The Lets Read Podcast - 258: I FOUND MASKS IN THE WOODS | 27 True Scary Stories | EP 246

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about hiking in fall season, terrible hide n' seek experiences & and how one redditor discovered they were on somebody's hit list. 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

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Almost a year to the day of me writing this, I experienced one of the worst and most traumatic experiences of my entire life. Please bear with me as I try to tell this story the best I can. I'm not the greatest writer, unfortunately. I think this may be the first time I've written anything since I was in high school. My best friend and I decided to go on a hike. The weather was not ideal. It was raining and cold,

and personally, I love the rain. Mix that with the beautiful autumn trees and I'm all in. It was also a Tuesday afternoon, and we figured everyone would be working on a Tuesday. We found a trail that would interest us, and we made the 40 minute drive. When we arrived, we instantly got excited. There wasn't one car parked there, and we knew that it was going to be slow due to the weather and the weekday but we didn't expect it to be this empty the idea of having the entire forested area to ourselves was an awesome one and we were pumped a few minutes into our hike a friend noticed something weird i didn't notice anything but he was looking through the trees like he saw a person or something i asked what it was and he pointed roughly 20 feet away and said right there tell me that doesn't look like a person or something. I asked what it was and he pointed roughly 20 feet away and said, right there, tell me that doesn't look like a person. It's like a face staring right at us.

After a few seconds, I saw what he was talking about. It was weird and it did look like a person. We kept walking on the trail because whatever the weird face was that we saw, it wasn't moving. I told him it was most likely some type of optical illusion. You know, nature's weird like that. As we got closer to the face, it became clear what it was. It was a mask that had been nailed to the tree. It wasn't directly on the path either. If you hadn't noticed it back when he did, you would have never seen it. It blended in with the tree perfectly and it was surrounded by branches and the few remaining leaves on the

tree. We went over and examined it just because it was so strange. It was one of those cheap plastic masks that you can buy anywhere. We took a picture of it just because it was cool, then my friend decided to take the mask down. I told him not to, just in case it was from some kind of Halloween event the park was doing or something, but he didn't care. He pulled it down anyway, and inside the mask he actually found a note. We decided to read it. It read, number one, go behind this tree and continue walking until you find number two. Now, this really convinced me that this must have been an event for the park. My friend didn't think so, and he made a good point.

The tree was already off the path. They wouldn't want children to wander even further off this path, and I suggested leaving and continuing the hike because it was actually starting to really downpour. But my friend wanted to see if there was something at the location that the mask described. Without listening to me, he followed the directions and continued walking behind the tree. It wasn't close, but we did eventually find something. Maybe 50 or 60 feet into a thick forested area, we found another mask. This time it was practically in the dirt.

He lifted the mask up and sure enough, another weird and very vague note. And to save time, I'll just tell you that this pattern continued for three more clues for a total of five masks. When we arrived at the last mask, all it said was, see you soon. It gave us chills, but then we sort of just laughed it off. At the time, I thought it was just because of the weird situation, but I was sure that I could hear noises echoing all around us. I thought that I was just being paranoid, so I just ignored my gut and continued the hike with my friend. A few hours later, we made it back to the car and were surprised to see another car in the lot now. It was parked right next to me. Way too close, I might add. It was so close that I actually had to move the car up so my friend could open the

door and get in. We talked about the masks on the way home and we came to the conclusion that it was just some elaborate prank or maybe it was an event. Given the time of the year, it's not unlikely to think that someone would want to try and scare you, you know? I've dropped him off at his house and then went home for the rest of the night. In just a few hours, my worst night ever was about to begin. I finished watching the football game that I was watching and started getting ready for bed. It was probably close to 11 if I had to guess. I should also say that I lived alone at the time of the story,

and while I was in the bathroom I thought that I could hear something outside. Ordinarily, I would never look outside, but for some reason that night I did, and I still can't believe what I saw. I saw five people standing on the front lawn wearing masks. They were the same type of masks from the hike earlier in the day. I originally looked out at the living room window. After I saw them, I ran upstairs to my bedroom and I phoned the police right away. The entire time that I was waiting, I continued watching from my bedroom window, and this was the longest ten minutes of my entire life. They were being strange, to say the least. They were sort of dancing, maybe moving around, it was almost like they were celebrating or something.

Every minute or so they would run to the front door, ring the doorbell a bunch of times, and then run back to the front yard and continue doing their strange movements. Part of me was still telling myself that this was just some elaborate prank, but if it was, in my opinion, it had gone for far too long. The last few minutes before the police arrived, they started to get bolder. Instead of just ringing the doorbell, they started to bang on the door, not just with fists, but with their entire body. The front door was directly below my room

and I could feel all the vibrations each time they slammed into the door. And finally, ten minutes after I called, I saw lights from the cop cars. When the masked people saw the lights, I saw them scatter. Two cops attempted to chase them at that moment, but he came back only a minute or two later. I talked to another officer and gave her my statement, and nothing ever really came from that incident. The police never caught or arrested anyone, and since I didn't have proof, and there were no signs of forced entry, the police basically told me that they couldn't do anything and that I would need to just call if they ever came back. I wasn't satisfied, but what could I do? The next day I bought a ring camera and one year later, they have yet to come back. I have been able to convince myself that it was

just some prank, and that's the only reason why I'm able to still sleep at night. Truthfully, I have no idea if that was a prank or if these folks intended to hurt me. And judging by the sound of the bodies hitting the door, it's hard to know for sure if it was just that. And I just hope that they never come back. As much as I love this time of year, I'm always reminded of one of the worst memories of my entire life. I've always been an outdoorsy type of person. Any chance I had to be outside, I took it. Whether it was hiking, sports, being at the beach, you name it, if it was outdoors, I was there. Back in high school, which at this point was around 10 years ago now, my parents signed me up for this trip with the school. They were doing this camping and hiking program and we were going me up for this trip with the school. They were doing this camping and hiking program and we were going to take a weekend trip to the mountains. I loved the

idea for a bunch of reasons, mainly because we were getting out of class on Friday. I was able to talk a bunch of my friends into going as well. I was so excited to spend the weekend in nature with my friends and just sort of not care about the world. Friday came and we hiked a decent chunk of this local mountain. It wasn't that bad and I honestly think the trail was designed for beginners. Around 5.30 we decided to set up camp. There were probably about 15 students and 3 teachers. The first night my friends and I, who were all sharing a tent, got in trouble by one of the teachers. There was a strict lights-out policy by 10pm, and we were still very awake and active at that time. One reason why I was able to convince my friends to go was not just the no-school thing on Friday,

but because we could play with our Nintendo DSes in the tent. Pokemon X and Y versions had just come out and we were all playing together. And if you can't guess, we were very loud playing the game and the teacher made us turn them off. We were upset but listened to them and I didn't sleep well that night. I could hear all kinds of noises outside of the tent. It could have been an animal but I thought it was the teacher checking up on us throughout the night. The next morning, I was exhausted, but once we got hiking, I got into a groove and felt pretty good again. During the day, one of my friends suggested that we sneak out of the tents at night. I didn't love the idea because I hated breaking the rules, but I just really wanted to play my

new game with my friends. Nightfall came once again, and we told everyone that we were hitting the sleeping bags early it was around midnight and i was nearly asleep when my friends woke me up to sneak away i was groggy for a little while but the thrill and excitement woke me up eventually i did realize how stupid it was to sneak out in the middle of the woods at night but i didn't think about it like that my logic was that we weren't doing anything that bad or illegal so the repercussions wouldn't be too severe. We walked a good distance away from the camp so we wouldn't wake anybody up. Most of us had a nearly full charge on our DS so we said that we'd play until the DS's died and then we'd head back.

The first 30 minutes were great. I felt like I was making an awesome memory that I would cherish forever. Unfortunately for me, I was about to make a memory that I would remember forever, but for all the wrong reasons. After that first 30 minutes, we heard rustling in the trees, and we all froze. My first thought was maybe a bear, and I was terrified. I didn't know what I would do. A few seconds later, a person emerged from the trees. It was jarring and unexpected and honestly just weird. He didn't look at us and he didn't say anything.

We were all sitting on some tree branches sitting in an almost semi-circle and this strange man sat in our circle. The man looked to be maybe in his 40s. It was an average build with mostly dark hair that was slicked back. He was clean shaven, but most notably he seemed to be wearing some pretty nice clothes. I will say that it was pretty worn and dirty, but it was still a pretty nice outfit for a strange man in the woods. None of us said anything, and we kind of just looked at each other, almost paralyzed. We didn't say anything to the man either. He just sat there on the tree stump, essentially looking down at the ground. We all looked at each other and silently agreed to just get up and make our way back to the campsite. We silently counted to three and stood up. And as we stood up, the man stood up as well but still

stayed completely still. He didn't look up yet and he didn't seem to be hostile. It was almost as if though he was sort of just mirroring our movements. His standing up was the final straw for us though. We freaked out and decided to run as fast as we could back to the campsite. I started, and everyone followed. I looked back a few times, and I could see that he was lightly jogging after us, at least I think. And this was one of the worst things I'd ever seen with my own eyes. This sort of just emotionless man in the middle of the woods, seemingly chasing after us but not really trying at the same time. And his lack of emotion, even when chasing, was just so disturbing. He never seemed to sprint,

and thank god we were able to lose him. At least, we thought we did. We zipped our tents quietly, and we all agreed to not tell anybody. I don't know why. We were stupid when we were kids and we were just scared that we might get in trouble. We stayed awake the entire night, jumping at every little tree branch snapping and wind gusting. We had never been so happy to see the light of the morning. We hiked out of the woods that afternoon and never saw the man again. Since we're now safe, we figured that we would still never tell the teachers about what happened. We didn't get caught for sneaking out and we never got hurt by that weirdo in the woods.

I wanted to tell someone but one of my friends talked me out of it. Basically, if I got in trouble, all of us could have gotten in trouble so they thought it was best to just sort of sweep it under the carpet. And I guess I'm lucky nothing worse happened. We absolutely should have told the teachers, but at that age, the idea of just getting trouble seemed worse and now that I'm older, not a fall season goes by where I don't think about that weirdo in the trees. I love all the activities in the fall, like hiking, apple picking, pumpkin picking, and even celebrating Halloween. October holds a very special place in my heart because that's when my husband and I got married.

This October will already be our 15th wedding anniversary. As great as all of that is, the story I want to share is not a great memory, but a horrible nightmare that nearly ruined this time of year for me. We had just celebrated our first wedding anniversary the weekend prior, so the next weekend we planned on taking it easy and just having a fun relaxing afternoon. We decided to go pumpkin picking since it was a beautiful day and we were both off of work. We spent a few hours at the pumpkin patch and it was one of those big ones that had a ton to do so we weren't just picking pumpkins the entire time. We watched the live band and had some hot

coffee and apple cider donuts. When we were getting ready to leave, I could tell my husband wasn't ready to call it a day quite yet. I asked him if there was anything else he wanted to do before we headed home. He smiled and asked if we could go for a little hike. Something to know about me is that I'm not the biggest fan of hiking. I don't mind being outside, but the idea of trekking through the woods with bugs and animals is not my thing. But I know my husband loves that sort of thing, so he suggested visiting one of the local sites near the pumpkin patch since we were already out that way, roughly an hour from where we lived. I agreed to his suggestion since I knew the site

he was talking about and it wasn't that intensive a hike. We left the pumpkin patch and headed for our autumn hike at around 2 in the afternoon and we planned on heading home around 3.30. When we turned into the parking lot, I could see that my husband was upset. The park was closed for some sort of renovations I guess and they had a big sign up that said we'll open next May. Instead of turning around in the parking lot, he parked and told me that we had to check out the sign up close. As we were walking to the start of the trail, he pointed out that there were several cars parked in the lot. His logic was that even though the park was closed, it wasn't technically in season, and we could probably just walk on the trails anyway.

He started to nudge me a little bit and said that we should just check out the first bit of the trail. He kept pointing to the other cars and saying that other people were there for his defense and I gave up the argument and told him that we could just check out the first few minutes of the trail but then I wanted to leave. I could tell he was excited. This type of rule breaking, though not serious, was still way out of character for us. We had to jump this chain link fence to get onto the trail and pass a bunch of construction equipment. I was already regretting my decision at this point. No trespassing signs were everywhere and I was fully expecting to be confronted by either a worker or maybe even a police officer. A few minutes into the walk, my husband pointed out this little shack out of the trail a little bit. It wasn't like an old

abandoned shack. It was actually the opposite. It was this strange little building that was clearly almost brand new. Most likely it was some sort of break room for the workers, I guess. My husband wanted to check it out, so the string of bad decisions continued. As we approached the building, my husband pointed out to me that it was a portable building. I'd never seen anything like that before, so I thought it was pretty cool, and he explained to me that it was almost like a trailer. It didn't have any plumbing or AC, but it was a sturdy structure to eat and take a break from the elements. When we were only 10 feet away, we could hear muffled voices on the inside of the structure.

Not wanting to bring attention to ourselves, we decided to just move quickly towards the building instead of away. I know that sounds backwards, but we were walking towards the front door. If we turned around and ran, it would for sure bring attention to ourselves. That's why we sort of ducked and ran toward the side of the building so we could figure out how to get away without getting caught, you know. I thought right away that we were done for. I assumed that it was either a construction crew inside the building or a park ranger. While we were hiding on the side of the building, my husband was motioning for me to be quiet while he tried to listen. He's considerably taller than me, so he practically had his ear on the window.

I was too short to reach the window, so I couldn't hear what they were saying. I could only hear the muffled tones of the voices, and they sounded angry. My husband then made a decision to sort of cup his hands and look through the window. In all the years I've known this man, I had never seen the expression that he made that day. I watched the colors sort of just run away from his face, and seconds later, he ducked down with some speed. I could see the fear in his eyes, but even worse than that, I could hear the terror in his voice. He looked right at me, voice shaking, and said, we need to go right now. He grabbed my arm and guided me as we ran back to the trail and then

back to our car. I barely had the door shut and he was already speeding out of the parking lot. He continued checking in his rearview mirror every few seconds. The entire drive home I kept asking him what he saw saw but he wouldn't tell me. It clearly wasn't a worker or an officer because his reaction to that would not be this bad. When we got home, he immediately went back outside and called the police. He went as far as sitting in his car to call the police so I wouldn't hear him. And the worst part of all of this though, I still don't know what he saw that afternoon. That night he begged me to stop asking and made me promise that I wouldn't bring it up again,

and after a little battle I finally agreed. And all these years later I still don't know. I've remained true to my word by not asking him. Believe it or not, this story gets even worse, and whatever he saw that day affected him so badly that he hasn't slept right ever since it seems. He won't talk to anybody about it, and he's learned to live with his messed up sleep cycle, and he blames his insomnia on work and stress, but it didn't start till very clearly after that incident. Every night he gets in bed with me. Once I'm asleep, he'll just sort of get up and sit in the living room all night long. He won't turn the TV on and he doesn't play video games and he doesn't even read a book it seems. He just sort of faces the door and remains there

until he eventually passes out on the couch or his alarm goes off. So whatever happened that afternoon, I just hope that someday my husband finds the peace of mind that he deserves. The story I'm about to tell you is perhaps the strangest and most unsettling thing that's ever happened to me. And now that I have some years to think about it, I understand just how weird it truly is. It was around ten years ago, give or take. My wife and I loved to hike, and we still love to hike to this day. Specifically, we love to hike in this fall season. We live in the northern east coast of the United States, and the way the leaves turn during the weather change is really remarkable. Not to mention, fall isn't too warm, so it makes the hikes much more bearable.

We spend the first few weekends of the fall season hitting some local trails. As October approached, we started to venture further from home and hike some more intense trails. The types of hikes that take an entire day to complete. On one specific October afternoon, we decided to hike an unmarked trail. We both were experienced hikers and we didn't plan on staying overnight or anything like that. My wife especially was very good at navigating the forest and just being cautious of her direction and the course she takes. And that's why going off trail and taking an unmarked route wasn't that big of a deal for us. Around midday, we decided to take a break in a nice little

clearing. It was hard to believe that people didn't travel to this section of the woods. It was almost like this little pocket of the woods was designed for hikers to take breaks. It was a circular little spot of the forest with two tree stumps. We each sat on a stump and ate a protein bar and we decided to take a 15 minute break before heading back out into the forest. Right before heading back into the woods, we heard a noise coming from just beyond the trees. We both paused and listened to the rustling noise. In these specific woods, there were plenty of animals that could do some serious harm to us if we weren't careful. The more we kept listening to the noise, the more unsure that we were of what animal it could be. It was clearly something

making that noise and not just the wind. I said that we should just stay put for a while until the noise stopped but my wife wanted to check out whatever was beyond the thick brush. I can't blame her, I was curious as well. I just didn't want to risk being mauled by a bear or something. We proceeded with caution, trying to be as light on our feet as we possibly could, and even writing this now, I still can't believe what we saw. Now pacing rather erratically back and forth seemed to be a young woman. A very pretty young woman I might add, most likely in her early to mid-twenties. She had blonde hair and blue eyes from what I could see and she was wearing a beautiful white dress that went down to her knees. The strangest part was that she seemed to be shoeless.

Her feet were dirty and the dirt seemed to spread up to her legs and calves. Now I'm sure you're asking yourself, why didn't we go and help the woman who was clearly lost or in distress? Well, to answer your question, we kind of did. Or tried, at least. We didn't want to approach her because she was being very erratic with all of her movements, hands swaying all around and body moving from left to right. She was mumbling and talking to herself, but we couldn't make out exactly what she was saying. It was more like groans mixed with occasional laughter. So, instead of approaching this clearly unwell woman, we called out to her. At first, she didn't react. She just kept hopping

around the woods erratically, almost like a frog, you know? And then we shouted again, much louder this time. She must have heard us because now she stopped in her tracks. She didn't move at all. She just stood there. No more mumbling and no more movements. My wife took a step forward and asked the woman if she was alright and if she needed any help. And instead of answering, the woman turned around and hissed at my wife. And I'm not kidding either. This woman straight up hissed like a cat and then turned and sprinted into the woods in the opposite direction of where we were standing.

I basically stayed put, but my wife chased her for a little while. She yelled at me that we wouldn't just let this poor girl stay in the woods all by herself. A few minutes into the chase, my wife just gave up. Not because she didn't want to continue, but because the woman was so fast that she was able to outrun my wife even with no shoes. I stayed in the area where we originally found the woman and my wife ran back to where we started our hike. She called the ranger and informed them of what had happened and she took the ranger to the spot where I was waiting just in case the woman ever came back. The ranger gave us a nice verbal smackdown for hiking in areas we weren't supposed to hike, but where we were wasn't technically illegal so we didn't get in any real trouble.

My wife was upset that the ranger didn't seem to care about the woman that we saw. We both had gotten the impression that the park ranger thought that we were making up some sort of elaborate story. They started to search for the woman eventually, but after a few days, they never found anyone. And they said that they had never even found any evidence that the person had been out there. They even checked our description of the woman with the women who had recently gone missing, but our mysterious woman didn't seem to match any of those poor girls. We never received any answers about this weird occurrence in the woods. My wife even went back to these woods several times and tried searching for any sign of the woman but she never got any answers. We did take some solace in the fact that no woman

matching that description was ever reported missing or worse, found dead. And I don't know what we saw that day. I have no idea where that woman came from or where she went. All I know for sure is that she was clearly not in the correct state of mind, and she a couple of years ago. We all live in Nevada, but every fall we fly to New York to hike some of the trails, specifically up in the Adirondack mountain area. If none of you have ever seen autumn in New York, it's very worth it. The sights are beautiful.

Breathtaking, really, is the word that comes to mind. I know a lot of people where we live think of New York City every time we say that we're going to New York, and they don't realize that the state is kind of big, and most of the state is mountains and forests. Basically, do yourself a favor and check it out, especially if you're a fan of nature and the outdoors. The Adirondacks are a must. My friend Luis always plans the hikes for us every year. He's one of those strange types of peoples who could live off the land, be stranded in the elements, and survive relatively easily. We trust Luis. He's safe, he's thorough, and he hasn't led us into danger yet, and we've been

doing these hikes and camping trips for over a decade now, and this year was no different. We got to our cabin and spent the first night going over the map and trail that Luis had planned out. It seemed like a straightforward trip. Sometimes Luis liked to really challenge us. This year though, he wanted to enjoy the sights and not worry about the difficulty of the terrain. We started early in the next morning, and we were navigating the woods and taking pictures of all the amazing sights and during our hike, Luis took us a little off course because he said that he could see something up ahead that kind of didn't look natural. I've seen enough horror movies to know that when somebody says something like that, it usually means no bueno. A few yards

off, of course, we stumbled upon a very old structure. It became clear right away that it was some sort of old church. I can say that confidently because the building had a big steeple and a cross on top of that steeple. And if you ask me, that's a dead giveaway for a church. And even though we were surrounded by beautiful sights, this was somehow the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. We were deep in the woods and not in the areas that people hike typically. The fact that a building like this was in the woods and in the condition that it was, it was truly amazing. After a bunch of pictures, we went inside the church and I'm doubling down by saying that this was the coolest thing I'd ever seen with my own eyes. It was like stepping into a time machine. Inside the church were several rows of wooden benches that led to a

small wooden altar at the back of the church. I remember seeing a giant wooden cross and there were candles everywhere. Obviously the candles were burned down to nothing and there was wax all over the wooden floorboards of the church. On the floor in between one of the benches was an old Bible. It was so old that you couldn't even see what the words said anymore. And to this day, I still have that Bible on my bookshelf, because it was an awesome conversation starter that obviously leads to this story. We hung around inside of the church for a while, just sort of taking in the awe of the situation. We talked about possible conclusions about who used the church for a while just sort of taking in the awe of the situation. We talked about

possible conclusions about who used the church, but every answer we came up with still made no sense, mainly because there wasn't anything else near the church, at least nothing that we could find. No other buildings, or even remnants of buildings. And while we were hanging around the church, Louise noticed something weird. Behind the altar were a couple of floorboards that sounded sort of different than the other ones that we were walking on. Louise moved the wooden altar out of the way to reveal two hinges, and this amazing discovery of ours was about to get even cooler. Not only did we find a church in the middle of nowhere, but we now had found a weird door in the floor of that church. We shone our lights down into the hole, but it just looked like a dark and dusty hole in the earth.

We could see the dirty ground, and I would guess it was most likely eight feet down. I got on my stomach and practically was hanging into the hole. I wasn't sure, but I thought that I could see paintings or something on the wall. Without giving my friends any chance to decide, I just jumped inside and simultaneously told them that I wanted to check it out. And what a sight to behold once I was down there. There were indeed paintings all over the walls. They appeared to be stone walls, but I'm not an expert. The paintings were nothing of note that I could tell. Symbols of weird things that I can't really describe. Nothing really

offensive and it didn't look like any sort of language that I could recognize, which isn't saying too much. I'm sure that it was religious symbology, but I'm not religious so I have no idea. While I was mesmerized by the weird symbols, my eyes were directed to the back of the dark square room. There was a small boarded up hole in the wall. It was an intentionally boarded up hole with wooden planks and nails. I was shouting to my friends what I was seeing as I was going and I told them that I was going to break the boards down and see what was in there. I could hear Luis screaming up above me but I just sort of ignored him. I ripped the planks down and see what was in there. I could hear Luis screaming up above me but I just sort of ignored him. I ripped the planks down and shone my light in the hole. It was as dark as my light could see.

The weirdest part was the heat coming from the hole. It was legitimately warmth coming out of that hole. It was a little too tight for me to crawl into, so unfortunately I never got to see any further. Our lights were powerful too, and the fact that it was just continued darkness is what really amazed me. Once my friends pulled me back up, they each took a turn inspecting the hole in the wall, and we felt like explorers. This was the first time in all the years that we went hiking that I felt emotions like this. We eventually decided to finish our hike and when we got back to the cabin, Louise informed some park rangers or someone like that about the church and what we found. The ranger said that we went way off course, even though Louise disagreed with him. The ranger told Louise that the hole supposedly led to some collapsed mine

from a long time ago. He said the hole in the wall eventually gets tighter if you crawl through it and it becomes too much of a hazard and that's probably why it was blocked off. We tried doing more research about the area and we found some info but nothing that gave us direct answers. There were mines in the area so it does make sense. Either way, this was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. And the more we thought about it, the more unnerving the story became though. What if people were down there when it collapsed? Why did the church have to have a path to the mines anyways? It was just so many questions. But what do you think? Do you really think it was some sort of mine entrance or something else entirely? My two favorite things in the world are my dog and hiking. I hike all year round for the most part.

Every season brings out a different aspect of nature that I love. My favorite time I hike is right now though. I love that September into October season. It's chilly but not cold. The scenery is beautiful and not dead yet and the best part is that nobody is ever around during this time of the year. I live in a popular tourist area during the summer and once Labor Day comes and goes it's like somebody shuts the door to the town and I absolutely love it. I work from my computer at night so I try to get outside with my dog every day. I lived in this town for 17 years and I've hiked every trail available to the public and even some paths not allowed to hike. In all those years, I have never experienced anything

like what happened to me last week. It was a normal day. I took the dog out at around 10am and started hiking into the woods behind my house. It's mostly just a forested area surrounded by a large creek. I don't actually know if it's a private property or state property but all of us who live over there by the creek hike these woods and nobody ever says anything. When we were walking down by the water my dog started to growl, and she started to become irate. This attitude is not like her at all. I tried to calm her down, but she just kept growling and whimpering, and while I was trying to calm her down, a man just ran by us, ran through the creek, and then stopped on the other side of the water. I froze for a second, just out of sheer shock.

It scared the heck out of me. Also, it's not like the creek was a puddle. The water was moving fairly quickly and this dude just jumped in and ran through it. I didn't know if he saw me, so I tried to hide behind some bushes with my dog. She was growling, but she was quiet enough that there was no way someone would hear her on the other side of the creek. I peeked through these bushes, and the man was still standing on the other side of the creek, except he was very clearly staring right at me. I wasn't sure if he wasn't looking at me or just in my direction until he decided to speak, and it was like some nightmare come to life. Now in this low voice he says, I see you. And I ignored him at first, and then he said it again, and this time he just kept

repeating himself, I see you, I see you, I see you. And in case it's not obvious, I was paralyzed, afraid. I continued to try and peek through the bushes. It was clearly some middle-aged man. He wasn't super tall, maybe like 5'6 or something. A little round in the belly, but he wasn't fat. And then in a blink of an eye, he starts rushing towards me. He sprinted across the creek, splashing water everywhere. And my poor dog was going insane at this point. And fight mode kicked in, and I decided to stand up and step to this guy.

And when he was inches from me, I puffed out my chest, and he just stopped. I mean stopped dead in his tracks. He was so close that I could have hugged him if I wanted to, and he was smiling so big. I'll never forget those disgusting yellow teeth. And before I could say or do anything, he leaned in a little closer to me and shouted at the top of his lungs. Not just like an ah scream either, it was this blood curdling loud scream. And after the scream he started to laugh, and then ran back across the creek and basically just stood there again, now laughing. Reception is spotty in the woods but thankfully I had enough service to call the sheriff who is a good friend of mine. I decided to stay close to the man until the sheriff arrived.

I didn't know if this man was dangerous and I didn't want him running around the woods behind my house. The sheriff arrived several minutes later and thankfully I wasn't as deep into the trail as I thought. He arrived with two other officers and they slowly approached the man. They weren't aggressive at all and they were just trying to talk to the guy. He must have felt threatened though because, just like his abrupt charging of me, he actually tackled the sheriff which prompted the other two officers to take him down. He continued to scream for I don't know how long, pretty much from the moment they handcuffed him to the moment he got in the car. But it was really sad honestly. The man didn't

have an ID and the only thing they found on him was some knife, like one of the knives that you would have in a kitchen set or something. He didn't know his name, where he was from, nothing like that. I mean, maybe he was withholding it, and I don't know exactly what happened to the guy. And I think they called the state, and he was relocated to some institution that could actually help him. And since this literally just happened, I really don't have any new information. If I find out anything, I'll write some update about the man and who he was and where he came from. This is a small town and everybody knows everybody. So wherever this guy came from, he was clearly some outsider. It's unknown yet if

he was using, but even if he was, I don't know if the sheriff would share that information with me anyway. What do you guys think? Do you think this was just some homeless guy who wandered into the woods that day and I by chance just ran into him? Or maybe something weirder? I'm just happy I caught it when I did and not in the middle of the night and more importantly than anything else, I'm happy my doggo was completely unharmed. Every year around this time I take a week or so off of work to plan some solo activities to clear my mind and try to manage and reset my anxiety. One night I might order a pizza and binge some of my favorite horror films or I might go to a local farm and pick some pumpkins and apples. One thing I make sure to do every year is go to a local farm and pick some pumpkins and apples. One thing I make sure to

do every year is go for a hike. I take time to enjoy the fresh air and see the trees as they go from green to orange, yellow, and burgundy, and I usually frequent the same trails and areas, but three years ago I had a fellow outdoor enthusiast recommend a hike about 45 minutes from my home. He was very honest and transparent that this wasn't a marked trail. They said that there was definite signs of frequent foot travel though but he had placed some markers when he went and suggested that I bring some as well just for safety and to make sure that I wouldn't get lost. I decided to venture it alone but made sure that my parents and significant other at the time knew that I would be hiking just in case I did get lost or they hadn't heard from me.

My friend, who will call Justin, told me specific instructions including mile markers of where I could find the entrance to the forest and recommendations of where I could leave my car. I found what I thought was the right area, put on the rest of my gear and threw my backpack on and headed in. I could see what Justin mentioned and although there was no official signage, there was a clear path amongst the dirt and grass that could help guide you on your way. I brought small flags to mark my path that had small crosses on them. I did notice some other markings, but nothing else I could attribute to a pattern that could help me find my way back. I began walking slowly, admiring the foliage, the air, and all of nature around me, and before I knew it, I had spent an hour and hadn't moved very far at all. I decided to press onward,

making sure to mark my path and acknowledge any major milestones along the way. I tried to put my markers near big trees or logs to make it obvious on my way back though. I remember specifically thinking about my current problems in life and how they were affecting my stress levels. I tried to use nature as a way to move past them and identify positive next steps to kind of help solve them. And before I knew it, I was becoming both mentally and physically fatigued. I decided that I would sit for a few minutes, have some water and a snack and head back to my car. When I was sitting and having some sips of water, I noticed that everything had gone silent. The humming and buzzing of nature had ceased and I made a noise out loud to make sure that I hadn't gone deaf.

I heard that sound that I made and in that instant I heard the other sounds around me suddenly pick back up again. I remember thinking to myself how weird it was and that I needed to chug some water to make sure that I wasn't dehydrated. My walk back began pretty normal. I was seeing the flags that I had posted to mark my way back from the trail, and after each one I remembered the landmark and could gauge how far I was away from the exit. But after about halfway I started to become confused or misremembering. The flags were now on locations where I didn't remember placing them. One was now stuck to a tree and one directly after that was smack dab in the middle of the path.

I tried calling back to my memory and I was certain that I hadn't placed any markers in these locations. I didn't know what else to do but continue to press forward, eyes wide open looking for any marking that was familiar that would give me some reassurance. But the more that I traveled, the less familiar things seemed. I took out my phone and pressed unlock and the car alarm on the APP to my vehicle. I couldn't hear anything. It wasn't that late in the day, but for those of you reading this, you know it can be much darker in the forest than it is outside. I noticed that the frequency of my markers were picking up. They seemed to come one after another. After about another 15 minutes of

walking, there were three markers, right after one another, that seemed to be sitting outside of a big rock covered in moss and leaves. However, as I got closer, I noticed that it wasn't a big boulder. It was actually something resembling a little shed that had been overgrown with vegetation. As I realized what it was, I slowly started backing away until I heard a noise. It was a loud crack followed by a faint squeaking. The door to the shed had opened, and all I could see was a hand, or more specifically a finger, making a motion like it was gesturing me to come closer. I immediately turned in the other direction and booked it as fast as I could. I ran for a good 10-15 minutes.

I sat to catch my breath and then tried to use my phone again to see if I could hear my car. Thank god I could hear my car alarm ever so slightly. I made my way towards the sound as it got louder and louder and finally found it. I immediately got into it, locked the doors, and got onto the road. I drove until I came across the first rest stop and put the car into park. I tried to make sense of what happened and what I experienced. I still to this day don't quite know how to process it. My only rational explanation is that someone found my markers and tried to play some joke on me or perhaps it was someone with more sinister intentions.

Part of me thinks that I could have been under so much stress that I may have imagined seeing the gesturing finger, although I have no history of hallucinations. Either way, I don't hike alone anymore and always make sure to stick to public and well-established hiking and being in nature. I've never been overly fond of nature and I'm a snob and I'm not afraid to admit it. I hate being too hot and I hate being too cold. My friends literally call me Goldilocks because they say everything needs to be just right or I'll make a scene and they're right. But hiking is the worst and trust me when I tell you I have my reasons. Years ago I dated this guy. His name was Brad,

and I loved the guy. He was this big outdoors type, and it took a lot, but I opened myself up to that stuff so I could do more things with him. I hate to admit this, but I actually started to enjoy some mild hikes. The type of hikes that real hikers would just kind of laugh at. These types of hikes were perfect for me. A few hours outside, nothing too intense, and then I could go home and sleep in my bed at night. About a year into our relationship, Brad begged me to hike this one trail with him on his birthday. I agreed because, like I said, I was starting to come around to the whole outdoors thing. I was a little nervous because his birthday was at the end of October and we ran the risk of it being pretty cold,

which I wasn't a fan of in case you didn't get the message yet. He assured me that the hike was an easy one and it wouldn't be that cold. But he was wrong. His birthday came and it was nasty out. The fog was so thick that you could literally barely see in front of your face. It was a mixture of wet snow and rain and I was miserable. We started the hike anyway because I was trying to be a good girlfriend, you know, and I realized a little too late on the hike that this was not some easy hike and Brad was looking to push me to a new limit and I was pretty angry.

We were walking on this tight walkway and and my foot got caught in something, and I fell. I didn't just fall, though. I stumbled badly to the bottom of this pretty steep cliff. I was like a bowling ball tumbling down, and it hurt terribly so. My leg was definitely broken, and I at that moment was panicking because I didn't know what to do. I could hear Brad screaming from above but I couldn't answer him right away. Finally I shouted up to him and explained what happened. I remember just being happy that I was alive and he told me to stay put and that he was going to go get some help.

Like I could have moved somewhere anyway. The pain was horrible and it seemed like it was getting worse. Not long after he left it occurred to me that we were already pretty deep into the hike. It was going to take him a while to get back, find cell service to get help and then somehow the help would have to get to me. I started to cry because it all just seemed so impossible. And the time that I fell the only movement I made was pulling myself to a tree and sitting against it. My watch broke during the fall, so I had no idea what time it was. It felt like a long time had passed, and due to it being late October, the sun started to set.

I got so cold that I almost forgot about the pain. If you think this all sounds bad, wait until I tell you how the story gets even worse. And once it started getting dark, it got dark fast. It was nearly pitch black. Thankfully, I did have a flashlight that I could shine to the cliff when I heard voices. If I ever heard them though. At this point, I didn't think anybody was ever going to come. While I was sitting there in pain, I started to hear something that I was hoping was just my imagination. It sounded like a low growl. I almost felt like I could feel the vibration, and I turned on my flashlight and up ahead, I saw two glowing eyes. I turned it off and just started to sob. It didn't matter what it was.

Whatever eyes I just saw was something that was most likely dangerous. The growling was clearly getting closer. I could feel the footsteps on the ground. Even in the darkness, I was able to see what was only a few feet away from me. It was a large black bear. I didn't know the rules for bears. I didn't know if I should stay still or if I should scream or if I should just flail my arms around in the air and I ultimately decided to just sit there and whimper. I remember accepting death. I was already in so much pain and the bear got close enough that I could feel its breath on my cheek. I could smell its breath when it growled. I kept my eyes shut, waiting for my inevitable doom. I know people talk about all the time how scary certain events in their lives are,

but let me tell you, almost nothing can compare when you're stuck at the bottom of a cliff at night with a broken leg and a bear practically standing on top of you. The bear stood there for several minutes. The growl eventually turned into heavy breathing and the bear eventually sat down and I could feel it panting on me. I was trying to imagine that it was a giant dog sitting there but it wasn't helping. Then the bear got up and walked away. I heard the steps get further away and I finally breathed my first sigh of relief. Not long after I heard a faint voice coming from the top of the cliff. I started shining my light up towards the wall. They went a little

too far. They came back to where I fell and shone down those powerful floodlights, and two guys rappelled down, and it was almost like something out of a movie. The next several hours were not pretty. They put my leg into a splint, basically made a makeshift pulley, and then lifted me up the cliffside. Every movement felt like the worst pain imaginable. I eventually made it out of the woods in the hospital where they confirmed my broken leg. And it wasn't long after this that I broke up with Brad. I decided in the hospital that I was done with the outdoors. I had my brush with death and I'm good.

I don't know why that bear basically ignored me. Maybe it was pity. I'm happy I'm alive to tell this story and tell you first hand that if you don't think you're capable of completing a certain hike, know your limitations and back out. You may not be as lucky as I was. I don't like kids. I know that's blunt and to the point, but it's the truth. I've always had bad luck with children. I'm getting a little older now and I need to decide within the next few years if I want kids of my own. I spent the first half of the year trying to spend as much time with my brother and my nephew as possible just to spend some time around children. A few months back, I got an

opportunity to babysit one of my co-worker's children. A year ago, I would have turned this down instantly but because I was trying to be more open-minded about kids, I agreed to watch the child for a few hours, not to mention I needed the extra money. I was relieved to find out that the child wasn't a baby like my nephew. He was 7 years old and loved playing games. Now this is a fun age, at least for me. We played outside for a while and nothing seemed weird or out of the ordinary. It started to rain so instead of getting all wet and muddy, we decided to go inside. He started to get a little moody when we went inside. I tried to think of the games that I liked when I was that age and I thought about hide and seek. That was my favorite game when I was a child and I even played it with my friends when we were in high school from time to time.

And he loved the idea. I was surprised that he never played hide and seek before I even suggested it. And I had to explain the rules to him. And once he understood the game, he couldn't wait. I tried to make the game seem like some type of adventure. Just to give it some extra flair. We played a few rounds and he started to yell at me that I was hiding in spots that were too easy to find. On his next turn to seek, I went up to his bedroom and hid underneath his twin bed.

Not the greatest spot, but he is only seven after all. I heard him shout, ready or not, here I come. I could hear him running back and forth downstairs and I even heard him giggling. And I was just happy that he was having fun. A few seconds later, I happened to turn my head and notice the most horrifying thing I'd ever seen. There was some messed up looking lady just standing at the window. I instinctively gasped and covered my mouth. The lady didn't notice me.

She was just standing in front of the window, not doing anything at first. Then she leaned over and cupped her hands on the window, trying to look in. I was terrified that she was going to notice me because of the angle of the window, but thankfully she did not. I started to freak out because I didn't want the child to walk into the room and be scared of this random woman, and everything inside of me was telling me to just get up, grab the kid, and leave, but I was paralyzed in that moment. And the nightmare kept getting worse. The woman started to budge at the window. She was clearly trying to open it. I ruled out the possibility of it being someone familiar because she kept doing the classic look over the shoulder like she knew what she was doing,

and that it was clearly wrong. The woman gave the window a few more hard budges but the window wasn't moving. She looked both ways and then she was gone. I just about jumped out of my skin because not even 10 seconds later, the little boy jumped onto the floor and shouted, I found you. I shrieked so loud that the poor kid jumped. So I didn't know if this woman was still outside, or even worse, still trying to break in. I was trying to think quickly on my feet, and I decided to take the kid for ice cream since we were in the middle of summer. I swiftly ran to the garage, opened the door, and drove as fast and as far as I could away from that place.

I didn't see anyone outside as I pulled away, but I didn't look that in-depth to be fair. I know I probably should have just called the cops in that moment, but the kid was having so much fun that I didn't want to traumatize him right there and then. I was terrified, and I wouldn't want the kid to feel even a fraction of that. The thought was still lingering in my mind that it was possible that this woman was related or something to them, but I didn't want to take that chance, especially after the sketchy demeanor of this weirdo. When we got to the ice cream shop, I texted the boy's mother immediately and told her everything that happened. I was looking over my shoulder, constantly trying to make sure that we weren't followed. The mother called the police which made me feel immediately better and the mother and the cop met us at the ice cream shop. We never told her son what

happened and just played it off that the police officer was a friend of his mother's. I stepped away with the officer and gave her a description of the woman. After receiving this description, the mother was horrified that she didn't recognize that woman at all. She went and stayed with her mother for a few weeks, but they have since moved back into that house. They never caught the woman and as far as she knows, nobody had ever tried to break in again. She bought cameras for the house and she's actively thinking about moving just because the nightmare of that woman is too much for her to handle. Months later, she still thanks me all the time for handling that situation as well as I did, and as much as she would have liked for me to call the police right away to catch the woman, she appreciated that I was thinking about her son

first and foremost. I have nightmares all the time now thinking about that demented face looking through the window. Even though she appreciates what I did, I still feel so much guilt about the situation. I feel like I should have just called the authorities then. What would you have done though? Would you have called the police? Maybe I should have just confronted the woman. I'm just happy the boy is alright and I hope that woman never comes back again. I'm from the East Coast, but I went to college at Washington State. I was about as far away as you could be. By my junior year, I looked for any excuse to come home and visit my family. I got my wish when I found out that my aunt and uncle were having a massive family

reunion at their farmhouse. I have a big family and we're all super close. My grandparents had 10 children and I'm close to every one of my aunt's uncles and cousins except for one uncle. All 10 of my grandparents' children got married except for my Uncle Ron who had spent considerable time in and out of jail. Uncle Ron hasn't been seen for a long time by anybody in the family. My grandma tried to keep in touch with him but due to his reckless lifestyle she lost touch. Not by her choice but because Ron is just some outright jerk. You see it's a sore subject so whenever the family together, we don't mention him. I flew home

for the party and I was thrilled to see that everyone had made the reunion. My aunt and uncle who own the farmhouse are significantly older than all my other aunts and uncles. Other than their children, I'm the oldest of all the cousins. Since there were plenty of children there and I love playing games, I suggested that we all play a big game of hide and seek. All the cousins and children loved the idea so we actually broke up into teams. My aunt and uncle's property was massive. There were tons of places to hide. My aunt said that anywhere on the property was fair game, just don't go anywhere near the main road. The road wasn't busy, it's just that since it's in the middle of nowhere, where they do have a vehicle drive by, they usually go about 80 miles per hour.

When it was my turn to hide, I went into the barn. I was looking around for a cool place to hide and when I got inside the barn, I remember there was a small loft that you needed a ladder to get to. It wasn't super high and the ladder was really thick and sturdy so I wasn't worried about anyone getting hurt. As I was approaching the ladder I noticed something weird. On the ground near the base of the ladder was a bunch of cigarette butts. I know my aunt and uncle didn't smoke, especially not now because my uncle had all sorts of lung issues. I just kind of chalked it up to this weird occurrence. Maybe they had workers there or something at some point and

they happened to smoke. Maybe the cousins did, I don't know. I know that's inconsiderate but I've worked on crews before when smokers would just kind of throw their butts when they were done there. This wasn't really a red flag to me. So I just climbed the ladder and when I got to the loft, things got even stranger. There was trash among all of the boxes of storage. Like literally trash. Empty cans, bags of chips, that type of trash. I thought it was weird because given my aunt and uncle's condition I knew that they were in no shape to climb this ladder. I continued to investigate the loft. On the dusty floorboards there were footprints. I stopped for a second and just listened and I thought that I could hear the sound of breathing but given my anxiety about the situation I told myself that I was just hearing things.

I started to make my way to the back of the loft and then I froze. Sitting there, staring right back at me, was a dirty looking man. My first thought was that a homeless man had found his way into the barn and was squatting in the loft. But before I could do anything, the man ran at me, passing by me, knocking me over. I heard him jump down to the ground and run out of the barn. However, before he hit me, I noticed it. It wasn't just some homeless dude.

It was my uncle. Uncle Ron. I almost didn't recognize him, but I knew his eyes. But when he ran me over, I was clearly able to get a good look at his face and instead of creating a scene, I calmly went down and told my aunt and uncle what had just happened. And they were outraged but also very terrified. They were the ones who told Uncle Ron off all those years ago and Ron had threatened them many times. The thought that he was squatting in the loft made my aunt turn as white as a ghost. It didn't take long for the entire party to hear what was going on. The game of hide and seek had ended but I continued throwing the ball around

with the kids, trying to distract them. The police eventually showed up and we told them everything. We had no idea where to find Uncle Ron but that didn't matter. We found him about an hour later walking down the side of the road and before the cop even approached him he started to run. He didn't get very far. The officer apprehended him and they actually found a large kitchen knife from my aunt and uncle's house on his person. I realize that this story may not be as scary for some of you, but put yourself in my shoes or even my aunt and uncle's shoes. Imagine going into a loft and being confronted by a strange man staring right back at you. Take that one step further and

imagine you're my aunt and uncle. This man was living in their barn, and at some point, he was in the house because he had stolen the kitchen knife. Why else would he have needed that knife other than to use it on my aunt and uncle? He denies that of course, but I saw that look in his eyes, and those eyes gave me the impression that he intended to do something downright evil. For the most part, we were good kids back in high school. We never hit up the big parties and we never got in trouble, and usually spent most of our weekends just hanging in the basement playing board games or just sitting around in the backyard. On one specific night, I had a bunch of people over to my house, more people than usual. It was a beautiful night and we were all sitting outside

just chatting and enjoying each other's company. When it started to get dark out, my one friend suggested that we play Manhunt, which for anyone who doesn't know is just basically hide and seek for adults. It's usually played in teams. I made sure that I partnered up with Sarah. At the time I was crushing on her hard and I thought this type of game was the perfect chance to spend some alone time with her. I lived in a small suburban town and everyone on my street knew each other. We would play manhunt a lot so the neighbors knew if they saw us running through the yard that it wasn't a big deal. Now I know that seems insane to some people but coming from a town as small as mine it really

wasn't an issue. People were just a lot more trusting back then I guess. Sarah also liked me at the time so we successfully partnered up as everyone else partnered up. And once we had all of our teams, we drew straws to see who the Seekers were first. It wasn't us. I was so excited and a little nervous to be alone on such a dark night with Sarah. The two Seekers went to the garage and started counting to 100. All the hiders scattered through the street and started to look for spots. And to make the game more interesting, we added a little wrinkle, you know. Instead of making it back to a safe location, inside the garage was a small flag that each team would have to retrieve. Once they retrieved it and successfully hid, the seeking team would lose. It was like a hybrid version of hide and seek and capture the flag.

There were small rules as well, but they're not very important. I noticed some of my friends starting to head into the backyards of some of the houses, and that's where most of the good spots were, so of course they would look there first. I suggested that we stay in front of the houses because they would look there last. Sarah was all giggles and laughter and just agreed with whatever I said, and towards the end of the street was a smaller house. An older man lived there alone, his wife had passed away about five years ago. It's sad, but he really was a nice guy. And after she passed, he would go fishing a lot and would spend most of his time on or near the water.

And for whatever reason though, on this night, his boat was parked on the trailer in the driveway of his house. I pointed to it and suggested to Sarah that hiding underneath it would be an awesome place to hide. She agreed and we crawled underneath this massive fishing boat. While we were hiding under the boat, we were lying close together and just whispering some small talk. She said she was cold and she started to cuddle up to me. I remember thinking that this night couldn't get any better. A few minutes later we heard footsteps running by and they stopped a few feet from the edge of the boat.

We covered our mouths and tried to conceal our laughter. The person standing outside the boat started to shout in a bit of a whisper. Hurry up! And then suddenly another pair of footsteps could be heard running by the side of the boat. The voice was strange and I didn't recognize it, but I just guessed that my friend was trying to lower his voice to try and disguise it. The footsteps eventually disappeared into the dark night, and just as Sarah and I were going to make our move to capture our flag, we heard an older man screaming, help, someone help me. We crawled from underneath the boat,

and we were terrified, and the sound of the scream was incredibly disturbing. You could almost feel the pain and sadness in the voice. It was the old man who owned the boat that we were hiding under. Thankfully, he recognized me. He was stuttering and clearly shaken up. After a minute or two, all of our friends emerged from their hiding spots and joined us in the driveway of that poor old man. In a weak voice, the man said, I was inside reading a book and then two large men with masks broke in, stole stuff from my safe and ran out the front door. I tried to stop them but they were too big. And my heart broke for this old man.

We ran back to my parents' house and had my mom call the police. They did question Sarah and I since we had witnessed the two men run by, but we didn't see anything. And I'm not sure if they ever caught those two men. The police think that it was someone who knew the man because his large Doberman didn't even bark when they came in. We kind of just went on with our lives after this and by the following weekend, we were already hanging out again. I will say though, we never did play manhunt again. Maybe it was subconscious or maybe we just outgrew it. The only reason why I'm writing this story now is because this past weekend, my parents reminded me of when we used to play manhunt and this memory

flooded back into my mind. I asked my parents if they knew anything about the story that I didn't and the only detail that they found out from the old man anything about the story that I didn't and the only detail that they found out from the old man after that night that we kids didn't know was that the two men were armed heavily. Thinking back on it now is even more scary. Sarah and I were only several feet away from two very dangerous men committing an armed robbery. It was an eye-opening event for me. Even in a quiet suburban neighborhood, the darkest of characters can still out there in the world, trying my hand at the whole online dating thing. I never struggled in that department, which I guess is a good thing, but I always liked the idea of connecting with someone on the internet. At the time, I was only meeting girls

either at work or at the bar, and I wanted to branch out and see if I was able to meet someone different. I can't remember if I was on Tinder or another one of those dating apps, but the girl I met was named Scarlet. I thought the name was pretty cool and she was beautiful. With all the catfishing and fake profiles out there I was convinced that Scarlett had to be fake. I proceeded carefully and made some small talk for a while and it became clear that this was a real person and I immediately set up a date. I went right to dinner and drinks because that's just what I know best, but she had other ideas. Since I was trying to get more out of my comfort zone, I was open to just about anything,

and she asked if I was familiar with this forest that is near my hometown. The forest is huge and has a trail that actually extends throughout three states. At least, I think it's three states. I agreed to have the first date at the park. I got a fresh haircut and planned have the first date at the park. I got a fresh haircut and planned a picnic for us at this park and forest and since summer was now over, this was in the middle of the week and we didn't plan on seeing very many people there. When the day arrived, I picked her up downtown outside of the building where she said she lived. We made the 45 minute drive to the forest and just as we thought, when we pulled into the

lot there was only one car there. I was excited to basically have the entire place to ourselves, not that people would have made a difference since this place was so huge. And onto the side of the parking lot was a beautiful overview of a scenic area. I held her hand as we continued walking towards the view. And that's when I surprised her with the picnic. She was excited and seemed genuinely happy. There was nothing extravagant, just some sandwiches and chips. We ate, sat on the blanket that I brought and just talked for a while. It was nice to have a date that wasn't at a bar or somewhere loud. When we finally packed everything up and I asked if she wanted to

explore some of the trails. She smiled, looked around and then said, actually I have a better idea but you can't judge me. I was intrigued and played along with her. She looked down and in a sort of shy and almost tentative voice she said, let's play hide and seek. It was a weird suggestion and I was not expecting that to come out when she said she had an idea. She started to hit my arm in a playful way and said, come on, it'll be fun. Just you and I out here in the woods, hiding. As I write this, I realized how weird this sounds, but but at the moment the way she was talking it kind of seemed fun and playful and I can honestly say I wasn't really thinking with my head if that makes sense. I agreed to play and she got even more excited. She told me to hide first

and that she would count to 30. I didn't want to run deep into the woods, especially because I had no idea where I was going. We were sitting maybe 40 feet away from one of the trails, so I decided to hide behind a tree right on the side of the trailhead. It wasn't a good spot, but I thought that we were doing some cute game of hide and seek, so I didn't try very hard. I heard her say 30, and she started making her way towards me. She saw me right away. She started yelling at me in a playful way of course and she begged me to take it seriously and hide somewhere good. She could see that I was skeptical. She decided to implement a rule that if she couldn't find me in 20 minutes, we would head back to the trailhead.

And I was reluctant, but I agreed. I ran into the woods and tried to find a spot to hide. This is going to sound weird but there weren't a ton of spots to hide unless you went off the path which I didn't want to do. I was jogging deeper into the woods and I found some thicker trees that I thought could serve as some decent cover. I positioned myself behind the trees and started my timer on my phone. While I was leaning against the tree I felt something cold touch the back of my neck. I didn't have a chance to react before I heard some low voice say, Empty your pockets. Slowly put your wallet, keys and phone on the ground in front of you.

Don't look back and don't try anything heroic unless you want me to use this cold steel I got placed in the back of your neck. And I did what he said. I could feel him reach in front of me and grab the stuff but I had my eyes closed. Whatever he had on my neck he pushed in harder and said, no I want you to count to a thousand before you move again. If you don't, your night is going to get a lot worse. I could hear him stepping away. I didn't care though, I still counted all the way to a thousand out of complete fear and when I hit a thousand seconds, I turned around and sprinted out of the forest. I couldn't find Scarlet anywhere and I started to fear the worst. Even though he stole my keys, he didn't steal my car which I thought

was a victory even though I couldn't drive it without the key. And I remembered not far from the parking lot was a gas station. I decided to run all the way to the gas station and have them call the police. I gave the cops all the information and I told them that I feared something may have happened to Scarlett. After that investigation it was like she just disappeared from the earth. Her dating profile had been deleted and nobody ever reported seeing her. The police thought that she may have been involved with the person who robbed me since nobody with the name of Scarlet was ever reported missing by anybody except me. You ever think something like this can happen to you? I just hope that she's okay.

But knowing that she's involved, I just also hope that she never hurts anyone, again. This story is a little hard for me to write. At the time when I was a child, I didn't notice anything strange. It's almost like when you're a kid, you think your family is indestructible and can do no harm. My brother and I found out real quick that life isn't always smiles and sunshine. At least 20 years ago, if not more, my brother and I stayed overnight at our grandparents' house. This may seem like a drag for some people, but we loved it there. Grandma always had snacks and would rent us whatever movie we wanted to watch, and Grandpa always played games with us and found ways to make them even more unique.

He had a wild imagination, and it was just fun to be around them. At the time grandpa's health was declining even though we didn't realize that yet and thinking about it now was obvious that grandpa definitely was missing some steps compared to when we usually stayed over but when you're a kid you're just blind to all that stuff. I suggested that we play hide and seek. That was one of my favorite games to play with him. He always had the best hiding spots and would somehow find new places to hide every time we played. My brother was excited and we both begged my grandpa to play. He was a little dismissive at first, but eventually he was all smiles and agreed to play with us. We played a few rounds and it was

like continuous laughter. When it was grandpa's turn to hide, we were us. We played a few rounds and it was like continuous laughter. When it was grandpa's turn to hide we were pumped. We knew that it was going to be a challenge and it always felt like such an accomplishment when we found him. My brother and I would have our own little competition as to who would find grandpa first. I decided to go upstairs while my brother was downstairs. I was in the guest room where we would sleep and I noticed the closet door was slightly ajar. I remembered it being closed before. I snuck over to the door and peeked through the crack. I could see my grandpa standing there just staring at the wall.

I opened the door and shouted that I found him. He didn't move at all. He just stood there like a statue facing the wall. I moved a little closer and grabbed the back of his flannel shirt. As I was saying his name, he turned around and with anger and malice in his voice he shouted, get away from me. It almost didn't even sound like him. It scared me half to death. I was so scared that I ran down into the kitchen and started to cry to grandma. I'm sure she knew what was going on, but she consoled me anyway.

Not two minutes later, grandpa came downstairs all cheery and full of smiles and said, I guess you guys couldn't find me. It looks like I win this round. My grandma went over to him and I heard her whisper that it was time to take a break and that he needed to go sit down in his recliner for a while. He looked confused but did it and I remember almost feeling bad for him until I remember the look on his face in that closet. I was terrified all night. I remember grandma telling him that I didn't feel good and that I was just going to stay in our room for the night. My brother had no idea. I told him that night that grandpa snapped at me but he didn't believe me. He said that grandpa wasn't capable of being that

mean. In the middle of the night my brother woke me up and he looked scared. I immediately came out of my groggy state and asked what was wrong. He told me that he could hear voices in the closet, the same closet that grandpa was hiding in. I started to listen intently since the closet was not far from the bed. And he was right. There were voices in the closet. One sounded happy and you could hear the chuckles. Another voice sounded sad and you could hear light sobbing. We didn't know what to do. I snuck over to the closet door while my brother was hanging on my shirt. I peeked into the closet and I remember vividly what I saw. It wasn't multiple people. It was my grandpa making all the voices. He was laughing, crying, and speaking erratically. We snuck by the door and ran to the living room which was on the first floor of that house.

We grabbed some blankets and hid underneath them. And my grandma woke up early and saw us downstairs. We told her that we just woke up early and were sitting downstairs waiting for her to wake up. We didn't want to tell her about grandpa because we were scared. We didn't know what was going on. The voices that he was making in that closet were the most horrifying thing I'd ever heard. Grandma made breakfast while grandpa sat in the recliner and watched sports highlights. It looked normal. Nothing about him looked evil. We just sat in the other room after we ate and waited for our mother to pick us up. When she arrived, we ran to the car and we saw grandma whispering to her on the front porch. We noticed our mom's expression frown a little bit and we got back to the car. She asked

us how everything went and we told her everything. How grandpa had snapped at me in the closet and how we heard him erratically laughing and crying in the middle of the night. I don't remember exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of grandpa isn't feeling himself lately and that we were going to take some time off from staying there. We were distraught by that news and we found out several years later that Grandpa had started to get dementia. As it got worse, he really started to lose it all upstairs mentally, and by the end, he didn't know anything that was going on around him. It was really sad. I understand as an adult, but as a child, seeing that horrible look in his eyes and listening to his erratic behavior was something that gave me nightmares for a long time. There was nothing like the classic sleepover birthday party when we were kids. Everyone getting together, playing games, staying up late, you name it.

The party landed on a beautiful day. There were ten of us kids in total, and when we arrived, we all started playing basketball. Since we were planning on playing PlayStation 2 all night, we decided to play outside and play basketball during the day since it wasn't raining or anything. We had a one-on-one tournament and played for quite some time. I don't know if kids still do this, but where we grew up, we pulled the hoop to the front of the house. We would have to get out of the road every time a car drove by, which wasn't that much, and while we were playing, we noticed this beat-up gray car drive by several times. Ordinarily, we wouldn't notice something like that, but because of the

condition of the car and how many times he drove by, it was obvious. He didn't drive by us every minute either. It was every few minutes, so it wasn't just driving around the block before he would return and drive by again. By the fourth or fifth time of him driving by, we were starting to get annoyed. Finally, the last time he drove by, he stopped at the end of the street. We all looked for a moment, but we started playing again a few seconds later. And then he started to reverse and that's when we all got a little weirded out. He reversed until he was right underneath our basket and he rolled down his window. He was some gross looking guy. I just remember him having this nasty skin

with a bad comb over haircut and in this really squeaky voice he just says, hey fellas you guys pretty good at basketball? I was actually on my way to the park to shoot some hoops, but I don't have a basketball. How about I borrow yours? You know, some of you guys can even come with me if you'd like. What do you say? Now I know this was bad news and I didn't want anything to do with it. I looked at my friend and said that we needed to go inside now, and I implied that his mom wasn't going to be happy about us talking with a stranger. Most of us were quick to say no, realizing that this was a situation that we'd seen a million times talked about in school.

A couple of friends were so naive that they didn't realize that this could potentially be a dangerous situation. I had to grab one of my buddies who was basically about to get into the passenger seat with the guy in one of our spare balls. We all started walking inside, even though the guy was still talking to us. The one thing I heard him say, and I remember it specifically freaking me out was when he said, Oh, come on guys. I won't even tell your parents. You won't get in trouble. Even at that young age, I knew what this was and I freaked out. We shut the front door and I looked out the window. I saw the neighbor from across the street walk outside and started approaching the car, but he drove off before the guy could reach the car. My friends were mostly unfazed by this weird interaction, but I had the worst pit in my stomach about the entire thing.

Close to dusk, my friends wanted to play hide and seek outside. I voted against the idea just because I didn't know if that sketchy guy was still lurking around, I was outvoted. We played for a bit and I eventually forgot about that dude. And when I was hiding I was trying to find a spot where nobody could find me. I thought that I achieved that but I was about to find out how wrong I was. Behind my buddy's fence was a narrow walkway between the back of his fence and the fence of the neighbor who lived behind him. All these houses had fences so the walkway went almost the entire stretch of the street. I was hiding in this narrow walkway thinking that none of my friends would think to look behind the fences. And while I was leaning against one of the wooden beams, I heard footsteps on the thick grass. Since nobody mowed back there,

the grass was pretty wild, and I looked down the path and saw someone walking in my direction, but it was just dark enough outside that I couldn't tell for sure who it was. When they got closer, I clearly saw who it was. It was the guy from the grey car, and he was approaching me with this big smile on his face, and in a voice a little louder than a whisper, he said, Hey bud, how about that basketball? You guys don't seem to be using it now. I kept saying sorry that I didn't have one, and I continued stepping in the opposite direction. I could hear him breathing and moving faster toward me the more I moved away. And if you're wondering why I wasn't screaming and yelling for help, the answer now is because I was stupid, I guess. I was for sure scared and I knew

that this was bad, but for some reason I remember being scared that if I yelled, it would somehow make things worse. I don't know why, this was just my logic in the moment. I started to move faster down the narrow walkway and I could hear him moving even faster than before. I don't know exactly how close he was but I could hear his breathing and it felt like he was right on top of me. And then I heard a loud voice yell, hey you, what are you doing? You know that kid? I just kept running. I heard the guy chasing me say something under his breath and then he jumped over one of the fences. I ran as fast as I could and shouted for all my friends to meet me back in front of the house. The neighbor emerged from the narrow path and knocked on the door of my friend.

He talked to his mom for a little bit and then she made us stay inside for the rest of the night. I was happy but some of my friends were upset. Nothing more happened that night and I never saw that guy or that car again. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized how scary and horrible this could have been. It was scary then but it didn't traumatize me. I just think as a child I didn't understand the severity of the situation. Parents out there, just please watch your children. There truly are monsters hiding everywhere. The story I'm about to share took place about 15 years or so ago when I was a teenager.

I had a pretty close group of friends at that age, some that I went to school with and some that lived in my neighborhood. Most nights we would be outside playing games, kickball, tag, hide and seek, and a million other different things. Most of us lived within walking distance of one another and at the furthest was about three to four streets away. This close proximity made it easy to meet up since none of us were old enough to drive. As we got older, our parents let us stay out later and we would up the stakes of our games. We would allow a wider range of areas to hide when we would play hide and seek and change the rules to make the games more exciting. One night my friend Patrick suggested that we play flashlight tag in the cemetery later that week. Patrick lived really close to a local cemetery. He was basically five

to six houses from the main road and the main road had a very large cemetery running parallel with it. Everyone seemed excited at the mention of this idea, but I was the exact opposite. I was scared and I didn't want to do it. I obviously couldn't say or show that I was scared and didn't want to do it, so I agreed. We decided that we were going to head to the cemetery at about 6.30 to 7 at night, that the secondary gate would still be accessible and we could walk around and find a good spot to play before it got too dark. We all agreed that everyone had to dress in all black and you could have two flashlights just in case one stopped working. It was up to you if you wanted to have

it on or off. If you had it on, obviously you'd be more likely to get caught, but you also probably wouldn't be as scared. I remember telling my mom that I was heading to Patrick's house and she said it's 6 o'clock, what time are you coming home? I told her I wasn't sure and she said that if it was after 8 I needed to call her and she'd have my dad come pick me up. She didn't want me walking that late at night. We all arrived outside Patrick's house and from what I remember there were 8 of us. We made our way to the cemetery earlier than we expected and started to walk around to find a good spot to play hide and seek. The cemetery was large and we wanted to put strict

parameters on where we could hide. We found a decent sized area pretty close to the exit, set the rules and started to play even though it wasn't quite dark yet. Most of my anxiety had washed away since we were playing before it had gotten really dark. I thought that maybe we could get a few games in and then just get out of there. However, before I knew it, we had only made it through one game and it was already dark. I was hoping that as we grouped up that we would just agree to leave, but that wasn't the case. My friends started grabbing their flashlights and we asked if anyone wanted to volunteer

to be the seeker first. Before anyone else could say anything, Joey, my friend, jumped up and said, me. We went over the rules again and said, if you were caught in the light of the flashlight, you were out and you had to meet up with the large tree that we were all talking in front of. Joey was only going to count to 50 so that people couldn't get too far away from the meeting area. Joey started counting and we all ran away turning our flashlights out and finding a good place to hide. I didn't go very far. I found a large headstone next to a smaller tree and hid behind that. I was hoping that since I was closer, I would get caught and then be able to go back to

the tree where hopefully other people would be sooner rather than later. I could see Joey. He had his flashlight on and was walking in the opposite direction. I sat in silence. I could see Joey. He had his flashlight on and was walking in the opposite direction. I sat in silence. I could hear the wind blowing against the tree directly to my right. I thought that I'd heard something, and then I jumped. A scream from another direction. Joey had found someone and they were heading back to the tree with the flashlight on. I figured I would take this opportunity to move slowly and get a little bit closer to the main tree. I started slowly moving with my flashlight off then saw another person dressed in all black hunched behind another headstone. From what I can remember, I would say that they were about 50 feet in front of me.

But again, it was pretty dark so they could have been closer. I started making my way towards them thinking we could hide together, but as I got closer there was a terrible smell. It smelled acidic, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I turned my flashlight on and saw that it wasn't one of my friends crouched behind the tombstone, but it was an elderly man, dressed in black with a hood over his head. He looked directly into my flashlight and said, Would you be a good boy and help me? I froze for what felt like minutes, but it was probably more realistically a few seconds. I couldn't say anything even though I tried to mutter out a few words, and as I came to the realization that I needed to move, the man screeched out a blood-curdling,

help me. I started running and flailing my flashlight, shouting. I think I was trying to say game over, but in all honesty it was probably just gibberish. I saw a bunch of flashlights turn on and move quickly in my direction. The old man was not only still screaming but was following behind me and once the others saw what was happening that it wasn't one of us joking, it was a rush to the exit. What seems like it should have been a memorable series of events, the only thing that sticks out in my head is the screams of help me. Everyone was either too shocked or scared to say anything, and as we made it out of the cemetery, we continued to run towards Patrick's house. We got to the end of Patrick's street about five houses away from his, but from the end of the street, you could still see the

cemetery. Luckily, the man hadn't followed us. It looked like he abruptly stopped at the cemetery exit and he was now just standing there at the gate. Then he began slowly walking backward into the cemetery until eventually we couldn't see him anymore in the darkness. We went back to Patrick's house and stood in his backyard trying to process what had just happened. to be honest I don't remember much conversation. I think after a few minutes people started heading home and not long after I called my dad to come pick me up. I remember not being able to sleep for a few nights. I was scared that somehow that man was going to show up at my house or one of my friend's houses

and we steered away from that cemetery from that point on, but now as an adult, I wonder if it was someone trying to scare us kids, or something with more malevolent intentions, or was it someone who really needed our help? I don't have a ton of great stories from my time in high school. I'm not ashamed to admit that I wasn't the best student or even really the best human being. I've come a long way since that time in high school. And one story I remember like it was yesterday, but for all the wrong reasons. My friend's parents were out of town and he invited a group of us over. He had a big house in a nice neighborhood so any chance we got to go there we took.

A bunch of people were there and we were doing some things that high school kids probably shouldn't be doing. He had a big house in a nice neighborhood so any chance we got to go there we took. A bunch of people were there and we were doing some things that high school kids probably shouldn't be doing. And one of the coolest things about this house was that his backyard was against the edge of an apple orchard. For a little backstory, when we were little kids we would go to the end of the row of trees and eat apples. And we felt like we were so cool. And one day the guy who owned the orchard caught us and yelled at us like we were trying to burn down his house. We didn't think that was that serious but apparently he did. And that was a long time ago and every time I come back to this house I always bring that up and remind my friend how much I hated that guy. I don't know what exactly prompted this thought, but while I was staring

out the living room window looking at the apple trees, I suggested that we play a game of hide and seek in the apple orchard. It took a little convincing to get everyone on board, but everyone eventually loved the idea. I was down at first just to go along and play the game, and once I got outside in the orchard though I was reminded of how much I truly hated that man. My friends and I were running down some of the rows of trees and I noticed the big barn in the background. I tried to change my mindset but all I wanted to do was break into the barn and be a complete degenerate. I told my friend that I wanted to hide in the barn and I convinced him that nobody would find us hiding in there. The door was unlocked and my buddy wanted to give up.

I didn't want to though. I broke the lock and made my way into the barn and once my buddy was in there with me, I reminded him of how much we used to hate that dude and that this was our chance to get our revenge. Again, he was against the idea but after a little convincing he came around. He was a good kid and I was trying to get him to be a little bit of a rebellious teen for once in his life before we graduated. And the barn wasn't your typical barn. This was where anyone who visited the orchard could buy apples, sauces, and all sorts of goods. I don't know what came over me, but I started to destroy the place. Not irreversible damage, but I was knocking everything off the shelf and throwing

apples everywhere. I even took a few bottles of sauce that they made. I do remember being admittedly freaked out, only because I was technically breaking the law and I started thinking about what would happen if I got in trouble. We were clearly trespassing and now we were breaking and entering and destroying his property on top of all of that. I couldn't get the image of being arrested out of my head and that's when I heard the door kick open. We looked over and saw the owner of the orchard standing there with a large rifle in his hand. We both hid behind a shelf and hoped that he didn't see us. We could hear him walking slowly and yelling for us to come out. His voice sounded the same as it did all those years ago. If he was that mad at a couple of kids for taking apples,

what's he going to do to us for trashing his barn? He was standing right next to us on the other side of the shelf. Each footstep felt like an earthquake, and it was only a matter of time before he turned and saw us. He then fired a warning shot at the ceiling, which just about made both of us scream out. We got up and sprinted out the back door that we had broken into, and the man yelled for us to stop. But we didn't look back. We just kept running for our lives. We were bobbing and weaving through all the apple trees hoping to lose this old man in the maze of trees. We were yelling to run to alert the rest of our friends that we were being chased and thankfully they heard us and everyone ran back to the house without being seen.

When we got inside, we shut the lights off and looked out the window. We saw the man fire another shot into the sky and the loud bang made us jump and the flash of light from the shot illuminated the surrounding area. This guy wasn't playing any games. He was clearly going to punish us for trespassing. We were scared of getting caught at first and potentially arrested, but the fear multiplied a hundred times when he started firing those shots. Suddenly, the fear of getting arrested didn't look so bad. Everyone left the house not long after except for me and a few other guys. All night long, we stared out the window and watched him patrolling the trees.

He never put the gun down, not once. He never fired it again, but he didn't need to. Those two warning shots were enough. I stayed up until dawn and I kid you not, this man stayed outside the entire night. And that morning I left my friend's house and drove by the front of the apple orchard. There were two cop cars and the owner was speaking to the officers. I felt sick and remorseful for what I did but I never went back. I never apologized and I never took responsibility. I outgrew that degenerate stage of my life but I'll never forget the fear of being hunted by a man who I guess in some ways was just offending his property. Over four years ago, I went to work at a warehouse in the small town that I'm from.

I decided to leave after my health started to get worse physically and I was diagnosed with a panic disorder and severe anxiety after the situation that I'm about to tell you. This changed the way that I developed friendships after that job, that's for certain. So I started this job on April Fool's Day of 2018, which was odd to me, and I had no kind of high expectation of the job. All I wanted to do was my job, get paid and go home as I had two children at home and many things that I could work on there. The job wasn't hard and it made pretty good money for all the duties considered, so I really couldn't complain. I worked second shift for about five months and I went to day shift.

While working on second shift, I kept to myself mostly until one day, I met someone from one of the lines after we struck up a conversation about gaming. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him JF. Well, JF was a pretty good guy and we had a lot of things in common. I went home that night and he popped up as a suggested friend on Facebook. Again, another oddity. So I decided to add him. When I did, we started talking more at work until he suggested that we should

hang out, so we did hang out, and pretty frequently. We were friends for about a month at this point, and one day, he decided that he was going to introduce me to his partner. She seemed decent at first, super nice, didn't seem to be a judgmental type, so I was cool with her. From then on, I would hang out with them when my kids were spending time with my mother. One time, we were talking at a restaurant and he started to vent to me. Dude, she's terrible sometimes. Like the other day I forgot to take the trash out and she'd threaten to stab me if I didn't. I've never been in a relationship where someone's actually threatened me, but she's got good intentions, you know? When he said that to me, I was concerned, but of course, we've only been friends for about a month,

so I thought that maybe he was just being sort of morbid, probably joking, and I sort of chuckled at him. He gave me a pretty serious look and said, I'm not joking. She really did. And that specifically concerned me. Now fast forward about eight months, they're still together and we all hang out pretty regularly forgetting the things that he told me then. And one day we were all talking and he seemed a little off that day. So I asked him what was wrong in front of her. He flashed a smirk and said, nothing dude, I'm just a little tired. He didn't have his eyes on me though, he had them on her when I asked. When we went to work the next day, I asked him again, and he responded, do you promise to keep this between us? Of course, I agreed.

He said that he was breaking up with her and she went a little crazy. He said that she grabbed her gun and pointed it at him and said, If I can't have you then, no one will. He said that he diffused the situation and is trying to look for a way out. Not really knowing what to say, I just said, You'll figure it out, man. If you need somewhere to go, then you can come stay with me until you get her out of the house, you know? Fast forward to another year, he finally decided to leave her. When he did, she flipped out again.

This time, he told her over text. She said that she was going to find him and kill him and he was actually out at work that day with a vacation day. He sent me a text that said, hey let me know if she comes over to work looking for me okay? And that struck me as odd because I had no idea of the situation that was unfolding. She actually did come to our job and she asked me where he was and I said, I have no idea. I thought he was with you guys. You went out of town or something. All she did was roll up her window and drive off. I called him and told him that she came by and he called the police about it. They had found her up the road with a loaded gun in the car. Two months later, he decided to talk to her again and when he did, he had something to tell me.

When he called me, he asked if I had seen her around and I said I hadn't and he says, I would take some vacation days if I were you. Dumbfounded, I asked him why, and he said to me, because she's out of jail, and her cousins are in town trying to find the people that she has personal vendettas with. You're one of them. At that point, I was terrified. I grabbed my kids and went out of town, took two weeks off of work, come to find out that the next day, her and her cousins went to the next town over and shot three people in an apartment and killed them. I got the news about it the day after it happened.

The reason why he knew that they were coming after me is because they made a Facebook messenger group that he was included in and sent a list of names. Everyone regarded it as spam and decided to disregard the message but he knew what it was. Three of the names on that list were the people that they shot. The fourth name on that list was mine. After they found the evidence and he decided to go public about the group and screenshots that he had They were all charged with first degree murder From then on, I was very careful about who I would stick my neck out for Because even though he knew the context of that list and her intentions He decided to not inform anyone else of what was going on. When I was 16, my girlfriend and I, yes, female and female relationship, but we weren't really doing anything at the time. Well, we were on the bus. We were just sitting and listening to music,

doing homework, and I had my arm over the back of her seat. I leaned over and kissed her on the head. 30 seconds later, I feel her stiffen up and look at me. I look at her and she mouthed the words, someone is touching me. I whip around and this disgusting old man is stroking the back of her neck. So I stand up and look down at him and yell, what do you think you're doing? He smiles at me and asks, are the two of you sisters? I tell him, no, you disgusting weirdo. To which he replies,

ah, that's a shame. I wanted to see you guys kiss. The bus was full, so we couldn't move without losing our seat. So I told him to leave us alone and sat back down. Not a minute later, I feel him reach under my arm and start to twirl her hair. I stood up to look at him and he just laughs and says, Come on, I just want to see a little kiss. Kiss her for daddy. Ew.

I whipped around and pushed my way to the front of the bus and stopped the bus driver who we knew because we always caught the same route. Thankfully, it was Uncle Pat, a big Hawaiian guy who took care of us school kids like we were his own family. He kicked it into overdrive and sped up to get off the freeway and pulled over at the next stop with a screech, flew open the back door, stood up and announced to the bus that he needed a path cleared. Marched to the back of the bus, looked at my girlfriend and asked, is that him? She meekly says yes and I near broke my neck nodding so hard. He grabbed the guy by the arm and marched him right out of the bus and nearly threw him on the sidewalk. As he closed the doors, he yelled,

If I wasn't on the clock, every one of those fingers would be broken, you understand? And people would be cheering because no one in the world is going to defend a sicko like you, going around and touching teenagers. Before you ever think about doing that again, you remember me. And remember how alone and small you feel right now. And you start praying that I never see you again. So long as you live, because I'm not done with you. And I'll never be done with your kind.

Uncle Pat rightfully got everyone's applause on the bus heading back to his seat. And we brought him lunch the next day. We did see that guy again, but only through the bus window. Come to find out, this bus passed right by his house but since Uncle Pat made a few promises that he seemed eager to keep, he was then forced to catch another bus whose closest stop was a 45 minute walk away. 18 years later, I was still with my back to a wall whenever possible and after a previous attempt like that, he managed to restore some of my faith in bus drivers. So thank you to all the Uncle Pats of the world for scaring the monsters away when us

kids can't. So something really creepy happened to me yesterday. I'm still processing it because God. But a bit of context. I live in Ireland. Pretty peaceful country. Recently moved from Galway to Dublin. Moved to North Dublin which is the rougher part but it's still not too bad. I live with my family outside the city. Could be considered the countryside. The area is pretty rural, it's just houses and farms pretty much with no shops or stations nearby. Mind you, there are a lot of houses around but we are all distance as we have big gardens. There are no sidewalks and the road is pretty narrow and worn out and it's rare to see cars so it's fine to

just kind of go on the road. I went on my daily 2k run which I usually do at around 6pm. However yesterday I had some studying to do and didn't head out until around 9pm when it was quite dark outside. Now let me describe the experience. Imagine on the left there was a house with lights on and on the right you'd see a field or a farm. Then there was an abandoned building right next to it, followed by an area of trees for about 200 meters or so. This pretty much sums up the entire road. It wasn't completely abandoned, but it was creepy enough to give me chills at night. Anyways, I usually listen to music on my run with the volume all the way up, so I can't really hear anything around me. So as I reached the area with

a patch of trees, it was pitch black and the lights didn't work properly. Occasionally they would turn on and then flicker back off. Therefore I had to use a flashlight to navigate. While a song from West Side Story was blasting in my headphones, I suddenly noticed the lights flickering back on which was a relief. However, that's when I saw it. A figure standing about 30 meters away, roughly 20 meters from the road amidst the trees. At first, I thought I was just imagining things, but no. The figure was there, completely still, not moving at all. It sent shivers down my spine, so I kept running. I turned down the

volume of my music just in case to be able to hear any movement from the figure in case I needed to make a run for it. I increased my speed and passed by the figure, all while still trying to keep my music low. After I had distanced myself by about 100 meters, I turned up the music and tried to process what had happened. Maybe it was just my imagination playing tricks on me because of the darkness. At this point, I was far away but I knew that I'd have to return home and I usually walk back the distance I ran so I'd have to pass that spot again. This time, the lights were flickering but they mostly stayed on. I tried to keep an eye on the spot where I had seen the figure but now there was nothing there. This time the lights were flickering but they mostly stayed on.

I tried to keep an eye on the spot where I had seen the figure but now there was nothing there. Nothingness and I was still creeped out. I turned off my music and started to run past that spot quickly because I was scared. Suddenly a man jumped across the street right in front of me and it looked like the same figure. I came to a halt for a second, shocked, and then he started moving. I turned around and began running as fast as I could.

As I did, he started screaming for help, literally screaming at the top of his lungs while running after me. Eventually, I passed the trees and reached the area with the houses. Someone heard me screaming and came out, asking if everything was okay. I stopped running and realized that the guy was now gone. I explained everything to the person who came to help me. At that point I was extremely creeped out and scared. I still had to get back home though, but my parents weren't there. They had gone to their friend's house, leaving me home alone. I asked the stranger for a lift because I was not going back to that area again. Thankfully, the stranger turned out to be helpful and kindly escorted me home. I locked all the doors and checked everything to make

sure that I was safe. Shortly after, my parents arrived, but I didn't tell them anything because I didn't want them to worry. I haven't gone out for a run today because I'm genuinely scared. I'm terrified just thinking about what could have happened if I had been too tired to run and he had caught me. I'll update you guys if anything else happens, although I hope nothing else does. I grew up with my dad and brother. My mom died when I was 10. I was 13 at this point and my brother was 16 and was out with friends.

I used to go out until late at night drinking in the park with friends. My dad was an alcoholic and always too drunk to know if I was home or not and I had free reign and no rules or boundaries. My dad was an alcoholic and always too drunk to know if I was home or not, and I had free reign and no rules or boundaries. My dad used to invite some random alcoholic or drug-using strangers into the house. Often when I came home, these strangers and my dad would be passed out or asleep from too much alcohol, or they would barely notice that I was there and I'd go straight to my room. One day I'd come back from being out with friends. It was the early hours. I walked through the living room to go upstairs to my room

and my dad was asleep on the armchair. The guy he'd brought back was around mid-fifties. I didn't recognize him. He looked at me and something was off about him. He smiled and stared and tried to start a conversation with me, but I was keen to get to my bedroom. I went upstairs and got my PJs on for bed and then dashed to use the bathroom. As I was walking to the bathroom, he said to me, You look nice in those pajamas. He was smiling at me and creeping me out. I went back to my room instead of using the bathroom and I shut the door behind me. I had a lock on my bedroom door and I used that. He was then trying to open my bedroom door and I was so scared because I knew something was off and that he had bad intentions.

I dragged my bed across my room to block the door just in case he barged in and tried to break the lock. He's knocking on the door. I'm just trying to say hello. Don't be so rude. Open the door. I'm not responding. I'm actually panicking. I was a smart 13-year-old and I knew in that moment that I was in danger. The bed is blocking the door

and it's still locked and I can hear him pushing against the door trying to get inside. I opened my bedroom window and I screamed again and again, help, help, please, at the top of my lungs. What I later found out was that my neighbor heard me and, knowing my dad was an alcoholic, was assuming something had happened to him. He came around and must have seen that my dad was an alcoholic was assuming something had happened to him. He came around and must have seen that my dad was asleep. He comes up to my room and he's knocking to get in and I can hear his voice, a voice of safety. Although I trusted my neighbor, I'm so shook up that I'm now just sat in the corner of my room in a ball crying, shaking and panicked. He knocks the door open and is pushing it open

against the weight of the bed. He came in and checked on me assuming that I must be hurt. He just holds me whilst I compose myself and try and explain what has happened. The man is now gone but I knew that he would come back anytime in the future and my dad was never sober enough for me to have ever been able to explain. And this was the final straw for social services and that's the night that I ended up in the care system. I'm a 29 year old female and have been hiking at a wooded trail near my house for about three years now. And it's my favorite trail due to the beautiful waterfalls and meadows, but had several creepy encounters

over the years. Luckily, I always hike with my 90-pound Burmese, Baker. He's the sweetest boy, but will protect me. First encounter was three years ago in the winter, when I was walking up a hill and Baker starts growling unlike I've ever heard. I look around and realize that there's a man in the shadow of the woods watching us. And when I notice him, he starts walking slowly towards us with his head covered. I said hello as usual and he didn't respond. I kept walking and got a feeling that I should turn back. When I did, I realized that he had turned around on the trail, middle of a hill, so not a common turnaround point.

But once he saw me, he walked into the woods and stared out at the valley hugging a tree. Nothing too crazy, but it just felt very off. Around the same time a year later, Baker and I were walking on the same trail and again, Baker starts growling. He's usually very excited to meet anyone and anything. I realize there appears to be the same man standing off in the shadows watching us, but I figured that maybe Baker just scared him so he was standing away from us, waiting to cross the bridge. Otherwise, he easily could have kept walking along the trail instead of waiting for us. We crossed the bridge and kept walking.

I again got a feeling that I should turn around. When I do, I realize he's behind us, so had no reason to be waiting for us to cross the bridge. I sit down with Baker by my side and pull out my phone while making it clear that I've seen him, not staring, just glancing in his direction. He stops when I turn around, even though I'm off the trail and not in his way, but he continues walking after I pull out my phone. I start walking back and find a large stick that he left, that had been sharpened with a knife into a spear i take that spear and continue walking while looking around me the entire time i know now that i should have reported it at this point but i just convinced myself that i was being paranoid about a year later in the winter i'm

walking along the same path maybe stupid but I took a year off and again just convinced myself that I was paranoid. It's snowing with the trails mostly empty and I suddenly see a bunch of trees with frowning faces made out of snow despite not seeing anyone on the trail for miles. Baker again starts growling at something in the woods that I can't see so we turn around. I don't report it because I figured that it would never be taken seriously. And then today, a few months later, I'm walking along the trail and find a tree with I see you written in chalk. I immediately get a weird feeling and turn back and report it to the park rangers and police. Now update. I'm working with park rangers to keep an eye out.

After sharing in my hiking groups on Facebook, several women have come forward with similar experiences at the same place. One woman was stalked by a man in a full snowsuit in the middle of July on this trail. Another was followed all the way to her car with him appearing along the trail watching her from the woods at various points. All of you calling me stupid for hiking on my favorite trail after waiting a year to go back are typical victim blamers and I don't like you. I'm listening to the suggestions not to go back but belittling me is unnecessary. I'm scared enough. Now update two. Six different women have come forward with similar experiences with a similar looking man at the same park. They've all reported it to the rangers. I've interviewed with the local

news, they reached out to me, and it's everywhere. Rangers are not happy with me for sharing with the public, but that's fine with me as everyone has the right to know. Someone wiped off the I see you message before the news team could see it, and and it rained but not that heavily. Three separate women messaged me thinking it was the same guy, despite the women not knowing each other. They stated that he is unstable and spends most of the days at this park. His cousin reported him too and I shared his name and photo with the rangers and apparently the suspect is an old park ranger himself, so we shall see. Oh, and the suspect apparently loves climbing trees and has a bunch of photos of himself

50 feet in the air, so he's probably up in the trees watching and is the one who left that message. Now final update. Apparently he has a secret spot in these woods where he has a chainsaw and gasoline, and we reported that to the rangers. Pretty sure having a secret campground in the public park is illegal with or without a chainsaw, and stalking and intimidation is a form of illegal assault, so there's no reason that he can't at least be questioned. I was on vacation with my family when I was about 14. I was in the pool which had a bar attached and I was casually talking to this group of British people.

I want to say it was all guys but I think I remember a girl with them. I started drinking a bit with them. The legal drinking age was 18 but the people who I was drinking with gave me an extra wristband that they had because apparently they were leaving the resort that day and wanted to give it to someone. My parents didn't know about this and neither of them knew that I was even drinking. They were clearly a lot older and kept putting drink after drink in my hand and I was ecstatic because I was, well, getting drunk in a pole in Cancun and out of sight from my mother. They started to try to convince me that one of the guys in the group was 15 and that I should talk to him because he liked me. Even then I knew that he definitely was not 15, but he also wasn't as old as the others who seemed to be in their late 30s. In hindsight,

I'm thinking maybe mid to late 20s. I was young and just thought that they were joking around with me. They kept telling me that he liked me and that I should go hang out with him and I laughed it off the first time but they just kept suggesting it. Keep in mind this whole time my dad was in the same pool talking to his friend and he had his eyes on me for almost the entire time as well. My parents are very strict. He didn't know what I was drinking was actually alcoholic and the pool was big enough that you couldn't hear what was being said. At that point, I was totally wasted. My first time actually getting seriously drunk. I don't even remember leaving the pool with this guy

trying to tell me that he was 15 but apparently my stupid self did because I remember thinking that he was cute. The resort is huge and I don't know how I don't remember walking through the whole thing and not remembering it. I wonder what we spoke about. The next thing I remember is walking and approaching a bus stop that was a 10 minute walk from the resort. I know it was 10 minutes because my family and I often went to the bus stop to explore Cancun. He told me I had a nice body and asked me if I've ever been intimate with anyone. I just started laughing and he sat on the bus bench and pulled me onto his lap. At this point my world is spinning so I don't protest even though I remember thinking that I wanted to be back at the pool. It was then that something beautiful happened.

I threw up all over him. Remember I'm on his lap at this point so it was like right in the middle of his face and on his chest. And kept throwing up, like the exorcist-level projectile vomiting. He was extremely grossed out and I don't remember what was said, but we ended up walking back to the resort and I never saw him again. I remember feeling so embarrassed, which is ridiculous in hindsight. I wobbled back to the pool area, covered in throw-up, where my mom had called the police and her and my dad were freaking out.

My mom's piercing voice sobered me up pretty quick because I remember those parts a lot clearer even though they're still hazy. They saw how drunk I was and demanded to know what had happened so I told them and then they got furious. My mom was adamant on finding that guy or his friends who had all disappeared from the pool. I didn't really see what the big deal was back then and why she wanted to find them. To this day I think about what would have happened if I hadn't thrown up like that and actually left with him. I was 5'2 and 14 years old and he was at least a foot taller than me and definitely not a minor. I remember when he was close to me with no one around and even in my extremely drunk state I started to get a bit nervous. My parents took me back to our hotel room and I spent hours in the bathtub just throwing up. My mom was furious, like completely

livid. I wasn't too surprised at that because she yelled at me over trivial things all the time. And so was my dad which surprised me because he was always so easygoing and honestly probably would have been a bit amused at me being drunk, throwing up. Not in a cruel way, but because I was learning a lesson about alcohol that we all eventually do. He actually straight up told me that at some point before this whole vacation. But now I know that his anger wasn't directed towards me. He was cursing about the guy. I was still throwing up in the bathtub and they both went into the kitchen area to talk away from me but I could vaguely hear my dad cursing terribly while speaking to my mom in our native language

and I was actually scared. I couldn't quite focus on his voice because I was legitimately drifting in and out of consciousness at this point but I remember getting less scared and more just sad because I felt like I had disappointed him. He never got mad like that towards me but then again I realized later that he wasn't angry at me and he wasn't angry at the drinking. He was just angry at that scumbag. I remember wondering why they were making such a big deal. It was a few years later that I understood. Later on that day, because this all happened at like 2 in the afternoon so I was at least cognizant by dinner time, I expected my mom to blow up at me over dinner when I was sober, as she usually does, that woman's like a live fuse, but they were both kind of just quiet and

staring at me and didn't leave my side. I can't imagine what they were going through, knowing about the danger that I had been in hours before, staring at me like it was a miracle that I was there. I was young and stupid, but I would like to give my deep thanks and gratitude to beer for constantly annoying my stomach to the point of projectile vomiting. This took place back around the fall of 2020, around late October. One night, three of my friends, Nate, Charles, and Jordan and I decided to meet up at a local park at around midnight, just located within my friend Jordan's neighborhood to have one of our relentless hot boxing smoke sessions. Since this was our senior year of high school, and with the pandemic and political animosity going on at the time, like many other

kids, we were basically stuck at home, for the most part attending online classes and barely getting out of our houses since most public places were closed. Because of this, we all ended up smoking weed to kill time and basically have a little bit of fun. So having these hotbox sessions wasn't anything new to us since we've been smoking since August of that same year. I recently stopped smoking altogether due to unrelated issues, but I digress. About an hour after our smoke session, the four of us reluctantly agreed to start driving out of the park and around town for a while with my friend Jordan being the driver, Nate in the front passenger seat with Charles and I in the back. Stupid, I know. Twenty minutes into our drive, being the intoxicated idiots that we were, having the windows cracked, we decided to put on dead space ambience music

just for, you know, giggles as we were making our way out of a residential area and onto a two-way main road that led out into the rural parts of town. To give you an idea of the scenery, we were driving through one of those semi-rural suburban neighborhoods you'd find out in the middle of nowhere. For those of you who live in the rural south or the midwest, you'll know what I'm talking about. Since it was completely pitch black and we were practically in the middle of nowhere bumping creepy ambient music while approaching a dimly lit intersection, it began to give off an eerie liminal vibe that was kind of fitting for the season. As we approached the intersection, my mind began to green out and race about the unknown beyond the darkness that enshrined our surroundings. Huh, it'd be really terrifying if we came across a humanoid like the Wendigo or something, I said to myself. At that point, we had reached the intersection and since I was looking to my left, I immediately noticed a figure emerging out of the pitch black. As the figure got under the streetlight I realized that what I was looking at was a woman in pigtails dressed in a really classy clean outfit with a tan

blouse and high heels. Instinctively sobering up I took this as a bad sign for all the stories I've heard and just knew something was wrong because who the hell would be out at 1am in a classy outfit out in the middle of nowhere. In a matter of seconds my worst fear came to life as this woman began to approach the car and I really didn't want any of us taking any chances with this woman. I started to freak out and told my buddy, Jordan, there's a woman coming at us. Turn the car now! Our friend Nate noticed a second figure dressed in all black

slowly emerge from the rear end of the car, just about 15 feet away by our right side, slowly approaching. This only instilled more fear in all of us about the situation. Charles instantly caught on in what we were seeing as this woman practically began running at us, screaming, Hey, help me please, stop! Charles then began aggressively slapping Jordan's shoulder in a panic, shouting at my friend, Jordan, buddy, turn the car, turn the car! Jordan, still zooted off the weed, was confused for a split second before he saw that this woman and the woman in black were mere feet from the car.

In a panic, he yelled, Ah, bro! As he peeled the car to the right and in the opposite direction from us where the woman and the figure which we can see now is a man came running from. We all sobered up a bit being creeped out and confused as to what just happened but laughed it off because of how intoxicated we all still were. Needless to say we still questioned why this woman was running at us screaming and what the intentions were from the man dressed in all black behind the car. My morbid curiosity gets the better of me sometimes and I'd like some theories as to what could have happened to all four of us during that night. I have an adopted older sister who we'll call Julie.

Long story short, my parents thought that they couldn't have children so they adopted her and a year later they unexpectedly had me. I'd always known that Julie was adopted and honestly I never really thought much of it. Adopted or not she's my big sis and just as much a part of the family as I am. That being said I knew that there was something off with her even from a young age. She's 10 years older than me so I was still a kid when she was a teenager but I think on some level I understood that she had some real mental health problems. She would often be taken to see psychologists and therapists and other people like that. When she was home she would spend all of her time alone in her room and she would do things like skip school, drink alcohol, and smoke weed. Things I always were taught were wrong.

She always wore long sleeves around me, and the few times I saw her without them, I noticed that she had scars on her arms and legs, though it wasn't until later that I found out what kind of scars they were. One night when I was eight, I walked in on her holding our dad's gun in her mouth. Even though I was young, I was somehow able to put the pieces together. Both of us broke down crying and I somehow managed to talk her out of it. I remember afterward asking my parents and other adults around me why Julie would do such a thing and feeling so frustrated and lost when they all told me that I was too

young to understand. Years go by and we're both old enough to drink now. One night, we're just hanging out at her apartment, talking and having a few drinks, and she reminds me of the time that I saved her life. I had almost forgotten, to be honest. I confided in her about how lost I felt at the time because I wanted to understand, but nobody ever told me

what was going on with her. She just stares at me for a few seconds and then hits me with, did nobody ever tell you what happened with my birth parents? I was dumbfounded. To be honest, I did sometimes wonder if she remembered her birth parents or any of her life before she was adopted. She was nine years old when she was adopted after all, but when I asked her before, she told me that she didn't remember. Before her life with us, Julie was born to a pair of drug addicts who lived out in the country. She remembers the house that she grew up being and filthy and falling apart, having no running water and appliances that barely worked. Both of her parents were physically abusive but her father was the worst of the two. She talked about how her father would beat her mother until she was nearly unconscious and then

have his way with her while she couldn't fight back, all while Julie was forced to watch. Eventually her father started abusing her too. Often times he forced himself on her in bed while her mother would just watch helplessly, too high to do anything. She didn't go to school so there was no way for her to get away from the abuse. When she was seven they started pimping her out to other people for drug money. Julia downed half a bottle of whiskey at this point telling the story and she told me about all the things that were done to her by those men in explicit detail. I couldn't possibly repeat it here, but it made me feel probably the sickest I'd ever felt.

Her parents even filmed her abuse and sold the videos. It all came to a head one night when they got a knock on the door from the cops. She doesn't remember exactly how it all went down, but the one thing she does remember is watching her father grab a kitchen knife and stab her mother over and over in the chest. The cops must have heard Julie screaming because they broke down the door and tackled him to the ground, shouting the whole time. One of the cops grabbed her by the arm and took her outside. She remembers them trying to cover her eyes so she wouldn't see her mother's body, as if she didn't just watch her be killed right in front of her. She was taken away to a children's hospital that night, but later she found out that her mother didn't survive and her father was sentenced to life in prison, and apparently he took his own life just a few

years into his sentence. By the time she finished telling her story, I threw up. Partly because of the alcohol, but mostly because I was in a state of shock. I had never heard such a sickening story in my life, let alone from my own family. I had known Julie for the whole 21 years of my life, and I couldn't believe this was hidden from me the whole time. I thought I could finally understand what she was going through growing up but in reality, I had no idea. It's been a few months now since I've known the truth and after the initial shock wore off, I have a whole new level of respect for her. Despite everything she went through, she still grew up to be the strongest, coolest person I know. All the times she stood up for me when I was being bullied in school,

the times she comforted me when I was going through high school relationships, even the times we spent just playing Smash Brothers together, they mean so much more to me now. I'm glad my parents chose to adopt her and give her a second chance at life, and I couldn't ask for a better big sister. Almost three years ago, I was 17 years old and by that point, I had become accustomed to finding myself in difficult situations. All I had was my mother, but she struggled to hold down a job for long due to her own personal issues. As I grew up, we frequently moved in and out of houses with roommates. We never really had a stable place to call our own except for two short-lived instances,

and we often found ourselves forced into new environments at the drop of a hat. So when I turned 17, we once again faced the prospect of homelessness. I had grown somewhat used to it by then, having spent more nights sleeping on the streets than I would have liked. The day came when we had to leave our roommate's house. My mother had the option to stay at her boyfriend's trailer, but I had nowhere to go. By that time, I had distanced myself from my friends as I had realized their negative influence on my health and mental state. My mother offered me the chance to stay with her, but I declined. I felt that it would be awkward to come between her and her boyfriend, and in a strange way, I had grown accustomed to life on the streets.

So, there I was, dropped off at a McDonald's where I ate some burgers before venturing back onto the streets. As the sun disappeared, darkness enveloped the world and I began searching for a place to spend the night. I entered numerous places that night in an attempt to find some rest, but none of them seemed suitable. It was either too hot, too bright due to the lights, or I was being attacked by mosquitoes. That's when I remembered a house that I used to visit to relax. It was under construction and nearly completed, with all the doors shut and the windows in place keeping the mosquitoes out. I entered through the back as I usually did and made my way upstairs. Eventually I settled in

the bathroom because it had less debris on the floor. I lay there, trying to sleep and after some time, I heard noises downstairs. Initially, I brushed them off, thinking that it might be the door that I had entered earlier, swinging open and closed. I continued to ignore the sounds even as they persisted. After about an hour, I couldn't sleep so I decided to go out and sit on the back porch. I made my way downstairs and out the back door to the porch. I fiddled with my phone for about five minutes when something caught my eye. I saw a movement to my left just beyond the back door that I had exited.

I turned to look and time seemed to stand still. At first I thought it was an illusion, but I was wrong. There was a man, shrouded in darkness, peeking past the wall, gazing at me. His lower half was hidden behind the wall so I couldn't see anything except his upper body. He leaned to the left as if though he didn't want me to see his full figure. The man was a silhouette, pure black with no discernible features. I continued to stare at him for what felt like an eternity, but he didn't move. I expected him to come outside and talk to me, as I often converse with homeless people and I assumed that he was one of them. However, he remained completely still, as silent as a mouse. Perhaps if I hadn't noticed him, he would have continued

to observe me. Eventually, I got up, retrieved my bicycle, and left the property. As I walked out of the backyard, I glanced through the window next to the door where I had seen the man. The moonlight revealed that he was still there, now watching me leave. I could see the top of his head and his left eye, but he remained cloaked in darkness. He was a tall white male wearing some kind of jacket, though I couldn't make out many details. After seeing this, I hurried away. I reached the front of the house on the street and peered inside, but he was nowhere to be seen. I got on my bicycle and waved goodbye to the house, feeling that the band was still watching me, and then I rode away. I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night, despite trying two different spots. And this is where my story ends. I didn't experience a

dramatic chase or life or death flight, but this was real life, not a movie or a book. I'll never know why that man was in the house, but I assumed that he was seeking shelter, just like me. However, the way that he stared at me was deeply unsettling. It makes me wonder how long he had been there and what might have happened if I had fallen asleep inside. Would he have continued to watch me, completely unnoticed? Or did he have other intentions? I'll never know, but after that experience, I decided never to enter a house like that again. I was helping clean up the neighboring lot after a homeless encampment moved when a worker from the city showed up. He beelined straight towards me and started thanking me for the help, so I pointed him in the direction of another lady who headed up the cleanup efforts.

He talked to her, arranging a pickup time for the bags, then came back to me mentioning that we're neighbors and he lives in the illegal apartment that is kind of visible from my backyard. He said he's noticed me for some time. The other neighbors were listening closely and started showing him where by their house would be leaving the bags. Oh, you live here too? They live one door from me and have been here for over seven years, whereas I've only been here for two. The next day the bags weren't picked up so they get rummaged through, creating another mess. Fortunately, the city cleaned it up the following day during regular pickup. Great. Then, this guy showed up at my door, talking about how the community organizer, who wasn't me,

needed to call the city for pickup, but he took care of it. The community organizer knew that she needed to call, but didn't do so because he showed up in uniform and assured us that it would be taken care of. He offered to help. It's like he came over because he had an excuse to talk to me. When he turned to leave, I started talking to the landlord next door who was doing repairs nearby. However, he just sort of stared and lingered on the sidewalk. Everything about him raises major red flags. Even the neighbors noticed. I guess I need to stop wearing sports bras day and I notice a worker who cleans the floors and massage chair rooms each

time I go. I thought nothing of him until I was on the treadmill and he started cleaning the treadmills from the front at the bottom. I'm not sure how to describe it but he was bending over and had a full view of my legs and crotch area and he started five treadmills away from me and even cleaned a machine while a guy was on it. He gets to me and I'm uncomfortable with how close he was getting to my legs. It takes him longer to clean. He then cleans the machine on my left. Nobody was on it but only the tread part and he goes on his hands and knees and cleans the entire treadmill and takes a long time. He didn't do this to any other treadmill. I noticed that he

didn't clean the treadmills that an old lady and man were using in front of me. I was wearing my new yoga shorts and was excited to work out that day until this happened. And now I feel conflicted. So am I overthinking it or is he just doing his job. To be continued... 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.