The Lets Read Podcast - 276: MY CO-WORKER ALMOST WENT POSTAL | 37 True Scary Stories | EP 264

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about birthdays, office work & encounters with strangers 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 & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I live and work just outside of Birmingham in a place called Sully Hall. And like every other office in the country, we all took to working from home from about April of 2020 until April of the following year. There were still all kinds of rules about masks and distancing and all of that, and a handful of team members got to continue working from home. But the vast majority of us returned to the office because of all the associated perks. Free lunches and hot drinks, lower utility bills at home, etc.

Now anyway, it was only our second week back in the office. It was around 11.30 in the morning, and I was sitting at my desk trying to finish something before I popped down to the canteen for lunch. My desk is next to the outward facing wall of the office which has this long strip of window panes on it and I was working away when something caught my attention just outside the window. I looked and saw it was one of those little drone things just hovering in mid-air. I pointed it out to my colleague and it was her that noticed the little camera it had attached to it. That's when we realized that someone was out there using it

to record or take pictures of us. One by one everyone in the office started to notice the little drone thing and after hovering back and forth for a bit it suddenly disappeared from view. Our manager came out of his office to see what was going on and when we told him that we were pretty sure someone had been using their drone to peep into the office, he announced that he was going down to security to have a word with them about it. Slowly but surely everyone returned to their work and we saw out that last hour before lunch, then all went down to the canteen to get some food. An hour or so later, when we'd all returned from our lunch, our office manager told us that security had found a bloke just outside the premises who seemed to be the one responsible

for the drone. We worked on a kind of industrial estate with several other offices and places of business, but there was a guy at the gate outside checking IDs to make sure only staff got into the estate. He'd refused the guy with the drone entry after he'd found out that he didn't have any ID, but instead, he'd just driven along the road a bit, parked his car, then got out to fly his drone over the fence. Security then got news of the drone, worked out that the guy had parked down the road a bit, and then went over to tell him to pack it in, but the bloke had refused. He claimed to have every right to fly his drone onto private property and told security to get the police involved if he wanted him to leave. Shortly after that, our manager filled us in on what was going on and said security was waiting for the police to arrive so they could ask the guy to move on. Apparently he was still flying his drone around the estate but if it appeared in

our windows again we were to just ignore it and try to crack on with our work. We didn't see the drone for the rest of the day but the next morning as I was driving into work I spotted the guy's car parked down the road a bit and I could see him leaning up against it, just watching everyone who entered the estate. Then right on cue, around an hour before our lunch break, the drone appeared in the window again and started hovering back and forth, watching us or taking pictures. Just like the previous day, everyone gradually began to notice the drone and our office manager came to see what was going on. Long story short, for that second day, the police came out for a second time to

ask the drone guy to move on and the security guard from the front gate went over with them to hear what was being said. At first, the guy with the drone said that he was an auditor, come to inspect the properties. Since that sounded kind of legitimate at first, both the police and our security guard thought that he might have actually been in on some official capacity, so they asked to see his credentials. In response, the man started telling them, I don't need to show you my credentials, I'm an auditor. I have a right to be here and that's all you need to know. The police then said that was fine. He didn't need to show them anything, but could he at least tell them what company he's from or what he's doing so they could put our minds at ease over in the offices? Our security guard said the police were perfectly polite and were only asking him a few

harmless questions, but all they were getting back was hostility. Nothing too aggressive, mind you. The guy just refused to answer any questions and kept saying, I'm an auditor and I've got the right to be here. From what our security guard heard, the auditor wasn't breaking the law as flying his drone around the outside of our office building didn't constitute trespassing. I think he was technically correct in that, but the police told him that if he repeatedly used the drone to take pictures of us, it would at some point count as harassment and he'd be arrested and charged if we chose to make

a complaint. Now, for those of you that are as confused as I was about this whole interaction, and my word was I confused, there's a little bit of background information you need to know so it all makes a bit more sense. There's a very peculiar kind of person in this world and what they like to do is go to different places and just record or take pictures of people who are there. And this whole thing exists in America too. Only your people call themselves First Amendment auditors. And there's loads of videos of them online, arguing with the strangers, sometimes getting assaulted, and sometimes getting arrested too

when they try to enter courtrooms or army bases, places they're not allowed to be basically. And personally, I find the whole thing to be completely mental. And the only thing I can think of is that these people have gotten too much time on their hands and have somehow come to thrive on negative interactions with other people. It's bizarre, truly bizarre, but those people exist and this guy was one of them. We were aware of all of that by day three so it all made a little bit more sense to us. The only real question by then was why on earth had he chosen to audit us, of all people? One of my office colleagues, a guy called Jeff, he was the one who told us all about those crazy first amendment auditors in America, or whatever you want to call it, and he told us that, in his

opinion, the sooner we started completely ignoring the guy, the sooner he'd just go away. See, a lot of these auditor weirdos think that if they can get even the slightest bit of resistance or pushback from the people they're filming, it must mean those people are up to no good. But then, no one likes being randomly photographed, do they? It all feels a bit personal. So I imagine this guy thought everyone was up to no good if he was just going around filming people provocatively. My point is, Jeff said the sooner we stopped giving this auditor the satisfaction and started giving the guy the cold shoulder, the sooner he'd be out of our hair and off bothering someone else for a change.

Now long story short, that didn't work. And in the end, our office manager made an official harassment complaint to the police and claimed it was preventing us from working effectively. It's a bit of an exaggeration on his part, but it definitely wasn't pleasant knowing that he was looking at us through that little camera on the drone. The day after the harassment report was filed, we all waited for half eleven to see if the drone would appear at the window and when it got to about eleven forty-five and there had been no appearance, some of us did a little bit of a cheer to celebrate the boring little saga finally being over. But it wasn't over. We still had quite a way to go before then. So there was that day when the drone didn't show up, which was a Thursday, but then the following morning, on the way into work, I noticed someone standing outside the front gate, filming everyone who entered the industrial estate on their phone. When I got closer, I recognized who it was.

It was the weirdo, the auditor, without the drone this time, but he was there nevertheless. As I turned into the estate and the security guard on the gate let me in, I could see the auditor guy was recording me with his phone. Not just my car either, he was holding his phone at the same height as his tummy, trying to film my face as I stopped to allow the barrier to go up. As I mentioned earlier, it was deeply unpleasant, but all he was doing was taking pictures of us. The thing I wanted to know more than anything was why he was doing it. I remember discussing it with some of my colleagues that day, but none of us could come up with a definitive answer. Even our manager,

who was in regular touch with security by that point, said they had no idea why he was taking pictures of people. Every time they'd asked, he'd just said none of your business, or something to that effect, and anything further just had him saying call the police then. I heard he got moved on by the police later that day. They gave him some kind of dispersal order, which meant that they could nick him if he didn't move on. And so off he went, only to return a few days later when we all returned to work on Monday morning. When I saw him on that occasion, I suppose my curiosity got the better of me. I'd always been a bit wary of the guy, not scared as such, but definitely not keen on approaching

him in any way. But then that Monday, my curiosity completely got the better of me, and as I waited for the barrier to go up, I lowered my passenger side window and shouted for him to come over. First thing he does is start recording me, not leaning into my car or anything, but just holding the phone in the open window, probably to get a better picture of me, I imagine. That didn't bother me too much by that point. He'd taken dozens of pictures of me as it was, but I took the opportunity to actually ask him why he'd got such a bee under his bonnet for our particular industrial estate. I'll never forget how he asked me, sorry, what nonsense are you spouting? I didn't quite catch that. And when I repeated myself, he lowered the phone to make eye contact with me and said, I know what you lot are doing in there. And when I get proof of it, you're going to be in trouble. Just mark my words. Now, just so you know, our company was a marketing company that specialized in graphics and logos. A small

business might get in touch with us, ask us to make up a portfolio of potential branding ideas, then they pay a flat fee for both our time, our expertise, and the rights to use whatever designs our art department came up with. Then as far as I knew, the other businesses on the estate were a storage facility that rented shipping containers to the public, a company that sold ink cartridges and then two other consultancy companies that I'm almost certain specialized in IT. It was all very innocent and all quite boring if I'm being honest, so having the auditor tell me you're going to be in trouble made no sense whatsoever. I asked him what he meant, or rather

what he thought we were doing in there. And he responded by saying, Will you tell me, sweetheart? You tell me. In just about the most obnoxious fashion imaginable. I told him to sod off, rolled my window back up again, and then drove off to park my car in my office's car park. That day, I mentioned the strange interaction to quite a few of my colleagues, mainly focusing on the comment implying that we were doing something bad, or at least something we get in trouble for. I mean, what on earth did he think that we were doing if not putting

together marketing and branding portfolios all day? I knew he was probably a few sticks short of a bundle, so I thought that there mightn't be much logic in what he had to say to me, and a comment he directed at another colleague made even less sense. Joanne from the copywriting department said that when she told him what we did, as in that we were a marketing consultancy firm, he replied with, You know as well as I do, it's not what goes on upstairs, it's what goes on downstairs, isn't it? Did he mean the ground floor? He must have. We didn't have a basement, but the ground floor was reception, conference rooms, the canteen, stuff like that. Nothing remotely weird or untoward in any way. Anyway, the police kept showing up to move him along, but until we got a court order specifically banning him from standing outside the premises, we had to put up with him showing up every morning, then getting moved along like clockwork whenever the police could be bothered to show up.

We couldn't wait to get that restraining order signed by a judge, but we had no idea that the situation would resolve itself in a horrible fashion within just two weeks. The week that followed, we all just put up with the auditor being outside. Sometimes, he even had a friend with him, a fellow with badges all over a jacket that had no to 5G painted on the back of it. At least it looked painted on anyway. I obviously didn't see him over the next weekend, but come Monday morning, bright and early, there he was, standing outside the estate with his camera phone at the ready. You had to admire his dedication, really. He used to stand out there even if it was raining buckets. Just a brawly in his phone in hand, making sure that

he never missed a day. And then finally, on a Wednesday morning, our manager came out of his office to share a bit of good news with us. Craig Parkhill, a guy we called Parky for short, was coming back to the office after getting his old jabs. Parky was a bit of an office legend at the time. He's retired now and was only two years away from it at the time the auditor showed up, but every day he lit up the office like a spotlight. He was funny and friendly, but could be really dry and scathing too in a way that made you wheeze laugh until tears rolled down your cheeks. People literally walked out of the tea room whenever Parkey came in to make his brew because he'd make you laugh while you were sipping your tea and have you spitting it all over the countertop like a toddler.

He was a pain in the butt that way. He thought that kind of thing was hilarious, but we all loved him and we miss him dearly now that he's retired. And what I personally really miss is Parkey's no-nonsense attitude when it came to serious things. When we heard he was coming back, we were all made up to hear that he was doing better. He was real sick back then and had been one of those who had elected to work from home until everybody was good, so hearing that he was well enough to return to the office was a huge morale boost to everyone. But then it hit us. How on earth was Parkey going to react when he saw

the auditor on the front of the gate? And the most any of us had done was ask the auditor why he was so content to waste his time, but it had never gotten any more confrontational than that. But Parkey, on the other hand, he was unlikely to drive past more than two or three times without giving this guy a bloody earful, and honestly, we were quite excited about it. The policy had been, let security deal with it, don't interact with him, and we tried our best to stick to the plan. But Parkey wasn't a stick to the plan kind of bloke. He always picked the straightest line from A to B, no diversions, no faffing about. And the way he dealt with the auditor might be very different

from the approach we'd taken. Anyway, come that next Monday, Parkey was due back into work. I always used to arrive a little bit earlier to get some breakfast in the canteen, another perk of the job, so I arrived about 20 minutes before Parkey did. Remember I told you that my desk had a view out of the window? Well, the view had a few trees, so it was quite nice if you were sitting down, but if you stood up, you got a magnificent view of the car park. I couldn't see the front gate from the window, but I could see the driveway down to our car park, meaning that I saw when Parky's car came around the bend and turned into our car park. I'm sorry if that's a bit of a mouthful, but then following Parkey's car, running it almost a sprint the whole way, was the weirdo,

the auditor. He'd never tried to enter the estate before, not to my knowledge anyway, and he looked furious chasing after Parkey's car, so right away I was thinking to myself, bloody hell, something's happened at the gate. Maybe Parkey slapped the auditor's phone out of his hand, or maybe he even slapped the auditor after he'd said something a bit too cheeky. My colleague, who sat adjacent to me, had arrived by that point, so I mentioned to her that something was going on outside. Then, bit by bit, everyone present floated towards the windows to see Parkey get out of his car and start marching over to the auditor, who aggressively stomped towards him for a few seconds before stopping dead in his tracks. I feel a bit guilty saying this, but I was actually quite excited to see Parkey put this auditor guy in his place. He'd been bothering us for literally weeks by that point, and we'd gone from considering him a mild annoyance to quite bitterly disliking him in some cases.

I don't think anyone wanted to see Parkey hurt him, but it'd be nice to see him get a proper earful from a furiously resurgent favorite colleague of ours. So as I said, Parkey had stopped his car, gotten out and was marching towards the auditor who was stood still on the tarmac in front of him. Parkey was pointing at him and shouting something that none of us could really hear thanks to the double glazing, but it was clear that he was having a proper good go at him, probably because of something he'd said. I should have mentioned that in the week before Parkey came back, the auditor, and sometimes his 5G-fearing friend, had been getting increasingly ballsy as far as their confrontations were concerned. One of our colleagues had been told, you're going to effing hang, by the guy in the 5G jacket, and our regular auditor had taken to shouting increasingly horrible insults at us whenever we drove in. Called us perverts, beasts, nunces, he seemed obsessed with the idea that we were hurting children in some way.

Chances are that he'd said something like that to Parkey, who having never seen him before, and having no context as to what he was about, reacted very, very badly. And we later found out that Parkey had grabbed the guy's phone out of his hand, the one the auditor was using to take pictures of him and then driven off with it. This had then caused the auditor to chase him down to get the phone back, which Parkey said he was more than prepared to do once the pictures he'd taken were deleted. He wasn't planning on hitting the guy,

but he was most definitely walking towards him in an aggressive manner. Yet what Parkey didn't know is that was exactly what the auditor wanted. He was basically walking into a trap. Parkey got a little bit closer, still pointing at the auditor while shouting something, when suddenly the auditor reached into his coat pocket and then pulled out something which looked a lot like a gun and pointed it at Parkey. Parkey stopped and we heard a sharp crack and then he fell over. One of the girls who worked with us back then let out this horrible scream and then one of the guys said, it's a taser, it's a taser, quick, come on, and he and about four other fellas went running out of the office. I later found out that he knew that it was a taser,

which I understood as being like a stun gun type of thing because it was small, bright yellow, and would have made a much louder sound if it was a gun. Those taser things are also single use until you can retract the little barb that it shoots, meaning my colleague knew that he wouldn't be able to use it again. But anyway, a few guys run down into the car park to confront the auditor, while Parkey is just lying there on the tarmac, not moving at all. Turns out the auditor had some pepper spray on him too and was threatening to use it on my colleagues as they forced him back up towards the front gate. But what the auditor didn't realize is that the security guard he'd run right past

was coming right up behind him all while he was focused completely on my four colleagues. And then out of nowhere, wham, the security guard comes in from behind and tackles the auditor to the ground. It was a horrible fall too. He basically bear hugged the auditor's arms tight to his sides and then bowled him over so that he smashed his face against the tarmac on the car park.

I did the only thing I could think of when I saw a parkie go down and that was to call 999 on my phone. I remember watching from the window, trying to describe exactly what was going on while giving the dispatcher on the other end as accurate a description of the auditor as I could. Then after he got tackled and after seeing the way he fell, I told the guy we're probably going to need two ambulances here now and it was just awful. The auditor was unconscious and there was so much blood coming out from his face which if you remember had smashed against the concrete when the security guy tackled him, that I could see the pool of it under his head from all the way up in the office window. Parkey was still just lying there too,

and people were just in bits thinking that he might be dead, because even if it was a taser, it could still give him a heart attack or possibly something. Our colleagues that ran to help thought that too, because when Parkey woke up, before the ambulance came, he said that he had chest pains and that his arm hurt. Luckily, he wasn't having any kind of heart problems. He was just stunned and in pain from the way he'd fallen. And ironically, the auditor came off so much worse.

But the whole day was almost completely ruined for the lot of us after that, and I think half of us ended up going home early that day because of how horrible it had all been. Parkey went to the hospital and was kept overnight for monitoring, but discharged the next day after everything was determined to be in working order. Some of us had to talk to the police about what had happened that morning because they were looking to charge the auditor with GBH and weapons offenses for using the taser on Parkey, and we later heard the guy got two years in prison for both offenses, but would likely only do a year if he kept his head down and behaved himself. We were quite naturally very happy to hear that, but the real victor came when Parkey

returned to the office for a second time. Only that time he managed to last the whole day. I suppose it's hardly worth mentioning, but the last thing we heard about the whole thing was how the auditor had tried to take the security company to court. This is the company the estate contracted to keep the building secure, and they employed the security guard who'd rugby-tackled the auditor that morning when he tased Parkey. And in all fairness, that tackle must have resulted in some nasty damage to his face, and I have no doubt that he'll have a reminder of that day on his cheek or chin somewhere. But my opinion on this is the same as the magistrate who threw out his case, when he said that the security guard did exactly what any other right-minded person should have done, which was eliminate the threat to any innocent people. I mean, how cheeky is that? Putting a man in the hospital with a stun gun and then complaining that someone actually stood up

for themselves. Human beings never, ever fail to amaze me. They really don't. Especially when it comes to just how awful they can be to one another. 2021 was a weird time for anyone whose primary occupation involved working in some kind of office. And by the summer, we all had been working from home for just over a year, and the consensus was kind of a mixed one. Some people loved it, and some people hated it. And when we got the news that we'd have to come back to the office once restrictions loosened up in the fall, it caused a similar amount of controversy. Some people couldn't wait to get back to the office, while others threatened to resign if push came to shove.

Well, push did indeed come to shove and a lot of people were let go and the whole thing sucked. We lost a bunch of good team members and that meant that one of the first things that we had to do when back in the office was hire a bunch of new people to plug the gaps. But that proved much easier said than done. At first, we tried to replace all our missing team members with personnel who were equally skilled, but thanks to the precarious financial situation that all of that had left us in, we couldn't meet the salary demands of many of the folks that were headhunting. But we needed team members, and we needed them fast, so we started offering interviews to candidates who, while not as qualified as some of the people on our wish list, were still technically qualified to fill

the gaps in our company. And one of those candidates was a woman that I'll call Tanya. I'm calling her Tanya because my daughter is obsessed with the movie, I, Tanya, and right now it's the first name that popped into my head while searching for a fake one. I don't want to use Tanya's actual name for reasons that'll become obvious, I imagine. Everyone does stuff that they come to later regret in life, and although I spent a big chunk of time hating her guts, I've reached a stage where I genuinely wish the best for her and hope she comes to resolve the issues that she's suffering with at the time. Anyway, we hired Tanya as our customer service representative, and while that's definitely not the easiest job in the world, we realized pretty quickly that she was

not suited to customer service. It was incredibly confusing too because she'd interviewed well, and at least one of her references checked out okay. The only issue was that she'd never worked customer services before, and while hiring her to head up our sole CS rep was technically a risky move, neither myself nor the CEO believed that there'd be any problems. In a rush to hire her, and with how busy I was talking with our other potential employees, I neglected to check out her other two references with our other potential employees, I neglected to check out her other two references and if I had, I'd have been told that Tanya was great at just about everything, except conflict resolution. She was punctual, her attitude was great for the most

part, but whenever things got a little heated with a complaining customer, she sometimes just saw red, I guess. The first time it happened, we kind of let it go. Tanya was so great in every other aspect that we didn't want to let her go without first trying the soft approach. We took her aside for a little talk and basically told her not to take things so personally. She was going to have to deal with jerk customers from time to time and the trick was to take the emotion out of it, disassociate, and pretend it's all just an elaborate problem-solving exercise. Kind of like a Rubik's Cube, only the cube acts like a total prick the whole time.

You wouldn't call the cube a jerk, right? You just take a deep breath and take a different approach. I remember the CEO saying basically, we think you're better than that. As in, we thought that she was an awesome employee and that it wasn't unrealistic to expect better from her. Obviously, she couldn't just deny anyone's service at the drop of a hat, but we reminded her that if a customer became downright abusive, not just impatient or ill-tempered, she had every right to terminate the call and put a person's name forward for blacklisting. She wasn't a punching

bag, and we wouldn't let her be one, but at the same time, she had to try and keep a cooler head when dealing with customers, as that way we could separate the ornery from the downright monstrous, and we'd have her back while she did it. Again, she agreed, thanked us for the feedback, and we ended the meeting on a real high note. Cut to about two to three weeks later, Tanya has another yelling competition with a customer over the phone, and the CEO asks me to give her an ultimatum. Do what you need to do to avoid conflict with customers or be asked to leave which was obviously the nice polite way of saying you'll be fired. I wasn't strictly working HR at the time. I'd been involved in hiring but not in any official capacity. But instead of escalating

to HR and hopefully nipping any potential conflict, the CEO asked me to give Tanya one last chance before it got very official and we were forced to let her go. I don't think he made the mistake of asking me, but I know for a fact that I made a mistake in my execution. You see, when having a serious talk with an employee, you should have a third party present to act as a witness. That way, if anything gets crazy, there's someone to vouch that you did or didn't say a particular thing. Now, 99% of the time, the witness being there is just a formality. But every so often, something happens which proves exactly why systems like that are in place to begin with. I figure that because me,

Tanya, and the CEO had a little heart to heart, and it had gone over okay, I'd be good to just catch her at a spare moment, in private, to give her that final warning. Aside from the craziness with customers, she'd been perfectly polite and reasonable with all her co-workers, me included, so I had no reason at all to really think that she'd react badly. But boy was I wrong about that. So, the afternoon following the CEO's request, I was in between tasks when I noticed Tanya heading back into the stockroom. I figured that was as good a time as any to have a talk with her regarding her approach to solving customer complaints. So I walked in behind her, said hi, then asked if we could have a talk with her regarding her approach to solving customer complaints. So I walked in behind

her, said hi, then asked if we could have a short talk. Tanya said sure, and then I very carefully started to address the complaint situation. She listened for a few minutes and she looked to be taking everything I was saying on board right up until I mentioned the prospect of letting her go. She started to look a little flustered at first, then as I carried on talking about the prospect of letting her go. She started to look a little flustered at first. Then as I carried on talking about the prospect of her being fired, I could tell that she was becoming kind of emotional. I stopped talking for a second, asked if she was okay, and she responded by taking a step back before facing one of the storage shelves. I was getting a bit nervous by then, I mean, in a way that anyone else might if the

person that they're talking to just kind of steps back and then turns away from them. I first thought that it was like, I don't know, a way of calming herself down. That stepping back and facing away from me was her way of disconnecting and finding her calm again. I asked her once more if she was okay, but she again didn't say anything. Instead, she kind of leaned back a little, then threw her head forward and smashed her face into the metal shelf bracket, as in the poles either side of the shelf that hold the actual shelves up. I was so stunned at first that I didn't react. Like I honestly just stood there, completely shocked

Until she did it a second time And that second impact was the one that had blood pouring out of her nose like a faucet I stepped forward and tried to restrain her to stop her from hurting herself any further But she let out this banshee scream, yelling out, get the hell off of me, help, help. I remember being so freaked out that I started backing up away from her, and once she had enough room, she skirted past me, opened up the stockroom's door, then stumbled out into the main office, wailing, help me, somebody, he's gone crazy. As long as I live, I'll never forget that moment when I realized what

Tanya was trying to do. She hadn't just freaked out, had an emotional breakdown, then bashed her head against a shelf. She'd done so with a purpose to making it look like I'd attacked her. What followed was probably the most surreal and distressing few minutes of my life. I don't really blame anyone for reacting the way they did, because one second the office is calm and productive, and the next there's a young woman with blood streaming down her blouse and she's screaming that she's been attacked and needs help. Just about the last thing anyone would have done in that situation was stop her and ask, did this man really just hit you, or are you a dangerously unhinged individual who just faked

a serious assault to try and save your job? People did the only thing they could think of, which was comfort her, give her medical attention, and get me the hell out of there while they called the cops. No one tried to restrain me or anything, but I could see in people's eyes that they were shocked at the thought of me attacking Tanya. It was our CEO, who, while in the midst of a complete panic, told me I needed to leave for the day. Then on the way out, he told me I should probably get myself a lawyer or something because Lord knows things were probably going to get very rough for me, legally speaking. But I only had one thing to say to him in reply. Check the cameras.

I promise I didn't do anything, just check the cameras. I'm not sure whether Tanya didn't know about the little camera in the stock room or she just kind of forgot it was there due to her little freak out slash breakdown, but the entire incident was caught on film. And all it took was the cops looking through the footage with our CEO and they saw the truth of the matter. The CEO said both he and the cops watched the footage back, open mouth before declaring that there was no case against me whatsoever. Tanya was fired, all of my co-workers were given the opportunity to watch the footage so they could see for themselves that I was innocent, and after that, I felt vindicated. A few of my co-workers even stopped by my cubicle to tell me how sorry they were for believing I'd attacked Tanya, and said that they never would have guessed what a total psycho she ended up being.

Like I said, I was beyond furious with Tanya at the time and had all kinds of ideas about suing her, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized something. A person has to be beyond messed up to try and fake a crime like that, let alone do it in a way that actually hurt themselves physically. And aside from the fact that civil suits are basically pointless, suing Tanya might provide some minor, short-term satisfaction, when what she needed was help, and by help I mean serious psychological treatment. If she'd managed to hurt me somehow, or if she'd damaged my property, that would have been a whole different story. But she didn't. The only person she ended up hurting was herself, so with that in mind, on the wild chance that you're listening, Tanya, I forgive you.

I've done things I regret in life too. Things I did when my emotions were firing and that I should have taken a moment to think over before I did them. And I see you as no different. Nothing really bad happened to me and I don't need an apology. In fact, I think the best news that I could get right now is that you're doing well. Maybe living in another city or something and that whatever you were dealing with at the time is dealt with and concluded. You scared me, but I'm sure you scared a lot of other people too. Your family, your friends, your boyfriend or girlfriend. Those are the people whose suffering I think about whenever I remember that incident back in 2021. I sincerely hope you're doing better and let me take the opportunity to thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson. Sometimes, although we

take them for granted, certain rules or practices are in place for a very good reason. And recently, I heard a phrase that struck a very big chord with me. Rules, as they say, are written in blood. We'll be right back. 866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I used to make deliveries to about 20 to 30 office buildings all over NYC and New Jersey. I delivered to the exact same places week in, week out for almost three years. And that meant that I got to know some of the people there pretty well. There was this one guy a few years older than me, and he'd always come out and help take the deliveries at this one particular building. We used to swap a little small talk here and there, and that's how I found out that he played Xbox, or more to the point, a little game called Battlefield 1. Now for those that don't know, BF1 is a shooter game where you play in squads,

and the better your squad communicates and works as a team, the more effective you are and the more fun you have. So I get this dude's gamer tag, and me and a friend end up linking up with him and his buddies for a few rounds of Conquest one night. We didn't play every night with those dudes, just every so often when we weren't playing PUBG, which had just come out on console around that same time.

But it was cool to see him online as well as offline, and we were pretty friendly from there on out. And so in the summer of 2018, I drove over to my gaming buddy's office building to make my regular delivery, but I found the place closed. Not like closed clothes, with no one around and no cars in the parking lot. The place looked open, but the gates were closed over and there were a bunch of cop cars outside. I stopped, jumped out of my express, and then walked up to the gate to ask the cops what was going on. One seemed pretty chill and told me how he really didn't know. He was just told to watch the front entrance and that all employees had gone home for the day.

I thanked him for the info and then just carried on with my deliveries, but when I got home that night and turned on my Xbox, my buddy from the office was playing Battlefield 1 with his bros and I ended up joining their party chat to ask him if he was all good. I didn't know if there had been like a fire, maybe a gas leak, or god forbid some kind of lockdown or active shooter situation, so I was actually kind of anxious to make sure that he was okay. Turns out he was fine, but when I asked him the question,

his voice started to kind of laugh and he was like, bro, I got a story for you. It was a story he had already told his two friends in the party chat, but he didn't mind repeating it to me while we played some games. So my BF1 buddy said that he was at work that morning, working on something on his computer in one of the offices, when all of a sudden, his computer froze up. He said the computers were kind of slow and outdated, so it wasn't unusual

for them to act up from time to time. But as he's just kind of waiting for it to unfreeze before trying control alt delete, he hears his co-worker in the next cubicle over start to complain about the shoddy hardware that they had to deal with. My buddy stands up and looks over the little cubicle wall and asks his co-worker if his computer's frozen too, but it wasn't just theirs. Every computer in the office had suddenly stopped working. Then after a few minutes of total confusion, all the screens of the computers turned blue. Then before anyone had time to react, all the power in their office flicked off. Something had blown the breaker in the basement, so it seemed like it wasn't just a case of the janitor switching it back on or whatever.

The whole place had surge control or something like that, so once the power was back on, everyone just turned their computers back on and started to get back to work. But when they do, each computer starts running this weird boot sequence, like when you start your computer up and it looked like something was either downloading or installing. The whole time, no one could do anything other than turn the computers off. They weren't responding to any input. But since most people assumed that it was some kind of update or the computers repairing themselves or something like that,

no one thought to do anything other than let the company's IT guy know about it. In the meantime, their IT guy is going nuts, and it took him a little while to realize the scale of the problem since his office was apart from the rest of their cubicles. But when it clicked that every computer in the building seemed to be installing some weird unknown software, he started running around telling everyone to turn off their computers at the wall by pulling it out and to stop from installing any further. It's just total confusion in there for a while. No one knows what to do and in the end, my buddy's boss comes out and tells everyone to take an early lunch. None of the computers in the cafeteria were working,

so no one could pay for any of their lunch there, so everyone started to head out to get food off-site. But then, during the course of that next hour, some cops showed up, and when my buddy and his co-workers returned to work, they were told the place was closing for the day so they could investigate what had happened with the computers. It was an interesting story, not the most mind-blowing thing I'd ever heard, but my buddy sounded stoked to have a paid day off, and we spent the next couple of rounds of Xboxing speculating on what might have happened, be it like a DDoS attack or malware or something like that. Now anyways, the week goes by, and on my day off, I notice my battlefield office buddy is online, but like in the middle of the day. I asked him if he'd gone back to work yet and he said no,

no one had been back to work yet and not just that, but guess who had given him a call on his cell just a few hours earlier? An agent from the FBI. This agent sounded almost bizarrely friendly considering what he had been asked to do, and that was to call each and every member of the company to talk to them about the day the computers went crazy. The agent asked my buddy a metric ton of questions, and a lot of weird ones involving like minute pieces of detail about his day. He said he just answered as honestly as he could, as he wanted to help and had nothing to hide. Then, that was the last he heard about it until his office opened up again. And so he goes back to work and everything seems fine with the computer system. Apparently a whole bunch of engineers had visited over the weekend to check

their systems for viruses, but I'm not a big computer guy so I'm sure someone can explain it a bit better than I can. The point is, they didn't find anything. The place seemed clean so all the employees were invited back and everything went on as normal. But then when my buddy returns, he notices not all of the employees had returned and one guy's desk is very noticeably empty. Everyone's curious as to where this guy is, and that curiosity intensifies when my buddy and his co-workers find out he's been suspended. Management wouldn't say why he'd been suspended, but everyone rightfully assumed that it had something to do with the whole power outage

slash computer freezing thing. People were told it was a private matter and that they should respect that, but first chance he got. My buddy calls the guy who'd been suspended and asked him what the hell was going on. And now, here's where things get really weird. The guy who had been suspended said not only had he received a 30-day suspension, but that he'd actually been detained in question by FBI agents, not once, but twice by the time everyone returned to the office. Long story short, both company management and the FBI had believed that he had something to do with breaking their computer system, and until recently, he was their one

and only suspect. My buddy asked how he came to be their suspect, and the guy said it was all somehow connected to a QR code sticker that he'd found on the dumpster behind the office. Apparently, the place was a no-smoking facility, and the same applied to vapes, too. But then, instead of heading all the way off-site to get their nicotine, there was an unspoken agreement that people could head back to where the dumpsters were kept, just as long as they weren't out from where the bosses might see them. Anyway, the guy that got suspended goes around the back to use his vape and sees the QR code stuck to the dumpster.

And then out of pure curiosity, the guy takes out his phone and scans the code, and then waits to see what brings up on his internet browser. And then out of pure curiosity, the guy takes out his phone and scans the code, and then waits to see what brings up on his internet browser. This little browser window pops up, but it doesn't load anything, and suspended guy realizes his phone is somehow in airplane mode or something, and that the internet has been disabled. He goes into his settings, flicks it back on, logs onto the office wifi, then right at that exact same minute, bingo, all the computers in the office start freezing up.

I guess the engineers traced whatever had infected the office computers to the guy's phone, and once they'd singled him out, he was hit with both a suspension and both visits from the FBI agents. It wasn't until he surrendered all this stuff, as in his phone, computer, just about anything that could connect to the internet, and explained the whole thing about the QR code that he'd found, that the FBI guys actually shifted their attention to whoever had put the QR sticker there, and he was no longer their one and only suspect. Dude said that he was terrified, even though he kind of knew that he hadn't done anything wrong, that he'd been blamed for some major cyber attack and would end up doing like a hundred years in federal prison after being

mislabeled as like a cyber terrorist or something. And I guess that's the scary part of the story. Getting a few days off of work is just about the furthest thing from scary I can imagine. So everyone but suspension guy obviously had a pretty easy ride. But that one guy? Dude I've scanned tons of QR codes on the street for all kinds of different reasons. I scanned one and brought up this chick's art page and another one brought up a blunt delivery service and I wouldn't think twice about scanning a random one just to see what it brings up. But to think that that could end with me getting dragged off by the FBI, it's enough to make anyone paranoid. My name is Nina, and I've officially decided to sit down and write up the story of something I witnessed way back during my first ever office job. When I first started, I was getting to know all of my co-workers. A guy named Peter stood out right away.

Everyone was super nice to me, but Peter just ignored me, and then was kind of cold and rude when I went over to introduce myself. People said he was like that with everyone and not to let it bother me. He showed up to work, did his job, and then drove home again, all without sharing so much as a good morning with the rest of us. I guess that was just his way. I mean, I still thought that he was a jerk, but he was good at his job, and these days I'd rather work with a competent asshole than an incompetent friend. But then came the day when Peter started not being so good at his job. He started showing up late,

looking like he hadn't slept and when he started overrunning deadlines on a regular basis, management asked him if he wanted to take some vacation time to get himself together. We never found out what was going on with him, whether it was a medical thing or something going on at home, but Peter refused the time off and continued with his poor work performance. I've heard rumors that something was going to happen with him, whether it be a meeting with the bosses, suspension, or getting altogether fired, but it all came to a head one morning. Peter staggered into work smelling like a distillery. Word that Peter was drunk spread around the office

like wildfire and we were just waiting for something to happen when, finally, one of our bosses came out to talk to him. I don't know what she said to him exactly, but Peter responded by yelling out, just let me do my effing job. And then without a word, she turned around, walked back into her office and closed the door. A minute later, the big boss, a burly guy in his 50s, goes out and gives Peter a piece of his mind, telling him if he doesn't take a cab home immediately, emphasis on the cab part, then he was going to be fired on the spot. Peter started cursing out the boss, calling him all kinds of things I'd rather not repeat.

Then our boss goes back to his office after announcing that he's going to call the cops. I hate to say it, it makes us sound kind of terrible in a way, but everyone in the office was just completely gripped. Someone was having a complete meltdown right there in front of us, and as sad and upsetting as it was, we were completely engrossed. And I kind of feel bad for Peter too. I don't think anyone in the office was, like, enjoying what was going on. But Peter was drunk, and he sounded mad as hell too, so with the chances of things breaking out and the

violence being so high, I guess that's what had us all watching out of the corners of our eyes. Anyway, our big boss only came out of his office one more time to warn Peter that the cops are on their way, but Peter just tells him to go to hell. Then maybe 20 or 30 minutes later, the cops show up and ask Peter to leave. We were all watching by then. All the higher-ups had come out of their offices, everyone was standing up over their cubicles or had wheeled their chairs around the side, all to watch poor old Peter get thrown out or potentially arrested. Someone, I didn't see who, said, just go buddy, get some help. Not even in like an insulting way either, they were being genuine I think.

And Peter responded by screaming something back at them. And that's when the cops decided that he was going to jail. One of them started barking, stand up and put your hands behind your back, while the other reached for his cuffs and got them ready to put on Peter's wrists. But he still refused to budge and kept telling them to go F themselves. And that's when the struggle really started. One of the cops started trying to grab Pete's arms and he started pulling them away and generally resisting. The other cop then got involved and they both were trying to restrain Pete when suddenly he kind of twists and turns and all you heard was one of the cops scream out, he's got a gun, he's got a gun. Someone, I don't know who,

but it was one of my co-workers shouted out everybody down and that's what we did almost instinctually. Everyone laying on the floor as fast as we could, and I remember praying that I wouldn't hear a gunshot, right up until I heard three loud bangs. This might sound odd to some American and non-American folks alike, but I never actually heard a gunshot until that day, and let me tell you, it's something I never want to be that close to ever again. I think maybe it was the enclosed space of the office, not that enclosed, but you get what I mean, combined with how terrified I was, that made the blast seem so loud, but it was easily the second most horrifying thing I'd ever witnessed. But then, the first most horrifying thing was

what I saw when I finally stood up. I guess one of the cops had panicked, and instead of helping wrestle Peter's hand off the other cop's gun, he just pulled his own and shot him three times. I didn't see it at first. I just heard screaming and one lady yelling out, Oh my God, oh my God, before she burst into tears and had to be taken away. I stayed down at first, thinking it was Pete that might have done the shooting, but then when I heard what sounded like the two cops talking to each other,

I finally stood up and made the mistake of looking over in their direction. And there was a lot of blood. I didn't think a person could bleed that much and still be alive, but he was. Peter had somehow survived being shot three times up close, and seeing him move and try to breathe gave some people hope. The cop who shot him ended up walking out of the office sounding like he was about to cry, saying, he had your gun, I swear to God, he almost had your gun. Sometime after that, after they were able to stabilize him and the EMT showed up pretty quick,

they put Peter on a stretcher and wheeled him out to the waiting ambulance outside. The rest of the day's work was cancelled and we found out that night that Peter had actually died on his way to the hospital. It was devastating. I didn't even know Peter all that well. I didn't even really like him, but finding out that he died was just so incredibly upsetting to me and everyone who'd worked with him. The office was closed for the rest of the week, but even when my co-workers started to head back over the month or so that followed, some took more time than others, I couldn't bring myself to go back to somewhere where someone had been killed. I think the thing that really gets me about it is that some people are shot by the cops after committing a crime or doing something that endangers people in some way, and others are shot for next to no reason at all from what I hear, but

Pete was killed because he was just having a bad day. I know he went for the cop's gun, I guess, and some of my co-workers actually saw his hand reaching for it. I'm just saying that he didn't have to die like that. I don't know what I have done in that situation, or rather I do, but just hitting him might have resulted in Pete getting the cop's gun and then who the hell knows what would have happened. Some of us might have even been killed if the gunfight broke out and I just wish that things didn't have to be that way. And I know that probably sounds incredibly naive of me, but I really do wonder sometimes if I'd have given Pete a big old hug that morning, if things I have been a little overprotective of my daughter. Over the last year or so I've been trying to cut the cord so to speak and allow my daughter to have more independence.

Almost a year ago I allowed her to have a sleepover for her birthday party. She was turning 12 and I knew most of her friends and they were all good kids. All but one. Her friend that I'm going to call Katie in this story was just that typical bad news girl. She came from a pretty rough family and it showed. My daughter was always friends with her, but the older they got, I could see Katie going down a darker path. A few weeks before the party, Katie got suspended for hitting a teacher. The only reason that she didn't get expelled was because my daughter wrote a

letter to the principal, basically begging them to give her another chance, and they did. I was on the fence about letting Katie come over, but my daughter begged me and I gave in. And what harm could a 12-year-old girl cause in one night? The night came and it was just me alone responsible for the girls who came over. My husband works overnight so he wasn't going to be home until 8 in the morning. I was a little nervous about having all the kids in the house but I trusted my daughter to be responsible and keep everyone under control which for the most part she did. Even Katie was well behaved and even respectful. She thanked me twice for allowing her to come over. When I was getting ready for bed, I checked in with the girls and told them to behave. As I was walking away,

Katie said one last time, with sort of a bit of mischief in her voice, thanks again for letting me come over. When I turned back and smiled, she looked at me in a sort of funny way, and I got the sense that she sort of ironically was thanking me now. I was hoping that my daughter didn't tell her that I didn't want her there, but I was sure that I was just overthinking this. At some point in the middle of the night, I heard a loud bang coming from down the hall. It was like the sound of a pan falling off the shelf or something. I froze for a minute thinking about the horrible idea of an intruder,

and I went into bear mob mode and decided to investigate the noise. When I got into the hallway, I could hear the muffled sounds of whispers, and one of the whispers was very aggressive and angry sounding, but I couldn't make out the words. The other whisper was clearly the sound of someone whimpering. I could hear things like please no and we don't have to do this. I didn't have any idea what to think at this point and I turned the light on in the hallway and the whispers stopped immediately. I heard the light footsteps of jogging heading back in the direction of the living room. I still didn't know if those whispers were some of the girls or somebody else. I briskly made my way down the

hall into the kitchen. I still haven't said anything and the light was on and there was a pan lying on the counter. It looked like it must have fallen out of the strainer where it was drying. That must have been the noise that woke me up. As I was moving the pan back into the strainer, I noticed one of the steak knives was removed from the knife block that I kept on my counter. I'm very meticulous about my kitchen, so the fact that a knife was missing gave me an immediate pause. I rushed to the living room and was relieved when I saw all of the girls sleeping. I was wired after this. I was trying to figure out what on earth the two girls in the kitchen were talking about, and more importantly,

why was a knife missing? I decided to stay in the kitchen and just read until the sun came up, which was only a few hours away at that point. I just felt like I needed to stay awake, just in case something might happen. Not long after, I made a cup of coffee and started reading. Katie came to the doorway and asked what I was doing awake. I told her I couldn't sleep and I was going to read in the kitchen. She looked annoyed and confused and eventually turned back around and went to sleep. I just assumed that she got up to use the restroom, but it didn't

occur to me until later that when she confronted me in the kitchen, she never went to the bathroom. So she literally got up just to confront me, which in hindsight is a little weird, at least I think so. Morning finally came and all the girls were just being silly in the living room. I made them some pancakes and the strange uneasiness eventually faded away. One by one, the girls were getting picked up. I just happened to be standing near the living room when Katie was packing up her bag and I noticed her putting the kitchen knife in her bag. I know I'm a coward, but I didn't say anything.

I'll say what you will, but in that moment, I felt genuine fear. Something was not right. Katie, who thanked me several times the night before, left and just looked at me when she did. I said goodbye and she turned and left without saying anything. Thankfully, nothing more happened regarding this story. Well, at least nothing that I know of anyway I have no idea what Katie wanted to do with that knife And I had no idea who the other girl crying was that night

I still have nightmares sometimes thinking about what would have happened if I didn't wake up that night Did I potentially stop Katie from doing something really heinous? Was I the target? I'm sure I'm overthinking this. My husband thinks it's a stretch to think a 12-year-old can be such a monster, and also is pretty frustrated at me for just letting her leave with some of our kitchenware. But I don't know. My gut is telling me another story completely.

What do you guys think? I always liked birthday parties as a kid, especially the early teenage years. We would play video games, have basketball tournaments outside, and just hang out and be idiot boys. As I got older, they lost a little bit of that shine. My friends became less obsessed with sports and video games and more obsessed with girls. I never had that crazy teenage boy desire to talk to every single girl I laid my eyes on. I was the guy who fell for one girl and that was it. I only wanted to date her, but I was way too shy to ever initiate any sort of move. I was in 11th grade and we went to my friend Mark's house for a sleepover birthday party.

I was excited, nervous, and incredibly anxious because the girl I liked was going to be there, and I knew my friends were going to try and start something between us. We all loved Mark's house growing up. It was secluded, and the kicker to all of this was this house had butted up against the back of a cemetery. When we were younger, we would tell ghost stories and try and scare each other, but the older we got, we would mostly just dare each other to jump the fence and stay in the graveyard for a certain amount of time. I didn't believe in ghosts or anything like that, so I was always the one who went into the graveyard. I couldn't be

brave enough around the girls, so I needed to show my fearlessness in other ways so I became the kid who would do any dare. I don't know if kids still do this today but when we were that age we played a lot of truth or dare. That was the game to play around the girls because you never know what you might get dared into doing. However because all the girls were there I was terrified to say dare because I didn't want to get dared to kiss Lily, especially not in front of all my friends. But the peer pressure of high school kicked in and I didn't want to be labeled a coward, so I said dare in an attempt to look cool, collected, and brave. And just as I feared, my friend Mark

dared me to take Lily into the graveyard for ten minutes, and we couldn't come out until the ten minute timer went up. I realize that ten minutes doesn't sound like a long time, but in my teenage brain, being alone with Lily for ten minutes may as well have been a death sentence for my embarrassment. And Lily jumped right up, seeming eager, and said, heck yeah, I'm down, let's do it, come on. She actually extended her hand to help me out of the beanbag chair that I remember I was sitting in. I could see out of the corner of my eye my friends jostling each other with a sort of excitement,

and they knew what they were doing. My heart was jumping out of my chest at this point, not because of the cemetery, but because of the whole situation. Trust me, if I could accurately depict the nerves and fear that I felt in that moment, it'd be the scariest story you've ever read in your life, but unfortunately, I have no idea how to accurately relay this information to you. Anyone out there who has crippling anxiety like me, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about here. Anyway, we make our way over the fence and into the cemetery. Even though I was nervous, I started to feel an incredible calm feeling coming over me.

Lily was walking close to me and made some comments about forgetting about the 10 minute timer and that we should just stay there for a while and just hang out. Sure, it was objectively creepy being in the cemetery, but not really scary. Mark's house was a nice neighborhood, and I had been to that graveyard a million times, so I wasn't worried about anything actually happening. We found this huge tree, and she pulled me over to the tree, and we sat down and started making some harmless small talk. I was actually about to make a move when we heard the sound of some tree twigs snapping, I think, and both of our ears perked up. It was that hard snapping sound. It didn't sound like nature just being nature. It sounded like a tree branch being stepped on by somebody.

My first thought was fear that someone else was there, but when I looked at Lily she just seemed annoyed. That's when she told me that she had assumed that someone from the party was there spying on them or trying to scare us, and it made all the sense in the world. I stood up and started to scan the surroundings, and that's when I saw what looked like two heads hiding behind a gravestone. I started approaching that grave, ready to give my friends a piece of my mind, and that's when I got a good look at the two hiding people. In that instant, I realized that these were not my friends. These two people were clearly somewhere in their mid thirties, I would have to guess. A disheveled looking man and a woman who looked like she hadn't slept in

weeks with her hair flying in every direction possible. I screamed some obscenity and Lily and I ran back to Mark's house. We got inside and locked the door and we were both freaking out and everyone at the party was more confused than concerned. Mark and my friends just laughed assuming that we were making it up to get out of that alone time, but thankfully, Lily saw them too and she actually corroborated my story. After some back and forth, one of my friends just said it was probably another couple just trying to have some alone time as well and we interrupted them. That was the story everyone accepted, but I saw the look in their eyes and something didn't

feel right about those two in that cemetery. Well the night continued and the girls eventually left for the night. We were all crashing in Mark's living room since there were about seven of us guys and I couldn't sleep at all. Between Lily on my mind and the two freaks in the cemetery, my mind was just racing. A little after three in the morning, I thought that I could hear a shuffling sound outside the house. I woke up my friend Nick and told him that I heard something. He heard the same sound, but was trying to convince me that it was just the wind or maybe even a deer.

For some reason, I felt very compelled to pull back the curtain in front of the sliding door And when I pulled it back, right on the other side of the glass was two people And in that moment, with the light coming through, I could immediately tell that it was the two people that I had seen earlier The man had his hand on the door trying to open it And the woman was standing behind him him almost like some sort of disgusting statue. Both of them had these just dead, very unnerving eyes. It was a brief deer in the headlights type moment where we just stared at each other and then the panic and fear kicked in. My friend Nick and I screamed at the top of our lungs.

All of our friends woke up and those two creeps ran out into the night. But thankfully all my friends saw the two people running away. And now they believe me that the two creeps that I saw earlier had ill intentions and they definitely meant some sort of harm. Mark woke up his parents who tried to understand the story. At first they were reluctant to call the police because they assumed that we were pulling a prank on them or something. But they did eventually call the cops but as far as I know nothing ever happened. Mark's family installed a security camera by the sliding door after that but Mark said that he never saw anything like that again.

I don't think we ever went to Mark's very much after that night and you really can't blame us. That was one of my worst memories that ever took place on a birthday and I'll never get the look of their eyes out of my mind. Over ten years later and I worked in the main office of a large grocery store chain in my region. I honestly hated this job, but it was a decent paying job out of college. My job was extremely boring and consisted of 99% computer work. At the time of this story, I had worked at the main office for nearly two years, and I had yet to really make a connection with really anyone. This may sound crazy to some people but it was hard to make friends at this place. The hours were horrible and the workload was a pain. Most people just kept to themselves,

did their work and then left for the night. A girl I'll call Carla worked at the office who I was crushing on pretty hard at the time. I never talked to her really other than the occasional hey while passing in the hall or something like that. One Friday afternoon while my life was being drained at the computer, I got a message on my work email and it said it was from Carla. It seemed kind of random and it seemed like it was a generic message inviting me to her birthday party that weekend. I didn't care that it wasn't a personalized message, I was just excited to be invited. This was validation for me that Carla knew that I actually existed, and the email contained an address and a time for the party,

and there was a little note at the end of the message that said, please don't talk about the party out loud because not everyone in the office is invited, and I was pretty thrilled. That night when I was leaving, I saw Carla walking down the hall, and we made eye contact, and I smiled and said, hey Carla. She smiled but didn't say anything back. It didn't seem like a genuine smile, more like a reaction than anything else. Just as she was almost out of sight, I said, I'll see you later. And she turned and had a confused look on her face and then just waved at me as she turned the corner. That interaction didn't give me a warm feeling in my stomach, but we were at work after all, so maybe that was just her it's Friday and I'm

leaving attitude and also she didn't want to give away that she was having a party. That night when I got home I got ready and put the directions into my GPS. I was surprised and a little annoyed that the directions said that the party was almost 45 minutes away but again I had a crush on this chick so I would have driven in an hour and 45 minutes if I had to. I made sure that I was dressed nice and left so I could arrive fashionably late. The entire duration of the drive, I was planning on what I was going to say and running through dozens of scenarios in my head. When there was about 10 minutes left until the destination, I noticed that there was nothing in sight.

No lights, no houses, no cars, nothing. Wherever Carla was having this party was in the middle of nowhere. I finally arrived at the address in the email and I was just confused. There seemed to be no sign of life. It was a small run-down farmhouse that honestly looked abandoned. Not only that, but there was also no cars other than mine there. Now, I want the record to show I'm only half stupid. I knew this was wrong, and that getting out of the car was most likely a horrible idea, but I did it anyway. I thought to myself, I already drove out, I might as well see what's going on with all of this. I knocked on the door several times and

there was no answer, not even the sound of budging or shuffling on the other side. I tried looking through the window, but it was just too dark. I started walking back to my car and noticed a barn behind the back of the house. He couldn't see the barn from the road because the backyard where the barn was located was down a slight hill. Not to mention, it was pitch black outside. I wasn't going to investigate the barn at first. I actually started walking towards my car so I could actually message Carla. I was going to tell her that maybe she sent me the wrong address in the invitation.

As I was walking away, I thought that I could hear a sound coming from said barn. I thought to myself, maybe they're out there, and the cars are just parked somewhere else. I started walking towards the barn, hoping that I could hear maybe talking, or music, or anything that would indicate a birthday going on. But it was just a very eerie silence. Just as I was about to enter this barn, my brain finally kicked in and I said forget it. I turned around and jogged my car. I was upset, but I didn't want to potentially get in trouble for trespassing on some random person's property. This clearly wasn't Carla's party. As I opened the car door, I heard the sound of a heavy wooden door whip open.

I turned around and saw someone running from the barn in my direction. This person was running at full speed and he was clearly making a dash directly for me. I jumped into my car and immediately started up and drove off as fast as I could. This person was able to make it to my car and banged on the side of it as I drove off, and all I could hear was a low voice shouting hey as I peeled off down the road. I was terrified, confused, angry, and all sorts of emotions after that. I had no idea what had just happened. After that, I tried emailing Carla, but I never got a response back from her. Eventually, we made it to Monday at work. I approached Carla, and I apologized for not making it to her birthday party. I told her that I must have had the address wrong or something,

and she looked at me like I had nine heads and asked in some confused voice, what are you talking about, my birthday was four months ago. Now I was looking at her like she had nine heads. I told her about the email, and she confirmed that it was not hers. She showed me her email address, and it was in fact a completely different one. In some ways, I was thankful that this nightmare almost happened to me because it gave me the chance to finally talk to Carla. I was the most popular guy in the office for a couple of days after that insane story, and it wasn't until after that I realized just how horrifying this

actually was. Someone clearly was trying to trick me, and me alone. This was my work email that I got the invitation sent to and that means that it was someone in the office that singled me out and dragged me out to an abandoned farm to do something that I didn't even want to think about. To this day, I had never found out who it was or why they singled me out. I never wronged anybody there and nobody to my knowledge had any issues with me. It was just some crazy story and I still get freaked out every time I think about it. The End Three years ago, me and all my girlfriends were single for most of the year. When it came time to celebrate my birthday, I told the girls that I wanted to go dancing. There was this sort of newish club that had opened downtown, and it seemed like an awesome way to celebrate my 26th. We just wanted to dance and not really worry about relationships or any of that stuff that could potentially just ruin the evening.

And no toxic relationships on that night. Well, instead of a night of fun and dancing that I could remember forever, I instead left with a memory that has burned into my brain for all the wrong reasons. And maybe this story isn't your typical scary story, but if you were in my shoes, I bet that you would feel a certain way as well. The night started great, just as I wanted. We danced like we were never going to dance again, and we were all wearing some pretty cute dresses and heels, and I couldn't imagine the night really going any better.

But that's when the power went out. Like it just completely died. It was so dark in the club that you just couldn't see your hand in front of your face. And I hate the dark, especially that kind of darkness. But honestly, in this specific situation, it was actually kind of funny. Everyone was screaming and just sort of shouting in joy, and it turned into sort of a makeshift mosh pit of sorts. Everyone was laughing and continued singing the song that was playing before the blackout. It was almost as if the nightclub sort of engineered this moment. You would think a blackout like this, with those people would induce a fear reaction, but instead, it was the weird moment of joy. During the loud blackout mosh pit,

I thought that I heard someone crying, but I couldn't focus on the voice due to all the shouting going on around me. Then I heard the sound of a blood-curdling loud scream. It was the only time in my life that I felt like I could hear pain and life being drained in just that scream, and just writing it down now is reminding me of it and it just sends a shiver down my spine. I tried grabbing one of my friends, but it was just too dark to see. I pulled out the flashlight on my phone and with the little bit of light that I was giving off, it was clear that nobody cared about it and especially my friends. As I was trying to get my attention of a friend, I heard someone behind me scream help. It was that same voice of whoever

just had that loud scream seconds before. I turned around but I couldn't make out anyone in distress. It was just so dark and with everyone jumping around and being loud it was impossible to focus on anything. Everyone just kept laughing, singing. I think due to the nature of the situation, everyone just assumed someone was making a joke and nobody really cared. This was just part of the party. A lot of people had their phone lights out now and they were jumping up and down creating this weird strobe effect. I needed to get out of the club. Maybe it was just the darkness getting to me but I felt like I was having an anxiety attack.

I grabbed one of my friend's arms and basically dragged her outside with me. And she knew something was wrong and she put her arm around me. I told her I needed air and I mentioned to her that I heard someone screaming and saying help. She told me she heard it too but according to her it just didn't seem serious. She just assumed it was someone clowning around playing a joke since it was so dark in the inside of the club. She even used the word paranoid to describe my emotions at that moment and I have to say I wasn't pleased. I tried describing the scream to her and she didn't hear it the way that I did. But she did admit that she wasn't really paying attention.

If I hadn't heard the crying sound before, I may not have thought that the scream was as bad as it was. And a couple of minutes had gone by and before we knew it, the club was surrounded by dozens of sirens. Police cars and ambulances were flooding the outside, the club was surrounded by dozens of sirens. Police cars and ambulances were flooding the outside of the club. We looked on trying to figure out what was happening and we saw several EMTs run inside with a stretcher. It was conveniently around this time that the power had gone back on in the club, and just then, we heard the sounds of screams and gasps coming from inside the club, and the music cut

off almost as soon as it turned back on. When we tried to re-enter the club, there was a cop who wouldn't let us back in, and a couple of minutes later, the EMTs were coming out with someone on a stretcher that looked completely unconscious. We noticed from the doorway that the cops inside had a few people apprehended, and they were also interviewing some people as well. We tried eavesdropping, but we couldn't hear anything. The person on the stretcher was put into the ambulance, and they drove off quickly with the sirens blaring. What's crazy about all this is that it happened in the span of like a minute or two. It definitely put a sour taste in my mouth for my birthday.

Truthfully, I don't think whatever happened that night was an accident, which is what my friends think. I think someone with intent and malice hurt a targeted individual. Why else would the police have suspects apprehended? I mean, it was within seconds of the power going out that I heard the crying and then the scream, and I never saw anything else followed up on this. I'm just writing this now because I'm curious. Do you think I'm crazy, or do you agree with me?

Or do you think it was a setup from the beginning? I really don't like my family. Now I know that sounds horrible, I just never got along with my parents and by extension my entire extended family. We were just very different people with very different ideologies. When I was 18 I moved away for almost 10 years. I moved back a year ago and I've been slowly rekindling my relationship with my family. As an adult I realized that we can have different ideologies and still love each other. Family is family after all and I'm fortunate enough to have a family. As an adult, I realized that we can have different ideologies and still love each other. Family is family after all, and I'm fortunate enough to have a family. Last year was my first birthday back in my hometown since I was 18, and it was an experience

to say the least. My parents decided to throw me a surprise birthday party, which already lost points in my book. I appreciated the gesture of course, but surprises are not my thing. My parents decided to invite my entire extended family, many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins that I haven't seen in over ten years. I was more surprised by the turnout of the party than the actual surprise itself. After the initial shock of the surprise, I actually started to have a good time. It was nice being able to talk to some family that I hadn't seen in many years. We talked about football, jobs, and life. It was becoming clear to me that I just needed to grow up and move away for a little

while in order to have a good time with these people. Things got a little weird when I talked to my great aunt, Angela. She was one of the few aunts that I liked before I left. We would talk about Adam Sandler movies on holidays when I was a kid, and I thought that was so cool since the rest of my family was so uptight. But Aunt Angela wasn't doing great. She had dementia or something along those lines. I'm sorry I don't know the exact medical condition, but I can say that it did really warp her brain. When I tried talking to her, she looked angry, like really angry. I kept trying to

lightheartedly kid around with her, but she just had that mean look carved on her face. When I tried talking to her, she looked angry, like really angry. I tried to lightheartedly kid around with her, but she just had that mean look carved on her face. One of my uncles eventually pulled me aside and told me that she was sick and that I shouldn't take her cold shoulder personally. I shrugged it off and continued mingling at the party. A little while later, while I was eating, my great aunt approached me and said in an angry, almost nervous voice, I know you're not my nephew. I demand to know what you did with him. I was shocked, and I didn't know what to say. I think at that moment that I had made some stupid joke, but her stone-cold expression never changed. I just walked away, and I wanted to get as far away from my aunt as possible.

It had dawned on me when I walked away that my aunt Angela hadn't seen me since I was much younger. I moved away at 18, but I don't think that she had seen me for years even before that. I felt bad for my poor aunt. Whatever condition she had, she couldn't process that I had aged quite a bit. Throughout the entire party, I noticed that she continued staring at me. It was uncomfortable, but I learned to get over it. As the party guests started to thin out, I decided to use the restroom. We had the party at my parents' house and the bathroom was in the back of the house. It had to go down a long hallway and then it was the last room on the left.

After I did my business and opened the door, I thought that I could hear sniffling. It sounded like crying. Across the hall from the bathroom was an old bedroom. It was my brother's room growing up, but now it was just sort of like a guest room with a twin bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed was my great aunt Angela and she was crying. I should have probably grabbed my mom but I went into the room and tried to console my aunt. I put my hand on her back and asked her what was wrong and she looked at me with these huge tear-filled eyes and said, my poor nephew is dead and you're the monster who took him away. Before I could even begin to react to that insane statement,

Aunt Angela pulled out these small black tweezers and started stabbing me in the neck. I yelled, jumped back. I heard the tweezers hit the ground and I instantly grabbed my neck and barged out of my spare room. I started making my way down the hall back to the kitchen, and then the saddest and most terrifying thing that's ever happened to me happened. My Aunt Angela ran out of the room and started chasing me down the hallway like a woman possessed.

I had no idea how to react to this since my great aunt was an elderly woman. She was screaming and cackling and holding the tweezers above her head like an ancient soldier with a sword. I ran into the kitchen holding my neck, screaming that my aunt wanted to stab me. Thankfully, my mom and uncle restrained my aunt, Angela, who at this point was just on some other planet. Her eyes had nearly gone to the back of her head and she was yelling about avenging her nephew. Nobody could tell my aunt that I was her nephew. It was really sad, but she couldn't accept it for some reason. In hindsight, this story is infinitely more sad than scary and she ended up passing away several months after this incident.

I can't imagine losing that much of my brain. It's a nightmare for me to even think about. I'm lucky that she was only able to find tweezers. She broke my skin and gave me a pretty nice gash on my neck. You can imagine if she had actually found a knife or some other sharp object, she might have literally killed me. This year I told my parents, please, no more surprise parties. I'm still getting over the shock of last year. The events of this story take place 14 or 15 years ago. My daughter was still young and wanted to do everything with her mother.

I was still young at that point too and had much more energy to do things that I don't do now. It's funny how certain memories and moments stick out to you as a mother. You cherish those particular moments and times even as your young children get older and start having families of their own. Anyway, my daughter was invited to a birthday party of one of her elementary school friends. I don't remember their name as my daughter never became close friends with her, but it was a small school so almost every child was invited. I think the party took place at a Chuck E. Cheese, but it honestly could have been one of those off-brand places that looked just like Chuck E. Cheese. I remember it being a pretty uneventful day. The kids got food, tokens,

and dessert and were able to play in the ball pit and other play places. My daughter was usually pretty shy so she hung out with me for some of the day but eventually warmed up and played some of the games. And ventured into the ball pit with some of her friends. I remember bringing a book to read while she was playing and even though when she wasn't with me, I always kept an eye on her to make sure that she was okay. Even back then you had to worry about creeps hanging around those places, or God forbid someone trying to lure them away and out the door. Shortly after the pizza was served, someone sat next to me and said, Hey, how are you stranger?

I was a little startled and taken aback, so I snapped my head back and saw that it was Janice. Now, you might be asking, who is Janice? Well, she was one of my least favorite co-workers of all time who had recently been fired, thankfully, so I hadn't seen them in a few months. She was looking at me, eyes wide open, smiling from ear to ear with her face absolutely caked with makeup and her hair looking like she had just left the salon. eyes wide open, smiling from ear to ear with her face absolutely caked with makeup, and her hair looking like she had just left the salon. She was blinking, but still staring at me when I realized that I was sitting there and hadn't responded.

And I just sort of said in this unenthusiastic voice, Hey, what's going on? And she smiled and said, Oh, I'm just here for the party what about you same I replied and then Janice asked me which one was mine I pointed her out and then she goes on to say wow a beauty just like her mother I still remember those weird words that she said all those years ago and I just nodded and then went back to some food that was on my plate. Janice went on and said, well hey, I don't want to keep you but I have an amazing new job that's paying way more than before and I'd love to get you into one of the openings. Maybe we can talk about it over coffee sometime. Taken aback by this, I just said, sure, and I said again just trying to end the conversation.

Janice grabbed a pen and paper from her purse and jotted down my number, which I wish that I'd given a fake number in hindsight. I told Janice that I was going to go check on my daughter and I would talk to her later. I didn't see Janice for the rest of the day and was thankful when the party was over as I knew my daughter would be exhausted and take a nap and I could sit on the couch and dive into my book. When I was home I started reading my book and then felt myself drifting off and the next thing that I knew I was jolted awake by the sound of the phone ringing. I honestly was so tired that I didn't get off the couch to answer it. As I laid back down trying to see if I could fall back asleep, the phone started ringing again. I got up and answered it and was shocked to hear the voice coming from the other end.

Well, hello stranger. What's with the Irish goodbye? And it was Janice, the co-worker. I could tell as soon as she spoke, but I replied, Who is this? It's Janice, silly. Calling to set up our coffee date to discuss that job opportunity. I tried to be as polite as possible and tell her that I was busy and that me and my husband had a lot going on, and she just went silent and was saying things like, oh, okay, and I understand. I got off the phone quickly, assuming that that was the end of that.

And over the next few days, I noticed the phone ringing more than usual. I would get up to answer it, and it would have hung up by the time I answered, or no one would speak on the other end. My husband even took notice of it. He mentioned that when I was out getting groceries, he answered the phone three times, and one time it sounded like someone was just breathing on the other end. I didn't think much of it and it faded away in my mind over the next few days. When my daughter was at school and my husband at work and I was on PTO and had just gotten done cleaning the entire house and folding laundry, I remember hearing loud knocking at the door like someone was beating it down.

I slowly crept towards the door to see if it was someone trying to break in or trying to break their hand against the door which is what it sounded like. I peered out the blinds in the living room but couldn't see who was at the door. I slowly opened it with the chain lock still attached. I heard someone say, There you are sleepyhead. And peering through the crack in the door, I could see that it was Janice. And very annoyed, I asked, what are you doing here? Are you trying to break the door? She let out some weird laugh and said, I wanted to stop by to talk about that job. Half in shock, I respond, how do you know where I live? And she said, well, I had your number and your name, so I was able to find out from, you know, sources. And I didn't know how to respond.

I just remembered saying that now isn't a good time. Please don't show up here unannounced again. Before I slammed the door shut, I heard her say, we've been playing phone tag every time I called. I went to my window and just watched. She stood on the porch for a while with this disgusted, miserable look on her face and then slowly sauntered to her car and drove off. I told my husband about it and he said to make sure that the doors were always locked and let him know if anything else weird happened. But honestly after that day I didn't notice anything. The phone went back to normal and thankfully there were no unannounced visits.

When I got back to work I told a few co-workers the story and they stopped me and said, Janice, you know why she got fired right? And I didn't at the time. They went on to tell me that she got caught stealing and when confronted, she threatened a few people and said some really awful stuff. And after I did some digging, I found out that it was so awful that she was arrested and apparently had to have a behavioral health assessment. Also, she didn't have a job at the time. Someone else saw her at a bar and she said that she was in between jobs. I didn't say much after that and just went back to work, but all day in my mind it was racing about what she could have wanted, especially showing up at my house. Was she trying to steal from me? Did I do something at work to make her angry and she wanted to get back at me?

After a week or two, it had left my mind until my husband was watching the news and there was a report of a break-in and burglary in a neighboring part of town. And guess who? It was Janice. And she had an accomplice and they were charged. Thankfully, since that day, I've never heard her name or seen her, but every now and again I still wonder what would have happened if I'd time because of my job. It sucks because I never have time to form real relationships, either intimate ones or even just friends. I'm friendly with everyone at work, but never make those personal connections. I will admit that some of the blame lies on me. I've been asked to hang

out before at other job locations, but I usually turn it down because I'd rather just go home. I guess I have no real reason to complain. I don't know if this is the wrong thing to say, but my brother also said that I have old man syndrome, meaning that I just want to work and go home alone. I hate to say it, but unfortunately he's not wrong. I can't remember exactly how many years ago this was, but one day at the job, a co-worker I'm not fond of found out it was my birthday. All day long, he was jostling me around and practically begging me to go out for a drink or two to celebrate. This was the last thing I wanted to do, but at the same time, I really wanted to get out more. Breaking out of this stupid shell that I was always in, and throughout

the day, he would constantly poke his head into my office to say, Tonight, bro. I would usually just nod and go along with it. And at one point during the day, he told me that a lot of people from work were going to celebrate my birthday and that I couldn't bail now. And I hate to say it, but his stupid plan worked. I felt guilty. If all my coworkers were going to come out to celebrate me, I would have to join them since I'm technically the man of the hour. We all worked until 9pm that night. A few nights a month, we would have to stay until 9 to basically just go over documents. Around 7, I found my co-worker and told him that I would join him at the bar after work, but that we would have to go right

after work and that I wasn't going to stay out too late. He was pumped and kept telling me that he'd get me home early and not to worry. A little after nine, I was walking to my car with my co-worker and asked him what bar we were going to. I was still new to the area, so I wasn't 100% sure where everything was located, especially at night. After a little debate, my co-worker insisted on driving, making some stupid argument like it was my birthday and that he insisted on driving me just in case I wanted to have a good time. I was tired and I didn't feel like arguing with him. Also, I'm not much of a drinker so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to hold my

alcohol so it was probably best that I didn't drive just in case. While we were driving at the bar, we just made some small talk. It dawned on me that during that drive, I didn't know this co-worker really at all. He talked to me all the time at my job, but I never really talked back, and this was the most intimate setting that I was ever in with him, and I really didn't like it. Thankfully, he talked nearly the entire car ride with very little interjection from me. We got to the bar and it was moderately full. I noticed right away that none of my co-workers were inside but I didn't say

anything. A few minutes passed by and my co-workers said that everyone from work should be showing up soon and that I shouldn't worry. And I wasn't worried. Truthfully, I didn't care if they showed up at all. I wanted to drink my beer, pretend to be a good co-worker, and then just go home. I thought maybe outside of work this co-worker would be more tolerable, but he was even more unbearable outside of work. We'd been at the bar for about an hour making small talk. I noticed that my co-worker kept making eye contact with two guys at the bar. It was always very strange looks. He'd be smiling and joking around like always and then look at one of the guys and he'd

sort of frown a little bit and almost nod and go back to laughing and talking. I thought it was weird but I kind of just blamed it on the atmosphere of the bar and drinking alcohol. Maybe with all the noise, he was just distracted or something. It happens to me all the time. After this happened a few times, I couldn't help but feel like it was intentional and not a coincidence, but I didn't say anything. It was around this time that I kept asking to leave, but my co-worker just kept begging me to stay a little while longer. He kept claiming that the other co-workers would eventually show up soon. I waited a little longer, and then I finally told him that I was just

leaving. I said I was going to call a cab or something, since this was before Uber or any service like that. He tried to get me to stay longer, but I had enough at this point. And I'm not going to lie, I was a little upset that nobody from work showed up when apparently they told my co-worker that they would. When my co-worker realized that I wasn't going to stay, that's when he insisted on taking me home. I knew he didn't drink that much, but I just wanted to be done with this dude for the night. He's a tough man to say no to. It's probably why he's a great salesman, so I sort of caved in and just let him do it. I let him take me home. I told him where I lived, and he responded by saying,

oh, I know exactly where that is. I'll have you back in no time. I sat quietly for a few minutes of the drive and surprisingly so did he. Maybe this guy does have an off switch I thought. Then I noticed that he was taking a weird way to my house. I know I didn't know a lot about the area at that time but I knew this so I told him that he needed to go the other way. My co-worker smiled and made some comments about me being new to the area and that this was a shortcut. I just let it go, and I was done pleading with this guy because I felt like I had been doing it all night. We started going down this dark and very desolate street. It was one of those deserted streets that just had no life on it at all.

It was one of those areas that was just littered with old factories and businesses that had been shut down for a long time. Even most of the streetlights were off, and the ones that were on gave off such little light that you almost wouldn't even know that they were on. My co-worker started telling me how this area is very spooky now and that it was just completely abandoned. And just as he was telling me some of the stories of the factories that used to be there, he started shouting out of nowhere and pulling over the car. When I asked what was going on, he told me that he was pretty sure that he had a flat tire and that he needed to check it out quickly. He sold it very convincingly, but it didn't feel like we had a flat tire. Every time I got a flat tire while driving, you can almost feel yourself being pulled to a flat tire. Every time I got a flat tire while driving you can almost feel

yourself being pulled to a certain direction. He got out of the car and just as he made his way to the driver's side rear tire a car pulls up behind us. Right as the car was pulling in behind our car I started getting out of the car to check the tire and see if my co-worker needed help putting on a spare. I was startled and I was hoping this car was just someone trying to help. The first thing I noticed was that my co-worker started backing away from the car suspiciously, like he was moving to the middle of the road almost. Then I noticed that the tire wasn't flat at all. It was right at that moment that I noticed two men get out of the car behind

us and it was the two men from the bar that my co-worker kept making eye contact with. At that moment I was speechless and I didn't say anything. Before I could make any move one of the men grabbed me, threw me onto the cold and beat up road, and both men started kicking me, punching me while I was on the ground. I tried screaming for a while, but it was like my voice stopped working. I could hear my coworker yelling for help, but he sounded far away. I lifted my head up from the ground and saw my coworker run back to his car, and he starts to drive off, leaving me there alone with these two guys. The beating continued for a while longer until I felt like I was going to pass out. I could eventually feel them taking my wallet and my watch, which I have to say was a nice watch,

and they eventually got in their car and left. I was left in the middle of the road, just completely bloodied and bruised, and everything hurt and I just was laying there, freezing. Believe it or not, an actual homeless guy came over and helped me and helped me walk to a nearby gas station since I had no clue where I was. I was able to call the police and told them everything and gave a description of the guys. The police asked me if I thought my co-worker was involved and it hadn't crossed my mind until that moment. I don't think they ever caught the two guys and my co-worker claimed that he never had anything to do with the mugging. Ever since the police mentioned it to me though, I haven't been able

to believe that he's innocent. I haven't been able to believe that when he left, he was just leaving to get help. When I reflect on the entire night, it just seems like everything is a little too set up. While I remained at that location for work, my co-worker still remained his chipper self and always tried getting me to go out, but believe me, I never went out with him again. Whenever I would have the guts to maybe call him out, he always claimed that he had nothing to do with it. And he said that he was offended I would even say something like that. I never received justice for that moment, and it still bothers me to this day. Thankfully, I have stability in my life now,

and a close group of friends that I can celebrate my birthday with. I just hope that I never have to experience meaning of don't meet your heroes until my 19th birthday. Now please bear with me as I tell you this story that I've never written down before. My wife also told me not to use any of the real names of the people involved for legal reasons just in case, but better safe than sorry. And this was a long time ago. As I mentioned, it was my 19th birthday and I'm now 36 years old, for reference. My girlfriend at the time had scored me ringside tickets to a WWE show that was being held in my hometown. To some people, that may seem like nothing, but back when I was a huge wrestling fan and ringside seats, they were not cheap. One of my girlfriend's friends somehow had an in with one of the wrestlers, and that's how she was able to score those ringside seats.

I was so excited to see my favorite wrestler at the time and he went on in the main event of the evening. After the match, he went around the ring and gave the audience members some high fives and I was on cloud nine. I was shouting and trying to get his attention as he was standing right in front of me and he completely ignored me. However, he was not ignoring my girlfriend. He winked at her and was making these really weird seductive eyes towards her. After the event, we were leaving and I didn't care about the weird interaction with my girlfriend and my favorite wrestler. These guys are like rock stars and he's a very handsome man, so I let my girlfriend just be happy that she basically got hit on by this big time wrestler.

That night, we both went to our own houses since we didn't live together. While she was at home, she got a call from her friend who got her the tickets and told her that she needed to meet her right away at this local restaurant in town. There were 15 wrestlers from the roster at that time all at this restaurant and one of them being my favorite. My girlfriend went and she didn't call me. Long story short, my girlfriend got to meet all these wrestlers, including my favorite. They partied all night, and she never called or texted me once. She even exchanged numbers with my favorite wrestler, and she called me the next day, and I could tell something was wrong.

Her voice was off. She told me what happened and she apologized a million times. She told me that she had to go alone and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was devastated but I understood. She said that she was going to make it up to me that night. When I asked her how, she told me that she got VIP passes for the show that was being held in a city about an hour away. She was vague about how she scored the tickets, but I got over it quickly. I was excited to meet the wrestlers and go see another show. We got there a couple of hours before the show to meet some of the wrestlers and I was beyond excited. Then my favorite emerged from the back and gave my

girlfriend a huge hug. His hand was a little too low on her backside for comfort, but I again let it slide. I tried to introduce myself, and instead of being a stand-up human, he started laughing at me. And then I started seeing a pattern of all the wrestlers coming up to my girlfriend and greeting her like an old friend, and they were practically ignoring me. It's petty, but I felt jealous. I actually felt angrier that my girlfriend wasn't introducing me at all. Not as her boyfriend and not even as her friend. It was like I wasn't there. My pride was hurt and I started to notice that something wasn't right. When the meet and greet was over, we started making our way to our

seats. I was grilling her about the previous night and she insisted that nothing happened, that they just hung out late and had a good time, but I didn't buy that anymore. During the show, my girlfriend got a text message. It actually came from my favorite wrestler. Texting her and saying to meet them backstage after the show. We had permission from security to join them in the back, I guess. When I arrived with my girlfriend, the wrestler commented on her bringing me. I finally had enough and called him out.

I was shaking my boots since the guy is built like a Greek god compared to me, but I had enough of this blatant disrespect. He laughed and made some comments alluding to being with my girlfriend in more than a friendly way. And at that point, in a blind rage, I just tried to tackle him. But my girlfriend started to hold me back. Now he would have killed me, so it was good that she did that. And at that moment we just left, but I was shouting the entire time. I was angry at my girlfriend, sad that that wrestler was such a jerk, and anxious that something happened that I didn't know about. I was a mess as we sat in the car in the parking lot, and then my girlfriend

ripped off the metaphorical band-aid. She told me everything, that after all the wrestlers were hanging out that night, she went to that wrestler's hotel room and spent the night there. I was seeing red. I tried getting out of the car and back to the arena. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted to confront him. The great human being that my girlfriend was finally gave up and let me out of the car. I used my VIP pass to get back into the arena and I was looking for him. Well, I found out after that my girlfriend had texted him and told him that I was coming back and that I was going to try and confront him.

She thought that he would come out and try to talk to me, but she was wrong. Instead, three huge wrestlers from that roster came out the back door, followed by my favorite. And there I was, some 5'6 man weighing probably 150 pounds at the time, standing in the middle of these giants. And trust me, they're much larger in person than they look on TV. And instead of talking to me, or even just verbally threatening me, they proceeded to get physical with me. Then the wrestler put his knee on my chest and put a pocket knife to my mouth and said, if you ever say anything or try to put your hands on me again, you'll be swallowing this knife, kid. Everybody else laughed and the four men got off of me and walked away.

And I had never been so pissed my pants scared in my entire life. I was terrified and I was hurt, both physically and emotionally. 48 hours ago, I would have done anything to meet this guy. And tonight, he beat me up so bad that I felt like I had just gotten hit by a truck. And not to mention, I'm pretty sure he just threatened my life. I ended up having a broken rib and I did try to take legal action, but it amounted to nothing. I broke up with my girlfriend and I stopped watching wrestling. The illusion of that world was broken to me, and every time I saw that wrestler I was filled with so much anger. I know this story may not be scary to some people, but it was the worst

night of my entire life. My hero beat me within inches of my life and shoved a knife in my mouth, and I would bet that if this happened to you, you'd be scared as well. Ghosts and demon stories are scary, but until something like this actually happens to you in your life, you'd be scared as well. Ghosts and demon stories are scary, but until something like this actually happens to you in your life, you won't know what real fear is. I've heard that this wrestler has since turned a corner in his life and is now an actually good person, but I don't care if I ever hear his name again. I will always associate him with not only the worst birthday I ever had, but undoubtedly the worst night of my life. My name is Rachel, I'm 23 and I'm from Dublin in Ireland. The other day I was on my way home from work and my route home takes me through a park that I walk through almost every single day.

The path I was down cuts through the park diagonally, and there are metal benches at certain spots along the path. Then the other day, as I was walking through the park, there was a man sat on one of the benches. He looked like he was just minding his own business. Him being there didn't set off any alarm bells at all. I'm not stupid, and I've been in a handful of situations already where I'd seen a creepy fella hanging about and thought, nah, I think I'll take a cab home tonight. But in this case, I didn't get any of those vibes at all. I walked down the path and he didn't pay me any attention at first, but as I got within a few feet of him, I heard him say something that couldn't have been

directed at anyone but me. I didn't hear exactly what he said, but I just ignored him at first. But then as I passed him, I saw him stand up from the bench out of the corner of my eye, and I realized he was following me. I took out my earbuds, then as I carried on walking with the man asking hello, in a really obnoxious way behind me, I set my phone to record a video and then tried my best to record him without him realizing as I carried on walking down the path. He kept asking me, hello, are you deaf or something? Until I had my phone recording and I said, no, I'm not, I just don't want to talk to you. The fellow was easily in his 50s, and I realized that he was probably feeling brave on account of the half-empty bottle of vodka that he was carrying with him,

but as I actually talked to him, it was like talking to a child. I told him I didn't want to talk to him, and he asked me, why not? I told him I just didn't, and that he shouldn't be following people he doesn't know through parks. He told me there was nothing wrong with walking with someone and that he just wanted to be my friend. He carried on like that, being completely pig-headed and irritating, but he didn't escalate so I just kept on walking until we were only a few feet away from the exit of the park with the street I live on just on the other side. There's a set of those anti-cycle gates near the end, so I had to slow my pace a bit to walk through, and as I did, he asked me, well can I have a hug then instead? And I was like, no, you bloody well cannot have a hug, are you mental or something? I know it probably wasn't the smartest move to antagonize the guy,

but I was furious that he'd have the cheek to ask a stranger that in the first place. I was so outraged that I stopped as I was about halfway through the cycle gate, but I think that's exactly what he wanted. He reached out and grabbed hold of the arm of my coat. I tried to pull away from him and he stepped forward closer to the gate and managed to get a grip of my arm. I remember looking around really fast to see if there was anyone I could call over for help and when I didn't see anyone, all that anger I felt turned to total fear. I tried to tell him to get off of me, but my voice broke up as I felt a lump

forming in my throat. I didn't think I'd get so scared so quickly, and I suppose feeling it hit me all at once was just a little too much. When I pulled my arm away as hard as I could, and I expected him to look angry or something, he didn't. He looked like he was having the time of his life. He had this big grin on his face, like he was loving every second of seeing me so frightened, and that only made me more and more afraid that he was going to do something further. I kept moving through the cycle gate after shouting at him to leave me alone. I didn't look back. I wasn't sure if he was following me or not, but all I could think to do was keep walking at a brisk pace and hope I ran into someone I could ask to help me.

I turned the corner and there was a man in his yard and a half a football pitch down the street tending to his front garden. I just remember Power walking towards him, hoping that I wasn't followed and really wishing that I'd chosen some flatter shoes. He saw me before I got close, and I'm guessing he could see what a state I was in, because he stopped and stared before asking if I was okay as I got closer. I looked behind me one last time, and felt this wave of relief as I saw the man who had been following me was gone. I'd somehow managed to keep it together until that moment, but when I realized I was safe, the dam just burst and I ended up bursting into tears as I asked the gardener man to call the guard, which is what we call the police here by the way. I saw the man again the other day when I was walking home. The guard said they'd

given him a talking to about approaching young women when it's unwelcome, but he was sat there in the exact same spot as last time, like he was just waiting for me to walk past again. I walk home a different route now. I'd rather be safe and get home later than risk walking past that bastard again. I just don't understand why men have to be like that. At the time of the story, I was 21 and living in a major Midwestern city near the university there. Having lived there for only one month before my story began, I had witnessed a train stop stabbing, been yelled at by a crackhead, had a homeless guy follow me and threaten to choke me outside the physics building on campus, and watched a 13-car cop raid on a drug house just across the street.

The area around the university is known for being rough and has a notoriously high rate of crime. We would get a few texts a week from the campus police saying things like there had been a robbery, a break-in, an assault, stalkings, attempted kidnappings, etc. I always ignored these texts, thinking foolishly that I would never be a victim because I was smart enough to stay out of trouble, please never think that you're 100% safe, no matter your level of preparedness. Always do your best to stay observant and careful. The first incident wasn't too unusual. I was just a block or two from my apartment building one day in the early evening. It was still light outside. I was walking my dog, Sesame,

a cute Shiba Inu who just looks like a fluffy, goofy puppy and has never been frightening or particularly protective in his life. As I was heading back home, I passed a small parking lot and in it, a large van. I could see a man in his early 60s sitting in the driver's seat smoking a cigarette. He was staring at me. As I passed, he actually leaned out of his car and called out to me. Hey, you there. That's a cute dog. What's its name? I should mention, this isn't even my first story like this.

I have a pretty intense fear of strangers and actually struggle with PTSD from other incidents in my life. Being pretty wary for this reason, I ignored him and just walked faster. I heard a car door shut behind me and turned quickly to see that he had gotten out of his van and was slowly walking towards me. He called out to me again. Hey baby, I just want to see your dog. Come back. His phrasing pissed me off and I gripped my dog's leash and started to speed walk away from him, starting to feel nervous. My heart was beginning to pound, but I kept telling myself over and over that I was overreacting and it was just my paranoia acting up and there was nothing to worry about. But boy, was I wrong. I managed to turn the corner

and was about to cross the final park before getting to the apartment. In my fear over the van guy I wasn't paying attention as much as I usually do to what's in front of me. I looked back over my shoulder and the guy had stopped following me. He was, however, standing in the middle of the sidewalk with a huge creepy grin on his face. I whirled back around with my eyes glued to the building. I only needed to walk another half a block and I'd be home. I was going to get away from him and his creepy van. And just when I thought I was safe, a group of five or six men came from the side of the park that I wasn't watching.

They were all tall and intimidating in stature and all of them were laughing and looking right at me. Out of the corner of my eye, the van guy had started walking towards me as well. I remember he was whistling. I again picked up my pace and desperately searched for my keys in my pockets as I hurried to the door. The group of men then veered towards me, partially cutting me off, and in all my stupid politeness, I stopped. They grinned at me with sick, perverted smiles, obviously checking me out, looking up and down my body, and it made me feel sick.

I tried not to panic and inch closer to my apartment. Hey, what's your name? Where you going? Hey, what's your Snapchat? Is this your apartment? Can we come over? You smoke? They all barrage me with questions, one after another. I try to refuse them, stammering a no thank you, as I saw the van guy come and join their group, leering at me. While I inched away, they inched closer.

One of them then reached out for me, his fingers actually touching my arm. I leapt back, trying not to start crying, but Sesame suddenly lunged at them, his teeth bared, a horrifying snarl ripping from his throat. Every bit of cute Sheba personality was completely gone, and he looked like he wanted to tear one of those guys' throats out. It startled them enough that I was able to turn and sprint the final distance to my building, locking the door behind me. I fell to the floor inside my building, hugging Sesame. However, the entire front of my building was glass, and to my horror and disbelief, the group of men came and stood in front of the windows, grinning at me, laughing and making kissy faces and lewd gestures at me. The apartment manager came out and called the cops on them but they ran away. I made it back

home and scrubbed myself in the shower, crying and shaking with fear. Sesame got a special dinner that night and I kept telling myself that they just wanted to mess with me and I was never in any real danger. Stupid of me, I know. About a month later, when I had finally managed to be able to walk outside my apartment without severe anxiety, I was actually planning on moving a bit further away from campus. I was still going to be in the sketchy neighborhood, but the thought of those men knowing where I lived kept me up at night. My apartment actually hired a security guard to be there 24-7 after someone had broken into the

building, smashed all the windows, destroyed some of the furniture, and stole a bunch of bikes. Of course, my bike had gotten stolen as well. Anyways, I was heading home from class and it was a beautiful day. I actually felt pretty happy for once and popped my earbuds in on the last few blocks before I got home. Stupid, I know. After a block or so, I started to feel like someone was watching me. My palms started sweating. I glanced behind me, trying not to look obvious, and a tall man was about 20 feet behind me, staring straight at me. I snapped my head back around and ripped out my earbuds. No, no, no, I thought. It can't be one of them. I was just jumping to conclusions, giving my anxiety disorder and paranoia, surely, but there was something familiar about him. My heart started racing as I hoped

to God that the others weren't waiting for me around the corner of my building ready to jump me. I walked faster, wishing Sesame was with me. I was too afraid to look back at him as I fumbled with my keys and wrenched the door open as hard as I could. This turned out to be a crucial mistake. As I ran to the elevator trying to breathe a sigh of relief, I saw with absolute horror that the man had caught the door and had thrown it wide open and was slowly coming into the building with me. He paused, standing away from me but close enough that I could hear his ragged breath and the smell of alcohol coming off of him. My heart was thudding

in my chest now and I struggled to think clearly. The apartment manager was already home for the day and I was completely alone in the lobby. There were no other doors out of that room and the stranger was blocking my way to the door. The security guard, supposed to be keeping an eye on the building, was nowhere to be seen. The elevator came and I tried to run into it and slammed my hand over the door close button as fast as I could. I pushed my floor button and huddled in the far corner of the elevator. I started to once again try to catch my breath, but right when the door was almost closed, he stuck his hand in. I couldn't believe it. He waited until the door was just about, he stuck his hand in. I couldn't believe it.

He waited until the door was just about to close, and then he stopped it. He was standing close enough that there was no way that that was a mistake. My stomach dropped, and a suffocating sense of dread crept in. I kept my head down as he joined me. My desperate hope that he was just a dirty, drunken resident of the building was dashed when he didn't press any buttons. I don't know why I didn't run out of the elevator or try to leave the building again. I was paralyzed with fear and all I could do was watch as the door closed and sealed my fate. The elevator was filled with a stench of alcohol and BL.

If I wasn't so terrified, I may have gagged. It was nauseating. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't move. I tried to scream at myself in my head to press the wrong button and try to escape him, but I was completely petrified. He leaned closer to me, and I heard him breathe in deeply and very quietly sigh like he was content. I felt tears well up in my eyes, and the seconds it took to reach the top floor where I had lived felt like hours. I saw no way I could escape the sick, drunk guy who was smelling me, and in reflection of the elevator walls I could make out his disgusting smile. He was staring directly at me, his hands in his pockets clearly

holding onto something. I'm not religious, but I prayed that I could make it to my door in time. I realized that he probably wasn't going to attack me in the elevator. There was a large camera in the ceiling. I looked up at it. Feeling a tear spill out of my eyes, I did so, hoping that whoever saw the tape eventually would identify this man. The worst part of all of this is that I've trained in martial arts and self-defense since I was about eight years old. I thought of myself as stronger and braver than I was acting. I should know what to do. I should be strong enough to do it. But no matter how many times I had disarmed, thrown, or choked out attackers in the studio, nothing totally prepares you for the dread of a real-life situation. As the elevator reached my floor, I managed to snap out of my stupor long

enough to dash through the door and run to my apartment unit. I nearly missed the keyhole, but I threw open the door. and I was nearly through when my backpack snagged on the outside handle of the door, trapping me. I heard the man walking quickly to my door, a little bit of a chuckle building in his throat as he watched me panic and struggle to get free. I felt like a mouse being watched by a cat, trapped and helpless and so close to escaping. I finally gave up and shoved my arms through the straps, abandoning my backpack, and as I did so, the man suddenly reached out for me. I was able to slam the door shut, deadbolting it, and the gust of air from the door slamming brought his disgusting smell in with me, and in my terror and disgust I retched violently.

I looked through the peephole and there he was. He was staring right at me, pressing his forehead against the door, his mouth bent in a furious scowl. He swore at me and ripped my backpack off the handle of the door, slamming it to the ground. I winced as I heard my laptop thud. I was still too terrified to say anything, but I grabbed the knife I kept by my door in my hand, ready if he tried anything. After a few minutes of staring at my door, jiggling the handle, licking, and I'm not joking when I say licking, the peephole and making obscene motions at it, he unzipped the backpack, dumping its contents onto the floor. He picked up my bag, sniffing it and leering at the peephole as he did so,

like he knew that I was still watching him. I couldn't look away, again paralyzed in fear, and finally he left, using the elevator visible from the door like nothing had ever happened. I continued to stare out the people for what felt like an eternity and then finally called the apartment manager, feeling my anger sinking in that the security guard hadn't been anywhere in sight, not paying attention. It turns out that he had fallen asleep eating Taco Bell and watching movies on his phone. He was only ten feet away from the elevator the entire time, sleeping in the office behind a closed door. They fired him, but the creepy guy was never caught and neither were any of the others. I don't even know for sure if this man was part of the original group.

I was honestly too terrified to look much at their faces during the first incident. I moved out of my apartment a week later, staying with my boyfriend at the time for the remainder of my lease and keeping Sesame with me at all times when possible. A few more things happened while I lived in that city. From having to call in a gunfight from outside my new apartment window, to having to pick up my friend who was being followed by a van, to having to evacuate during an arson incident. There are nice things about that city too, but during my time there, besides learning the police department was absolutely useless and corrupt,

to nearly escaping with my life multiple times, I couldn't be happier to be far, far away from there and doing a lot better with my fear and anxiety. This happened a few years ago while I was living in Florida. I'm a female and around 20 years old. I had been going through a pretty rough patch in my life and had the great idea to take a few tabs of LSD and go to St. Augustine for a day trip to take my mind off of everything. St. Augustine is notorious for being insanely haunted, but it's one of my favorite places to go. I went by myself and made the three-hour drive. This wasn't out of the ordinary for me. I often went on adventures like this by myself and I always had a great time. So I went to the historic downtown and spent my

peak looking around all the cool shops and even made one hell of a walk to the lighthouse. Passing by tons of tourists and people going about their day when you're tripping balls walks the fine line of exciting and terrifying and I love that feeling. When I started coming down, I went back to my car and decided to go to the beach as there was still a solid two hours of daylight left. I thought being on the beach during sunset while being in the more mental part of the trip would be amazing. I found some random pull-off area that you had to drive down a mile or so before you hit the parking lot. Not one other car was in it, which was welcomed after being in crowds all day. In this lot was a giant circle and was surrounded by trees and marshy land.

Off to the side was a boardwalk that you had to walk quite a ways down to get to the beach. Once I finally got to the sand, I left my shoes by the boardwalk that you had to walk quite a ways down to get to the beach. Once I finally got to the sand, I left my shoes by the boardwalk so I could find where it was when I came back. I was still not in my right mind by any means and the entrance was pretty well hidden. I then walked for a solid 45 minutes down the beach. I found a nice spot with a washed up log where I could put my bag and clothes while I went for a swim. While I was in the water, I started getting to myself and thinking about all the stories about how extremely haunted this beach truly was. Not long after that, I had a very intense burning up my side.

Think like if you get a severe scratch or cut and put rubbing alcohol on it immediately. So my high ass is thinking a ghost had just tried to take me into the depths and I got out of the water as quick as possible. Upon closer inspection on the log I realized that it was a jellyfish sting and I laughed it off. The sun was going down quickly and I remembered that I had quite a trek back to my car. The jellyfish sting was also a huge damper on my mood, so I grabbed up everything and by the time I made it to the boardwalk again, it was dusk. The boardwalk was probably a half a mile walk back to my car. I had only barely started walking down it when I heard someone talking. A few seconds later, I came across a dirty,

older-looking homeless man talking to himself, swinging around a huge machete at plants on the side. I froze in my tracks not knowing what the hell to do. He was slowly walking in the direction I was so I decided to try to keep pace with him and follow behind as quietly as possible. This was going well for about five minutes and then he just stopped. I froze in place not knowing what to do. I decided to just walk by as quickly and calmly as possible in hopes that he wouldn't say anything to me and just keep swinging his machete at the plants. As soon as I passed him, I heard him say something to me.

He must have been on something too because I couldn't understand what he said. I didn't look back and I didn't say anything at all, I just kept walking. I heard his footsteps start to follow behind me. I picked up the pace hoping that he would lose interest. Unfortunately, this didn't happen. I heard him right behind me following me a few feet behind, and every once in a while he'd say something but I ignored him and never looked back. In my mind I was convinced that if I looked back he would attack me with that machete and it would be all over. He started saying things to me more frequently but I still refused to look back or respond in any way. He was becoming angry that I wouldn't acknowledge him and began shouting. I felt the wind from the machete swing behind me and I started to just full on run at that point. I knew the parking lot wasn't too far away by now and I figured my heightened senses from that dose would easily allow me to outrun him.

To my horror he began running too. It was completely dark outside now and my adrenaline was in full force. I finally made it to the lot and somehow got my keys out of my bag in record time. I jumped in my car and floored it out of there. When I was coming out of the circle, I saw him standing off to the side of the road. He was screaming something and angrily swinging that machete around. I tried to come towards my car but I honked the horn and drove past him flying down the road away from this maniac. My friends had always warned me against these little adventures as I was a young, fairly good looking girl.

It was a running joke that I'd get murdered one day while on one of these and that experience made me realize how real of a possibility that could actually be. I used to work in a fast food place. Some nights, this guy would come in, always on his own, and order the exact same thing every time. He never made eye contact with whoever was on the register and he always spoke in this real quiet voice. Then while he waited for his food he'd kind of sway back and forth like he was barely holding it together until his food was ready. He did this so many times that he got a reputation and it creeped everyone out. Anyway, a long time after we started seeing his face on the news, saying that he was wanted in connection with someone going missing. And it turns out that person was his mom and she hadn't disappeared. She'd been murdered. A week later we get the news that this guy had been caught and it was him that killed his own mom. Made a full confession and went to jail, probably forever I imagine.

It's just crazy thinking that I served this random stranger a couple of times, and he didn't seem dangerous. He just seemed like a loser. But I guess he was both. I used to work at a big coffee chain here in Canada, and during the winter, we had a real problem with homeless people trying to get out of the cold for a while. Most were actually pretty cool, and they'd just hang out, charge their phones, We had a real problem with homeless people trying to get out of the cold for a while. Most were actually pretty cool and they'd just hang out, charge their phones, maybe order a coffee with some of the change they'd collected. But this one guy became a real problem for us.

First off, his pants always seemed to be wet, and he always handed us wet bills or coins that he'd pulled out from his pants pocket. I didn't want to think about why his pants were wet, I just doused my hands in hand sanitizer every time I had to serve him. And then came the week where, for like six shifts in a row, he showed up minutes after closing and demanded that we serve him. He got angry when we told him no the first time, so our manager told us to just serve him already so we could get him out. But I think that gave him the green light to just keep doing it over and over. The last time we got so sick of him showing up we told him no but then he went around the drive

through and tried to climb inside screaming about how we were all going to die. We had to call the cops, and I feel like we were pretty lucky no one was hurt that day. I work at a gas station, and my worst ever customer was this drunk homeless guy. He stumbled in with this weird look on his face with torn clothes and a dirty beard. When he was leaving, he said to me, I'll see you later tonight. I thought that was kind of creepy, but I'm not one to scare easily, so I didn't pay it much thought. About half an hour goes by and I see the same guy walking by the store. He stops, looks at me through the window, and then licks the window. This long, slow lick too, like it

sounds kind of funny writing it down now, but trust me, seeing it happen was not laughing matter whatsoever. I told my manager about him right away and he told me to lock the doors and call the cops if he tried to get back in. Now the next worst customer came in looking like someone put Post Malone in a microwave. His earrings look like fishing bobs stuck in the lobes of his ear. As I'm watching my co-worker scan his tickets, I can see him acting all jittery and abnormal. He was, without a doubt, high. I was also told that the smell of urine was on him

and he looked like he had urinated himself. Anyways, keeping a slight eye on him, I go back to cleaning. After the guy leaves, my co-worker comes over crying to me, saying how he threatened to SA her when she gets off of work. We told our manager and my manager had to walk her out of the store to her car that night, and I hope I never see that guy again. I think the craziest thing ever happened to me at a different gas station I was working at when it was the morning rush and I had a long line.

I called up the next person, asked how they were doing and she basically responded by saying if I talk to her again, she was going to kill me. Then she showed me the gun in her purse and I'm like, oh, okay. Have a nice day. And the best part, pretty sure she had a little Bible next to it in that purse too. I was like, what is happening right now? Visibly shaken.

And I told my manager and he was like, oh, it's fine. She won't come back. They didn't take over so I could walk away for a second. Didn't try to console me at all. Nothing. over so I could walk away for a second, didn't try to console me at all, nothing. Oh, and another time I was actually groped on the sales floor while I was cleaning the coffee island. I told my manager that time and they banned the customer from the store, but yet somehow I saw him continue to come in all the time, so that was pretty cool. And I hated that job. Basically said,

screw this, I'm out of here when I left. I had a random guy become obsessed with me and now he's dead. Here's the story. I was 17 and had just got out of the shower and was sat in my bed ready to fall asleep. I heard a voice coming from just outside my bedroom which shouted something super loud that I couldn't quite make out. There was a crack in the blinds from when my cat had laid on them and I peeked out but couldn't see anyone. I thought I was tripping out though because I lived in a relatively safe suburb. I took a Benadryl and went to bed. The next day I woke up to someone pounding on my front door so hard it was like he was trying to break it off its hinges. My mom screamed.

She scared the guy off with the police threats and I taped garbage bags on my windows. We told our neighbors and it took three months for us to get his license plate so we could file a PPO which was all we could do. In this time period, he made a habit of leaving upside down buckets underneath my bedroom window on occasion to let me know that he was still around. Anyway, I've held on to his name since learning it from the police report, and after some Facebook sleuthing, I learned that he actually died during COVID last year. When I was in college, I lived on campus. During longer holidays, I commuted from my hometown to the city that I was studying in, which was a journey of about five to six hours. I used to choose the one at midnight as it meant that I could spend an extra day at home,

travel overnight, and arrive in time for my classes in the morning. One particular time, I was taking a nap in my bus seat and felt that something brushed against my skin at my waist. I ignored it, but later I felt something graze the whole length of my thigh. An alarm bell started ringing in my head, and I woke up. I noticed a man, probably in his fifties, sitting in the seat next to mine and smiling very creepy at me. At that time I thought that I had imagined the touch, so I didn't call the man out. He had a very sweet voice and started talking to me very gently, started off with asking my name and why I was traveling to the city. Went on to ask me a few more questions.

I answered all of his questions vaguely. I don't know why, but he then proceeded to hand me a piece of paper with his phone number written on it and asked me to call him if I was ever again on this bus. My 19-year-old self took the paper from him and didn't confront him. The last that he said to me was, you smell good. That whole encounter was just incredibly creepy. When I was 19, I was at a friend's house one night for a party because his parents were on vacation, like a grown-up home alone. Things were starting to wrap up, it was very late, and we were all standing around in the driveway talking as we got ready to leave. Then this beat-up old Ford Bronco stopped in the street outside, and a tall, lanky guy gets out. He walks up to our group and just stands there, never says a word. He wasn't acting in a

threatening way, it was just really weird and awkward. At that point we all decided that it would be a good time to leave. We got in our cars, he got in his Bronco and we all drove off. When I got onto the street he pulled out right behind me, which I didn't think too much of at first. But then he revved his engine, pulled right up to my tail and flipped on his high beam and light bar. And that's when I knew something was up. At the time, I was driving a little 1985 Dodge Omni that could maybe do 75 if you dropped it off a cliff, so there was no way in hell that I was going to outrun a V8 Ford Bronco, even if I was crazy enough to try. This guy could easily keep up with me,

and I didn't know what the hell to do. In retrospect, I probably should have driven by a police station, but that never occurred to me, and even if it did, I don't know if I would have known where the nearest police station was. This was the early 90s, no smartphones or Google Maps. I did the only thing I could think of. I swerved onto a side street into a poorly lit residential neighborhood. He followed me, but I had a bit of a head start, so I gunned it and turned off my lights. I just sort of randomly drove around the neighborhood for a while until even I couldn't remember what route I had taken, and I couldn't see him in my mirror anymore.

When I was really confident that I had lost him, I found my way to a main road, turned my lights back on and headed home. To this day, I don't know if I was a victim with a penchant for hitchhiking between Illinois and Michigan. One time I caught a ride on Route 94 outside of Chicago with a middle-aged man in a pickup truck. He was a nice enough guy, friendly and talkative. But then a half hour or so into the ride, I happened to glance at his crotch and noticed that his zipper was open. I stayed calm and waited until we got near an exit and asked him nicely to pull over, with my excuse being that I was getting car sick. He ignored me and blew past the exit. There was another exit a few miles ahead. I told him I was nauseous and I was going to vomit and

to please take the next exit. He blew past that one too and I instantly recognized the danger that I was in. I knew I had to get out of the truck. I reached into my backpack and pretended to grab something and hold it in my hand. Then, in as tough a voice as I could muster, I told him that it was in his best interest to drop me off at the side of the highway. I told him if he didn't drop me off, I would use the thing in my hand and that would be very bad for both of us. And it worked. He must have figured out that I wasn't worth the trouble. He took the next exit and dropped me off at a gas station. Fast forward to several months

later when I picked up a newspaper and actually saw a picture of the man who had picked me up hitchhiking on the front page, and he had been arrested, suspected in the murders of multiple young men, and I've never hitchhiked again. Last week I was on a five hour drive via the M6 here in England. There was a car in front of me and we ended up driving in convoy for a few minutes. But then in the process of overtaking a lorry, I overtook him as well and for some reason he didn't take that very well at all. For the next ten minutes or so, he kept speeding past me, moving in front but then slowing down repeatedly. Eventually he pulled up beside me in the middle lane and as he drove beside me, he maintained speed making sure that he stayed level with my car. I could see him trying to get my attention but I tried my best to ignore him and keep my eyes on the road. When I finally did look, thinking that there might have been a good

reason for him getting my attention, I could see him giving all kinds of grief. He wasn't trying to help out. He really was, just mental. Anyway, there was a lorry behind me and a car in front, and this man pinning me in with his car getting closer to mine with an exit coming up, pushing me towards the left. I was terrified that he would push me into the motorway exit and follow me down roads with only one lane. The lorry behind then puts on its brakes and I did the same, slipping out of the gap between the guy's car. I slowed down to the bare minimum and managed to lose the car in the lorry ahead of me in the passing cars. There have been many heart-pounding things that have happened to me over the years, but this got me because even my own car going 70 miles per hour on the motorway

isn't enough to get away from freaking psychos like that. I went on a night out in my twenties, and on the way home, I was walking alone down a long road at about three in the morning. Someone from about a hundred meters back shouts, And I turned around to see about ten lads walking towards me, all with their hoods up over their faces. I was so scared that I didn't even run at first. I just kept walking, thinking that being chill could finesse me out of this. Twenty seconds later I hear, Oi, stop! Again.

And this time it seems closer. After another few shouts in my direction, and they sound about fifty meters away now, I'm walking as fast as I possibly can without running. Then I hear a roar of rage and panic. Turn down a side street, jump into a garden three houses down, and hid under a hedge. About thirty seconds later I see a smaller group of them running down the street shouting, Where'd he go?

I just sat there hiding for a good ten minutes until I dared make my way back to my house. I still don't know why they chased after me or what they wanted, but I thank a single mom living in Melbourne, Australia. One morning, I dropped my eldest off at school in the morning and was walking with my youngest in the pram. As I was walking, I saw a man stood smoking across the road who looked like a complete bogan. He had no top on, gold chains and bad teeth, and when he saw me, he started walking across the road to cut me off on the pavement. I think, oh god, here we go. So I crossed over, but he followed again

My instincts were going haywire when suddenly he comes up behind me and starts saying I love you baby, let me hold him, let me hold him I said I was nearly home and my partner would not be happy about him hassling me But then he gets all angry saying that he'll bash my partner and then bash me. I've never felt my body prepare me so much for a fight or flight situation. I was on a steep hill and I knew that I couldn't let go of the pram to fight him off. There seemed to be nobody about at the time in the morning either, so no one to help me if he did go for me.

As I got home, I rushed through the door, and by some miracle I managed to shut the door before he could force his way in behind me. I hid my son upstairs in his cot and then frantically started ringing the police when I see the man come over my back fence, looking through my patio doors right at me, fogging up the window with some manic smile. He had really bad teeth. They were honestly disgusting. I just remember them the most. The police response was brilliant as they were there within 15 minutes, but by that time the bloke had gone. It turned out after that he had followed me. He had dragged a lady down an alley and tried to bash her,

and her little barking dog saved her by barking so loud that another man came to investigate. I left Melvin to come home about two months later. The police caught him with mine and the lady's help, and I'm thankful to say that he served seven years. We live in the country around five miles from the nearest town, but on a busy road. Around 2 a.m. one Sunday morning, I was the only person still up, and I guess our house was the only one around with a light on, and there was a knock at the living room window. Warily, I opened the window to see a scruffy young guy dressed in black and he was about 19 years old. He asked me for a lift into the nearest town and mumbled something about his friends throwing him out of their car. I politely told him that I had been drinking so I couldn't

drive but would phone a taxi for him if he wanted. He started getting anxious and aggressive and saying that he couldn't get a taxi to where he wanted to go. There was clearly something not right with this guy, but I had no idea how to help him. I told him the best bet was for me to phone the police and ask them to come out and help. Then, after a bit of incoherent babble, he set off walking, away from the town, in black clothes in the middle of the night wearing dark clothes on a road where every other driver was probably intoxicated, tired, or distracted. I phoned the local cop shop and they said that they would send a car out to look for him, but I never heard

back from them. I couldn't sleep that night worrying about that guy, and my wife who had woken up and heard half the conversation couldn't sleep worrying that he would come back and murder us both in our beds. To be continued... We rented a camper and drove up the entire east coast. One night, in the middle of nowhere, we stopped at a petrol station. It was a station that just sort of appeared out of nowhere with nothing but fields as far as you could see in the other direction. We stopped for fuel, food, and hopefully a toilet, and a freshen-up break if they had a restroom. When we were walking into the station, everyone in there was what I think you might describe as being a hillbilly. They just sort of stopped and looked at us as we went about our business. When I got to the till, the cashier was super non-sociable. He said they did have a restroom and gave us the keys to it. Then we paid for our stuff and headed for the restroom to find that it was covered head to toe in blood and who knows what other kind of fluids. We said no way and left,

jumped in our camper and got out of there but as we were pulling out, four to five pickup style trucks all sort of pulled in and half blocked us in. We found a gap between two trucks and sped out of there, and the headlights in the rearview mirror seemed to last forever and we were convinced that they were following us. It was a very scary experience even once we were gone. It really was in the middle of nowhere so streetlights weren't a thing. We didn't stop to sleep that night, drove until the morning, and then only crashed out once we were in the next city along the coast Walmart to wait for my mother to pick me up. As I was standing outside, a man walked up and started talking to me, asking me how old I was, what my name was, and asked where I lived. I wasn't extremely nervous and scrawny girl,

so I muttered that I lived far away, and then walked quickly into the store. As I was walking, I heard him say, I'll find you later. I found a payphone, as this was before every kid had a cell phone and called my mother, who was still 35 minutes away. I hid in the junior section the whole time, and when I walked back out to see if my mom was there yet, I hear this voice right next to me whisper, I told you I'd find you. Luckily, my mom had just parked, so I just just bolted and we drove off. I was in a grocery store doing my weekly shop and was approached by a man who said I was pretty and asked for my number. No intros, no asking me how I was doing, just getting straight to it. I politely declined and said I wasn't interested.

He became persistent, so I ended up telling him to just give me his number so I could end this interaction. After he gives me his number, I go back to shopping without incident, or so I think. It turns out this man was keeping an eye on me from the produce section as I was walking up and down the aisles. As I'm getting ready to head to the checkout, he decides to approach me again. This time, he's super agitated and raises his voice while asking me why I won't just give him my number. I decided to be direct and tell him that I said I wasn't interested and I will not be giving a number to a stranger.

He really had an issue with this and became irate and had to be removed from the store. I walked to my car and he ended up following me out to the parking lot. I was on my street when I noticed that I was being followed by him, drove past my house and started driving towards the police station in my city. He followed me until he realized that I was turning into that driveway and then sped off. And luckily, I haven't seen him since. I was walking home from work at around 11pm.

I walked home every night for years through the same place and never had an issue, but I never listened to my music loud just in case. For about a mile I could hear someone yelling behind me, but they weren't close and I couldn't make out anything that they were saying. I started to get a really bad vibe and decided to mute my music for a bit. I started to hear the voice getting closer, but still couldn't make anything out until I heard distinct, I just really, really don't like people. I turned around and saw this skinny dude just sprinting at me, full force from behind. I remember his arms were flailing in the air uncontrollably. I decided quickly to just cross the street and see if he would follow me. I turned to stare at him as he slowed to a walk and stayed on his side of the street.

Once he was parallel to me without even glancing over, he calmly said, That's exactly what I would have done. And continued on, turning left into the train station about a block ahead. It gave me the creepiest feeling. I definitely was ready to fight if I needed to, but dude had the most whacked out posture and vibe I'd ever seen. Probably was on something. I was playing at the end of the trailer park and a guy pulled up in a convertible. He said he knew my mom and held up a Polaroid across the front seat saying it was her. I saw the lady didn't have the right hair color and said, that's not my mom.

And he said, sure it is, and then told me to get in his car. I said no, then started backing away. He got frustrated and insisted that I should come closer so I could look at the picture better and be sure that it wasn't her. I said, no, I'm actually going to get lunch now, sorry. He gave a fake smile and left, so I turned around. My neighbor, who later again saved my life quite literally, was walking up with an odd expression in her purse. I found out a few years later that the same man had been abducting and touching kids in the city for about three years by that time. I was only an arm's grab away from being another of his victims. When my son was a toddler, I made a late night run to a 24-hour Walgreens to pick up a prescription

for him. We live in an urban area where Walgreens to pick up a prescription for him. We live in an urban area where Walgreens was busy at that time of night. It was also right next to a metro stop and was not a place where most people drove so parking was super limited. I ended up parking at a curb a bit away from the store. When I got back to my car, a youngish, very normal looking guy came up to my window and I rolled it down a bit and he said, I think I know you from such and such place. I had actually been to that place that he mentioned before, it was a popular spot so I tried to remember him. In that split second, his eyes went completely black. His whole face changed, and he grabbed the door handle of my car and tried to open it.

I put the car in drive and peeled out of there, looking straight ahead. Only when I got to a red light a few streets away did I realize that the overhead light was on. He had actually opened the door a bit, and I hadn't realized. I never forgot his face and how it changed. I remember one of Ted Bundy's potential victims described how his face went from normal, attractive, friendly, to black-eyed, unrecognizable, and frenzied. And that's how this man transformed. There were some missing women in our city and I always wondered if that guy did it. I was in Vienna during Christmas break. There is a large open-air market in the middle of the city,

and thousands of people were milling about, eating, drinking, and shopping in the evening. A very attractive blonde woman with light blue eyes bumps into me and, an accented English apologizes. I said no worries and we started chatting. She says that she's there for New Year's visiting a friend. I mention that I'm American but Polish in heritage and we continue to talk for several minutes. She says that she's hungry and wants to get food. I offer to buy her a slice of pizza at a booth, and I get one for both of us, and she takes a bite and says that she doesn't like it, and wants to go to a place away from the town center. Something about how quickly she rejected the pizza, which was quite good, set off alarms, and I wished her a pleasant evening and walked away.

I looped around the town center and coincidentally saw her walking down an alley with two large men, one on each side of her. And very quickly I realized that she was bait to draw me into an alley so they could probably mug me. After that, I don't think it's just Spider-Man that has a sixth sense. I'm not saying I'm psychic, but I definitely know when something is just too good to be true. My wife and I stopped at a park with our then seven-year-old daughter. My wife went off on her own for a few to get us some ice cream, while I took my daughter over to the bank at the lake. Seemingly out of nowhere, this really creepy guy walked up and started addressing my daughter while just completely ignoring me. He was going on about how to attract

the ducks and was positioning himself in a way to get in between us. I did a quick calculation where I had a base set up to kick his butt into the ropes along the edge of the lake which would trip him at his knees and send him into the water. I had my daughter by the hand and just interrupted the guy and pulled her away. The guy turned around and went right to his car and left immediately. My instincts were strongly indicating that this man was intending to abduct my daughter, and remembering how scared I was in that moment, it still haunts me many years later. Back when I was 12, I went to see my grandmother in the hospital with my family. After a couple of hours of visiting, I went over to sit in the empty TV room. An older man, probably in his mid-80s, came in and sat right next to me. I thought that was weird because this empty room had seating everywhere,

but maybe he had vision problems and he needed to sit near the TV. When he started to rub his hand up and down my leg is when I thought to myself, yeah, this isn't right. As a 12-year-old boy, I was pretty freaked out. I quietly got up, shut off the TV, and walked back to my grandma's room. I still remember it to this day, and it was one of the creepiest things I'd ever experienced. I used to waitress in a pretty seedy bar. After closing, the waitstaff would meet at a 24-hour restaurant-slash-motel for breakfast.

As I'm waiting for everyone else to arrive, I notice a creepy man drinking a milkshake at the counter. I thought it was weird because it was the middle of winter. Around this time, there was a lot of talk of working girls going missing. I waitressed at a gentleman's club, and it was maybe a two-minute walk away from the restaurant-slash-motel, so it was less than desirable of a neighborhood, to say the least. Because of the transient nature of that line of work, the missing girls were mostly just rumors. As it was a tourist town, stuff like that never made the papers. But anyways, I'm sitting in the restaurant, and I'm getting major creepy vibes from this dude.

People arrive, we start chatting about our night. He's still sitting there, but I'm ignoring it and kind of forgetting about my weird feeling. After I finish my meal, I go out for a smoke alone. This is around the time my area started tightening up on smoking bylaws, so you were no longer allowed to smoke on patios with awnings. This meant that I was at the end of the patio, adjacent to the dark and almost empty parking lot. Right by where I was smoking there was a car with American plates. Not unusual in and of itself but as I'm looking at the SUV, creepy milkshake man comes out of the restaurant. I quickly put two and two together, that this is his car,

and he starts talking to me, saying really weird stuff. Needless to say, he got my attention very quickly. I figured since you were giving me the cold shoulder, I'd come stand out in the cold. As he's talking to me, he's making unwavering eye contact. His head is hung slightly low and he's glancing at me from under his eyebrows, if that makes sense. He seemed very predatory and my alarm bells are ringing. As he's talking, he's slowly walking towards me with his hands in his pockets and he never broke eye contact. I've heard people talk about predatory stares, the face of evil. If I had any doubt about his intentions, his eyes told me

everything I needed to know. They were pure black and hate-filled. It's the only way I can describe it. He continues advancing towards me. I'm stuck between this man and the trunk of his SUV, and he's less than a foot away from me. My back is literally against a wall, and it became clear that he was going to take me. His hands are still in his pocket. I don't know if he had a knife, a stun gun or what, but I knew that I did not want to find out what he had in his pockets. It became very clear to me that I would have to fight him off. As I'm preparing to knee him in the balls, he's barely an arm's length away now, I could hear footsteps. See, the motel is above the restaurant, with concrete steps leading down to the patio and entrance.

The second he heard someone coming, he ripped his hands out of his pockets and took a giant step away from me. I flicked my cigarette and ran inside to hurriedly tell all the dining bouncers the TLDR version of what happened. It took me maybe 30 seconds max, then ran outside and he was long gone. If I ever had a doubt of his intentions, his reaction to someone coming negated any and all doubt. He could not convince me I wouldn't have been essayed or murdered, and I felt it in my bones. I had just received some bad news while I was walking home after hanging out with some friends. I was walking down the street crying when I noticed a guy sitting in a parked truck staring at me. I was too busy with my own thoughts. I just kept on walking with music in my ears.

Soon I felt someone grab my shoulder and turn me around. It was the guy from the truck. He had seen me crying and stopped to ask me if I was okay. I took out my earplugs and tried to tell him I was fine and I just wanted to go home. He hugged me and I couldn't help myself from bursting into tears. It felt like such a random act of kindness. Then suddenly his grip got tighter, and I felt uncomfortable, but he wouldn't let me go. I looked up at him because he was way taller than me and begged him to just leave me alone. He then tried to kiss me and pull

me towards his truck, saying how pretty I was and asking for my number. I just panicked and tried kicking him, but he was way bigger than me. I screamed for help and luckily two men were close enough to hear me and ran over to get the guy to let me go, and I never run that fast home. And the worst part is that it was in broad daylight, and he was just abusing the fact that I was in such a fragile state. To be continued... live streams on Sunday and Wednesday nights. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and you might 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 and bonus content over on Patreon, or click that big join button to hear about the extra perks offered for the channel.

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