The Lets Read Podcast - 234: WHEN NIGHTMARES BLOOM | 22 True Scary Stories | EP 222

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Spring, Easter, & Coffee Shops... 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/

Discover the exciting action of BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz. Make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I was about 20 years old when this happened and was back home from college for spring break. Me and my friend Teddy, not his actual name, but we were having a few drinks and entertaining two girls that we used to go to high school with. Since we weren't old enough to go out to bars, we gave our cash to the girls,

they picked up our drinks, then we met up at a nice secluded beach that we knew of. But then to get to this section of the beach, we had to walk through a section of really thick forested area. Everyone was fine with this, but then as we're walking, we immediately realized something was just off. There were no frogs or bugs. The forest was silent. Absolutely nothing but a calm stillness. Teddy and I quietly mentioned to each other that this usually meant a predator is around, but we'd had a few at this point and decided that we were probably the scariest thing out there.

We continued down the path quietly, but with our heads kind of on a swivel, you know. Then we noticed the smell. The forest smelled off, almost like a mixture of dirty clothes and bad breath. Again, we are concerned, but at this point, we were almost there, so there was no sense in turning back, really. The last part of the path cut through a marsh lowland area that connected the barrier island to the mainland. It is admittedly creepy as heck, with old winding trees covering the path. What little light we had from the moon was now being blotted out by a bunch of twisting branches. We began to traverse this path and are about midway through when I heard it. A really pronounced mechanical click, like a coke bottle cap being

popped or something. Teddy and I froze, and before we could actually figure out where the noise was coming from, we heard it again from a different direction. There was a brief pause, and then the forest simply just stood up. A dozen figures vaguely silhouetted by moonlight stood and began to move towards us from all directions. Without hesitation, Teddy took off into a full sprint. I go to follow, but pull back after deciding that I couldn't leave the girls alone to be murdered. As they realized what was happening, they began to scream the kind of scream that you only let out when you are sure that you're screwed. As I got my friends ready to run, I turned to see that the path was now blocked by a collection of eerie, dark shapes. It definitely felt like game over. No way out. Hopelessly outnumbered by figures that didn't even appear to be human. I kept the girls behind me and got ready to make my last stand.

I was terrified, but the adrenaline rush gave me this sort of weird kind of focus. The figure closest to us ceased its advances and an arm reached up from the dark mass and pulled off what I quickly realized was a helmet that had foliage strapped to it. Before I could even really compute what was happening, a man identified himself as a Marine Corps captain and explained they sometimes run war games on the stretch of beach, which I learned is public access but owned by the Navy. They were unsure if we were part of the exercise or not, hence why they advanced on us, and he began to apologize profusely, but I was so relieved to be alive at this point that I couldn't care less. As they escorted us back, all the weirdness of the woods began to really make sense. The silence, the smell,

those clicks, all a result of a platoon of marines creeping in the shadows. On our path back, several other smaller groups that had stayed in cover made themselves known as well, including a pair that had stopped Teddy's stupid butt from running all the way back to Charlotte. The trip back home was awkward, and the girls were quite unhappy with his reaction and us, with the help of the Marine Corps accidentally traumatizing them. Up until that officer removed his helmet, I truly believed that we were staring into our very own real-life horror movie. I'm sorry. Back when my mom was in her late teens and early twenties, she did a lot of hitchhiking. I think this was super popular among young people in the 1960s and 1970s.

At the time, it wasn't yet considered dangerous, really. And she did it for a few years, but because we live up here in the northeast, it's not a great idea to engage in anything outdoorsy, hitchhiking included, until about early to mid-spring. So this one year, mom sets out at around Easter weekend, just as the good weather arrives. She met an older man at a gas station and asked him if he could take her along to the next bigger town. She didn't really want to ask him because he gave off some strange vibes, but it was late in the evening and the gas station was out in the middle of the sticks. She couldn't just stay there, so she told herself, I'm sure it's going to be fine. When she wanted to get in the passenger seat, the man told her that she had to sit in the back. She asked him why, but he wouldn't give her a clear answer. Just kept insisting that she had to sit in the back. They began to drive and it was mostly

uneventful. My mom tried to do some small talk with the man, but he'd only give her very short answers. She thought maybe he's tired, so she just stopped trying to engage with him. Finally, they reached the town where my mom wanted to go. She told the guy to pull over at a specific location. When they reached the location, he simply drove past, didn't even slow down. My mom got really confused and asked him to pull over at the next crossroad, but once again, he simply continued driving. She asked him, what are you doing? He didn't respond. Instead, he pushed down the central lock, which locked all four doors.

Luckily, my mom is a very confident person, and if she wants to, she can be very scary as well. She told me, quote, for a few seconds I panicked, but then I said to the guy in a calm and very stern voice, stop the car right now and let me out. The guy didn't react, so she said it one more time, right now. Apparently, he got scared because he pulled over and unlocked the door. He didn't say a single word. She got out, and once she was out, she ran away. And to say that I'm glad she got away would be an understatement. And it's weird to think that, if that whole encounter hadn't gone her way, I don't think I would even be around to write this. Robert George Irvin was born on August 5th of 1907 in Pasadena, California. His father was the Reverend Benjamin Irvin, a titan of the National Holiness Movement of the late 19th century,

and a man who'd admirably dedicated himself to the cause of racial integration within the church. Some of Reverend Irvin's ideas may have been ahead of his time, but he was just as much of a firebrand as his peers. In his view, everything from wearing neckties to drinking Coca-Cola was an affront to the Almighty, but his holiness was a mere facade. Benjamin Irvin was a womanizer and a bigamist, abandoning Robert's mother when the boy was just three years of age. The desertion rendered them impoverished, dooming the boy to an upbringing characterized by extreme deprivation. When Robert was in his mid-teens, a state reformatory offered him a sculpturing apprenticeship. He spent the next 15 months of his life learning how to turn chunks of rock into breathtaking works of art, proving

himself a natural talent in the process. Robert spent time studying under the tutelage of his sculpting idol, Laredo Taft, and later gained employment at a prominent waxwork studio in Hollywood, California. By his late 20s, Robert had a reputation as one of the best sculptors of his generation. His work was admired from coast to coast, as he had a way of capturing the human form that was something so uncanny it proved unsettling. Robert also possessed extremely violent tendencies, and once threatened a fellow waxworks employee with a razor-sharp sculpting tool. Physical conflict was somehow averted, yet Robert's desire for revenge

still lingered, and to claim it, he came up with a method as creative as it was creepy. Robert took a chunk of wax and began sculpting his workplace rival's face from memory. Then, when the rival arrived for work the next morning, he was startled to see a near-flawless replica of his own face sitting on his desk. But it wasn't the likeness which unsettled him. It was the expression. Robert had fashioned the face's expression to be one of pure, primal terror, the kind one might expect to see before a sudden and violent death.

The sculpture unnerved all who saw it, but the subject of the piece was beyond consoling. He seemed convinced that it was a serious threat of imminent death, and despite being assured that Robert was just messing with him, the man left his job at the waxworks, never to return. Robert was also plagued by an inability to interact with his peers in any way that might be deemed normal. He found it extremely difficult to win male friends, and wooing the fairer sex was almost completely out of the question for him. To his credit, he tried his best, but the expert etiquette and profound grasp of social cues required to land himself a bride were quite lacking. And time and time again, Robert humiliated himself after

approaching some very pretty young lady, but he didn't seem to get any better at handling rejection. In one instance, he became so upset that he attempted to castrate himself with his own sculpting tools and was partially successful in doing so. The attempt earned him a year-long stay at a California state mental hospital, and upon his discharge, Robert departed California altogether. He moved to New York City, finding accommodation in a rooming house owned by a woman named Mary Gedeon. A huge part of Robert's psychiatric treatment was intended to rid him of his tendency to infatuate, with doctors noticing a measurable improvement by the time of

his release. Robert would become obsessed with certain female nurses, and had to be talked down by medical professionals each and every time. He was taught to distinguish between his own projected idea of a woman and the reality of her actual character. He seemed to think some females were perfect for him, tailor-made for him, when the truth was he didn't know them at all. Robert was also taught that each rejection, be it romantic or professional, would only make him stronger while bringing him closer to his ultimate goals. It took a long time, but in the end, Robert began responding to the treatment and began to understand that he had to correct his parasocial instincts.

But when he arrived at the New York rooming house and met the owner's daughter, Ethel, Robert suffered a catastrophic psychological regression. He became dangerously obsessed with the young woman, but thankfully, Robert was acutely self-aware of his problems. He struggled to contain his feelings for Ethel, and when they threatened to overwhelm him, he checked himself into the Rock State Hospital in Orangeburg, New York. There he stayed, receiving a variety of crude psychiatric treatments for almost two years straight, until finally being released in the summer of 1936.

It had taken two years of his life to build himself up into a man who he deemed worthy of asking Ethel Gedeon to marry him, but when he returned to New York City and sought out his one true love, he found that she had already betrothed to another. It was a blow that Robert could never recover from, and it's widely been reported that shortly after learning of Ethel's marriage to one Joseph Kudner, he began sculpting his magnum opus. Robert sourced a large piece of alabaster, then began carving a highly detailed rendering of Ethel Gedeon. While its unclear whether sculpture ended up, contemporary news reports describe the piece as aesthetically exquisite, but morally abhorrent.

Like most of his other work, the likeness to its subject was striking, but around Ethel's neck, Robert had carved a coiled, constricting serpent in the process of choking the life out of her. Despite being indisputably macabre, there's a chance Robert believed that pouring his feeling into his art would help alleviate the negativity he felt. And when he enrolled at the Theological School of St. Lawrence University at Canton, New York, it's reasonable to assume that he sought a path to redemption. But on March 18th of 1937, just ten days before Easter Sunday, Robert was expelled from school for reasons unknown.

The expulsion report was found to cite his apparent instability, but the exact incident which led to his expulsion remains unknown. Robert then returned to New York City, renting a room on 52nd Street, only a few blocks away from Mary Gedeon's rooming house at 316 East 50th Street. He drank excessively and frequently considered taking his own life. On Saturday, March 27th, he took a walk down to the Hudson River and contemplated if he should throw himself in or not. But Robert didn't throw himself into the Hudson that night. Instead, he walked all the way over to 316 East 50th Street to Mary Gedeon's rooming house.

The next morning, on Easter Sunday of 1937, relatives of the Gedeon family arrived at the rooming house to have dinner with them. But when they walked inside, they found the doors unlocked and a grisly discovery waiting for them inside. Mary Gedeon and her young daughter Veronica were lying on the ladder's bedroom floor. Both had been strangled and stabbed to death. In the next room lay the lifeless body of Mr. Frank Brines, a deaf Englishman who had also been stabbed multiple times. To this day, it's not clear why Veronica was targeted over Ethel, but some have argued that

it was Robert's idea of punishment. To take her life was one thing, but to rob her of her loved ones was a darker shade of cruel. On top of that, targeting Veronica could have been a way of punishing the wider community, as she was an attractive, popular young woman who dreamed of becoming a model. Investigators believed that the killer had surreptitiously entered the Gedeon's apartment at around 2 o'clock in the morning and had wandered around the dark home in complete silence before being interrupted by an intoxicated Veronica. The young woman had been on a date that night, and when she walked through the door and switched on the light, Robert pounced. He strangled Veronica unconscious, then plunged the knife into her chest, but was caught red-handed by Mary Gideon

herself. Robert lunged at her, repeating the act of choking the woman unconscious before stabbing her to death. The layout of the crime scene suggested that Frank Brines, the deaf Englishman, had remained asleep throughout the attack. He was then discovered by a blood-soaked Robert during his final exploration of the rooming house and murdered in his sleep. At first, law enforcement had no idea who might have committed the murders and considered everyone from a randomly passing cab driver to Mary's ex-husband as a possible suspect. The fact was, Robert was so far on the peripheries of the Gideon social circles that, for a while, it appeared as though he might get away with murder.

But by April 5th, a very small but very important piece of evidence had finally been analyzed and filed. Discovered at the crime scene was a small piece of bath soap, one that had been carefully carved to resemble a screaming human face. It was overlooked at first, until one astute detective made the connection between the display of artistic talent and the fact that Robert George Irwin, the renowned but tortured sculptor, had once been a tenant of Mary Gedeon's. Once Robert was identified as a suspect, a nationwide manhunt commenced, yet some expressed doubt that he was capable of such a heinous crime. Robert's psychiatrist at the Rock State Hospital cited the progress he'd made over the years, and even Ethel Gedeon attempted to argue against Robert being a suspect. But in the words of the state inspector John Lyons,

so far as the state is concerned, Robert's psychopathic background shows he is insane. After learning that he was a wanted man, Robert went on the run, and after weeks upon weeks of searching for him, it appeared as though he'd successfully evaded justice. But then, in late June of 1937, a pantry maid working in Cleveland, Ohio's prestigious Statler Hotel was reading a pulp magazine. Pulps, as they were known, were cheap fiction magazines named for the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. Sometimes referred to as dime novels, they were known for their lurid, exploitative,

and sensational short fiction, but occasionally they included some particularly frightening true story. The magazine the pantry maid was reading included a short piece on someone they called the Mad Sculptor. According to the text, the Mad Sculptor was a tortured genius, driven to murder by furious envy, and so compelled was he to sculpt his madness that, following the slaughter, he carved a horrifying figure out of a bar of soap and left it at the scene. Attached to the small article was a crudely drawn picture of the Mad Sculptor, and it was while looking at this drawing that a thought occurred to the young pantry maid. The mad sculptor looked a lot like the hotel's new bar boy, Bob Murray,

who'd been employed for around six weeks by that point. Convinced it was nothing but an amusing coincidence, she playfully accused Bob of being the mad sculptor. The pantry maid laughed, but Bob didn't, and soon after, he cleared out his locker and disappeared. The Statler's staff rushed to contact law enforcement, and soon, headlines far and wide detailed the pantry maid's chilling realization. The following day, the Chicago Herald examiner received a call from someone claiming to be Irwin. The man wished to surrender to police and offered the newspaper an exclusive interview before doing so. Despite having a strong suspicion that the caller was a hoax, the newspaper agreed on a fee of $5,000. If the caller was genuine, they could hold him long enough to call the cops,

but if he was a fraud, they could turn him away with nary a cent. When the man arrived and they realized that he was bona fide, editor John W. Deanhart, along with reporters G. Duncan Bauman and Austin O'Malley, transported him to a room in the Morrison Hotel in Chicago. This would prove highly controversial, as it was one of the first instances of American journalists shielding a murder suspect from justice, all for the sake of selling a few papers. Following the interview's completion, the newspaper's parent company paid for Robert to be flown to New York City, where he was turned over to the police. But there was no getting around the fact that a self-confessed killer was able to profit from his crimes before ever facing justice for them. At his trial, Robert was represented by the infamous Samuel Leibowitz, who was reported to have saved over a hundred murder defendants

from the death penalty. In his confession, Robert had stated that he originally intended to kill Ethel Gedeon because she was the dearest object in the world to him, and that he accidentally killed her sister and mother instead. He explained that he went to the Gedeon's flat expecting to find Ethel, but instead attacked Veronica and her mother when they foiled his plan. Afraid to leave a possible witness alive, but unaware of the deafness, Irwin entered Byrne's room and stabbed him to death in his bed. As if to illustrate just how insane Robert Irwin really was, a statement he made to NYPD homicide detectives was read before the court. In it, Robert compares himself to a wireless radio set and attempts to explain his imperfections.

Quote, I am nothing. I am only receiving set, an extremely imperfect one which can indistinctly tune in to the divine mind. You have heard a radio that isn't working well. You turn the dials and get a squawking. Only once in a while can we get the pure, clear music. My whole idea in life was to perfect myself so the receiving set could always get the divine music at its best. Contrary to the prosecutor's initial opinion that Robert was insane, a panel of New York psychiatrists found him to be legally sane at the time of the murders. They claimed that Robert was well aware of the nature and consequences of his violent acts and was merely an eccentric, not legally insane.

This meant that the death penalty was now on the table. But on the advice of his attorney, Robert pled guilty to three counts of second-degree murder in exchange for a downgrade to 139 years in the Sing Sing prison. However, it should be noted that upon his arrival at Sing Sing, Robert was examined by psychologists, declared definitely insane, and transferred to Dannemora Psychiatric Hospital in December of 1938. What makes Robert's case so unique is that, for one of the first times in world history, journalists shamelessly exploited a major crime in order to sell newspapers.

There remains a strong argument for perversion of justice, and their exploitation sparked a pattern that's endured for almost a century. New York Daily News publisher Joseph Medill Patterson responded to criticism by saying, quote, murder sells, we're all fascinated by it. And perhaps for some of you, that statement rings very true indeed. To be continued... and my wife, it's one of the most unsettling things that's ever happened to us. So I happen to be married to a commercial pilot, and I often pick her up from the airport after particularly long flights. This happened back when we were still dating, at around 9pm on Easter Sunday of all days. We were heading home from the airport when the road took us by a pull-off where some country dumpsters were on one side of the road. As we drove by,

a blacked out car that had been parked spun out of the gravel and got right behind me doing the speed limit. I mean, he was so close in the rear view that I could only see the tint on his windshield, not even his car's hood. It wasn't a cop car. It was an early 2000 Chevy, and it was following us. I took some random turns using my blinker, thinking that he was just going the same way as me and wanted me to hurry up on the one-lane road with a double yellow. But after three random turns that kept up in the same area, I realized this wasn't random. I told my wife to hold on to something and aggressively turned down a side road with my blinker indicating another way. I sped 90 down a road with a much lower speed limit than that, took a few extra turns and ended up parking in the airport parking lot. I turned off my lights

and we waited. That same car came barreling down the road, just absolutely hauling it. Watched him go around a bend out of sight and took off hauling in the opposite direction with my lights off, using the moonlight only to see. And once I got close to a main road, I flicked the lights on and drove under the speed limit the rest of the way home. It has us both really freaked out. We almost called the cops and parked at the police station so the cops could pull them over instantly. I had no idea what they were doing, but I don't play any games with that kind of stuff. I was driving from Pennsylvania to Arizona a few years back for spring break. No hotel stops along the way, just me and two friends taking turns at the wheel for a 35-hour drive.

We finally cross the state line and enter Arizona after nearly two days of straight driving with minimal stops for food and fuel, etc. It's about 1am, we're running low on gas, and the only gas station for miles that is listed as being open online is located about 3 miles inside of Petrified Forest National Park. We don't have any other options, and we decide to check it out. My friend is driving, another friend is riding passenger, I'm in the back seat. They're both women, I'm the only male in the car. Soon as we drive into the park, we're wondering how there's an open gas station in here. It's pitch black, no cars in sight, the park is clearly unoccupied.

The only source of light on our three-ish mile drive to our destination was our headlights. Miraculously, we pull up to a gas station buried inside this park. There's no attendant, the store is locked, but the pump is lit. My friend pulls over, it's a tight squeeze, it's a small gas station, and my friends joke that I should be the one to pump the gas since I'm the only man in the car. It's really because none of us wanted to step outside, we're all feeling creeped out by the atmosphere that we've just driven into. I get out, the pump accepts my card, and I start filling up the tank. As soon as I start fueling up, we see lights approaching from the distance.

Let me restate that there have been no lights whatsoever besides our headlights and the faint glow of the gas pump at the station. We could see the blackness of night stretching for miles in this park. There had been nobody on the narrow road with us the whole time that we were driving in. Where were these lights coming from if we hadn't seen them until the second I exited the car? I say to my friends through the window, it must be a park ranger. I realize as I'm saying this that I'm verbalizing it to calm myself down rather than because I think it's true. The lights get closer. They're blinding. The high beams are

on, shining directly at me as they pull into the station. Eventually they get close enough that I can make out the vehicle. It's a random RV, not a park ranger. I see a man in the front seat. Skinny, glasses, mustache, baseball cap. It's a white guy, and that's how I remember him. And there's nobody else in the vehicle with him. I assume that he's got to be in the same boat as us. Tank running low. No place to stop for gas.

No choice but to fill up the park. But he drives around the unoccupied pump and faces his RV in our direction for no apparent reason. At this point I can see his eyes. We're close enough that I'm looking at the driver clearly as I'm filling up the tank. He smiles at me as he continues to inch his vehicle closer to ours, moving at a speed so slow that it was like he was trying to provoke us. He's getting closer and closer, but why isn't he stopping? He's about to hit us while we're immobilized and he's driving less than five miles per hour. So my friend in the passenger seat builds up the courage to reach over and honk the horn to tell him to stop. The sound of that horn, cutting the tension of the

absolute silence of the night, will stick with me forever. At this point I was looking not only at the RV, but also through the window at my friends. Without words we're all communicating our extreme horror and confusion at the situation unfolding in front of us. The RV stops, just yards away from our car, and the man waves at me again, almost apologetically, with a smile. We're not fully fueled, but I know that I'm not comfortable standing at that pump any longer, so I hang it up and hop back in the car. I don't even have to say let's get out of here. As soon as I close the door, my friend is already starting to move the car. Our RV guy has, at that point, positioned himself in such a way that it is impossible for us to drive straight out of that station because he's blocking our path forward.

Our only choice is to reverse into the forest, i.e. the unpaved, non-drivable forest, and angle ourselves out from there. We eventually do it while the RV guy sits there, staring at us, still not moving to exit his vehicle or fuel it. We get out, start driving as fast as we can on that narrow path out of the park, and keep checking behind us to see if we're being followed. We weren't. It looked like the RV turned its headlights off as we left. We didn't discuss what had happened until we knew that we were 100% safe and back on the highway.

When we finally were able to approach the situation, we realized that the RV must have been camped out in the blackness of the forest with its lights out, waiting for someone to approach the pump. We would have seen the headlights otherwise. It would have been too dark not to have noticed them. We have no idea what would have happened if we hadn't honked that horn, if we had let him slowly inch his way closer and closer and hit our car. Would he have said sorry, let's all get out of the car and check the damage, and then tried something on us? Would he have lured us out into

the open so we didn't have the protection of the car? Was he alone in the RV? We'll never know, and I'm sure glad that we didn't stick around to find out. Back when I was 13 years old, I was living in Brooklyn, and this happened about a week or two after my birthday, so it must have been sometime at around Easter weekend. A friend and I went to the movies about once a week. Normally we went to one of several movie theaters in our neighborhood but there were times when the movie he wanted to see, he always picked the movie, I didn't care what he chose, I loved going to the movies regardless of what we wanted to see, wasn't playing in his neighborhood. So we would sometimes go to the theater outside his neighborhood.

This time we had to go way out to Manhattan to see the movie. I have long since forgotten the title. And we took a train out to Manhattan, saw the movie, and took the train home. Because we lived in different neighborhoods, we had to get off at different stops. He got off at his stop, and I had to continue to the last stop so that I could catch a connecting train to take me home. The subway car that I was sitting in was completely empty, so was the car next to it, which was the first car of the train. After sitting there in the empty car, I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to move to another car instead of sitting there in the empty car. I got up and moved into the next car

where there were people. I decided to move even further to another car again but some leather jacketed guy got in my path and told me that the other train cars were closed. I knew this guy was full of it but I didn't want any trouble from him so I just said oh and turned around and went back into the empty car that I came from and took my old seat. That guy and his friends took my response as a sign of weakness and cowardice, which it was. I was a meek little 13-year-old who was abused as a kid with no confidence whatsoever. I was sitting there in my seat when a metal dart landed on the floor at my feet, followed by an angry, gruff voice yelling,

Hey, pick that up! I looked over to my right and the leather-jacketed guy and his friends, around a half-dozen or so, poured into the car and came straight at me. His dart guy friend was one of the first to reach me as he ordered me to pick up the dart again. I did so and then he ordered me to hand it to him. I did. Then he proceeded to throw the dart directly into my leg repeatedly. I screamed and cried. I put my hands over my leg in an effort to shield them but then he ordered me to move my hands away or else. I did and he proceeded to throw his dart into my legs again as he stood over me. My memory is a bit hazy as to how the rest progressed, but I do recall them after the dart throwing. They proceeded to use me as a punching bag, fists flying in my face, chest, and stomach, not one of them at a time, but several of them at the same time.

I managed to break free from those guys and made a run for the car doors so I could escape into the next car where there were people, but one of them was guarding the door. This guy was not taking part in my torture with his friends, he just stood at the door as a lookout. I could sense that this guy had some compassion for me, but he felt some sort of guilt about what was going on, which is why he wasn't taking part that I can recall. But as I reached the door, he still prevented my escape. I yelled. I screamed. I cried. I begged him to let me go. But he wouldn't. He threw me back to his friends. That guy keeping me trapped in that car with his friends that very second was the worst feeling ever. Somewhere along the line, I found myself on my knees on the floor of the subway car. I reached into my pocket and pulled out all the money I found myself on my knees on the floor of the subway car. I reached into my pocket and pulled out all the money I had on me at the time, all the money I had in the world, a single dime. I huddled out to them in the palm of my hand above

my head and yelled at them that that was all I had, please take it and leave me alone. I felt a leather gloved hand press into my palm and take the dime, but they still weren't finished with me. One of them got the bright idea that he wanted to see my head go crashing through one of the windows of the subway car, so they grabbed me and started to ram me head first into the glass of one of the windows. Fortunately, the subway car windows are strong and shatterproof. They had to be due to all the vibrations it takes from the moving train I later found out. I can't recall how many times they rammed my head into the glass,

somewhere from half a dozen to a dozen before they just gave up. And just before we reached the last stop, I was on my feet. I opened my mouth to say something and accidentally a little spittle came flying out of my mouth and landed on the leather glove of one of my attackers, which earned me a slap in the face. Finally we reached the last stop. The doors opened and they ran out the car except for one guy who I assumed was their leader. The same guy who at the beginning got in my path and told me the other train cars were closed. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and asked me if I needed a couple of bucks. I couldn't believe it. I didn't

want anything from him. I refused his offer and he put his wallet back and walked off the train. I went to the front car to report to the conductor that I was attacked. I banged on the door but there was no one there. I walked off the train onto the platform. I changed platforms. I saw a couple of cops with their backs to me. They were exiting the platform by going down the stairs. I called out to them, but they didn't hear me. I was too weak from the beatings to go run after them.

They disappeared out of my sight. It was just as well. I never memorized my attacker's faces as I tried not to make eye contact with them throughout the entire ordeal. I'd forgotten what they looked like within seconds of them leaving the train. I could never be able to give an exact positive description and I never knew their names. Defeated, I caught my connecting train, this time finding and staying in a car that was reasonably filled with normal looking people. The moment I got home, I flopped into bed and go to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, my body ached all over. I imagine my attackers, if they're

still alive today, are somewhere in their 50s or early 60s. At the time of their attack on me, they were all a few years older than me, so I estimate late teens to early 60s. At the time of their attack on me, they were all a few years older than me, so I estimate late teens to early 20s. Some of them no doubt have families of their own. Wives, grown kids, homes, good jobs, etc. But I also bet they keep it a secret from everyone in their inner circles. Employers, co-workers, friends, and family, about the time how they mugged and physically assaulted some young kid, a total stranger, for kicks on a subway train way back when. Their friends and families, wives and kids, probably look up to them thinking they're the greatest, not knowing what lowlifes they really are and were. My life at the time,

and the many years following, were terrible and painful for many reasons. Granted, they're not to blame for the entire terrible state that was and is my rotten life, and to be fair, had I never encountered them my whole life would still be terrible, but they sure did contribute to the lousy horribleness that is my life. I have never forgotten or forgiven them for the torture they inflicted on me both physically and mentally, and I hope they all burn in hell. To be continued... here you've been asking for people to send in true scary stories from your live stream. Well, if you ask me what the scariest moment of my life is, I'd have to say being stabbed by my now ex-wife over Easter weekend. I went to work and she was fine, but during the day she snapped mentally and didn't know who she was or who I was. I walked in and went to hug her and she had a

blank look in her eyes and lunged at me with a carving knife. I turned but she still got me. She was going for the heart and wound up grazing off my ribs under my left arm. I had to grapple with her to get the knife away and stop her from attacking me and I wound up subduing her face up on the floor with her arms crossed so I could just sit on them. I managed to grab a towel off the counter and put it under my arm to keep from bleeding out and I was able to dial 911 from my pocket phone. I made sure the dispatch told the cops that I was wounded and was sitting on her to keep her

from killing me and that the door was unlocked. California cops burst in guns drawn and were threatening to shoot me. I said that I'll get up but she needs to be controlled or she'll attack them. They tackled me and of course she jumped up and started to attack them while they cuffed me. They wound up tasing her and cuffing her too while I'm bleeding out. They eventually at least grabbed the towel and covered the wound again until the ambulance showed up and cuffed me to the stretcher. They eventually uncuffed me and I had to get stitched up, and I'll never call the cops again. They still tried to arrest me after, but at least the captain had a brain and told the morons to let me go. A doctor told me that a few inches to the left and

the stabbed wound could have killed me, and it never fails to add a creepier aura to the whole thing that I dodged death on Easter. Makes me wonder if something else is really going on in the universe. I've worked security on and off for several years to supplement my income, so I've heard quite a few creepy stories from coworkers. Probably the most legitimately scary story I've heard was from a guard that was working in a closed-down arena over spring break. The building is more than 100 years old, but hasn't been used since the early 2000s. The city is keeping up with basic maintenance as it waits for a buyer. There's usually one guard assigned to the building. It's a 6,000 seat arena with a huge basement and two additional floors that have lots of old office spaces, dressing rooms, and a separate smaller community theater type stage that's upstairs. The usual guard is

doing the rounds through the building. The building itself is very interesting as it's largely unchanged since the heydays of the 70s and 80s. The upper floors are largely dark and pretty creepy actually. Anyway, the guard is doing his normal rounds but feels unnaturally creeped out. It's his normal pose, but something feels just different today. He's feeling jumpy, but shakes it off and continues. He's a very diligent guy, so he walks every floor of the building. He's in the very top of the catwalk system above the main area where the old spotlighting equipment was. It's a narrow wooden catwalk system, and suddenly he hears a loud creak behind him, like someone's walking.

He spins around and sees a guy standing there. The guy is frozen, mid-stride, like he's been tiptoeing up behind him. The guy has an unsettling, mischievous-looking smile on his face, like he's been caught with his hand in a cookie jar. Dude has a big steel pipe in his hand instead of a cookie though. The guard pulls his gun and the guy takes off running in the opposite direction and disappears into the labyrinth of the building. The cops came and sweep the building with a canine unit but don't find him. They do find that he's been playing in the dust that's on top of the old concession counters.

He had written a bunch of bizarre helter-skelter type unsettling rhymes and drew a bunch of stick figures hanging from nooses. The speculation is it was some crazy homeless guy that had been hiding in the building a few days and had made a game of following the guards without them knowing it. I saw the writing still on the counters the last time that I was there. My grandfather-in-law worked for a private security company as an armed guard for a while in the 1980s. It was a smaller company that mostly loaned out guards for short-term work. Things like guarding construction sites, conventions, that kind of thing.

Him and one other guard from the company were posted at a department store slash mini-mall over Easter, one that had recently had someone drive a freaking car through one of the atriums, Blues Brothers style. The guards were to patrol the mall and the outside grounds because with the atrium destroyed, they had no real way to lock up the building on account of the huge hole in it. They had all put up some boards and such, but it wouldn't have taken much at all to move them and get inside. The mall had a small bank in it as well as a pharmacy and electronic stores. The owners were terrified someone was going to use the damage as an excuse to break in, so they contracted armed guards to patrol it and had their normal night watchman, who was

apparently a real old-timer, just kind of hang out and watch the cameras instead of doing rounds. Easy work, right? Well, the mall closes and my grandpa and his partner show up. They do a walk of the mall, test all the doors they can, make sure what alarms that exist are armed, all the standard stuff. They radio in to the watchman that they're going to do a once around the outside of the mall to test the doors from the outside and to check for anything odd. The watchman radios back an okay and they head out, each going different directions and locking the door behind them. My grandpa is walking along the back of the mall testing service doors and such when his partner yells

him over the radio, the barrier's shredded, there's a huge hole, get here fast. My grandpa takes off in a dead sprint. As he runs, he radios the watchman asking what's going on. He doesn't get a reply. He radios him again, yelling and trying to get him to respond and there's just silence. He arrives at the barrier with the other guard and sure enough there's a huge hole just big enough for a person to crawl through that's been shredded out of the plywood. It looks like someone dug through it with something sharp. My grandpa crouches down and shines his light through the hole, but again, this is the 80s, and flashlights don't exactly cut through the dark like flashlights

we have today, so he can't see anything weird inside. He turns to his partner and says that they need to call the police, but this being the 80s, cell phones aren't super common yet, so if they're going to do it, they need to get inside the mall and find a phone. They try radioing the watchman again and still get no reply. They get their guns out and squeeze through the hole and start advancing toward the security office. Most of the stores have shutters that are down, so it's a pretty straight shot. As they make their way there, they hear an earth-shakingly loud scream. He said it sounded like a person with a chest the size of a car was just screaming as loudly and as savagely as they could. They both turn towards where the sound came from, which is a grocery store.

It's the only store inside the mall that doesn't have a shutter on account of how large it is. They start moving that way because they still can't reach the watchman and are worried whatever screamed may have him. As they get closer they hear something tearing the place up, just absolutely ripping things apart. They shout that there's security and that they're armed and to come out with your hands up. No sooner than they had yelled a huge mountain lion threw itself around the corner. Both him and his partner unloaded on the thing, just completely dumped their mags into it. My grandpa said that his partner was so terrified that he almost passed out. The mountain lion was clearly not well, as its face was all shredded and it had a bunch of infected wounds all over it. They guessed that it was probably

rabbits so they stayed as far back from it as they could. As soon as the commotion was over, the watchman came on the radio in a panic, asking what was happening. The old-timer had fallen asleep at the cameras and missed everything. He said that was the only time in his entire time as a guard that he had ever had to unholster his sidearm, much less fire it. I was camping with a couple of friends during a cross-country spring break road trip. We didn't bring a tent, we just threw a tarp over the bed of the pickup truck and slept back there. I have a very hard time falling asleep, especially when I'm not in my own bed, so I was up long after my buddies had passed out. While I was laying there, the only one awake amidst a calm and quiet night, aside from my friend's obnoxious snoring, I started getting this feeling, like a sinking feeling in my gut. I thought maybe I was hungry, went into the truck and grabbed some snacks, then tried again to fall asleep.

I drifted off for a bit, but when I woke up suddenly, that feeling was still there, but worse. It wasn't hunger, it was that deep in your gut, something is very wrong here feeling. But nothing was wrong. I tried again to ignore the feeling and go to sleep. I probably got an hour or so of sleep and then yet again woke up suddenly. All kinds of alarm bells were ringing now. I remember feeling shaky and nauseous at this point. I had no idea why but my body was in full fight or flight mode. I didn't care if they thought that I was crazy at that point, I woke up my friends and told them that we needed to leave, now.

I was able to convince them and we left in a hurry. I told them that I'd explain in the morning, and we found another campground down the road to crash for the night. The weirdest part happened after we all fell asleep at the new campground. I was sleeping peacefully, only to be woken up by my friends shaking me and telling me that we needed to leave again. The second I opened my eyes, I'm completely overwhelmed by the worst feeling of dread imaginable. My buddies both looked totally freaked out as well and were practically trying to pick me up and throw me in the truck cabin. There's literally nothing around us that should be making us feel that way, as far as we could tell. But my god, it felt like

death itself was staring us down. We got out of there as fast as we could and drove several hours until we reached a large town and just got a hotel. And that was the end of it. We never figured out what was going on. My friends thought that we were being followed at one point during the drive. I don't really know, honestly. I probably never will. But it was by far the weirdest night I'd ever have. To be continued... in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. At the time, I was single and I had been for almost five years. In that time, I hadn't had so much as a date and my main problem was that I just didn't really get out all that much. I had a job in a gun store at the time which meant that I was around a lot of dudes and unlike my buddies who worked in bars or coffee shops, places they could actually talk to girls and build their confidence, I pretty much stagnated and developed zero riz as a consequence. Tinder had been a thing for a few

years by then, but I had absolutely no confidence in myself and no idea how to approach building a profile. But luckily for me, I had some really good friends who helped me pick myself up, get into shape, and put together a Tinder profile that didn't make me look so much like a neckbeard loser. Once I had a passable profile, I started swiping and after just a few days, I matched with a person named Amy. Amy was basically the Tinder girl of my dreams. She was cute, easy to talk to, and she actually wanted to hook up in person instead of just texting back and forth for weeks. Not just that, she seemed very into meeting up too, and she wanted to hook up that same day that we matched. And that was music to my ears. And I know I had red flags all

over it, but it had been so long since I even talked to a girl and even if it wasn't going to go anywhere, I could use it as practice for future dates. I know that might sound cruel, just using her as a stepping stone or whatever, but I promise you, my only intention was to have fun, be a gentleman and try not to be an awkward mess. We agreed to meet at a coffee shop. More specifically, the coffee shop one of my buddies worked at. He agreed to hook me up with some free banana bread while saying, you two are a cute couple, and pretending that we didn't know each other. Kind of a sleazy move, I know, but he was being a total bro by offering to be such a solid wingman, and I really appreciated any help I could get. But then, as luck would have it, my buddy wasn't actually there when I arrived. He was out on break, but guess who was there, dead on time? Amy. And she looked good. A lot of girls look better in their pictures than they do in person, but that's something I came to learn,

and there's nothing wrong with that. I look better in mine too, but with Amy, it was kind of the total opposite. I don't know what it was, with Amy, it was kind of the total opposite. I don't know what it was, if she'd like done her makeup extra good for the date, but she looked so amazingly beautiful that it completely knocked any confidence that I had out of me. It made for a pretty awkward start, but as time went by, things got better, and we did actually get that free banana bread, which most definitely seemed to impress her. But then, the more we talked, the more I noticed something about her was just off. I tried to follow my buddy's advice and ask her a whole lot of questions about her and her passions because who doesn't like being treated like they're interesting, you know?

But whenever I asked her anything, she just gave some brief or vague reply before turning it around on me again. My buddies were right. It is really nice when someone seems genuinely interested in you and they want to know more about your life. But even though she was asking me all of these questions, it was like anything I said was like, oh wow, cool. I know this sounds nuts because on paper this just looks like she was into me, but she wasn't actually listening. She didn't really seem to care. I could have told her that I deep fried dog turds as a hobby and she'd have been like, oh wow, cool. I know that now, but at the time I couldn't see it at all. I was just way too blinded by the fact that this really pretty girl seemed to like

me a whole lot. I mean, it was literally intoxicating, even judgment-impairing. In my opinion, you shouldn't be allowed to drive in that state. But anyway, we sat and drank coffee for almost three hours, mostly with me talking about dumb stuff that you should probably never share with a girl on the first date. Then at some point, Amy says that she has to leave, but that she'd like to be escorted to her home so we could keep on talking, and that she could give me a surprise once we got there. Now, I'm assuming this surprise is like a peck on the cheek or something, something in the line with the first date. But even so, the prospect of a peck on the cheek honestly motivated me so much that I think I'd have walked all the way to Georgia if she'd asked me to. I said sure, and we paid and

then left to catch a bus somewhere. I had no idea where we were headed, but like I said, it could have been just about anywhere. Turns out it was maybe only 10 or 15 minutes away, so we get off the bus and then start walking towards the street that her house was on. When we got to the corner, she looks at me and says, my house is on the street, but I want to take you someplace else for a surprise. Jackpot, I thought. At least, that's what I was thinking anyways. I didn't think that we were going to do anything too heavy, but if we were going someplace else, I was probably going to get a little more than just a peck on the cheek.

Don't get ideas, I mean like making out, maybe some hickeys, I don't know, cute stuff. I really wasn't expecting much. Anyway, we walk a few more blocks, then turn down another street, until we come to this row of houses still in the middle of construction. Then, to my surprise, Amy starts leading me towards them. I figured that we were headed to some park, or I don't know, somewhere romantic or something. But no, the interior of some half-finished house it was. I wasn't complaining, I'd still have kissed her if she walked me to the city dump, but

yeah, it totally wasn't what I was expecting. We walked inside and then the moment we were out of sight of anyone, Amy started kissing me, and it was amazing. We made out like that for a while, and I don't know how long, but things started getting kind of heated, and right when things reached their peak, she asked if I wanted to try something. I told her that I'd try literally anything with her, and when I said that, she reached into her bag and pulled out a zip tie. She then told me how she wanted to kiss me while I had my hands tied behind my back because she wanted to be in control. And that was just about the hottest thing that I'd ever heard, so of course I let her do it. It was like a freestanding beam in the middle of this room that we were in, so I put my back against it, and she tied the zip tie just a little too tight,

and then she went back to kissing me. Again, it was amazing, and we carried on smooching and stuff for a while until she said that she wanted to try something else. Something which would require me to close my eyes and hum. I remember asking what I should hum and she thought for a second and then she told me to hum my favorite song. I got so wrapped up in the moment, excited for what was to come. My best guess was maybe neck kissing or maybe lip biting and stuff, and also trying to remember my favorite song that I didn't stop to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. After all, I didn't really know this girl and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't really trust her, not after only meeting her just a few hours before. But when love comes in, your brain goes out as they say and by that period, my brain was long gone. So there I stood, eyes closed, humming the 1975's Smells Like

Chocolate and waiting for Amy to give me whatever surprise she had in store for me. I get why she wanted me to hum something because it meant that I barely heard the faint, whispery sound of something being taken out of her bag and unraveled. Then the next thing I know, I can't breathe. Something soft and plasticky is against my face. I tried to take a breath, but inhaled something thin and wispy that made a seal around my lips and cut off my air. I could feel Amy wrapping something around my head, something that felt a lot like saran wrap my mom used to use to pack school lunches with. I struggled, throwing myself back against the wooden beam but it wouldn't budge.

I kicked out, trying to find any kind of leverage, but there was nothing. And as I felt myself slowly running out of oxygen, I felt a kind of fear that actually had me shaking, just to remember. What came next, I can't quite remember. There's a direct line between me thinking, please God, I don't want to die, then waking up on the floor of that half-finished house, somehow able to breathe again. I couldn't see a thing, and trying to open my eyes made the saran wrap push up uncomfortably against my eyeball. I called out for Amy, but there was no reply, then shortly after, I was just wildly screaming out for help for what seemed like an hour before I finally heard voices approaching from outside,

along with the telltale buzz of a cop's personal radio. They cut the zip ties holding me to the beam, pulled away the wrap from my face, and then started asking if I needed any medical assistance. Basically, either Amy or someone else I don't know had ripped a hole in the plastic wrap right near my mouth, and they must have done it either as I passed out or after I collapsed to the ground. I had honestly thought that Amy, if that even was her real name, was legitimately trying to kill me. But now looking back on it I know that there

was something very different going on too. The girl didn't want to watch me die. She wanted to watch me almost die as a result of how much blind faith that I had put trust into her with, thinking it was going to be my lucky day. In truth, it was the total opposite. I filed a police report, spoke with two detectives, and that's when I found out that I wasn't the only person to have had my face wrapped in saran wrap in that exact same way. The only problem was, this girl was changing her name and appearance on dating profiles, using makeup and either weaves or hair dye to change up her style and look. The detectives basically leveled with me and told me that giving the right details might actually save someone's life, and it was only a matter of time before Amy, or whatever her real name was,

suddenly found the courage to not rip a hole in the plastic so that her victims would just pass out instead of dying. I tried as best I could, talked for literally hours about everything from matching with her to the final few moments I had before I ran out of breath and blacked out, recalling that whole second part was tough, tougher than I ever imagined, and because of that, I pray that it didn't happen to anyone else. Now P.S. if you didn't already guess, Amy was never caught by the cops, or at least not to my knowledge anyway, but I didn't hear about anyone else either waking up from a saran-wrapped nap

or dying as a result of one. I used to work in this inner-city pub in Birmingham. You know the pub in Peaky Blinders, with all the frosted glass and brass fixtures on the inside? Almost exactly like that one. The regulars were top blokes, and being behind the bar, there was a great crack sometimes, so all in all, I'd definitely say it was one of the better jobs I had during those wilderness years in my teens and early twenties. But that being said, there was an accident that happened fairly early in my employment there that actually made me want to hand my notice in. I'd only been working there about a week when this happened, so I was still in the process of getting to know all the regulars,

learning about the weekend crowd, what football matches not to put on TVs, that sort of thing. I worked a Saturday day shift, since that'd be a little easier on me than throwing me in at the deep end for a Saturday night shift. Me and the general manager did a little bit of on-the-job training with the cask ales in the cellar. We served a few pints, had a bit of chit-chat, then that was me off for home for the day. I was next due in the following morning and I was knackered after a long day, so I hit the hay fairly early back at my place, then get up bright and early at 10am, I'm 21 remember, and I'm ready to open up the pub again. The second I walk in, there's a note on the bar top, a note that went a little something like this.

Morning mate, there's a few glasses to put through after last night. So sorry about that. Try and pop down to Asda before opening up, too. We're running low on bin bags. Oh, and Pete's barred for fighting, so if he comes in, don't serve him. All the best. Give me a ring if you need anything. Cash. As soon as I saw the name Pete, my heart rate picked up by about threefold. If it was the same Pete that I was hoping it wasn't, then what they were asking me to do was a wee bit above my pay grade. I gave the manager a ring, praying that he didn't mean Pete with the gray hair, and there was some other much more timid and shorter Pete, and not the one as I was thinking of. But then to my absolute horror, the manager tells me, yes, he does mean Pete with the gray hair and there was a good chance that he was going to come

in to try and talk himself out of being barred. To understand why I was so frightened of Pete, I need to explain why everyone was so frightened of Pete. Pete was a complete and utter psycho. Not just a prick or someone with anger problems, although he did have anger problems. I mean, Pete was actually a terrifying person to be around. He could turn on a second. One minute he's your best mate, and he seems like the most normal, well-adjusted bloke in the pub. Then the next minute, people were having to hold him back because he's literally trying to kill you with a bottle of bud. From what I heard, the only reason he'd survived his current stretch of not being barred was by staying sober during his visits. He'd have an orange juice if he popped in at lunch, a lime

and soda after work, then if he really wanted to push the boat out, he'd have a bottle of Caliber during the footy, which was the horrible non-alcoholic beer that I'm not sure even exists anymore. Apparently, he'd fallen off the wagon on that Saturday night and gotten into a massive fight with a group of the weekend regulars who come for the karaoke. They wanted him barred, and since they put a fair amount of cash behind the bar, we didn't have much choice but to comply. Now, I'm guessing at this point, Pete just seems like your average prick. Good riddance and all that. But once you know why Pete was the way he was, it took on this horribly sinister kind of vibe, you know? You see, when

Pete was still in primary school, he'd been sitting in the living room, watching something on TV with his mom, when his dad had walked into the room with a hammer. Then, right in full view of little Pete, Pete's dad walked over to his mom, and then bashed her over the head. Pete tried to stop his mom's own murder at the hands of his own father and for the rest of his life. He has a nasty scar running along his jawline from where his dad had smashed him in the face with a hammer. Somehow, Pete got out of the house and ran to a neighbor's before his dad could finish him off, and that's where he stayed, until some relatives came to collect him to give him the bad news. Mommy was in heaven, and Daddy was going to live somewhere else for a very long time.

And that's how Pete grew up, not knowing exactly why such a terrible, awful thing could have happened because his dad refused to speak to anyone about it, and from what I could gather, was still in prison. For years and years, Pete's dad didn't say a word to anyone. He didn't enter a plea at his court date, and we know this because it was a huge story at the time and a lot of the regulars knew all about poor Pete and why he was so messed up in the head. And that's why he

got so much sympathy and probably why he thought that he could talk himself out of being barred. It was repeated learned behavior. He knew everyone felt sorry for him because how couldn't you be? And so that was the situation. Pete was probably going to come in to get a pint off me and I was going to have to tell him no. He walked in about an hour after opening with only one other person in the pub aside from myself and because of the way the doors were set up, I didn't see him until he was basically right up in my face. He had this big smile on his face, not a sinister one though. It was like he was trying to come across as friendly and non-threatening as possible. Then, in a similarly sunny sounding

voice, he asked me if the manager was around. I told him he'd have to wait until about three in the afternoon if he wanted to talk to a manager, which was just over two hours away by that point. In response, he said something like, okay then, you don't mind if I wait here, do you? The path of least resistance was to just say okay, so that's what I did. But then the next thing I know, he's asking for a drink, and even though I crossed all my fingers and toes in the hopes that he'll ask for an orange juice, he asked for half a lager. I was in the middle of trying to stock a fridge at the time and I remember hearing him ask and letting out a big sigh before I got up, turned around and said to him as politely as I could,

Pete, I'm real sorry but I can't serve you any alcohol. I don't know if I visibly flinched after saying it, but it definitely felt like I did. But instead of lunging over the bar at me like I thought he might do, Pete just sort of tilted his head to the side like a confused dog and asked me why not. There was no way he wasn't playing dumb, but there was no way that I was going to accuse him of that, so I actually spelled out why he was barred by reminding him of the previous night's events. He claimed no knowledge of them at first and thought that maybe he had been blackout drunk or something and legitimately couldn't even remember where he'd been or what he'd been doing.

I then had to tell him that if Cash, our manager, said that he was barred, then he was barred. And that's when he turned. I swear to God, if his voice was poison, it'd have killed me dead right then and there. He grits his teeth, looks at me from under his brow, then growls something to the effect of, if you weren't there, how the F can you tell me what happened then? I just sort of froze for a second, having realized that I wasn't going to get away with telling him no. I knew Pete could be scary, but I'd only heard about him turning like that. Seeing it face to face was actually terrifying.

Now might be the time to add that Pete was a big bloke too. Wiry, but very tall, and he couldn't fight. I'd heard something about him doing Thai boxing or Taekwondo during his teenage years, probably as a way to channel all of his anger. I didn't know how true that was, but by all accounts, Pete wasn't just feared because of his mean stares. He knew how to fight, like really knew how to fight. When I finally found the balls to speak, all I could give was some weak excuse that it was out of my hands and that I didn't want to risk my job in the first week of being there. Pete really didn't like that. In fact,

what I thought might be the key to defusing the situation made him angrier than ever. The way he saw it, he's been going to the pub for years and years, so who the hell was I, some baby-faced Irish lad to deny him service in his local pub? Again, I took a step back from him, expecting him to lunge over the bar at me or something, but instead, he started walking down the bar, right towards the bar hatch, which was the only way in and out of the bar that didn't involve climbing over the wooden fixtures. He was absolutely livid, furious to the point that I could feel the adrenaline kicking in as he walked around the bar with murder in his eyes. I met him at the

hatch and he took a swing at me, but the width of the bar meant that it was easy enough to dodge. But then, Pete grabs the bar hatch and swings it up so he can step onto the bar and have another swing at me. Another little detail that you need to understand is that in this old school pub, the bar hatch wasn't like a little doorway. It was just a really heavy section of bar that folded upwards. Pete needed to steady himself on the bar just to lift it, and he was a pretty strong bloke, so when he lifted it up, I grabbed it from the other side and slammed it back down,

right onto his other hand, which had found its way into the little groove where the hatch fits onto the bar top. The impact was literally sickening. There was no crunch, no blood right away, but I knew that I must have broken something in his hand. The way he yelped and stepped back, holding his hand before letting out this deep, angry growl of pain. I thought that that might have gotten the fight out of him. But no. He actually tried again, blood now dripping from his hand as he grabbed the hatch. I just grabbed it and slammed it down again. Not from as great a height that time, but the bang of the hatch hitting the bar had him recoiling at a pure instinct.

There was a few seconds where he just stared at me, bright red in the face, 100% ready to do me in, when, from out of nowhere, a voice came from the back of the pub. Nasty injury you got there, Pete. You better go, and get it looked at sharpish. The only other person in the pub, this really quiet bloke named John, who literally used to wait outside of the pub to open at noon, he speaks up and pretty much ends the whole thing with a few quiet words. Pete screams something about coming back, then something about getting the police involved, then something else about me being a dead man. After that, he was gone, and nothing left but a few drops of blood on the tiled floor.

If anyone listening has ever been in that kind of situation, they'll know just how bad you shake afterwards. I was shivering like a pooping dog, like someone had cranked up the air conditioning to arctic levels. It was so bad that the only thing I could think to do was pour myself half a lager and walk out into the front beer garden for a smoke. I knew the manager wouldn't be too happy about that, but I also knew that it was very exceptional circumstances, and since we were entitled to one staff drink per shift, it wasn't me stealing drink or anything like that, just having it about seven hours earlier than I could have otherwise.

I also now realize that I've written about four bloody pages of A4, so I'll try and cap things off as swiftly as I can. I only ever saw Pete once more time, which was when he drove past me in his minivan while shouting something abusive out the window. I still don't know what he said. I had my earphones in and music playing, but I know it probably wasn't very flattering. Rather than get the police involved, he must have known that he was in the wrong, Pete opted to just get his hand fixed and drink somewhere else. I should add that he was still wearing a bandage when he drove past me in his minivan and I'll admit that it gave me a smug, satisfied feeling. I totally understand that he had a horrible childhood and yes, he's due all the sympathy and patience that entails, but that can't be at the cost of other people's safety. And as much as I'm eternally grateful

that management, staff, and punters took my side. I really should never have put myself in that position in the first place. The rest of my time at the pub was fantastic, to the point where I didn't leave by choice, but that's another story for another time. I used to work as a bikini barista up in Washington State, and let me tell you, it was not my finest hour. Now, no offense to anyone who really enjoys doing that kind of thing for a living. The tips are great, and if you have good regulars, you're riding a gravy train. But for me personally, I was in a really rough stage of my life. I needed the money, like, really, really badly, and I definitely wouldn't have gone into that line of work otherwise.

The first major problem is, you get a whole lot of creeps, and sometimes you can't immediately tell if someone's going to be a jerk. A car full of college boys whistling at me and asking for extra cream is expected, and they're manageable. But some sweet older man asking me, is your effing mama proud of you? Before deliberately revving dust in my face. It hurts more when you're not expecting it or you let your guard down long enough to not expect it. The other big problem was that I was way out in the middle of nowhere essentially.

Not exactly wilderness territory but our customers were rural, and that wasn't always a good thing. Most of my regular customers were nice folks, like the guy old enough to be my grandfather, who always made sure that I was okay and never made me feel creeped on. Then there was the farm kid in his late teens who'd blush like a rose whenever he ordered from me, and always tipped big after giving me the same shy thank you ma'am. But then some weren't so nice and I got a feeling that they only stopped by out of necessity than any kind of affection. One of those guys was this really skinny guy who looked to be in his 40s maybe. He always looked at me with a kind of spite in his eyes like he was judging me for what I was doing.

Or maybe more, how I was doing it, but you get the idea. He'd come by most days, same scowl on his face every time, and although he definitely wasn't as bad as some of the other jerks who spontaneously pulled in after seeing the sleazy bikini barista sign, he definitely wasn't my favorite customer. Then this one day, a car pulls into the shack, a new one, and this really nice looking guy gets out and orders a coffee. We had like a little gravel parking lot just next to the one window shack and folks would often pull their cars in and drink their coffee before driving off again. The guy parked and walked over to the shack, and was just about the friendliest, most kind-hearted person who'd ever visited.

He had a total grandpa vibe, and he obviously dyed his hair this super conspicuous black, but he was so sweet that you totally forgive him for it. He asked about my day, about the job, but the thing that really made me like him was how he asked what I wanted to do after working the bikini shack. I don't want to bore you with all the dreams that I shared with him, but just talking about it really gave me hope for the future. When he was done with his coffee, my new grandpa wished me all the very best luck in life and then headed back to his car.

Before he left, he popped his trunk and started doing something, but before I got to be nosy about it, skinny-faced spiteful man pulls into the lot in his truck. My new grandpa closed his trunk and got back into his car before the skinny guy could mean mug him, and boy was I glad of that, cause I'd have ended up hating him even more. But for real, the skinny bearded guy watched my new grandpa drive off the whole way like he was trying to give him some don't come back vibes or something. Like I said, I am seriously hating on skinny guy and I did my best not to spill his coffee all over him as I passed it down from the window. Then for the first time ever, the guy says something other than coffee, black, and asks me if I'm working alone. For obvious reasons, this is by far the single scariest question I used to get asked.

Sometimes people were just concerned for me, and I get that. But if anyone asked who might have had bad intentions, I always lied and told them no. That my boss came by three times during my shift to collect bills and drop off change. That wasn't true. My boss lived down in Vegas for nine months out of the year, but I knew that it warned off some of the pervier guys who might try and hang around to pick me up after hours. So when the skinny guy asks, I tell him no and that I don't work alone, yada yada yada, he responds by spitting,

grinning and replying with, yes you do. He either saw right through my lie or had stopped by enough times to know that no one showed up except for me and the other girl who worked there over the weekend. The guy then asked me how I was getting home after my shift and again I lied, telling him my boss was driving me home. I don't know why I leaned on that excuse after he'd figured me out. I guess I thought if I just repeated it enough he might believe me, but the reality was I cycled to and from the shack every day. I knew he saw through that lie too.

I didn't think that he'd ever seen me on my bike or anything, but the way he smirked definitely showed that he didn't believe me. And after that, he made his usual order, then paid and took his drink without saying another word. He'd never been that creepy in the past, but there's a first time for everything, I guess. I just didn't want his first time creeping to be my last night alive, you know. Sounds kind of melodramatic to some, but worse things happen to young women every single day. So come to the end of my shift, I'm really tense. I had a real bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that skinny guy was going to try something as I rode home. So you can imagine how awful it was

to see his truck parked at the side of the road, maybe only a hundred yards in front of me as I rode home. So you can imagine how awful it was to see his truck parked at the side of the road, maybe only a hundred yards in front of me as I turned onto the road while on my bike. I told myself that I'd just ride past him and if he tried anything, I'd just call the cops and try to wave down any passing cars so he couldn't try anything. Then what do you know? As soon as I ride back, he starts shouting something out of his window to me. I had earbuds in, and back then I had the kind that you literally jammed into your ear hole until you were basically deaf. So although I had no idea what he said, I figured that it couldn't have been good, so I just upped my pace and rode past him, praying that he wouldn't just knock me off my bike or something.

The next thing I know, he's speeding up alongside me and I'm thinking, oh my god, this guy's gonna smash into me any second. Then, he pulls ahead of me and then turns into the side of the road real quick to totally cut me off. It was real sudden and I braked so hard that I felt myself about to fly over the handlebars for a second. After that, he got out of his truck, but instead of turning around and just riding off, I was so angry that I just went off on this dude. I was all like, what do you think you're doing? You're a total psycho, I'm calling the cops, and all this other stuff, and the guy just waited until I stopped talking, then gave me this total come with me if you want to live Terminator speech. I can't remember what he said word for word, but it was basically something like, there's a man waiting for you

down the road there. He has rope, handcuffs, and a bunch of other non-vehicle related tools in his trunk. I think he's going to try and kidnap you, so throw your bike in the back, get in my truck, and if he's still there when we drive past, you can call the cops from my truck. Just hearing him say that was terrifying, but I was still faced with a very scary problem. That could have all just been nonsense to get me into his car, you know, like how Ted Bundy or whoever used to lie to girls to get them into his van. But then at the same time, skinny guy had been visiting the bikini shack for months by this point, hadn't said more than two words to me aside from coffee black, and never,

ever tipped. That wasn't textbook creep behavior, not by a long shot, so either he was playing some super patient long game, or he was actually telling the truth. And for some reason, I went with the latter. Call it a woman's intuition, call it a sixth sense or whatever, but something about the guy's little speech rang true. So even though on paper I should have just declined and kept on riding home, I did as he asked and got into his truck. I told him that he better have a damn good story to follow up with than, oh boy, did he ever. It wasn't even much of a story really. He just kept on driving, telling me to keep an eye over his shoulder as he

drove. Then what do you know? I see a car at the side of the road with a man leaning on the side of it. It was exactly the same car my new grandpa had been driving, and only the person leaning up against it looked way different. Totally different clothes, seemed at least 20 years younger. But then somehow, even though I only got a split second look at him, I was convinced that it was the same old sweet man that I'd adopted as my new grandpa. I was stunned, literally stunned, to the point that I didn't even feel all that relieved to have been given a ride past him. I was just so disappointed in him and in myself too, having been so deceived that I was about to place my trust in totally the wrong place.

Skinny Guy said that when he'd rolled up to pick up his coffee at the same time my adopted grandpa had been there, he'd seen all kinds of creepy looking stuff in his trunk. Nothing to be alarmed about right away, people carry rope around and they're not all serial killers or whatever, but handcuffs too. Then after seeing the guy parked at the side of the road, the same road he probably knew I took to get home, he figured that he better come back and warn me. He said the thing that really set alarm bells ringing was how he changed his clothes. Still the same car, but totally different clothes. No one with pure intentions has a change of clothes, handcuffs, and rope in their trunk. I mean, I still don't know

entirely what the guy's deal was, but Jesus Christ, it doesn't really help thinking about what he'd have done if he got his hands on me. I didn't work at the bikini shack for much longer, and I went from keeping just that one can of pepper spray at the shack to open carrying a gun out of pure terror and the guy would come back. My boss took a huge issue with that and we clashed on it and that's how I ended up just getting fired. But it suited me fine. If he hadn't have fired me, I'd have just quit on the spot anyways. And that was my cue to question pretty much all conventional wisdom regarding women's safety. I know it might seem obvious to some of you, but that was when I learned about nice guys,

and not even just the online kind, the real life kind, that lull a girl into a false sense of security before completely and violently turning on them. I've been a casual listener for quite a while now, and I've always counted myself as fortunate that I haven't had any stories to share with you. And that all changed late last year. I live near the Edgware Road in central London, which is essentially a very long, high street that's all commercial at one end and mostly residential on the other. Every morning to get to work, I catch the bus from one end to the other, then stop into a small coffee shop to pick up some morning motivation. It's a daily ritual that I've been undertaking for years, and for the most part, every day was exactly the same,

all except one. So I'm sure many of you are familiar with how a lot of inner-city coffee shops function. Exorbitant prices, very few seats, lots of open space for queues and people waiting for orders, essentially a morning assembly line for office drones. Everyone's got their headphones in, everyone's tapping away on their phones, except for the odd odd deliveroo rider or civilian, everyone is wearing their smart work clothes. There's a kind of uniformity, something I find kind of contemptuous and comforting in equal measure because it really helped me spot the odd one out when I needed it most. One particular busy morning I was stood waiting

for my double latte when a rather normal looking guy walked into the coffee shop. He was dressed in his own clothes and had a very normal looking face, but the way he was acting made me just really nervous. He completely ignored the queue and started walking up and down it, just looking at people in line. Standard operating procedure meant that no one returned his gaze or even said anything to him, out of fear that they'd be the one he unloaded his crazy on that day. I don't really know how to articulate it, maybe it's something only people in big cities come to recognize, but sometimes I feel like you just know when someone is on the verge of a mental breakdown or something. And if there was anyone who embodied that feeling of, uh-oh, here we go, it was that guy. I thought that at worst he was going to start shouting at everyone regarding God knows what

was going on in his head, and I started sort of edging back towards the door just in case things got out of control. Instead of steadily ramping up the crazy, as would have been polite of him, that's an attempt at humor, by the way, he went from zero to a hundred, pulled out what looked to be some weird-shaped knife, and just started swinging at people. I'm not a particularly brave person, I'm certainly no have-a-go hero, but in that moment, I was faced with a simple choice. People had rushed back towards the front entrance so fast that there was people kind of crushing each other.

Not a bad one, but I wasn't going to be able to just run out right there and then. And because I was standing in the little waiting area, I was maybe only two or three people away from becoming the knifeman's next target. The way it looked to me was that if I didn't at least try and get a hold of the guy's arm to get the knife off of him, I was going to get stabbed. I might get stabbed in the process or at least cut a bit, but at least I might be able to minimize the damage. I didn't stand there thinking all that in real time. It was a split second decision. One I'm still surprised that I made, but make it, I did. I remember grabbing the guy by the crook of the arm, pulling it back a bit from behind him and thinking, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I'm going to get stabbed, oh my god, oh my god. But then, as I kept on pulling the guy backwards with no real plan in mind,

someone else jumped in and grabbed his forearm and wrist. With the knife then basically secure, loads of other people started jumping in, people who'd now run in from off the street, once the jam was cleared of course, to help get the guy on the ground. Looking back, there's probably people who thought it was a terror attack or something, and as I slipped out from under the guy after he'd fallen backwards, people were kicking and stomping on him before someone finally just sort of sat on him to hold him down. Even then, there was this younger guy shouting, kick his head in blood, and all this other stuff. I mean, people wanted the guy dead,

and before the police arrived, it was the member of the public who sat on him that basically protected him from getting his face kicked off. It was honestly such a surreal situation that I didn't even understand what I'd just done. I was so frustrated that I sort of felt like I was in the way. You have to remember that people are trying to get to the guy while I'm just trying to shove my way out of the medley feeling like I'm about to have a freaking panic attack so while it wasn't necessarily the case I still felt like I was running away. But then as I'm shoving my way through the crowd I'm getting slaps on the back from people like well done and good on you for giving them what for. I definitely hadn't been the one to disarm

the guy and if I'd been on my own I'm quite certain that I wouldn't be around to write this. But being the first person to try and stop the guy from stabbing anyone else, even if it was just pure fight or flight kicking in, that must have really counted for something to the people whose lives were at risk. I won't lie, it was a great feeling and even better when I saw a news article mentioning a bystander disarming the guy and thinking that that's me. Well, not exactly disarming him, and I wasn't the only one who intervened, but yeah, it felt really good to have done the right thing, even

if it was sort of by accident. The same couldn't be said of the people who had been hurt though, and there were quite a few of them. The guy had basically slashed his way up and down a section of the queue, injuring almost everyone in his path, leaving one or two with some pretty serious injuries. And that's what really brought me back down to earth. The fact that some people's days, years, or even lives had been ruined by some psycho with a knife or mini machete, whatever it was. People asked me why he did it too, if he shouted anything or wore anything weird or anything like that, but no. As I said earlier, the guy didn't say a word the whole time, and aside from a bit of a dodgy look in his eye, he looked just like your average 30-something Londoner.

I think that's the thing that really sticks with me. You sort of expect crazy murderers to sort of look like crazy murderers, don't you? So the idea that they're just hiding in plain sight, that's something I try my best not to think too much about. Just before 11am on May 30th of 2012, a man walked into the Cafe Racer in Seattle's University District. He was slender, with a mess of brown hair and a thick, dark beard. The cafe staff recognized him instantly as Ian, an unruly and ill-mannered customer that had recently been banned. One of the staff members reminded Ian that he was banned for life and that, no matter what he did or said, no one would be serving him so much as an espresso that morning.

It's not exactly clear what Ian did to deserve his lifetime ban from Cafe Racer, but a quick look into his personal life will give us a pretty good clue. 40-year-old Ian Lee Stowicki had a long and extremely violent criminal history. By 2012, he had racked up charges for domestic violence, assault, and malicious mischief, and unlawfully carrying a deadly weapon. During his domestic violence case in February of 2008, police officers were called to Stowicki's home, only to find his then-girlfriend weeping while nursing a bloody nose. She told police that he'd hit her, choked her, and smashed her belongings, and that in recent months, he'd been acting in an increasingly unhinged and unsettling manner.

Even Stowicki's own father admitted that his son was a majorly disgruntled person, and that he hadn't been a particularly happy person for a long time. The staff of the Cafe Racer were more than familiar with Stowicki's antisocial demeanor, and had clashed with him many times before eventually handing him his lifetime ban. After requests for him to leave were ignored, one of the workers walked out from behind the cafe's counter and towards the front door. There they opened it up and once again asked Stawicki to leave, but instead of complying, Stawicki pulled a pistol from his waistband and shot the worker in the head before they even had time to react. The man's body fell in such a way that it completely blocked one of the only escape routes, meaning Stawicki had turned the cafe racer into a shooting gallery. One customer attempted to fight back, throwing a

barstool at him while running back and forth to avoid Stowicki's bullets. This display of pure heroism allowed a trio of the cafe's patrons to evade Stowicki's crosshairs and escape out of the previously blocked doorway. But in truth, the customers were never really the targets. Stowicki focused almost entirely on the cafe's workers, those who had dared to ban him from one of his regular haunts. He kept them pinned behind the counter at gunpoint, berating them maniacally as he joined them behind the register. Stowicki then mocked each member of the staff as he shot them, execution style, leaving four innocent people lying dead in the cafe. Stowicki then attempted to flee the scene

running to a parking lot next to Town Hall Seattle on First Hill. It was there that he spotted a woman climbing into the driver's seat of her black Mercedes SUV. Stowicki approached the woman and demanded that she hand over her car keys. When she refused, he blew her brains out and wrenched them from her still-clenched fist. Police then believed that, as he drove around aimlessly wondering how he was going to escape justice, Stowiecki kept himself up to date on the criminal investigation against him by tuning into local news stations. This is how he discovered just how fast the police were closing in on him, and how they knew that he had stolen a black SUV.

What's more, the cops had set up checkpoints along almost every major roadway, meaning Stowiecki's chances of making a clean escape were slim to none. Once he became convinced of the hopelessness of his situation, Ian Lee Stowiecki placed the barrel of his pistol under his chin, then brought a premature end to his brief and miserable existence. Those that lost their lives at the cafe racer that day were 52-year-old Joseph Albanese, the cafe's manager, and bassist in a local band named The Mighty Sphincter, 49-year-old Andrew Kyriakides, a longtime friend of Joe's and a poet who went

by the nickname Smutsy the Claude. 36-year-old Kimberly Lynn Layfield lost her life behind the counter, along with 57-year-old Donald Largan, who may have been the staff member who first approached Stowicki in order to convince him to leave. The SUV owner shot dead in the parking lot that day was 52-year-old Gloria Leonidas, a woman who suffered heartbreaking misfortune that day after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Ian Stowicki and the awful acts of evil he committed that day is just how normal he looked. He looked like any other 40-something guy in central Seattle, the very definition of inconspicuous. And asking him to leave their

coffee shop never to return, the employees of the Cafe Racer had no idea what a monster they were dealing with and how an act of basic human decency meant that they'd sign their own death warrants. It may be a bit of a cliche, but for me personally, I don't think there is anything better than spring cleaning. I'm a bit of a neat freak and I love organizations, so I love getting recalibrated every spring with a cleaning and a new setup. In fact, I love cleaning so much that I started a cleaning company. Within the first year, I actually had a bunch of accounts and business was actually great. When the spring season was rapidly approaching, I decided to do a spring cleaning sale where I would clean the house for a discounted price. I ended up getting a lot of hits and had to pick just a few clients since I couldn't take every new client for the sale. A good problem to have, I suppose, and selfishly I picked the biggest houses in the nicest areas,

figuring that I could charge more because I would be there longer cleaning the bigger house. The first two days I cleaned two houses each day and I made a killing even at the discounted price. On Wednesday I only had one house scheduled to clean. The owners contacted me and told me that they had been living in Florida all winter and that the house was vacated. She told me that her nephew had been living there for a few months while he was waiting to move into his new home, but he moved out over a month ago. So this woman just wanted me to go in and give the house a really good cleaning and make sure everything is perfect for when they come home on the weekend. Another reason why I only took on this one client for the day was because the house was huge.

It looked like a house from a movie, it was so big. When I arrived at the house, I was happy that I had made the decision to make sure that this was my only house for the day. It was even bigger than I originally thought from the pictures and when I went inside, I was nearly knocked over by the stench of rotting food or something. Her nephew, who was supposed to have cleaned before he left, clearly didn't. The inside looked like a frat house. There was garbage and beer cans everywhere. The first thing I did was open all the windows to get some air in here and hopefully air the place out for the horrific stench that plagued this beautiful home. A few hours in, I was about halfway done with the house.

It was already starting to look and smell better than it did when I arrived. I had headphones in as I was cleaning and even though I had my music loud, I thought that I could hear some movement in between songs and felt that I could feel some movement every now and then from the vibrations in the house. I chalked it up to the house just being big and drafty, especially since the windows were all wide open. As I neared the completion of the cleaning of the house, my headphones started to die. The beauty of wireless headphones, I thought, and I brought my headphones back downstairs and threw them in my bag. I went back upstairs to finish cleaning the bedroom and the bathroom that was upstairs. Luckily for me, there were a lot of rooms upstairs that just looked like

spare bedrooms and they didn't need a lot of work. Just as I was finishing, I could hear shuffling coming from above me. I know what drafty houses sound like, and this was not that. This was clearly some kind of movement. My first thought was that an animal of some kind had gotten into the attic. The thought of anything else didn't even cross my mind. The last thing I wanted was for these people to come home and have to deal with a squirrel or raccoon in the attic. So I figured that I would try quickly to get the animal out before I alerted the homeowners. I made my way up to the attic as slowly as I could so I didn't alert the animal. I figured the element of surprise would be my best friend.

The stairs to the attic were incredibly high and narrow. The attic was three stories up, and it was a high three stories. I got to the attic, and I didn't see anything at first other than a whole bunch of boxes and storage. Your typical attic stuff. Old clothes, Christmas decorations, some heirlooms, and just about any other junk that you can think of. The smell up in the attic was horrible, worse than the rest of the house. I slowly stepped through the maze of boxes, trying to keep the creaky floor at a minimum. As I navigated the attic, I noticed more cans and food residue.

When I walked up to a stack of boxes, I saw a pair of boots coming from the side of the box. As I closed in on the boots, I noticed the boots had a blanket laying on top of them, and it appeared to be something stacked. As I examined it closer, it looked like the blanket was moving. I thought that the raccoon must be hiding under the blanket, eating food residue. I grabbed the blanket and whipped it off and my heart fell in fear. It was not a raccoon. It wasn't an animal. It was a person. An older man turned. He looked at me, looking just as scared as I was. I instinctually screamed and just ran out of the attic. I heard the man shouting for me to wait, but I wasn't going to. For some reason, instead of calling the police,

I called the homeowners first to make sure that they didn't know this person was there, and they were more horrified than I was, so I called the police. All during these calls, I sat in my locked car and didn't even pay attention to the house. When the cops showed up, they searched the house. They weren't able to find any sign of this man, as he appeared to have fled in the time that I was out in my car on the phone. After going through the rigmarole and dealing with the police, we went up to the attic and had a chance to really look around. There were dozens of beer cans and soda cans and a ton of other garbage left over from food. I guess they deduced that this guy must have been living up there for quite some time, considering the smell and how much food was there. It was honestly appalling.

When the homeowners got back from Florida, I caught up with them and we talked about the incident. I guess the police told them that whomever this guy was, he must have gotten to the house when the nephew was staying there and decided to hide out in the attic for as long as he could. Even though the guy looked like he intended no harm, the thought of an unwanted stranger living in your home is something I never want to experience. Thankfully, nobody was hurt in this story, but the thought of that face looking back at me when I moved the blanket will forever be burned into my mind. I feel like when people talk about their favorite seasons, spring doesn't come up a lot.

I never understood why because spring was always my favorite. The smell of flowers and the air is always just beautiful. I also come from an area where it snows horribly in the winter and it seems like winter is never going to end, so for me spring was almost like a homecoming of sorts. However, the events of last year left such a bad taste in my mouth I'll unfortunately never look at spring the same way again. Right around late March when the snow starts to melt I usually try to walk as much as possible. I walked a little more last year than usual because my car needed to be fixed and being a single woman I only have one car. I honestly didn't mind walking though.

My job wasn't far from where I lived. I bartended at a local bar that was maybe a mile away from the apartment complex where I was staying at the time. The apartments were nothing special, but they were located in a really nice suburban area. It was one of these picture-perfect little neighborhoods that you'd see in a movie or something, and they're tucked right in the middle of what was my little apartment sanctuary. For the first couple of days, everything was great. The weather had broken a few days prior, and I was soaking up the afternoon sun on the way to work and breathing in the nice crisp spring air at night on the way home. I was never worried about walking alone because like I said, the area was nice and I never saw any kind of crime or shady characters or even any cop cars for that matter. On the third day with no car, things changed quite a bit. It was pouring outside.

Like one of those days where the rain is coming down so hard it looks like it's turning sideways. Now pardon the pun, but you know when they say when it rains it pours? And that was about to become even more true in this situation. Not wanting to walk into the downpour, I tried to get a ride to work, but of course nobody was around to give me a ride. Then I tried to Uber to work, but of course, nobody was around to give me a ride. Then I tried to Uber to work, but of course, my phone wasn't working and I didn't have time to get to the phone store to fix it. You see what I mean about that expression now? Unfortunately, in the pouring rain, I had to walk to work, and never in my life has a mile seemed so long. I moved briskly to the bar, trying not to think about how soaked I was about to be when I arrived at work. On the walk to the bar, I do have to cross one busy intersection.

When I approached the intersection, I noticed someone was behind me. It even seemed that it was a hooded figure with their hands in the front pocket. It made sense, since it was raining and you wanted to cover your head. They weren't close, but they probably were several yards away. I didn't really pay too much attention since I was annoyed about the rain and it was still daylight out at this point, so it's not unlikely that someone would also be walking in the rain with a hood. I crossed the intersection and ran the rest of the way. When I got to the door of the bar, I noticed that the person behind me was running across the street now, and once they got to the side of the street the bar was on, they started

to walk again and stopped at the end of the parking lot of the bar. Again, I didn't really care because honestly, that's not that weird. My manager at the bar gave me a new company shirt, and luckily one of the waitresses had an extra pair of jeans in her car so I was able to get some dry clothes. That would have been a scary story on its own if I had to work soaking wet like that all night. Several hours into the shift I noticed someone sitting at the end of the bar. It was a strange looking man, most likely in his 50s. Since the bar is big there are usually two of us serving drinks. The man was sitting on the other side, which the other bartender would have been serving. Something about this guy just didn't feel right. I don't get creeped out very much, but this guy was giving me

all sorts of bad feelings. He had a beer in front of him that was half-drank. He was just staring into the distance. His expression just seemed completely blank. It's not unlikely to see people with that wandering gaze in bars, especially if they had a little too much to drink, but this guy's expression just felt different. He was completely still and not even blinking. And that's when I noticed that he had that same dark hood on. And I started to wonder if it was the same guy that I saw earlier. I realized having a dark hood doesn't make you a bad person. In fact, there are probably a dozen people in the bar with dark hooded sweatshirts on, but I still couldn't help but wonder if it was the same guy behind me when I was walking to work. About 15 minutes till 2am, the man finally

paid his tab and left. I was starting to wonder if this guy was ever going to leave. As soon as he left, we locked the doors 10 minutes early and did all of our cleanings so we could get out at a reasonable time. Well, my night just kept getting better. It was still raining out and I had to walk home. The only person with me was one of my co-workers, a guy named Dan, who I was not a big fan of. Dan liked me a lot and wanted to be more than just friends, but unfortunately I just didn't feel for Dan the same way. We had gone on a few dates, but it really didn't go anywhere and Dan didn't take it very well. So my options at this point were to ask Dan to drive me home or walk home alone in the rain.

And I chose the rain. I was basically jogging in the rain just trying to get home at this point. I planned on taking a hot shower as soon as I got home, so I didn't care too much about the rain this time around. About halfway to the apartment complex, I thought I heard something. When I turned around, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a figure standing about 20 feet away. The figure had a dark hood that was concealing their face and their hands in their front pocket. I turned back around and started to jog a bit faster as it was very disconcerting to me. When I looked behind me, the figure was now in a full sprint after me.

My heart began to beat out of my chest. I started to run as fast as I could and I was screaming uncontrollably, but it was raining so hard that I don't think anybody could hear me. The figure was so close now that I could even hear the footsteps splashing behind me. My apartment was probably still several blocks away and I was fearing the worst. And then the most unthinkable thing happened. Car lights could be seen reflecting off the rain-drenched street. I was flailing my arms trying to alert the motorist who thankfully did stop, and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was Dan, on his way home. He got out of his car, seeing that the man was chasing after me,

and he tried to tackle the hooded figure. He missed him, but the hood came off the guy's face and revealed that it was that same guy who had been sitting at the bar all night. The man ran full speed into the night and was gone within seconds. Dan gave me a ride home and made sure that I got inside safely. He stayed with me for a little while and we called the police just to alert them what had happened and maybe they could find the guy walking in the street or something. Once my heart finally stopped beating in my chest and once I finally calmed down, I asked Dan why he was following me because now I started to feel creeped out by him and I just had anxiety about everything. But what he told me was infinitely creepier. He said when he was pulling out of the bar parking lot,

he noticed someone running out from behind the bar, almost seemingly like they were trying to keep up with me. Immediately he started to follow us instead of driving home, which is in the opposite direction of his, and once it became obvious what was clearly happening, he acted right away and tried to apprehend the man. After speaking with the cops several times and giving a description, I don't believe the guy was ever actually caught. I thanked Dan repeatedly, and we became actual friends after that night. That was the last I ever walked to work or walked really

anywhere alone. Now spring may be beautiful, but I'll never enjoy spring showers the same ever again. This story is a little strange. I'm not sure if I'm a good enough writer to convey to all of you how unnerving it actually was. I was genuinely horrified at the moment, but luckily I didn't have any long-term effects other than a weird story that I like to tell people. Every year, my hometown does this event called Spring Fest. It's just this weekend event where vendors come to sell food, crafts, clothes, beer, and all sorts of things. My town is sort of small, so this festival is like the talk of the town, and everyone in town attends. Every night, which is just Friday and Saturday night, they have

live music, and honestly, it's a pretty cool event. When I was a kid, I used to love to go, and I'd hang out with my friends from school, and it was a cool place to talk to the girls that we all had crushes on. As an adult, it was just as cool. I loved to go and hang out with friends and just have a nice time doing something that's different and not the same old thing. In a weird twist of fate, my aunt and uncle ended up taking over the event planning for the entire Springfest. They asked if I would mind helping at the end of the night, cleaning the area and getting it ready for the next day, and then just coming in on Saturday and Sunday morning to get everything ready for the day. I love my aunt and uncle,

so of course I didn't mind and I didn't have to work during the festival, which was cool. They just wanted my help closing everything down. On Friday night, I attended the festival and was hanging out with a couple of my old friends from high school whom I hadn't seen in years. Toward the end of the night, when the band finished playing, I started to get a jump on the cleaning while the last of the people there started to trickle out of the festival. My uncle gave me an envelope with cash in it to give to the band that had just finished performing and asked if I could just pay the guy so he could take care of something else. Of course, that wasn't a problem, so I took the envelope and approached the band. I gave them the money and we chatted for a few minutes about

nothing special. They were just cool guys and super easy to talk to. I said bye to the band, walked away, and started to wipe down some tables. Within minutes, you could tell the place emptied out. The loud and ecstatic atmosphere became quiet in no time at all. Now, in the corner of my vision, I thought I could see someone watching me. I turned around, and to my surprise, it was this really beautiful woman. She was looking at me and smiling. Now, I can be a bit awkward, so I didn't really know what to do so I just waved and asked if she needed anything. She waved back and somehow smiled even bigger than she already was. In an excited voice she said, hey cutie what are you still doing here? In typical

me fashion I just looked awkwardly around and said, ah cleaning cleaning tables? I know, I'm smooth, and she giggled and approached me. With the lights on under the tent that I was standing, I could see the woman much clearer now. She was indeed gorgeous, and if I had to guess, significantly older than me. I was 22 years old at the time, and I would say this woman was at least 45 if not older. Thankfully she was not awkward at all and easy to talk to. I thought for sure at the beginning of this exchange that it was going to just be some woman that maybe drank too much but she didn't seem under the influence at all. She started to ask me all sorts of questions about what I did for a living, what I did for fun, how I knew the band and all sorts of things like that. We ended up talking for hours, actually,

and she finally said that she had to go and we exchanged phone numbers. I was giddy. I didn't have a ton of experience with women, and I had zero experience with a woman this age. I didn't want to make a fool of myself. Later that night when I got home, I noticed that she had already texted me and it dawned on me that I never home I noticed that she had already texted me and it dawned on me that I never got her name. Another smooth move for me.

The text came through at about 1.47am and it said, Hey cutie, I love talking to you tonight. Maybe tomorrow night we can grab a drink at Springfest and spend some time together. My heart was racing and I was thrilled. We texted back and forth for a while and I tried to figure out how to sneak in a text asking for her name but given the direction of the conversation it felt out of place and I didn't want to be weird. I realize now that it was not that weird to ask but back then I was a textbook overthinker. The last message that she sent me was at 4.01am and said, I can't wait until tomorrow. I'm excited to see you. Oh, and by the way, bring an overnight bag with you. Then she had a kiss emoji to end the text. I woke up at 7.30 in the morning and made

my way to the festival to meet my aunt and uncle and get set up for the day. They told me, once we got set up, that I could leave until the evening, but I planned on hanging out there all day and night anyway. And what a beautiful day this was. It was nearly 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I felt like I was floating all day long thinking about seeing the woman from the previous night. In the early afternoon, I texted her and asked when she was coming to the festival and I never got a text back. At 7.30, I texted her again and just said, looking forward to tonight. But again, I didn't get a response. As the night progressed, it was clear that she wasn't coming. The band was almost done with their set for the night and people

started to shuffle out. I was bummed but figured it was for the best. Shortly after midnight I was wiping down the tables and that's when I noticed the woman standing there. She didn't look the same as the night before. She looked angry. I asked if she was okay and she just stood there staring at me. She started to approach me slowly with both hands behind her back. When she was only a few feet away, she finally spoke up and said, You lied to me. You said you knew the band.

I was so confused. I didn't know what to say. Again, for context, what I told her that night before was that the band were cool guys and I was paying them for my uncle. I never once told her that I knew them on a personal level. As I stood there in silence, she said, I thought that they would be here tonight, but they weren't. You're a liar. At this point, she had completely lost me. Again, I never said anything like that. That band wasn't even performing tonight, it was a different band each night. I tried to apologize and she began to scream in my face. She didn't even say any words, just this weird, loud, bellowing scream. I basically just turned around and walked away, embarrassed.

I didn't know what to do or what to say and clearly this woman just wasn't all there. As I walked away, she yelled, Get back here, liar! When I turned around, she tried to hit me with some sort of wooden object. I put my arms up and thankfully I'm kind of a bigger guy so the board broke over my arms. Instead of doing anything I would regret, I just turned back around and started to run to my car. I started to drive away and saw the woman running after my car. I didn't take any action although in hindsight I probably should have. Now the next day, Sunday, the festival only went to about 6pm. I told my aunt that I would come

and help set up but I wasn't feeling well at all and I couldn't really tear anything down with them. The truth was, I just didn't want to potentially see that woman again. I still feel like the whole experience was just so surreal from yesterday. When I got there, I was surprised to see the lead singer from the band from Friday night. He confronted me, and he looked upset. In a mellow and almost embarrassed voice, he said, Hey dude, I'm so sorry about Pam. It's my ex-girlfriend and let's just say she's not doing very well. She tried to attack me several years ago and I have a restraining order against her. She often tries to contact people I know to make me jealous or something. I don't even know, honestly. But she contacted one of my bandmates and she was going to do something crazy to the kid at the festival, I guess. I knew I recognized the last

name when I was talking to him. After doing some talking with my buddy, I figured they were talking about you. I'm a laid back guy, so I didn't take any action about it and just told the guy that everything was alright and no harm was done. I'm not sure if the guy from the band did anything to really take action against this woman, but at least on my end, this is the last time anything regarding this event happened. I seriously hope this poor woman got some help. As I stated, this is the strangest thing that's ever happened to me and it really was scary at that moment. If you find yourself thinking it wasn't scary, try putting yourself in my shoes and tell me the thought of an angry and heartbroken person attacking you isn't not only confusing, it's terrifying. I really love spring, and I always have, even when I was a kid.

Spring usually means baseball season here, and I was an avid baseball player in my youth. Now that I'm a parent, I'm thrilled that my son loves baseball as well. He's at the age where he plays Little League, and it's honestly great. At this level, the kids just have fun and are competitive but it's a great form for teaching and instructing the children not just in sports but also life. In my son's second year in little league I decided to coach the team since they were desperate for coaches. What a great and rewarding experience. At the risk of sounding selfish my job was even easier because my son had unfortunately broken his arm right before the season, so I didn't have to worry about being one of those coaches who plays his kid more than the other kids, you know.

Not that I would ever do that, but after playing sports my whole life, a lot of parents unfortunately perceive things that way. Practices started right at the beginning of March. Even though it was still wet and muddy outside, I was able to secure a gym for us to start practicing in. We would do basic drills and just get ourselves in the groove of playing baseball again. One of the kids on my team was a quiet kid named Randall. Such a sweet kid, but clearly didn't love baseball. Every practice he would ask to go sit down. He loved giving all the kids on the team water. I had a

few chats with Randall to see if he wanted to play and told him that he didn't have to if he didn't want to. He always seemed so nervous every time we had this conversation like he was going to get yelled at and he would just say, no it's okay I want to be here. So as long as he wanted to be a part of the team I made sure that he felt comfortable. I would do everything I could to get him into the drills and participate, but he just wanted to cheer from the sidelines, and if that's what made him happy, I let him be a team manager of sorts. When we started to practice in the field, I had a sit-down meeting with his mother. I just wanted her to be aware of Randall's level of participation and how he felt. It seemed like she understood, but she also seemed a bit off for some reason. She claimed if Randall was happy, she supported him, which made me happy. I made sure that I reiterated to her and Randall that as soon as

he felt comfortable getting out there, I would make sure that there was a spot on the field for him. And finally, it was time for our first game. The entire team was excited, especially Randall. He became almost like my little assistant coach. He would cheer on his teammates and make sure everyone stayed hydrated and motivated. The kids loved him and everyone loved having this positive reinforcement on the bench. We won the first game and I gave the MVP award to Randall. Our pitcher was frustrated going into the last inning of the game, and Randall talked to him and calmed him down.

And after the game, our pitcher said, Coach, thanks to Randall giving me that pep talk, I believed in myself. And the whole team started to chant Randall's name, so I knew that I had to give him the MVP award, even if it was just for fun, you know. We talked for a little bit and then I told the kids that I would see them at the next practice. I started to pack everything up and I was confronted by a short but very muscular man. I turned around and the little man said to me, hey, what's the big idea, coach? You think we're a joke? I had no idea what he was talking about.

I looked at him like he was talking to the wrong person, then he said, I'm Randall's father. What kind of BS is this? My son ain't no cheerleader. I knew right away at this point what was happening, and I tried to communicate to the man everything that I had told the boy's mother, but he cut me off by saying, I don't care what you told her. I'm the boy's father and he's a baseball player, not some cheerleader. I could sense the aggression coming from him and I decided it was best for me to just excuse myself from the situation. My son was in the car waiting and I could see him looking at me through the car window and very calmly I said, listen, I like Randall a lot. If you want to have a conversation about this, call me and we'll set up a meeting, okay?

I mean, I don't want to talk about this now when you're clearly upset. My son's in the car. The man started to throw a temper tantrum as much as a two-year-old would, and I was surprised just how much more mature his son was than this maniac. I walked away and just let him holler to himself. I have no patience for that and I don't care if I got in trouble from the league, I wasn't going to deal with that attitude. That night after my son was in bed, I was talking to my wife about the situation. We talked about just how sad it was for Randall since he's

a sweet kid and he had such an arrogant father. There's nothing worse than those parents that force their kids to play sports or do things they don't want to do. When we were getting ready for bed, there was a knock on the door, and we both looked at each other with confusion. We weren't expecting anyone, especially at this hour of the night. I made my way to the door and asked who was there. No response, of course. It then dawned on me that I have one of those ring cameras, and I always forget about it. I pulled up the camera feed, and it was Randall's father, just standing there. I told him to get off my property before I called the police, and he just stood there. After a few seconds, I thought that he was leaving,

but instead, he went back to his car and grabbed a baseball bat. A smaller one you would use for Little League and made his way back to the door and knocked again. With my family inside I wasn't taking any chances so I called the police. A few minutes later the police showed up and he was still just standing there. When he turned and saw the police I heard him shout, Really dude? The cops? You can't just handle this man-to-man? He threw the bat down, and the cops rapidly approached him, and it looked like they detained him.

However, I just didn't press charges. The next day, I contacted Randall's mother, who told me that they were separated, and he demanded that he play baseball even though the kid hates sports. She knew it might come to something crazy like this and she felt bad that she didn't inform me of the boy's crazy father. I told her not to worry about it and that the league just needed to ban the father from the field which thankfully they did and thankfully I never was confronted by that man again. But sometimes late at night I see a big truck driving around the block several times, and I just can't shake this horrible feeling that it's Randall's father. My house is safe, and with this upcoming spring season approaching,

I can't help but wonder if I'll be seeing that guy again. Ever since I was young, I've always had a green thumb. My dad was never really into sports or any other hobbies. He just loved to take care of his plants in his garden. I think sharing those experiences with him during my childhood is why I still enjoy it as an adult. His favorite time of year was spring when winter starts to melt away and plants begin to bud and bloom. Where I live spring is always accompanied by rain which is the main reason I've always wanted a greenhouse at home. But every unit that seemed nice enough to buy was close to a thousand dollars or more. I saved up some extra money over

the course of a year and finally found the one that was on sale for just under a thousand with tax. I think it was 20 by 8 and had some really sturdy rods and very nice plastic. It also had a sliding door on a track that was a little flimsy but convenient. I was pleased with the quality and super excited to get started. It took a while to set up and thankfully I had a lot of extra pots, soil, etc. so I wouldn't have to sink a lot more money into setting up items inside the greenhouse. I started with the basics, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, lettuce, and a variety of herbs. Hours would pass like minutes inside the greenhouse. One minute I would be watering

or trimming and the next I'd be reflecting on times my father and I would take a clipping from one plant and try and turn it into its own entire bush of its own. I made sure to put some of my plants in pots my dad left me, mostly the ones that would get large and need the extra room to grow. The greenhouse sliding door had a clasp where it closed and that allowed me to put a padlock on it. I always kept it locked so my dogs or any other animals that would meander into my backyard wouldn't wind up inside the greenhouse. The last thing I would want is to walk in there one night and see a skunk just hanging out in there. One night I was out in the greenhouse and I wasn't really doing anything with the plants.

It was raining pretty heavily and I decided to read using the rain hitting the greenhouse as a sort of background noise. Usually when I read I need to play some type of neutral background noise. No idea why, I just always done that. I had gotten lost in the book that particular night and lost track of time. It was really late, well at least late for me and I knew it was time to turn the lights off and head back inside. Fast forward about five hours later, and I was jolted awake hearing a banging noise coming from my back porch. I got my dogs up and went downstairs, but didn't see anything on the porch. I opened the door to the backyard, and it was still pouring, and I activated the motion sensor light and saw that the banging noise I heard was the greenhouse door flying back and forth. The door had fallen halfway off the track

and the wind was blowing the upper portion directly into the beam causing a loud clanging sound. One of my dogs came out with me but the other one didn't want to come out in the rain which of course was the big 110 pound dog. I out in the rain, which, of course, was the big 110-pound dog. I slowly approached the greenhouse and turned one of the overhead lights on. It was soaked inside and also there seemed to be a good amount of mud. At first I was chalking it up to the weather, but the way the door was detached, I'm not sure how there were patches of mud. Maybe some of the soil spilled out, I thought. I put the door back on the track, re-locked the door, and went back to bed. My husband asked if I was okay.

I told him I was fine and that the storm had gotten bad, but to go back to sleep. The next morning, when I went back into the greenhouse, the floor had mostly dried up, but there was still a lot of mud, and not soil, but mud. It almost looked like someone was walking or standing in a few spots in the greenhouse. I tried to figure out what it could have been but just moved on and didn't really dwell on it. That day was actually nice out so we took the dogs for a walk and got some fresh air. That night the rainstorm hit again and I decided to read a little bit in the greenhouse to relax and get ready to go to bed for the night. I had only one light on that was giving me enough light to read,

but leaving the rest of the area somewhat dark. Also, the motion light was on as I always left it in the on position if I was going to be outside. As I was reading, I started to get an uneasy feeling. I thought maybe it was because the story I was reading was pretty scary and was probably just creeping me out. But out of the corner of my eye, I kept thinking that I was seeing a shadow move. Finally, I lifted my head from the book and saw something move in front of the light of the motion light in my backyard. I had no idea what it was, but at this point was freaked out enough to go inside. I started packing my stuff up and putting my chair away and went to go switch off the overhead light. Right then, I saw a blurred face looking right at me through the plastic screen of one of the greenhouse panels.

I was frozen in shock and terror. And I stood still for what felt like ten minutes was probably only ten seconds. I just screamed, screamed as loud as I could for my husband and made a run inside. Before I even got inside, my husband was already coming towards the backyard with the dogs not far behind. I got to my husband, and he was just as freaked out, wondering what was going on. I told him what I saw, and he put shoes on to go outside. At this point our dogs had already busted out and went outside barking their heads off but didn't seem otherwise bothered by anything in particular. My husband did a walk in the backyard and couldn't find anything or anyone. I was still upset and scared and we debated whether or not we

should call the police. We decided to call and have someone come out and take a report in case there was any further occurrences. The police did come out but they didn't see anyone or find anything. And they advised us to stay in for the night and let them know if anything else occurred over the course of the next few days. Luckily, I haven't had any other occurrences on the property outside that night. However, ever since then, I bring my husband with me if I'm going out to the greenhouse after dusk. Sometimes being a fly on the wall isn't always as intriguing as you may think. It's human nature sometimes to listen to an argument or watch as a fight unfolds. You know you don't want to and that it's wrong, but sometimes you can't look away.

Well, I can tell you firsthand that I wish I would have just walked away because I still don't know what I witnessed. For some context, it was right around the beginning of spring. I felt cooped up all winter, so I couldn't wait to start opening up some windows and letting some fresh air into my house. I'm usually always hot anyways, so even on those brisk spring nights, I like to have the windows open. I live in a quiet neighborhood with a lot of families and children. It's nice and seems like an ideal spot to start a family when I get to that point in my life. One night I was getting into bed and I go to bed early every night so it was only about 9pm.

I had the window in the living room wide open and the living room is right outside my bedroom. I put a weight in front of my door to prop it open so the wind doesn't slam my bedroom door shut. That happened one night and I thought I was being robbed. It sounded like a truck was driving through my house so now I make sure that I always prop the door open. I woke up a little after midnight to the sound of shouting. I thought maybe it was on my TV at first but the TV was turned off. I got out of bed and made my way to the living room. At this point, I could clearly tell that it was undeniably shouting. At first, I was intrigued.

I sat on the couch like I was eagerly awaiting an episode of a favorite show. I heard a woman screaming all sorts of obscenities and curse words, followed by a guy who just kept saying things like, shut up and other obscenities. Nothing was really too hostile. It just sounded like an angry woman yelling at her man, who didn't seem like a great human. After a few minutes of this, I heard a third voice. It sounded like a teenage boy. A voice that cracked quite a bit. And this is where the story gets a little intense. The young voice shouted, shut up, I'll do what I want. The anger and intensity in his voice got me to spring right up

and now I was concerned. The woman responded, you can't do that, you'll get in trouble, this has to be the last time and then the man chimed in, what the hell did I get involved with, you people are nuts. The teenager then responded with an aggressive shut up and after that it was quiet for a few minutes. And then the loud noises and screams started again. It sounded like an action movie. I began to look out the window but I couldn't tell what house it was coming from. Every one of my neighbors had teen children so it could have been anyone really. I heard the older man scream stop repeatedly, and he

sounded scared and not angry anymore. I couldn't hear the teenager anymore and only heard the man screaming stop and the woman shrieking, but not actually saying anything. As I just listened helplessly like a deer in headlights, I saw the lights of a cop car coming down the street, right when I thought that maybe I should call. I was relieved that someone did what I couldn't do. I saw the house they entered and it was the house that was across the street to the left of my house so not directly across the street. I couldn't believe how loud they were being that I could hear them this well all the way from my living room. I could still hear the woman sobbing but that was it. No other noise.

A few minutes later, several more cop cars rolled up as well as an ambulance. I could see other neighbors outside being nosy, but I stayed in my dark living room and watched from a distance. Eventually, the cops took the teenage kid out of the house in handcuffs. I couldn't believe it. It was dark, but with all the streetlights and sirens, I could see see his face and the kid looked like he had no remorse at all. I couldn't be sure but it almost looked like he was kind of smiling. The cop cars and ambulance were parked there for quite some time. I was expecting the worst and expected to see the EMTs bring one of the two adults out of the house but thankfully that never happened. Eventually the cops and EMTs left and nobody else was adults out of the house, but thankfully that never happened. Eventually,

the cops and EMTs left and nobody else was taken out of the house, so at least my worst fear wasn't a reality. The next day, I went outside to get the mail and I saw one of my neighbors outside. I asked her what had happened last night and she just shrugged. She said that she was the one who called the police because it sounded violent and I agreed. She heard all the same stuff that I heard so I couldn't get any juicy gossip as to what had happened. However, she did tell me that the son, whom I'm assuming is the one they took away from the house that night, has a lot of issues in school with fighting and apparently this isn't his first run-in with the law, even though he's not even legally an adult yet.

Just as I was getting ready to head back inside, I noticed the man from the altercation come outside to get his mail. He was limping and had massive bruises all over his face. I turned back around right away, not trying to get caught staring at this poor man. I never heard another noise come from that house and I still live across the street. I can say I never saw the kid again either so I'm not sure what happened and I can only speculate. Either way this was a terrible night even though it didn't directly affect me but if you could hear the sounds and screams that I heard that night I'm sure you would agree this is one of the worst things anybody can witness.

Sometimes it's just better to close the blooming of all the trees. I spend considerable time outside with my black lab, Riley. I live in a heavily forested area with many streams and rivers and mountains and beautiful sights to see. As I am a bit of a recluse, I don't go out much in the normal sense of the word. I haven't dated in years and most of my friends live in other parts of the country at this point. My job allows me to work from home and gives me a lot of freedom to do things that I would never be able to do if I worked another job. One of the freedoms is being able to go on long walks with my dog and get lost in nature, metaphorically of course. On one

beautiful spring afternoon, I witnessed something strange to say the least. I may be thinking too much into it and perhaps it's nothing, but it somehow felt sinister. I'll do my best to describe the events of that afternoon and maybe someone can help me by telling me I'm not crazy. It was one of those beautiful spring days where all you want to do is be outside. I woke up extra early and got most of my work done. By 10am I finished most of my work and geared up to spend the next several hours with a doggo outside walking the trails near my home. I'm not this intense hiker, more of a casual hiker, so I was taking my time traversing and just breathing in that new spring air.

After an hour or so I decided to sit near one of the streams and relax for a little while. I thought that I heard something weird, something that didn't belong in nature I guess. It sounded like the mumbling of a disgruntled man. I looked around and across the stream I saw a bigger man who was not muscular but huskier than anything else. He didn't see me, probably because I was sort of hidden behind some bushes. I watched him for a few seconds as he stopped by the stream. I was clearly able to hear him mumbling to himself at this point, but I couldn't actually hear what he was saying, just the irate tone of his voice. He was carrying a large duffel bag, much like he may bring to the gym or a sporting event.

The biggest red flag of all, though, was when he walked by. My dog growled, and she doesn't growl at anybody. Sure this moment was weird and a little off-putting but it only lasted a few seconds. In probably less than two minutes he was already out of sight. We eventually got moving again and hiked for another couple of hours. The beautiful stream ends up turning into a fairly rapid river as you keep progressing through the woods. Especially this time of year when it tends to rain a bit more, the river is usually flowing at an outrageous rate. In the summer I'll let the dog jump in, but this time of year she would be swept away in a second, so I like to keep a healthy distance from the water. Even though it's dangerous, it's still quite a spectacle to look at,

so I decided to take another rest here at the river before making my way back. When I was taking everything in, I heard Riley, the dog, growl again. When I bent over and asked her what was wrong, that's when I saw it. Across the river, roughly 50 feet I guess, I could see the man from earlier. I immediately felt uncomfortable so I repositioned myself behind a big rock that was next to me. The way the river flows in this part of the woods is a little different. It almost looks like a hook that forms in a sort of L shape. If you want to try and picture it, I was on one side of the L and the man was on the lower hook part of the L.

I was looking at his back from my vantage point. The man looked angry and beside himself. He was kicking up dirt and rocks and screaming. Again, I couldn't hear what he was saying. Due to the distance and the sound of the rushing water, I just hear this loud and sort of angry tone coming from him. I saw him going into the bag that I mentioned earlier and he started to throw these little tied up bags into the river. I have no idea why but this made me feel sick for some reason. I have no idea what he was doing and at this point I didn't even have an idea of what he could have possibly been up to. I just know that whatever was happening was rubbing me and my dog the wrong way. I continued to watch him for several minutes, becoming more unhinged with every small package he threw into the river. He finally tossed the last package into the river and then he screamed.

After a moment of sitting still, he grabbed the empty bag and started to walk away. I dove to the ground with my dog when I noticed that he was walking in my direction. Whatever he was up to, the last thing I wanted was for him to think that I was spying on him. I had never been so nervous in my life for some reason. The man was inches from me as he walked by. Thankfully, he didn't notice me or my dog. I was able to see that the man was clearly crying as he walked by, but he wasn't saying anything or mumbling anymore. I stayed down with my dog for a long time, until I figured enough time had gone by that I would not run into the man. I spent the next couple of hours terrified that this guy was going to jump out at me or something, but thankfully nothing like that ever happened.

I got out of the woods that day and never saw the man again. I spent a long time thinking about that afternoon and thinking about what could have possibly been in that bag. I often try and tell myself that it was nothing or maybe it was some sort of grieving process of a loved one. I try to tell myself anything that doesn't go to the darkest corner of my brain, but sometimes that's just hard. Every spring when I take the dog out, I'm reminded of that weird and ominous memory.

Whenever I look across the river, I almost expect to see the man standing there looking at me. Does anybody out there have any theories? What the heck was that guy doing? Am I correct in thinking something weird may have been going on, or am I just reading into nothing? To be continued... 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.