The Lets Read Podcast - 248: A TRUCKER'S TERRIFYING CARTEL EXPERIENCE | 24 True Scary Stories | EP 236

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about bad camping trips, Mexican cartels & disturbing nightshift encounters. HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial Or over email: [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsRead ♫ Music & Audio Mix: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp

Oh, excuse me. Why are you walking so close behind me? Well, you're a tall guy. You throw a decent shadow when I'm walking in it to keep out of this bright sun. It hurts my eyes. Okay, well you know what? Specsavers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149 and, oh you'll like this, one can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store? Mmm, not far. Come on. Let's hurry then. To my count. One, two, one, two, one, two, one. Visit Specsavers.ca for details.

Mom, Mom, did you see my race? Of course I did, darling. Look, you did your best. You tried. The thing is, it's not about winning. It's about taking part. Next year you might do better. But I did win, Mom.

You did? When it's sunny, make sure you can still see. At Specsavers, get two pairs of glasses from $149. And one can be prescription sunglasses. Hey, the sun won't wait. Visit Specsavers.ca for details. Conditions apply. I was just 19 when I first moved to the United States. My father died when I was still a baby and my mom passed away from cancer just a few days before my 18th birthday. I stayed with my sister for a while who was married with kids by that time but it wasn't long before I started dreaming of a life away from Guatemala.

I started my application not long after and pulled a few strings with an old friend of my father's to land a sponsor and a job up in Texas. Then, about 18 months later, I arrived in the city of Laredo. The US was new and big and exciting, and although the work was hard and my pay wasn't great, I was happy. My abuela always used to say, al falta de pan tortilla. When you don't have bread, you make do with tortillas, and that's exactly what I was doing. So I worked my crappy job and slept in a crappy shared apartment, having faith that things would improve over time. They did, but as per a favored saying of mine, it's always darkest before the dawn.

And just when it seemed like things were going okay, there was a fire at the apartment building that I was staying in. We woke up to someone pounding on our door, and when we all ran outside, one half of the building was engulfed in flames. I think some people actually died that night. It was awful. So even though I was doomed to live in my car for the foreseeable future, it was kind of by the grace of God go I kind of situation. So that was me, living in my car,

pressing tortillas in this late night cantina, saving every little penny that I could towards a plan that I hadn't even thought of yet. There were a lot of desperate people in Laredo around that time and more and more of them turned to crime to help get ahead. I got more than one offer to get involved in something I really shouldn't have and thankfully God gave me the strength and the wisdom to stay on the straight and narrow. Some of the offers make me chuckle to think about these days. I just can't picture my skinny self slinging drugs or driving hookers around. I would have been eaten alive after five minutes of being out there.

But other things I've gotten into don't make me laugh so much at all. One night, I was on break from my cantina shift, so I walked down to this corner store to pick up some coke and maybe some cigarettes. Then instead of walking straight back to the cantina, I leaned up against a wall outside of the store then lit up a smoke while I drank my coke. I was just minding my own business, lost in my thoughts, when I suddenly heard a voice saying, you work too hard son. He said it in Spanish, but he had this fatherly tone about him, and when I looked around, I saw this older vaquero-looking guy walking up to me. I say vaquero, like a cowboy, but he dressed rich.

Nice boots, nice hat, big shiny belt buckle, you know the kind. I told him something like, just trying to get by, tío, thinking that he was going to move on after a passing comment, but he didn't. He walks right up to me and says, in Spanish, it's not like everybody used to walk their dogs with sausages, right? I think even some Chapinas won't understand what this means, so let me explain. In Guatemala, we say something which basically means when times were better and people were richer. Prosperous people can afford to feed their dogs delicious meat like

chorizo or longanisas, so it's a saying which refers to that kind of period. The thing is, it's a very Guatemalan phrase and the guy's accent was very obviously Mexicano, so you can imagine my confusion. I asked him, ¿Tú es Chapin? And Chapin being slang for Guatemalan people, but he just laughed, shook his head, and told me, I've been all over. That made sense, but what didn't was how he knew I was from Guatemala. I asked him how he knew where I was from, and he told me that it was his job to know things about people. According to him, this job paid very well, knew where I was from and he told me that it was his job to know things about people. According to him, this job paid very well and if I was willing to give something up, I could make a lot of money too. Right away I recognized that same slimy tone of someone who wants me to do something illegal for them.

So I was gearing up to tell him thanks but no thanks. But he must have read it in my body language or something because he started trying to reassure me. He told me yes, what he was proposing was illegal, but that it wasn't immoral. I wasn't going to be driving addictive poison across the border or helping young women get into dangerous, life-destroying situations. It was nothing that was going to get me deported. I wouldn't be able to work for at least six to eight weeks after whatever it was that he was proposing, but all my expenses would be paid for during this period and I'd walk away with $4,000 cash.

$4,000 was more than half my salary at that time and way more than any of the pimps or dealers were offering. Then, with the promise of the work not being immoral, I'll admit that he had my attention. He went on to explain that in the United States, the trick to making money outside of the law was to stay away from vice, and in drugs and prostitution to work with the gringos, not without them or against them, and the wealthier those gringos were, the better. I figured that he was talking about some kind of financial crime, as he kept insisting that no one got hurt and that he worked with the best people around, his words. I guessed that he kept

me in the dark to keep me curious, something he'd practiced many times over, probably, but it worked, and in the end, I asked him what I had to do to get my hands on that kind of money for just a few weeks work. But then, instead of telling me straight up, the rich vaquero launched into a whole bunch of questions about my health. He asked me if I have diabetes, any heart problems, if I'm on medication, all this medical related stuff that didn't really make sense to me at first. I figured whatever it was, I had to be fit and healthy for it, and my god, was I right about that. I wasn't being offered $4,000 for my labor, I was being offered it in exchange for one of my kidneys. And when he first said it, I thought that I must have misheard him, or that he was

using some kind of slang term that I wasn't familiar with. He mistook my confusion for shock and once again he went into this what sounded like a well-rehearsed method of trying to convince me. He told me that a fit young man like me could survive on one kidney, and that with enough time it might even grow back. I might have been young, broke, and fairly naive, but I wasn't stupid. I knew major organs didn't just grow back, at least I was pretty sure they didn't. I wanted to tell the guy to stick his off where the sun don't shine, as it was just about the most insane thing that I'd ever heard. But something told me that being rude to such a man wouldn't be a very wise move at all. I told him I'd think about it, and he gave me a being rude to such a man wouldn't be a very wise move at all.

I told him I'd think about it, and he gave me a card with nothing but a phone number written on it. I didn't call the number, and I knew better than to go saying anything about it because I'm from a place where people talk themselves into their graves sometimes, but I'm also from a place where people cash money into the graves too. So I kept my mouth shut and told myself that with hard work, prosperity would come eventually. Quick fixes are a rare thing in life and you never fix long-term problems with short-term solutions. I never heard about anyone accepting any offers to sell their organs, but if a man felt comfortable and confident enough to approach migrant workers in the street, there must have been someone out there accepting these offers.

I understand the wall of silence involved in something like organ trafficking, but you'd think you'd meet one or two people who actually did it, right? But I never did, and I think I figured out why. Say you went off with a stranger, and they took you to some back alley doctor, and they gassed you out under the impression that you're only losing one of your two kidneys. Who's to stop them from taking more, or from taking everything? You'd have to be crazy to agree to something like that. Crazy or truly desperate.

And that's what scares me. I know that there are people out there so desperate they'll sell their organs. I was almost one of those people myself. I love this country, and I love the people more. But for many migrants like me, the road is long, hard, and in that time time I only had to use my sidearm once. A lot of other metro cops might tell you that's kind of miraculous and that I should consider myself lucky. I do in a manner of speaking but those same cops would also admit that my one shooting is worth three or four of theirs on sheer circumstance alone.

I was driving through North Vegas one night after getting a call to the 7-Eleven on East Owens Avenue. Then on my way back towards the strip, I'm slowing down as I come up to some lights when I spot something weird on James Street to my right. There was a car parked on the sidewalk with all the lights inside the car switched on and it looked like the driver was slumped over in a sort of unnatural position. I didn't have any other calls so I figured I'd drive around the block and then roll past him real slow to see if he was okay. And lo and behold, there's a guy passed out in the driver's seat of his car. So after a quick look around the driver and passenger's side to check for weapons or narcotics, I knocked on his window a few times to wake him up.

The guy looked to be maybe in his late 30s, Hispanic, with a closely cropped haircut and what looked like work gear on. And when I knocked on his window, he woke up startled. The first words out of his mouth were, Oh my god officer, I'm so sorry, this is literally my house right here. I think I just nodded off for a little bit and parked here. I asked him where he'd come from and he told me that he worked nights at a chemical plant over in Henderson. He spent all day doing something for his family, then had to work right after, so after running on almost 24 hours on no

sleep, he must have passed out as soon as it was safe to close his eyes for a few minutes. Now normally, I'd have to perform a field sobriety check on this guy, but he genuinely did seem exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot and his speech was pretty groggy, but it was clearing up more and more by the second. He didn't smell like booze and his ID checked out, but there was still something that didn't sit right with me. When I asked him which chemical plant he worked for, he said, Olin Chloralkali. But I had a cousin in the chemical industry and he worked on the same Henderson Industrial Park, only at a company called Borman. Borman was the only chemical

company running night shifts at the time, so if he didn't work for Borman, he couldn't have been working as anything but an overnight security guard. But since he was dressed for a manufacturing line or some other kind of heavy work, there was no explanation as to why he'd be out so late. I ran his ID, and the guy's record consisted of nothing but a few late parking fines, but I figured just to be certain, I'd run a field sobriety test and maybe search his vehicle if I noticed anything during the testing. Worst case scenario, I'd minorly inconvenience this dude, and he'd probably understand my reasons for doing so given how chill he was being. But best case scenario, I'd find whatever was making my spidey senses tingle in this situation. I'd caught the guy in a lie, a small one, but whenever that happens, you gotta remind yourself

that no one with innocent or wholesome intentions tells casual lies like that, especially not to cops. So I head back to the dude's car and ask if he'd mind undergoing a quick sobriety check. He responds by saying, no, not at all, officer. But then there's a slightly awkward pause before he says, you want me to do it now? I nod and he just sort of looks back at me as if to say, really? I thought we were cool. I explain to him that as much as I appreciate how tired he is and how hard he's been working, I've been ordered to perform a check on him given the circumstances. I promised to make it as fast as possible so we could get him inside and into bed, but that I had to do or risk making my

sergeant angry, you see. And that was total BS, but I figured if he could give me a little, I could give him a little. But instead of getting out of the car, the guy's arm, which had been resting on the door where the rolled down window was, disappeared behind the door where I couldn't see it. This is a big no-no when dealing with cops, especially during a traffic stop or any kind of vehicular-based interaction. You can call me a bootlicker, tell me your taxes, pay my wages, or that you're going to get me fired, but as long as you keep your hands at ten and two, I'm usually chill. You start putting your hands in places I can't see them and I start getting nervous. I take a quick step towards the guy, hand on my sidearm, and tell him very politely to keep his hands where I could see them.

He throws them both up, saying, Okay, okay, officer, chill out. But they start drooping down again the moment we start arguing about the sobriety test. I had to physically pin the guy's left arm to the door to keep him from reaching, but he kept telling me, it's okay, it's okay, I don't have any weapons in the car, I'm just trying to unlock the door. I then told him to unlock the door with his other hand, and that's when he grabbed it. The guy had a gun tucked behind his back in the driver's seat, and I was so focused on what his left arm was reaching for, I considered that the whole time he was reaching down for leverage, so

he pushed himself forward a little, grabbed the gun, and started shooting at me. One of his bullets hit my left arm, but my gun was in my right, so I dropped back out of his arc of fire and then just unloaded through the rear passenger window, putting bullets to the driver's seat and into the dude's center mass. My left arm refused to work on me, so I had to grab my radio with my right,

still holding onto my gun in order to call in that I'd been hit. This put me at a huge disadvantage for a second or two and if the dude had still been a threat, he could have taken me out with a few well-timed and well-placed shots, but thankfully he was in no position to do that. After I called it in, I immediately trained my sidearm back on him and then instinctually started barking out commands. I was scared out of my mind, with no idea of what to do. I didn't want to shoot the guy again, but disarming or detaining him was out of the question thanks to the bullet that he put through my arm. I remember how I stopped barking commands at him for a second only to hear the guy start to weakly say something like, why'd you shoot me, man? I'm right outside my house.

He said it like he hadn't been the one to open up on me first, like I just shot him for being asleep in his car. And that happens way more than you think too. I once watched a woman flee a traffic stop, crash her car into a family SUV, try to stab the officer who pulled her out of her smoking wreck of a car, and then lie there in cuffs saying, I didn't do nothing. I guess some people get real scared when they think they're going to go to jail, be it first timers or serial offenders. Some folks can take it. They grow up in the prison system, I guess. It's like they're home away from home. But others, well, sometimes I think they choose death over giving up whatever they got going on. For example, the guy who blew my left bicep out,

you'd think that he was some wanted cartel member with a hundred warrants out for him. But no, he'd never been in trouble with the law before. He just couldn't face going without the oxys that he was hooked on. That's all my fellow officers found in his car. One bottle of oxys with no prescription. Now with no priors and a good attorney, he could have gotten himself a suspended sentence in drug counseling and, at worst, maybe six months with good behavior. But then the thought of having to detox in jail.

I guess some people really do think that that's a fate worse than death. I need to preface this by saying that I don't believe in ghosts or any other kind of paranormal activity, and this is not an attempt to convince people of their existence. But what I will say is that I have an open mind regarding things that I can't explain using logic and reasoning. I know something happened to me, I just don't know what, and nothing I've heard so far has come anywhere near a satisfactory explanation. But then, that's what had me creeped out about it. If I could just chalk it up to seeing a ghost or witnessing a glitch in the matrix, as I've heard people call it, or any of that crap, at least I'd get to draw a line under it and move on. But I can't, because I have no idea

what happened that night and neither does anyone else. I used to work for a security company that contracted overnight work for large office buildings in downtown Houston. Some of the buildings were real nice places and their security offices had all kinds of amenities that others just didn't. The only problem was, they made for some of the most boring overnight shifts you could possibly imagine. Tough guards can be exhausting and dangerous, but boredom is a different kind of poison altogether. So you understand when I say out of all the places I expected my scariest guard might be, those places didn't get anywhere near the top 10. So one of the buildings we worked in had a bunch of different offices on each floor,

with the layout of each floor being shaped like a letter U. Each of the floors was owned by a different company, for the most part anyway, so most had a different design but the same layout, and part of that layout were those polished metal plates that sat on the corner of each corridor. They were positioned at the 90 degree angles in the U shape, and at first I figured it was just an odd design choice, but then I figured out that they were like mirrors. If someone was walking down the connecting corridor and you couldn't see them, you'd be able to see a little movement in the polished metal so you wouldn't run into anyone or get a fright. Kind of clever, right?

Well, listen to this. One night, I'm working the overnight shift with two other co-workers when it comes my turn to perform a physical sweep of the building. We had most of the building mapped out with cameras but no security guard worth his salt relies on electronics so every half hour one of the guards would take a quick walk around each of the floors just to make sure everything was a-okay. Most of the guys would just take elevators up and down but it was around this time that I decided to take the stairs a few times a night as to try to get some exercise in. I was a few pounds heavier than I wanted to be, and walking up even five or six flights of stairs sucked, so I'd take as many flights as I could, then take the elevator the rest of the way. It also helped kill time on those hellish shifts too, so it was all gains in my mind.

Anyway, this one night I managed it all the way up to the 9th floor, which was totally this new record for me, but I'm completely out of gas. I literally have to lean up against the wall to catch my breath, making sure to stay in the stairwell's blind spot so my coworkers don't watch and laugh at me. And then once I had myself together again, I walked out into the corridor and towards the first bend in that U that I mentioned earlier. As I get within a few feet of it, I freeze. Because for the first time in the whole time that I'd worked there, I see a reflection in the polished metal mirror thing. It's not crystal clear, but it's 100% in the way that you always notice something different about something you've looked at a hundred times before.

But I can clearly see someone standing in the connecting hallway, wearing what looked to be the same kind of security uniform as me. I called out, thinking it was one of my co-workers, then the white-shirted shape suddenly moved out of sight. Now right away I'm thinking, this is a prank. I just caught them trying to jump scare me. So as I'm walking around the corners, I'm kind of calling out, Hey, I know you're there, idiot. I saw you on the reflection. I get around each corner and I don't see anyone, so I assumed the guy had ducked into one of the conference rooms or offices as a backup. I checked each and every one, and they were all empty.

I called down on my radio to make sure someone really is up there with me, and they're just hiding in a closet or something because they're just a bunch of immature idiots. And the second I heard both guys talking on the same radio, I felt myself getting just a little bit freaked out. Either I was having some kind of weird episode after powerwalking up those nine flights, or my eyes were playing tricks on me, and either one wasn't a desirable outcome, so naturally, I'm starting to get a little worried. Not majorly worried, just a little. I decide to take the elevator the rest of the way, still kind of concerned about my health and stuff, but then as I'm walking back towards it, something happened that makes me feel cold, just to think

about today. It felt like someone walked up behind me, like really quickly too. I heard the footsteps outside my own and I felt that feeling of imminent danger you get when someone rushes you from behind. So I turned, had my hand on my sidearm ready to defend myself but there was nothing. Just an empty corridor with only me standing in it. I can't even really think of the words for the kind of fear that I was feeling in that moment. The best that I can come up with is like, it was like a physical force. That fear hit me, and it pushed me towards the elevator at a speedwalk. I was convinced that someone was up there with me, but at the same time, they either had to be psychic or a ninja to be able to rush up on me like that,

or at least make me feel like I was being creeped on. None of it made any sense, and more and more I'm thinking that there's something wrong with me and not that something weird is going on. Once I was safely in the elevator, I called down to my co-workers and asked them to watch all of the cameras on the 10th floor for any kind of movement. They replied asking if I was all good or if I needed help, probably because they could hear the kind of state that I was in. But I told them to shut up, watch the cameras, and tell me if they could see anything or anyone. I was expecting a no, in which case I'd have to accept that I was

having some kind of medical emergency and maybe even call 911. I heard about people having strokes or heart attacks and how they can feel confused or panicked or something, so that's all my hypochondriac mind was thinking of. But then as my radio crackled to life again, I heard the next thing they said, and I swear to Christ that I felt like I was going to throw up. My co-worker came back with, yeah, yeah, there's someone up there with you. We're headed for the elevator right now. I sent it down to the ground floor and if I'm being honest, I was weirdly relieved. I wasn't about to have a stroke and I wasn't going crazy. There really was someone up on

the 10th floor and they were about to get one heck of a butt kicking for scaring the Jesus out of me. We swept all the rooms together, calling out to this potential intruder the whole time, saying things like come on out and you only get trespassing and even saying things like this is a heck of a way to get yourself shot. We were just bluffing and it wasn't a huge issue that we didn't find this intruder on the 10th floor because they could have easily used the stairwell to escape to another floor. But instead of going on hunting them down, we just head back down to the security office and watch the cameras and just wait for the real cops to show up. On the way back down to the office,

I asked my co-worker what exactly he'd seen on those security cameras. And it turns out he hadn't seen anything definitive, just enough blurry movement on the edges of a monitor to know that A, someone was definitely up there, and B, they seemed like they knew where the camera's blind spots were. This is what really sent alarm bells ringing for my co-workers, as stuff like that suggests someone has cased the place, i.e. done a little recon in the daytime, possibly disguised as a client or employee so they'd know where to go to get

whatever they'd come for, as well as how to get there without being spotted straight away. A lot of people have asked me, how could this person have gotten into the building in the first place, and didn't that bother me at all? The question to that is, yes, it did, but we're not training to waste time thinking how, we're trained to react to intruders as and when they occur, and to focus on either locking them down for the cops, or getting them out of the building without anyone getting hurt. You focus on the house afterward, in the moment, you focus on the intruder.

Anyway, we watch the cameras, call the cops and try to work out where the hell this intruder could have gotten to while avoiding all the security cameras. We're staring at the cameras for maybe 15 to 20 minutes before the cops show up, and we don't see any movement. Then when the cops show up, we help them sweep all the floors and offices to make sure no one's around. They were pretty thorough about it too, opening up closets and checking under desks, but still, we found no one. Even the cops said that it must have been spooky for whoever was up there alone, which

to me sounded like the understatement of the century. But right then, when we were dealing with the situation, I was sure that it wasn't just me going nuts. The situation was resolving itself, so I was relatively calm again. we switched on the alarm systems from the floors 9 to 13, meaning if anyone entered those floors again, we'd be instantly alerted, and a 911 call would automatically be issued. No alarms were triggered that night, so we figured the episode was pretty much over and done with. We'd have to talk with the head of security about it,

and there was no doubt that he'd be very interested in how we let something like that happen. But no one expected to get fired or anything, so we finished the shift as close to normal as possible and then just went home in a sort of good mood. It was only in the weeks afterward that I realized how much the experience had affected me, and the longer I went on wondering about it, the worse the feeling got. Thinking I put it behind me turned out to be a major error of judgment on my part, or maybe I did box it off and then it just broke out again, I don't know. I thought about what could have made those pictures of noises, what could have given me

that feeling like someone was rushing up behind me, and after thinking about it for long enough, I decided that I didn't want to work there anymore, and when I was told that I couldn't pick and choose which guards I was on, I was left with no choice but to seek employment elsewhere. I'm not scared to admit that I'm scared of whatever happened up there, and rather than go down some crazy rabbit hole trying to explain it, I thought it was better just to walk away and start again someplace else. It's never happened again, nor is anything like that, but you can bet your bottom dollar if it does,

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Let's hurry then. To my count. One, two, one, two, one, two. Visit Specsavers.ca for details. I've worked for loads of different builders firms over the years and at one point I was working as what was basically a supervisor for a small but very successful local firm. It was a hard graft and the boss could be a proper wanker sometimes but the pay was out of this world.

We'd contract these killer jobs but because no one else wanted them or could get them done on time, the firm could basically name their price. Pay varied from job to job, and some seemed less worth it than others, but it was way more than I'd be getting from other firms in the area, so I was pretty chuffed about that. The only problem was, it wasn't the most stable of jobs, because if there was nothing available, we didn't work. Until one day, our problems were solved. There was some housing development being laid out about halfway between us and the next big town over. The local council had already hired a national firm to do the job, but apparently, there was some miscommunication about the projected finish date and the big firm pulls out. This left the council completely in the lurch as they had

already signed the contract on the demolition of some older housing estate. Basically, if the blocks didn't get built, a load of people were going to be homeless come the autumn. And that's where we stepped in. According to the head of the firm, we could get the job done under budget and ahead of schedule, and our secret weapon was night shifts. If the shifts were staggered between all the lads that worked there, we could have one group work the day, one group work the night, and get the whole job done in a few months. All we had to do was throw down the foundations and brickwork,

and then another firm was coming in for the decorating so they all needed to be done by a set date. You get the idea anyway. So we start the job and we're all just doing a week of days followed by a week of nights and then alternating with the other half of the firm. The days were alright but the nights got very difficult very quickly. As anyone who's done any serious night shifts will tell you, your daytime life doesn't stop. Those with kids had to go get them to school and back, or there'd be doctor's appointments or other things like that to get done.

A group might start a week of nights all chipper and up for it, but by the time Saturday morning came around, we were just about ready to drop dead. This got worse and worse over the weeks and months, with everyone complaining about being overtired, but we also didn't want to throw in the towel and risk breaking the deadline, which in turn would have put the whole contract at risk. Lads were joking about some kind of accident happening, but we all kept our heads screwed on, kept ourselves from cutting corners, and otherwise kept ourselves safe on the job.

But that couldn't be said for everyone on the site, and in the end, I suppose it was a case of the inevitable finally happening. We've had this massive 500-ton mobile crane on site for a few nights, brand spanking new on lease it was, and operating it was one experienced bloke and one apprentice. One night, the crane was in use shifting some steel panels around when, for some reason, the apprentice decides to get one of his later jobs done earlier. He probably thought that he was in a safe spot considering the crane was operating on the opposite side of him, and he also probably thought that he could get a later finish by cleaning the decking off before he usually did.

Either way, he made a massive error of judgment. He just didn't realize it until it was way too late. He didn't think that he was in what you might call the crane's swinging area, but was. That's not to say that there isn't a safe spot, he just wasn't in it. And then suddenly, the pre-cast blokes needed a box of plates from another area of the site, the crane turns the other way, and that was that. All I heard was a load of shouting at first, really frantic, frightened sounding shouts too, so I knew immediately that something was badly wrong. I run over to find the apprentice had gotten trapped between the crane's massive counterweights and the deck that he was cleaning. I crushed him so badly that his body just disintegrated when the counterweights were pulled away. I suppose if every bone in your body had been smashed to bits,

there's not much left to hold a person together. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen in my life, honestly. It was effing horrible, and I'll never ever forget it. I'm an absolute bastard when it comes to health and safety now, like a bloody drill sergeant. Some of the younger lads think that I'm just a prick, but I'd rather be a prick whose apprentices got to go home to his mom and dad than a nice bloke at their bloody funerals. The whole aftermath was grim as well. The family of the lad tried to take the firm to court, you know, trying to get a load of money out of them, but the firm was quite easily able to prove that the lad was doing something that he knew he shouldn't have been doing.

You gotta sign all kinds of paperwork saying that you've understood what you've been told in terms of workplace safety, so if you breach any of it and get hurt in the process, you haven't got a legal leg to stand on, basically. It was just heartbreaking for the family to be honest. I don't even think that they were in it for the money, they just needed someone to blame. When you're in that period of mourning, you don't want to accept that it was your loved one's own fault that they lost their life. It's just too soon to have that in your head. But then the head of that firm lost a lot of sleep over it, actually thinking to himself, could I have stopped that in any way? Either through more H&S training or by holding the apprentices to a higher standard before taking them on. It was horrible for everyone involved,

but especially for the family and especially for the lads who had to see what was left of the poor guy after the accident. They had their fair share of sleepless nights too, as obviously, so I got a couple of horrible ones to share with you. The first involves massive pulmonary bleeding. This guy had a tumor in his lungs and it kept growing until it basically popped an artery. I personally just put the guy to bed and had been out of the room for no more than five minutes when I heard his wife scream after something wet sounding hit the floor.

I ran back in to the sight of so much blood pouring out of this guy's mouth. I sent his wife out of the room under the pretense of cleaning it up but I knew that he only had a few minutes left. I grabbed his hand and told him everything would be over soon. He tried to speak but nothing but a few weak gurgles came out. It's horrible to see someone so afraid, especially when there's nothing you can do for them. He was begging me to help him breathe again, but unless someone is on the operating table, there's just nothing you can do for them except comfort them as they pass. He went into shock after a minute or two, then eventually died ten minutes later. I remember how the floor around him was this deep, sticky red from all the congealed blood, and how it took

two hot washes to get all the stains out of my uniform. I've seen similar in a patient who suffered a sudden rupture of extreme esophageal varices. For people who don't know what that is, you have blood vessels in and around and throughout your esophagus, as is the case for most of the body. In patients with liver disease or liver failure, the liver's inability to do liver stuff caused a huge amount of pressure to build up. This increased pressure in the liver's blood supply causing the backup of blood to be pushed into vessels connected to the liver, and these inflamed blood vessels are called esophageal varices. Think hemorrhoids of the gullet.

They can vary in severity, and most often they are undetectable until an ultrasound confirms or if bleeding happens. There are medications that calm the vessels somewhat, but it's a chronic problem that can't be reversed and it only worsens. To put it as plainly as possible, you have these ticking time bombs throughout your whole upper body and sooner or later, one of them is going to explode. I had another patient, a 32-year-old alcoholic that was going through chronic organ failure and just couldn't seem to fight his way out. He tried rehab before. I had been a candidate for a liver transplant at one point, but there's a threshold. If a person is so sick that they die regardless of a transplant, a doctor isn't going to waste the surgery, so in essence, the guy drank himself out of

transplant candidacy and into an early grave. He was admitted to the hospital because he needed a tap to drain the liters of fluid that build up in his abdomen due to the liver failure, but the buildup of toxins was also causing heart failure and severe respiratory problems. During this hospitalization, he made the decision to go DNR or DNI at 32 years old, which means do not resuscitate. We thought that that was going to be the end of him, but miraculously, he made a kind of recovery and worked his way up to being able to waddle around the ward. He was discharged, promising to clean himself up, but was admitted to the emergency department a few weeks later with controlled vomiting. He'd fallen off the wagon,

gone on a binge, and it straight up killed him. Shortly after arriving on our unit, and despite giving him a bunch of anti-nausea medications, his vomit went from bile appearing to straight blood. I've never seen so much blood coming from a person, and in such a violent, painful, messy way. We tried to replace all the blood that he was losing in the hopes that the varices would stop bleeding, but they didn't, and although we worked our butts off trying to keep him alive, he began to lose consciousness and his breathing slowed. An irregular heartbeat quickly turned into prolonged ventricular tachycardia, which is when the lower chambers of the heart beat very fast in quick succession, which is obviously something you don't want. Normally, we'd be considering defibrillation by that point, but because he'd opted for a DNR,

we just had to step back and let it happen. His heart rhythm quickly deteriorated further into a slow, very abnormal rate and rhythm rhythm and then started to fail completely. The little blips on the monitor were rare at this point and his breathing had gone from gasping a few times each minute to nothing at all. I've been in situations like that where staff are devastated to have failed to save someone's life. Sometimes it seems like someone's about to pull through and then they're just gone and the doctor is calling it. But that time was the first time when instead of the sense of loss and frustration that everyone just has to swallow so they can carry on, there was a sense of relief. This almost indescribable sense of relief throughout the room because he was no

longer suffering anymore. To this day, what happened in that room remains the most harrowing example of what addiction can do, and the outcome was the most hideously miserable eighteen days was all I had in me. I worked as a correctional officer for 2 years, 3 months, and 18 days because 2 years, 3 months, and 18 days was all I had in me. After that, a million dollars wouldn't get me through the doors of that county jail and a billion would only have me working the weekends. My jail wasn't even all that hardcore. There were plenty of other jails up and down California that had way worse reputations than we did. But still, working those night shifts could be like a horror movie sometimes.

Inmates loved throwing their own urine and feces at us and other inmates. Lots of inmates getting jiggy with each other, sometimes staff too. Basically all the crazy stuff that you see on TV, most of it is either based on reality or very representative of the kind of stuff inmates get up to. But even so, there's only so long before some of the more common stuff becomes totally routine, and then only the really wilder stuff sticks out. First thing that comes to mind is when I found an inmate trying to catch fire to her clothes with a lighter that she'd smuggled in her you-know-what. I have no idea why she was trying to burn herself like that, but she cried when I caught her. Not because she was thankful that I stopped her or anything, but because I

told her that I'd have to take her lighter away. I told her to throw it under the door and she did, and then I left her to crying. Then there's the girl that I found half dead because she hung herself with a bed sheet. I was so convinced that she was gone but another CO rushed in to give her CPR and she woke up coughing and spitting and then went on and survived. It was just about the craziest thing I'd ever seen. I swear that she was almost blue and then the next minute she was sitting up, drinking water and thanking us for getting her down. You'd think that she'd be angry that we stopped her but I guess people just get trapped in the moment and when they realize what they

almost threw away, they're grateful that you helped stop it. Another time, a girl claimed that she was having a heart attack but none of us believed her since she pulled a very similar trick by pretending to be sick and then attacking us or trying to escape. But then after the shift changed, a newer male CO was on the girl's wing and suddenly starts doubting that she's faking. The idiot opened up her cell door, kneels down next to her, and before he can do anything, she grabs him by the collar, pulls him down, and sinks her teeth into the skin of his cheek. By the time the CERT team got there, our new CO had a chunk missing from his face and I heard the biter took a hell of a beating before she gave in. She got aggravated assault by a prisoner charges. The male CO needed 12 staples and never came back. Then there was this other inmate, much more aggressive and heavy set girl, who decided that she wanted to die.

She tried jumping off the second story, but a nearby CO sees her doing it and grabs her. But then instead of trying to shove the CO off before jumping, the heavy girl decides that she's going to take the CO with her. They were both teetering over the railing before this other male guard showed up to pull them both back over. But I heard for a few seconds there, it looked like both the CO and inmate were headed to the hospital that night. That inmate was always trouble, I think because she knew how physically dominating she was. The only issue was, some girls just don't care how big their opponent is. As one girl told me, they make coffins her size too, ma'am. She was used to girls backing down in the real world, but in jail, that's not such a common thing.

Same girl ended up getting stabbed in the back of the head by another inmate. Shank penetrated her skull and she ended up with brain damage. Nothing severe, but she spent a long time in rehab working out some motor issues. But then the thing that made me crack and just completely walk away wasn't anything that any inmate did. It was my own co-workers that pushed me over the edge. We had this one female guard. I swear that she got her job under the table or something, but she was the worst. Everyone dreaded working with her because they knew they'd be working double to make up for her laziness and incompetence. Word was that she was getting

canned next time she messed up, but then when she did mess up, it was in a way bigger than anyone could have expected. She skipped a bunch of walkarounds and then when she finally got off her butt to do one, she found a male inmate hanging in a cell. But unlike when I found the girl hanging, there was no bringing this guy back. People said that he had been dead for hours and this is when we were supposed to do walkarounds every half hour or so. We thought the jail was going to throw her under the bus, but then this is why I think she was connected. The jail tried to sweep it all under the rug, like an actual cover-up. We think someone faked paperwork to cover her butt and she ended up getting pushed and not shoved out,

meaning she got a chance to resign without being in disgrace. Back when I was a senior in high school, I had a weekend job pumping gas at a highway gas station here in New Jersey. I saw all kinds of crazy stuff in the year or so that I worked there, but honestly, most of this stuff just came across as funny nowadays. Like even some of the closer calls with crazy customers or the time that I got robbed, I wasn't really in any life-threatening danger. I know how to handle myself, and I know not to do anything but cooperate with someone desperate enough to stick a gun in my face. We're trained to give up the money, it's insured, but there's no putting my brains back in my skull if I decide to be a hero over $50 and change. I mean, come on, the guy was even more scared than I was, so now it's ended up being like a crazy but not so scary story that I have no problem telling at parties or on dates or

whatever. But then there's this one thing that happened that I don't bring up so easily and that only ever comes out when people want to know what's the worst thing I saw. Sometimes I'm not even in the mood to talk about it because I know that it can't have been just some rare one-time thing that only ever happened to me. But other times I feel like I gotta warn people so they'll recognize it and act on it like I did. That's another part of this I hate. I feel like it sounds as if though I'm trying to make myself out as some hero in this situation but I can promise you I don't feel that way at all. I feel like I did the bare minimum but enough intro, I'll get to the story.

One night, I was working the night shift when an Audi with South Carolina license plates pulled in at around 2 in the morning. Some guy got out, asking me to fill up his car while he went to the bathroom. He put a $20 bill into my shirt pocket, promising another $20 if I could get the tank filled up quickly. Naturally, I rushed to do as he said, and I noticed a middle school-age girl asleep in the back seat, covered up to her chin with a blanket. I didn't want to wake her and risk losing my tips, so I proceeded to fill the tank as fast as I could while still being careful, keeping an eye on her to ensure that she wasn't waking up. She remained asleep and as I focused more on filling the tank, I suddenly got this chill through myself when I looked back up at her. She was staring at me with her eyes wide open. Before I could say anything, she mouthed two clear words through the glass to me. Help me. There was a moment where I just

stopped dead, hand on the gas pump no longer filling up, and then I heard his voice asking, Hey, everything alright over there? I had to think on my feet pretty quick. I told him that something was wrong with the pump and that I could head back inside to reset it so the gas would start pumping again. I went on about how it had been happening on and off all day, apologized for the inconvenience and assured him that it would be working in just a second. I ran inside, pushed the silent alarm, and then walked back out to finish filling up his tank. He fell for the whole thing, and if I say so myself, I put on an Emmy winning performance and not completely freaking out and either strangling him or making some misguided attempt to actually rescue the girl. The cops later told me that I did the right thing.

I had his plate number on the cameras, I got a good look at him and the girl, and his fingerprints were on the cash that he gave me. I made sure to call 911 as soon as they left, but thanks to the silent alarm, a patrol unit was already on the way to me. The dispatcher redirected the cop to the road the guy pulled off onto and bingo, he was pulled over on a traffic stop. Supposedly all ended well for that particular girl, but how many others don't get a chance to signal for help like that? How many end up in the trunk instead of the back seat? How many don't get rescued? It's those kind of questions that I try not to think about, which is why I don't like telling this story too much. However, I feel it's important to

share it sometimes as a warning. If this reaches as many people as possible, maybe it'll save me a whole lot of breath and a whole lot of sleepless nights. I was a long-haul trucker for almost ten years, and I've got my fair share of wild stories from those times, too. They're not all bad, but I guess it's just harder to remember the good ones sometimes, and top of that, no one asks for the funny stories. They only ever want to know the crazy or creepy ones. And out of all the things that happen to me while out on the road, this one haunts me more than most. One of my main trucking routes was from Denver, Colorado to San Antonio, but with one stop in El Paso along the way. As anyone will tell you, driving through El Paso takes you under and over a hell of a lot of bridges.

There's a strip where the 10 and the 110 cross that looks like spaghetti when you look at it on a map, and I was once driving in that area in the early hours of the morning, having just gotten back on the road to San Antonio. I was dead tired, wired on cheap energy drinks, and was just reminding myself of why I hated driving at night so much, when wham, something smashes into the windshield of my truck. On pure instinct, I slam my foot on the brakes, wrestling the wheel to make sure that I don't jackknife and tip over on the highway, and thankfully, I soon came to a complete stop. But there was still the issue of what exactly had hit me, so the second that I was sure that I didn't have any injuries, I yards back to my right, was a body. And since they came out of

absolutely nowhere, there was one place that they could have come from. Above me. My first thought was that it was some kind of attempt to take their own life or something like that. Like a double whammy of the fall then getting crushed under the wheel of my truck. They didn't go under the wheels though, they just smashed in my cab and tumbled off to the side and as terrible as their injuries were, I knew that there was a chance that they might still be alive. I rushed over to where they were laying, trying to juggle dialing 911 with trying to get a response from them. They were in some pretty bad shape but I could tell that it was a Hispanic guy in his 20s or 30s maybe. But then as I went about checking their vitals while talking to the dispatch, I realized this guy was dead.

And not recently dead either. The dude was legitimately cold. I was passing that on to dispatch when I noticed all the saran wrap all over his side. He was lying on his side so it wasn't obvious at first, but sure enough, someone had wrapped his torso in saran wrap in order to secure a large piece of paper to his chest. I didn't want to touch the guy. My Spanish isn't great and I couldn't get a good look at what was written on the paper anyways, but I know enough Spanish to know that ja-ja-ja is how Mexicans say ha-ha-ha like laughter, and what little of the paper I could see was covered in those ja-ja-ja-jas.

The guy hadn't jumped off the bridge. It's pretty clear that someone had thrown him off, and whoever did it thought it was funny. I since learned that El Paso, along with almost every other border town, has a lot of trouble with cartel violence, but El Paso especially so. I was questioned by cops at the scene, and I had to get a guy out to change my windshield, so my overall journey was delayed by about 18 hours, but the eventual drive into San Antonio felt like an eternity. As you can probably guess, truckers have a lot of time alone with their thoughts. Sometimes that can be a good time,

other times not so much, and that final leg of the journey over to San Antonio definitely fell into the not so much category. Like I said, I've seen some crazy things in my time as a trucker, but in terms of pure horror stories, that one just about covers it. I think it would have been a whole lot worse if the person had still been alive when I hit him, because even though I wasn't the one that tossed him off the bridge, there'd still be that thought of, if I'd only picked a different route, or variations of that kind of train of thought, I guess. But still, seeing the laughter on that chest sign is something that kept creeping back in my mind

on dark and lonely stretches of that highway. Every death is a tragedy in some form. As a God-fearing man, I believe that with all my heart. But then to think that there's folks out there who see death as the punchline to some sick joke. Well, that's a thought that just about chills me to the bone. This all started a couple of days ago, July 5th, where I'd get a random call from FedEx at around 10pm where they would ask me for my name and address, which they already knew. I gave it to them thinking that it might be a package that was lost and somehow found its way back to my home. In hindsight, I should have known FedEx doesn't deliver past 8pm here in Canada. I thought nothing of it till I got another phone call saying they can't find my unit number and asked me to come out to the roundabout near my place. My dad thought

it was weird so he patrolled the area to find these people. My dad did around 4 laps, the first lap there wasn't anything there, but then I got curious and joined him for the second lap and yet again nothing. I went back to my home, and my dad did a third lap around the house. He found a gray SUV in the corner, confronted them. They told my dad they aren't the delivery person, and my dad left to do another confirmation check. As he was doing this last lap, that same SUV wasn't there. The next day, July 6th, at around 6pm to 11pm,

we hear a doorbell ringing and I went down to check and it was two individuals around the ages of maybe 20. They knew my name and were calling out for me. I thought it was weird because I had never seen these people before. I didn't feel safe so I didn't pursue them. They kept coming over and over again so we called the police and talked about what we should do. The cops told me to contact them if it happens again. And so, the next day, July 7th, it was very quiet and nothing weird happened so we thought the worst had ended and just went on with my day. And then the day after that, July 8th, it was that same quietness but when the time approached 11pm my security camera spotted an individual with a mask on taking a photo or video of my current

house. And this was the breaking point. We contacted the police and informed them about this weird behavior. But just when we thought it was over, I was casually in the living room at around 3 am the same day, July 8th, and I heard something sort of thunking outside on my balcony. I thought that it could be anything and didn't mind it until it thunked again. I went to the balcony to go see what I was hearing, and then it clicked. I was face to face with an intruder. I started screaming for help and my family came down to check out the commotion. Thank god I checked the balcony that day. Who knows what else could have happened.

Not today, July 9th. I haven't got a wink of sleep thinking of the terror that I faced. Am I one of the targets of a home invasion? How did they get my name? And what do they want from me? To be continued... is it's not about winning it's about taking part next year you might do better but i did win mom you did when it's sunny make sure you can still see at spec savers get two pairs of glasses from 149 and one can be prescription sunglasses hey the sun won't wait visit specsavers.ca for details conditions apply when you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course. BetRivers is the place. Over, under, money, line.

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I, a 52-year-old female at the time, was traveling by car to an out of town job assignment. I had stopped at a popular busy gas station slash travel shop, okay it's Bucky's, to fill up the car, stretch my legs, use the restroom, and grab a snack. I was approached by a developmentally disabled woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She was looking for a ride to a town a couple of towns over. Her ride had abandoned her while she was in the restroom. She was a little upset. She didn't have a cell phone and didn't know any phone numbers so I could call someone for her. I checked with the employees at the store and they said that she had been there for an hour looking for a ride

because she said her friends left her while she was in the restroom. I then made the decision to do something I'd never done before. Offer a stranger a ride. I wasn't going to the town that she wanted to go to but I was heading in that direction and I told her that I could drop her off at the grocery store in the next town where I would be turning off to go to my destination. The grocery store was always busy and it was very likely she'd have an easier time getting a ride to where she wanted to go also. And she'd be 5 miles away from where she wanted to go instead of 25 miles and she'd have an easier time walking the distance

if she had to. This was agreeable to her so we set off. Right away I noticed a van following us. I tried to lose the van but it seemed to keep pace. Meanwhile the woman wanted to play with my phone. I told her no, it wasn't a toy, it was for work and I moved it out of her reach. The van speeds up and starts to get closer. The woman suddenly remembers her boyfriend's phone number and we need to call him. I can't use my phone while driving. This was pre-car sync voice activated operation and I was approaching the outskirts of the business district of the next town and no cell phone use while driving signs were everywhere. I told her, we're almost to the grocery store, we can call them from the parking lot, okay? And she becomes agitated and yells, no, you have to take me home. I told you I can't do that,

I'm not going there. It's in the opposite direction of where I need to go, and I'm expected soon. We'll call him from the parking lot, alright? She becomes more upset and frustrated, and I notice that the van is getting closer. I pull into the grocery store parking lot. It's about 4pm, and the grocery store is busy. I pull up in front of the store and ask for her boyfriend's number, and she can't remember his number. She won't get out of the car. She's arguing with me, and the van is pulling into the parking lot now. There is a sheriff's deputy parked nearby, and I roll down my window and signal that I need to speak to him. He walks over and asks me what's going on.

I tell him where I met this woman and now she won't get out of the car and under my breath I tell him that there was a van that's been following us. The deputy tells the woman, She brought you here where you asked her to. I think it's time for you to leave her car right now. She slowly gets out of the car and asks once more for her boyfriend's number and she says, You're crazy. I don't have a boyfriend. Oh, look, they're my friends now. And she points at that van.

The deputy and I share a look and he says, Give me your contact info. I can delay them for about 20 minutes while I check their license and registration and lecture them about abandoning a special needs adult. You get out of here and I'll check on you before my shift is over. And don't pick up any more hitchhikers. I left and went to my destination. He called me to make sure that I got to where I was going and told me that they were keeping an eye on the van and its owners. He told me he also contacted a colleague at the sheriff's department in the county where I was working and that she would

contact me in a day or two. While I was on an assignment there, I spoke to two deputies and a detective about the woman in the van. No one ever told me anything about them, but they were very interested in the whole process. My nightmare is one day I'll turn on a true crime show and see a report about this woman and her gang robbing and killing people. I was at the gas station and went to the register to buy gas and some drinks as I was going on a small road trip. I got there and there was a large balding man with ginger beard with the name tag Guy. I smiled at him and was polite since I work customer service and try to be nice to everyone because you'll never know what the kind of day the said person may be having. Guy smiled at me and asked if we'd met before. I've never seen him in my life and I made a joke saying, I just have one of those faces I guess, and laughed it off. I had alarm bells ringing in my head because of his tone.

I had a deep sinking feeling in my gut as he took his time checking me out. Guy kept talking to me saying that I look great today and he guessed my dead name. My dead name, but I haven't told anyone my dead name in years as I'm non-binary and hate people knowing that. I try my best and keep my dead name a secret, plus I was paying with cash so I couldn't think of a way that he would know this. I smiled more to brush it off, trying to imply that it wasn't actually my name, saying, no I go by Royal. He frowned and scratched his head and I could have swore that I saw bloody dandruff or something like that come down onto the counter. I tooled my change and went out to my car, filling it up as quickly as I could.

I pulled out my phone with the intent to let others know my location and just tell my friends my mom. Feeling hot breath on my neck and someone's body pressed against my back, I spun around, and there he was. Guy. The most ungodly smell hit my nose as he looked down at me. I'm 5'6", and my best guess was he was at least 6'. Guy smiled. Multiple of his teeth had been missing. He said I was rude for talking about him behind his back. I laughed it off and apologized. I went to quickly get the gas pump out of the car. Before I even could get my hand on it, Guy grabbed it from me and did it for me. Smirking and saying that I shouldn't bother doing such manly things.

He went to explain that he finally knew where he knew me from. He explained that I was a slave in a past life, and that he was my master, and he knew my frame anywhere. I'm 17 and I've never met this man in my life. I nodded and tried to laugh it off, saying, Oh, really? I didn't want to anger him. The man didn't seem to be happy with that as I tried to go around to get into my car. He opened the passenger door to get it and I was in full

panic mode and had started my car and just put the pedal to the metal with both doors swinging open. As I drove away, Guy had fallen to the ground and started to scream and curse. I eventually pulled over after a mile and just shut both of them, crying to myself, silently. So I had the unfortunate ability to recall something really scary my older sister and I saw on a walk home during elementary school. She confirmed that what I remembered was true, and the more I think about it, the more it scares my 36-year-old brain. My sister Bianca and I are four years apart, and I had the blessing of being able to have the most attentive and protective big sister, and she always has this remarkable sixth sense. To the point that I have swore over the years that my gullible naivety I had at that age never could grasp that this type of situation was extremely dangerous. Until now. I'm seven years old, first or second grade. My sister is in the fifth grade, age eleven. We lived in a small town in the South Bay area of California,

45 minutes south of San Jose. This was an extremely hot day, but we walked the usual 8 blocks from our elementary school to our home. Just some info regarding my mom. She worked nights stalking at her local Safeway, most of my adolescence life, so we were very independent. Got up and ready for school on our own own etc. Mom slept until 3.30pm and then up, clean, wash and made dinner and then work by 9pm. I mention this more for background of the type of childhood I had, it was a different time during the mid 90s. Every day we stayed after school for an hour with our favorite kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Marfia. My siblings and I all had the blessing of having the same kindergarten teacher that we developed a super close relationship

with her and enjoyed helping her clean up and prepare for her morning class every day. Mrs. Marfia usually would drive us home but couldn't that afternoon due to staying later than usual to wait for her husband James to pick her up and take her to the mechanic to pick up her car. So this meant that my sister and I were going to be the only kids walking home at this time. We didn't care because of all the attention this wonderful teacher gave us. I'll post some of the wonderful things she did for my sister and I growing up in another category. She was a gem. In the 90s, the area behind my house was an undeveloped lot, a good three blocks long by 1.5 blocks wide directly in front of the newly placed skate park, so from my backyard gate

we could see the park. Upon passing the park, we would race or run from the sidewalk that borders the park to the back door of our fence, which was my favorite because my sister always let me feel like I was the winner. But halfway through the run, I'm ahead as I mentioned before and I'm passing through the normal sticker bushes. Everything is dirt and ugly tall weeds that would poke you badly if you got too close. Some of the bushes you could hide under but it was so ugly we usually raced to avoid the stickers. But I'm literally a hundred yards from the fence and I hear my sister scream my name. Like not a normal scream, but she shouts my first name and middle name really sharply and I stop dead in my tracks. I yell back at her, what?

Right before I can turn around and fully see what's going on, she just pummels into me. She's grabbing my shoulders while wrapping her arm to shield my face from what I'm sure I'll be scared of. And this is all the while shoving me forward and I'm just so confused in this moment. There was no way to say anything but from the break between her fingers I see two sets of legs under a large bush, and this is where my memory plays like I'm watching a movie and I can rewind every detail. I have spent many hours with my sister recalling details that I blocked but scared myself that I could vividly recall. So, I witness an assault.

They are laying down under a large bush with both sets of legs exposed. I see a man dressed in a red tank top with blue dirty jeans and black boots. He has sunglasses on. He was very agitated looking because he was choking a young woman. She was probably barely 20, wearing overalls, a white t-shirt and white sandals. Her face was very dirty, bruised and lips blue, scratching at his hands, moaning trying to get air out. And this is all I get to see, obviously more than enough, before my sister yanks me to an alternate way. She said that she was afraid that he'd follow us or see us unlock our gate to the house so she took me around the long way. I'm terrified, sobbing, asking her sissy what was that, that guy was killing her and my sister responds, no mama let's go, hurry,

we can tell mom, just hurry up. All I see after is a blur until we get home and wake my mom up, hysterically telling her what we saw. She called the police, but we never got any information regarding if they found her. I've scoured the internet for anything about an assault or kidnapping, anything that I'd never seen or heard. My sister cried when I asked her recently about this memory, thinking it was something I had a nightmare about. But the detail I recalled made her scared that it severely traumatized me. But who knows? It's scary in any context. This happened about a year ago and I still have yet to return to the store without my husband.

So last July I took my then four and six year old sons to Target to back to school shop. Since having kids and hearing all these horror stories I am very observant of my surroundings when out. Anyways while at Target, like most women, I looked through all the sections. While in the women's clothing I noticed two older men close by that kept looking our way. I thought maybe I'm just being paranoid, so I kept going about my business, but keeping my boys super close. We go to the baby section, they pop up. Toys, makeup, and same thing. I was really feeling uneasy because they seemed to be everywhere we were, and they never had a cart.

One guy was holding one little thing. I go check out and wait for a big group of nurses leaving Starbucks to walk out. I threw the boys in the car without buckling them and locked the doors. As soon as I look up, the two guys walk out empty handed looking around. I didn't think they saw me so I started to leave when I looked in my rear view mirror and saw them behind me, now in a truck. I stopped right there and turned around and took a photo so they could see me. They turn like they're going back to the store and I park over a couple of stores down where they can't see me and I call the cops.

While I'm on the phone with them in a sort of full blown panic at this point, I watch one of the guys change his shirt and then go back inside. I waited until the police got there so I could make sure that they got and had the right guys. I don't know what their plan was that day, but my mama gut told me that it wasn't anything good. I'm so thankful that my babies and I are okay. About three years ago, I, a 21-year-old female, was a waitress during the height of COVID. It was my first ever job and I remember being so excited to start as soon as possible. After all my training was finished and I got my certifications, I was put on the closing shift.

We closed at 10pm every night at that time and typically it was just my cook, a 20-year-old male and I. Rarely would there be another waitress with me and I liked it that way. I always worked better alone and I didn't really get along with most of the other waitresses anyway, so it was nice. I can remember it was near the end of my time there that this experience happened and I'm really happy I had the circumstance I did at that time. I never could really trust my gut very much because I had mild anxiety and couldn't tell if what I felt half the time was valid or not. I mention this because when all things went down, it felt real and I had an absolute feeling. I had started my shift that evening at around 3pm.

I said goodbye to the last waitress and I was on my own with my cook. Everything was pretty slow and normal until I got a call about one of the specialty items on the limited time menu that we had. The food couldn't be ordered as takeout and the lady over the phone really didn't take it well. After a little debating, she finally decided to just sit in and eat instead. I'd say it around 10-20 minutes later is when I spotted an older looking car pull up and three people came out. Two men and a woman who looked to be in their 30s to 40s. I could tell it was the same lady I spoke to over the phone judging by her attitude coming in.

I further confirmed it by asking since I already had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to eat. What I thought was an act of mild embarrassment and pettiness was actually something much more sinister later on. Her attitude toward me changed when she saw me. She was much nicer and more cooperative. This didn't ring any bells at first because it was something that most people who wanted to look good in front of others would do. I sat them in a booth and took their orders. I noticed they had a red binder and a black pen. Remember this. I then went to attend to my other customers as there were a couple of other tables I was waiting on. Once I brought their food out to them, they asked me if I knew any realtors. I found this to be normal as this

being a tourist vacation state, it wasn't uncommon for outsiders to be looking for getaway homes. I would say this was reasonable for me to assume that it was nothing if they didn't already look like the unsavory type of people, if you get what I mean. Nonetheless, I gave them the phone number to a realtor that I knew closely and well since I often went to church with her. There wasn't any other notable interactions I really had aside from occasional small talk if I wasn't doing anything or refilling their drinks. It was around 4.30pm now and they were the last of my tables to leave the restaurant. If any of you were in the food industry you know that as a server you don't really get breaks, just a lunch most of the time and sometimes not even that if it's super busy all day. So my cook and I took this as an opportunity to

take a well deserved break. We walked out behind them and had a small chat with them. I should mention by now that the front of the restaurant had a disabled ramp coming up to the doors. It was long because the building was on a raised foundation, and this is important. Now, I didn't really notice it at the time, but one of the men took my cook to the other side of the ramp, down near the end, and was chatting with him over a cigarette. I was behind the railing at the top of the platform where the ramp plateaued. Luckily, the other man and the woman were on the other side of the railing about five feet below, but in front of me. We were having some small talk and they started to ask some personal questions, such as if I had lived in the area, if I smoked weed, how old I was, etc.

I hadn't quite learned yet that telling strangers such personal things was not a good idea. However, this for some reason was starting to raise some red flags. I gave very vague answers to all her questions as best I could. Unfortunately, they still persisted in trying to have some sort of communication with me outside of my work, whether or not I said no. I suppose when they finally realized that I wasn't going to give that information up, the woman finally got to her point. She had told me that she had a business offer for me. It was for a cleaning service. I don't like cleaning anyway, so regardless, I would have said no. However, what she said next solidified my answer. She proceeded to tell me that she owned a maid service called the

Pretty Kitty's Maid Service. She said that she needed pretty and young girls like me. That she had 10 girls now as it was and she wanted to expand. She mentioned how they get paid 30k. She didn't specify the time or length and how it would be a great opportunity for me to help her with her business. I instantly knew at that point that it certainly wasn't a maid business and that I probably was in danger. However, I didn't understand just how much danger I truly was in. I politely declined her offer and told her I liked my job as it was, that I was satisfied working for my boss. She tried to further convince me by telling me how easy it was and reiterating how much I'd make under her supervision.

She mentioned how she had a van for her business and described it to me. I can't exactly remember what she told me, but I do remember how she told me to follow her to her car. She said that she'd show me a picture of her van in her car, but her phone was in her hands. I knew for certain that I wasn't going anywhere with her near that car. I declined yet again and said that I was fine right here where I was. I said that she could show me on her phone instead, but she was hesitant. After which she proceeded to end the conversation and left with the two men.

A little shaken, I walked back into the restaurant with my cook and told him what I'd just experienced. He joked about how I'd have good money if I went with them, because I didn't take the situation as seriously as I should have, I just sort of laughed it off with him. At the end of the night, when the cook's grandmother came to pick us up, I mentioned this weird interaction. A panicked look came over her and she sat silent, staring at me. I got confused and asked her if everything was okay and that's when I learned the signs of human trafficking. She broke to me that I was almost trafficked and I was incredibly lucky I didn't get kidnapped.

My stomach dropped and I started to panic at the realization of just how much danger I was in. Nothing really happened after that except for the red binder and the black pen I told you to remember. I went to work the next day and a customer walked in. Now normally in my part of town, not many people like to sit and relax for a while. They're mostly there just to eat and leave as it wasn't exactly a cafe. While I get into my apron and sit this gentleman, he was well dressed, not in a suit and tie but just nicely dressed, and he was alone. I sat him at a single booth and took his order of one single coffee. He had a red binder and a black pen with him.

I didn't even notice until my cook from the night before reminded me of it. I was so shocked at the fact, and it unsettled me even more, that he proceeded to sit there for three hours, watching me as I tended my tables. I kept asking him if he needed anything else, and he asked me if people never just sat and relaxed with coffee. I sort of shrugged and said no, not here. Now this might come as a surprise to some of you, but servers, believe it or not, do listen in on some of your conversations. I'm lucky I did with this one. I specifically remember him speaking over the phone about finances and how he needed to find another house. He spoke about moving money and how he was going to pay his girls that night. I ran to the back of the kitchen and told my cook. Thankfully, he came out with me to help

deliver some plates in order to throw the guy off. It worked, I think. He ended up leaving not long after that and I haven't seen or heard anything since. I'll tell you though, I've been much more on guard since that day. I am a person with pretty long hair but not female nor trans. There was a girl in my university class last year that has the same hair color as me, black long hair. She's quite popular and usually gets asked out a lot. Sometimes people confuse me with her due to us both having black hair, similar height, and similar hair length. She would sometimes tease me about having to worry about such long hair, but that's off topic. Now one night in February,

I finished my work and packed up since that was the term break. It was getting a little dark out, but I figured that a single kilometer walk to a friend's house wouldn't be dangerous. I used to play a bunch of sports in high school so I feel like the close proximity to the campus as well as my personal strength were able to defend myself for just an hour. Canada, where I live, is quite safe as many of you might know so I walked on. It was around 10.30 when I started walking. Tons of students already left the campus beforehand, so there wasn't a lot of people traveling with me. Those who were probably just decided to spend another night in the dorms, and

my hometown is in British Columbia, and my university was far away, so I needed to board a plane to go back. Around 800 meters of walking later I felt the presence of someone walking behind me. Suddenly he put his arm around my neck and started choking me. It took me a good second to realize what was going on and the person was choking me so hard that I can feel my jugular vein expanding at the bottom due to lack of space for blood to go through. I kick him right in the back of the knee, or the bottom of the thigh, forget, and that made his knee bend forward. He started falling to the ground. I back kicked him in the balls, which is when he let go a little, and then I got out of his arms and started punching his

face. In my adrenaline filled moment, I thought he was going to attack me again, so I punched him a few times to make sure he wouldn't get up, ran away, and then I called the police. Thankfully, I was okay. The guy who had beaten me was apparently some stalker, confusing me for the girl that I mentioned above. He was arrested, however, I don't really know what happened to him, although he did get charged with assault and stalking, however my memory is a little faded from that night. I hope this story can inspire others to not panic in a situation like this, but to get out of it ASAP. So I'm a 22-year-old female.

For context, that's important in my story, I have a pretty larger-than-average chest area. I take the bus home every day from college. It's a route that's mostly comprised of college students either going to class or back home. One evening I stayed later, so I was on the bus when it was starting to get dark. The main rush times for students to be leaving was long past so I was in a predominantly empty bus. One person who was on the bus already as I boarded was a woman. She was probably about 50 or so and looked at me with a smile as I got on. I'm a little shy so I half smiled back and went to sit further at the back.

The lady got up and placed herself in the seat in front of mine and immediately said, I just had to say, I love your outfit. I was surprised but she seemed harmless enough so I just smiled and thanked her. I guess it takes a certain body type for that kind of dress. She pressed on, basically gesturing to my chest. Do you mind if I ask what size? She said and from there on was just making really odd comments about my body, asking what it was like, how I must get so much attention from older men and if I liked it. She was using her phone a lot as we spoke. She was really starting to make me uncomfortable so I decided I'd just get off at the next stop and get a cab. But at the next stop a guy got on and he instantly made eye contact with the lady. He looked gnarly to be honest, older than her and in dirty clothes with a phone in hand.

He sat in a seat further from us but he kept glancing over, looking at me really intently. The woman was looking at him in a way that made me feel certain that they knew each other and it got way too weird for me so I waited for a few minutes until the bus stopped in a crowded area in the center of town and just got off. The two looked at me but didn't follow and once I was out of sight I just ran for it. I don't know for sure what the hell was going on, but it seemed a lot like these two knew each other and something creepy was going on. I'm just glad I acted on instinct and left before something happened. To be continued... You did your best. You tried. The thing is, it's not about winning. It's about taking part. Next year, you might do better.

But I did win, Mom. You did? When it's sunny, make sure you can still see. At Specsavers, get two pairs of glasses from $149, and one can be prescription sunglasses. Hey, the sun won't wait. Visit specsavers.ca for details. Conditions apply.

When you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course, Bear Rivers is the place. Visit Specsavers.ca for details. Take a chance. Must be 19 plus. Available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I'm going to tell this story just to make people aware of the dangers they may be putting themselves in by selling items online. I get a message from someone telling me that they want to buy a specific item and from the get-go the person was pretty pushy. I wanted to make some money so I responded. The whole time that I was talking to this person something felt really off. This person, we'll just call A, was being a little bit weird from the first message. A kept changing the time that they were coming to get the item.

A asked me if I had change for a certain amount and I said no. This was before A got to my house to pick up the item. I told A that they needed to get change because I didn't have any cash. A ends up showing up and had parked around the corner somewhere so I couldn't see the car. I felt something was off because A handed me the incorrect amount and asked if I had change. I had already told A that I didn't. Then A proceeded to ask me to get in their car so we can go get change. I told A that I don't get in the car with strangers. A was like, oh I'm from Europe and we don't worry about getting in strangers cars. I'm thinking, yeah,

okay, but I'm definitely not going. A also asked me a lot of unnecessary questions about the watch. It was brand new and I had already told A this, plus it was just an ordinary wind-up watch to set the time. A went and got changed, surprise, surprise. So when this person got back, I could see the car and a few other people were in the car. I had a really bad feeling so I just grabbed the money, gave A the watch and ran back inside. Am I making a big deal over this? If you need more details, I will provide them, but thanks for listening. There is a reason why I have to be talked into camping every time it comes up in conversation with either friends or family. I don't mind the outdoors and I don't mind nature. I just feel like I want to sleep in bed and not on the ground in a tent.

On this specific year, my boyfriend talked me into going camping, but this time we would be staying in a cabin so I can sleep in a bed. I still voted for the ocean, but at least I was actually going to be sleeping in a bed. The trip consisted of me and my boyfriend and two other couples. The six of us found a nice cabin in the woods that was mostly secluded and was only about a hundred yard walk to this beautiful lake that we could swim in. I didn't want to admit it, but I was actually feeling this trip quite a bit, especially once we got there. The first day was amazing. We spent all day walking some trails, swimming in the lake,

and in the early evening we decided to cook up trails, swimming in the lake, and in the early evening we decided to cook up some steaks on the grill, and it was a great first day. That night we all went inside and went to bed at around midnight if I had to guess. I didn't sleep very well. I thought that I could hear something outside all night, but I just chalked it up to my imagination. After all, we were in the woods, so hearing strange noises all night long is not that weird. The next morning, we were all outside getting ready for a nice hike when we heard this jolly voice shout from behind us. Why hello there! How are y'all doing today? My boyfriend, being the always social butterfly that he is, started talking to the guy right away.

He told us his name was Wayne and that he was an expert in all the trails around here. And the whole interaction was just slightly strange but I suppose not alarming. He said he lived nearby and that he was hiking some trails and he heard us talking and he just wanted to make sure that we were settling in okay. I remember thinking it was sweet of him to check in with us. He was a bigger guy, I would say well over six feet tall, and he had a pretty big gut. He had a backpack on with hiking boots and jeans, so he really didn't look like anything other than a typical hiking local. We thanked him, and he laughed in this jolly voice, and he went on his way.

As we hiked, we laughed about Wayne for a little while. When the afternoon came, we all decided to go to the lake to swim for a few hours before heading back to the cabin. When we got down to the lake, we were sitting on the dock soaking up the sun and from beyond the trees, we heard that voice again. There they are! We all jumped back because honestly it scared us because now standing at the edge of the dock was Wayne again. We asked what he was doing and again he claimed that he was just wandering by and happened to see all of us out there. My boyfriend laughed it off and talked with him for a little while, but my friend Tina's boyfriend and I felt uneasy about this. The entire time they were talking, Wayne just nodded, laughed, and kept looking around.

After they finished their conversation, he kept mumbling, okay, under his breath, and then walked away. It was weird, but not really scary. At least not yet. That night, as we were all sitting around the campfire sharing scary stories, I felt even more uncomfortable for some reason. Suddenly, Wayne jumped out of the bushes without warning and yelled in this sort of joking voice, here I am, followed by a loud and excited laugh. We all jumped out of our skin, even worse than at the docks. At this point, my boyfriend was upset and kind of yelled at Wayne, telling him to just leave us alone and go back home. He explained that scaring us like that wasn't cool and Wayne was lucky none of us retaliated out of instinct. Wayne looked upset and claimed that he was just trying to help us have some memorable experiences on our trip.

He left on one of the trails, I guess guess and he seemed to look pretty visibly upset. I almost felt sorry for him until I realized that it was after 11 and there was no good reason for him to be wandering around our camp. The experience put a damper on the rest of the night and we ended up calling it a night not long after that. We went inside and cleaned up the place since we were supposed to be leaving early in the morning. Once in bed, I told my boyfriend that I wasn't feeling great about this whole Wayne situation. I had a bad feeling that he would somehow come out again. I couldn't stop thinking that that weird noise that I heard the night before might actually be from this goofball. That night, I was wide awake again. I'm not sure of the time, but at some point during the night,

I could distinctly hear breathing and footsteps outside the window. I woke up my boyfriend and begged him to check for me. He was annoyed at first, but then changed his tone instantly. I saw him look out and his skin turn white as a ghost. And he whispered to me that he could see someone outside the cabin pacing back and forth. And he thinks it's Wayne. I went to the window and tried not to draw any attention to us. What appeared to be Wayne seemed to be arguing with himself. Talking but almost incoherently. He attempted to open the locked door and when he couldn't, he started pounding his head as if upset with himself, and after pacing for a few more minutes, he seemed to just

disappear back into the woods. We were horrified and didn't know what to do. My boyfriend called the owner of the cabin and informed him that we were also calling the police. A cop car showed up a few minutes later and we explained the entire day's events to the officer, including Wayne's appearance. The cop didn't seem too bothered and just simply nodded along. It felt like he was just sort of listening for the sake of listening and didn't grasp the potential severity of the situation. We packed up our stuff, made some coffee and just stayed awake until dawn. And once the sun was rising, we loaded up the van and headed home.

Once we got to the main road, we saw Wayne walking by himself. He still seemed to be just sort of mumbling to himself, hitting his head from time to time. We called the dispatcher and told them that we had just seen Wayne, who had been trying to break into our house earlier, walking on the road, and that was the end of it on our side. I'm not sure if the cops ever eventually picked him up or if he just fled back into the woods. I wonder if he really does live nearby or if he was just some strange man wandering around hoping to cause harm. I'm happy nothing physically happened to us but from now on they all can go camping without me. So I'm just now writing this story hours after the most insane moment of my entire life. I know that may seem a bit dramatic, but at the moment it was absolutely insane. My family and I just arrived at our campsite for the week and I'm on eggshells looking over my shoulder every two seconds, even though deep down, I'm sure I'm alright.

So bear with me as I try to do my best that I can to tell this story, since it's the first time I'm recalling it since it just happened. So late last night, me and my family left our house to embark on our one-week camping adventure. Our two kids were so excited to finally be able to join me and my wife on one of our camping adventures, and she and I had gone on all sorts of adventures over the years, but we wanted to wait until our kids were just a little bit older before involving them. Finally, that time had come for the kids to join us, and we set out on the seven-hour drive a little after midnight. After the initial excitement of leaving and the musical concert inside my truck was over, everyone fell asleep in the truck except for me, which is fine. It gave me a chance to listen to one of my audiobooks that I had been neglecting for some time. I was surprised when we were close

to our destination and I realized that my family had mostly been asleep for the entire drive. They would have brief moments of waking up and asking where we were, but they mostly stayed out cold for the entire trip. About 30 minutes until we reached the campsite, I got the dreaded flat tire that no driver wants to get, especially when on vacation. I was lucky to have my spare, so this was no more than an inconvenience, but I was still annoyed. I remember being scared as I briefly lost control of the car and slid to the side of the road before I regained control. Somehow my family was still asleep. I quietly got out of the truck and uncovered the spare tire buried under all of our luggage and while preparing to fix the tire I started to wonder what I had hit. The flat tires

seemed to appear out of nowhere and for some reason I felt suspicious. I got the damaged tire off and replaced it with a spare. I was just finishing up changing the tire when I heard the light sound of someone clearing their throat. It sounded like my wife but when I turned around I was greeted by a small woman with wild dreadlocks and a tattoo of a rose on the middle of her neck. I said hello in a tentative and confused voice. The woman smiled and she said in a sort of delicate voice, Hi, I'm Summer. You look like I could use some help.

I just smiled and said, Thanks Summer, but I think we'll be okay. I was trying to be polite, but I was not feeling great about the situation. This woman kept looking to the side of the road like she seemed to be communicating with someone, but whenever I looked over there, I didn't see anything. She kept on insisting on helping, never changing this nice and polite voice that she had, and I just kept saying no thank you. Eventually I started to pack up the tools and get myself ready to hit the road, and that's when this woman said, I think you really need my help. And then her voice changed sort of instantly.

It wasn't this polite and delicate little voice anymore. It was angry, and almost a vicious voice as she said, Let me help you. I was not having any of this anymore. I turned to the woman, and in the meanest voice I could muster up, I said, Okay lady, you need to leave. I got a family in the car and I'm not in the mood for all this crazy crap. If you don't leave, I'm calling the police right now or I'm taking care of this myself. I thought that my threat might do the trick, but instead, she just starts to laugh. I had enough and just turned around while she was laughing. I opened the driver's side door

and put my keys in the cup holder so all I had to do was push the start when I entered the truck. When I turned back around to grab the lug wrench, which is that cross-shaped wrench if you don't know what I'm talking about, I turned around to the woman and she was about in mid-swing with this lug wrench haphazardly attempting to strike me, presumably in the head. She didn't seem very lucid and I was able to catch the blow with my hand, and I ended up just kicking her in the knees and shin, I guess, and she fell to the ground. She started grunting, and then began to run to the side of the road that she had kept looking at earlier. At this point, without wasting any time, I get in the truck and I just sped off as fast as I could, constantly checking my mirror

for any sign of this woman or any car following me, and thankfully the last 30 minutes of my drive went by with no crazy people or issues. I did tell my wife when she woke up and she was angry that I didn't just call the police right away and she honestly didn't believe me. She called as soon as we got to the campsite and gave the police this entire description that I had told her about the woman. The name she gave, the tattoo and exactly the road where she confronted me. I can't help but feel that the woman is going to find me and my family at this campsite. She clearly saw that I had camping gear in my truck when she confronted me. I didn't realize it until later, but now I can't help but think that she was somehow

responsible for causing that flat tire, but clearly I have no evidence to back that theory up. I'm going to try and enjoy my trip, but I wanted to get this story out while the details were clearly in my head. Now I can't stop wondering what it is she wanted. Did she want my truck with that spare tire? Did she want to rob me? Or was it something much worse? Wish me luck on my trip.

If anything happens or any new developments come to light with police or something, I'll be sure to update everyone. But until then, I hope I never see that woman with that rose tattoo ever again. This story took place approximately 15 years ago. My parents let me have two of my closest friends over and they set up a tent for us to camp in the backyard. My mom bought a bunch of snacks and my dad ordered us a pizza and drinks before they left to go out for dinner. We were so excited to be out in the tent and we dragged as much food as we could to the backyard and started eating and just chatting. We went over to our schedule of scary stories, s'mores, and whatever else we had planned for the night. We ate as much dinner as we could and then started sharing stories of our crushes

and if we had enough courage to ask them to dance when school started the following year. I remember we were trying to set up a blanket and pillow as a fort inside the tent and we were unsuccessful. The whole time I felt like I heard something outside the tent though. I unzipped the screen, or the window as you call it, so I could look outside the side of the tent, but I didn't see anything. And then about five minutes later my friends said that they thought they heard something too, and it sounded like something brushed against the tent. Now my friend Audrey looked out the open screened window and said, I feel like I see something in black over there.

Do you see it? As soon as I looked, I saw this sort of white Nike symbol jump out to me very quickly. I couldn't help it but I screamed, followed by my friend screaming and we ran into the house. We went into the bathroom and just locked ourselves in there. We tried to be as quiet as possible but then we heard footsteps and the bathroom door began to jiggle. We all screamed at the top of our lungs and Audrey was now on the phone with the police. While she was on the phone we were still screaming and then I heard my mom telling us to come out of the bathroom. We slowly opened the door and my parents were standing there.

Still on the phone with the police, my dad grabbed the phone and said, I'm sorry, this is the father. I was just playing a joke on the girls during their sleepover. Being adults now, I'm surprised the cops didn't show up, but it is a small town and my dad knows everyone, so I'm sure he ended up talking to one of his friends and saying everything was alright. My friends and I were pretty angry at first, but my dad was a jokester and we got over it pretty quickly. He offered to get the fire started for us and help us with our s'mores. He played some light music and got the fire started for us in the backyard. He kept asking if there was anything else we needed at the store or inside and I think he was feeling pretty guilty for actually scaring us so bad. We got tired pretty quickly and made

our way to bed in the tents and just talked about anything and everything until we started dozing off and falling asleep one by one. I think I remember being the last one awake, wanting to make sure that my friends were comfortable and could fall asleep. I woke up suddenly though. It's a pitch dark and the sound of crickets. I felt like I heard something but maybe it was just a dream when I woke up. I heard one of my friends snoring and breathing pretty heavily. I hadn't noticed it before, but I assumed that they must have been completely zonked out. As I tried to doze back off, the breathing and snoring became louder, so I sat up to see if I could see which friend it was coming from.

As I sat up, I was at eye level with the window screen and felt like I was having flashbacks from earlier and saw something move. Then all of a sudden, I heard the zipper from the tent door open. screen and felt like I was having flashbacks from earlier and saw something move. Then all of a sudden, I heard the zipper from the tent door open. I yell, Dad, knock it off, earlier was enough. I want my friends to actually want to come over again. He didn't say anything back, and my friends were starting to stir around now. Annoyed that my friends were now going to be woken up,

I said, Dad, get out of here, please! I can still hear the response in my head, a voice that was not my father's and much deeper said, How do you know it's me? My whole body felt like it froze, but the only thing I could think to do was grab my friends' hands and pull them.

I basically dragged them, and we all ran inside. I don't remember anyone else screaming or yelling. I think my friends were more confused than anything else. I went right into my parents' room and told my dad what had happened. He seemed to jump right out of bed and went outside. I could hear him yelling something, and then he came back in and got on the phone. He told my mom to stay inside with me and my friends and he waited outside. We eventually saw flashing lights.

He was outside with the police for about 20 minutes, if I had to guess, and came back inside and talked to my mom first and then to me and my friends. He told us that there was a guy that seemed to be causing problems in the neighborhood that night, and thankfully they did catch him and we were safe. He said he was so sorry for scaring us earlier and was happy everyone was okay. He asked my friends if they wanted to call their parents or go home. Aubrey was fine and she said that she wanted to stay but May called her mom and just went home. Aubrey and I decided to take our little camping night to the living room and my dad got us comfortable and made an impromptu pillow and blanket fort for us. There were only a few hours until morning and we got up early.

My mom and dad made us breakfast and then asked if we wanted to have a pool day. I remember that day being exactly what we needed to get our minds off the night before. I'm still friends with Audrey to this day and I honestly don't think either of us have been camping since then. This freaky story happened to me a few years ago. Back when my wife was still my girlfriend, we decided to take an impromptu camping trip. I never camped much, other than a few times with a friend of mine. But my girlfriend used to camp all the time with her family when she was younger, and she really wanted to camp again. She thought it would be a great chance for her and me to spend some time together,

away from all the noise of the city that she and I had lived in at the time. She went all out and bought all this awesome camping stuff. Among those items was a nice new tent. It was a bigger tent, especially for two people, but I didn't mind. More room was always okay with me since I was a bigger guy at the time of the story. The one thing I liked about this tent, which I found out later most tents have, was that it had this little window thing on it so you could see outside the tent at night. I knew that it was going to be dark, but just the ability to be able to see and then have the light shine in on us in the morning was a comforting thought for me.

We arrived at this desolate location in the afternoon. We were only staying two nights so we wanted to make the best of the trip. That first afternoon we didn't do much, we just kind of chilled, set up the tent and went to bed early. I love my little window in the tent. I was able to stare out of it while I was laying in my sleeping bag and because of where the tent was located I was able to see the night sky and it was beautiful. Just as I expected, the light blasted through the window in the morning and it was almost like waking up in my own bed. We got out of bed early and made the most of the day. We went fishing and hiking and was still able to spend a considerable amount of time just laying around relaxing, reading and just enjoying the sun. We were on track to having another early night and I was alright with that. Neither one of us

has ever been a night owl and we were beat from everything we did earlier in the day. We got all cozy in the tent and I made sure I propped my window screen open. While I was starting to drift off, I thought I noticed something outside the tent. It kind of looked like movement, but I didn't know if I had dozed off for a second or if I really saw something. I sat up and before I could get a good look, my girlfriend goes, Did you see that too? I told her I thought I saw something, but I wasn't sure. We both sat up and stared out of our little tent window.

It just looked like a peaceful night and then my girlfriend gasped. It sounded like air had been sucked out of her. To this day I still have never seen the expression that she had in that moment. Sitting on a tree branch about 30 or 40 feet away was a person. They were wearing one of those weird fake president masks, and while sitting in the tree, they were sort of just kicking their feet back and forth like a child on a swing would do. We both just sat there like sitting ducks. I was terrified because we hadn't seen one other person the entire time that we were at this campsite, and now all of a sudden, this creep with a mask on was so close to us. I felt like crying but I was trying to be brave since my girlfriend was already in tears.

I know the person wasn't directly doing anything to us but the unsettling nature of the situation made us both so uncomfortable. We watched the guy for probably about five minutes just sitting there in that tree, and then he jumped down. The person still never approached the tent, but that feeling that they were going to rush us at any second never went away. It felt like forever that the person was just pacing around and then finally just stopped. He didn't move forward. He didn't sway. He just stood still like a statue. A couple of minutes later, the person turned around and now they were facing the tent head on. We could hear them laughing under the mask and the person started to wave right at us. Even with a mask on, it felt like the person

was staring directly at me. And the wave wasn't just a subtle little wave. The person was erratically moving their hand back and forth like they were trying to get their hand to fall off of something. And then the person just stopped waving abruptly and in a muffled voice that we could barely hear from under that mask we heard the guy yell, bye guys, and then he literally ran full speed off into the woods. We just sat there and continued staring out of the window all night long. We both may have dozed off at different points but we mostly stayed awake for the entire night. The guy in the mask never came back and there was no evidence of where he came from. That was the most disturbing part. Whoever this was, he knew that we were there. We had no idea how long he had been in that tree. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. I guess all things considered, we're lucky since nothing technically happened to us.

Even though we were physically unharmed, mentally this left us messed up for a while and we're still thinking about it to this day. We've gone camping several times since that night but from now on, we'll only stay in a cabin with doors that can lock. I can't believe this story is over 10 years old now. Time really does fly if you're not careful. So this story is probably one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to me, and at the time, it was incredibly scary as well. I had recently started dating my girlfriend, and due to our schedules, I rarely saw her,

and as a young man in my 20s during the events of this story I really wanted to see her. More than anything I wanted alone time with her and unfortunately it just seemed like there was never a chance for us to be alone. I still lived at home with my parents and so did she so alone time wasn't really something we had much of. We'd only been dating for a little while and I was already annoyed. It seemed like she had something going on every night or weekend and I just honestly felt like an afterthought to her. One weekend I told her how I was feeling

and she responded by telling me that she had planned on a camping trip with her friends and that she was really sorry that we couldn't hang out again. I was furious and at this point I was close to ending things with her friends and that she was really sorry that we couldn't hang out again. I was furious and at this point I was close to ending things with her before they had progressed any further. That day she left for the trip and she texted me and said, sorry I know this is last minute but my friend said that you could come if you want to meet us there. I absolutely hate camping but I wasn't going to miss this chance to hang out with my girlfriend. The campsite was only about 40 minutes from my house, so I packed my bag and headed out there. This was a weird place. It wasn't like camping in the middle of the woods camping.

It was in a sort of wooded area, but the campsite itself was the big giant clearing that had dozens of other people camping out. It didn't seem private and certainly didn't feel like camping to me, at least what I thought of when I thought of camping. Once I got there, this is where I first met all of her friends. They all seemed like great people and I was kind of excited to hang out with all of them that night. They were the opposite of my girlfriend though. She was quiet and reserved and all of her friends were very outgoing and loud and they all had an awesome sense of humor. While we were all hanging out, that is when I noticed a bunch of trails in the woods. Once I started walking some of the trails, I started to realize just how big this place was. And it finally started to feel like what I thought of when I thought of camping.

Earlier that night, we grilled some food on a portable grill and played some card games. Once the sun set, we drank some beers in special containers since we weren't allowed to have alcohol. Around 11pm, two people came over to our little section of tents. I don't know if we should call them park rangers or what, but they were basically in charge of the campsite and the surrounding trails. They started to shine flashlights in our area very aggressively and wanted to know why we were still awake. We all laughed and looked at each other very confused. One of the guys who was there in this sort of arrogant voice said,

Why wouldn't we be awake? It's our vacation, we're planning on staying awake for a while, hanging out. One of the rangers, in a very aggressive voice, immediately jumped down his throat and said, there's a strict 10 o'clock curfew, all lights out. We just laughed, still thinking this was some sort of weird joke. Her one friend, the same one who spoke up before, said again, I paid all this money for this campsite, and you're literally making me go to sleep earlier? Why don't you get out of here? I don't know if I would have had the same response, but we all felt the same way. The woman basically yelled at us like we were children. Frustrated, we all started making our way back into our tents.

One of the friends said, it's okay guys, let's just meet in my tent and play some cards and keep quiet. Well, the ranger must have heard her because she turned around, got right back in her face and said, lights out means lights out. No cards, no talking. It's time for bed. I'll be making rounds again soon as you guys are still awake. You're gone. This was weird and ridiculous. I felt like some little kid, and I couldn't believe that those people were making grown adults go to sleep like this was prison or something. Once she walked away, everyone I was with was stewing with anger. We were behaving like she wanted mainly because we had been drinking, and if she wanted to kick us out, we would have been

screwed because none of us were okay to operate a vehicle. It wasn't long until everyone basically fell asleep except for me and my girlfriend who were just enjoying our time together. Then she suggested something that I couldn't believe. She said that we should sneak onto one of the trails so we could have some true alone time. As I said before, I was a young man in my early twenties, so this was all I needed to hear. We quietly slid out of the tent, and we sneakily made our way over to one of the nearby trails. Once we were a good distance from the start of the trail,

we started to really enjoy our alone time. But then the enjoyment ended instantly. We heard a man shout, Hey! And we both froze, trying not to bring attention to ourselves. but then the enjoyment ended instantly. We heard a man shout, Hey! And we both froze, trying not to bring attention to ourselves. We were sure that it was another park ranger, so we thought that it was best to just stay still.

Then this deep voice spoke up again. I know you're here. I just want to say hi. We both each looked confused. What was that supposed to mean? I started to peek around one of the trees, even though it was nearly pitch black. Standing on the path with this little flashlight was a very strange looking man. He was short and kind of wearing an oversized white t-shirt.

While I was peeking, he made eye contact with me and saw me instantly. He stood straight up and smiled and he said, hey buddy, I got something for you. This situation was already weird and I felt very tense being in the woods with this strange dude. I didn't respond because I had no idea what to say. And then he said one of the most convoluted things I had ever heard when he says, I got all this money in my pocket. My ex-wife is going to take it, so I want to give it away before she finds out. Just come over here and grab it, would you?

He held out his hand, but it had nothing in it. He was about 20 feet away, so thankfully we weren't right on top of each other. I looked at my girlfriend and mouthed the words, run, to her. And as soon as she fled, I followed closely right behind her. Right as I went to take off, I looked at the guy who shouted something like, no, and then he briefly lunged in my direction, but I was already sprinting away before I could even commit to some move. We ran as fast as we could out of the woods, and it never appeared like we were being followed though. Once we got back to camp, we waited about an hour for the rangers to

make a walkthrough, and I grabbed the lady from before and told her that some man was walking the woods. I lied and told her that I could see him from the tent and she did believe me. They notified the authorities and that's the last I saw of the creepy man in those woods. The rest of the night my eyes were just glued in the direction of the trails, waiting to catch a glimpse of that stranger. Thank god I never did. I have no idea what he wanted that night, but the look in his eyes when we darted away was something I'll never forget. Every year around this time when people start camping a lot, I'm reminded of that horrible encounter in the woods

and I'm just thankful that we were far enough away from him that we were able to get away safely. Safely. field or ice or course, BetRivers is the place. Over, under, money, line, same game, parlays, it's all fine. We'll put a smile on your face. Bet on the sports you love with BetRivers Sportsbook. Take a chance! Must be 19 plus. Available in Ontario only.

Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. About five years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Colorado. I don't know how she always does it, but she found this awesome place for us to camp out at. Whenever I try to find any destination for us I fail miserably. It's one of the many reasons why I love her. She always has a plan and she keeps me on track, which is great since I'm the most

indecisive person I know. Basically we had free rein to camp wherever we wanted in this area. I drove our truck to the perfect spot and then we started setting up our tent, grill, music, and everything else we would need to make this an awesome trip. We were planning on staying five nights and unfortunately we only made it three. I'm sure you would leave too if you experienced what we had experienced on that third night. The first few days were great. Unlike a lot of camping destinations in the United States, this part of the country was different. Maybe it's just me because I grew up

on the east coast, but when I think camping, I think trees, lakes, and slasher movies from the 80s. But instead, this area was filled with mountains, sand, and an entirely different type of vegetation that I was used to on the other side of the country. I fell in love instantly with the area that we were in, and I made sure that I was living each day to the fullest. Probably the best part of this specific trip, though, was the fact that there was nobody there. In three days, we hadn't seen one person, and where that may seem creepy to some people, for us, this was perfect. Then the dreaded third night came. The day was awesome, just like the previous days.

We hiked some mountain trails and we were a bit more exhausted than we had been. We took it easy that night and got into our tent early. I think the last time I looked at the time, it was around 9pm. Not long after looking at the time, I fell asleep and my wife did as well. I woke up several hours later to my wife shaking me. I was concerned and asked her what was going on. She was holding a finger up to her lips, gesturing to be quiet and pointing outside the tent. I was quiet, but I didn't know what I was listening to. She eventually sort of mouthed the words to me, I think there might be an animal out there. I laughed because I remember thinking that it was cute that she was afraid of an animal.

In hindsight, that was very stupid of me because there are a number of animals in that area that could have easily ripped us to shreds if they wanted to. I began listening some more since I didn't hear anything right away. And then, I heard the growl. It was the weirdest growl I had ever heard in my life. Not that I'm some animal expert, but this growl was strange. It didn't feel deep and guttural like the sound of a bear growling. It was more like this weak attempt at a growl. I was thinking that maybe some dying animal was out there. And then I started to remember some article that I had read about a coyote with rabies or something and it went crazy and attacked a bunch of people. The footsteps of the animal outside of the tent sounded light so whatever this creature was, it was small,

like a coyote. I didn't want to take any chances with this beast. When I heard the creature make some distance away from the tent, I slowly unzipped it and told my wife to just get in the truck. Once the zipper was fully unzipped, we didn't see anything, so we both quickly jogged over to the truck and I unlocked the doors and we dove in. Once we were inside, we were looking out of the tinted windows and trying to get a glimpse of whatever creature was making that noise. A few minutes passed and we still didn't see anything. No movement whatsoever. I know something was out there.

Not only did I hear the footsteps, but we could clearly hear the strange growl. My wife started to fall asleep again and this time I jolted her awake. I screamed because what I saw was not a creature. It was in fact, a human being. It was a very wild looking guy with long hair and seemingly a beard. He was walking sort of hunched over and just making these growling noises that we'd heard before. I was angry and I was just about ready to get out of my truck and confront this guy and then the nightmare got worse. Just beyond where we had our tent set up, three more men walked into our camp area. It looked like they were seemingly whispering and laughing to one another.

Three of the four guys were carrying these huge sticks, at least I think they were sticks. One of the guys, without notice, then pulled the stick all the way back behind his head and forcibly swung the stick down on top of our now empty tent. I heard the one guy yell, something, which made me think that this guy must have thought that we were still in the tent. Fight or flight mode kicked in immediately. I started the truck and drove off as fast as I could, leaving the tent and all those creeps in the dust. I didn't even look back to see his facial expression or anything, I just drove as fast as I could and as far away as I could. While we were driving, my wife waited until we finally got service

and then she called the police and told them what had happened. I think she was put in touch with a park ranger or someone like that because some type of law enforcement called her phone a few times. We never went back for the tent or any of our stuff, which was fine with us. The park ended up charging me some sort of fee for leaving all of my stuff there and technically canceling my reservation early by leaving after three days. The law enforcement was sympathetic, but the people who operated the camping at the park didn't care at all what we had been through and still charged us fees claiming that it was policy. At the end of the day, it was a small price to pay for the luxury of continuing my life

unharmed and I sincerely hope that whoever those monsters were, I hope that they're caught and are incapable of causing anyone else harm. A lot of people hate the city, but I would rather take the city over the wilderness any day of the week, especially after what happened to me and my friends a year ago. My one friend had just separated from her fiancé, who she had been with for about seven years, and she wasn't doing super great with the breakup, which of course I don't blame her. Our other friend who is the outdoorsy type suggested that we go away for a night and just camp out in the woods. Surprisingly our friend was into the idea. So the three of us found this cute little cottage in the middle of the woods to camp out in for a

night. I was excited to have a night out with my girls that wasn't in the city and wasn't all about getting dolled up and all that jazz. Of course, once we got there though, my one recently separated friend got bored, which I knew was going to happen. She started looking up local bars in the area and eventually found this dive bar in a nearby town. Now this was my idea of camping, at least that's what I joked with my friends about. It was still a nice change of pace though. We went to this local bar and it was nice not to have to worry about the city scene while we were at this place. It was a handful of locals at the bar and that's pretty much it,

at least as far as I could tell anyway. My friend started up a conversation with one of the guys at the bar. It was a middle-aged man, but he was handsome in a rugged kind of way. I don't know if it was the alcohol or just the feeling of being depressed, but whatever it was, she was flirting very heavily with this man. And this went on for a while, but eventually she separated from him and told us that she was ready to head back to the cottage. On the way back to the cottage, we were giving her a hard time about her bar friend, and she just laughed it off, claiming that it wasn't that big of a deal. We get back to the cottage, and all we had was a glass of wine before we decided to go off to bed for the evening.

It was clear at this point that camping was not for us. We hated being in this little cottage with no wifi and really nothing to do. I know our one friend meant well by setting this whole thing up, but it wasn't a good time. We all decided to sleep in the living room together. One of us on the couch, one of us on the love seat, and one of us in the recliner, and it didn't take long for all of us to fall asleep. A little after three in the morning, I was being nudged by one of my friends, who looked very concerned. She told me that she had heard the doorknob kind of jiggling. I laughed at her and told her that she was being crazy, and that's when I heard it. It really was shaking, and not just a little bit. Whoever

was out there was really trying to get into the cottage. We were too scared to get up, so we just cuddled up together on the couch and held the blanket up to our faces. Since the cottage was so small, you could walk from the front door around the entire building in no time at all. And to our horror, that's what this person did. We listened to each step outside the cottage. They were clearly sneaking, but we could hear each little twig snap after each step. The person made their way around to the back of the cottage, which was behind the couch that we were laying on. There was a large window at the back. The person went to the window and we started to hear the shuffling sound on the other side of the curtain. And then it occurred to us, the person was trying to open it.

I don't know what got into me, but I decided to yell, I'm calling the police! The noise stopped for a moment and then a whisper could be heard from the other side of the window. It seemed to be a man's voice and he was whispering the name of my friend. The same friend who was flirting with that one man at the bar. My mind thought about the guy right away and I refused to believe that he followed us here, but there was no other way that he'd know we were at this house. I whipped open the curtain, and like a deer in the headlights, the man just stood there. It was in fact the man from the bar. He put his hands up in this sort of defensive position like

he was the one who was in trouble, and then he just ran. He didn't get into a car, at least none that I saw. We did phone the police right away and report what could have been a potential home invasion, and I'm not sure anything ever came of it since we left first thing in the morning, which wasn't that long after the cops left. It wasn't until the drive home that we really got ourselves worked up and scared. And that's when we started to piece together everything. We got back to the cottage before midnight and this guy didn't try breaking in until after three. That means that he had to follow us to know where the cottage was, wait for us to sleep and then try to get in.

The thought of this man lurking outside for all those hours makes me want to throw up. I'm so thankful that my friend woke up to the doorknob noise because if she didn't, I don't know what would have happened. We found out after the fact that the window was unlocked and it would have only been a matter of time before he would have broke in. In a sick way, this trip really did help my friend because she was so thankful to escape unharmed that she was able to pull her life into perspective and start the long road of healing after a horrible breakup. To be continued... Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official,

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