The Lets Read Podcast - 238: THANK GOD I TRUSTED MY GUT | 38 True Scary Stories | EP 226

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Trusting Your Gut, Mothers & Japan... 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/

When I was in kindergarten, I was forced to swallow a thumbtack. I wanted to share my experience on the off chance that it might help someone out there. It's a long shot, but I figured why not. When I was a kid, I went to kindergarten in a school called the Sakura Group. They had one simple law, and that was, you cannot tell a lie. There was an even weird song about it that the teacher made us sing in the morning at school. I can't remember the words, perhaps because I wish to forget them, but to my recollection it went something like this.

If you tell a lie, then you have to swallow a thousand needles. We sang that song all the time, and I never liked it. The meaning inferred was that if you break a promise or lie, then you'll be hurt just as much as the person you lied to will be hurt. It's a very old rhyme from the 1800s or something. When I was in kindergarten, I didn't really understand the meaning. You know, like Red Riding Hood, you never felt bad for the grandma and all that kind of stuff. Sometimes in class, we watched this kid's TV show called Mr. Nopo. I haven't seen it since

kindergarten. Anyway, the episode that we watched was about him making animals out of old milk cartons. We were allowed to do the same thing tomorrow in class, and I was really excited about it. So our teacher says, all right everyone, please bring a milk carton tomorrow so we can make our animals. Don't forget to ask your parents when you get home. Don't forget it's got to be a milk carton. Everyone in the classroom, including myself, responded with, yes miss. I got home as fast as I could and I asked my parents for a milk carton. My mom told me that we had only just opened the milk in a refrigerator so I couldn't use that one.

She then produced an empty soy milk carton from the garbage and she said it was the same kind of thing. The next day I proudly brought my soy milk carton to kindergarten but I was told that my milk carton wasn't right. When you think about it, the cartons are slightly different, and perhaps the paper color or the thickness. Mr. Nopo didn't tell us on the TV how to make an animal out of a soy milk carton. He told us to use a normal milk carton. I guess that's why the kindergarten teacher got angry with me that day. Hey, this isn't a milk carton.

Everyone in the classroom, including you, promised to bring a milk carton to class today, right? Why, why, why have you brought something entirely different? She scolded me. I was too young and too shy and too nervous to even respond. I just sat there, almost in shock. She turned to her desk at the head of the class, rooted around her desk drawer, then stormed towards my desk with something in her hand. It turned out to be a thumbtack case.

She stopped at my desk with a half-smile and turned to the other children in my class and proudly declared, Everyone, your fellow student has told a lie today. He promised to bring a milk carton, but he's brought something entirely different to class today. So, what do we do when someone lies? Can anyone remember? That's right. They have to swallow a thousand needles, don't they? I was so dumbstruck that I remained silent. I was half expecting it to be a big joke, but I could see by the look in my teacher's eyes that it was far from funny to her. It was unthinkable, yet it was happening to me. I couldn't say a word.

She approached me and opened the case of pins and said, You broke a promise, so please get ready to swallow them. I couldn't. Look, everyone. He can't even commit to accepting his punishment, and the poor boy can't do it. When you think about it, a thousand is too many, isn't it? Okay, that's okay. Don't worry. I'll change the rules just this one time. Not a thousand, but a hundred. Off you go. She hadn't forgiven me.

She approached me with a pin in her hand. She held my nose and made me open my mouth. I thought I could escape her punishment if I pretended to swallow. But that didn't work. I held the thumbtack between my back teeth and made a swallowing gesture. I thought it would work, but I was wrong again. She looked at me and then slapped me in the face, and the force of her slap caused me to spit out the thumbtack and it tumbled down onto my desk. The classroom was completely silent.

It was as if though you could hear a pin drop. She snatched up the pin and jabbed it at my nose. Not even one. You can't even manage one. If you lie, this is your medicine. The other option is death, and everyone knows this. I'm trying to teach you the importance of not telling lies. She got so angry, she dropped the thumbtacks all over the floor. I was made to find the thumbtack that I had in my mouth. I remember crying, and the sound of my sobbing being the only sound in that classroom. The fun I assumed that we would have that day creating animals out of milk cartons was completely destroyed. Everyone was looking at me with cold eyes like I had caused all of this,

and I was young enough to believe that it was actually my fault. The kindergarten teacher couldn't determine which thumbtack I had in my mouth, so she threw them all away. And that was what saved me that day, I guess. And I'm so glad that I spat it out. I don't know if anyone else has told on her. I've never spoke about this until literally right now, and this happened many, many years ago. And these memories still stir up trauma deep within me. This terrible thing happened about 15 years ago.

I was 20 years old and living alone. I came home from work, checked the mail as I usually do, and found a sealed letter. It was a blank envelope, and inside there were two tickets to a concert and a letter. A love letter. The writer's feelings for me were pretty clear, and it went something like this. Let's meet at the concert. I'll keep my identity hidden until we meet, and I'm sure you'll be surprised. I'm someone you know. I had a boyfriend and I had no idea who wrote this.

I thought for a moment that I had won a competition or something and I do remember entering one. But then instantly I remembered that I entered that competition only this morning so there's no way that the tickets could be in my letterbox by the evening. Something wasn't right, so I just didn't go to the concert. I thought that if it truly is someone that I know, as soon as they reveal themselves to me, then I'd apologize and I was sure that if they are a kind and decent person, that they'd understand my caution. The day after that concert, I found a threatening-looking letter stuffed into my letterbox. Why didn't you come, you idiot? Don't pretend like you aren't interested.

The first letter was gentlemanly, in a sense, but this was the complete opposite. Back then, I didn't have a mobile phone. As soon as I returned home from work, the moment I closed my front door, my phone rang. And I picked it up, and then the other party hung up. And this happened often. I didn't get a call or a letter every single day. It was kind of irregular. I would get one one week, and then the next week I'd get like three or four.

And this kind of thing went on for about three months. It was incredibly creepy, so I actually decided to move away. Finally, I thought I was at peace. Well, that's what I thought until one month after I moved into a new place, the same thing started happening again. I didn't get a call this time, but I found another blank envelope in my letterbox. There was no sender's name or addressee name, so it must have been posted by hand. When I saw this, it was clear to me that my stalker had found my new home. I was really scared. I took the letter to the police station. Ignoring the other party is the most effective thing he can really do.

As soon as he realizes that he's being ignored, he'll stop. This advice from the police really doesn't solve anything, I thought. And then the officer said, Look, women who live alone often get lonely, right? And sometimes single ladies have a tendency to allow harmless antics to get blown out of proportion. He laughed and he just pretended that I was delusional. In those days, the word stalker wasn't widely recognized in Japan. The laws in place aren't what they are today,

and I felt so sad that he didn't even try to help me at all. He didn't back me up. He actually took the stalker side in the situation. I'll just move again, I thought, but around that time my boyfriend and I were talking about marriage, I just moved back in my parents house while we talked it over my parents home was in the same prefecture but it was way out in the sticks so commuting to work was a huge pain I thought that at least I'd be rid of the stalker though I was wrong

carnage and bloodshed were right around the corner for me. I finished working and headed towards the train station. On the way, a man stood blocking my way. When I tried to go one way, he stood in the way, and then I tried to go the other way, he blocked me again. He towered over me. He was peering down at me. His jaw seemed to hang open, and he was breathing through his mouth. It's him. It's my stalker, I thought, but I didn't recognize him. Why didn't you come? He muttered.

For a moment, I didn't know what he was talking about, and then suddenly I remembered. The tickets. I knew that he wanted an answer, and I couldn't say a word. It was rush hour. People were all around us. I wasn't terrified, but I was scared. It was risky. So I said in quite a loud voice for the benefits of the people around me,

Excuse me. Please let me pass. As I said this, the people around all looked in our direction. Then my stalker did something unexpected. He turned and ran into the busy street. And right before my eyes, he was hit by a car. You may think this is quite cold-hearted, but I just thought as I rode the train home, it's not my fault. I was kind of happy that it might actually all be over.

And in case you're wondering, he lived. However, one of the stalker's colleagues saw this all unfold. This guy said that it looked like I was having a lover's quarrel and when the stalker got hit by the car, he said I pretended not to notice or feigned ignorance and just walked off. And this rumor was spread around by the stalker's co-worker. Every year my company and other companies in the same line of work have a sports day for a bit of friendly competition. I remember talking to a few people, but there are so many people that I can't remember who I spoke to very well. Apparently this is how I met my stalker.

I'm usually really good at remembering faces, but I didn't recognize him at all. I found out that he came to my company a few times a week. I work in the personal department, hidden away in a small office, so I don't often see people other than the ones I immediately work with. Yet the rumors about me grew, and they said that we would often meet at work. Of course, I denied these false allegations and stated the fact that I was the victim of him stalking me, but I wasn't convinced that anyone actually believed me.

Another shock was in store for me. I was dumped. Although my boyfriend and I were officially engaged, we set up a date for me to be introduced to his parents in his hometown and at that point we would officially announce our plans to engage. The rumors had reached their ears before I arrived. As I said before, the suffering caused by the stalkers wasn't well documented in Japan at the time. As they said,

you must have given this guy a sign that he had a chance with you. Somehow you must have given him the wrong idea. You caused his actions. Are you sure that there was nothing going on between you two? With this doubt and distrust imposed upon me, my boyfriend was persuaded by his parents to end our relationship and I couldn't believe it. I wanted to escape. I wanted a fresh start so I resigned from my job as well. It's been over 15 years since this happened, and the wounds caused by the stalker are still very fresh. My desire to work hard at the assumption that I would eventually get married and spend my life with my husband is

completely gone now. I came to the conclusion that I would probably end up alone, all because of that stalker. And so far, I'm right. My hobby is hiking. The kinds of mountains I like to hike are ones with no roads, no other people, and where wild vegetables grow, off-the-beaten-track hiking. Sometimes on these hikes I come across strange or unusual things. For example, once I saw an albino antelope and on another occasion I saw an eagle the size of an actual grown man. However, the weirdest incident was the time that I came across a family and possibly far into the mountains. It was a weekday afternoon and I was hiking along the prefectural border between Miyagi-Yamagata and Nikita.

There was a forest full of huge beech trees which made it quite easy to walk as it got dark. This is a place that not an everyday person would actually hike. Only local people to this mountain range would probably know about it or people like me who enjoy hiking and actually have GPS. It was pretty secluded. As I was walking along a small ridge, I noticed a small stream flowing below. At the edge of the stream, I saw a man standing there. I first thought, ah, he must be doing a spot for fishing. But then I noticed that he wasn't alone. Four other people stood with him. They were all standing in the river. I couldn't see clearly because they must have been about a hundred meters away, but I was sure that there were four people stood in the river.

Two appeared to be children. I don't know why, but it was so creepy that I actually thought that they were all on the verge of actually ending all of their lives together as a family. I mean, to come all the way out here to the secluded mountain river alone, so close to dark. If that was the case, I planned to intervene and try to talk them out of it. I hope that wasn't the case, of course, but either way, I was interested in finding out what was going on, so using my binoculars, I took a closer look. Just as I thought, there were four people facing away from me, two children and two adults.

I watched for a moment waiting for them to turn my way so I could catch a glimpse of their faces, but they didn't move at all. I must have been watching them for five minutes and yet they didn't move. And then it dawned on me. They're mannequins. Someone must have put them here as a prank or maybe as a trap I decided to go in for a closer look since my first thought was to check on the family anyway I quietly crept closer, I didn't want to be noticed

In my mind I was planning my escape route Jumping in the river itself crossed my mind of something terrible was to happen As I drew closer my predictions came true Jumping the river itself crossed my mind if something terrible was to happen. As I drew closer, my predictions came true. There were four mannequins before me, two adults and two children, all dressed up, out here in the middle of nowhere. I was disgusted and my body shivered. I couldn't think of logically why they would be here. I thought to myself, if someone did this, they must be absolutely not right in the head.

I was now close enough to see the details on the mannequins and each one had a name painted on its front. Each mannequin was peppered with small holes, bullet holes, like a shotgun shell. The piece de resistance was a broken box cutter blade sticking out of one of the child mannequins' backs. And that was enough for me. I was terrified, and I began to make my way back down the mountain. Even as I write this now, I'm shivering. Those creepy mannequin dolls with marks all up and down them, someone carried them over there to do whatever they did to them. But why? These were not light mannequins. They were clearly bulky and heavy wooden ones.

If I had to carry them myself, I would have to stop for a while to take a rest. But there were four of them. It would take forever to carry them. This all happened about two years ago and I guess they're probably still out there. To be continued... and he said that he wanted to get out of his house and asked if I wanted to hang out. I thought, why not? Now this was about 3am so I'm not even sure why I was still awake but I was and he said that he would come and pick me up in his car.

We were driving around the city for a while and my friend suddenly said, hey, let's go to the wharf. So that's where we headed. Down by the pier area by the wh wharf, there is an old factory. In the daytime, trucks are in and out of there all the time, and it's pretty busy in that area, but at night it's quite quiet. The roads by the wharf are really wide and straight. On weekend nights, you can sometimes see people racing there, but that night we were the only ones on the road, and it made for quite tense atmosphere. We headed to the wharf like we were being drawn there, and we stopped at the traffic

light and a car pulled up alongside us. I can't remember the model or the color of the car. I guess it was more like a minivan than a car come to think of it. Either way, it was bigger than a normal car. I'm in the passenger seat and my friend is driving. The light changes color and I look at the car and the people in it. I got a really weird vibe from one of the guys in the car, so I just kept watching. I couldn't put my finger on what was weirding me out about these guys at first, but then I noticed one of the guys in the back seat. I could do little else but wonder what was bugging me, and then it dawned on me.

The reason I felt something was off about the guy was because I couldn't see the bottom half of his face. It was as if, though, it was completely black, like it was missing. Why was it black, I wondered. I thought that I was hallucinating or I was just tired. Still, I kept looking at the guy. I was curious. I locked eyes with him and then the car sped away before the lights changed and they ran the red light. In the split second that I saw that guy, his eyes flashed my way and I had never seen a look of such desperation before or since. His eyes seemed to scream at me.

He pressed his face against the window and then it was like he was pulled backwards before the car sped off. When he was close against the window I realized that the black thing I saw was tape covering his mouth. It all happened in less than a couple of seconds. The look of fear in his eyes stayed with me and I was deeply concerned. The minivan sped away into the night towards the wharf. I had heard rumors that Yakuza used to hang out there and are responsible for some of the missing person cases in the area and for some of the bodies that are found washed up in the wharf over the years. Some people say that the

wharf is haunted because of this too. It's always been known as a kind of test of courage to head there at night on weekends, but I had never spoken to anyone who went down there on a weekday night. We don't know what goes on down there when the town sleeps, but I think I saw a glimpse of it that night. Could this be a prank? I really hope that's what I saw. I guess that's the only outcome that I can live with. I didn't get the license plate and we didn't follow the van. It just happened so quickly and now I'm older and know that if I saw it again I would be more proactive. And this weighs heavily on me still to this day.

I told the police a day or two after it happened and I never heard anything back from them. And when I think back to that dark summer night and those split seconds that I saw the man with desperation in his eyes and tape covering his mouth, I can't help but shudder. This happened seven years ago. After I graduated from high school, I started living alone for the first time. It wasn't like I was living in a new area, a strange area. I actually lived about a half an hour away from my parents' house, so I knew this area quite well. I had been living alone for about three months and things were going really well. I used to walk to work and back home through a local park, usually at around 6pm. I was always aware of my surroundings, well at least I like to think so.

I think it was this awareness that helped me find the purse that day. I happened to look down and just off to the side of the public path through the park and there was a red purse. I bent down to pick it up and I was surprised to feel that it was actually heavy. There was a bunch of credit cards in there and some money, not just coins but bills too. The thought to just take the purse home and empty it of its contents flashed across my mind. It wasn't a bad idea when you hear the end story of this you might actually think to yourself, why didn't he do that? It would have saved him a lot of trouble. But I wasn't to know what trouble I was about to get myself into. I can tell you now that the main reason as to why I didn't keep the purse's contents

for myself was because I was kind of lonely and hadn't met any women since I moved. I had this romantic idea that I would turn in the purse at the police station and they would let me know when someone came to claim it. I thought that it was a fun idea that I didn't realize that the police station I turned it into made me fill out a bunch of forms just to hand some lost property in. It felt really unnecessary but since I just picked the purse up off the ground I guess they had no way of being sure that I didn't take anything from it since I was the last one who touched it. I didn't mind that but I resented the fact that it created a hassle in filling out this form and I just wanted to meet this cutie. They said that I needed to fill out the forms because when the owner comes to collect it they need to have everything on the paper.

They said that they would be in touch when the owner of the purse is identified. I went home romanticizing over what kind of person owned that purse and if we would ever meet. I took a bath and started winding down for a good night's sleep. I felt that I had done my good deed for the year. And then I heard the doorbell. Not once, but three times. Don't press it three times, that's annoying, I thought to myself. I opened the door wondering who the hell it might be out there at this time of night.

It was winter and to my surprise, a real beauty was stood outside wearing a red miniskirt. I responded, Hey, what's up? Who are you? Excuse me, I lost my purse and I thought that maybe, and they said this in a really quiet voice, oh yeah, yeah, I'm the lucky guy who found it, I thought. And I couldn't believe my luck. I was shocked by the beauty of the person at my door. I got all the papers from the police station. It should be all the proof you need. Yeah, just wait there a second and I'll go get the paperwork they gave me and we'll sort this out.

I left the frame of the door to head back into my apartment to grab the paperwork from the countertop and as I turned around, I saw the owner of the purse basically face-to-face with me in my own apartment. I was really taken aback. I hadn't offered them in and it seemed quite brazen. Our proximity was insanely close and our faces were nearly touching. Aren't you kind? she said. A smile crept across their lips as they released those words. Well, you know, I'd want a stranger to do the same thing for me, I said. One word that could sum up that experience was eerie. Really eerie. I almost lost focus for a few moments. My head was swimming. It wasn't normal. Well, thank the Lord for kind people, huh? The smile seemed completely painted on at this point,

if the lips were spread any further. Uh, listen, it's kind of late, I said. It really freaked me out. I didn't even want to be alone in my own apartment after that visit from that stranger. About three days later, something dawned on me. The police said that they would be in touch as soon as the owner of the purse made contact. Something about that played on my mind, so I went to the police station a couple of days later to find out if the owner of the purse had been in touch. I went in and asked the officer that I had made the initial report with if someone had been in touch to claim the purse and to basically ask why wasn't I contacted and why was my address handed over without me saying so. I had time to

think about the situation and I was quite annoyed, but what the officer said shocked me. The owner of the purse hasn't been in touch. So the police didn't give out my address, I guess. Then the only way that someone would have known about the purse, me finding it, and my address, was as if someone was following me. It seems as if the owner of the purse dropped it in the park and waited for someone to pick it up. It's the only way, right? The police were never contacted, so how? It really creeped me out. I didn't like to think about it, and I still don't like to think about it. I just try to forget about it. About a year later, once I had almost completely forgotten

about all of this, I was walking home through the park and I used to avoid that park but I thought that it was fine since so much time had passed and I kind of forgot. I saw the same person in the red miniskirt hiding, well attempting to hide behind a telephone pole, just staring at me, watching everything I did. I hadn't gone anywhere near that park since that day. They watched me pick up the purse and then watch me from some hidden place to figure out where I live. And for what, I have no idea. Even today when I see a red miniskirt, it brings out a less than positive reaction deep within me. This happened to me when I was in elementary school.

It would usually take me about 30 minutes to walk home from school. I lived close to the seafront, so it was always a nice walk. On the way home, there were two sets of traffic lights on a big two-lane road. My school was by the seaside, and I loved it that way. I used to walk in a group of close friends of about three or four. We used to chat about the latest fads and fashions, homework and all that sort of thing. It was a really fun time when I think back to it. It was summertime in my third year of elementary school. As usual, I was waiting for my friends outside of school by the playground after school

finished. I noticed an old man in a white car staring at me through his open window. At first I thought he was a child because he was very short and petite. He was so sunken in his seat that I could barely even see him, not to mention that he had this cap pulled down just above his eyes. I remember that cap had a sort of logo on it. His skin was slightly sunburned too, he looked to be between 40 to 50 years old. He fully rolled down his window, leaned over the passenger seat and called out, Hi, I'm so sorry to tell you but your dad has been involved in an accident. He's been rushed to the hospital. I'm one of your dad's friends and I'm here to take you to

see him in the hospital. Of course, when you hear something as terrible as that, it's going to shock you. But I had never met this old man before. When you are younger and an adult tells you to get in their car, you listen, right? I didn't know what to do. What was I supposed to do right now? My legs were frozen solid. At this point, one of my friends arrived. I began to tell her about what I had just heard from the old man in the car but our conversation was interrupted. Please hurry up, your dad's waiting for you, ordered the old man in the white car. My friend and I said nothing. Your dad asked me to come and get you, he called out again.

Those words upset me. I didn't know him, but I was so worried about my father. I was only in the third year of elementary school, so I was so confused and very wary of the situation, and something in my gut told me that this was very dangerous. The standoff between us and the old man in the car went on for about ten minutes, until he said, Fine, don't get in. I hope your dad forgives you. He rolled up the window and started the car and drove off. I watched the car drive away and I had conflicting feelings of guilt

for not accepting the ride with him to see my father in the hospital, yet I strongly felt that it wasn't safe. After a while, my friend and I decided to head home as usual. I was nervous all the way home as we walked along the seafront. I got home and spoke to my mother about what had happened. She confirmed that the creepy old man was a liar, and she reported this to the school and the police. She looked at me dead in the eyes and said, I'm so glad you didn't get in that man's car. The next day at school all the students were gathered and given a warning about that strange man and told what happened to me. The teacher explained that if you see an older

man wearing a cap in a white car and he tells you that a family member or friend had gotten into an accident and that he'll take you to the hospital, Don't believe him and get away from him as fast as possible. I found out at a later date that a child had gone missing not too far from our school and that the child's whereabouts were still unknown. It was said that the child had been tricked into getting into a stranger's car and the police were currently conducting an investigation. I don't know how that case ended but I do pray that the child was returned safely and the perpetrator arrested. What would have happened to me if I'd gotten in that car? I'm much older now but I think about this often and when I do, I always break out into goosebumps. When I first got into high school, I got into trouble a few times and ended

up skipping school regularly. I would stay at home and watch TV or just play games. I used to take care of my younger brother a lot too. At night, I used to go out skateboarding or go over to a friend's house to play more games. I probably wasn't the best babysitter. I just left him to his own devices most of the time. One evening I was having dinner with my little brother and we were both watching TV together. I should mention that my mother was in and out of the hospital at the time. I guess that was maybe why I was acting out at school. Every night it was just me and my little brother since dad worked late. After he finished eating he suddenly said, oh yeah, the phone, I need the

phone. My younger brother was four years old, by the way. Hey, where, what, what are you talking about? I need the phone. He kept repeating while running off. Our home phone was in the hallway and he ran in that direction. I was confused, so I went after him. He was trying to reach the phone on the phone table in the hallway. He was on his tiptoes and he nearly had it. He was whining, asking for the phone. No, no, you can't play with that. Who are you trying to call anyways? Are you trying to talk to mom? I mean, she's not coming back from the hospital yet, buddy. He started to cry and he shouted at me to hurry up and give him the phone. I had to pick him up and drag him back to the living room kicking and screaming and he really

wanted the phone. Just then, the phone began to ring. The second my brother heard it, he started struggling against me more, screaming about how it was for him. I said to wait there, I'll go get the phone for you, okay, because he can't reach it. And he suddenly stopped his tantrum and then waited patiently for me to bring him the phone. It was pretty weird, but it was about to get a whole lot weirder. Hello? I said as I answered the phone.

I'll keep my brother's name just anonymous, just in case. Uh, yeah. Um, can I speak to Anon, please? The voice belonged to an older woman in about her fifties, I'd say. It wasn't a voice that I recognized. It was really strange. I wonder what the hell a stranger in their 50s would want to speak to a four-year-old about. Can I ask who's calling? I asked. Uh, a friend. Huh? A friend? I hung up and was really confused.

I walked back into the lounge and I saw my little brother sat there on the sofa, grinning at me. Did you give our number out to some old lady? I asked him and he said nothing. Have you been speaking to this old lady? And then he said, I don't understand. I don't know. I hate this. I walked back to the phone and checked the caller ID for the number. It was our area code, but I didn't recognize the number. I tried to call it back a few times but every time I tried the line was busy. Meanwhile my mom came home from the hospital and I explained what had happened.

Mom looked pretty freaked out. She was just as unaware of this as I was. From that day onwards we got calls from that number every now and then. It was weird. Anytime my parents went out, about two minutes later, the phone would ring. My little brother would start shouting and screaming for the phone, and then when I answered, the old lady hung up. Whenever I called back then, the line was always busy. I moved the phone to a really high place that I could only reach when I stood on a stool. I didn't want that horrible voice speaking to my little brother again. A few weeks later, I had used the phone to speak to the police about the old lady and the nuisance calls.

Once again, I was home alone with my brother. My parents weren't home and I can't remember where they were. I was in the bathroom and I had heard the phone ringing. I thought, ah, it's that old woman again. I heard my brother running to the hallway. Like I said, I was in the bathroom so I just thought to myself, oh well, he can't reach it. And then I heard this horrible clattering sound. My brother then said, Hello? Hello? When I came out of the bathroom, I was surprised to see that he had pulled the phone line with enough momentum to bring the phone down from the high place that I had put it. I ran straight over to him, and he was lying on the floor, happily chatting away.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, come and play. Yeah. I snatched the phone out of his hand and put it to my ear, but all I heard was a dial tone. And from that day forward, my brother never jumped up and down and went crazy when the phone rang. And there were no further calls from that weird lady's number either. Seven years have passed since then and my brother says that he doesn't even remember this at all. And any time my parents or I bring it up, he always scowls and accuses us of lying. I'm worried about what might have happened. And I'm worried that I might be hiding something.

How did that old lady get our number? This happened about ten years ago. Back then, I was really into dating websites, and before the app days, and before any kind of safety was in place. I would do quite well on these sites. I matched with people who were using the dating sites for the same reason I was, if you get my drift, and we were looking for the same thing. I liked life. I was riding on my own confidence, daring myself to go bigger and bigger with these wild meetups. I was surprised one day to get matched with a 19 year old, and her first message said, give me your email address. I was fine with the direct approach, so I sent it straight over to her. You sound fun, I want to hang out with you. I couldn't believe my luck. I smirked and said to myself,

you can do that today if you want honey, I'm in good shape. And I decided to reply with, sounds great, but why don't we exchange photos before we meet? I sent the best photo of myself I could, slightly fraudulent as it was a couple of years old, but hey, I bet I wasn't the only one on that site doing that, you know. Shortly after, I received a photo back, and she was hot. I punched the air in excitement. Life was sweet. She had a pretty sweet tan and a cute pouty look on her face, and I was into that. Home run, I thought. We were both really into meeting up so we set up a date and things moved quickly. She would send emails like

I don't want to go very far I only have a moped. Ah it would be sweet if you drove to come get me. This was kind of annoying so I wanted to avoid driving so I could drink but since she was pretty hot I guess I could just get loaded when I get home later, I thought. I decided that I'd take her out to karaoke and dinner, and then if there was a chance, drive her somewhere secluded with her and, you know, the rest. The day of the date arrived, and we planned on meeting at a home improvement store's parking lot at 6. It was kind of weird, but okay. I got myself looking good and brought protection, and I was sure that I was going to have a great night. I just hoped that the car would be big enough. Then my brother said that he had to use our shared car. This was such a pain

in the butt as I would have to take our older, crappier van. And there went my chances, I thought. I told her that I would be in a white minivan. Then my brother, as if though he was some type of saint, told me that he didn't need to use the sedan anymore. Thanks, bro, I thought. You're a total lifesaver. The sedan was way cooler looking and roomy. The game was back on. I had a great feeling about the night ahead and things were going my way. I was set to arrive about the night ahead and things were going my way. I was set to arrive at the home improvement store at about five minutes ahead of the arranged meeting time. I thought that I would drive around the parking lot to see if she was early too. When I was about to turn into the parking lot, I got an email on my mobile phone from her saying,

you here yet? And I replied with, I'll be there soon. I couldn't see anyone in the parking lot so I didn't really understand why she was asking me if I was here yet. And then I saw a woman about 10 meters up ahead. I actually shuddered because this seemed all wrong. She didn't mention anything about bringing a friend and this was beginning to look a lot more sinister. I saw her sat in a minivan's passenger seat chatting to some guy in the driver's seat. I drove a little away from the van and parked up and pulled my hat down over my face. I wanted to see what would happen when I messaged her next. She got out of the minivan and spoke to someone in the parking lot next to it.

Then two other men came over and spoke to her. And this really sent chills up my spine. It was so crazy. What were her plans for me? Extortion? Blackmail? She then sent me another email that I got a notification for. Well, are you close? I replied, I got a stomach ache and I'm in the bathroom. A moment or two after I saw that it went through, I saw a couple of men jump out of the minivan and walk into the home improvement store. They were probably going to check the bathrooms. Where are you? She replied. I stopped off at a convenience store nearby.

She must have called the men back because in a matter of moments, they were all in the van and the car again. They left and headed the way that I came. I drove in the opposite direction as fast as I could. I sent her an email saying that I was too sick to meet up and I never heard from her again. I have learned since not to give out personal information and always make sure the meeting place is somewhere neutral with lots of people nearby. Don't bring too many personal possessions and items, like ID, and if something doesn't feel right, always alert the police. I grew up in a very traditional church-going family here in Ontario. My dad was the vice president of some software company while mom stayed at home and raised us.

We were able to afford that kind of lifestyle because my dad had made a ton of money in the dot-com boom and continued to make six figures in his VP position. Mom was a capable woman and probably could have done pretty well for herself professionally, but our privilege gave her the opportunity to raise us the old-fashioned way. She cooked, she cleaned, but most importantly, she dedicated her time to making sure that my little sister and I wanted for nothing. I always knew that we were lucky, others' kids would tell us so. She was an amazing cook, fun to hang out with, just about as wholesome a woman as you were to ever likely meet. But my dad, on the other hand,

was something of a buttoned down psycho. I don't want to go into what happened to prompt their divorce, but let's just say that it involved a lengthy prison sentence and a bunch of reporters camped outside her house for like a week and a half. My dad turned out to be a terrible person, that's kind of putting it lightly, and discovering that was harder on us than I could ever put into words. I was stunned, my sister was heartbroken, but as much as mom felt it too, she was our rock during that period. I honestly don't know what we'd have done without her. She did everything she could to shield us from it too, but we knew that she was hurting. She just didn't want to show it. She got so much money in the divorce settlement that she never had to work again, so apart from downsizing our house, life pretty much went on as normal. The pain and anger

was still there. They just got quieter and quieter each year, until we all just got used to the fact that dad was never coming home, and that he'd never really been home in the first place. About six or seven years go by. I'm approaching 30 while my little sister is in her late teens. I'm moved out, living and working on the other side of town while my little sister is in her late teens. I'm moved out, living and working on the other side of town while my sister is still living at home with mom. She was taking a year out of school, just taking time to decide what she wanted to study, maybe working part-time somewhere, but mostly just hanging out. One day I'm swapping texts with my mom when she mentions how she and my little sister had been bickering a lot.

I asked what about and she told me that it mostly stemmed from a disagreement about moving out. Mom had downsized into a much smaller house to keep her costs down. A one bedroom, one bathroom bungalow that was cozy for one but pretty cramped for two. She thought my sister should find a place of her own. My sister disagreed, and catty comments ensued, etc, etc. Nothing entirely out of the ordinary for a grown mother and daughter, but my little sister didn't quite see things that way. According to her, our mom had made some real vicious remarks to her, things that were entirely out of character. I asked her to specify and she said that mom had

cursed at her. In all my years of knowing her, I had never, ever known mom to curse out of shoot or dang it, so to hear that she'd used something harsher was definitely kind of a shock. But then again, both me and my sister were basically grown by that point and by their own admission, they had been arguing a lot. Maybe she'd always curse like that in front of other adults, but we just never witnessed it. A few more weeks go by and I didn't hear anything else about so-called vicious comments, so I assumed it was just a one-off and forgot about it. I also assumed that a big mitigating factor in any tension between my mom and sister had been the fact that my sister had gotten herself a job. She was working in a restaurant with one of her friends,

and from the sounds of it, she was enjoying it and making a respectable amount of money. She'd also very quickly gone from part-time to full-time hours, meaning mom was home alone more and more. Mom often had friends and relatives over, both for visits and to stay overnight. So as much as she had the house to herself, she wasn't alone all the time. This meant that we didn't have to worry about her, or at least, it meant that I didn't have to worry about her so much as I used to. But then came the phone call that turned my whole world upside down. And it came on one of the most beautiful days of the year. It was sometime in late June, and the weather outside was simply gorgeous, so me and my

girlfriend at the time decided to go for a walk through this nature reserve just outside of town. We're just walking along, holding hands, wholesome as can be when my mom starts going off in my pocket. The caller ID said private number, which my girlfriend dismissed as being spam or something. Any other time I'd have just hit the red button, just declined the call, and I don't even know how to put the sensation into words, but something in my gut told me that I needed to answer.

It turned out to be the cops. Mom had been arrested for breaking one of her friend's arms. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, I literally couldn't. I asked for the cop's ID number, asked where he was calling from, and just in this complete state of denial. The cop was really understanding and looking back on it was stunningly patient considering I basically accused him of trying to prank me. He remained patient when I assured him that there must have been some kind of mistake and that my mother was incapable of doing something like that, especially to one of her friends. But then the officer reeled off my mom's name, her address, a bunch of other stuff and then

gave me a perfect description of her too. It's only then that I realized that he was serious, that what was happening was real and suddenly I needed to sit down. Once I gathered my thoughts a little I asked the officer what I could do to bail her out or get her some legal counsel and it's at that point that I realized why the cop had been so patient with me to begin with. There was no bailing mom out, no getting her legal counsel for the time being. She was being admitted to a secure psychiatric facility for involuntary treatment under the laws laid out in Canada's Mental Health Act

I found out later. What they were telling me is that my mom had suffered a complete nervous breakdown. But not just any old nervous breakdown. Hers was characterized by some extreme aggression and violence. And that's when the head-swimming, can't-think sort of feeling returned. The words aggressive and violent and my mom, they just weren't computing for me. I couldn't even picture what it might look like.

All I could do was ask for where do we go from here? And I was told that a member of mom's care team would be in touch and that I'd be able to talk to her and visit soon, as soon as possible. After the call ended, I immediately got in touch with my little sister to let her know what had happened. She was just as stunned as I was, but if you remember, she'd also noticed the little crack starting to form, so to her, it was less of a total system shock. I asked if she knew which friend it was whose arm she had broken. She didn't, but she said that she'd get to work figuring out who. My sister was closer with my mom's friends back then, so I'm very grateful that she was there to deal with that side of things.

I don't know what I'd have done without her. We had to wait a week to be able to talk to her. The state confiscated her cell phone and gave her some prepaid burner thing that she could use to contact us. I almost missed the call from not really knowing when it would come, but when it did, she actually sounded kind of normal. At first, anyway. When I realized it was her, I tried to ask how she was, if she needed anything. All the stuff that I'd been waiting to ask her for like a week by that point. She didn't want to know. Instead, she very calmly told me the name and badge number of the police officer who had put her in cuffs,

and she then told me to find that officer and spit in his face for disrespecting my mother the way he did. When she hit the word spit, she went from her calm speaking voice to a screech so loud it hurt my ear. I guess it goes without saying at this point, but I'd never heard her sound like that in all the years that I'd known her. And then for her to ask me to spit in a cop's face, it was like she'd transformed into a completely different person overnight, and it absolutely terrified me. I didn't know who she'd hurt, if she was going to jail or some sort of institution. I didn't know if she'd ever be back to her old self again. But before Mom was calm enough to visit, we got to the bottom of the legal issues that she was facing, which, surprisingly, were very little.

If it wasn't for the obvious mental health crisis that was occurring, Mom would have been charged with aggravated assault and assaulting a police officer. As it turned out, she both punched and bit. You read that right. the cop that was trying to arrest her. Again, I was just in total shock hearing that she'd attacked a police officer, but the good news was they weren't going to charge her. The officer I spoke to said that there wasn't a jury in the country that wouldn't return to not guilty by temporary insanity verdict. They knew my mom was acting extremely

out of the ordinary and they weren't about to make the situation worse by throwing formal charges on top. Not long after we were permitted to visit for the first time. Me and my little sister showed up to the hospital, more nervous and anxious than we'd ever been in our entire lives. I tried to be the best big brother that I could be and stay strong for her, but the reality was more like the other way around. Let's just say mom wasn't ready for a visit. The hospital staff believed that she was, but seeing her children really set her off. Some people might think it's overly dramatic of me to describe mom's transformation as being like that of a werewolf.

But in my heart of hearts, that's exactly what it felt like. Before our eyes, she went from being the sweet, wholesome Mom we'd always known, and she transformed into that terrifying creature that I'd only heard on the phone up until that point. When she learned that I'd tracked down the officer who'd quote-unquote disrespected her, read as the one she bit, she got so angry with me that my sister called in the orderlies to restrain her.

That moment, seeing the woman who'd raised me being ready to claw my eyes out, all because of some chemical imbalance in her brain, I guess, that was just some true terror for me. I left feeling catatonic. My mom was dead, but her heart was still beating. The woman that had raised me was gone and she was never coming back. That's what I believed at my very lowest point. And it's a feeling that other people are going to feel at some point if they're lucky enough to have a friend or loved one go through a mental health crisis, that is. There is a way back. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You just

need to stay strong. Through medication, therapy, and a lot of patience, mom got back to normal. I won't lie, it was a slow process and it was emotionally exhausting in the extreme, but we found a little bit of light in the darkness and we clung to it. Mom is better now, much better, like you'd never have guessed that she went through this sort of crisis from just looking at her, but I guess that's what's so scary about mental illness in the first place. It could strike anyone, no matter how stable and secure they seem. A person can only take so much stress, and when they break,

it can be scarier than any ghost story. I remember when I was a kid, my mom took me out shopping one day, but before we hit the stores, we had to stop at an ATM. I remember my mom using the machine and I was kind of bored so I was just playing around in my own little world when suddenly something caught my attention. Just a few steps away from the ATM was a street corner. As I was messing around minding my own business I saw a face literally peeking around the corner wide-eyed staring at my mom before disappearing a few seconds later. I remember saying, mom? And she just replied, not now honey, mom's busy. I tried to tell her that someone had peeked at her, but I only managed to say, there's a man and he's... before she cut me off with, I'm sure there is honey, just a second,

okay? Mommy's busy. I just did as I was told. Besides, there was no one watching her anymore. But then no sooner than she spoke and the face appeared again. What happened next all happened so fast that it's basically a big blur in my memory. The face appeared again, so I tried to turn my mom's attention to it, but she was done with the ATM, buttoning up her purse, and could finally give me her full attention. She turned to look where I was pointing, but by that time, the face had come all the way around the corner with a body attached to it, and he was heading directly for my mom. I remember seeing this one final look of fear on her face before the guy hit her. She hit the pavement like

a ton of bricks, totally out cold, before the guy just ripped her purse out of her grip. I remember crying and screaming, then how the guy grabbed me by the shirt and shouted shut the F up in my face before he walked off. He didn't even run, he just walked off like punching a woman and stealing her purse was the most normal thing in the world to him. I honestly thought my mom was dead. She had blood all around her mouth and she was completely unconscious and no amount of screaming or shaking seemed to wake her up. She was making this really scary sound with her breathing too, something that sounded like snoring but was anything but. Obviously,

she did wake up, but not before some kind strangers started pouring in to comfort me and give her medical attention. I didn't think that I'd ever see her again, but by that evening, she was home and safe again after a brief visit to a doctor's office. I guess this isn't an experience that a lot of kids have gone through, with one being too many if you ask me. I'm also pretty sure that there's kids out there who went through way worse things happening to their moms, but that there was my thing. These days, it just makes me angry to think about, but back then, I don't think I'd ever been so scared in my entire life. Becoming a mom has been one of the most rewarding things that's ever happened to me. Having kids increases your capacity to love, but it also increases your capacity for fear too.

My kids make me the happiest I've ever been, but they also fill me with the kind of fear that I didn't even know existed. My sons were about two and four years old when their pet goldfish died. I attempted to use the situation as an opportunity to discuss death and mortality. After I finished my explanation, my four-year-old looked up at me with big blue eyes and asked, Mommy, someday will you die? My heart filled with love and a little sadness knowing that this was one of those pivotal moments when the first bit of childhood innocence is lost and I told him yeah, someday mommy will die. Good, he said with a totally deadpan expression and walked out of the room. Later when we were about to flush the fish, he asked if we could

eat him instead. I said no, we don't eat pets because we love them, and he replied with, when you die, I'm going to eat you. What scared me was the fact that he was deadly serious. In his mind, that made all the sense in the world, And it reminded me of how tall an order child rearing really is, especially for boy moms like me. You're taking these little savages and you're turning them into human beings. If you succeed, it's actually kind of sacred. But if you fail, you're unleashing some real monsters on the world. I named my first daughter after my maternal grandmother who died just a few weeks before she was born. It seemed like a fitting tribute.

I was always very close with her and we have something of a naming tradition in our family. Besides, I always thought Maggie was a very cute name with the very dignified option of Margaret to give an air of wisdom and sophistication to it. I ran the idea past my husband, who thought about it for about two seconds before saying, sure. So Maggie it was. Cut to a few days before her fifth birthday. I put her down to bed just after 8.30, then maybe a half an hour later, I walked past her door to hear her making frightening noises during her sleep. I pushed open her door a little expecting her to wake up from a nightmare any second but she eventually settled down and went back to sleeping restfully.

Or so I thought. Right as I'm edging out of the room as quietly as I could, I hear my little girl say, Mommy, is that you? I told her yes, but that she should go back to sleep. Then, and I swear to Jesus, this is exactly what she said. She's like, do you remember when I was the mommy and you were the baby? At the time, I just smiled at her sleepy brain question, then once again told her to go back to sleep as softly and gently as I could. After that, I closed her door, then went on with my nightly routine.

It wasn't until later on that night that I mentally revisited what my daughter had asked me. She was very much in that phase of carting around a baby doll and pretending that she was a mommy, so that's where my mind went in the moment. But later, after reminding myself that I'd named my daughter after her great-grandmother, who died just a few months before she was born, I felt this chill come over me. I'm not a believer in the supernatural, but even so, the thought honestly sent a little shiver down my spine. I wasn't frightened out of my mind or anything, but I definitely wanted to ask what she meant with her little comment, even if it meant anything at all. But then when I asked her, my daughter had zero recollection of asking me that question. She didn't remember having a nightmare, she didn't remember waking up, and she didn't remember asking me the mommy baby question. I just put it down to her being

half asleep or whatever and she quite obviously wasn't being possessed by the spirit of her dead great grandmother. But still, I sometimes wondered if she'd have asked me that if I'd named her just about anything else. Probably, but it sure seems like the basis for a good ghost story, that's for sure. Having kids is scary and sometimes in ways you never expected. For example, one night when my son was three, I was tucking him into bed and he says to me, Goodbye, Mommy. I corrected him and told him, we say goodnight at night time honey. To which he responds, no, tonight, it's goodbye. Then he closed his eyes and almost

instantly went off to sleep, in the way that only kids and old folks seem to do. I sat in the corner and watched him breathing for maybe 20 or 30 minutes. I know he didn't mean it that way, but good god, the way he said it just kind of hit different. I checked on him a couple more times that night just to make sure that he was still breathing, and like I said, being a parent can be really scary sometimes. Kids say the darndest things, but they also say the most frightening Tuesday, February 19th of 2008, nine-year-old Shannon Matthews was on her way home from school in her small hometown of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Westmore Junior School was just half a mile from Shannon's home, meaning her journey should have taken no more than five to ten minutes. Yet hours went by and she was nowhere to be seen. At exactly 6.48 p.m., Shannon's mother contacted the West Yorkshire Police to report her missing. Aided by friends and neighbors, a terrified Karen Matthews had already conducted an extensive search of the surrounding neighborhood. She was convinced her daughter had been abducted. Shannon's disappearance occurred just nine months after that of three-year-old Madeline McCann, a case which has horrified and enthralled the British public ever since.

Keen to avoid repeated incident, West Yorkshire Police put together a 200-man task force headed up by Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan, and together they set about searching for Shannon. Over the course of the next few weeks, officers questioned over 1,500 motorists and searched almost 3,000 houses and other places of residence. When little progress was made, the task force swelled up to 250 police officers, 60 detectives from the UK's Criminal Investigation Department, and more than half of Britain's highly trained victim recovery dogs. It was the largest regional police investigation since the case of the Yorkshire Ripper, 30 years previously, and much like Madeleine McCann's disappearance, the search for Shannon captured national attention.

One newspaper offered a reward of £20,000 for information leading to Shannon's safe return, an amount which more than doubled due to generous donations from the public. Numerous other public appeals were launched while Karen was invited to appear on a widely circulated morning show in order to raise awareness. She appeared on the show's March 7th edition, but after allowing Karen to appeal to the public for information, the presenters posited some rather accusatory questions.

One implied that Karen's current boyfriend was responsible. Another suggested Shannon's biological father might be the one holding her. Karen defended both men, saying neither were capable of such a thing, but following the interview's conclusion, the public accusations continued. Karen's parents suggested that her boyfriend, 20-year-old Craig Meehan, was known to be a violent man with a short temper, while tabloid journalists pointed out the fact that Karen had born seven children to five different fathers. Coverage and commentary relating to the case sparked a great deal of public discussion on how it was being handled. Inevitably, Shannon's case was compared with Madeline McCann's, and some argued that the media wouldn't have dared suggest a prim and

proper middle-class family would be involved in their own daughter's disappearance. They claimed the interview on morning TV had cruel overtones, and that the presenters' questions went far beyond necessity, lifting the lid on an uncomfortable, class-based hypocrisy in British society. Yet while debate raged, the police task force was working itself into a state of exhaustion, and right when the arguments on class divides were reaching a boiling point, they made a stunning announcement. At approximately 12.30pm on March 14th of 2008, police officers conducted a search of an apartment belonging to 39-year-old Michael Donovan. Donovan lived in the small village of Batley Carr, just a mile north of Dewsbury, and opening his door to a group of police officers,

he became visibly nervous. The officers detained him, and while scouring his residence for any sign of their missing girl, they came across a small compartment under Donovan's bed. It was padlocked. When the officers cut off the lock and pried open the compartment, a collective sigh of relief could be heard. Lying curled up in the compartment, weak but still alive, was nine-year-old Shannon Matthews. Her 24-day ordeal was finally over. Michael Donovan was immediately arrested at the scene while Shannon was placed under the protection of the police and local social services department. Many expected Shannon to be immediately returned to her mother, but questions were raised when the police exercised the rarely utilized Section 46 of the 1989 Children's Act, which allowed Shannon to remain in their care for up to three days. When these three days expired, Karen consented to her daughter being held by local family services on a purely voluntary basis.

There, Shannon was questioned for several weeks, with the sessions lasting no longer than ten minutes at a time to avoid undue stress and trauma. The interview was also made up to look like a school classroom, a move that often reassured other victims of abuse. The details of the police investigation remained confidential, but there were no surprises when Michael Donovan was charged with kidnapping. Yet a second arrest raised some serious questions as to how and why Shannon was abducted, questions which fed into the public's more lurid suspicions. On April 2nd of 2008, Karen Matthews' boyfriend, Craig Meehan, was arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.

The arrest came after police searched Meehan's computer in connection with Shannon's disappearance, and he was later convicted on 11 counts of possessing indecent images of children. The revelation stunned the British public, but not nearly as much as the one that came just four days later. The arrest of Karen Matthews, Shannon's own mother, was front-page news all over the British Isles. Newspapers detailed how she'd been detained on the grounds of child neglect, as well as perverting the course of justice. Yet at her hearing in September of 2008, those charges ballooned to kidnapping and false imprisonment. The exact details of Shannon's abduction hadn't been made public yet, but nevertheless, the charges painted a grimly detailed picture of what had transpired. Karen Matthews had been complicit in the abduction of her own nine-year-old daughter. At Michael Donovan's trial in November of 2008, the court

heard that whilst Shannon had been in captivity, she'd been drugged to keep her pliable and compliant. During the first 24 hours after she went missing, Shannon had been tied to a roof beam up in the small attic of Donovan's apartment, and was only later transferred to the hiding place under his bed. The court later heard that Karen Matthews had been the plan's mastermind, claiming that they could make at least £50,000 from faking her daughter's abduction. Karen then reached out to the charity Madeline's Fund, named after Madeline McCann, in an effort to pilfer funds intended for legitimate missing children's cases.

Karen also believed that additional money could be fraudulently secured through public appeals and charitable donations. On November 13th, a forensic toxicologist told the court that tests on Shannon's hair showed she'd received weekly doses of the sedative temazepam for almost two years. Some believed that this was to raise Shannon's tolerance to the drug, diminishing the chances of an overdose when the time came to fake her abduction. While others argued it was routine treatment at the hands of a neglectful, uncaring mother. When Michael Donovan took the stand, he claimed that Karen had asked him to look after her daughter for a few days, saying he'd be handsomely rewarded if he did so. He also claimed to have wanted to back out of the scheme when he

realized what it actually entailed, but was so frightened by Karen and her abusive boyfriend that he complied with her demands. Karen Matthews was the next to take the stand where she denied having anything to do with her daughter's disappearance. This was in direct contradiction to her initial admissions that she'd been central to the plot. She claimed that Craig Meehan, her then-boyfriend, was the plot's mastermind and that he'd ordered her to take the blame for what had happened.

In response, the prosecution reminded the courtroom that Karen Matthews had told five different stories from that point, each detailing a different chain of events and could therefore not be trusted to tell the truth. Her testimony was characterized as lie after lie after lie. The truth was clear for all to see. Karen Matthews was a monster. A woman who'd put her own daughter through unimaginable suffering, all for monetary gain. On December 4th of 2008, Karen and Michael Donovan were both found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice.

The plan had been to fake a scenario in which Michael Donovan appeared to rescue Shannon from Dewsbury Market, in which case he'd be eligible for the £50,000 reward. The money would then be split 50-50 between Donovan and Karen Matthews. Their conviction came with an eight-year sentence. Karen was released in April of 2012 after serving only half her sentence. On the other hand, Michael Donovan served only a third of his term after it became increasingly clear that he'd been intimidated into carrying out Karen's plan. Shannon received intense psychiatric treatment in the aftermath of her ordeal. Being abducted and drugged would traumatize anyone,

but young Shannon had to wrestle with the fact that it was her own mother who'd engineered something so diabolical. She was placed into foster care, raised far away from the glare of the media, and has since been given a new identity. The same applied to Karen Matthews' other children, who had all relocated to different parts of the country in order to begin new lives. it's the least they could have been offered. The only silver lining to a dark cloud which will hang over Dewsbury for a very long time. To be continued... out. One day my dad comes home with this box of toys, not a big box but a box nonetheless and I was ecstatic. I remember this and I remember the fort that I picked out because I used to play with it a whole lot. I also remember my dad taking the fort away from me and although I can't remember why, this is what my mom says happened. One day she finds me playing with the fort along with a few action figures and whatnot and I'm talking to myself. But day she finds me playing with the fort along with a few action figures and whatnot and I'm talking to myself. But then she realizes that I'm not talking to myself and I'm not talking

to the action figures either. It sounded like I was talking to a person. Mom asked who I was talking to and according to her this is what I said in reply. I'm talking to the boy whose fort this is. She says she laughed, thinking it was just some smart aleck way of saying that I was talking to myself before lovingly telling me that it was my fort, no one else's. And that's when I tell her that she's wrong, that I can hear the kid whose fort it is and they're asking for it back. Mom doesn't freak out. She was definitely taken aback by the comment but she wasn't spooked or scared or anything. But then as the day goes on what I said starts eating at her and so she goes to ask my dad where exactly he got the box of toys. He'd already told her that

it was a garage sale but she wanted to know where this garage sale was and keeps poking and prodding until my dad goes back to find out why they were practically giving all that stuff away. And this goes on for a while until finally he goes off to investigate so she'll stop nagging him. He comes back not long after, boxes up all the toys he'd given me and then just throws them in the trash. Obviously, I'm pretty shaken up, especially because they wouldn't tell me why they'd taken the toys from me. And it's not till many years later that I find out why, when my mom tells the story on a family vacation. The toys had come from a garage sale organized by a realtor who had recently purchased the house for a rock-bottom

price. Why so cheap, you might ask. Well, that's because a triple murder had taken place there. Some guy had returned home from work early to find his wife in bed with another man. He shoots them both, then turns the gun on himself. But before he does, he shoots and kills his young son. God knows why, but that's what happened. Which meant the toys that I'd been playing with had belonged to that kid. I don't believe in ghosts or haunted toys or anything like that, but neither did my mom and dad way back when this all happened.

But some things you just don't take chances with. I can tell you as a parent, the way you evaluate risk completely changes once you have kids, and sometimes that can manifest itself in some unusual ways, like a rational person throwing away some garage sale toys because there's a slim chance that they might just be haunted. The scariest thing my kid has ever said or done was on a vacation when she was maybe five or six years old. I figured it might be a good time to give her an impromptu swimming lesson, so I picked her up some water wings and we ended up splashing around in the shallow end of the pool to get her used to the water. She went from a little apprehensive to absolutely loving it in minutes,

and I knew the water wings would be off in no time. Then later on in the vacation we were messing around with the water wings and I was throwing her ever so slightly into the deep end before she'd come doggy paddling back to me and demand to be thrown again. Now finally when my arms were too tired to throw her anymore I told her sorry but I can't. As she just sort of sighed, rolled her eyes and then said, go to sleep, mommy, and pushed my head under the water. She didn't try to hold it there or anything.

She didn't say it sinisterly or anything, but seeing her make the connection between not being able to breathe, going to sleep, and dying, it was just such a creepy moment for me as a mom on so many levels. To be continued... the illness. Our five-year-old daughter was very upset about it, but we told her it was okay because soon she'd be having a baby brother to take care of. The idea didn't quite jazz her like we thought it would, so we promised to get her another cat as soon as we could. Suddenly, everything was all better and she's dreaming up names for her new kitty while brainstorming what she wanted it to look like. Now, cut to about two weeks after our son was born and my daughter asked me, mommy is Charlie going to die like Jasper did? Charlie being her baby

brother and Jasper being her dearly departed cat. It was a weird time to have the death conversation I know but I seized on the opportunity and tried to be a good parent and just said, yes everybody dies like Jasper, baby. It's sad, but it's just the way the world is. I genuinely felt like I pulled the pin out of a grenade and was just waiting for it to explode. We'd never really talked about death before, and I know it hits some kids much harder than most.

I expected her to burst into tears and hug me as her little mind got to grips with the grim inevitable, but instead, she just said one word, before grinning and walking away. Good. Okay, so my son was six years old when he asked me one of the creepiest things I'd ever, ever been asked. He asked, Mommy, can you see things through the black circles in my eyes? I told him no, that I couldn't see through them because they're not like glass. My son sort of wrinkles his nose in frustration and then thinks of another way to ask the question.

Can you see what I see, like inside my head? It's the kind of thing that if a 40-year-old asked you, you'd think that they were crazier than an outhouse rat. But if your 6-year-old asks it to you, you're supposed to just brush it off as crap that kids say. The trouble is, it hit me just the same, and I know he was still very young, but I worried if it was a warning sign of something down the line. Now here's where the story gets interesting and not so creepy. I ended up contacting a child psychologist and was hugely relieved when I found out that, as creepy as it was, that sort of question is surprisingly normal for a kid his age. It's an example of lack of differentiation, as the doctor put it, meaning

my son hadn't worked out that my mind and his mind were two separate things. To put it simply, it's the reason you can tell a kid that age if you misbehave at school, I'll know, and they'll actually believe you. That's also why some kids, especially boys, often reply to, what did you do at school today, with nothing or stuff instead of going into detail and sharing it with you. To them, you basically already know what they did because, like my son, you're already inside their head. Andrea Pia Yates was born on July 2nd of 1964 in the small Texan town of Hallsville. She was the youngest child of German-Irish parents, Andrew and Euthy Kennedy, and although they did everything they could for young Andrea,

she suffered with mental illness during her teenage years. Despite her struggles, Andrea graduated high school in the summer of 82 as class valedictorian, captain of the swim team, and an officer in the National Honor Society. She later graduated from the University of Texas' Health Science Center, then found a job as a registered nurse at the university's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. In the summer of 1989, she met her future husband, Russell, at Houston's Sunscape Apartments. Employed as an aerospace engineer at NASA, Andrea was hugely impressed by Russell's intelligence. They began dating, soon moved in together, and were married on April 17th

of 1993. The couple were self-proclaimed devout evangelical Christians, and reportedly told friends that they'd have as many babies as nature allowed. Russell's equally impressive salary allowed them to purchase a brand new four-bedroom house in the Houston suburb of Friendswood with her first child, Noah, being born in February of 1994. Andrea reportedly adored being a mother and between 1984 and 1999, she gave birth to three more children. In June of 1999, Russell came home to find Andrea shaking while chewing blood from her fingernails. Her depression had returned, and it returned with a vengeance. Russell swore that he'd get her help, but the very next day, Andrea attempted to take

her own life via an overdose of prescription medication. She was hospitalized, prescribed antidepressants, and soon showed signs of improvement. But just days after her discharge, Andrea approached her husband while holding a knife to her own throat and begged him to let her die. Once again, Andrea was subjected to intense psychiatric treatment and was subsequently diagnosed with postpartum depression. Yates' first psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, urged Russell and Andrea not to have any more

children, as it would guarantee future psychotic depression. Yet less than two months later, they'd conceived their fifth and final child, a daughter named Mary, who was born in December of the year 2000. By that point, Andrea's mental health seemed to have improved significantly and she'd even stopped taking the anti-psychotic drugs that she'd been prescribed. But then, on March 12th of 2001, her father suddenly passed away. The loss sent Andrea into a spiral of grief and madness. She became obsessed with scripture and read the Bible compulsively while scratching or biting her wrists and arms, gripped by a feverish insanity. Andrea refused to breastfeed her infant daughter, and when she too began refusing to eat, she was once again taken to the hospital. After a month-long stay in a secure psychiatric facility, Andrea was released into the care of her husband.

The cocktail of antipsychotics suppressed her more self-destructive urges, but Russell knew it was only a matter of time before they resurfaced. And resurface they did. On May 3rd of 2001, Andrea suddenly entered a near-catatonic state and filled the bathtub in the middle of the day. Russell interrupted her in the act, assuming it was an attempt to drown herself, but he'd soon learn that her plan had been very different. On the morning of June 20th, 2001, Russell Yates kissed his wife goodbye, got into his car, and headed off to work.

Andrea had been under the supervision of Dr. Mohamed Saeed and had been subject to an intensive regimen of therapy and medication, a regime that had ended that very morning. Andrea was to be given a lot more freedom and a lot less medication but only on the condition that she wouldn't be left alone, which, shockingly, is exactly what Russell chose to do. However, it's difficult not to sympathize with him. Andrea had once again shown a radical improvement, and his mother was due to arrive within the hour to take over his wife's supervision. Andrea would only remain alone with her children for 45 to 50 minutes at the most, but that's all the time she needed to destroy everything they had worked so hard to build. After Russell kissed her goodbye,

Andrea saw her husband at the door, then waved him out of the driveway. Then, after closing her front door, she once again set about filling up the family's bathtub with water. And once it was full, Andrea lured her second son John into the bathroom, ushered him over to the tub, and then shoved his head under the water. She held him there while he struggled, while he wondered why his own mother was subjecting him to something so utterly horrifying. When John finally stopped moving, Andrea dried the boy off, placed him in his bed, and then repeated the process with the rest of her children. It took less than 30 minutes to kill all five of her young children, and when she was done, Andrea called her husband and told him he needed to come home.

Russell later noted that the family's dog was locked up, something which was highly out of the ordinary. It later emerged that Andrea had done so because she believed the family dog would try and prevent her from murdering her own children. Incredibly, upon her arrest, Russell organized his wife's legal defense and enlisted a family friend to act as their attorney. While in police custody, Andrea made no bones about what she'd done and confessed to the murder of her five children. She had deliberately waited until Russell had left for work because she wanted to take her time with it and ensure all five were no longer breathing. Although numerous expert

witnesses agreed that Yates was psychotic, Texas law requires that the defendant prove that they could not discern right from wrong at the time of the crime. Since Andrea's defense team was unable to do this, the jury rejected her insanity defense and found her guilty on five counts of murder in March of 2002. They did, however, spare Andrea the death penalty and instead opted for life imprisonment with eligibility for parole in 40 years. An added twist of the tale came in January of 2005, when then-Texas Court of Appeals suddenly reversed Andrea's conviction. It turned out that one of the prosecution's witnesses,

a California psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Park Dietz, had willfully given materially false testimony during the trial. In his testimony, Dietz had stated that shortly before the murders, an episode of Law & Order had aired featuring a woman who drowned her children, but was acquitted by reason of insanity. Yet when journalists set about trying to find the episode, Law & Order's writing staff said no such episode existed. It wasn't clear why Dietz had given his false testimony,

but when confronted, he assured a judge that he hadn't willfully deceived the court and seemed only too happy to officially retract his testimony. In which case, Andrea Yates had just won herself a retrial. Incidentally, Law & Order did indeed go on to air an episode based on Andrea's case, but not until two years after her second trial. On January 9th of 2006, Andrea once again entered pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity and was held at a mental health facility to await her trial date. Then in July of that same year, a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity after three whole days of deliberation. Andrea was subsequently committed to the North Texas State Hospital and later to the Kerrville State Hospital, a lower-security mental health facility that patients are transferred to once they've shown significant signs of improvement. The news sparked fierce debate across the United States.

Was Andrea really responsible for the death of her children? Or should those charged with supervising or treating her share a portion of the blame? Russell Yates publicly argued that Andrea's doctor, Muhammad Saeed, was partly at fault for the deaths of his children, claiming he'd refused to medicate or hospitalize his wife in the days prior to the drownings. Russell also added that his wife was visibly too sick to be discharged from her last day in the hospital in May of 2001, and claimed that medical staff lowered their heads as if in shame and embarrassment as he wheeled her off the premises. The hospital countered that they had no choice in the matter, due to the 10-day psychiatric constraints of the Yates healthcare provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield. However, Dr. Saeed fired back at Russell,

saying he'd specifically told him not to leave his wife unattended. Russell had been open about the fact that he planned to leave his wife alone for an hour each morning and each evening so that she wouldn't become totally dependent on him and his mother for child care. This is obviously in direct contravention with Dr. Saeed's advice and it wasn't the only piece of damning testimony. Dr. Saeed also cited his stance that Russell and Andrea should not have had a fifth child, claiming expert opinion was ignored at every turn. During a broadcast of Larry King Live, Andrea's brother, Brian Kennedy, claimed Russell had once told him that all depressed people needed was a swift kick in the pants. It also transpired that Russell's mother had advised him not to leave his wife

alone, as she'd recently noticed Andrea almost choke her infant daughter by attempting to feed her solid food. This was as clear an indication as any that she wasn't ready to be left alone, yet Russell chose to do it anyway. Investigative journalist Suzanne O'Malley also commented on Russell's clear delusion regarding his wife's ability to handle more children. In her 2005 book, Are You There Alone?, Suzanne wrote, During the trial, Russell believed his wife would be found innocent and even had fantasies of having more children with her after she was successfully treated in the mental health facility before being released on the proper medication.

While Russell's attitude towards his wife's mental illness certainly didn't help the situation, it would be entirely unjust to blame him for her actions, especially considering she was prescribed a medication that proved extremely controversial in the years that followed. For up to a month before she killed her children, Andrea had been taking twice the recommended dose of an antidepressant known as Effexor. Then four years after her initial conviction, the warning label of the drug was edited to include the side effect, homicidal ideation. This revelation featured heavily on Andrea's 2006 retrial

and is possibly the single biggest contributing factor in the resulting insanity verdict. Yet perhaps the most viscerally disturbing aspect of Andrea Yates' case is the pervading influence of her deeply held religious beliefs. While in prison, Yates stated that she had considered killing the children for two years. She believed that she was a bad mother and as a result, her sons were developing improperly. She once told her prison psychiatrist, quote, It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous.

They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell. My daughters are five years apart in age. One evening I was holding my young daughter, months old at the time, while sitting on the sofa. My older daughter ate something very sort of lemony and citrusy and then wanted some milk. I told her those things probably won't go too well together but she insisted so she had some milk. The older daughter comes to sit next to me and the next thing I know she starts puking all over me. My instinctive reaction was to jump up out of the way and that motion resulted in my younger daughter rolling off my lap and onto the floor. She hit the metal leg of the coffee table and when I frantically picked her up, her eye socket started filling with blood.

At this point I'm screaming for my wife to get the car keys and we go screeching off to the emergency room. It turns out my daughter just got a tiny cut on her face right above the corner of her eye and the blood flowed onto her eye and pulled there, making it look like the blood was coming out of her eye. But Jesus Christ, it scared the living bejesus out of me. This story had happened to my mother a few weeks ago when she was at the store. It still shakes her up to this day whenever she retells it or thinks about it. One day my mom had run down to our local appliance store to look for some extra tools that we needed as we were renovating the kitchen at the time. So my mom heads over to the appliance store to see if she can find what she needed. After getting out of her car and almost at the front entrance,

she notices in her peripheral vision that someone was following her close by. She didn't really think much of it at first and thought it was another person in a hurry to get in and out of the store like her. My mom continues walking throughout the store and still can see that there's someone standing not far from where she was. She decided to turn around out of curiosity to see who it was and noticed that it was some scraggly man who looked like he was either in his early, mid-fifties or so. My mom had gotten a good look at the man and could tell right away that the man didn't belong in the store. He had on worn out clothes that definitely had seen better days, and had this sort of crazed expression on his face. My mom had locked eyes with the creep for a moment or two,

before deciding to walk away from him quickly. As she was walking away, she could hear him approaching her direction slowly. At this point, my mom knew that she was being followed, and had to do something about it. She proceeded to walk away at a normal pace, as not to alert the guy in any way. She walked a few aisles over to see if the guy would follow her, or if it was just some major coincidence, but as it turned out, it was no coincidence. My mom did this a few more times, and whatever area of the store she went to, this guy followed her.

She eventually went to find an employee to tell them about her situation. The man sees that she was talking to an employee and just quickly walked away. The employee reassured my mom that they would have someone talk to him and she'd need not to worry. My mom felt relieved after this knowing that the employee would alert other employees of this creep in the store. For the rest of the time that she was there my mom didn't see the guy anywhere in the store. After she finished buying the supplies that she needed she left the store and headed straight to her car. My mom wasn't even out of the store for more than 10 seconds and she immediately had a bad feeling. She looks to her right and lo and behold, it's the same creep from

before. My mom knew that she had to get away from this man and fast, so she started to speedwalk towards her car. The man then started to follow her close by. My mom had at least another 200 yards to go until she was at the car. She also had a frightening realization on her way to her car. Whenever my mom had sped up, he would speed up too. Whenever she slowed down or stopped, he would slow down or stop as well. This guy was trying his best to match my mom's footsteps so she couldn't hear him sneaking up on her. It was at this time that my mom began to pray that this guy would lose interest or that she can escape from him somehow.

My mom could see that she was less than 50 yards away from her car and began contemplating whether to sprint to her car or start screaming for help. My mom was almost to her car and could literally feel the guy breathing down her neck. What happened next was what my mom could only describe as divine intervention. As my mom was preparing to fend for herself if the man tried to grab her, a truck had pulled up in the parking lot and headed towards them. My mom, without hesitation, waved her hands to get the driver's attention, and this had completely caught the man following her off guard. The driver of the truck had slowed down and my mom began walking towards him. My mom turned around for a split second and saw this guy just quickly walking away in the opposite direction. The driver lowered his window and

asked if she was alright and he also told my mom as he was driving towards her that he saw that sketchy looking man almost stalking her from about 10 feet away. He also explained how my mom was smart and that she did the right thing for waving him down. The guy also told my mom how lucky she was that he was there. He explained how there was a woman who had been abducted over a month ago in that area, and she had yet to be found. My mom thanked him and had him watch her get into her car and leave safely. This may not seem much of a scary story to others,

but I'd like to see how these people would feel or react if they were in my mother's shoes. My mom has since then told me that she's never shopping there again unless my dad is with her. The moral of the story is always pay attention to your surroundings because you never know who's around you, and it may one day just save your life. My mother used to work for the sheriff's department, but quit after I was born. She dealt with quite a few upsetting cases and spoke to plenty of sickos as part of her job. When I was maybe three years old, she put that experience from her old job to good use. The following story took place in Northern California in the early 1980s, and I'm a female. An elderly couple lived across from us. The lady seemed nice, though from what my mom told me she was rather impatient when I soiled myself, asking her when I'd be trained.

I'd occasionally talk to her from my side of the street, and she had a funny thick drawl. She had a lot of cats which congregated on the driveway and lawn of her house and weirdly enough lots of birds and aviary cages. Apparently she also raised Coturnix quail and when she cleaned their cages her lot would stink. Her husband from what my mom told me didn't talk nice to me. She couldn't really describe it but yeah he didn't seem to really act like a couldn't really describe it, but yeah, he didn't seem to really act like a good person. The thing is, I was three and hadn't even finished becoming bathroom independent, so I did not sense any danger. I thought he was just another nice man

that my mom knew. I had plenty of other neighbors, including a single mother of boys who I later learned was single because her husband came out as gay and left her, a single woman I knew as my auntie, an old woman who had a playful, friendly black lab, and another old woman who had a garden full of beautiful flowers in her backyard. When I went to some of their houses, I was allowed to wander about a little, but at the house of that old couple with all the birds and cats, whenever I went to wander around, my mother would tell me to come back. I wanted to go look at the beautiful birds, but I knew that I was risking a spanking or demerit and loss of popsicle privileges, so I obeyed. My mother said that she did let me stay at that house while the man was away, but she never let me alone anywhere near him.

I think you know where this is going already. Now I still have this memory of the old man sort of inviting me to go back with him and he said to my mom that it was alright, that I could come back there. I have vague memories of his face but after knowing what he did, the memories of my interactions with him are just incredibly creepy. There was a girl I played with a few times. Her mother was obese and toothless and her aunt would have nothing to do with that man. One day the girl's mother let her stay with that man and I think he know what he did to her. Same thing he did to her with her mother and aunt. She told his wife divorced him and sadly he went to live with the girl's mother.

When I asked my mom about him while we were driving through that old neighborhood a few years after we moved, she told me that he had died and that he was a very bad person. Back then, I was innocent and didn't quite know why some adults would want to give a child a bad touch, as I remember it being called, and I was shocked. Over the years, I would sometimes bring him up in conversation, and sometimes I would get more information. I was saddened to learn that he was allowed to live with his young victim, and that she never got a happy ending.

The thing is, my mom didn't know back then that he was a monster. Something about him just seemed off, and she felt that she couldn't trust him around me. But boy, was she right. I am forever thankful that my mother was so attentive. The End In the early 20s, I landed a receptionist job in a sales office at a manufactured housing community. It was my first office job after working in daycare in the food and drink industry. I was excited. I greeted potential buyers, set up appointments, and staged the spec homes with our stock of furniture and decorations.

I worked with one other person in the office who was the salesman. When he was out of the office, I took potential buyers through our spec homes and gathered their information for follow-up. I was working alone one day when a customer came into the office looking to potentially purchase his first home. I gathered some information from the young man and asked if he would like to look at some spec homes. As we walked down the sidewalk toward the row of spec homes, we chatted about the various floor plans and finishes available. I knew the product

information and had no trouble confidently answering his questions. He was friendly and reminded me of a classmate from high school that had played offense on the football team. I decided to show him the two home models that best fit his price range and desired floor plan. Since I shared most of the technical information during the first home tour, I gave him some space to freely look around the second home. He walked through the main living area and stopped in the doorway to one of the back bedrooms. He called out, Hey, what's this back here? And pointed to the corner of the room that I couldn't see from where I was standing. I knew these floor plans by heart, so I politely answered that it was a closet.

In my mind, I was sarcastically thinking, really? You don't know what a closet is? He chuckled and asked again, No, really, come here. What is this back here? I could tell by his tone that he was pressuring me to come see for myself. He motioned for me to come closer and take a look. His tone was friendly, but his requests just didn't make sense, so I paused. And in that split second, something shifted. Maybe it was the energy in the air, the hairs on my neck standing straight up, or the way his eyes changed before me. I suddenly sensed the power dynamic had shifted, and I didn't feel safe. With all the lightheartedness that I could muster, I repeated,

Oh, it's a closet. Excuse me for a moment, I need to check on something outside. I quickly made my exit back to the sidewalk outside the house. I had no concrete reason why I felt the overwhelming need to leave the house immediately. I didn't understand why my body sensed danger. I just knew that I needed to act quickly. Over the next few days, the young man came back to the office to meet with the salesman. He filled out all the various paperwork needed to purchase a home and live within the community. He dropped by several more times unannounced to check on his application status.

If I wasn't there, he would ask the salesman when I worked next. My co-worker thought that I had a not-so-secret admirer. I couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling something just wasn't right, so on the nights I worked alone I locked the office door. A few days later, corporate sent back their analysis of the young man's application and completed background check. He had been denied. The background check revealed multiple assault convictions and violating multiple people. And there it was. Crystal clear, undeniable 2020 hindsight. The salesman called the customer right away to let him know his application had been denied and that we could not do anything further for him. A few days later, the young man

decided to come back to the office one more time. When my co-worker saw the young man's vehicle in our parking lot, he told me to go to the back room of the office where I would be out of sight. And just like the times before, the young man entered the office asking if I was working. This time he was met by a very angry six-foot salesman that had nothing to lose. I had never heard my co-worker raise his voice before, but on that day his voice shook the office walls. Needless to say, the young man never came back again, and I wasn't scheduled to work alone nearly as often. But I still wondered to myself, what would he have done if I went to investigate his question earlier? This happened years ago when I was barely 14.

My middle school and middle school of my best friend at the time organized a trip abroad to Great Britain, London to be exact. It was supposed to be a few days looking at London attractions, museums, and shops, and it was fun. Until it wasn't. On the day before we were supposed to leave and go home, we were brought to some interesting shops and given free time for shopping. Then our teacher and guide had a brilliant idea. They told us that after the shopping time ended that we had to meet at a different street. In retrospect, it was only about 100 meters away, but they still should not have done that. Most of us had never been to London, and we barely spoke English, and we didn't have

a map of the city. Roaming services didn't work correctly either. 90% of the students got lost. My best friend and I got lost because we went in a completely opposite direction. We were both confused about the directions that we were given at the time. We were walking along the pavement. My friend was running ahead or staying behind and nervously look around. We didn't look like we were together because we were not interacting with each other and I guess that's why this happened. My friend ran ahead and stopped to look around, and that's when I saw a black car approach me and match my speed. I started to feel like this was a scene from a movie. It was broad daylight, there were a lot of people around, and no one reacted. I was confused and didn't know what

was happening. Then a man stepped out of the car and said, Hey, you look nice. Come with me. And tried to grab me. The car was still running, so I suppose someone was still in it. I was stunned and I didn't believe it was real. At that moment, my friend ran to me from behind, grabbed me and dragged me away. We ran and tried to lose any tail if a man or a car was following us. After some time, we stopped, and my friend nervously cried while shaking and screaming why I didn't move when the man tried to catch me. I explained that I had a sort of deer in headlights

type moment. We cooled down and managed to ask some people for help, and we were found by our teachers. We didn't tell anyone there what had for help and we were found by our teachers. We didn't tell anyone there what had happened and we were sure no one would believe us. After that when we got back I told my parents and I never went on a trip organized by my school again. My mom considered all of that really unprofessional and irresponsible. I went to a college in a historic mid-sized city in Florida and at the time lived in a duplex downtown, maybe three blocks from campus. The city is known to be pretty safe and I lived in a pretty decent area with large historic homes near me. This story takes place around three

years ago. A little backstory that will become relevant, the duplex I lived in had a front door that locked and then both the upstairs and downstairs units had their own locking door. I lived downstairs and had two roommates, but this specific night, only one of my roommates was home. We knew the girls that lived upstairs, but only really spoke to them in passing. When they moved in, we emphasized how important it was to us for them to keep the main front door locked, and they did a good job of doing so. So my roommates and I are in for the night, knowing the front door is locked, and smoke a few joints. At some point, we hear a knock at the front door and quickly realize the girls upstairs had ordered a pizza.

Later on, it becomes evident that they never lock the front door after receiving their pizza. So we finally go to sleep in our rooms and since I had a queen bed, I would often sleep with my phone and laptop next to me in my bed. A couple of hours after I fell asleep, I woke up to a man standing over my bed. As soon as I realized that I'm not dreaming, I noticed that he is quickly moving my phone and computer off my bed and moving my comforter, trying to get in to my bed. I start to ask him who he is, what he's doing here,

and just generally confused as I was still slightly high from before I went to sleep. The only thing he said to me was, and multiple times, was that, I'm just trying to get in bed. I'm just trying to get in bed. At this point, I begin to panic, as my mind obviously goes to the worst. I was hoping that maybe my roommate had invited some random Tinder guy over and that he had gone to the wrong room, but the more I questioned him, all he had to say was, I'm just trying to get him back. I owned pepper spray and a stun gun, but I had accidentally left them on a shelf that the guy was standing in front of, so there was no way that I would be able to grab them without escalating the situation. Realizing that I need

to do something quick, I blurted out, there are five people who live in this house, and if you don't get the F out of here now, I'll scream, and they'll all be here within seconds. Luckily, that was all it took to scare him off. I don't know if he had brought something with him or if he had stole something from me, but I saw him grab something in the dark and run out of my room. As soon as he left my room, I shut the door and locked it and tried to find my phone. I couldn't find it anywhere, but then quickly realized that between my room and the front door is the room of my friend that was home. As scared as I was, I was terrified that the guy had maybe gone into her room,

so I grabbed my stun gun and a pocket knife, counting to three, and ripped open my door. I ran into my roommate's room, and she was fast asleep, and there was no evidence of the guy. I told her what happened, and she asked me if I was sure that I wasn't dreaming. I began to question myself until I walked out of her room and saw that our front door was wide open. I went to my room to search for my phone and finally found it hidden under a pile of clothes across the room from where I had left it. That sent a chill up my spine as I immediately knew for a fact that someone had been in my house and room while I was sleeping and long enough to hide my phone which only worsened my suspicions of his intentions. I ran back to my roommate's room,

who at that point believed me, and we barricaded ourselves into the room and called 911. Within minutes, police cars were swarming our street and yard and they yelled for us to quickly leave the residence and run towards them. At least a dozen police officers came running in and searched every inch of our apartment, woke up the girls upstairs and searched their apartment to ensure that the man had left. The officers then had me write a statement and I gave them a description of the man. To this day, I had never heard a single thing about the case. I feel incredibly lucky with the outcome of the situation but the thought of his intentions terrifies me. Additionally, the fact that he was never caught scares me as I would hate for anyone else to have to go through the pure fear that I did.

I will add that there is a chance that he was on drugs or maybe mentally ill and didn't actually have any bad intentions. However, because he was never caught, I'll never know, and my mind will always assume the worst. I had a basset hound named Em. She was sweet and cuddly and firmly believed that everyone knew her and loved her and she loved them in return. Our daily walks were scattered with brief visits with several neighbors so they could pat and love on her. One evening I was waiting for a delivery from a food service company that came by every two weeks. Em loved our regular driver and he would bring her treats. The truck pulled up in front of the house and Em's demeanor changed. I had never seen her act like this before and the hair

was up on her back and she was constantly growling. I saw the driver get out of the truck and it wasn't my regular driver driver Her growling got louder I didn't know what the issue was but I knew my dog didn't trust him so neither did I The driver usually stepped into the house but not today I stepped out to the front stoop but left the front door open and the glass storm door closed Em was on the other side of the door, baring her teeth and growling The driver approached and I heard a whisper. Don't show him your back. I stayed facing him while he told me

my driver was on vacation. He asked me if I wanted to see the catalog and there were some new items that he'd like to show me. My dog was going crazy and my creeper vibe was going crazy too. I firmly told him that I only wanted my pre-order and that I would look at the new items online. He hesitated several minutes like he didn't know what to do next before finally going back to the truck and bringing my order. He asked if it was heavy and if I wanted him to carry it inside. I said no thank you just set it down and my son would take care of it. He set it down, hesitated again, and it was awkward and the silence was deafening, so I said, I believe it was prepaid, and he replied, yes, of course.

He stood there for a moment more, but I was not turning to go inside until he left. I finally turned and went to the truck and left. Instantly my happy dog was back and I opened the door to find my 12 year old son hiding against the wall next to the door with the largest knife from my kitchen. I gave him a questioning look and he said, M said he's dangerous and I was going to be ready if he tried anything. It seems that he trusted his dog, too. This happened a long time ago, about ten years or so, but I never forgot about it and it still gives me chills. I, a 33-year-old female, was in my early 20s at the time. At the time, I had a female dog named Nina, a boxer. She passed away when she was eight from lung cancer and I miss her dearly.

Nina was very energetic so I took her on long walks around the neighborhood, usually at the end of the day at around 4 to 6pm when it was not too hot but not dark either. One thing that you must know about Nina is that she loved people. She didn't get along with other dogs but every time she saw someone walking by us, she would shake her tail and want to get closer and ask for pets. One day, we went on our walk as usual. Everything was fine for the most part. I saw a few other dog tutors walking their dogs and an old couple sitting in front of their house chatting. And then when we were alone, Nina suddenly started growling. One thing I didn't mention is that I graduated in biology and specialized in animal behavior. At the time

this story happened, I was finishing college. So yeah, I used to pay a lot of attention to my dog's behaviors and had quite a lot of knowledge about dog behavior because it was my favorite subject in the area. Dogs can see movement much better than us, so things like eyebrow raising or a little tension on the shoulders, they can easily pick it up. So of course a dog growling doesn't sound that weird. Nina did growl at other dogs and cats when she saw them, but this was different. It was very low and the fur on her back was up. Her entire behavior was of alarm. And then I noticed that she was looking back while growling. So I looked behind me. And in the distance, like blocks away, I saw a man.

This made me even more alert because Nina never growled at anyone in the street before. She never stopped walking by my side or tried to pull away, but she kept this low growl and kept looking at this man. I started to freak out and turned the next block. She stopped for a second, but when we reached the next corner, she started growling again, and there he was again. He didn't try to talk, call out to me, and his expression was serious, kind of emotionless. I kept walking in random patterns, and he was always still there. That man was definitely following me. At some point our distances started to shrink and Nina's growling was getting stronger. So when I turned the next corner I started running while he couldn't

see me. I ran down about four blocks in the direction of an area that I knew had more traffic and people around. I stopped to catch my breath and looked behind me. He was far away, right at the corner of where I started running. Just there, standing, clearly staring at me. Nina was looking at him, still with her alarm posture. After a minute, he turned around and went away in the same direction and at that moment, Nina finally relaxed. I kept paying attention to Nina's behavior the entire way back to my house later but she was just her normal happy self. I told this story to my parents and a few neighbors and no one seemed to know of any man

that looked like him and I never saw that guy again and Nina never behaved like that again either to anyone else so I'll never know who he was or why he was following me. But I definitely don't regret trusting Nina's instincts. So people, please pay attention to your pet's behaviors as much as you can. It's not about a supernatural sixth sense. They can actually feel, see, and hear things better than us. And there's no behavior that happens for no reason. There's always a reason.

Stay safe, everyone. I've contemplated posting this for years, but the emotional capital of writing this out always feels too heavy. It chills me to this day when I think about what happened, or should I say, could have happened to my sister and I in 2007. I was 25, she was 23. We were living in Phoenix and living a pretty wild life, lots of partying. However, she could keep it in check. I was a blackout drunk. Now side note, as of April 20th, I've had 15 years without a drink. We were out with some friends at a party. I was particularly stupid that night and took my friend's car key to go pick up this couple that I had met earlier in the night. They were Eastern European, I forget which country exactly, and needless to say I was wasted and completely reckless. My sister called me while I was out, all upset because our friend

discovered that I took her car. I went back to the party and was promptly screamed at and kicked out, all upset because our friend discovered that I took her car. I went back to the party and was promptly screamed at and kicked out, rightfully so. My sister was so embarrassed and crying. She was really intoxicated too, which wasn't a normal thing for her. I remember we were walking to find a taxi or something and it was all pretty hazy to me. The next thing I know, we're in the back of a car at a gas station on Grand Avenue This street leads off into an old Arizona interstate highway The random European couple that I had met earlier and didn't end up picking up Were trying to open the door and get us out of the car They had happened to be at this gas station at probably 1am I don't even know how they spotted me

They must have sensed the trouble I have hazy details but I know that they were frantic and me. They must have sensed the trouble. I have hazy details but I know that they were frantic and insistent about getting us out of the car. From what they told us, the man driving the car appeared to be a total creep and no one I would seemingly want to associate with. I have no recollection of how we ended up in his car and who he was or where he was taking us and why he needed to fill his tank in between. Sometimes I think about the mysterious couple. Maybe they were angels sent to look after

us. Both my sister and I were missing our phones the next day and I'm certain that that man had taken them. There's a number of things that could have happened that night and I feel very fortunate that we're still alive. It wracks me with guilt that I put my little sister in that situation and anytime I feel like picking up a drink, it's one of the memories that I play back to remind myself where alcohol takes me. When I was about 21 years old, I worked as a table server at a pizza chain restaurant located in a new shopping center near my residence on evenings and weekends. It was a part-time job for me. I was part of the opening staff at this brand new place, which was very popular at the time. There were several shifts of employees,

and a few trainers came from other nearby locations to work at the brand new location. One of these cooks were named John. He was only a couple of years older than me and worked as a kitchen manager or something similar. Whenever I forgot to ring something in or made a mistake and he was working, I'd go back to the kitchen and tell him and he would often help me or give me extra sauce or whatever was needed. Usually he was doing inventory or paperwork type stuff like food temp checks, etc. He was always really nice to me, never raised his voice or got angry. He was soft spoken, a kind of quiet guy. I was engaged at the time and there was no

flirting or anything. He was quiet and didn't seem interested in me like that. He just did his job and we'd briefly chat when we worked the same schedule. I quit about four to five months after opening the restaurant and didn't stay in contact with most of the staff, including him. Now fast forward a month or two after I quit and I was reading a news article. The name in the article was the same as the guy that I had worked with and he had starved his stepson to death and kept him in a locked closet. I looked it up and his picture came up and it was the same guy and I was completely dumbfounded. He had gotten custody of his ex-girlfriend's child, no blood relation to him,

although there was another younger boy in the home who was John's biological child, and I believe a half-brother. He also had a live-in girlfriend who was not related to either child. The boy was like 30 pounds total when he was found at 7 years old. This poor child was made to use a litter box the last few weeks of his life and kept in a small linen closet. And to think, his stepfather was a cook. If there were money issues, he could have easily taken food from the restaurant and no one would have known. Employees got a free meal each shift. He had so many ways to feed this child. He was sentenced to life in prison. And I still think of this poor kid who never had a chance. And about the guy who hurt him, who was unassuming, friendly but quiet or shy, capable of a job and training others for it. What is wrong with people like him?

What made it okay to be like, you deserve this kid? It still haunts me to this day, how this happened to someone or by something that made an adult truly dislike a child enough to do this, and to convince an adult woman of the same, to not get him help. The moral of the story is that you really never can judge a book by its cover. This happened a few years ago and it still rattles me when I think about it. For context, I am a female who was around 25 years old at the time. I worked in an office of around 150 people. One day I received an email from a co-worker whose name I didn't recognize, and the email basically said something along the lines of, I'm sorry if I did something to offend you. Given the situation, if you'd prefer never to see me again, I understand and will avoid you in the kitchen.

I was extremely perplexed as I had no idea who this guy was, but I must have done something to offend him, right? I responded back along the lines of, I'm so sorry if I offended you. Sometimes I zone out and it can be perceived as if though I'm rude, so I do apologize. After this response, he started getting irritated, basically denying my apology and acting all passive-aggressive about it. I wish I had kept a screenshot of those emails, but basically he was just confusing me with this misunderstanding, so I sent him a message suggesting that we resolve this in person. Big mistake. He agreed to meet me in the kitchen in the office. I went there and immediately saw a tall, 30-ish year old guy whom I had seen around but never met before.

I explained to him that I apologized, but truthfully had no idea who he was, and had never even met him before and didn't want any issues. What happened after made me very concerned. His face flushed bright red and he looked visibly angry. He was stuttering and denying that I didn't know who he was and then he said, you've been staring at me for months. When you made eye contact with me, you gasped and ran away. Okay, this was weird. I strongly denied this and told him that it was a mistake, but he kept insisting that I had been staring at him for months and that he could always see me doing it. Eventually, I realized that he couldn't see reason and decided to just end the conversation.

Upon reflection, I realized that it's possible that he thought that I was staring at him because when you walk in the hallway next to the kitchen, there is a room with glass at the end where a bunch of desks are. His desk would be right in line of sight if I was walking down the hallway and had a funny sticker on his desk I'd sometimes look at, but this seems like a huge stretch. After this incident, a co-worker pulled me over and asked me why I was talking to him, and I explained the situation. She looked scared and told me that last year he appeared in the office in a bathrobe, raving like some madman at people, and he wasn't fired then. Was I dealing with someone in the midst of a psychosis? Was he dangerous? No clue,

but I reported this ASAP to my manager who took it seriously enough to tell his manager. I don't think he works there anymore, and thankfully I left this company two weeks later because I was dealing with. I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone's been through something similar or has an idea of what kind of scenario I was dealing with. I was driving home from the gym at night and pulled up to a red light near a local courthouse. I noticed the driver of a white Jeep one lane over staring at me. Older guy, I guess late 40s to 50s with long sideburns. I'm a 31 year old male though without

additional context I have no idea if this matters. I turned and looked at him and he started pointing toward me and towards my left. At first I thought that he wanted to cut in front of me when the light turned green which was strange because there was no one coming behind us imminently so he could have just waited for me to go, but I guess someone else might pull up. I pointed to my left to confirm that's what he wanted and then opened my window a tiny bit because he just kept pointing so I wanted to ask what was up. He didn't open his. The light turned green and he changed lanes to drive behind me. It feels likely that he was trying to tell me to pull over earlier. I kept driving and changed lanes because he was now tailgating me and followed me immediately.

Eventually he switched lanes but was driving erratically, kept putting his left turn signal on but not turning left at several lights for example. He also slowed down to maintain the same pace as me a few times. Eventually I turned before my actual home route to throw him off. He kept going, but then when I looped around to actually head home, I saw him at the light waiting to turn left on the road towards my house, so I had to keep driving. I have no idea what his intentions were, but that was so incredibly strange and unnerving, to say the least. A few days ago, my girlfriend and I were in our young twenties,

were on a homestretch of a big road trip with our dog. As it had been a while since we last stopped, we pulled into a rest stop off the freeway to stretch the legs and let the doggo do his thing. When we pulled into the rest stop there were no cars and three big semi-trucks parked in a line. Immediately my girlfriend got out to go into the restroom. I leashed up the dog and stood next to the car and as she was walking towards the entry door I thought that I heard someone yell behind me. To my surprise it was a trucker in the driver's seat of his truck with the window

rolled down trying to get my attention. Now, I am generally friendly towards all people, whether they seem shady or not, generally willing to lend a helping hand. Behind me in the truck was an older gentleman, large, with gray hair and sunglasses. His truck was so loud that I couldn't hear what he was saying, so I yelled back, what? The trucker yelled something inaudible three more times and I asked him what while shaking my head and holding up my hands to inform him that I couldn't hear him. At this point, he seemed visually annoyed that I said what four times. Okay, that might be understandable. I wanted to see what the deal was with this guy so I walked halfway between the car and his passenger side truck. What did you say? I asked. Can you help me look for my phone?

I lost it somewhere. The trucker said. At this point I was super caught off guard as this had all unfolded within the 20 to 30 seconds that we parked at the rest stop. To me, it was weird that a trucker was asking a random person stopping at a rest stop to help look for their phone, but maybe he just wanted me to call it. Where'd you lose it at? I asked. I lost it in my truck. Can you just come up here and help me look for it? The trucker replied in an unnerving tone. In that moment, I was just incredibly sketched out. I thought I was about to be abducted.

Phone call I could do, but no way was I about to get into this trucker's cab to look for his phone. Yeah, no, I said sternly, but half-heartedly as I almost thought that this guy was joking with me. After a few moments, the trucker then says, you won't help me look for it? My adrenaline was pumping so I yelled back, you know what, why don't you just get out of here? In a threatening tone, knowing well that I had nothing to defend us should something go wrong. I put the doggo back into the car and pulled out my phone to pretend that I was calling the cops while he slowly drove and then stopped again to ask if I was going to help. I then screamed again, no, get the F out of here, I'm calling the cops. And after that reply, he stepped on the gas and just exited to the freeway.

I stood and watched when finally my girlfriend exited the rest stop, wondering why I looked like I just saw a ghost. Now, I don't know if this was an overreaction, but it sketched me out that he had to ask me to climb into the truck. Many years ago, I left an abusive relationship and moved across the country with my cat, Onyx. The apartment I found was a bit run down and located in a sketchy area, but it was all I could afford at the time. One night when I returned from the grocery store, I couldn't find Onyx anywhere. She usually greeted me at the door, but this time she was nowhere to be seen. I looked all over the apartment, crying, but there was no sign of her. It was like she had just disappeared into thin air. For an entire week, I searched for her and put up missing posters all over the neighborhood.

But by the end of the seventh day, I had lost hope of finding her. The next morning, when I returned from my daily walk, I found my door slightly ajar. I cautiously entered the apartment and saw Onyx sleeping on my couch. I was overjoyed to see her again, but then a sick feeling of horror washed over me. I immediately called the police and my landlord, Jim. The police filed a report, but the perpetrator had left no evidence behind. My apartment had no cameras and Jim admitted that he had forgotten to change the locks when I moved in. When one of the officers asked that the previous tenant could

have been responsible, Jim said that he didn't think so. My apartment had been vacant for a year and the previous tenant was a single mom who had left early to take a pretty good job opportunity in another city. The incident scared me so much that I decided to just leave the apartment. I'm in a better place now, but I still think about how for four years now. During my first year, a man approached me while I was getting groceries out of my trunk and asked for money. As a gesture, I gave him a garbage bag full of cans because I had at least 10 such bags in my basement and I also gave him a pair of gloves for the winter weather. A few days later, he knocked on my door again and asked for money, but this time he offered me a silver cat statue as an act of kindness. I declined but gave him some spare change. About a month later he returned

and knocked on my door at 2am. I was asleep on the couch and ignored him knowing it was him and that I had to wake up at 5am for work. A week later he came back again at 2am and I was angry this time. I told him to get off my property and to not come back because I didn't appreciate him showing up and bothering me. Now about two weeks later, he showed up on a Saturday at around 11pm. I told him to wait while I got out of the shower and called the police, explaining the situation and how he had been at my house numerous times despite my request for him to leave. Two police cars arrived about five minutes later and the man ran off up the road. About ten minutes later, one of the officers returned and told me they

caught up with him. The man had an outstanding warrant for failing to report and multiple priors for breaking and entering. After that incident, I bought a handgun and learned not to be so trusting. This is the story of the weirdest job interview I've ever had. It happened sometime after February 2018 when my brother's community college was having a job fair. I went there with my resumes, hoping to find a good opportunity. At the fair, we found a table of a company that works with entertainment contracts, or something like that. When I handed the guy my resume, he barely glanced at it, but immediately scheduled an interview with me. At that time, I was struggling with mental health issues, and it showed on me physically. However, I agreed to the interview. Before the interview, I did some research on the

company and found out that they had a very basic website and literally no social media presence. The interview was scheduled at a random building near the freeway. When I arrived, there was no parking available, so I had to park in the neighborhood and walk to the building. I met a friendly guy in his mid-forties who helped me find my way to the floor that I was supposed to be on. However, when I returned to my car to get my resume, I saw the same guy just standing by the window, looking lost. When I finally reached the front desk, I met a very thin blonde girl who interviewed me and I couldn't help but notice how skinny she was. The whole office was decorated with cheap decorations that I

recognized from Target. During the interview, they revealed that they were just handing out Obama phones on the streets, which was not what they had advertised at the job fair. The next week, they scheduled another interview for me and I met the same old guy who was now conducting the interview. The front desk was now occupied by a young woman who was also unnaturally skinny. The interviewer this time was a young guy in his early twenties, wearing a suit that was two sizes too big for him. And something felt off, and I decided to just bail out. The whole experience was strange and left me with many questions. I even emailed the community college about it, but they couldn't do much about it really. And it made me wonder how many other students had fallen for this

supposed scam. What was their exact goal? Why were all the female staff so thin and why did the company have no real social media footprint? I'm still worried about this to this day. This incident occurred last year when I was walking to the bus stop, which is just a two-minute walk from my home. Usually I listen to music on my headphones while walking, and I had just left the apartment building and was doing the same when suddenly a man who appeared to be around 60 years old started calling me. He repeatedly called out, Girl, girl, hey girl, girl. I was irritated and paused the song that I was listening to, turned to him and asked in a slightly annoyed tone, what? He came close to me and whispered, everything is going to be alright, with this unsettling grin. This made me feel extremely uncomfortable and I checked to see

if there was anyone around who could help me if the man did something to me. Unfortunately, there were only two grandmas far away from me and the man. I wanted to know what he meant by his words but my instinct told me to just get away from him as fast as possible so I started walking fast towards the bus stop. However, the man, who could barely walk before, suddenly started following me, and his pace kept getting faster and faster. I didn't even look back, but I was almost running. I entered a bookshop on the way to the bus stop and looked out the window to see what was happening, and to my horror, I saw the man coming out of the shop, running and searching for me.

He checked everywhere, but when he couldn't find me, he just gave up. Now this experience left me shaken and scared, but I was fortunate enough not to see the man again. I learned to trust my instincts more and not stay in situations that make me feel uncomfortable. As a girl, I've had several such creepy experiences with men and it's made me very cautious. I always carry a box knife with me and I keep one in every purse and bag that I own. In Orlando, Florida, I was staying at a resort in Disney World. I was sitting outside on the steps of the courtyard and a man approached me.

We were the only two people in the vicinity. The man didn't look like a resort guest. I stood up and he began to talk to me. He asked me what my name was and me being on the spot I stupidly told him. He smiled creepily. He asked how long I had been staying there and I told him I didn't know. He continued to talk to me making me more and more uncomfortable and I just wanted to go back to my room and hide. I wasn't giving him detailed answers when responding to his questions, but when I'm on the spot like that and someone I don't know asks me a

question, I answer somewhat truthfully. I really don't want to answer truthfully, but when it just comes out, I say it's probably due to anxiety, and I wish I wasn't so honest with random people. If I were to hightail it out of there, he probably wouldn't be able to catch me. The man had graying hair, was tall and muscular, and did not look attractive at all. His questions kept getting weirder, like, are your parents here? And what room are you staying in? Now dusk began to fall, and so many red flags had started to pop up. I'm quite a shy person with people I don't really know anything about, and I tend to give them one-word answers if they ask me any questions.

At this point, I wanted to leave very badly. The man got really close and stared into my eyes, making me even more afraid. He was close enough to grab me. Just then, the door leading to the courtyard opened, and I felt scared now. I turned, expecting to see one of the man's friends, but in fact, it was the opposite. It was my amazing great-uncle, who came out of the door. Out of all the people staying at the resort, my great-uncle was the one who saved me. The man smiled at him with that same unsettling smile. My great uncle knew something was up and so he told me that my parents needed me for something

and that I should come with him. So I did. My uncle held out his hand and I took it, walking past that creepy man. I shivered as I noticed his eyes following me. My great uncle asked if I was okay and I told him I was a bit scared. He asked who that man was and I told him I didn't know. We were headed to my grandma's room through the vast courtyard. We walked hand in hand on the sidewalk that led to more of the rooms. I kept looking over my shoulder and the man was still standing at the steps, looking at me and smiling. I believe that my uncle knew what the man's intentions truly were, as did I. The man was probably falling for me, in other words, and he probably was, as my great uncle put it, a diddler.

I'm so grateful that my great uncle was there to save me. This happened on winter break when I was 17 and still am, and I still think about what happened to this day and shiver at the thought of being diddled. I mean, who doesn't? When we got to my grandma's room, I told my parents everything and they were relieved that I was safe and unharmed and thankful that my great uncle spoke up for me. This was my second year at university. Late at night, after hitting the bars, my two roommates and I were heavily intoxicated. An acquaintance asked me if his friend, who was from out of town and too drunk to drive home, could spend the night at our house. No problem for us, as we considered ourselves stand-up guys with plenty of room and a comfy couch for him to sleep on.

Our guest introduced himself, but asked that we call him Bullwinkle, as it was his preferred nickname. No problem, whatever. Before I passed out that evening, my girlfriend stopped by and, you know, we did the thing. She left shortly after. The only reason I mention that is that from where Bullwinkle was sleeping, it had to be obvious what was happening. He must have heard us, or at least been aware. Eventually, I passed out in bed alone. Very early in the morning, I was halfway woken to the sensation of something tugging at my underwear, basically being pulled down in a way that must have exposed my junk. Half drunk and barely conscious, I sat up and said something like, what the hell? A sort of half-registered Bullwinkle,

quickly leaving my bedside and quietly throwing himself to the floor, hands over his head. Not being fully conscious, I stared at Bullwinkle lying in a heap on the floor for a while, not fully comprehending the situation, then lay back down for a second. I'm not sure if I went back to sleep, but I was wide awake after I heard the front door slam. Wide awake and finally beginning to comprehend everything, I paced the house for a couple of minutes, checked that the doors were locked, and confirmed that Bullwinkle had left the building. And then I woke up my roommates. My roommates also noticed that their underwear was pulled down, sheets and blankets were pulled back, dresser drawers were left open, and underwear was missing.

We talked a bit about what to do. We searched for this bullwinkle and discussed calling the police, but we rejected that idea partly because of how embarrassing that conversation might be, and partly because none of us were hurt and nothing valuable was taken. I tried calling my acquaintance, but no one answered. partly because none of us were hurt and nothing valuable was taken. I tried calling my acquaintance but no one answered. So we all went back to bed. No one ever heard from this Bullwinkle again and his friends say that he just sort of disappeared abruptly. I'm a 16-year-old female and I work at Chuck E. Cheese's. And about four to five hours into my shift, this man shows up with two little boys. It was fine for a while but I noticed that he would

look at me with a smug face and say hola every time I walked by. He didn't speak any English it seemed. I just smiled and kept walking. That alone made me a little uncomfortable but later on as I finished cleaning a table and walking past him again I noticed that he was filming me. I know that he was filming me because he was moving his phone with me as I walked by with a camera pointed directly at me. He also tried to quickly put away his phone when he realized that I saw what he did. I tried to explain the situation to my managers and co-workers, thinking that they wouldn't let that slide. However, they proceeded to tell me that it

wasn't a big deal and to just stay away from him. I tried to stay away, but it seemed that he was following me around, as every time I would turn around he was right behind me and staring constantly. The only thing that kept me away from him is when I went behind the counter until he left. I think he deserved to be kicked out at the very least as he was obviously planning something. According to my managers though, I was just overreacting. But what do you all think? To be continued... Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video.

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