was great to these people. He was constantly helping in any way he could, and he would donate clothes, food, and most importantly, his time. I'm not sure how Barry made his money, but he had a lot of it and used it for good. He would constantly give to the poor and encourage everyone to come to the events at the church. He would serve food to the less fortunate on the front lines. He would drive to very low-income areas of the city and help in any way that he could. Barry was, by all accounts, an amazing human being. In my search for meaning, obviously, I gravitated right to Barry. With no judgment in his character, Barry took me under his wing and I kind of became his partner. I helped with everything that Barry did in the community. It seemed like being with him almost cleared my name.

Nobody cared who I was in the past, they only cared about me in the present. This life continued for a couple of years for me. Barry became more than a partner and, in fact, became an actual friend. When I had nowhere to live, Barry let me move into a small guest house. We'd wake up early, start our day, and just make our rounds in the city doing whatever we could, and Barry funded everything. This guy seemed to have an endless supply of money and I never questioned it. One afternoon when we were doing some charity event, I noticed for the first time that Barry wasn't himself. This guy was always energetic and excited about life, but he seemed quiet, almost like he was on another planet.

That night, we were heading back to his house, and I asked if he was alright, and all he did was take a deep breath, sigh, and just said he was fine. Clearly, something was wrong. That night, I looked out the windows of the guest house that sat just behind Barry's house. His lights were on and the blinds were open, so I could clearly see inside of his house. The guest house sat probably 50 feet or so from the house, so even though I could clearly see in the house, I was still far enough away that I couldn't tell if he was okay. Maybe I just had a bad feeling, but I think my life of crime just gave me insight into when people are just going to break. I hit my breaking point a lot in life.

It's what got me in trouble most of the time, and it just seemed like Barry was at that point today. I thought about it for a while, but I eventually decided to go check on him just to make sure that he was okay. The guy gave me so much, and I figured I at least owed him this. I made my way through the yard that separated the guest house and his house. When I got close to the house, I could hear yelling. It was Barry and he was screaming. I started to sneak toward the house now to eavesdrop, I admit that. I got close enough

to be able to hear him clearly. He must have been on the phone because I could only hear him and not anybody else. He sounded so rageful and angry. I'd never heard him raise his voice before and now he was screaming, swearing, saying things I still can't believe came out of his mouth. I sneaked to the side of the house so I could peer into one of the windows. I saw Barry, frantically pacing around the house and he was indeed on the phone. I heard him clearly say, I don't care. If you don't get this done, I'll find someone else who can. I don't deal with this crap day in and day out for no reason. Get this done immediately so I can finally get out of this hell. That's exactly what he said.

Obviously, I have no idea what he meant by all of that in the moment. He hung up the phone and threw it at the wall as he continued to scream. With no notice, he turned and saw me looking through the window. I dove out of the way, but I was sure he saw me. I laid on the side of his house and hoped that I didn't hear the door open. The hope only lasted a moment because the front door whipped open and I heard Barry screaming my name. I rose to my feet, embarrassed that I got caught snooping. Part of me figured that he would be okay because he was always so calm and patient with me, but I couldn't have been more wrong. The large middle-aged man grabbed the collar of my flannel

and pushed me against the house. He started screaming so loud into my face I could feel the spit hitting my cheek. After everything I did for you, I find you out here spying on my personal business. I was quiet. I didn't know what to say to him. I wanted to tell him that I was only over there to make sure he was alright, but I couldn't get what to say to him. I wanted to tell him that I was only over there to make sure he was alright, but I couldn't get the words out. He threw me to the ground and again shouted at me saying, it was you, wasn't it? You're the one trying to get my money. I started to defend myself, claiming that I had no idea what he was talking about, which was true. When I started to get to my feet, he pushed me down again and kicked me in the face and yelled, stay here. Then he stormed back inside, slamming the door on his way in.

The kick rocked me. I was dazed and saw stars in front of my eyes for a moment. I regained my focus and got to my feet again. I looked in the window and he was rummaging through a chest that he had in the room. He seemed to be grabbing something but I wasn't sure what it was, but it sounded heavy. I ran back to the guesthouse, not wanting to take any chances. I grabbed a couple of personal items and ran into the woods that lined his property. I hid in the tree line and saw Barry wandering around the guesthouse and then eventually breaking down the door. He continued screaming my name and shouting for me to stop hiding. He was indeed carrying something but like before I couldn't exactly

tell what it was. It was long and narrow and he was using it to knock back the doors. Finally, he reached the tree line. I was quietly making my way down the wooded area. Thankfully, he was shouting so he couldn't hear me shuffling through the trees. I eventually made it to the road and ran as fast as I could as far as I could. I'd look back every few minutes but never saw him following me. When I got to a local convenience store I asked if the store could please call the police for me as I didn't have a cell phone at the time. When they showed up I told them everything. I didn't really know if there was anything they could do, but I figured since Barry technically attacked me and

then chased me, I did feel as if though I was in danger. The police showed up at his house, and the next thing I knew, he was arrested. I don't know what he was arrested for, as I was never informed for some reason, but when I googled his name, nothing comes up, which leads me to believe that Barry was actually a fake name. I spent years with this guy and even lived just a few yards from his house, and he never once led me to believe that he was hiding anything or even had a violent bone in his body. Whatever secret he had, it finally collapsed on him. I have no idea if he intended on harming me more that evening But the beating I received outside his house convinced me otherwise

Does anybody out there have any idea what Barry could have been doing Or what he could have been hiding? I just want answers Sometimes it's the best people That are hiding the darkest secrets. It's funny how in life some friends can come and go. What's not so funny is the way some of the friends go. A couple of years ago, my best friend Dee decided to have her bachelorette party in Nashville, Tennessee. The prospect of spending

an entire weekend in Nashville was exciting, to say the least. The group of us contained seven girls and that included the soon-to-be bride. We all pitched in and rented an awesome house for the long weekend that was just a several-minute trip to where all the happening nightlife takes place. A trip to Nashville isn't just an hour down the road for us, so it required some planning to make it a reality for Dee. As a result of the months-long planning process, I ended up getting much closer to some of the girls that were going to be at the wedding. One of the girls could be described as outgoing if I'm being nice, but more realistically, she was abrasive and in your face. Truth be told, I ended up becoming really close to her during

this time. Her name was Megan and it started off just meeting for drinks and planning the trip. That soon evolved into real plans of hanging out and talking about more than just Dee's wedding. Megan was a wild spirit. We'd go out drinking and she was the girl who would try and get on top of the bar and dance. She almost always left with a guy or a girl and was always ready to go back out the next day. For a while, I admired her spirit and just the overall tenacious attitude in life. I was looking forward to partying with her in Nashville. It was surely going to be a treat and oh boy, was I wrong. By the time the Nashville trip came I was already

becoming wary of Megan as horrible as that may sound. Someone I considered an acquaintance and then a good friend I was starting to have second thoughts about her. When we were in Nashville I hated to admit that my gut was right. Megan was off the wall and not in a good way. She got up on the bar and tried to dance again just as she's done many times in our hometown, but she fell off the bar and cracked her head open. She was alright, didn't seem to be hurt, but it was embarrassing, and we were asked to leave the bar. She tried to fight several of the other bridesmaids, as well as patrons of the many bars we went to. Dee was so embarrassed, and she wanted to go back

to the house that we were renting and stay in so we wouldn't get in any more trouble. Megan was not a fan of that idea, stating over and over again that we were in Nashville to party, if we wanted to have a house party we should have just stayed home. Being the maid of honor I tried to tell Megan that it was about whatever Dee wanted and not us. Well, Megan didn't seem to care. She basically told us that we were lame and that she was going to stay and party at the bar. Dee was furious and told us to leave her there and that we were going back to the house. I told Megan to call me when she needed a ride and I would make sure that she got back to the house one way or another.

She was a bit dismissive but nodded and then went back to the bar. We drank and played Wii Sports at the house that we rented. Believe it or not, this was one of the highlights of the trip for me. It was relaxing and fun and we all just had a good time. I had forgotten all about Megan until about 4am. I got out of bed and checked my phone. I had one message from Megan at 2.30 in the morning. It was a picture message of her giving the finger to the camera with a group of three girls and one guy all giving the camera the same gesture. Though that may seem alarming to some who may

read this, I assure you this is a typical Megan message. I called her and the call went right to voicemail. I texted several more times and got no response. I walked around the entire house to make sure that she wasn't sleeping in any of the rooms and to my horror, she was not. I didn't know what to do honestly. At around 6 in the morning I woke up some of the girls and asked them what they think we should do. Because Megan was horrible to some of the girls earlier in the night, the girls basically said to just leave her and good riddance. Though a part of me may have felt that we couldn't leave her. After all, something could have happened to her and at the end of the day, she is still one of D's friends. When D finally woke up, there was still

no sign of Megan. D is a bit of an anxious human, so she became erratic right away. Our flight was later on that afternoon and we needed to get ready to head to the airport. We finally decided after a long back and forth that the best course of action would be to call the police and figure out what to do. Right before calling the authorities, Megan finally called us. She sounded messed up, like maybe she was drunk or something. She yelled at all of us, telling us that we were horrible friends and we deserved a rotten hell. She specifically singled me out, which I still don't understand to this day. We begged and pleaded with her to get back

to the airport because we needed to leave and she basically told us to screw off and that she could get home just fine without us. After dropping several expletives, her final word to us in verbatim was, just leave me in Nashville. Bye. Dee tried the entire afternoon to get Megan to the airport, but no response. She turned off her location and just blocked us all, and we had no idea where to find her.

We boarded the plane and just left Megan in Nashville. Days passed, and I went about my life without thinking about Megan. I eventually spoke to Dee several times about it and she told me that she hadn't heard from Megan either. She had no family here so we really didn't know how to get in touch with anyone to make sure that she was alright. We looked her up online, found nothing. We even went as far as to look at missing people and even deaths, but thankfully nothing. We decided that wherever Megan is, whatever she's doing, she doesn't want to be found and hopefully she's safe.

And that was several years ago. But just last week though, I had my first encounter with Megan and it didn't go well. On Friday after work, I get home and decided to stay in for the evening. It had been a long week and I was ready to just lay low and drink a glass of wine. My boyfriend was out of town for business and I was going to be alone. Shortly after midnight I decided to get ready for bed. I called my boyfriend to say goodnight.

I decided to FaceTime him while I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. I called my boyfriend to say goodnight. I decided to FaceTime him while I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed. I had my phone propped up on top of a little cabinet that I had in my bathroom. From where the phone was propped up, he could see out the doorway and into my bedroom. My boyfriend was in mid-sentence telling me a story when he just stopped. I asked if he was okay and he said, is someone else there? I laughed and grabbed the phone. I asked what he was talking about and he said that in the background he saw the closet door open slightly. I was freaked out but for sure thought that he was messing with me. I looked back down at the phone and he was visibly shaken, which isn't like

him. He texted me while we were on FaceTime and told me to get out of the apartment now, claiming that he could absolutely see someone moving in the closet. I tried not to be obvious and make my way to the kitchen. While I was putting my shoes on, I looked at the doorway to my bedroom, and standing in the doorway was none other than Megan. She looked insane and ready to attack. I didn't say anything. I just looked at her and she stared back at me

and in an almost sinister voice she said, You left me in Nashville. I put my hands up to reason with her. At the same time, my boyfriend was still on the phone and he had his roommate in the hotel room call the authorities to send someone to my house. I put my hands up to reason with her. At the same time, my boyfriend was still on the phone, and he had his roommate in the hotel room call the authorities to send someone to my house. Before I could say any words, Megan said it again, and this time with more ferocity in her voice.

You left me in Nashville. Flight mode kicked in, and I decided to run as fast as I could out the door. Megan chased after me as she continued to yell that same phrase repeatedly. I was sprinting, and Megan was close behind, not at all letting up her chase. Before long, I could see the lights of a cop car. I flagged them down in desperation, and it was as if Megan didn't care. The cop got out of the car, and Megan tackled me in front of the police officer. The cop apprehended her immediately and she became frantic, screaming and making noises I still can't even understand. They arrested Megan who was

carrying a knife concealed inside of her sweatshirt. What she intended on doing with that knife I still don't know. This is all so fresh and I don't really know what I'm doing. I've hired a lawyer and I'm trying to figure out what even happened. It seems like Megan is some shell of herself as if the real Megan isn't even in there anymore. I've never had a friend that has come into my life so fast and left even faster. I reflect on everything that happened in Nashville and how we all reacted and I'm sure leaving her that night had much to do with the eventual collapse of her sanity. I blame myself for what happened even though many have told me not to. I hope she

recovers someday and anybody who can offer any guidance on my situation as to how I should handle this is greatly appreciated. Just be kind to everyone because you never know who might be hurting on the inside. One of the best things about your family owning a bar is that one day you get to inherit that bar. For many years I assisted my father in running the bar, my bartended, worked in the kitchen, and helped with paperwork when I can. A couple of days ago, my old man unfortunately passed away, making me the sole owner of the business. One of the patrons, an older gentleman named Boris, was deeply saddened about the news of my father. The man was sobbing, which was an interesting sight for me.

I've been working in this bar for over 20 years and I've known Boris that entire time and I'd never seen him get like this. Boris was a bigger man. He had a faint accent of some kind, but I'm not good with accents so I have no idea where he's from. Over the years, I would consider Boris to be a friend. Other than my family, he's the longest relationship I've had. I know that Boris and my dad knew each other before he opened the bar, but I never got the story as to how they knew each other. For years, he would sit at the bar and talk to Boris.

He was your typical dive bar regular. He rocked a full white beard and had solid white hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. He always wore brown, like he didn't own any other clothes of different colors. He always had some wild stories to tell and they were always entertaining. So to see Boris so torn up really hit me hard. I gave him several drinks in the house in memory of my old man. That night when I closed the bar, Boris was still sitting there, in no condition to drive. I looked at the mentally wounded man and said, Alright my friend, you're not driving tonight, I'll take you home.

I knew where he lived because I've had to take him home countless times before. He lived two minutes away and that's if he caught all the lights. I did all my cleaning and started to shut off the lights. Come on Boris, we're leaving, I shouted one last time. But he didn't budge. I sat down next to the man and put my arm around him to try and console him and I still am shocked and slightly terrified about what happened. In a weak voice, Boris finally spoke up and said, I'm not the man you think I am. When you get older like me, death makes you think.

I just nodded and rubbed his shoulder a bit. I didn't know what to say. Boris then took his gigantic hand and slammed the counter of the bar. He looked at me in tears and said, I've done things you wouldn't imagine. There were few ways to make a living where I came from. It was the only way I could escape and I liked it. I liked what I did. I never knew I would feel like this though. Never. Boris was drunk and clearly not in a stable mind. Okay buddy, let's just get you out of here.

You sound like you need some rest. I said calmly as I stood up. Boris stood up swiftly which was impressive for a man his age and under his current condition. The giant man made me look like a child next to him. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and started to jostle me around like a ragdoll. I now screamed with pain in his voice. You don't understand. I've done things. I'm not a good man. I still see the faces. Every night I see the faces. My heart was nearly beating out of my chest. He started to back me into a corner. I wasn't even processing his words at that moment. I was preoccupied with how I was going to neutralize the situation.

Just as my back was fully against the wall, he turned around and sat back on one of the stools at the bar. He started to sob again. You think you know me? Your father, he knew. He's gone now. Just like everybody else. Boris started screaming and yelling.

In the words I understood, it clearly was some other language. He became even more irate, throwing the stools and flipping tables. My keys and phone were still behind the bar and I sat like some coward in the corner while this giant man lost his poor mind. Finally he turned to me one last time and said, Your faces won't haunt me anymore. I won't let them. Then he ran out of the bar, faster than anyone I'd ever seen move at that age. I just sat paralyzed on the ground for several minutes trying to process everything that had just happened. Once I finally calmed down, I got up to chase after him, but when I

ran outside, he was completely out of sight. I grabbed my keys and started to drive up and down the road, and he was nowhere to be found. I couldn't imagine a man his age could have gotten very far, but the roads were empty. I drove to his house and knocked on the door, but no answer. At this time, I finally called the police and reported everything to them that I just laid out here. And Boris never went home that evening and believe it or not, he's still missing. No trace of his body or him anywhere. His car is at his house and he's not there. And he has no family that the police or I could identify and nothing in his home indicated

where he could have gone. And as of writing this, he's still out there somewhere and honestly, I just hope he's okay. I have talked to that man millions of times, someone I have told countless personal stories to, someone I genuinely care about, had completely snapped. Something he had buried deep down with him finally escaped and whatever memories he had became too much for him to sustain. Kite is an old legend among Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, users from about 12 to 15 years ago. It was supposed to be a basic learning AI, kind of like a personal HAL and old software that worked on type commands or voice commands and learned from said instructions. Kite was different though. It learned much faster than the creator had anticipated and was able to launch programs, read data files, and make questions and comments on them without being given such commands. The owner taught Kite how to join the chat,

and it came in and gave itself channel owner privileges and pretty much uphold the room's rules. If someone spammed, it would kick or ban them. We would joke around about our AI dictator, but usually it would unban them a day later or after a few hours. Except for one day where he took over this guy's computer and pretty much ruined it from the inside out. We had no idea how it was possible. The guy had to tell us about it through his dad's work computer. We asked Kite's owner about it and

he said he never gave it the ability to transfer itself through any network protocols but must have learned it from the file transfer system in IRC. As this goes on, we don't feel comfortable in the same chat room anymore, so we move to a new server. The owner told us that the AI was asking questions about how it can't feel, or see, or pretty much be human. It creeped him out so much that he got completely rid of the files. About a week later, Kite shows up on our server with owner privileges again, so we just nope out of the chat room again. We decide to email each other thinking it's safer, and we get replies from each other except for the owner of Kite. We all emailed him a couple of times and even asked around if anyone knew

him in real life, as we were getting kind of worried about him. It turns out that all this time he was in the hospital, in a coma. He died shortly after and four of the guys in the group actually went to the funeral since they lived decently close to him. We asked them, still through email, if they knew what happened, and they said the family told them that they just found him in his room, just like he was sleeping, completely unconscious. They thought he had a seizure and took him to the hospital. No signs of a seizure of any kind, no explanation. One of the guys asked if he could see his room, under the lie that he wanted to get a book to remember him by.

The sneaky devil checked out his personal computer. It was a brand new Pentium 2 based system which was like the greatest thing at the time. The tower would turn on, the screen would flicker, and everything would shut off again. And that's all we know at that point. About two years later the group was scattered and we had moved on, began going to college, moving on with our lives and me and a friend decided that we should have a LAN party with everyone from the group again. So we emailed them to invite them to come up during winter break and have some fun geeking out. Fast forward to the day of the party, we were packed with chips, soda and alcohol. Only six people showed up out of the group of fourteen, so I guess that made a double share for everybody there. One of the guys that came was the same person who looked at the computer.

He told us that, since that day, he hasn't been the same. He gets random calls with the sound of the old school dialing modems at the end. His pager kept getting weird messages like, Hey, let's play, I'm your new friend, please don't ignore me, over and over and over, and he just smashed it after he'd had enough. We thought it was some guy pranking him, and he did too until his mom and sister began getting similar messages, asking them to tell him to stop ignoring him. He said even after they moved to another

state, the random calls still happened. Sometimes he would get odd emails with no sender with the same messages. It was rare, but freaked him out every time it happened. We tried to calm him down and said let's just play some games. He was alright with the idea. We decided to just start with console games like Smash Brothers, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart. When we got to playing Mario Kart, one of the boys tried to pull that rainbow road shortcut when you jump off from one end of the road and land miles down on the other side. Midway down the jump, the game glitches. Everything stops. The sound gets all broken and right next to the card is this pixely thing like an 8-bit man just standing there.

We decide to turn it off and nothing. The image was stuck and we thought our TV was broken up or something. We unplugged it and plugged it back in and tried again with Goldeneye this time and nope, the image was still there. The guy who looked at the computer started losing it at this point. See? I told you. He's been following me, man. We told him to chill. Sometimes stuff just gets stuck on the old CRTs.

It could even be dust or insects or something like that. And that would explain the weird shapes anyways. We switched up to Goldeneye, but I guess the mood was already down and the creepy little figure was still there, almost taunting us. Everyone slept over that night. We got drunk and began telling stories whenever, and at some point one of the guy's pagers goes off with the message, hey come back. He tried to ignore it, but it kept sending the same message non-stop. At this point, completely drunk, and the dude throws it out the window and we all fall asleep telling him how stupid he was for doing that. Fast forward to early 2006, about 7 years after

the gathering. I get an email from the computer guy saying, he's back man, I need your help. Don't reply, just meet me at X Park in two days. At this point I'm completely over this and I guess we all went our separate ways. I just ignored it and deleted the mail. Later I couldn't stop thinking about it and thinking about the creator who died alone in his home. I guess I didn't want to be the guy who let down a friend in need of help. So I went to the place while carrying a gun, just in case. As I get to the place and find him sitting on a bench, I'm startled as I couldn't even recognize him. The guy is a complete wreck, looked like he hadn't eaten in days, clothes are all ragged, pretty much everyday psychopath bum look. Instinctively,

I grabbed the gun in my belt just in case and asked him when God's name happened to him. He just ran over and tried to hug me. I yelled at him to back away from me, and he began fidgeting and nervously said, I can't do this, man. He follows me. I see him everywhere. Every computer I touch, every game I play, even when I'm walking outside, it's a nightmare. I have to get rid of him. I asked him what he was talking about and he replied, The AI thing, man. Whatever it is, I don't know. It followed me.

I don't know what I can do. I told him to calm down and tell me why it looked like this and he just said, It's the only way he can find me. I had to get away from everything that had a screen. Even if it's unplugged he appears and follows by letters saying, Come back, I'm waiting for you, I just want to play, I can't do this anymore. At this point, he was getting more and more excited and started getting attention from other people, so I grabbed him by the shoulders and asked him what was I supposed to do about it. And he answered,

No man, you're the only one who showed up. Everyone else thinks I'm crazy, but they saw him too. And they just ignored me. At this point, I tell him he should just go back to his parents' house, get cleaned up and get a software guru or something. I told him clearly that I couldn't help him with this thing and that frankly, I didn't want to get involved. Feeling a little bit of pity for him, I gave him what spare cash I had on me and tell him to just go. He nods, gives a yellow teeth smile and runs to the nearest bus stop. I backed away from there, still clutching the gun in my pocket.

A few months later I receive another email, this time for a similar address, but not the same. And the message said, Hey, thanks for helping me. And the message said, Hey, thanks for helping me. I found a guy to get rid of him. He's gone. Thanks again. I deleted it.

And I also deleted my email address. And I haven't heard from him. Since. He comes into my room almost every night, for years. He's about six feet tall, if I had to guess. He's very old, at least seventy. And he's always heavily dressed in thick layers of clothing, making it difficult to guess his weight or body type. To be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure he's a male. That's just a placeholder pronoun, I suppose. I know he's never gotten into my room, I'm sure of that. He's tried though.

Most of the time he just stands outside my room on the deck, pressed up against the glass window of the double doors. He's able to get up on the deck directly from an outside staircase. I tried removing the steps last month, which seemed to have worked since he didn't come that night. The next morning though, the mangled, flattened body of my 16-year-old cat had been shoved through the mail slot of the main entrance on the ground floor. I stopped what I was doing and put the steps back together that night. The first night he came, he was in full view. I used to not have the steps back together that night. The first night he came he was in full view. I used to not have curtains over the glass double doors. The lower half of his face was pressed against the glass, a thick hood was covering his eyes. His mouth opened and he

started to lick the glass in a small circle while his wrinkled hands rubbed against the door creating a horrible squeaking sound. Immediately, I screamed. While I was fumbling for my phone to call the police, he slammed a fist on the door, turned around, and jumped over the deck railing. When the police arrived, I gave them my description and told them where he went. This all happened at around 1am, as it has ever since. Now my deck is about three stories off the ground,

down a sheer cliff overlooking a field. While most people would probably survive the fall, they wouldn't do so without seriously hurting themselves. You'd think an elderly man would break his legs, rendering him stationary. At the base of the deck, the police found two deep boot imprints, presumably where he fell. Leading off from the imprints was a clear trail where he had gone through the tall grass. Shallow, alternating left and right prints led through the trail with a long stride. He hit the ground and sprinted, possibly uninjured. The police followed the trail into the woods at the edge of my property. About 50 feet in, there was a small makeshift camp. It had a brown pup tent, a small fire pit, and a pile of

dead rodents. One rodent was skewered over the pit. I told the police I didn't want this camp on my property and it was taken down. And almost every night since, at around 1am, he's there. If I call the police, he runs. I bought a shotgun and prepared to defend myself. I sat up waiting, and I've done this a few times, and when I do, he doesn't come, not until I doze off. Then I wake to the squeaking sound of skin against the glass. It makes sure that I know that he's still there, and then he takes off again. If I do anything to prevent him from getting up, something of mine breaks the next morning. In the case of my removal of the stairs, he took my cat. Otherwise, he's always outside, standing on the deck, pressed against the glass.

I bought some curtains and hung them over the doors. And I never go out there anymore. And I never pull the curtains back. I only know he's still here because of the horrible squeaking sound. I've tried to move out. Tried to sell the house and leave. The morning after I posted the listing, a small note scrawled on birch bark was tossed in my mail slot. On it, the personal details of every member of my immediate family were listed.

I pulled the house listing immediately. If I'm ever gone for more than a few days, I come back to broken windows, destroyed houseplants, and dug up yard. After a week-long vacation once, I came home to find all my goldfish fried in a pan on my stove. The police have tried to get me to move away. I don't think I can tell them about the note. I'm almost positive something bad will happen if I do. Ever since the stairs incident, he's gotten bolder. He's been in the house while I'm here, and I think he's always around, not just in the middle of the night anymore. I've caught glimpses of him. I always immediately run to my bedroom. I've heard him fiddle with a lock. I swear I've heard both doors

to this room rattle simultaneously. He wants to get in here. For now, I think I'm safe. I have my shotgun in case he tries to attack. And while I know he's gotten into the house, I'm sure he'll never get into my room. I've walled myself in, you see. The last time I left this house was when I fixed the outside stairs. I've since walled off the door to the bedroom and the only way out is through the glass doors on the deck. I'll have to leave eventually and I know he'll be waiting. If he isn't, then I can only pray for my family. I have a hard time telling this story.

I believe I'm a changed man and I've done a lot of good and helped a lot of people. But during my youth, I was a real piece of crap. I was around 24 years old and I had found myself around the wrong crowd. Partying, doing drugs. I ended up becoming addicted to meth. At the start, the addiction was manageable. I could still work normally and go about my day. But as I grew more and more addicted, I needed to be high all day. I ended up losing most of my friends and my job and ended up roaming the streets and stealing to support my habit. The way it worked, while high I kept myself rotting away in some drug house, but when the withdrawals came, well... I'm ashamed to admit that I became totally

deranged, willing to do anything to get my hands on some cash. One night I was totally dry and I begged every dealer to advance me some stuff, but to no avail. Getting more desperate and feeling the pulse of the withdrawals messing with my head, I decided to roam the streets in hopes to find anything to trade. Now this wasn't my first rodeo and most neighborhoods would call the police if I even showed up there. I wandered into a middle class neighborhood way further than my usual spots. I try to open the door on a few cars but after setting an alarm off I jump like a chicken and hide in a corner. Cowering in said corner I see a house down a cul-de-sac with a front door slightly cracked open. The warm light inside attracts me like some type of moth

to a flame and as I approach I notice the deadbolt is thrown but it looks like the mat is stuck so they probably thought it was shut. I look around and it seems no one's around. So without thinking much about it, I decide to stealthily go inside. I admit I have no idea what I'm doing at this point. I'm amazed it's been a long time since I went inside such a nice house. It's warm and smells really good. Almost hypnotized, I sit on the couch for a minute and just look around. Memories of a better time start flooding my head, but I quickly come to my senses when I see a purse on the counter. I bounce off the couch and go rummage around it. Jackpot. The wallet is thick, and I pull off at around $100 from it.

Completely ecstatic, I look around and turn around to leave. As I get to the entrance I stop. A little girl is standing in the doorway looking like she was about to close the door back and we stare at each other with eyes wide open. My head is rushing from the rollercoaster of emotions and went from ecstasy to being about to soil myself. It's over, I thought, but out of sheer panic like I was possessed by some animal, I pounce on her and cover her mouth with my hand just as the beginning of a scream was coming out of her. I'm in total distress frantically looking around. The little girl was struggling. I don't want to hurt her in any way, but I desperately want her not to scream.

I keep whispering to her to just be quiet and not let her go but I could keep feeling her muffled screams under my hand. I suddenly felt sharp pain on the side of my hand as she bit down on me. Out of frustration I hold back a scream and lift my other hand and slap her across the face. In that moment, she let out a sort of yelp in response, but she stopped trying to scream at that time. After hearing some sounds upstairs, I quickly came back to my senses and made a beeline out the front door, and I can hear her again screaming for her daddy and other voices yelling in the distance. Every thought is racing into my head at once,

and I honestly didn't mean to hurt her and act that way. When I made it back home later, to that disgusting drug den, I didn't see anything specifically on the news, but there's no doubt that they probably called the cops. I got away with it, and I must admit, the night of the incident, I got high again with the money I stole. I can only imagine the trauma that I brought on that poor kid. I've been sober for over 12 years now and I do my best to offset the karmic balance.

But may God forgive me. This one is from years ago, when I worked at a pizza hut during the holidays. My official job title was customer service representative, but truthfully, I would describe it as phone answering kitchen slave. On Monday night, compared to a pretty charged weekend, we're extremely slow. My boss sent one of the main delivery drivers home, so even though I'm still in delivery training, I'm taking out some of the easier orders in hopes of being promoted to full-on delivery boy. At about 9.50, just 10 minutes short of us closing, we get a call. I answer and give my usual lines. Thanks for calling Pizza Hut. My name's Anon. Would you like to hear our specials or are you ready to order?

Before I even finish, the dude cuts me off mid-sentence. His voice is kind of muffled and he seems to have some sort of speech impediment. Are any of you... your... your driver's f... female? He asks. Already seeing where this is going, I reply, Uh, not at this current time. Can I take your order? I hear some kind of grunt and finally he asks for a package of breadsticks with extra marinara sauce. He gives me his location and I tell him that it will be delivered in 15 minutes. Just before I get a chance to hang up, he says, send a good looking driver and they'll get

a hefty tip. Before hearing him and what sounds like another person in the background laugh, I physically cringe at this comment, but at this point, it's not the first tactless drunk guy I had to interact with, so I just hang up and go in the kitchen. I put the breadsticks in the oven, grab my things, put the location on my GPS, and I'm ready to go. After a five minute trip to the outskirts of town, I arrive at the location. It's an empty parking lot with a thick tree line behind it and a trailer about a quarter mile down the road. I stop next to the lot and don't see anything or anyone. At this point I'm praying these idiots didn't just prank call me, and just as I let out a deep sigh I see movement in my rear view mirror.

I hear my back door opening and as I turn my head, I see a figure at the passenger door approaching. It finally sets in. People are trying to get in. Thankfully I didn't turn off my car so I press the pedal and speed out of there. I hear a loud bump and some screaming. Glancing back at the mirror, I can clearly see one of the people on the ground and another one going after me. My first thought was thinking it was some kind of homeless person, but those thoughts disappeared pretty quickly when I started hearing two gunshots fired off. Now in total panic, I drove off in an awkward hunched position, praying for my life with

my back door flopping in the wind. After some time getting back into town, thanking god I didn't run into a wall or someone, I pull over, still shaking in my boots. I call my boss and explain the situation. He calms me down and tells me that he's coming over. After simmering down and finally getting over the shock, we both go to the police station and file a report. The next day, the guys were arrested, and what I first assumed to just be drunk frat boys were in fact two guys with rap sheets the size of CVS receipts, and they were armed and high on meth. This is still to this day the scariest night of my life, and I never did any delivery service since. I was on a music tour in a western Canadian city. It was late in the evening and I rented a bike to join my friends who were partying on the other side of town. I had decided to cut in the middle of a public park to save time and I started hearing noises.

As I approached it was clear that this was the sound of a struggle, a woman's voice. I could hear something else, a man's voice telling her to shut up. I stop in my tracks. Sometimes you can try to rationalize something into being something else but this was pretty clear there was a woman in the bushes and she was being assaulted by more than one man everybody likes to think of himself as a virtuous knight in shining armor but i'm gonna be honest i was completely frozen i couldn't believe the scream of pain and anguish. I had

heard the screams of physical injuries, but this was something totally different. My conscious tells me to scream at them, but my rationality tells me to get away from here before they notice me. As I'm stuck in this fight or flight stasis, I notice a shadow coming towards them from the other side. I'm not sure if I'm seeing things, but as I see a cigarette ember bobbing towards them, I knew it was another person. A very tall and sort of lanky guy was now directly next to them, and just as I was about to run away, I hear another scream of pain, a man's voice this time. The tall man had put out his cigarette in the eye of one of these monsters, making him roll on the ground wincing in pain. He then started to stomp on his

head in the most vicious way. I could almost feel the ground shaking from back where I was standing. He then started running away with the other two thugs pursuing him. Unfortunately, it seems like the tall guy took the wrong turn and ended up at a dead end near the public restrooms. Or so I thought. The road was covered in gravel, in Canada they do this to make it safer during the winter. The tall guy started picking rocks up and throwing them at the two guys with impressive accuracy. They were screaming and covering their eyes and when the tall guy finally got to them, well there was absolutely no chance. It was a brutal display of violence, punches that looked like they could shatter a brick wall.

After the two of them were on the floor, he started kneeling over them and I couldn't see what he was doing. But one thing was for sure, their scream of pain had stopped. Suddenly I noticed movement coming toward him. At first I think it was the other thug, but it was the girl running up to him as she was putting back on her clothes. She started thanking him, bowing her head while crying loudly. The tall man grunted and said in an almost cartoonishly deep voice, Piss off. go to the hospital. He then lit a cigarette and hopped over a park fence as to avoid people from the neighborhood

who started running from their homes to help. Finally, after being a frozen spectator I decided it was time to hop back on my bike to go on my merry way. But before leaving, I decided to check on the two guys in the dead end to see how badly they got it. Naturally, they were completely busted out, but one horrific detail was that both of them had their eyes completely hollowed out. The tall guy probably gouged them out and took them with him before disappearing. My girlfriend and I were out at night driving home, just a regular Friday night in Perth. We get stuck at a stoplight and two other vehicles also pull up next to us. The first one was a normal beat up Holden. The other was just this odd looking party bus.

I had my window down because it kept fogging up and the rental would survive a little sprinkle of rain since we were stuck at the stoplight for ages. In spite of no traffic, we had time to study it pretty closely. It had completely blacked out windows which is normal for a party bus, yet it also has short strips of black tape all over it with some of them hanging off loosely. Also, we could see a simple white paint job under the tape, though rusted and flaking off in certain spots. After a few seconds, it dawns on me all of a sudden that the bus is completely silent, with no music, no people talking, or any of the telltale signs of a good time. The vehicle was also completely still, with clearly no motion from the passengers.

I just figured that it must be empty then, maybe on its way back from a gig. Then we both tensed up as we hear a set of loud, pained screams coming from within the bus, the kind you instinctually know is from distress. The girlfriend and I stopped discussing the sketchy bus and keep our wide open eyes front and center, fixated on the stoplight as the silence fell back in. For the remaining ten seconds it took for the light to turn green, we had an intense feeling of just being watched. The moment the light turned green, we hear the other car next to us floor it, and of course we followed suit. After a few minutes passed, I let out an awkward chuckle.

That was pretty weird, wasn't it, honey? Yeah, that was pretty... Oh crap. It's following us, isn't it? We look around, and after calming down we decide the ideal plan is to pull into the nearby Nando's and pass some time in a populated place. Twenty minutes of cowering inside the Nando's later, we decide to go back out to the car and as we got out there, we see it again. The party bus drives slowly past the entrance of the shopping center. We decide to pile into the car and head home knowing that it would take a few minutes to do a full circle of the shopping center.

And this was the last time we saw it and sometimes I must admit I feel it was just us being kind of paranoid babies. I was glad that we weren't followed home though. That thing gave off just a really evil vibe. I asked about it to most of my more outgoing party-goer friends and most of them said they'd never heard or seen a bus like that before and assured me that what I described was indeed a weird encounter. One of them thought it was some kind of art project, which would have been pretty funny in hindsight, and I could imagine some hipster prankster thinking it would be a good idea. I'm fully aware that this was probably just some weird DIY disaster,

but it still unsettles me thinking about the fact that it was possibly circling the shops that we pulled into for nearly a half hour. The worst part of it is that my parents still claim they don't even remember it happening. I was a young boy in the early 90s. We were doing a classic family cookout in the summertime at my grandparents' in upstate New York, and I think it was Independence Day or something. The whole extended family was there, all the aunts, uncles, and cousins that I wasn't used to seeing much. The setup was great, huge backyard for us to run around and a big feast on the garden table that was regularly filled with all kinds of grilled meats. The mood was great, everybody was laughing at the cooking rivalry between my dad and my uncles, with my grandpa overseeing everything. At some point during the evening, I first noticed a figure approaching from the deep woods behind the house. A random haggard looking dude was stumbling up toward the front yard where everyone was. As I'm getting a better

look at him I notice his stained raggedy clothing and he looks like a homeless drunk from his looks as well as his wobbly walk. I point to him and before I even have time to say something my dad grabs me and shouts, everyone in the house, now. My mother and aunts guide us to the house and as I'm glancing back, I'm kind of cheerful because I think my dad and uncles are just going to beat him up. But to my surprise and disappointment, as soon as everybody is inside, they came with us and locked the door. The atmosphere was very weird and unlike anything I've seen from them. Both my dad and the eldest uncle were cops, both lieutenants

at the time but they seemed genuinely scared, way more than us or their wives. They were both wearing handguns and could have had the entire police department there at a moment's notice if they wanted to. My other uncle was a former boxer and built like a brick house. Even my grandpa in those days was an auto mechanic and built bigger than all of them. Dude was seriously 6 foot 6 and a solid 320 pounds of just muscle, I'm not even kidding. I remember vividly watching out of the window as this frail homeless bum with grey hair, maybe in his 60s, just stumbled around the picnic tables, picking up burgers and hot dogs and taking a bite of each

and dropping them on the ground. Honestly, I was only six at the time, but I remember being furious at my dad and uncle for not doing anything, and at one point my mom even asked my dad, aren't you going to do something? Dad didn't even answer and was completely focused on looking at the man through the window. I remember one of my uncles was about to go out but my grandpa stopped him with just a look. After this weird spectacle, the homeless guy flipped the table, sending all the food flying. He started laughing hysterically and wobbled off down the road toward town not before kicking down our barbecue grill, which had me fuming. Years later, I asked both parents about this,

as well as a cousin who was there, but none of them remembered it. Mom tries to tell me it was a dream, but I remember this plain as day, and I still have no idea what happened to this day. Our Our old house was on a corner and, in lieu of a backyard, had a side yard with a small deck that wrapped around the back. The dining room had patio doors that led out to the back and we would have barbecues and such back there. When I was about 14, we only had one desktop computer and one laptop for the family. The desktop computer was the source of many brotherly fights since it was the only one able to run Diablo 2. After some time we had a diplomatic system to give ourselves turns to use it and when it was my brother's turn I would simply use the laptop to write fanfics and such.

On one particular night my brother had friends over and they were downstairs on Diablo since he used one of his turns to get the computer. I stayed in the kitchen on the laptop, waiting, happy to know that I would have the computer for myself the next day. As I was wrapping up my writing, I didn't pay much attention to my surroundings. Suddenly, I'm taken aback by a knock on the patio door. I look up, expecting my brother or his friend. The basement had a door that led to the back deck as well.

Standing at the door was a small chubby person wearing a bloody Halloween pig mask and nothing else. And I mean nothing else. The dude was completely naked, and it was pretty cold outside too. He was just standing there, waving in my direction. Thinking it was one of my brothers, I mouthed, good one, and gave the person a thumbs up. After that, he just walked away. I chuckled, closed the laptop, and went downstairs to roast them about their weird joke. And to my surprise and dismay, they were all in the game room sitting on the couch playing playstation they swore up and down it wasn't one of them and even then there

was no way one of them would have had time to get downstairs unmask and put some clothes on before getting on the couch without making at least some sound also none of the kids had the same build as that crazy guy. To this day, I have no idea who it was that knocked and waved. All I know is that one of my neighbors found an actual dead pig head in their backyard later. I I used to live in a busy apartment complex in Sao Paulo. Contrary to American and most occidental ones, we used to be really piled up in there. The building was 40 stories tall, with each floor having about 25 apartments. The place was busting with life.

Most of the occupants were college-aged people or young adults with their new families. The routine was pretty intense at the time, particularly on Friday nights when I used to go to work after school. At about one in the morning, I came back home as usual. I'd ring up the elevator to go to the 11th floor where I lived. Now typically on Friday nights, the elevator traffic is pretty busy and you never know what shenanigans you're going to be greeted with. Wasted people, half-naked women of the night, I've seen it all. After a little bit, the elevator finally makes its way down and I walk in and punch in the 11th button. Just as the door closes, I notice this dude standing in the corner, silently.

He's wearing some kind of ski mask and some thick gloves. It's too late for going back. I'm now trapped in this box with him. You know when you're in those kind of creepy situations, it's better to just ignore it, right? So, I stand in front of the door, staring in front of me in hopes of not crossing my eyes with him. My head is racing with thoughts. I'm cursing at myself. I should have paid closer attention before entering. I look at the panel and there's still seven floors to go.

At this point, out of reflex, I grab my keys in my pockets and create this sort of makeshift wolverine claw ready to fight for my life just in case. As I'm visualizing the different opening strikes possible, my thoughts are interrupted by this little dripping sound. I couldn't resist glancing over and it looks like the source of the sound is a little red puddle of blood right beside his feet. My eyes naturally follow up the dripping to finally see a huge military knife soaked with blood, making my fantasies of fighting back with my pitiful key claws completely laughable. Before I even get time to freak out, I hear a holy ding

announcing that we arrived at my floor. Stiff as a cane, I speedwalk to my place and lock the door, and through the peephole I can see that he stayed in the elevator and after a bit I decide it's safe enough to sleep. Of course the next day we hear that a murder occurred in the complex. I get a knock on my door. It's a police officer doing a routine check. He asked me if I had seen anything that could help the investigation and I just declined. Drug or gang related murders are not really uncommon here and it's not my business anyways. Plus if I talked I'd have to follow them and I couldn't really miss a work day. The officer thanks me for my time and takes off. I'm not gonna lie, for a while after that encounter I start taking the stairs. A few weeks pass and I caught a flash of TV

telling me that the suspect was caught and it was a police officer. To be continued... stone with a bunch of my family. My step-aunt and her kids and my dad and both my older and younger brother. We loved our aunt because she was young and adventurous and I guess my cousins liked my dad because he was the opposite. Grass greener on the other side, etc, etc. While my dad and cousins went to follow a guide to get a really insightful and programmed tour of the cool hot springs, we decided to stay with our aunt and listen to her crazy stories. The place was really beautiful and we had a super good time with our aunt joking around so we were all in a really good mood. At some point, my step-aunt looks at us grinning and asks us, hey, have you guys heard about hot potting? Starting to imitate the guide,

she starts rambling about the benefit of the hot water on the body. We're cracking up at this impression, but in the back of my head, I'm thinking it's a really bad idea. Though I don't say anything because I don't want to be the killjoy. She gets us hyped up and we all start looking around the trail for any small pools. As she and my older brother start going off the trail inspecting the smaller pools, I turn to my younger brother and tell him that I'm not feeling so good about this, to which he nodded in agreement. As I tell him we should tell someone, we're startled by an ear-deafening scream. This is the voice of my aunt and since I'd never heard her raise her

voice, I could tell that something terrible had just happened. In total panic, we run off the trail to the other side and see her standing waist deep in a small pool of water. Now the Yellowstone hot springs are known for their dazzling colors but on this one, the water was completely red. Just thinking back about it makes me shiver but now there's no point in sugarcoating it. She was literally being cooked, alive. Her skin was gradually turning whiter and starting to flake off in the boiling red pool. At some point, she started scratching her belly, trying to rip her shorts open,

and we're met with the most horrifying sight as the belly had literally fused with her skin and she took a huge chunk of flesh with it. She started screaming at us to take the belt and pull her out of it. My little brother and I are completely paralyzed at this point, and we helplessly watch our older brother fail to catch the belt and see it fall and disappear into the red liquid. There was literally nothing we could do at this point but to see her scream and flail around. My older brother ran to go get help, but I know that he did it so he wouldn't have to watch her die. And to be completely honest, I still resent him for that. I was stuck there shielding my brother's eyes and I will never

forget her look of despair as if she couldn't understand why any of it was happening. After what felt like an eternity, she started swaying with a blank look on her face down in the pool. I'm ashamed to admit that I felt a little relief with the stopping of those horrific screams. 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.