The Lets Read Podcast - 252: SOMETHING WAS STALKING ME IN THE WOODS | 27 True Scary Stories | EP 240

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about deep woods encounters, psycho Karens & how a ring camera can save someone's life HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [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 IQbar, BetterHelp and Minds Of Madness

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and follow the label. Everyone's got a pro. Need tires? I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro. So who's that pro? The pros at Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, Tread Experts is always there, helping you with Kumo tires you can trust. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca Back Back around Christmas of 2007, me and my mates were still a bunch of layabouts in our mid-twenties. We worked odd jobs here and there, so we weren't complete wasters, but we spent most of our time sitting around my mate's flat,

just drinking cans, smoking soap bar, which is cannabis resin, and flicking through the channels on a skybox. One night, we were looking for something half-decent to watch when we came across some Ray Mares thing on the Discovery Channel. For those of you that don't know, Ray Mares was like a less exciting 90s version of Bear Grylls. He'd go all around the world, showing you how to survive in places like the Arctic or the jungle or what have you. It was cracking TV seeing him eating raw fish or foraging for berries and as we watched, we started playfully arguing over which one of us would be the first to quit if we went on some mad survival trip like that. What started as a stupid argument ended in an

actual bet between the two of the lads and I think they were just messing around at first, but then the more they talked about it, the more serious it got. And then the next thing I heard, they'd bet each other a hundred quid that they could outlast each other out in the wilderness and we were seriously planning some survival camping trip to Wales. Luke and Ben, the two lads who made the bet, wanted to go down to Dartmoor, where the Royal Marines train. Dartmoor is this big empty floodplain for the most part, and Ben's brother, who was in the army, said they'd die if they went there in February or March like they were planning to. Instead, he suggests they go to this place called Kilder

Forest up in Northumberland. He said he'd been on exercises around there years ago and that it's the closest place he'd ever seen in the UK to actual wilderness. They'd also have a much better chance of finding water, food, and shelter, which would actually put their survival skills to the test, instead of just dumping them in the big, soggy desert that is Dartmoor. When they had their location, Ben and Luke were as good as gone. There was just one problem. They needed an adjudicator. What was stopping either bloke from just slipping away,

getting a hotel room and waiting for the other one to give up before reappearing to claim victory with a bit of mud smeared on their face? They needed a third, someone to make sure that they played fair and that someone ended up being me. Granted, they didn't have to talk me into it too hard. I was half keen on the idea anyways, to be honest, but what they really needed was someone to give them a bit of focus. Their rough plan was to just walk off into the woods, then stay there with minimal food until one of them gave up. I didn't think starving themselves in the middle of nowhere seemed like a very good idea, so instead, I came up with a kind of challenge.

We'd get the train up to Carlisle, then hop on another one to get to a little town called Brampton, and then from there, we were going to walk just shy of 21 miles through Kilder Forest. Going about 7 miles a day, sleeping two nights in the forest with one night in a four-star bed and breakfast waiting for us at the end. I know that's stepping back from the original intentions a bit, but I didn't fancy some pointlessly grueling vision quest, especially when a few days hike would easily break the pair of them. They had zero wild hiking or wild camping experiences between them, whereas I'd done the Duke of Edinburgh award in school and it was just about the only bit I ever really enjoyed.

Now cut to early March of 2008 and we got in our hands on all the gear we needed which consisted of things like ponchos, boil-in-the-bag meals, proper cold weather sleeping bags, and stuff like that. We got a 7am train up to Carlisle, jumped on a bus to Brampton, and then after that, it was into the wilderness. Now, I put wilderness in quotations like that because for the first day of walking, we were mostly just walking through farmer's fields, hopping fences, and watching Kildare Forest looming larger and larger in the distance. Ben and Luke gave it a go, but I know they must have been feeling it after the first day's hike, because I was bloody knackered myself. We pitched our shelters in a patch of trees,

only about a mile away from Kildare proper and then resigned ourselves to starting on the hardest parts of the hike in the morning. Considering the time of year and where we were, sleeping outside like that was rough, very rough. It wasn't actually all that cold. There was no snow and only a bit of light rain during the night, but what made it so hard was the wind. We tried to find ourselves a bit of cover from it, but it picked right up during the night, but what made it so hard was the wind. We tried to find ourselves a bit of cover from it, but it picked right up during the night. It took the temperatures right down and it was literally howling through the trees above our heads. So after a couple of hours spent shivering in our sleeping bags and trying to block out the noise, we decided to just get on the move again.

We went from up for it to this isn't fun anymore in the space of a few hours, and as soon as we'd walked far enough into the forest to get real wind cover, we set down our packs, set up a temporary camp, and then had a quick snooze after a small breakfast of peanut butter and crackers. It wasn't hard going, but for me, that was all offset by seeing how badly Luke and Ben were coping. They would not stop whinging for the whole of that second morning, and I think that there were points where the pair of them acting like big girls' blouses was the only thing pushing me on. So after a quick snooze, a cup of tea and a few smokes, we stamped out the little fire that we had going and then carried on through the woods. After about two hours worth of walking, we were in the complete

middle of nowhere. On the outer edges of the forest, there were still a few paths that we could stick to which made it much easier on us. But then as we got deeper and deeper, the little paths and trails disappeared completely, and that's when it started getting really tough. We were walking with quite a bit of weight anyway, but then having to hike across uneven ground, snaking in and out of the trees, it got way more tiring than we could have predicted, and it made navigating really difficult too. We realized that if we kept up the same pace, we might be in for an extra night having to sleep in the woods. The more tired we got, the less ground we'd covered, which is again something

we hadn't stopped to consider when planning the route. The mood got quite dark at one point because we only had so much food and so many changes of clean clothes, so our fun little survival trip was fast becoming a bit of a nightmare if I'm being honest. Then right when I thought that we were on the verge of having a bit of argy-bargy amongst ourselves, we stumbled across Burnside Lodge. So one minute we're hiking, mostly keeping our eyes on the dodgy ground so we wouldn't twist an anchor or something and then we can see it. There was a clearing in the trees and as we got closer, we saw the outline of two buildings. One looked like an old derelict

cottage type thing while the other was a much smaller coal or woodshed, only it was made completely of stone. We circled at a wide arc for a few minutes, making sure that they were deserted then veered in to take a closer look once we were sure they were empty. The smaller woodshed looking thing turned out to be what's called a bothy. I didn't know what one is either when I first heard it, and I'll probably end up butchering the explanation, so this is word for word what Wikipedia says. A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an

estate. Basically a free room so people wouldn't freeze to death on long journeys back in the day. It was just one big open plan room inside, with one table, one fireplace, and a few dusty old sleeping mats. On any other occasion, I don't think we'd have touched that place with a ten-foot barge pole, but since it looked like rain was on the way and we were already looking at an extra day's walking, a night in that bothy didn't seem so bad anymore. We figured we'd at least have a five-minute breather since we were there, and in that time, Ben decided to go and have a look at the abandoned cottage looking place. I remember thinking that he was just going to have a look through the windows or something but when a few minutes went by and he hadn't returned, I stuck my head out of the bothy to find him nowhere to be seen with the cottage's previously closed door wide open. We didn't know the do's and don'ts of staying in a bothy, so I was about to tell him to get out of the cottage just in case someone actually owned

it, when I suddenly hear a dog barking from the nearby tree line. The dog's running around, barking its head off, racing to and from a bloke that emerges just seconds later. He sees us and shouts something like, oi, what's going on over there? So I assume it's the cottage's owner and start sort of whisper shouting at Ben to get his arse out of that cottage. He's already heard the dog barking though and he walks out looking all nervous like he's been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. As the bloke gets closer, moving a bit faster looking all annoyed, his dog starts getting closer and closer too, running up and barking at us before legging it back to him. To our relief, he puts the dog on a lead then walks over asking us what the hell we think we're doing.

I just thought of my feet. I told the bloke that we thought the place was abandoned. He replied that it wasn't abandoned and the owner wouldn't be too happy if someone decided to trespass when there was a perfectly good shelter across the clearing to use. We start panicking thinking he's going to call the police or something or maybe even worse that he's going to kick us out of the bathies so we lose out on a sheltered place to sleep for the night. But then, right as we start proper apologizing non-stop, he breaks into a smile, then a full-on laugh, and gives us the old, had you going there, didn't I? He thought it was hilarious. We didn't appreciate it one bit, and as Luke finally joined us to see what was going on, he explained the joke. He wasn't the owner, but he did know the bloke who owned it and apparently the cottage was just as open to visitors as the Bothy.

But then the whole time he's explaining, his dog is either eyeing us up or outright growling at us. He kept having to drag back on the lead every so often and it got to the point where it was making me proper nervous. The bloke looked to be in his early 50s, so not exactly frail or anything, but I got the feeling that if that dog really wanted to go for us, that he'd have a hell of a time trying to hang on to it. Now anyways, he tells us we're fine to stay in the bothy overnight and apologizes for his dog because she doesn't like strangers and then Ben asks him his name. You know, just to be polite or cordial or whatever you want to call it. The bloke hears Ben's question then instead of just telling us his name, he pauses for a second and then says, Gary.

It was one of the most obvious lies I've ever seen in my life. Like he just so obviously made it up on the spot and we all knew it. It made for an awkward moment, but what exactly were we going to do? Call him out on it? He'd basically just announced that he was a bit of a weirdo, because who lies about their name like that? And just so we could avoid him, we sleep in the bath and then we'll be gone the following morning at first light. I didn't feel unsafe, not from just a weird lie, so we thanked him for letting us know about the bath and then started walking back towards it. After a few feet, this Gary calls out to us again like, here lads, and then after we stop and turn, he asks us, Have any of you ever been, and I'll just spell it out, R-A-P-E-D?

It sounds absolutely mental, I know. Just to ask out of the blue like that, and we reacted pretty much as you'd imagine. I was like, what did you just say, mate? With a bit of a confrontational tone, but more out of disbelief than anything else. Ben, on the other hand, didn't need him to repeat it, and being the hard case that he was, he takes a few steps forward towards the bloke before asking a very rhetorical version of the same question I'd asked. He wanted to see if the bloke had the balls to repeat such an incredibly creepy and inappropriate question. The bloke didn't repeat it, but I don't think it's because he didn't have the balls to.

He just stays quiet, but this big horrible grin comes over his face like he's proper enjoying our reaction. And by that time, we're asking him, why would you ask us something like that? Are you looking for a problem? And all this other stuff. And the bloke just keeps quiet, like he's soaking it up, and then ignores all of our questions and just says, I have. I swear to God, right?

We all just shut up for a second. You know when you hear or see something so mental that it takes a second to process before you can react? Exactly that for a moment or two, as we're just silently like, what in God's name? I don't think Ben knew how to react at all, because he takes another few steps towards the bloke, ready to swing for him, but the bloke's dog just goes absolutely mental, his proper swing for him, but the bloke's dog just goes absolutely mental. It's proper roaring at him, choking itself from the lead trying to get to him, and the whole time the bloke's having to lean back to hold it one place while smiling as if to say,

I wouldn't come any closer if I were you. Ben comes to his senses and backs off, as we all do, but not but few of four parting jibes calling him a fanny for hiding behind his dog, and a weirdo for trying to creep a few strangers out with a subject that isn't the least bit funny. And as you can probably guess, we weren't so keen on staying in that bothy overnight anymore, not with Gary and his psycho dog hanging around. I mean, we could try, but none of us wouldn't gotten a wink of sleep again, so instead, we decided to brave the elements again. We got our bags on our backs, making sure to keep an eye on Gary, who by that point had gone

inside the cottage to do god knows what, and then made ourselves scarce as soon as we could. Gary didn't follow us, but what he did do was come out onto the cottage's front step just as we reached the trees on the other side of the clearing. He wasn't following us, but we knew which direction we were going, and although that didn't bother us at the time, I know now that it really should have. We were still raging for a long time after we walked out of that clearing and then back into the trees, but if I'm being honest, a lot of that anger was covering up for the fact that we were actually really scared. It wasn't just the disgusting question the bloke

had asked us, and it wasn't just the dog either. It was like the combination of the two was bigger than the sum of its parts. A mad dog might do a bit of damage, but me, Ben, and Luke between us would have been able to, I don't know, do a bit of damage back. Maybe even take the thing down. And if it wasn't for the dog, I think Ben would have just chinned him and that would have been it. But like I said, it was the two things together that had us all turning tail when we might not have done otherwise, and the tense atmosphere stayed with us for the next mile or so. We asked each other a few times, like, reckon he'll follow us, but all agreed that he wouldn't. The bloke looked to be in his early fifties, quite short and stout with what looked like a bit of a gammy leg. There was no way that he'd be able to match our speed even with our big heavy backpacks on. But then again, he did have something that would be able

to match our speed, and as that little tidbit occurred to us, we heard the faint sound of a barking dog coming through the trees behind us. Now that was an oh crap moment if ever there was one. I remember us all freezing and the conversation suddenly stopped as we kept quiet to make sure that we were all hearing the same thing. If my face looked anything like Ben and Luke's, then I went white as a bloody sheet as it suddenly hit me. He was following us, and although we'd be able to outrun him, there was no outrunning an angry dog. The sound was still faint at that point. The dog had to be at least a half a mile back, maybe a little bit less. So as frightened as we were, we didn't start legging it right away or anything.

We just started moving a bit faster and at a little bit of an angle too to try and throw him off our trail. And then as we walked, instead of the barking getting fainter or going quiet, it gradually got louder and louder. I'm not saying that we weren't leaving a really obvious trail to follow and obviously the dog could follow us just by scent, but realizing the bloke was actually capable of tracking us and was gaining on us too, that ramped the fear up by another notch. Ben hadn't been able to get a good look at that cottage looking place,

so we had no idea if the bloke had a weapon of some kind stashed away. Best case scenario, he was chasing us with a knife or a bat. Worst case, a machete or an axe, or absolutely worst worst case scenario, he had a shotgun or something like that. It was unlikely, but it wasn't out of the question. It's almost impossible to own a gun legally in the UK, but if there's one group that finds it easier than most, it's farmers. Farmers then get targeted for that very reason, that they've sometimes two or three guns stashed somewhere that can then get sawn off and mostly used in gang shootings and stuff like that. But the point is, it wasn't completely out of the question that he'd have a gun.

But obviously, our most pressing concern was the dog. There came a point when the barking was so loud that we broke into a sort of half-jog, the only speed we were capable of while wearing our big heavy packs. We kept running, hearing the barking getting louder and louder and I remember seeing a big open stream through the trees ahead of us. When we reached the bank, we stopped, panting and wondering what we were going to do. It was quite a wide stream and it looked quite a bit deep in places too with no other way of crossing it. It looked like we'd have to just take off our packs and then try to float them

across while we waited behind them. I knew it was a bad idea, that soaking ourselves would make keeping warm a major problem, but as the barking reached its loudest point, we actually laid our eyes on the dog running through the trees right at us, and we realized that we didn't have much of a choice. As we waded into the water, I remember thinking how wrong we were to assume that we could defend ourselves from the dog. All three of us at once, yeah, we could do some damage to it, but one bite in the wrong place, one vein or one artery, and it was game over for us. We really were in the middle of absolute nowhere, so even a semi-serious injury could be fatal instead of just some minor emergency visit.

The water went up to my waist, and then my chest, and then at its deepest, I struggled to keep my head above it. I knew that I wasn't going to drown, but just for a second there, I wondered if we hadn't made some horrible mistake in trying to wade across. As the water started to get lower again and I approached the opposite bank, I had to switch from pushing my back to dragging it behind me. It was twice, maybe three times as heavy thanks to all the water it had soaked up, but I was glad to see that Luke in bed had made it through the deepest parts of the stream and were following me up the bank. But then any relief that I felt was instantly drowned up by the sudden appearance of the dog on the opposite bank. I thought it would just throw itself into the stream, swim across, and then attack us, and if that was the case, we'd be in a much worse position to defend ourselves seeing as we were

gassed and soaking wet. But then it didn't. It didn't even try and cross. It just barked at us from the opposite bank for a bit and then ran back in the direction of its master. We didn't waste any time in appreciating the absolute miracle that had just happened in front of us. Maybe the dog was just scared of the deep water or something. It wouldn't be like any dog I'd ever heard of, but it wasn't a completely unbelievable explanation. But like I said, we didn't spend any time trying to work out why. We just tried to empty out the water from our packs as quickly as we could, threw them back on, and then get back into the half-jog as we tried to put as much

distance between us and the stream as possible. I think it must have been about an hour before we finally reached the edge of the forest, or rather, the section of the forest that we'd just been in. Out in front of us was a couple of fields, a walking track, and another section of forest on the other side of them, and I can't speak for Ben and Luke, but as soon as I saw the first signs of civilization and potential safety, my legs gave out completely. Not being able to hear any dog barks helped too, and we all collapsed into a wet heap once we'd broken through the trees. Both mine and Ben's phones were scrambled because of the water, but Luke's had somehow survived being in his inside jacket pocket. And with that, we did the only thing we could do, and tried to phone the police, but between the crappy reception and the scrappy amount of detail that we could offer them,

there wasn't much that they could do for us there and then. The woman on the other end said that she'd asked the park rangers to have a look around the Bothy, but since no crime had actually been committed, all they'd be able to do was give the bloke a warning about threatening behavior. We all knew that there wasn't a load that they could do, and I remember Luke still being really polite and thankful on the phone, but we all knew it'd be best to keep moving, just in case he came looking for us again. I won't bore you with the rest of the trip. We managed to get dry, completed our hike, and then made it home only a day over schedule. But none of us had ever forgotten what happened out there with that bloke and his dog. We told the story a hundred times

between us in the weeks that followed, mainly to semi-impress people with the story of our gallant survival against the odds. Sarcasm, by the way. Again, I can't speak for Ben and Luke, but if they're anything like me, they left one little detail out of the story every time they told it. And that little detail involves that horrible, disgusting question the bloke asked us, along with his equally creepy follow-up. I'd rather forget that part altogether if I'm being honest, partly because of how it makes my skin crawl to remember, and partly because it makes me wonder what that bloke would have done if he managed to get the better of one of us. I grew up during the 70s in a little place called Vernon up in British Columbia.

It's a nice enough place, I guess. Good place to raise a family, but after scrapping my way through high school, I was faced with a sort of bleak future. I didn't really like the sound of working menial jobs around Vernon for the rest of my life, but at the same time, I didn't want to just pack up and leave. I liked Vernon. All of my friends and family were there, but most of the jobs available to me involved punching the clock for someone else. I knew I couldn't listen to some idiot hoser give me orders all day, and neither did I want to be a cop or a fireman or anything else that paid good money without a degree.

All I wanted to do was work on motorcycles. Only thing was, I didn't have a motorcycle, nor did I have the money to buy one, and minus expenses, I'd be working some crappy McBurger Hut job for 18 months before I could afford even the cheapest of the models I was interested in. And that's when my uncle let me know about a logging company up near Lumbee that was looking for workers. I don't know what it's like these days, but it was easy to become a lumberjack back then, mainly because you'd have to be half crazy to want to do something so dangerous. To compensate, the pay was really generous, and since you didn't even need a high school diploma, it was a popular choice for guys who had the stones to do such a hazardous job. You gotta remember, this was the late 70s. There weren't all those safety regulations like you have today where even the ass wipe

has reflective safety strips on it. People got hurt back then. It was just a thing that happened and when I first started as a lumberjack, there were guys who said that I wouldn't make it a month without picking up my first scar. I figured if I was careful, I could beat the odds and make it the seven months that I needed to work to be able to afford a bike without getting myself hurt. I was right, and it turned out all that fear-mongering was just a way of screwing with a new guy, but another guy I signed on with, same age, same sort of background, he'd lost his life out there in

those woods, and to this day, I don't think the cops know who did it. So just a few months after I started, this other kid my age signed on named McNally. The kid's first name was Adam, but everyone just called him by his surname and we didn't really work together much, so I didn't know much about him as a person. But I heard stories and they weren't good. Kid was quiet, kind of lazy, kind of weird and he caused all kinds of problems for the crews that he worked with. He was always late even when we were staying out at logging camps where he had literally no place else to be. He'd disappear for an hour at a time and the guy started to think that he was off getting high or something.

But since the crew chief couldn't ever find any drugs on him, all they could do was give him warnings until they had enough on him to fire him. And then one day, McNally just disappeared. The crew he was working with said that he just walked off into the woods, saying that he needed to take a leak and then that was the last they saw of him. We weren't at a logging camp at the time, so the other guys on his crew figured that he just quit and walked back into Lumbee without telling anyone. I mean, they didn't even really notice that he was missing until he had been gone for about three or four hours and even then, they only did a quick look around the area before reporting back that McNally was gone. The next morning, he doesn't show up for work, so we figure that he's gone for good and just carry on with our lives. And then a week or so later, and I only heard this second

hand, his mom showed up at the foreman's office. She was worried sick and hadn't heard from her son since the day he walked off the job but rather than just call the cops she spent the past few days driving around looking for him. That was another big reason we figured McNally was into something illegal. Why wouldn't his mom just call the cops right away especially if she was so worried? The only reason I can think of is that she didn't want the cops finding him before she did, but that's just a theory I guess, and maybe an incorrect one given what happened next. Anyway, she asked us to keep an eye out for him, and then a couple of days later, the cops showed up. I don't know what was said between the police officer and our foreman, but the next thing we know, we're being asked to help the cops walk through the woods near where McNally went missing.

The foreman didn't seem too happy about it and I think maybe the implication had been that one of us had something to do with McNally disappearing. If that was the case, I can understand him halting operations for a few hours to make us pitch in, like a show of good faith or something. No one objecting to pitching in either, especially since it potentially involved one of our own getting hurt. McNally was an idiot, no doubt about that, but he wasn't a bad kid, and seeing his mom all shaken up definitely lit a fire under a lot of guys' butts. We grouped up, and then the cop that showed up organized us into long lines and then marched us through the woods in the direction McNally had gone missing.

We walked like that for quite a while, keeping our eyes on the ground, and there came a point where I was long past thinking that we weren't going to find anything. But then right when we were talking about turning back around again, one of the guys on the far right flank started calling out that he'd found something. We all rushed over to see this single, solitary boot just laying there in the dirt. It's not like we knew the exact make, model, or size of the boots McNally was wearing, but somehow we all knew it was his. Knowing we were headed in the right direction, the cop called us off the search and thanked us for our time, then got to calling in some backup so they could continue the search properly. All the crews were abuzz with this idea and what had happened,

and some guys were pretty skeptical and thought that we were making a whole bunch of fuss out of nothing. All we'd found was a boot, one that had probably slipped off after he'd walked off to get high or something. Others seemed to be convinced that we had a full-on murder investigation on our hands and that the prime suspect was one of our number. Personally, I didn't know what to think. Not until they found McNally's body out there in the woods. We had cops coming in and out of camp for the next couple of days, but never in huge numbers. And then one day, we showed up to work to a whole flurry of activity, and it didn't take long for us to figure out why. The cops wouldn't really talk to us about what was going on. Their chief spoke to our chief to explain what was going on, and then as the rumors

started to swirl, the press got wind, and then there were reporters on the site before we knew it. They were very much focused on talking to us than the cops were, but there wasn't much we could tell them. We just knew that it was bad based on what little we'd overheard the cops saying. From what we'd heard, after the cops found McNally's body and photographed the crime scene, they had to transport the pieces of him back through the woods to a waiting coroner's truck. Pieces of him. Not a whole body. Just pieces. Based on that, we assumed it was some kind of animal attack, or at least that an animal had gotten to his remains after he'd died from whatever else it was that killed him. But then a few days later, the cops showed up to the lumberyard with a search warrant, and then after they turned the place

upside down, they left with three members of McNally's lumber crew with the intention of questioning them at the station. At that point, some of us got to thinking, holy crap, did McNally's crew just get sick of him and decide to disappear him? But the idea seemed insane. He was one more mess up away from getting fired, and if they had a problem with the guy, they'd just tell him to his face, not take him out into the woods and saw him up like the freaking Lumbee Chainsaw Massacre. And lo and behold, they were released without charge and they never heard from the cops again. But there was definitely a time when they thought that it was one of us that had killed McNally

and that we'd cut him up with a saw once we were done. But then after a while, we found out why none of us had actually been charged with the murder. The cops had ruled it out fairly early and McNally's body had been cut up into pieces when they found it, but it hadn't been cut up like with a chainsaw. His arms, legs, and head had been torn off before being stacked all neatly in a little hollowed out tree trunk. The last part was all but confirmed by the local cops when they refused to flat out deny the rumors of how McNally's body was found. Everything else is still rumor as far as I'm concerned, all unconfirmed and I honestly hope they stay that way too because some of the

things I've heard since are enough to curdle your blood. I'm mainly talking about things I heard on my last month or so on the job. I stayed on for a while after I bought my Harley just to squirrel away for some savings so I could move down here to Phoenix, and in that time, I heard a lot of scuttlebutt involving how McNally met his end. I don't want to speculate on what that might have been. I heard some theories that sound a little too disrespectful to the dead, but I'd rather not take part in what amounts to rumor spreading. But I've often wondered what happened to McNally out there, if it was a debt or some other criminal thing catching up to him or something else entirely.

Because if it were anything in that something else category, something more or less inexplainable, then it could have just as easily been me out there, ripped up and stacked in a hollowed-out tree trunk, with all the agony in the world still etched on my cold, dead face. Discover the exciting action of BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer, or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today.

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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... Visit Specsavers.ca for details. On the evening of February 24th of 1978, 25-year-old Gary Dale Mathias was driving four close friends to California's Chico State University for a basketball game. They were part of a team called the Gateway Gators, a U.S. city-based program for people with mental disabilities, and were due to compete in a week-long tournament, sponsored by the Special Olympics Olympics where the winners would receive an all-expenses-paid Hollywood vacation. Along with Dale Mathias, the team consisted of 29-year-old Bill Sterling, 24-year-old Jack Hewitt, 32-year-old Ted Weier, and 30-year-old Jack Madruga.

Sterling and Hewitt had been officially diagnosed as mildly intellectually disabled, while Weyer and Madruga, despite no official diagnosis, had been accepted onto the team on the grounds that they suffered learning difficulties. Dale Mathias and Jack Madruga also happened to be army veterans, but while Madruga's service had been relatively uneventful, Mathias' time in West Germany had been anything but insignificant. What little was known of Mathias' childhood, it's clear that he developed severe drug problems while stationed in Europe. The devastating addiction eventually led to a schizophrenia diagnosis, and after a medical discharge from the army, he returned home to Yuba to receive treatment at the local VA hospital. He was known for frequent violent outbursts, many of which resulted in close calls with the police,

but by 1978, his demeanor appeared to have mellowed and the cause was a heavy regimen of psychiatric medications. Mathias's doctors claimed that the key to his successful treatment had been a cocktail of stelazine and cogentin, and the side effects had been minimal. They called him one of our sterling success cases, and claimed that he was now more than capable of living a full and unimpeded life. To an extent, this was true, as Matthias supplemented his disability money by working in his stepfather's gardening business. He was also an integral member of the Gateway Gators and often drove them to various tournament and exhibition matches. Although their first game in the tournament wasn't until the following afternoon, Matthias and the boys drove out to Chico State

the day before to cheer on the basketball team of UC Davis. Then after watching the Davis team win, they drove to a nearby Bears market to pick up some snacks. Some of the store's clerks remembered their visit well, as Matthias and friends walked into the store less than two minutes before they were due to close. They appeared to be sober and high spirits and departed the grocery store in an orderly fashion shortly after 10pm. The clerk then continued closing up the store, having no idea that she'd be the last person to see the five men alive. The men's parents expected them home at around midnight, but when dawn came and went and the boys were nowhere to be seen, their terrified parents

notified the police. Police both in Butte and Yuba County began searching the route the men took to Chico, but after failing to find anything, they enlisted the help of the local park service. Forest rangers then fanned out all over the area, searching for any sign of the missing men. And then finally, on February 28th, a ranger from Plumas Forest told police that he'd spotted the group's car parked on a deep woods dirt track just off the Oroville-Quincy Road. When officers arrived at the scene, they discovered no signs of a struggle. The car was undamaged and, aside from a few candy wrappers strewn around the back seats, everything had been kept neat and tidy. Yet it was the location of the vehicle

that raised the most questions. The 1969 Mercury Montego, which was registered to Jack Mardruga, was found almost 70 miles away from the city of Chico, far from any direct route between there and Yuba City. For some reason, whoever had been driving the car had turned off the main highway down a winding dirt track, one which led all the way up to a remote, high-altitude area of forest. Jack Madruga, who was most likely to have been at the wheel, was believed to have loathed the cold weather, and according to his parents, believed to have loathed the cold weather, and according to his parents, would never have driven up into the mountains of his own volition. If that was the case, then why had they done so?

And why abandon their vehicle when their lack of warm winter clothing would ensure a deeply unpleasant experience? Upon closer analysis of the abandoned vehicle, it seemed as if though the car had been stuck in some kind of snowdrift. There was evidence of frantic wheel spinning, probably from where the driver had realized he was stuck and tried to spin the wheels to regain some traction. However, it was also noted that the snows that night wouldn't have been deep enough to completely strand the vehicle and that four orows that night wouldn't have been deep enough to completely strand the vehicle, and that four or five healthy young men would have been more than capable of freeing it. Police then raised the possibility that the vehicle had suffered some kind of mechanical fault,

yet when they hot-wired the car to test their theory, they discovered a fully functioning engine with a quarter tank of gasoline remaining. The car's keys were missing, suggesting the men had left the car in an orderly fashion with full intention to return following whatever they had planned. But the questions remained. Where exactly did they go and why? After towing the turquoise and white Mercury back to the station, law enforcement discovered something very curious regarding the vehicle's condition. The Montego's undercarriage had no dents, gouges, or even mud scrapes, not even on its low-hanging muffler, despite having driven a long distance of a

mountain road with many bumps and ruts. Either the driver had been extremely careful or they had prior knowledge of the road's hazards. Jack Madruga's family categorically ruled this out, saying the only reason he'd have turned off the highway would be due to an emergency. They also added their son would never simply have left his car unwatched and unlocked, nor would he let anyone else drive his car. Unless, of course, it was under duress. Efforts were made to track the men's movements following their abandonment of their vehicle, but meager progression was quickly hampered by a heavy snowstorm on the day of the search. Just days later, extreme weather forced law enforcement to suspend the search until the arrival of more favorable conditions,

meaning alternative avenues of investigation had to be explored. Following a public appeal for information, police received calls from several members of the public, all of whom claimed to have spotted the missing men. The vast majority of these were dismissed as either mistakes or hoaxes, but two supposed witness sightings rang eerily true to investigators. A Sacramento man named Joseph Shanz told police that on the evening the men went missing, he spent the night at his cabin, which just happened to be in the same area as the abandoned Montego was found. His intention had been to perform a kind of reconnaissance mission,

making sure the place was fit for habitation in advance of a week-long skiing trip that he had planned for his family. He drove up in the late afternoon, but by around 5.30pm, the snow was coming down so heavily that his vehicle became stuck. Joseph exerted himself heavily in his attempts to get his car moving again, yet after around a half hour of increasing frustration, he began to feel strange. He felt a shortness of breath, a tightness in his chest, along with an unusual tingling sensation up and down his left arm. To his horror, Joseph realized that he was experiencing the beginning stages of a heart attack. He climbed back into his car, started the engine to provide a little warmth, and then spent the next few hours praying that his symptoms would abate. Thankfully, Joseph survived the night, but suffering agonizing pain which kept him wide awake for the duration. He was too infirm to drive, so his only hope was to ride out the symptoms, then drive himself to a hospital once he was able.

However, around midnight, he suddenly spotted the headlights of a vehicle creeping up the track behind him. The vehicle's headlights continued to illuminate the surrounding woods as a small group of people got out of the car, and according to Joseph, they were carrying flashlights and one of them appeared to be a woman holding a baby. Joseph scrambled to roll down one of his car's rear windows then called out to the group for help, but instead of running to his aid, the group switched off their flashlights and doused their headlights. Confused and dismayed, Joseph watched as the mysterious group climbed back into their car and continued down the track, past his cabin and deeper into the woods.

Later that morning, once the worst of his pain had subsided, Joseph drove until he ran out of gas, then walked eight miles down a deserted stretch of highway until he reached a skiing lodge that showed signs of life. After knocking on their door, the lodge's occupants rushed Joseph to a nearby hospital, and the route just so happened to pass the abandoned Mercury Montego. He later said that he was almost certain that the deserted car was the same one driven by the group that had chosen to ignore him, but Ted Weier's mother said that didn't sound like her boy at all. Ted had always been partial to ignore him, but Ted Weier's mother said that didn't sound like her boy at all. Ted had always been partial to helping others, and she once recalled an incident where he rushed

a friend to the hospital after they overdosed on Valium. But while this might constitute a glowing review for her son's character, it's also tantamount to a confession. It seems it wasn't just Gary Mathias with a connection to illicit drugs, and although there is no record of any of the others actually using drugs, their proximity to the trade of them might well explain their ultimate fate. The second significant sighting of the men was reported by the employee of a small town grocery store in Brownsville. She claimed that two days after the men disappeared,

they stopped by the store in a red pickup truck. The store's owner corroborated the story, claiming the men acted skittishly before departing as quickly as they arrived. The store's owner was also able to produce a detailed list of group's purchases, which included burritos, chocolate milk, and soft drinks. Ted Weier's brother later confirmed that his brother had a habit of drinking too much chocolate milk and that he'd been skeptical of the sighting until learning of that particular detail. In his mind, there was no doubt that at least one of the men in the red pickup truck had been his brother.

But sadly, the trail ended there, and the next development in the case came with news that no one wants to hear. In early June, most of the high elevation snows around Northern California had completely melted, and the search for the missing basketball team resumed in earnest. But ironically, it was a civilian that stumbled across the first set of human remains. On June 4th, a group of motorcyclists stopped by a trailer maintained by a campsite around 20 miles from where the Montego had been found. There, they found a trailer belonging to the U.S. Forest Service that appeared to have been broken into. The bikers approached the trailer and were immediately greeted by the stench of death. Some suspected a deer had somehow smashed its way through the glass before dying of its injuries on the inside.

Yet when they located the source of the stench, they recoiled in horror. It wasn't the body of a deer. It was the body of Ted Wire. Eleven miles away from where the first body was found, park rangers stumbled across the remains of Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling. Both corpses had been partially consumed by scavenging animals, with their bones having been scattered over a wide area. Two days later, as he worked with a group of volunteer search and rescue personnel, Jack Hewitt's own father discovered part of his boy's skeleton under a manzanita bush around two miles northwest of where Ted Weier's body was found. The nearby discovery of Jack's shoes and jeans all but

confirmed that the skeleton was his. The cause of death for all the men was thought to be hypothermia, yet despite the authorities expecting to uncover Gary Mathias' body in the days that followed, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, the cops found three Forest Service blankets and a rusted flashlight by the road around a quarter mile from Ted Wire's body. It suggested that Gary Mathias had survived the freezing night, but still wasn't clear why the men had abandoned their vehicle in the first place. Yet as more and more details of the investigation were made public, it became clear that there were much more sinister questions to be asked. As we've already covered, Ted Weier's autopsy stated hypothermia was to blame for his death, but bizarrely, the county coroner also suggested that starvation had contributed to his death. By the time his body was found, Ted had lost more than half his body weight,

and his beard suggested he'd survive for a full 13 weeks before finally succumbing to hunger and cold. His feet were badly frostbitten, and there were early signs of gangrene around his toes and cold. His feet were badly frostbitten and there were early signs of gangrene around his toes and fingers. On a nearby table sat some of Ted's personal effects, including his wallet, an engraved ring, and a gold necklace. But there was also a gold watch that none of the men's families could recognize, and Ted's shoes appeared to have been taken from him, most likely before his death. Perhaps even more puzzling was the fact that Ted had never once attempted to start a fire, and this was in spite of the copious amounts of matches and kindling at his disposal.

Heavy forestry clothing, which could have kept the men warm, also remained completely untouched, as did entire boxes of sea rations, which were later found in the trailer's storage compartment. It was enough food to keep all five of them alive for an entire year, yet again, for some reason, they remained untouched. As such bizarre details are made public, Ted Weir's family made an attempt to explain them. They claimed Ted lacked, and I quote, the common sense to take care of himself. They went on to explain that he would sometimes ask why drivers had to come to a halt at stop signs, and once had to be dragged out of his burning bedroom because he was afraid he'd miss his alarm. While tragic, such a mental disability might well explain the nature of Ted's passing,

but it soon became evident that he was not alone in the trailer, and that Matthias and possibly Hewitt had been with him. Matthias' tennis shoes were in the trailer, and there was evidence that Hewitt had been the one to cover Ted in a white sheet as a way of keeping him warm. While investigators had managed to piece together the circumstances of the men's deaths, it was still a total mystery how they'd come to be at the trailer in the first place. However, an area detective posited what he believed to be the most plausible theory. Since Gary Mathias has friends in a place called Forbes Town, which just so happened to be on the route back home, the men might have become lost while trying to find it. Then, while driving down back roads they were unfamiliar with, their car became stuck and they

set out on foot to search for help. The detective noted that the group continued along the road in the direction they were originally going and claimed that such purposeful motion like that is not consistent with the circular patterns traveled by those who genuinely believe themselves lost. In all likelihood, Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling succumbed to their hypothermia about halfway through the long walk to the trailer. Then, once the three survivors found it, they broke the trailer's window and attempted to survive there for as long as possible. Sadly for two of the men, survival was a bridge too far. But the question remains, what happened to Gary Mathias and what caused the men to abandon their car in the first place? Some have suggested that the men's disabilities played a huge role in

their poor decision making and that it was an unfortunate but inevitable tragedy brought on by a lack of proper supervision. But others have suggested that there's a very good reason the men were trusted to look after themselves, and that's because they'd proven capable of doing so time and time again. Some of the men might have been intellectually challenged, but Gary Mathias and Jack Madruga had only a history of mental health and drug abuse issues. They would have been more than capable of navigating between Chico and Yuba City, and what's more, their military training would have precluded them from suggesting they venture out into the cold, on foot, with little to no winter clothing.

This leaves us with one perhaps irrefutable conclusion. Something scared the men so badly that they'd rather face death by hypothermia than whatever was potentially pursuing them. And not only that, but this mysterious threat kept them contained in the trailer for more than three whole months and potentially consumed their dead bodies following a failed escape attempt. Some kind of animal attack wouldn't be out of the question, but perhaps there's something else stalking the hills and forests of Northern California. For the longest time now, I've gone hiking whenever I've found the time. It started as a kind of stress reliever. I'd head out on my own for a walk around a local park with the aim of clearing my head or working out some point of contention within myself.

And then, as my career and relationships advanced, I found that I needed to hike larger distances for longer lengths of time, just in the same way an addict needs more and more of their drug of choice to satisfy their cravings. Things got easier as time went on, and I went from being a chair-bound worrywart to something of a healthy, active outdoorsman. But the thing that never, ever got easier was hiking through the woods after sundown or before sunrise, especially in more remote areas. Some trips, especially in the summertime, I'd deliberately set out in the early evenings so I could hike through the woods after dark. I know I said it never got easier, but it also never got boring either. There's something

very thrilling about being out there at night. Some of mankind's oldest and rawest fears are rooted in being afraid of the deep, dark woods, so being out there almost feels like trespassing, like you're somewhere you shouldn't be. And maybe it sounds pretty juvenile, but it brings me back to an almost childlike sense of awe and wonder. So what I'd usually do is hike out in the early evening, enjoy a few trails by flashlight, and then take a quick power nap in my hammock before waking up again pre-dawn and enjoying the sunrise. Usually speaking, these nocturnal walks went smoothly, and I never once had to think about removing the safety clasp from the can of my bear mace. At least, all except this one time, which put the absolute fear of God into me.

It was late spring, around 4.30 in the morning when I woke up, so just less than an hour before dawn. I had around 5 miles to cover before I got back to my car, and I was in a low button that's wedged between two steep ridges. The trail I was on was narrow, muddy, and completely hemmed in by thick underbrush, young maple, and old oak growth. I'm focused on the small light from my headlamp just one step after the other, completely zoned out. And then out of nowhere, I hear a loud crack, and I froze solid. My immediate reaction was one of fight or flight, but I'm also not a complete coward, so as much as I wanted to run the hell away from whatever made that noise, my logical brain told me it was nothing I couldn't handle. But then, right as I was getting my thoughts together, I heard the exact same sound again, and that time, since it wasn't so easily explained away, I started to legitimately panic.

It wasn't a branch breaking, it wasn't deadfall or some widow maker. What I'd heard was something intentional. It sounded like a decent sized wooden stick being violently whacked against a smallest tree, and the thing that made it sound so unnatural that it was a cracking sound, not like a more natural sounding thud or thump. It almost sounded explosive, and by that I mean like someone had thrown all their strength into smashing a stick against a tree, and they were doing so just 50 yards or so in front of me. After the second sound I knew that I had to give the area a very wide berth. There was just one problem. After about 30 yards I was going to hit a kind of u-turn on the trail, meaning that if I actually pushed forward and passed the strange noise, I'd have to turn my

back on it as I continued up the trail. That made me very nervous. Whatever was making that noise, I sure as hell didn't want to turn my back to it, especially not in the dark, but if I wanted to get back to my car, I was going to have to. So with that in mind, I stayed rooted to the spot and just kept listening. A minute or so goes by and I don't hear a thing. It's dead quiet out there and I still only got about half an hour before sunrise in relative safety. I didn't want to switch on my headlamp as it'd definitely give away my position to whoever or whatever was out there. But as time went on, I realized the better option was to crank it up, do a 360 sweep and get a definitive idea of what I was up against. If it was some psycho in a hockey mask looking for dessert after his entree of unsuspecting teenagers, then it was better I knew about it so I could beat feet in the opposite direction.

Then again, if it was Bigfoot, it'd be nice to get a good old look at the big guy before he smacks my head off like a 7 foot hairy Giancarlo Stanton. So that's what I did. I switched on my headlamp and took a look around. When you wear a headlamp in the woods every night, every tree branch in front of you casts a big black moving shadow on the trail. That's half the reason I prefer to only switch it on if I really need to. Our natural night vision is a powerful thing because a lot of our visual acuity in the dark is based on movement. You might not be able to see exactly what something is, but you can sure as hell make out when it's moving, especially when it's moving towards you. But then switch on a flashlight in a dark forest, and not only does it wreck your natural low light vision,

but all those moving shadows start to play tricks on you. You start focusing on the shadows and not what might be coming up behind them, but in a real emergency, you need to be able to see what you're doing. But then just as I finish weighing either option, I'm about to flick my headlamp on. I start smelling it. I smelled one too many dead animals in my time. When I was nine, my cat Oscar went missing for a few days. Oscar was an outdoor cat, so my parents tried to reassure me that he was on some kind of adventure and that he'd be back home before I knew it. After about a week, I started to get super worried, so my parents helped me make some little missing posters on Microsoft Word, and we started distributing them throughout the neighborhood. A couple more days go by, and we hadn't seen nor heard from my beloved Oscar, so I asked my mom if we could go looking for him in the woods behind our house. It wasn't like a big forest or anything, just a small patch of trees with a stream running

through it and I guess my mom figured that I'd stop hounding her about it if she just took me for a walk out back. I think both she and my dad had a pretty good idea that Oscar wasn't coming home, but what my mom clearly didn't consider was that I was going to find his body. That was the first time I smelled death and the second time was an unfortunate incident involving a possum, the wheel of my truck, and a 90 mile journey on hot pavement. The point is, I know what death smells like, so I can tell you without a doubt that whatever I smelled out there in the woods that morning. It wasn't quite death, but boy, was it close. It had all the pungency of rotten meat, that same kind of hot stench that attacks your

nostrils whether you're breathing through them or not. But there wasn't the same sort of oldness to the smell, if that makes sense. Like it wasn't rot or decay I was smelling, but something different. I think the closest way I can describe it is if you took wet dog smell, multiplied it by like a thousand, then threw in a little fresh durian fruit, then filtered it all through a wet diaper. It was foul beyond imagination. But at the same time, it wasn't dead or rotten. It was very much alive.

It took one more thwack of the wood on wood to send me hurtling in the opposite direction. I knew it'd double or even triple my journey back to my car, but there was no way that I was about to keep walking along that trail and up the ridge, and there was also no way that I was about to flick my headlamp on and light myself up like a Christmas tree. I had just enough vision to keep going at full speed for a while. Then once I ran out of steam, I kept running at intervals whenever I was able. I'd never experienced fear of that magnitude before. Like an animal fear. Something older than us that's hardwired into our sort of programming. I hike, I'm not a runner, I hate running, but that morning

I ran longer and harder than I ever have in my entire life and I guess it was all in hopes of saving it. Now I want to end this by saying that after having told this story a few times before, a lot of people were saying that the whole wood clacking thing is a classic Bigfoot related phenomena. I was totally unaware of that particular detail until I made the mistake of posting a much shorter version of this elsewhere. And let me make it clear, I don't believe in Bigfoot, nor do I think that I ran into any other kind of supernatural phenomenon. Frankly, I don't know what the hell I ran into that morning, but I know in my gut that whatever it was, it was really, really scary. Mom! Mom! Did you see my race? To be continued... When, 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 try very hard on a daily basis to be a good person and just treat people with respect. In my line of work, I find that it gets harder and harder to do this. Ordinarily, I wouldn't share this story, but it honestly made me so angry that I felt the need to share it. I work for a grocery store chain that is fairly popular in my region. We stand out among other chains because we sell fresh seafood and meat and we actually have the meat cutters to cut fresh meat daily, which I found to be sort of a lost art. When I was 20, I became an apprentice and I learned how to

cut meat and I've been doing that ever since. It's been a pretty decent living for me and I don't have very many complaints. However, anybody who has ever worked in retail or customer service can tell you how horrible some people can be. The only downfall of my job is the never-ending cycle of rude or entitled people. Over the last ten years, I have had my fair share of horrible customers. I have dealt with every type of Karen you can imagine, but none of these customers were as bad as the woman that I dealt with last month. It was a Friday afternoon, and this elegant middle-aged woman came into the store. Instead of buying the meat in the case, she requested that I cut her steaks especially for

her. Which for the record, I don't mind doing at all, but the special steaks that she wanted, I had out in my case already. The exact thickness and everything, but according to her, the ones in the back are better, which isn't true by the way. So even though she was wrong, I took care of her request and never lost my smile. I cut her five prime bone-in ribeye steaks, which is extremely good meat. She looked at it, made some comments, eventually said thank you and walked off. After she left, I didn't give it a second thought because that type of customer is not uncommon and she really didn't do anything wrong other than she was a little demanding, but nothing too bad about that. Well, on Monday afternoon, this woman returned.

She walked up to the meat counter, furious, and shouted, excuse me, even though I was already waiting on another customer. I ignored her for a few seconds, not only because I was with another customer, but because I refused to give her any attention talking like that. Fortunately for her, I was just finishing up with that other customer. I wasn't even done telling the other customer to have a good day, and again, in an angry and passive-aggressive voice, she said, um, hello? How long are you going to make me stand here? I walked over, and somehow staying patient, I calmly said to the woman, I'm so sorry, ma'am. I was just finishing up with another customer. How can I help you today? Apparently, other customers aren't important because she

started to point at me and said, I don't care about your other customers. Clearly, I'm upset, and I should take priority over anyone else. I didn't say anything and just put my head down slightly. After her, I'm the most important person ever rant, she proceeded to throw a ziplock bag of bones on top of the meat counter. And I just looked at the bag and said, Okay, I see you got some bones. Is there something I can help you with? In one of the most vulgar and racist rants I've ever heard, the woman claimed that I gave her horrible and tough meat and that she wanted a full refund. Still keeping my cool, I explained to the woman our refund policy and explained why I couldn't refund $150 worth of steak that she ate because she claimed they weren't

good. This made no sense to her, I guess. She just kept repeating, do you know who I am? And my answer was always the same, and that simple no with a smile, which I think irritated her even more. After more disrespect, I finally insinuated that maybe she cooked the steak wrong, and that was a mistake on my part. She had to yell and lecture at me that she had been cooking longer than I'd been alive,

and the fact that I could even assume such a thing is outrageous, and that she deserved something for the mistreatment she'd been receiving. Well, this back and forth continued for several minutes, until finally the store manager and security showed up to escort the woman out of the store. While she was being escorted out, she kept yelling, you're going to be sorry, you have no idea who you're messing with. Finally, she was out of the store and the only reason why she left was that the security guard threatened to call the police if she didn't leave and apparently that was enough to get her to go. We all laughed about this for a while and joked for the rest of the shift. That night, I went home and met up with all my boys and hung out. I shared the story and we

all kind of laughed and shared other stories of other crazy customers. The next day came and some of the employees were still talking about the encounter. I was over it and just wanted to do my job. After all, I'm sure I would have had another customer like this in no time. I worked my shift and it was ultimately a pretty slow day. When I left work, I had a note on my windshield that said, you're going to be sorry. Now I know the initial reaction of some people would be shocked, but I just laughed. I was sure that it was one of my friends or a co-worker just messing with me. After a day or two of nobody confessing to leaving the note, we looked at the cameras,

and to my horror, it was that insane woman from a few days ago. I was in shock. The worst part was, after she placed the note, she stood by my car for several minutes before she walked out of sight of the camera. We went back to Monday on the camera where she came in and made a scene. After she got kicked out, she waited in the parking lot until I left. After I got into my car, she can be seen driving just a few seconds behind my car, and we notified the authorities and reported the information that we had, but that's pretty much where

the story ends. I still don't know who this woman is, if I'm still in danger or if I was ever really in danger to begin with. All I know is some people are crazy. And honestly people, just be kind. We're all doing the best we can. Well, most of us anyway. Okay, so this story is a little wild, and I was advised by a friend of mine who is currently in law school to keep the names out of the story just for the sake of privacy. About a year ago, my husband got a really good job at a company that was about five hours from where we were living.

The company paid for us to move and we were ready to start a new life. We moved to one of those white picket fence suburbs. Everyone had beautiful landscaping, pools, big yards, you name it. My husband was also the type of person you could see living in this area. Such a clean cut, handsome man he is. Always had a suit on because of his job. And then there was me. I mean, I didn't think this was still a thing in 2023,

but apparently I don't have the right look for this type of suburb to some people. Now please don't misunderstand me. Most people in my neighborhood are extremely friendly. There are just a few close-minded people that look at me with those judgmental eyes. You know the kind. So for starters, I have purple hair and the sides of my head are shaved. Now right away, being a woman with this type of hairstyle gets me some looks, both positive and negative. In addition to my hair that I sometimes put up in a mohawk, I'm covered from the neck down with tattoos. It took a little while, but once my neighbors got to know me, they all fell in love with me and now I consider most of them

friends. Unfortunately, the rest of my neighborhood hasn't quite come around yet. After a few months in our new home, I decided that staying home every day just wasn't for me. My husband's co-worker lived a few blocks away and they were looking for a babysitter during the day while he and his wife were at work. Since I worked at a daycare in our old town, I jumped at the chance and was excited to get to be around children again. I started watching the kids at their house, and right away the neighbor of this family did not like me. It was an older woman, probably in her late 60s, early 70s.

Whenever I would be outside with the kids playing, I would look over and see the older woman staring out the window at me. She wouldn't even try to be discreet and just continued to stare. One Friday afternoon when I was leaving, the woman approached me. As I was getting into my car, she came up behind me and told me that she didn't appreciate me corrupting the children that lived in that house. I wasn't offended, honestly. Ever since I was 18 years old, I have always gotten crap for how I looked, so I just smiled and said, well good thing it isn't your problem. I got into my car and I could see her still talking towards me, but I couldn't hear the

muffled voice with my windows up and like I said, I didn't care at all. I just smiled, turned on my holonotes playlist and drove away singing. I looked in the mirror as I drove off and she was still going nuts on the side of the road. That night I told my husband about the encounter and we both laughed. He told me I was a stronger person than him because he would have probably lost it on her and I believed that. Now Monday came and I was watching the kids like always. We went outside at around 11 and were playing in the backyard. About 30 minutes later, one of the kids asked if he could have some lemonade. I told him of course and I went inside to get the drinks for him and his sister.

I was inside for maybe one minute, two minutes at the absolute most and when I came outside the kids were gone. Before panic completely took over, I shouted their names a few times. I was hoping that they were hiding in a tree or something, but after one of the most unsettling minutes of my life, finally, the panic completely took over. I began to run around erratically shouting their names. I ran to the front of the house and I could feel the stress and adrenaline coursing through me. While I surveyed my surroundings, I to the front of the house and I could feel the stress and adrenaline coursing through me. While I surveyed my surroundings, I heard the sound of a woman clearing her throat.

I turned around and noticed the older woman standing on her front steps. She told me that she took the children and that they were safe inside her house. She began to tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't be watching the children and why I wasn't suitable to care for them. Instead of smashing this woman's face, which trust me, I wanted to do, I called the police. I tried calling the parents, but neither of them could pick up their phones during work. Thankfully, the police in this town aren't idiots and once I explained everything to them they returned the poor kids back into my care. When the kids were walking back into their own home, the woman started to berate me again and verbally beat me down. The police were able to notify the parents and they rushed home right

away. I know they wanted to press charges and I honestly think they did. I don't know much about it so please don't quote me on this, but I think she can be charged with breaking and entering and potentially endangering the welfare of a child. Ever since that day, the parents bring the kids over to my house now and the kids seemed unfazed by the situation, which is the most important thing. It just blows my mind that some people can be so ignorant and rude even today. I hope that lady got into a lot of trouble. I'll never forget the fear that I felt losing the children at that moment and the anger that I felt with the woman as she was yelling at me. I'm not super cultured when it comes to the internet,

but I think some people would call this entitled hag a Karen, and I have to say, I think I agree. I'm not sure how scary this story will be, but it was definitely one of the most traumatic experiences of my entire life. I was never one to call people Karens. It seems stupid and honestly sometimes just plain mean. One day though, I learned the true definition of what a Karen is, and ever since that day, I'll always stand up for the victim in Karen's situations. A few days ago, I was taking my girlfriend at the time to a beautiful romantic picnic that I planned. At the time, we had been together for about six months. Just for the record, my girlfriend in this story is now my wife, and we're expecting our first child in the fall. We made the scenic drive and

listened to music the entire way. I was already madly in love with this chick and I planned on telling her for the first time in this picnic. When we parked, I rushed out of the car to open the door for my girlfriend. One, it was a chivalrous thing to do, but it was also an inside joke with me and my girlfriend. We would fight to get the door for each other, and honestly, we still do that to this day. So I opened the door for her, and she got out of the car smiling and thanked me for being a gentleman. She was being sarcastic, and we both laughed like the dumb little lovebirds that we were. As I shut the door, I saw a woman, probably in her late 30s, approaching the car. She was waving her hand

and pointing at me. I didn't think she was gesturing to me, so I sort of just ignored her. When I took a few steps away from the car, she basically got in front of me and started to yell at me. She pulled out her cell phone and started to record me. It was like that gotcha style of recording. She was in my face with her phone, saying, You're no gentleman. You're a pig. All men are the same. I just smiled and walked past her. My girlfriend was laughing too, and we just ignored this crazy woman. Well, ignoring her proved to be an Olympic feat.

She was following us, never putting down her phone, and ceasing her horrible comments towards me and my awful existence, I guess. And finally I turned around, and admittedly my voice had some anger in it and I said, Please leave us alone. I've done nothing to you. You're harassing us. I swear that what happened next still leaves me slightly speechless. She literally started to scream and threw herself on the ground. She began to cry and said that I struck her, which wasn't even remotely true. Instead of turning around and walking away, I shouted, Oh come on lady, get up! I didn't even touch you!

Due to her constant screaming, it didn't take long for some onlookers to approach the situation. Another woman was frantic and demanded to know what happened. Before I could even get the words out, the woman started to cry and claimed that I knocked her down because she was exposing me for what I am. Of course, I just laughed and that's when I realized everyone around us thought that I was the bad guy. Everyone was helping this woman and they even called the police. I welcomed that because I was ready to turn this woman in for basically ruining my day at this point. While we waited for the cops, a few older couples approached me and told me that I should be ashamed

of myself and other things like that. I couldn't even believe what was happening. When the cops showed up, I approached them, and before I could even plead my case, the cop told me to shut up and that they were looking for the woman who called the police. She told the cops that I assaulted the woman laying on the ground and that I laughed about the situation. Well, the cops handcuffed me and wouldn't even let me explain my story. Not everyone in this story is a complete moron though. As the cops were ignoring me and walking me to the squad car, another bystander ran over. A young woman, probably in her early 20s, told the police that the woman faked the entire thing and that she had a video. And I couldn't believe what I'd heard and saw. This young woman did have a video literally recorded the entire interaction.

And as soon as the woman started yelling at me she thought that maybe it could get ugly so she started to record it. The video showed the woman throwing herself on the ground with no help from me. I mean the angle couldn't have been more perfect. There were at least three feet between me and the woman and the video also showed that all these people that were helping this Karen weren't witnesses and couldn't speak about what happened. I mean it was several minutes until another onlooker approached the situation and the cops eventually uncuffed me and instead of arresting the Karen, they basically just left, not wanting anything to do with the situation. Good cops in my hometown, I know. And I tried pressing charges, but honestly,

nothing happened. I didn't even know what this woman's name is, and that's why I continue to call her Karen. And even more disturbingly, though, is that I don't know what her endgame was. Like, what was she getting out of that situation? I've told this story a handful of times, and a lot of people are shocked at my mistreatment. They can't believe the cops basically ignored me and just arrested me without any knowledge of the situation. I understand the job is hard and stressful and dealing with this petty garbage is a waste of time, but I was innocent and who knows what would have happened to me if that woman didn't come forward with that video proving so. The story I'm about to share took place about four to five years ago at this point. My husband and I were in our first house together after we got married.

We slowly started doing some necessary upgrades to the house, trying to knock off some smaller projects before the large ones. However, one of the main upgrades we needed immediately was a new fence. The house had a chain link fence, but with our two huge dogs, we knew that we needed a tall wooden fence as soon as possible. Our dogs are very protective, and I wouldn't trust them being outside with neighbors or other animals with just a chain fence. We got a few quotes from local companies and eventually found one that would do a fancier cedar fence cheaper than other companies that were doing a standard picket fence. We were excited to get started so we didn't have to continuously check our backyard

every time we wanted to let the dogs out. The new fence, in our opinion, was going to be extremely nice looking and even came with fancy metal toppers on the large posts. As everyone does, we had to present copies of the land survey and get it approved by the town, but before we knew it, the workers were here tearing the chain link fence down in preparation for building. I remember it being extremely rainy when they came to remove the old fence and was really impressed by them working through such poor weather conditions. The first day the company began tearing down the fence, we got a knock at the door, which I figured was just one of the workers. However, it was someone

I didn't recognize. It was a middle-aged woman who was continuously banging on the door. Thrilled that my dogs were going ballistic, I opened the door and said, can I help you? But before I could even finish, she interrupted. Why are you tearing the fence down? Excuse me, I said. In a very passive aggressive tone, she responded by saying, I'm your neighbor to the left and I want to know why you're tearing down the fence. I responded, well we decided to upgrade our fence and install a wooden one. We got two large dogs and we can't really have a small chain-link fence that you could get over if you see the people in their backyards.

She then went on to say that it wasn't just our choice and that a wooden fence would be an eyesore and a bunch of other stuff that I honestly don't remember. I quickly thanked her for her concern and closed the door. I remember looking out the window and seeing her lurk around the yard, staring at the workers and just looking overall miserable. We didn't hear anything else for what I think was a few days until our doorbell started ringing in the middle of the night. It happened once on a random Tuesday or Wednesday night and neither of us got up out of bed and chalked it up to an accident. But on the second night that it happened, we sprung out of bed and then down to the door.

After trying to see if anyone was on the front porch, we decided to open the door and look outside. We couldn't see anyone in the near vicinity and had no idea who was doing this to us. The next day we decided to go out and buy some cameras for the property. We purchased three cameras in total, a doorbell camera, one near the garage and driveway and one for the backyard. We decided to install them right away and thought that it might be helpful for the rest of the fence installation in case they needed to contact us, they could use the ring doorbell. The construction on the new fence was scheduled to happen in three or four days.

My husband and I were at work and we got a notification from the ring doorbell system saying someone was at the front door. I was busy in a meeting, but my husband called me shortly after. He told me that there was some lady at the door saying that she was going to protest our fence with the town and that we should be ashamed of ourselves that we are coming into the neighborhood and tearing down fences. I told him to just try and ignore it. Do not engage. And as soon as the new fence was up, we wouldn't have to see any of our neighbors, whether we were inside or outside. Fast forward two nights and my husband and I are fast asleep in bed when one of our dogs woke us up trying to get into the bed. Now, Lily never got onto the bed,

so we realized that this was a little out of character. And when she got onto the bed, she just stood there. She didn't lie down, she just stood on the bed panting. We decided to get up and try to let her outside. We had put her on her leash to take her to the backyard because the old fence was down and the new fence wasn't built quite yet. I offered to take her out and as she was walking around, I heard my husband sort of yell whisper, Babe, get inside now. We hustled inside and I asked what was going on. He said that we had gotten an activity hit on another one of our cameras and when he looked at the footage, he saw that a woman had been surveying our property and that she was now standing against

the garage, literally pressed directly against it. At first, I thought he was joking, but after looking at his face, I could tell that he was dead serious. We went and looked at the live footage and the person was now on their hands and knees, looking like they were trying to pry their way under the garage door to open it. I couldn't tell if it was a knife or a screwdriver or some other tool but they were clearly using something to try and get under the door. I immediately called the police and reported an attempted break in. The police arrived in about 15 minutes and luckily found the person still lurking around our property. And to no one's surprise, it was our neighbor.

She had apparently lost it and told the police that she was trying to get in to tear the permit off our window. My husband and I did press charges, but moved to a new community within about the next three to four months. We loved our new house, and it's everything we ever wanted. Our neighbors are really nice as well, and we get along great. I still think about the people who purchased our house and hope that psycho Karen has moved to somewhere out in the country where she can't harass anyone ever again. I love sports, specifically college football. I played one season of college football as a running back and once I realized how much work goes into playing this sport at the next level, let's just say my college sports career didn't really last that

long. But it didn't change my perspective of the game. I still love football. And about a year ago, I moved across the country with my fiancée. The entire time we lived on the east coast, I begged her to go to any sporting event with me and she always seemed to decline. She just doesn't really care about sports and I get it. Once we moved though, I had nobody to go to any sporting event with me and she always seemed to decline. She just doesn't really care about sports and I get it. Once we moved though, I had nobody to go with me. My favorite college team was playing at the hometown school and I begged my girl to come with me and probably because she felt bad for me, she finally agreed to come. Let's just say this is probably the last sporting event she'll ever attend with me.

I showed up wearing the hat of my team in the opposing team's stadium. I'm not one to blend into my surroundings, I guess. If I like a team, I'll represent my team no matter where I'm at. And as you might expect, I get a lot of looks and a lot of boos from the rabid hometown crowd. I usually just smile and sort of laugh it off. It's mostly harmless and people just have that competitive nature. We made our way to our seats and it actually looked like my fiance was having a good time. At some point during the first half of the game, I heard a voice from behind me say, um, excuse me, you need to leave. I didn't turn around

because I figured that there was no way that comment was directed at me. Then I got an aggressive poke on the back. Are you deaf? Y'all need to leave. I turned around and saw a woman standing in her seat and she looked angry. She looked like I just stole the family pet or something. I just looked at her and made some stupid remark to myself. I could tell my girl was getting upset and I put my arm around her and just tried to tune out this woman. Well, that turned out to be nearly impossible. Almost the entire half she continued running her mouth and I mean non-stop. She wasn't even watching the game because she was preoccupied with yelling at me.

Right before halftime, my team made this real big Hail Mary pass and actually scored a touchdown. I stood up and clapped and the woman screamed, Are you kidding me? Sit down or I'll make you sit down. And I couldn't take it anymore. As the time expired for the first half, I turned around and firmly said, Please shut up and why don't you leave us alone? I'm just trying to watch the game, I'm not trying to listen to your mouth and your harassment for a whole other half of football. She looked at me with daggers in her eyes, and I figured I silenced her, so I turned back around and sat in my seat. Without noticing, she hit me on the head and knocked my hat off.

I jumped out of my seat with a mixture of anger and confusion. I looked back at the woman, and she was running up the stairs and into the concession area. My fiancé wanted me to get the event staffed, but I assured her the second half would be better. Well, I couldn't be more wrong. Just as kickoff was about to happen, I heard that horrible, shrill voice again. Right there! It's that guy right there! I turned around, and two events staff and a police officer were standing in the walkway with this woman. The officer says, Okay, sir, let's go, and he was gesturing his hand to the walkway. I can only imagine the look on my face at that moment. I asked the officer what the issue was, and he just

said he didn't want to make a scene and that it would be best if I just got up quietly. I refused to leave, and I asked why I was being asked to leave my seat since I did nothing wrong, and the officer then said, listen, if you don't leave, we're going to have to force you up. It's not going to be enjoyable for anybody. Furiously, I just get out of my seat. And as I'm walking up the stairs, I hear the woman audibly laughing, saying that it serves you right. Just to add a little positivity to the story, as I was walking up the stairs, everyone in the section, and I mean everyone, started to yell at the officer. Basically, they were defending me and

telling the staff that I didn't say a word and that the woman had been harassing me the entire game. After a few minutes of this back and forth, the police officer finally decided to escort me, my fiancé, and the woman out of the game. They promised it wasn't a ban or anything like that, but to keep the peace they asked me to leave and even promised to refund my ticket. I was furious, but agreed. And the woman was not pleased. She started demanding justice and started calling the cops racist. She said the cop was only throwing her out because she was a white woman, I guess. And the cop ignored her rant all the way to the door, which was amazing by the way because it was making her even more angry. And just as we

reached the parking lot, I started walking to my car, still angry beyond words. I heard the woman scream and she even charged at me. Now I'm a bigger guy so she didn't knock me over but she did jump on my back and even tried to choke me out. We were still only 20 feet away from the cop who witnessed all of this and he swiftly jumped in to intervene and arrested this insane woman. I realized that this could have ended way worse if the cop wasn't standing there. But thankfully they were true to their word and they refunded my ticket and gave me a pass to sit in a press box, which was amazing. I've told this story to some friends that I have since made and they tell me that I survived an encounter with a Karen.

But what do you think? Was she a Karen? Or was she just some insane football fan that potentially had too much to drink. A long time ago, I got into some minor trouble when I was young and due to a court order, I had to volunteer with some kids. I was dreading this but ended up loving what I did and after my court order, I continued volunteering and coaching these kids. Not long after volunteering, I decided to turn my life around. I went back to school and started to study film, radio, communication, and everything else in that field. I worked a little while for a news station, which kind of sucked. I did some time with ESPN and then started working on some independent films, which led to being part of the production team for a couple of seasons of some MTV reality show.

I made enough money from doing all of this that I decided to try and open my own business in my hometown. I basically was running a production company for teenagers. I would rent out cameras, microphones, lights, you name it. I would teach them how to use it and then help them with whatever they wanted to shoot. Some wanted to make movies with their friends, some wanted to make music videos, some just wanted to learn how production works. I noticed more and more kids wanted to learn production, so I decided that I would teach how to do interviews in the street, and then we would edit the footage together later.

Little did I know, I was about to get some insane footage. We went to a strip mall near the studio. We set up the camera on the sidewalk and started to record some b-roll footage and minor interviews. I did alert the shop that we were closest to that I was going to be there shooting footage outside of the sidewalk just as a common courtesy, which they were fine with, but even if they weren't, shooting footage on the sidewalk is completely legal and they wouldn't have been able to kick me off. Everything was going great until we met this horrible woman whom I'll call Karen in this story. She flipped out and I couldn't record her and I assured her that I wasn't recording her without her permission. I then tried to explain what I was doing and she told me to shut up and that

I needed to leave right away. I kind of laughed it off and told her to have a nice day and she kicked over my tripod. Thankfully I was able to react and catch it before my $8,000 camera hit the ground. I remained calm and didn't engage with the woman in front of the kids. I started to actually use this as a teaching moment. I explained to the kids that sometimes you will get people that are angry and upset and it's best to just ignore them and stand your ground. I don't think people like this woman like to be ignored though. She started to swear in front of the kids and she told me that she was calling the cops because I didn't have a permit. I asked her if she could explain to me what permit I needed to shoot footage on a public sidewalk and she said that I needed some sort of news permit,

otherwise shooting any type of footage outside is technically illegal. Then she told me that she was a lawyer and that I needed to listen to her because she was telling the truth. I continued ignoring her and I told the kids to continue recording and working on the footage. She threw her hands up and she started dialing 911. So after she got off the phone, she came over and sort of laughing and stood right in front of my lens. I asked her a few times to please move and she said, I'll move when the cops show up and arrest you. I could tell my kids were nervous and didn't know what to expect. I admit I was a little nervous too because I didn't know if the cop was going to know the rules about cameras and public sidewalks.

The cop showed up and walked up to the woman and said, Ma'am, you need to leave right now. She started yelling at the cop that I needed a permit to film here, and the cop literally laughed in her face and said, Ma'am, it's public property. If anything, you're disturbing the peace. But I think my favorite moment of the entire story was when the woman yelled at the cop saying, I'm a lawyer, to which the cop replied in a sort of stoic voice, no you're not. All the kids started to cheer as the cop walked away and then, no surprise, the woman started to cry. I mean, little kid temper tantrum crying. She ran off

screaming and we continued the rest of the day with no issues. A few hours later we were walking to the van and all four of my tires were slashed and the side of the van was keyed. I tried reporting it but of course where I was parked was a blind spot on the security camera. I knew that it was that woman though. She somehow found out what I was driving and destroyed my car, but unfortunately I had no proof of it. I was able to strike a deal with one of the businesses in the strip mall to do a commercial for them if I could look at their security camera which was directly across from where I parked. I looked at the footage,

and just like I guessed, there she was. She circled the van about four times on foot. She looked apprehensive, like she didn't know if this was the right vehicle or not, which she didn't. It makes me think that she just assumed it was mine and slashed the tires anyway. The worst part was, she got into a car that was parked only a few cars away from the van in the lot, and she stayed there for a while while I called the police and dealt with the towing company and the kids parents. When I finally got a ride is when she finally left the lot. On camera she followed my ride but that's the last I saw of her though. She must not have followed me though.. I did report it, of course, but thankfully that's where the story ends.

I'm not sure if she ever got caught or what. And I do miss that job. I'm back to working in this industry full-time, but one day I plan on retiring and picking up this type of work again, and next time I'll make sure that I teach a lesson on how to deal with Karens before we actually hit the field. This is a crazy story that happened to me a little less than a year ago involving a Karen. I have an Aunt Karen, so I apologize to any actual Karens out there, but if any woman deserves to be called Karen, it's the woman I'm sharing with you today. I was doing some shopping at Target for my boyfriend's birthday.

I admit, I was just using the birthday as an excuse to go to target i spent a bunch of time there going through clothes stuff for the house and just overall doing target things being that it was a saturday afternoon it was slightly busy and unfortunately some customers are rude i worked for target when i was 18 and i know how horrible it can be sometimes so I always try to be nice to the employees because honestly the job sucks. After my shopping was complete I took my basket to the checkout lane and waited to be cashed out. I noticed the cashier was a young girl that couldn't have been older than 16 years old and she seemed new and she looked lost i washed her cash out two people and

they both had small orders and she struggled with those simple orders i could see the confusion written on the poor girl's face after those two customers the woman in front of me in the line greeted the young lady with a your time may not be precious but some of us actually prefer not to wait in line all day. I couldn't believe what she just said. The cashier looked at the woman and before the transaction even started, the girl looked upset and almost on the verge of tears. I will say I realize that being that upset may be a little bit much, but when you're nervous, anxious, and overwhelmed and confused, it's easy for the emotions to kind of take over. The girl started to scan the woman's items very slowly and the woman started huffing and puffing.

It was starting to get uncomfortable to watch, to be honest, and the woman then said, Could you move faster? My god, it's not that hard to scan some items. Anybody can do it. Well, almost anybody. Clearly not you. The girl's face was all red and I could see her eyes welling up even more. To make matters worse, while the woman was sighing, the girl accidentally scanned an item twice and she didn't know how to avoid the item off the transaction. Without giving her a second to figure it out, the woman exploded. She says, Are you kidding me? Where does Target find these idiots?

Is there a manager anywhere around? I need to speak to one right away. I finally spoke up and said, Listen lady, relax. Clearly she's new and doing the best she can. And she told me to shut up, point blank, and I just shook my head in disbelief. The woman kept looking around for a manager, and thankfully, nobody was walking over. And while she was waiting for a manager to come over, the young woman successfully voided the item, which the older woman would have realized if she wasn't making a scene. The young lady then tried to tell her the total to which the woman just threw a coupon at her. She was barking at the girl to

just scan it, but then the young girl made my day by saying that the coupon was expired and that she wasn't allowed to take it. And that was the final straw. The woman lost her mind, screaming. I then told her again to relax and the girl was just doing her job and she wasn't going to get fired for some coupon. Well, the woman didn't like me interjecting and she picked up a pack of gum off the shelf and actually threw it at me. At this point, security finally came over and was beginning to escort her out of the Target. Everyone was cheering and I made sure the young girl was okay and she claimed that she was, even though I could see how visibly shaken up she had been. I eventually cashed out and walked to my car. I sat in my car for a few minutes and texted my

boyfriend about the situation I just witnessed and also caught up on the text messages I received while I was shopping. About 10 minutes into my drive home, I noticed that a red car had been following me for quite a while, and they were following rather close on top of that. I was on the highway, so I couldn't get a good look at the driver, but when I switched lanes, they switched lanes. When I sped up, they sped up. I thought maybe I was just being paranoid, but this just felt weird. When I got off the highway, I was at a red light about a mile away from my house and I finally got a good look at the driver behind me. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was that wretched woman from Target. I didn't know what to

do and I felt like this woman was following me home. I decided to be safe rather than sorry and I called the police. I told them what happened and that I thought the woman was following me home. I decided to be safe rather than sorry and I called the police. I told them what happened and that I thought the woman was following me. They told me to park outside a house on my street but not my actual home just in case. They told me that they would be sending a patrol car right now and that they should be arriving around the same time. I was anxious and I didn't know what to expect. I got to my street and parked about 50 yards away from my house and you guessed it, the Karen parked right behind me. I locked my doors and didn't leave my car. She got right out and started to storm toward my vehicle.

She was running her mouth and yelling at me and I was just hoping that the police would show up any second. As soon as she was right outside my door, she actively tried opening the door, even though they were locked. I started to record everything just in case, and in the video, the woman was saying, put the phone down, open the door, come on, let's just talk. And seconds later, I could see the lights from the cop car, and the cops rushed over. She started to scream right away and claim that she was the victim and that I was cutting her off on the road. It turns out she lives about 15 miles in the complete opposite direction, so her logic of cutting her off the entire way home made no sense. And thankfully they hauled her off, but she didn't seem to get charged and for some reason

I didn't press charges either. I'm a little anxious now when I go out in front because I half expect to see that Karen is out there waiting on my street for me. Even though I was parked a few houses down, she could easily remember my car. I never saw her again and to my knowledge she never returned to my street. I don't know if I will ever be comfortable walking on my street alone because I'm sure the first time I go out front, that will be the day that she decides to pay me another visit. To be continued... flooded with dozens of videos of outrageously horrible, self-entitled women. But you know, a Karen doesn't always have to be a woman. A lot of the time, if not most of the time, men can be horrible and they definitely deserve to be called Karens as well. And what would you call a male Karen? Darren maybe? Either way, this story happened just a

few months ago with what I like to call a Darren, and I think you'll agree. He fits the Karen prototype, and I think you'll also see that this story is very unsettling. My husband had to go to work, so I decided to take our son to the zoo. My son's only six years old, and he loves the zoo. He also loves animals. Now let me just say that I can't speak for all zoos, but at least the zoos in this area really do care for their animals. I know a lot of people think it's animal cruelty or whatever, but it's really not. I used to date a zookeeper and he and his co-workers all studied animal science in college and provided the utmost care for the animals. I'm sure, just like anything else, there are horrible people in that industry, but all zoos I've encountered have been wonderful.

Anyway, we arrived at the zoo at around 11 in the morning. Outside of the zoo was a group of protesters though, and they were protesting against the zoo and speaking about how the zookeepers were horrible and about animal cruelty and all that. I basically walked right by the group and one of the men stopped me and told me that I didn't know what I was doing and that I should be ashamed of myself that I would bring a child to the zoo. I yelled at the guy and told him to leave me alone. I walked past them and informed the zoo staff of the protesters and what the man said to me but unfortunately there wasn't anything that could be done since they were technically protesting on public grounds. We spent several hours at the zoo. We took pictures, had some laughs, and we saw a ton of animals.

It was a great day, and I honestly forgot all about the protesters until it was time to leave the zoo, and that's when the story takes a rough turn. We went to the gift shop, and I bought my son a snow leopard hat since that was his favorite animal. When we were walking to the car, that man confronted us again and he actually started to harass my son because of his hat and continued to claim that I was a horrible mother. I was biting my tongue trying not to say anything in front of my son, but I'm not going to lie, it was hard. Then the man did

something I still can't believe. He followed us to the car and when we reached the car, he threw himself onto the car, basically making it impossible to leave. It was his form of protest I guess. No matter what I said, he wasn't moving and he just kept reminding me how horrible I am and that I should be ashamed. I told him I was going to call the police and that changed his tune quickly. He started acting like some victim in the situation and continued to tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about. I pulled out my phone and he finally backed away. I never really called the police but I did hold the phone up to my ears as if I were calling them.

I got into the car and I saw the man run away. I figured this horrible situation was finally over, but apparently the nightmare was just beginning. That night I told my husband all about the encounter and of course he wished that he was there so he could have punched the guy, but I was just happy that it was all over. That night, at around one in the morning, our doorbell rang. We both jumped out of bed, and I started to feel this weird panic, thinking that it must have been an emergency. When my husband looked out the window, he said that there was a man at the door, a man he didn't recognize. I looked out the window, and I almost threw up. It was very clearly that protester from the zoo. I instinctively screamed go away and I hear this man reply in a muffled voice that I just want to talk about the animals.

Let me in for a while. I'm sure I can change your mind, he says. And this was all my husband needed to hear. He kicked open the door and confronted the man. The man ran like some track star in the opposite direction. He must not have known that I was married because I saw the look of genuine fear in his eyes. My husband didn't chase him, and we figured that it would just be best to call the police. We reported the situation, and the cops said that they would be vigilant, but I don't think they ever caught this dude. After speaking with the cops, they figured that the protester guy must have seen my car and followed me home that day from the zoo. The more I thought about it though,

the more I remembered the afternoon when he finally got off of my car and ran. He ran out of sight, so it's not impossible to believe that he got into his car and followed me, at least that's what the police said. We never had another strange encounter thankfully. My husband slept in the living room for the next six months. Waiting every night for another ring at the doorbell but it never came again. This Darren or Karen went from trying to lecture me on how terrible of a mother I am. To showing up at my doorstep in the middle of the night.

I don't know what he wanted that evening, but what I do know is that I'm happy. I never have to add that I'm a 26-year-old female, but at the time of the events, I was 17 years old. Back when I was in high school, this all took place in 2014, I met a girl there who I'll call Carly. Carly was pretty. She had long red hair and friendly dark brown eyes, sort of like Bella Thorne. She always wore bright, happy, colorful clothing and lots of happy, earthy jewelry. She just looked like such a happy and bright person. She had a loud and lots of happy, earthy jewelry. She just looked like such a happy and bright person. She had a loud and outgoing happy personality as well,

and Carly and I became fast friends. Everything was great in the beginning. She took me exploring a bunch of abandoned houses in our town, we took a bunch of selfies and pictures together, and she even let me stay the night at her house. Carly kissed me one day in her car and that led to us actually making out quite frequently after that. One day she began taking videos of us making out on her Snapchat account and she told me that she was going to send the videos to her ex-boyfriend Michael. I thought that was kind of weird and random but I didn't say anything. The next day at school, one of my friends Allison came up to me and was very upset. She told me that Carly had sent videos of us making out to her boyfriend Carson.

She asked me why we would do such a thing and I was very confused and told her that Carly told me that she was sending those videos to her ex who lived in another state. Allison warned me and told me that Carly wasn't my friend. She said she wasn't anyone's friend. I didn't listen and just continued hanging out with Carly. I started dating one of Carly's guy friends who I'll call Garrett, and she didn't like this. One day I walked to Garrett's house and called Carly to say hi while doing so. She told me to be careful, but that she had to go. Garrett and I started walking around his

neighborhood talking and then the next thing I know, Carly shows up out of nowhere with my ex in the backseat of her car, screaming at the top of her lungs that I don't know what I want and that I need to go get in her car so she could take me home. Garrett tried telling her to leave but she went ballistic and started screaming. So we got into her car. She dropped off Garrett and took me home and was acting all nice to me once I got into her car. She was telling me how much she loved me and how much I meant to her. I ended up staying the night with her that night. I remember becoming emotional in her room because I didn't like seeing my ex who had recently broken up with me before Garrett and I started dating. She climbed

up on top of me and started to try to kiss me and everything went black. I remember waking up the next morning and she took me home. Later that day I had been admitted to the hospital because I was feeling unwell, reasons completely unrelated, so I was in the hospital for a few days. During this particular day my boyfriend Garrett, my mom and Car the hospital for a few days. During this particular day, my boyfriend Garrett, my mom, and Carly had come to visit me. We were all visiting when Garrett kissed me. I didn't know this at the time, but my mom later told me that when Garrett kissed me, Carly had a dark and evil look in her eyes as she stared at me. My mom said the look gave her goosebumps and chills that ran up her spine.

She said Carly looked completely evil, like she wished I had just died. Shortly after, I was released from the hospital. Then, a few days later, when I was back at school, Carly completely shunned me. She wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't talk to me. She completely acted as if though I didn't exist. I had no idea what I had done wrong from the time she visited me in the hospital to now. At school she gave me a very cold and dark death glare. If looks could have killed, I would have dropped dead.

I avoided her after that and had no clue what I had done. She just acted like she hated my guts. Garrett and I eventually broke up and I got back with my ex, the one that was in Carly's car that day. And now, after I was first released from the hospital, I noticed this sticky stuff all over the screen of the outside of my bedroom window. I had no idea what it was or where it came from. I was waiting for my boyfriend to get off of work one night. I had gone up there to visit him and he randomly handed me his phone so I got bored and decided to go through it. I saw that he had been texting Carly. As I was going through their text I saw that she had been sending him very illicit photos of herself and during that

time I was in the hospital and Carly would come visit me and act like she was my best friend. She was going behind my back and sleeping with my ex, and that sticky stuff on my window. There was a text of my boyfriend from Carly that said, let's egg her house again. That was fun. I immediately started crying and my boyfriend of course was trying to justify all of this, claiming that he had only hung out with Carly because he missed me and that he was upset that I was dating Garrett. Carly never spoke to me again and when I tried to confront her as to why she would egg my house and get with my ex while pretending to be my best friend, she tried to pin it all on my boyfriend, claiming that he was after her and that she had rejected him.

That summer, Carly told all my close friends that I had taken my own life. She started telling everyone that she had loved me so much and that I had screwed her over. But I'm telling you, that look in Carly's eyes, it was like looking into pure evil. It was horrifying. It was like seeing who she really was and to this day it still freaks me out. Years later I had spoken to a girl who Carly and I had gone to school with who was named Maddie and Maddie and Carly had become the best of friends after Carly

dropped me. Maddie told me, you're nothing like she described you and she made you out to be this really horrible person but you're nothing like that. Turns out the reason Maddie and Carly stopped being best friends is because Maddie told me that Carly got her to do cocaine with her one night at a hotel and then they actually ended up doing it. She told me Carly then left the hotel and went to find Maddie's crush, it was a guy she had been in love with for a while. Carly ended up getting intimate with him that night, dumped off Maddie and began dating this guy. Maddie's words were, she's not at all who she presents herself to be, and she truly wasn't. Carly wore the happiest and brightest of clothing.

On the outside looking in, she appeared like the most loving person and she knew how to make you feel so special like you were the only one who mattered. But there was a real evil inside of Carly. Something terrifyingly wrong. Something extremely dark and deranged that you could only see once you got close enough to her before she hurt you. I've never seen Carly since and I really hope I never have to again. So to the girl who pulled me in and made me believe that we were best friends, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. I am in university right now, but staying with my parents at their house for the summer. I was hanging out with one of my friends and we decided to go to a party.

I met this guy around my age. We were talking and having fun, but it was nothing too serious. Or so I thought. We exchanged phone numbers. We hung out a couple of times, but he became incredibly clingy right from the start so I decided to kind of distance myself in the hope that he would just get the hint and back off. You see, he didn't. When I stopped responding, he sent me over 100 messages, with each message becoming increasingly more aggressive as time went on. Keep in mind it had been less than two weeks since we had first met. I finally responded and told him that he needed to chill out.

He appeared to calm down a bit after I responded, but he then asked for a phone call. I agreed and we talked for a while. He told me that he couldn't stop thinking about me, that I was the best thing that ever happened to him, etc. Just a bunch of stuff that is way too intense to say to someone you barely know, you know? I tried to let him down gently, reminding him that I was only home for the summer and wasn't looking for anything serious beyond a little fling. But this only made him angrier. He started yelling at me, insulting me, calling me all sorts of terrible names, and basically a complete 180 from what we had just been saying mere minutes ago.

Then all of a sudden, the phone went silent. After a pause, he said in a quiet voice, You better get ready, because I'm coming for you. And then he hung up the phone. This was terribly frightening because he knew my parents were out of town for the week and that I was staying at their house alone. However, he didn't know where my parents' house was because I was always the one driving and he didn't know my friends either, so I thought that he had no way of figuring it out. Since, again, I'm normally living at school in another state, and regardless, I locked all the doors and shut the blinds just in case. After a while, maybe an hour or so, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I looked at my phone and saw a notification on my lock screen. It was from the Ring app, indicating that there had been movement on my parents' camera.

It was him. If you watch the video you can clearly see something in his hand. When he notices the camera however, he decides to leave. I immediately blocked him on everything and reported the incident. I had no idea what he had planned to do once he got here and it was terrifying to realize that he had come over when I was asleep and defenseless and completely unaware of his presence. As I would later find out, he was able to get my address from my phone number. Apparently he googled it and it returned my dad's name as the owner of the phone number along with my parents' address. Since I am on my parents' phone plan I guess it shows up that I still live there.

This revelation was absolutely horrifying, as I never knew my phone number could just reveal my home address like that. I am still incredibly upset that this kind of private information is on the internet for anyone to find, as it's incredibly dangerous that websites would just give this away to anyone. Please learn from my mistakes, and do not give anyone your phone number unless you trust them. I found out that you can get a free Google voice number to text and call people and that number can't be traced back to you so easily. My advice is to use a disposable number for anyone you're talking to that you meet informally or online. I still can't sleep at night, and hopefully this never happens to anyone else. I was 22 and living on my own for the first time when this happened, back in the mid-90s. I had just gotten off of work at 11pm.

To reach my apartment building, I could either walk on the sidewalk, lit with street lamps and decently trafficked, or cut across the communal garden, which is pitch black and set back from the street. I saved about one whole minute of walking time by cutting through the communal garden, but being young and stupid, a lot of times I took the shortcut. That night, I got the weird feeling to not take that shortcut. I kept to the sidewalk, but there's no one else around. When I got past the garden, all of a sudden, this large man pops up from its exit path. There was no way that he could have been in front of me or just behind me as I was walking. I would have noticed him. The only logical explanation was that he had been hiding in

the pitch black garden. A drunk who had been sleeping it off, maybe. No, my body was screaming at me to get the hell out of there. I began walking faster. My dad had taught me to always carry my keys in my fist with a key pointed out in case I needed to punch someone so I had that but I'm 5'4 and probably weigh 110 pounds. This guy was tall and big and my only chance was to outpace him. I'm speed walking at this point and I feel him matching my pace getting closer. He's breathing heavily. I feel this angry energy coming off of him but my apartment apartment building is right there, so I put on a burst of speed. When I reached the entrance, two people were leaving and hold the door for me,

and it's him. I don't know why I didn't tell them I thought this guy was following me. My mind froze and I was just trying to get inside my apartment, plus I was still trying to rationalize all of it. Maybe he was visiting someone in the building. Maybe it was all just a coincidence. Don't be paranoid, I told myself. Besides, it took only a couple of seconds for them to be out of the door, and I had missed my chance. I'm climbing the stairs as fast as I can. This is a three-story building and I live on the third floor.

He's climbing the stairs too, still right behind me. I get to my floor, which has four apartments on the right side where I live and four on the left. I pass my apartments one and two and he's still right behind me. I stop at the apartment three where I live and he stops in front of apartment four where I know he doesn't live. He hasn't said anything, just breathing hard and I think there's no way that I'm going to open my apartment door and have him push me inside and possibly do terrible things to me. He also hasn't knocked on the door of apartment 4. Worth noting is that the apartments are U-shaped with mine and my neighbor's door being very close together. So I bang my apartment door as loud as I can but yell my neighbor's name, screaming,

Kevin, Kevin, let me in. And this startles the guy. Even more so when my apartment door doesn't open but Kevin's does. Kevin sees the guy standing right in front of his door and asks what he wants. The guy starts mumbling something about the wrong apartment but I have my own door open so fast that I'm inside my place in a flash, locking the door behind me. I grab my cordless phone to call the police but I hear Kevin through the door telling this guy that he needs to leave and the guy does. Kevin knocks on

my door, asks if I'm okay. I thank him, say that I am but inside I'm still frozen, adrenaline pumping, terrified. I thank him again and tell him to have a good night, and I lock my door again. I have my phone in hand, ready to call the police, but I start trying to rationalize it again. What exactly happened? A guy followed me home, but then said that he had the wrong apartment. Are the cops going to care about something minor like that? I try to calm myself down but I'm also berating myself. Why didn't I run the instant I felt him following me? Why didn't I tell the people we passed when the front door opened that I thought I was being chased? Worse, why didn't I tell Kevin that the second he opened his door and saved me,

he could have let me inside his apartment and we could have called the cops together? Because of my stupidity, everything felt so ambiguous and I was still questioning myself. A couple of weeks later, I'm visiting my grandparents and my grandfather is reading the paper. He tells me that a woman was assaulted in the apartment building across the street from mine. And it was the same guy. He had multiple convictions for assault and had recently been released on parole. A couple of weeks ago, someone had dropped groceries at my door with two coffees. The groceries were very odd. It had lubricant, lollipops, not your normal grocery shopping list. I thought it was delivered to the wrong apartment and as there was no receipt on confirmation in the bag, I left it in the lobby but no one claimed it. A week later, a letter was slipped under my door

with $200 in it. The letter was by a man talking about his recent hardship and how he'd like to talk to me and hear my voice. Again, I was a little naive, so I took the note to my building manager thinking it was for someone else. He thought it was strange, so called the number on the letter, and it turns out it was a man in the building next door saying that he wants to be my friend. The buildings are really close together, and you can see into the apartments if the blinds are open. My building manager told him to leave me alone and to stay out of the building. I thought it was over but today I heard someone pacing in the hallway outside my apartment for a couple of minutes.

I went to leave an hour later and there was a coin in front of my door, dead center, like it had been placed there. The only way that it could have gotten there would be if it was placed or if my neighbor dropped it as my neighbor should be the only other person that walks past my door but based on where I found it, it makes me feel like it was deliberately placed there. I wouldn't think twice about the coin but with what's been happening, it's making me really anxious. Update. Two days after the coin incident, I left my apartment and a man in his 60s or 70s approached me straight away telling me that he's selling his car and if I want to take a look at it. So I have a number plate and I think I'm going to report that to the police. I came home around midnight to the house that I share with four roommates.

When walking on the sidewalk, I noticed a man across the street facing the other side seemingly doing nothing. I passed by and entered my house, locked in the door and went to the kitchen, passing one of my roommates on the living room couch. The hallway from the front door opens into the living room and then to the kitchen. When I left the kitchen, I saw a dark outline through the door window and stopped to focus my eyes. My couch roommate looked at me confused as I had just stopped in my tracks. The outer door was open and the man from across the street was looking in and then started turning the knob. As I heard the knob start rattling, I said something like, there's a guy at the door. My roommate got up from the couch alarmed and we together got

closer to the door. I could see the man's face clearer now pressed up against the door window. His face seemed to be blank. He only had long oily hair and pock marks on his cheeks. His expression made me feel incredibly uncomfortable as it seemed that he was looking through us with no recognition of us actually being there. My roommate called down to my basement roommate to make sure that his door leading to the backyard was locked. I got closer to the man as he kept trying the handle to go upstairs and alarm my other roommate. When we came back down, the man wasn't at the door so we peered out the window to see him standing in our walkway looking across the street again. Reflecting on this, I'm just happy that I remembered to lock the door because we'd often stupidly forget and spend the night with the door unlocked.

I could imagine if the door was unlocked and he had stepped into our house, I wonder how that would have went. I think about how he probably would have walked through the hallway and my roommate on the couch would have just seen this stranger walk into our living room and scare the life out of him. Most likely this guy was just drugged out of his mind by his expression, but who knows what his true intentions had been. The End I usually didn't get off until around 11 or so at night. I had a car but was close enough to walk so I did that most days to save gas. This particular night I was doing my usual thing, jamming to one of my playlists, tired but happy to have a good job and just generally happy with the way my life was going at that time.

Now up ahead, about a block from my place, I see an attractive guy in dark clothing walking but not with a purpose really. up ahead, about a block from my place, I see an attractive guy in dark clothing walking but not with a purpose really. He was taller than me, maybe 5'10 to 6' or so and had shaggy brown hair. The closer I got to him, the more I could tell that he was really good looking. Like even in the dark of night, I was starting to actually get excited. His features kind of escape me now, but I do remember his hair and his thick eyebrows. I took an earbud out and because I'm from a dangerous city and never really cared about stranger danger, I decided to talk to him, maybe even flirt a little bit.

Hey, how's your late night going? It's good. Just looking to get drunk. Oh, well that I can help with. I got a mini bar at my place. I just live down the street. That was not verbatim how the conversation went. During the walk back to my place, I got no red flags from this guy. He seemed totally normal and I was honestly thinking, wow, just through sheer luck I meet this super hunky guy and he seems cool and fun. I was beside myself, really. So we get to my apartment on the second floor. I jump into host mode and offer him to have a seat and make himself comfortable.

The apartment is about 640 square feet, so it's very small. Except for the bathroom, you can see the rest of the apartment from my area. I head into the kitchen and while I'm pouring drinks, I glance back over at him. It was then that I noticed the first red flag. As I was asking him questions, he's more delayed with his answers, especially more so than he was on our walk there. It was just very odd to me. I go back over to the couch, pass him his drink and sit down next to him. So, what do you do for work? Oh, I'm not here to hook up. He puts his drink down on the table. What do you mean? I'm not after that either. And he stands up. What you got? He asks me. His nice guy vernacular and friendly

face are now gone. I'm having a hard time processing what he even means by this. I said, what do you got? The second I stand up, he pushes me back. I fly across the room, hitting the floor, but not hard enough to pass out or anything. I just get right back up, but he's already grabbed my laptop and my work bag. As I start towards him he cuts around me and makes his way towards the front door. I'm right behind him when he makes it outside. I manage to grab hold of him and we tussle again in front of the door. Now I shout out, calling on help from the neighbors. It's late at night

so no one comes and I'm just shouting please help I I'm being robbed. The thing is, he has my laptop. It's not just any laptop. I hate to admit it but my entire life was on that laptop at the time. Important photos that I didn't have backed up, thousands of dollars in musical programs, video game programming stuff for a development team that I helped, really expensive software. It was, in my mind, irreplaceable. I give chase down the stairs, across the dog walk park, and as I start to gain on him, we tussle again and the only thing I can focus on is that laptop. I knew that I had to, at any cost, get my laptop back. And that was absolutely all I cared about. Somehow I get a grip on my laptop. I tug at it again and I guess he decides I'm not worth all I cared about. Somehow I get a grip on my laptop.

I tug at it again and I guess he decides I'm not worth all of this struggle. He gets up and starts to take off again. I now realize that he still has my work bag. It has my cell phone and wallet with my license, debit card, triple A card, etc. in it. I take off towards him again and this time he shouts back at me, follow me and I'll stab you again. This makes me stop in my tracks and he gets away. Underneath a street lamp, along the sidewalk, I immediately inspect myself. Was I stabbed? No way, there's no way. And then I see blood running down my leg. I see blood on my arm. Two places

where he cut me good. I'm scared but the blood makes it look worse than it is. And I decide that's enough. I got my laptop and that's all I really wanted anyway. I hobble back home and get inside and lock my door. I call the cops using my friend's phone the next day and filed a police report explaining the situation, showing the stab wounds and declining medical services. I can't afford that and I was fine, all things considered. So all the guy got was a crappy cell phone and a wallet with like $30-$40 in it. The cop called my friend back several days later and said that they weren't able to find the guy and that he would probably keep me posted. This was years ago so I don't know where that robber is now but I have every electronic thing of importance backed up on multiple drives to this day. So I was in grade 9 at a really terrible school.

The system there sucked and it was located in a dangerous area of the city I lived in. I actually just remember the story because it was so usual for things like this to happen there that, for me, it was just normal so I forgot it. But looking back at it now I realize that it was very abnormal. So I was in PE class and we were running laps around the school on the sidewalk to stretch. I was with my friend group of five girls and we were walking behind as always because PE for us was talking about the school drama all period. So we were walking and talking about the recent drama when a red truck slowed down beside us. It wasn't unusual. Every time we were walking outside of the school, a creepy man would

slow down so we didn't think anything of it and just kept walking and tried to ignore him. We saw his truck two or three more times. He was driving around the school and slowing down every time he passed by us so we decided to tell our teacher that made us go back inside and in the gym. We started playing whatever game we were doing when the teacher came to me and told me that I was asked to the main office because someone was here to pick me up. I was panicking because no one was supposed to pick me up during class that day and I thought that maybe something bad had happened to either my mom or dad or someone in my family. So I got changed into normal clothes, grabbed my backpack and rushed to the office.

When I got there, the lady told me that there was a man waiting for me outside of the main doors. I got a little confused because usually when my parents came to pick me up, they'd wait in the hall until I got there. I took a look through the glass door and saw an old man. I had never seen this man once in my life. I quickly walked back to the office and told the lady that I didn't know him and what she told me next left me frozen. She told me he said that he was a friend of my parent and that they had asked him to pick me up because my mother got into a car accident. He told the lady my name and my last name, my age, my mom's name and the grade that I was in. I was shocked and immediately asked her if I could call my parents to confirm.

So I called my dad and he told me my mom was just fine and he was at work. The lady just told me to go back to class and I never saw that man again. I never knew what happened after I left and how did he know all of that info about me? My parents talked to the hostel in Poland and could not get the door to open even though we had the code. These two men who claimed that they were also staying there offered to help us but we couldn't get in until someone else came out of the building. Now at first these guys were nice and helped us carry our luggage up the stairs to the hostel. Surprisingly there was no one at the check-in desk even though the owner specifically asked that we check in at this time. Because we already knew

which room we were supposed to be in, the two guys helped show us to our room and we all made pleasant introductions. They were 32 and 33, so about 10 years older than us if I remember correctly, and we informed them of our ages. They left us to get settled. However, at this point, we realized that without the ability to check in, we didn't have keys to enter the building or even lock our door. Now here's where things got weird. We were already feeling a bit uneasy about the situation as it was clear that the hostel was just a converted apartment,

but I guess that's what you get for about 10 euros a night. Then we heard a brief knock on the door. Without waiting for a reply, these two dudes came back into our room to talk, I think. The younger of the two started talking to us about going out that night and asked more questions about us. At this point, my friend and I exchanged looks. He mentioned that he thought that I was the one in charge because my friend looked young and then he proceeds to stroke his hand down her cheek. But wait, it gets better. He then revealed to us that he had just done some cocaine and proceeded to offer us some which we both adamantly declined. At this point I just wanted him out of the room

so we could have a chance to think but this man didn't want to leave. I finally backed him towards the door but he wouldn't move his body so I could close it all the way and he kept talking to us even though I was trying to gently shove him out. Eventually I managed to get the door closed and use my body to hold it shut. By this point my friend had tried to call the owner multiple times to no avail so we decided to book another hostel and just leave. We waited until we heard the guys leave and then quickly left for our new hostel. We're currently in the process of getting a refund since we booked and paid the fee online. A few years back, when I was around 18, I entered a very rebellious phase in my life. I'd always been a prodigious child, always doing as

I was told, never staying out late, not smoking, not drinking, and scoring the highest in all my classes. My family, my friends, and my friends' families all thought that I was the perfect kid. But then something changed. I was on a lot of medication due to my health and I started going through bouts of depression. I began acting up like never before, stopping going to school, staying in bed all day, not talking to anyone, and slowly I started talking to strangers online. Initially it was just online conversations. I would chat with a few people until I found someone interesting. I'd dedicate all of my time to talking with them until they no longer held my interest and then I'd just move on to the next person. This went on for about a year. Eventually I began meeting these people in person. Most of these encounters turned pretty intimate

and I was very reckless. I engaged with more people than I'd like to admit. Despite my lack of concern for my own safety, I somehow never met anyone with evil intentions. We'd meet a couple of times, engage in these intimate activities, and that would be it. However, everything changed when I met one particular guy. I was talking to a couple of guys at that time, not in any sort of relationship, just being very carefree. This guy started talking to me and asked me about my hobbies, interests, and what I did. I told him I didn't smoke or drink, which shocked him. I explained that I had tried them before, but they just weren't my thing. We chatted for a couple of weeks. I eventually opened up about my depression, and at first, he simply listened. Gradually,

he started suggesting that I try smoking to relieve my anxiety and stress. I consistently turned down his suggestions, but he remained persistent. After about a month of online conversations, we decided to meet up. We had never discussed anything intimate, so we planned to meet as friends. I was also supposed to meet another guy, an acquaintance for something I needed, so I proposed to the online chat guy that we briefly meet for lunch and then he could just drop me off at the other guy's place. He agreed and we settled on the details of where and when to meet. On the day we were supposed to meet, we met at a local cafe, had brunch, and then I got into his car for him to drop me off at my next destination. It was about a 45 minute drive so I

put on some music and decided to relax. About 5 minutes into the drive he offered me a cigarette. I declined initially but he insisted persistently until I eventually gave in and agreed. When I opened the box there was only one cigarette left. I mentioned that it was his last one and asked if he was sure if he wanted me to smoke it since he probably enjoyed it more than I would. He confirmed so I took the cigarette out. There was something odd about it. It didn't look like a store-bought cigarette. It seemed like it had been hand-rolled. However, I wasn't experienced enough with cigarettes to be certain so I lit it and tried to smoke it. I couldn't even smoke half of it as it made me incredibly nauseous. I gave up halfway through

and offered it to him. Instead of smoking it himself, he extinguished it and threw it away. I thought it was strange but just assumed that he didn't want to smoke while driving. About 30 minutes into the drive, I started feeling extremely sick. My whole body shook and I was overcome with nausea. I could barely keep my eyes open. I repeatedly told him that I wasn't feeling well and suggested that we go to the nearest emergency room instead of our original destination, but he told me to relax and lay back. The entire ride fell off. I asked him to stop the car and let me out wherever we were, and he refused. My only

thought was to reach for my phone and call the police. When he noticed what I was doing, he immediately stopped the car, and I got out. I couldn't stand, so I sat on the roadside and called the guy I was supposed to visit. He promptly came to pick me up and took me to his place, and I ended up vomiting multiple times in his living room. For the next hour and a half I laid on the couch, shaking uncontrollably and constantly vomiting. The guy gave me water, electrolytes and urged me to go to the hospital but I declined. I had no idea what I had smoked but I was sure that it wasn't just a plain old cigarette. I was scared that it might have been an illegal drug and if the hospital found out I could get into trouble. I absolutely did not want my parents to discover what I had been up to, so I remained there, enduring the sickness and allowing whatever

that substance was to leave my system. Years later, I'm now married to that guy who rescued me from the roadside and helped me through an incredibly embarrassing and terrifying time. So this happened a while back when I was probably around 10 to 11 years old, meaning my brother Alex was around 8 to 9 years old. We were walking home from the bus, which takes about 7 minutes, when I noticed something was off. I didn't see anything at first, but I just knew that something was wrong. My brother and I started walking home as the only two who got off at our stop were him and me. A blue and silver beat up truck drove past us and I thought nothing of it. It never slowed down or stopped, it just kept going.

Alex and I were holding hands as my grandmother always told me to do that with him because he's my baby brother and I just want nothing to happen to him. And nothing happened at first, but then the same truck drove by again, coming our way this time. There was a cul-de-sac at the end of the road. It was driving slower this time and went up the road and turned out of sight. Alex and I were nearing the three-way intersection that connected the cul-de-sac road to the other side road right off the main road the man had just driven down. I happened to look down the street and saw the truck driving very slowly down the street towards us again. I knew we had to run. I knew that there was no other option. I knew that

if we didn't, my brother and I would not be safe. I don't know how I knew, but I did. As soon as we passed a house that blocked us from view, I turned to Alex and spoke to him with exactly four words. No questions. Just run. And we did. In our driveway, which is about a hundred feet long, there is a row of bushes and pine trees that divide our home from the next door neighbors.

I dragged him in there and told him to be quiet, then I'd explain later. I watched as the same truck drove down and around the cul-de-sac again before coming to a stop right in front of our house. I had to hold my brother's mouth shut because he was crying and I was scared that whoever was following us would hear him and hurt us. I was more worried for him than I was for myself at that point. I was in fight or flight mode. I was the big sister and I had to protect him. I looked at him and said the truck was following us and told him not to be scared. I said I wouldn't let anyone hurt him and it seemed to calm him down a little. After what felt like hours but was probably only minutes,

the door to the truck opened and out came a man. He was tall, skinny, and unkempt, short hair covered by a torn baseball cap, ripped jean shorts, and puke green tank top. He entered our yard and looked around a bit. Alex and I were still in the bushes and I was trying to find a way to get to our house safely without attracting this guy's attention. The man left after what felt like forever and got into his car. He started it and drove away slowly. I waited a few minutes to make sure that he was gone before turning to my brother and saying, we need to run. When I count to three, we're going to run behind that house to the back door, okay? He agreed, and we waited a few more seconds before I started counting.

I still didn't have a good feeling about this, but I knew we had to move. I started counting, and as soon as I reached three, we sprinted across our driveway and into our front yard to go around the house. As soon as we left our hiding spot, I heard it. The sound of an engine accelerating. He had seen us. He had been waiting for us to leave. He chased us up our driveway as we ran around the side. I grabbed Alex's hand and practically dragged him around the house, making him run ahead to the garage door to see if it was locked while I searched for my house key about 20 feet away from me. The garage door was open. I swear to God I saw this man round the opposite corner of the house that we did as I entered the house.

We entered, and I slammed the door shut, locking it and deadbolting it. I didn't stop running until I opened the house door and I ran downstairs with Alex, screaming our safe word. My grandmother had given us a safe word that was a normal everyday word that we could use if we were in danger and we just screamed it basically. It woke my aunt, who worked the night shift and was sleeping. We told her everything and she stayed up with us until my grandmother got home. We called the police and that was my first ever interaction with an officer and the man was never caught.

To this day I don't know what he wanted, but I'm sure it wasn't good. I'm just glad my grandma drilled stranger danger into my head. I don't know where my brother and I would be right now if she hadn't. To provide context for the story, I was having a sleepover at my best friend's house in the summer of 2019, as we always did. We were both 15 years old at the time. She lives in a small village where everyone knows each other. There were no weird people there and it was a super safe place and everyone was kind and friendly. It was around 10pm and the outside was really dark. We were feeling hungry and wanted to bake cookies but they didn't have all the necessary ingredients. Therefore, we decided to walk to the nearest convenience store which is about a 5 minute walk away in the darkness since there's

no street lights. As we walked towards the store, we chatted and laughed about literally anything. On one side of the road, there was a huge church that had been built in the end of the 1800s. Although abandoned, they couldn't demolish it due to its historical significance. There was also a large parking lot right in front of the church, illuminated by small orange lights. On the other side of the road was the store we needed to go to. As we passed by the sidewalk in front of the church, we heard a weird classical music playing faintly, like a whisper. Our attention turned to the parking lot and that's when we saw him. I still get goosebumps just thinking about it.

There were no cars on the road. No one was outside. It was dark and cold. We saw a man, very tall and very disheveled. His clothes were torn and he appeared as if though he hadn't showered in months. He was dancing in the church parking lot, performing ballet moves to a classical song at 10pm on a random summer night. Upon seeing him, we immediately switched sidewalks to keep our distance. Our hearts were racing as we entered the store, got what we needed and approached the cashier. And overwhelmed with panic, we told her about the man dancing in the parking lot. She seemed confused and went to the window to look, but there was no one there. Our fear escalated as we stepped back outside.

Neither of us had cell phones, so calling her dad to pick us up wasn't an option. We took a deep breath and decided to take the path through the neighborhood behind the convenience store instead of the main road in front, hoping to minimize our chances of encountering the man again. We walked along the dimly lit streets, our bags in one hand, constantly glancing around. When we finally reached the main street we were almost terrified out of our wits. The man was there, dancing on the sidewalk right in front of my friend's house. Panic surged through us. I started to cry softly as we turned back into the neighborhood. My friend suggested that we go to the house of some schoolmates who live nearby, so we did just that. And at first he didn't believe us and was hesitant

to escort us to my friend's house. He was nearly 11 and he looked tired, however I think he changed his mind after seeing our tears. He put on his shoes and we began making our way to the main street. As we walked, we recounted the events to him but when we reached the sidewalk, there was no sign of the man. He was nowhere to be seen. He walked us to my friend's front door and we expressed our gratitude before entering the house and locking the door. We shared everything with her parents but they just chuckled and brushed it off, saying that we were being overly dramatic. They insisted that the village was one of the safest places and that we must have been mistaken or something. Now, at the age of 19, neither of us still have any idea what transpired that night.

Nonetheless, we've stopped going out after dark. Occasionally, we discuss it and neither of us can provide an explanation for who he was or what he was doing there. I'm a 23-year-old female and I have a cousin who's a 27-year-old male who was adopted into the family when he was 12. My uncle and aunt already had four kids all in their 20s and 30s, so I'm not sure why both of them in their early 60s wanted to adopt a 12-year-old. I never had a problem with his cousin growing up as him and I are the youngest grandkids, so we bonded a lot. I didn't see him often with living three hours away from my grandparents, then my aunt and uncle living another hour away. Over the years, I started noticing pretty odd behavior like messing with dead birds and just sudden mood changes when talking to him.

And then one day, years later, my dad got a call from my grandmother and she was freaking out. Apparently my cousin got arrested and with being in a small town it was all over the paper. My cousin was arrested for peeping into the underage girl's restroom, planting cameras in the locker rooms, and assaulting a minor. I was only 13 at the time, so I had no understanding of what this meant. The cameras were from my uncle and aunt because they were hoarders. He was charged as an adult and served only a little time. After all of this, I never referred to him as my cousin since. And the following year after, I was in my room alone at my grandparents and he came in and cornered me trying to hug me before I left and I repeatedly told him no

and that he was not supposed to be alone with me since I was younger. I screamed when he wouldn't stop and luckily my dad found us. Once I was older, my dad told me something deeply disturbing. Before he was put into the foster system as a child, he was repeatedly violated by his own mother. My uncle revealed to my father that they put him into therapy. One day the therapist asked him, If you were to meet your mom again, what would you do? And he would respond, I would violate her like she did to me, but I would kill her first. Needless to say, I don't 21 year old female, went on a vacation with my family.

We stayed in a hotel-slash-resort right next to the beach, and every night my family and I went for a drink or an evening stroll on the promenade. The promenade itself was always filled with a lot of people, especially couples, enjoying a beautiful evening walk. On the third day, I couldn't sleep. My brother was still awake, but we had a fight earlier, so I didn't ask him to come on my walk. Now before you think I was being stupid, it was midnight, I think, and still the promenade was filled with people. So I put on some loose pants and a shirt, nothing fancy, and went for a walk.

Normally I'm quite aware of my surroundings, especially at night, but since there were still so many people around, I put my headphones in and listened to some relaxing music. The walk started off great. I was watching the beautiful nightlife on the promenade and the other resorts. After 30 minutes, I sat on a bench to tie my shoelaces. In the corner of my eye, I noticed a man also stopping and sitting on two benches away from me. I didn't find it suspicious yet. I started to walk again and noticed the man also getting up and walking about 20 meters behind me. I slowed down my pace and put my earphones in my pocket. I was getting suspicious but wanted to know for sure.

And again, I stopped and pretended to search for something on my phone and he stopped as well. The problem with the promenade is that it was one long line so I had to pass the creepy man to get back to my hotel. Since I was still surrounded by people I felt somewhat safe. In my head I had the most genius plan to go down the beach and hide behind one of the beach chairs. The beach was pitch black and in my mind this was the best solution. I started to speed up and the creepy man didn't match my pace yet. Then a big group of people passed by and I made a run for the beach and hid. 30 seconds later I saw him looking from the promenade in my direction. He was very clearly searching for me. I hoped he'd given up, but he started making his way towards the beach chairs. At that moment, I didn't think and started running on the beach. Once I was far

enough, I went back to the promenade and sprinted, completely soaked in sweat. I stopped in front of my hotel and looked back. I had lost that creepy man, and I rushed back to my room. That was the only and last time I went walking out there alone at night. I know I should have asked for help from people around me so just because you're surrounded by people, don't think you're safe. I was 17 when this happened. I had an early morning shift in a restaurant and I used a bus to get there. And when I got to my bus stop, someone was already there. And that was strange because it was so early in the morning. I started to walk to my workplace just to notice that the man started to

follow me. Seeing the man following me got me scared so I decided to run. There was so much off with that man. The whole time he looked at the ground but also started to run when he saw me running. I quickly ran to the back doors and saw him coming the same direction. When I closed the doors he was just a couple of meters away from me and I saw that he had tried to open that locked door after me. When I was panicking inside the restaurant my co-workers came to me and said that someone's trying all the windows to get in. We called the cops and later they told us that the man was carrying a tiny saw with him. Sometimes I think, what would he have done if he would have been a little quicker than I was? I want to start this off by stating that this is my first ever reddit post, but I've always

loved listening to the stories of this subreddit on youtube and I wanted to share my own. For some background info, I'm female and was 17 at the time of this story. I used to work at a pizza place in my hometown. The job sucked in many ways, but the worst part about it was that my manager had no problem leaving girls alone to close. Granted, the town I grew up in was small and boring, and many people left their doors unlocked, but I still thought it was risky. On this particular night, I was closing the shop alone at around 10. The last thing that I had to do on my way to my car was take the garbage out and the dumpster as well as my car was located on the side of the building. While I was making my way to the

dumpster, I immediately noticed a man making his way towards me from across the shop's parking lot. He's wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt, and he had some sports cap on. Right off the bat, my heart dropped and I got incredibly nervous. I threw the trash away and began speedwalking to my car when this guy says something. He got a cigarette? My paranoia told me the question was sketchy as hell and I struggled to respond for a comment. I just said no and got into my car, hastily trying to get in. And I kid you not, as soon as I closed my door, he booked it to my car and tried to open it. Obviously it was locked by that point. I instantly started bawling and turned my car on. The man clubbed my window with his fist a few

times, without a word, before booking it again to the nearby streets. I called my mom and then the police once I got home. They opened up a small investigation but could never find the guy. There was no other cases of something like this happening somewhere else in town and so I think he probably relocated somewhere else to avoid being caught. I really have no clue what that man wanted to do. Now I know this might have been kind of lame or anticlimactic but it was pretty damn scary to do. Now I know this might have been kind of lame or anticlimactic, but it was pretty damn scary to me. To be continued... 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even

more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data. Located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends. And I'll see you again soon.