The Lets Read Podcast - 281: WHAT WE FOUND IN THAT CAVE | 21 True Scary Stories | EP 269

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about toxic relationships, Craigslist experiences & Bigfoot encounters 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 Today's episode is sponsored by: - IQ Bar

Thank you for watching! On the evening of November 3rd, 2019, 18-year-old Caitlin Lancashire received a text message on her cell phone. Caitlin lived on the outskirts of Knutsford, a small town in the mostly rural English county of Cheshire. Although she was a pleasant and popular young woman, Caitlin was no stranger to the kinds of interpersonal dramas that are common among teenagers. Yet the contents of the text message she received that night was enough to make her head spin. Hi Caitlin, the message read. I thought I should let you know that over the past two or three weeks, your boyfriend has been trying to message me. He also came to my house in his car to meet me last week, but I told him my dad wouldn't allow me to leave.

I've told him that our message exchange has to stop, but I thought I'd let you know before he actually cheats on you. I didn't even know he was dating you until I went to follow him on Instagram. It was the message that every girl dreads. But when Caitlin confronted her boyfriend, 18-year-old Matthew Mason appeared to have no idea what she was talking about. Matthew was the son of a millionaire farmer and had recently enrolled in a nearby university to study agricultural engineering and was a proud member of the National Federation of Young Farmers. According to most, he was a polite, affable young man who had been Caitlin's long-term boyfriend for the previous two years. On no previous occasion had Matthew given her any

reason whatsoever to doubt his fidelity, so his categorical denials seemed more than convincing. But in truth, and despite his apparent disinterest in other girls, Matthew was lying to her. Around the same time Caitlin received that fateful text message, its author sent another to Matthew. This one said something to the effect of, I've told your girlfriend about us, because what you've been doing is wrong. She loves you. There's no need for you to be speaking with me. You need to tell her the truth, Matt, because I already have. It seems Matthew then attempted to deny all knowledge of the allegations and claimed he had no idea who was texting him.

The person replied, don't lie. I've got proof that we talked. Matthew appeared unbothered by this claim, but the next was substantially more difficult to deny. Matthew's mysterious affair partner informed him that not only had they taken screenshots of their many lengthy conversations, but they'd also made copies of several nude photographs Matthew had sent them. If you don't stop lying, the person said, I will literally put those pictures on my Instagram story and tag you in them. Matthew begged the person not to post his intimate pictures and offered 50 pounds in exchange for their silence. He appears to have paid this money without an ounce of hesitation because he wasn't just cheating on Caitlin with another girl from their age group. The individual he'd been dating for the past few months was a 15-year-old boy named Alex Roda.

Alex's mother, Lisa Roda, later said that even from the earliest of ages, she could tell Alex was different from other boys. He was very feminine, she said. He used to put on my shoes and jewelry and then go strutting around the house in it. I remember when he was 13, she continued, Alex came into the kitchen and said he needed to talk. But I knew what he was about to tell me and I knew straight away because everyone knew. We'd always known Alex was gay and we loved him all the same. It was later discovered that during the latter half of 2019, Alex had been the one to initiate contact with Matthew and did so via social media. Despite their initial conversation being confined to Facebook, the pair soon switched to Snapchat,

an app Matthew believed would allow him to maintain anonymity while taking their conversation in a decidedly inappropriate direction. Just a few weeks later, Matthew and Alex met for the first of several inappropriate encounters, and it appears the 15-year-old schoolboy believed their relationship had a future. He began to tell close friends that he was secretly dating a man three years his senior who, unlike himself, was not openly homosexual. These friends urged Alex to be cautious as pursuing such a relationship could potentially end in heartbreak. But Alex paid no heed and continued to pursue a relationship with the older Matthew. It's possible that in order to ensure their relationship was covert, Matthew made a deliberate attempt to digitally distance himself from the younger Alex. Matthew's Facebook page apparently made no mention of his heterosexual relationship with Caitlin

and neither did his Snapchat profile. But upon gaining access to his Instagram page, Alex discovered that Matthew was being unfaithful. He was understandably angry and did the same thing many of us would do if caught in the same situation, but during the course of the confrontation that followed, Matthew made a serious error of judgment. In return for his silence regarding the exchange of nude photographs, Matthew offered Alex 50 English pounds. Alex accepted, but the payments did not stop there. Over the next 30 days, Matthew Mason deposited just over 2,000 pounds in Alex Rhoda's bank account in amounts ranging from 50 and 400 pounds. Some claim that Matthew made these deposits without any direction whatsoever from Alex, but text exchanges reveal that on more than one occasion,

Alex demanded money from Matthew in exchange for his continued silence. Each time Matthew obliged him and it appears Alex wasn't shy about sharing his newfound wealth with his circle of friends. One later said that she didn't think much of the first few deposits, but upon learning that the amount had risen to more than 2,000 pounds, she realized that Alex was, quote, playing with fire. I warned him to get out, she later said, but he didn't listen. Finally, on December 12th of 2019, Matthew told Alex that his bank account was empty and needed time to secure additional funds. However, he also mentioned that following a Christmas visit from a distant but wealthy relative, he'd received a large amount of cash as a holiday gift. Matthew then proposed that he and Alex go somewhere

secluded so they could enjoy a little privacy after he gave him the cash. Alex accepted the offer. Then, at exactly 5.24pm, a nearby security camera spotted him departing his home before climbing into the passenger seat of Matthew Mason's Renault Clio. Alex had been wise enough to inform friends of his whereabouts, having text one just an hour previous to say, this guy I'm meeting wants to take me to a special secret place in a forest. This friend implored Alex to reconsider the invitation and advised him to meet Matthew in a well-lit public place. Yet once again, Alex disregarded his friend's advice, telling her he needed the money. Minutes after getting into Matthew's car, Alex posted a picture on Snapchat of himself inside the vehicle with a small love heart

emoji at the bottom. It was the last snap Alex would ever send. Matthew and Alex drove out to a remote area of woodland near a small village named Ashley. Then after parking his car out of sight from the main road, the two young men walked off into the forest together. It's possible that Alex had been enticed by the prospect of intimate relations, as there was no need to travel to a private location in order to receive a cash payment. But the fact remains that when Matthew told Alex to walk off into the woods ahead of him, he did so unquestioningly, giving Matthew the perfect opportunity to strike. After just a minute or two of following Alex through the trees, Matthew produced a wrench that he'd managed to conceal on his person. With his victim still completely oblivious to the potential danger, Matthew lunged forward and struck Alex in the back of the head with as much force as he could possibly muster.

The initial blow sent Alex tumbling into the dirt beneath him, dazed, disoriented, and in complete agony from what was no doubt an acute skull fracture. Then, once Alex was completely defenseless, Matthew brought the wrench down onto his skull, over and over again, until his victim was almost completely unrecognizable. Matthew later said that Alex had still been breathing once the attack had ceased, but from the weak gargling sounds the boy was making, he knew it wouldn't be long before he expired. Matthew then drove to the farm of some family friends, knowing the facilities would be unmanned on a Wednesday evening. And there he used a faucet to wash the blood from his hands, and then after ensuring he'd rid himself of all visible signs of the murder, he drove to not one, but two nearby

public houses to socialize with friends and establish an alibi. Once he'd established his presence elsewhere at the time of Alex's murder, Matthew then drove all the way back to the scene of the crime where he attempted to move his victim's body. Matthew dragged Alex's murder. Matthew then drove all the way back to the scene of the crime where he attempted to move his victim's body. Matthew dragged Alex's corpse to the side of the road and then attempted to haul his body into the trunk of his car. But Alex was not small of stature and despite his efforts, Matthew was unable to complete his intended task. Instead of absconding with Alex's corpse, Matthew simply abandoned it by the side of the road, confident that he'd remain concealed from the prying eyes of the general public.

Only that wasn't strictly true. Unbeknownst to Matthew, a passerby had been watching from the cover of a nearby hedgerow and realized that someone was trying to haul a dead body into their trunk. This passerby then pulled out their phone, zoomed in on their camera as much as possible, and snapped half a dozen pictures of Matthew, his car, and its unique registration number before reporting him to local police. A few hours later, at exactly 10.20pm, Matthew sent a picture of himself to Caitlin Lancashire, by then his ex-girlfriend, depicting him in bed, shirtless and smiling. Caitlin ignored the picture, but the following morning, woke up to another message from Matthew, this one depicting his feet on the floor of his car. Caitlin actually replied to this second picture message and asked Matthew if he was okay. He replied that he was, and I quote, fine. But as the day unfolded, it became obvious

that he was anything but. On the afternoon of December 13th, 2019, Caitlin Lancashire received a text message from a close friend asking if she knew where Matthew Mason was. Presumably, with it being a Thursday, Matthew was either attending university lectures or was at home with his parents. But upon suggesting that, Caitlin heard that he was at neither location. And what's more, Caitlin was told that Matthew was wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of a 15-year-old boy. If she could get him on the phone and coax him to reveal his location, she would be doing this boy's terrified parents a huge, huge favor. And suddenly, Matthew's cryptic picture messages started to make sense.

They weren't an unexpected attempt at reconciliation. They were either a subtle attempt to establish an alibi or a cryptic cry for help. Caitlin called Matthew immediately and demanded to know where the missing Alex was. Her ex-boyfriend replied that Alex had been begging him for a ride to a pub in nearby Holmes Chapel, but after obliging him, the parrot parted ways. On any other occasion, the lie might well have been a convincing one, but in this instance, Caitlin later said that she could hear something in Matthew's voice, something which led her to believe that, and I quote, Matthew already knew the police were after him. Caitlin then asked if it was true and that he'd been paying Alex for his silence and in the

process of giving a full and frank admission, Matthew broke down in tears and then simply said, I've killed him. Hours later, Alex's partially clothed corpse was discovered by refuse collectors in the same spot Matthew had abandoned it the night before. And just a short time afterwards, Matthew's car was stopped by police with the man himself behind the wheel. Officers observed that he had dried blood on his hands and that his vehicle contained a bin bag housing his blood-stained green fleece, the murder weapon, and Alex's large padded jacket which, by then, was stained with his blood. At his trial, it emerged that Matthew had searched Google for answers to the following questions. What would happen if you kicked someone down the stairs? Which everyday poisons are the most

effective? And, are there any unsolved missing person cases from Cheshire, England? In his defense, Matthew claimed that he'd only attacked Alex as a means of defending himself, and that the stocky 15-year-old had in fact lured him into the woods with the promise of conciliation. However, this claim was swiftly reputed by the prosecution, who fielded several expert witnesses, each of whom testified that the first blow had been inflicted to the rear of Alex's skull. By the time their testimony had concluded, the jury was left in no doubt that what had occurred had been a brutal and deadly ambush. After being found guilty of Alex Rhoda's murder, Matthew Mason was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 28 years in prison before he'll finally be eligible for parole. Judge Stephen Everett told Matthew that he was much more worldly wise than his victim who was young and immature for his age,

then added that, although I accept Alex Rhoda may very well have initiated contact with you in the latter half of 2019, I am sure that you not only responded but actively encouraged an inappropriate relationship. You groomed him. It was not your first intimate experience, but it was his. While it is clear that Alex Rhoda, naively as I see it, demanded money from you, the judge continued, it must be firmly kept in mind that this all came about because of your offense, and it was your choice alone to behave in that way. In a victim impact statement, Alex's mother told the courtroom, when you lose a child in the most horrific and brutal circumstances as a parent, you really do experience hell.

My boy was raised in love, not fear. He did not wear a mask. I brought my son up to be proud of who he was. He was 15. He was full of joy, inspiration, enthusiasm for life. He lived in love. He was raised in love. He brought joy and light wherever he went. A few years ago, I landed a job as a camera operator for a Discovery special on the Yeti.

However, that special never aired, and here I am breaking my NDA to explain why. I believe these events needed to be made known. Professionally, I'm a photographer and a cameraman, primarily focused on nature photography, but a gig is a gig. I had a friend from college who worked for Discovery, filming for some of their extreme nature shows like Bear Gross' survival series or documentaries exploring Egyptian tombs. At the time, I was primarily doing wedding photography,

but I always wanted to try my hand at something like what my friend was doing for Discovery. Luck would have it that he fell seriously ill right before a scheduled trip to Kathmandu, Nepal, for a new TV special on the Yeti, and he recommended me for the job and I happily accepted. I was thrilled. It meant a free trip to Nepal and a reality TV gig. After gathering my gear, I drove down to LA to meet my sick friend who graciously let me use his equipment. Don't sweat it, he said. Have fun over there and make sure you listen to what they want you to do. You'll be going into some pretty rough terrain. It's hard work, so stay hydrated. The physical aspect wasn't a problem for me.

I walked a lot and even ran marathons. And after thanking him again, I headed to the airport. The plane ride was long. Really long, but otherwise uneventful. And I mainly needed to nap. My back was killing me from the seats and the jet lag on top of that. At the airport, I met the others in the crew. There was one other cameraman, his name was Willie, who knew my friend from back home. Then there was the show's host, an Aussie named Rob, and Rob's assistant producer, Karen. As soon as I stepped out of the airport, I felt like I walked into a wall of pollution.

Kathmandu was huge, dense, smelly, and noisy. Nepal bordered India, so if you've ever been there or seen places like Delhi on TV, Nepal is not much different. Willie, who was also Filipino and blended in better with the locals, hailed us a cab and we went to a western hotel. Karen informed me that she would be staying at the hotel when we would be meeting a local guide that she arranged for us. The rest of the day I mainly walked around near the hotel, ate some local food and took some photos with my own camera. Karen and I were the only ones still awake at this point. I still felt weird despite being exhausted from the flight

so we walked down a bit to a nearby square where we heard some music coming from. There were about 20 or so people there, crowded around a Nepalese man who was dancing in a circle while some other men played drums and an instrument I couldn't recognize. It was some sort of flute. The dancer was wearing a golden silk gown and a paper mache mask. The mask was interesting recognize. It was some sort of flute. The dancer was wearing a golden silk gown and a paper mache mask. The mask was interesting though. It looked like what you'd see during Chinese New Year, painted bright red with intricate yellow and green patterns surrounding orb-like white eyes and two long fangs that slanted outward from the mouth hole. The mask also had long, bright red hair that covered the dancer's head entirely so

all you saw was the mask and his body. Karen was able to speak a bit of Nepali and gesturing to the dance, she asked one of the drummers what the mask was. He looked confused at her poor Nepali for a moment and then laughed and simply said, Laque. Later at the hotel, I googled on the brutally slow internet what a Lakhe was, and apparently, it was some sort of demon from Nepalese folklore that protects townspeople. I shut off my laptop and then managed to get a nice long sleep. The next day, we met our guide, Sherpa Harish. He was from a village about eight hours northeast of Kathmandu, going up into the Himalayas. We put our equipment into a rented truck and then up we drove through the city and then the poor slum suburbs beyond before finally reaching mountainous farmland.

Rob got Willie to film him interviewing Harish for a bit as he drove. Harish told us that he had seen glimpses of the Yeti as a boy, and the beast left footprints in the sand near rivers and streams. Many of the villages near him had reported sightings too, but often some kids go looking on their own, he says, but mostly they get lost out in the dense mountain jungle. Sometimes they'll come back with scratches and bruises, usually from falling, tripping, or even sometimes bites from snakes. Harish continued explaining that the local legends of the Yeti became world famous when western explorers began coming to Nepal for exploration,

mainly around the early 20th century. The myths exploded as more mountaineers came hoping to catch a glimpse of the Bigfoot cousin on their climb up the various mountains, the most famous obviously being Mount Everest. Harish claims that the Yeti exists, but understands why many westerners and even those from the cities are more skeptical because there are other great apes like orangutans in the jungles which people could think are the Yeti. We stopped filming and let Harris drive. It took us almost all day and it was not a pleasant ride. Most of the roads were

little more than dirt paths and some spots were very high up, overlooking gorgeous scenery with nothing but flimsy aluminum barriers to protect your vehicle if it careened off the road. We reached his village at about 9pm local time. I was expecting some wooden hut village like you saw on TV, but this village was more like a small town. They had power, concrete buildings, and a few paved, albeit poorly, streets. Most of the buildings though were shanty huts with aluminum ceilings and wood or old concrete as walls. Harish took us to the only hotel in town, which was a simple two-story motel. We agreed to meet early in the morning at around 5am,

since Harish said that that was the best time to potentially get a sighting. The hotel room was what you would expect from the third world. A bare-bones mattress that was right on the ground, a hole in the ground with a plastic cover for a toilet, and a hose with a nozzle for a shower. Luckily the motel restaurant served some decent chicken. I managed to get a few hours of sleep but slept in my clothes as the nights got very cold that high up in the Himalayan foothills. I woke up and met the crew bright and early. Harris drove us a bit away from the village but not too far as we'd have to go the rest of the way on foot. He said most sightings are near a stream that runs at the bottom of a gorge. However, the Nepali government was building a dam just north of the village and most of the river was dried up so we could walk along the sandy banks.

The river was not far from the road, maybe a 15 minute walk through the jungle. I could see what the dam was doing to the gorge though. The water was confined to a small stream in the middle of what must have once been a great river, and on the other side, as Harish said, were sandy banks and rocks. Willie and I began filming at this point and we began trekking north. On either side of the gorge were steep tree-covered hills and you could see in the distance the first mountains of the Himalayas. Every so often we would stop and Harish would explain to Rob a bit more about the Yeti and Rob would relay his own opinions as well. Harish would point out various animal tracks including bears and even a tiger so we had a reference for when he showed us the real yeti footprint up ahead.

We trekked on for what felt like an hour following the dried up riverbank. My friend back home was certainly right about it being tough terrain. I considered myself pretty fit but even this was getting tough as we kept going uphill. Eventually, we hit a turn in the river, marked to my right by a steep cliff face. Harish beckoned us over to show some sort of ape-like footprint in the dried river sand. I kept filming as Rob asked some questions about how the villagers found it. Could it just be a regular ape or orangutan, that sort of thing? The footprint was pretty odd though, even if it was an orangutan. It was about the size of a bear,

but definitely humanoid slash apish in shape, with four toes and a larger opposable toe. We took photos of the print and then used the opportunity to have a lunch break. The footprint was weird but interesting, I thought at the time, and looking back, this is where I wish we had stopped. After lunch, Harish told us that the Yeti is probably an undiscovered ancestor or relative to apes. He says it likes to live in caves and has evidence. The cave mention was given to Karen, who told Rob weeks ago, so it was no surprise to Rob. These nature productions are all generally scheduled well in advance, so there are no surprises. We packed our stuff up and began to hike up into the jungle towards this cave up the

steep terrain near the cliffside. When I thought the hike up the river was tough, I hadn't experienced a real hike yet. Back home, I would hike around Seattle and near Portland when I would visit my parents, but trails cannot compare to walking through unexplored Himalayan jungle bush. And not to mention, I had 60 odd pounds of AV equipment on my back. The jungle was certainly a unique place though. You're introduced to a whole new soundscape from monkeys yelling at each other, tons of different birds, the rustling of vegetation, and even some weird chirps from insects I couldn't even name to you. Eventually, the constant uphill battle took a turn south,

literally. Harish led us downhill until we were standing face to face with this cave. They had a low ceiling, maybe five feet, but it was quite wide, about the length of a city bus. The entrance was covered in thick bush, except a cutaway hole where presumably this yeti entered and exited. At the moment, Willie began to film Rob and Harish entering the cave, and a shrill shriek came from behind the area we hiked up. I nearly fell over, and my muscles went stiff. Instinctively, I swung my camera around but couldn't locate where the shriek had come from. Rob turned with a look of concern. Willie and Harish, on the other hand, were grinning at me. Willie had his camera pointed into the treetops and was holding back a laugh

to keep his camera steady. Willie pointed up and told us to look up there. I followed his gaze to see a small brown monkey hanging from a branch. Howling monkey. Looks like you saw a ghost, huh? And the anxiety in me slowly let down as the monkey screamed again right at us a couple more times before taking off into the treetops. I must have let out the biggest sigh of my life and we turned to go into the cave. Rob interviewed Harish again before entering, and Harish said some local boys found this place and they saw the Yeti leaving the cave. Rob made a little joke and then we went into the cave. As you would expect, the cave was pitch black and good thing we had our lights on our cameras in addition to night vision. The cave didn't seem to go that far back, but it was

difficult to tell. The ceiling seemed to get lower and lower as you went in. Rob was walking sort of backward, talking to the camera as he spoke about the history of the Yeti sightings, that sort of thing. We started having to duck our heads as the ceiling kept getting lower and the light from the entrance grew smaller. We were maybe 30 yards in when Rob started talking. The first western sighting of the Yeti was in 1832 when... He stopped as his foot hit something. He mumbled and turned to see how big the rock was to move around it. Only when he turned and shined his headlight on the ground, his foot had not hit a rock.

I could see through my camera a humanoid mass on the ground, like someone in a fetal position. Rob jumped back and Harish went to go see what was wrong. He turned the man over, and the man was completely naked and covered in filth. Harish looked up at me, and the man was clearly a westerner. He had a shaggy beard, was very skinny and looked extremely dehydrated. This body on the ground was still alive though, mumbling something and holding himself. There were two small holes in the side of the man, like some sort of bite. A bat maybe. We were in a cave and the man had clearly been here for some time and we thought that it was a lost tourist

or a mountaineer at first but then Harish picked up a piece of plastic near the man and held it up to me. I read it out loud. Jacques Richard. Engineer. Engineer. That was French for engineer, obviously, and he must work at the dam. Harish explained that the dam was partially funded by the French government and the World Bank. We agreed that he must have gotten lost and went to help him up when the same shriek from the howler monkey emerged from the cave entrance. I turned, slowly keeping my camera rolling. Through the lens I saw a very tall, dark, lanky figure standing in the cave entrance.

It had no clothing, no fur, just a huge head of hair that was completely dark like the rest of its silhouette. I could make out the monkey's squirming body in the creature's mouth. It screamed again, and then there was a crunch and a sickening slurping noise. All I could make out from the silhouette were two enormous beady white eyes staring at my camera. The creature let out another terrifying scream, dropping the dead monkey and quickly retreating deeper into the jungle, disappearing into the dense foliage. The crew, stunned and terrified, gathered their wits and decided that they needed to get out of the cave and back to the village immediately. We carefully lifted the injured and confused man and started making our way back through the treacherous terrain. The injured man, Jacques Richard, was weak but conscious, mumbling incoherently about being hunted, creature, something,

and his delirious state suggested that he had been through something very traumatic. And the journey back to the village was very arduous. We faced multiple challenges as we had to carry Jacques, the paths were slippery and the constant fear that the creature might actually return. Harish was leading the way quickly, using his knowledge of the terrain to guide us back safely. And as we walked, Jacques' mumblings became more coherent. They talked about being part of a team, working on the dam, and how they encountered the creature during their surveys. They described the creature's attacks and how it seemed to be protecting its territory. Jacques mentioned that others from his team went missing and were never found.

We finally reached Harish's village late at night. The villagers were shocked to see Jacques, whom they presumed to be dead. Harish quickly arranged for medical help, and the village doctor attended to Jacques' wounds and dehydration. The crew gathered to discuss our next steps, though. Rob and Karen decided to return to Kathmandu to report the incident and share the footage with Discovery. And Jacques, now slightly more stable, insisted on coming with us. He believed that the footage was vital and that the world needed to know about what was going on here.

And the journey back to Kathmandu was tense but relatively uneventful. We were constantly on edge, fearing possibly another encounter with whatever that thing was, but still relatively just in shock. After reaching the city, we were able to communicate directly with Discovery's producers. These executives were initially skeptical, but were soon convinced by the footage that we uploaded to their server.

After reviewing the footage, the executives instructed us to hand in all our AV equipment at the airport and assured us that they would be in touch soon upon our arrival. And we complied, although it did feel very strange and disheartening to part with our gear in such a manner. Weeks passed and we heard nothing about the footage or the planned special and had long since lost contact with Jacques. Attempts to contact Discovery were met with very vague responses and brush-offs,

and Rob received an anonymous tip that the footage may have been classified and the project had been shelved indefinitely. There was some speculation that some very powerful interests wanted to keep the existence of the creature and that cave a secret. And even though I am under a strict NDA, I have felt utterly compelled to share this story. The world deserves to know about the events that we witnessed and the creature that remains hidden in those shadows of the Himalayas. The truth should not be suppressed. And I just hope that this account reaches those who seek to uncover the very dark mysteries of our world. It's been many years since this happened to me, and I had originally thought a mountain lion was the cause of it, but now I'm not so sure about that mountain lion. You see back in the early 1990s my best friend and I went camping.

It was the weekend before Memorial Day and we were camping at a small campground off the road between Lake Castaic and Lake Hughes in Southern California. The first night was so annoying due to all the gangbangers from LA showing up and making noise all night that we packed up and left on Saturday morning. I had heard about a place called Sawmill Mountain from one of my co-workers and it was close by so we headed up there. Sawmill Mountain is off the road between Lake Hughes and Gorman and to get there you need to travel several miles from the turnoff on unimproved dirt roads to the campground. When we got there, it was midday on Saturday and we were the only two people in the campground. The elevation was about 5,000 feet and it was nice and cool up there with

a beautiful view of the valley down below and it was a great campground. We pitched our tents, set up camp, then ate some lunch and sat down to relax in the shade. My buddy went inside his tent and took a nap and I went to my tent and did the same. After a short nap I decided to do a little exploring. About 25 yards from our campsite was a trail and I walked on it for about 150 yards. Off to the side of the trail along the tree line, I heard something moving and looked in that direction. I thought I caught a glimpse of something light colored but it stopped moving. I was still in condition white, aka low level alertness and didn't think anything was wrong. I kept walking a few more yards, noticing that the wildflowers were blooming everywhere and enjoying the views when, all of a sudden, I began to think of that movie Predator where the monster could see people, but they couldn't see him.

Then I noticed that everything had gone absolutely quiet. No insects, no birds chirping, nothing. I did a 360 degree turn and didn't see anything. I guess maybe the sudden silence had triggered some primordial fight and flight response in me that made me think of that movie. But anyway, I was armed at the time with a Smith & Wesson 10mm and I made sure that I had my hand on it. The gun gave me absolutely no comfort whatsoever though. The feeling of dread and despair was so immense that I felt like I was in a panic. I felt frozen in place for a few moments then that little voice in the back of my head kicked in and said, get out of there now.

I didn't run because all I could think about was a mountain lion and running would make it chase me. I couldn't see what was watching or stalking me and you can't shoot what you can't see. I started calling out to my buddy as loud as I could and walked quickly back to camp. Even after I got back there I still felt pretty freaked out and my buddy was there drinking a beer and I told him what happened. While you were napping in the tent I did the same thing, he said. I felt the same way you did. And I'd never felt a feeling of dread like that before, and I haven't since. It was so powerful, it was crippling.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful. Some a-hole in a Subaru Brad came up and drove around the campground like he was in the Baja 500 around sundown, but nothing else happened. It was a great place to camp, but neither of us went anywhere alone. We'd been back several more times for weekend campouts with larger groups of friends, and nothing odd had happened. Then, one campout with the same buddy a couple of years later, something did happen. Once again, we were the only two up there. I think we played hooky from work and went up midweek. Anyways, we had a campfire going and had just polished off a couple of thick rib eyes. I believe it was summer at the time. I was telling my buddy what a big

wall of flame a 10mm would produce and he said, let's see it. And so I shot off a magazine from it. As predicted, lots of flame and noise and I holstered the gun and sat down by the fire. You remember that creepy feeling when we first discovered this place? My buddy says to me, and I said that I did. Well, I think it's back. I didn't pick up on it this time, but I guess he did. And we both had our guns out and flashlights in our hands, and my buddy thought that whatever was causing it was watching us from beyond the camp. We walked toward it, shining our lights up in the trees, thinking it was a cougar or a bobcat, but it was nothing.

About ten yards from camp, all of a sudden, something growled at us. I won't repeat what my buddy said, but we hightailed it back to camp as quickly as we could, and when we got there, we lit every lantern we had and threw a bunch of termite-eaten pinewood into the fire to get things as bright as we could, and that night was rough to sleep through, but nothing bothered us after that. Now fast forward to about three weeks ago, I was talking to my buddy by text message about what we've been calling the ghost of Sawmill Mountain, and I had said that I thought it was a mountain lion. What he said blew my mind. He is pretty sure it was a Sasquatch that day many years ago.

He pointed me to a bunch of Bigfoot websites and I did a little reading and I have to say that I'm starting to agree with him. From everything I've read, they stay close enough to us that they can keep an eye on us. And unlike the hippie view that they're the gentle guardians of the forest, they're actually an apex predator. I think on that day I was either on the menu, or had made the thing mad by scaring off what it was after. I also think the growl a couple of years later was a gentle reminder to stop making so much racket in its territory and stay in our campsite. Also, I found out that the Pacific Crest Trail that runs from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon, and Washington cuts right through the Sawmill Mountain campground, and the websites that track Bigfoot sightings have

had a few in the general area. I live in Arizona now, but I'd like to go back there someday to look for evidence of stick structures and other strange signs. Anyway, that's my little story of Bigfoot. In the spring of 1988, my boyfriend and I, along with other college friends, decided to spend our whole spring break hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains. One of our friend's fathers grew up in that area and recommended a spot for us near a place called Round Lake. We hiked into the mountains and had a beautiful view of the lake. There were seven of us on that trip and we planned to stay for a couple of days. At around 8pm on the second day, we had our dinner and were just finishing up the dishes. One of the other couples went for a walk, ostensibly to find a spot to

watch the sunset. An hour or so later, they came running back into camp, saying they had seen a monster. They explained that they were sitting on a rock ledge when they noticed a pine tree shaking wildly. The trees in that area were not tightly packed and there were many bare spots so the shaking pine tree stood out. As they watched, they glimpsed a large black figure and initially thought that it was a bear and then the shaking stopped. To their surprise, a strange looking creature emerged from the woods, running in an unusual way. It seemed deformed, propelling itself forward with its front legs instead of using its back legs. As they continued watching, they realized that it wasn't a bear, but as one of them described, the biggest freaking chimp I've ever seen. The creature then transitioned from moving in all fours to

casually walking on two feet. It stopped, stared out over the valley and then sat down with its back to them. They estimated that it was at least five and a half feet tall when sitting. Although it had seen them, it seemed almost indifferent to their presence. My boyfriend remarked, that sounds like Bigfoot, and excited, everyone wanted to go see it, so the whole group walked to the spot. By the time we arrived, the creature was gone. My boyfriend then pointed to the dark sky to the east, asking, do you guys see this? We all looked and saw spinning lights, though the source of the lights was invisible. The lights stopped and we heard a loud moan to the right of us that lasted about 45 seconds.

When the moan stopped, it was followed by a higher pitched whoop and then the spinning lights resumed. This cycle repeated several times, each time with the lights getting closer to us. As the phenomenon continued, we heard the moans and whoops coming from all around us, and even from above, further up the mountain. We were all terrified, and someone suggested returning to camp. Once back at camp, we should have packed up and just left, but we inexplicably felt safer at our campsite, and we talked about our experience, but no one suggested leaving. We continued chatting, and oddly enough, I don't recall feeling fear yet. Someone then mentioned seeing something in the woods, darting from tree to tree, and when I asked if it was a Bigfoot, my friend said that it was glowing, a silvery white color, and was only four feet tall.

And he suddenly yelled, look, it's right there. And we all scanned the woods, feeling more freaked out. I saw the look of shock on my boyfriend's face, so I looked where he was looking. There, eight to ten feet up a tree was a silvery white being with its hands holding onto the trunk. The firelight didn't illuminate the whole tree so the details were pretty unclear but it had five fingers with what appeared to be suction cups on its tips. I saw one side of its bulbous head and one large eye the size of a baseball. The head was as large as a party balloon. Minutes later we heard a large crack of a tree limb. One of the guys said that he saw red eyes glowing and then moving back behind the tree.

Suddenly one of the girls screamed and we all jumped up in fright and looked in the direction that she was pointing. And there it was. A Sasquatch. standing and staring at us while swaying back and forth. And my god, this thing must have been well over eleven feet tall. It breathed very heavily, its mouth pursed downward, inhaling through its nose and exhaling with a loud growl. We then heard the sound of brush moving and saw a bright lighted figure appear. We watched as the Bigfoot turned and walked out of the campsite toward the figure. And that was our chance to escape. None of us really packed anything.

We just ran to the cars and left. And a few of us returned the next day to retrieve some of our belongings. Nothing had been touched, not even the coolers of food. And as far as I know none of us ever went back to that location most of us still keep in touch but we rarely ever talk about the surreal events

of that night I'm a 62-year-old man who has seen a lot in life. My mother and grandmother were Cree natives, and one day my mother told me a story from her grandmother about the Wendigo and how it related to our people. She always warned me to be aware of the Wendigo, and when I came of age I joined the Canadian Armed Forces. My folks drove me to the gate to walk me into my new life, and my mom told me, I'm proud of you, my son, I'm sure you'll do well. Just be careful when you're out in the wild and watch for the Wendigo.

After my basic training, I was sent on a tradesman course and then to my first post. I was assigned to the Special Service Forces in Petawawa, Ontario as a communications specialist since my job included fixing telecommunication equipment. I had a top-secret security clearance. We trained hard while I was there, and I was ready to go head-to-head with whatever enemy I would encounter in my missions. One day in December, we were transported via helicopter to a mountaintop close to Algonquin Provincial Park

for a week of winter warfare courses. During this week of training, each of us had to do guard duty at night. On one of those nights at around 2am, I started hearing strange voices down the mountain. That night the temperature was around negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit. At first, I checked to see that everyone was sleeping in their tents. They were all accounted for. I scanned the area to see if I could locate someone, and there was nobody there, at least no one that I could see with my military issue flashlight. I continued hearing those voices for a while, so I decided to call out to whoever was there.

Hello? Who goes there? You're on a Canadian Armed Forces base. Identify yourself. And there was no answer. I kept looking for whatever might be there, but I was still hearing those voices that sounded almost Asian. Some came from the right, others from the left. They seemed like they were having some kind of conversation. Since it was a training and learning exercise, we had no ammo in our weapons. Not knowing what to expect I did the second best thing I could do. I fixed the bayonet and kept walking around the camp. The voices stopped after a while. I wondered who in their

right mind would hike into the wilderness for at least 20 miles in such miserable weather just to pull a prank on us. And that week they closed down the base two times because it was so cold. Of course we stayed on a mountaintop and it was part of the training they said. My replacement came after a while and when he showed up, the first thing he asked me was what I was doing with the bayonet on my weapon. I didn't want to say that I was hearing voices down below us and I told him it was so say that I was hearing voices down below us, and I told him it was so cold that I decided to do some drill movements to warm myself up.

I don't know if he believed me or not. The next month there was a huge military exercise in Wainwright, Alberta. The entire brigade ended up there. One day I was going on a call with my partner to do a repair on a piece of equipment that was out in the middle of nowhere. We had been driving for about 45 minutes in deep snow and could not find the equipment. I was driving and decided to stop and check our location to find our target. My partner was looking at a topographical map while I was trying to see if I could locate a reference point. On our right, there was a forested area with pine and underbrush. On the left, there was an open field. At about a hundred feet from the

tree line in my ten o'clock position, there was a large white-tailed buck foraging in the snow. The deer was facing us and looking out in our direction. Then, out of nowhere, a huge creature blasted out of the treeline and aimed directly towards the grazing deer. It took less time for the beast to cover the approximate hundred feet to the deer than it took for me to tell my partner to look. The beast grabbed the deer by the head. It was taller than the deer by about two feet. It was reddish brown in color with very wide shoulders. The head

was pointed and was set on the shoulders without a neck. The arms were long and muscled. The legs were like 50-gallon drums and the body was covered with long hair. I wish I had more time to look at it and get more details, but everything went so fast. As soon as the beast reached the deer, it placed one hand on the top of the deer's head and the other on the back of the neck and then twisted it like it was a rag. Without even stopping, it headed back into the woods with the deer over its shoulder. I put the truck in gear and said, let's get out of here. My partner managed to find the trail leading to our destination and we found the equipment. When we made our way back to the bivouac area, my sergeant asked me if everything went okay. I told him I didn't know what I saw on our way to the other location, but it was pretty freaky.

He looked at me and said that he didn't want to hear about it so I kept it to myself and walked away. As time went on and I grew older I realized that I had witnessed a Sasquatch harvest that deer. I had a nice career in the army. I did some missions and went on several peacekeeping missions throughout the world. I saw a lot of strange animals and witnessed many unusual situations, but the beast in Alberta was the Sunday and I'll remember that till the day I die. I was living with my boyfriend, now husband, in a place called Borum, near Chelmsford. We had a nice little rented house in a cul-de-sac called Sussex Close, number 30, right on the end

of the close, and the living room had a window that looked right out onto the street outside. I remember getting a text from my husband in the late afternoon just saying, Watford beat United, out for the night. I remember that, and honestly, I was quite excited to have the night to myself, to be honest. I opened a bottle of wine, got all cozy in my jammies on the couch, and then settled in to watch Jurassic World for a bit of nostalgia since I loved the originals back when I was a little girl. I must have been no more than about half an hour into the film when I literally hear tires screeching outside. Then as I looked out the window, I saw a car speeding

up to the end of the street. I heard tires screeching again as it came to a stop so right away I'm thinking, what the bloody hell is going on here? And then I watched as the driver got out and ran towards our front door. I could see it was a woman from her long hair and her figure, I just didn't recognize the blur that ran down our path. Seconds later I hear a dum-dum-dum-dum on my front door and I wasn't about to just open it to a complete stranger so I took another look outside to see if I recognized the car they'd been driving. It turns out I did recognize it on second inspection and that's when I realized that the person at the door was my friend Kate. I rushed to open it then literally gasped when I first saw her because her face was just a complete mess. She had blood all over her mouth

and shin from where it had been streaming out of her nose and lips. Her cheek was all swollen and she had this massive egg on her forehead where it looked like someone had punched her. No sooner had I opened the door that she barged in, looking absolutely terrified and just said to me, he's coming, call the police. Now we've been close friends since our early 20s, meaning Kate had been over to our house loads of times before, so as I'm shouting, who's coming? What the bloody hell's going on? She busies herself with slamming the door behind her before grabbing the keys off the sideboard to lock it. I scurried into the living room to grab my phone, and I did as she asked and called the police.

But the whole time, I'm still shouting, who's coming Kate? Talk to me. She'd run off into the kitchen after slamming the door and when she reappeared after I shouted for her, she had the biggest knife we had in her hand. I didn't really have time to react to that, realizing just how freaking serious the situation was because I had to start talking to the dispatcher to tell her what was going on. At that point, Katie literally had to tell me what was going on so I could pass it on to the 999 lady, but instead, she tells me to pass her the phone and she starts telling her herself. Also, she didn't say all of what I'm about to type out, but it's like the whole backstory so at least you'll be up to date with context.

Basically, Katie had been seeing some guy for the past few months, a weightlifter that she'd met down at the gym. She'd mentioned him to me once or twice, but, and she'd be the first to admit this, Kate had a lot of different men in her life at that time, and that's fine because she was still young, free, single, and shopping around. She made sure to tell every guy that she was seeing around then that they wouldn't be exclusive, and at face value, every one of them was fine with it. She didn't prolong the agony if she didn't think things would work out either. She wasn't in it for free dinners or anything like that. She was in it to meet her eventual husband, which is exactly what she did in the end. Once she realized a guy wasn't the one, she'd sort of sit them down somewhere nice in public and give them the old, it's not you, it's me routine. She said she always was very sensitive

and considerate about it, and I believe her because that's just the kind of person she was, outside of her dating life anyway. According to her, no one had ever had a problem with it before. They knew what they were getting into, and for the most part, most blokes took it on the chin as best they could. But then this one fella, the weightlifter she'd met at the gym, a guy called Paul, had taken her rejection of him not so lightly. She'd never told him where she lived, so she was horrified to find him outside of her flat one day. He wasn't aggressive about it, but he basically demanded a second chance with her, and Katie was so creeped out that Paul had managed to track her down that she told him that she'd get the police involved if he showed up outside her flat again. Apparently he told her, come off it, there's no need for any

of that, and then turned up again a few days later, again demanding a second chance. He wasn't so nice about it the second time though, and she was late for work because Paul basically wouldn't let her leave until she said that she'd text him about going out for drinks over the weekend. She drove to work, had a bit of a breakdown in the staff room, so her manager told her to clock out, go home, and take all the time she needed to deal with the situation before she came back to work. She drives back to Chelmsford, calls the police, and is giving them a statement by early afternoon. The two policewomen who came to see her told her that they judged stalking cases using the F.O.U.R. system, or the four system. Any behavior that was fixated, obsessive, unwanted, and repeated could be classified as harassment or stalking, and since Paul had turned up twice without any invitation, having obviously

stalked her for a while to work out where she lived, that most definitely qualified as criminal harassment. The policewoman told Kate that she and a colleague would be in touch with Paul, just to let him know that if he approached her again, he'd be arrested and charged. Apparently, he told them it was all just a misunderstanding, and that of course he'd leave her alone if she wasn't interested. But that was an incredibly big lie. That same day, Paul waited until he knew Kate would be home from work and then went around, forced his way into her flat after tricking her into buzzing him in, and then beat the living crap out of her before she managed to escape.

She told me he only stopped hitting her after she started to play dead, at which point she legged it out of the flat, jumped in her car, and drove straight over to our house. She said the only reason she hadn't called the police on the drive over was she was terrified of crashing. She had blood pouring out of her mouth and nose and she was shaking with adrenaline. It took blood pouring out of her mouth and nose and she was shaking with adrenaline. It took all of her composure to get there in one piece.

But she did. And after pulling into our street, slamming her foot down on the brakes and running up to our driveway to our door, that's where I entered the picture. When she took the phone from me, Kate told the dispatcher a very condensed version of what I just told you, holding my phone in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other. As she was talking, she barged past me into the living room so she could also look out the big window that had a view of the street outside. But no sooner than she had. She also saw headlights suddenly light up the end of the street and a second car skidded to a stop at the end of our street. In the moment I wasn't 100% certain of who it was driving, but Kate was. She absolutely tore past me again, thrusting the phone into my hands as she did.

Then as she was running up the stairs and out of sight, I looked out of the living room window to see this massive, bald bodybuilder-looking bloke stomping down our path towards the front door. The next thing, I hear our door getting hammered on for the second time the only thing I could think to do, which was to basically play dumb. I still had the 999 lady on the phone when I started shouting stuff like, what the bloody hell are you doing banging on the door this time of night? And we had those two frosted glass panels on the front door and our burglar light was on outside so we could sort of see each other and hear each other through the door. So after I shouted at him all I heard back was, if you don't open this door, I'm going to bash it in. I never heard anyone sound so angry in all my life. He sounded like an animal, like he was growling and frothing at the mouth. We'd already

told the police where we were by then, and Chelmsford Police Station is literally only a few miles down the road, so I started shouting back that the police are on their way, I've already called them, now bugger off before you get arrested. I remember having a bit of a panic after I said that, and I remember putting the phone to my ear and started saying to the lady, did you hear that? He's trying to kick my door down. Please make sure someone's on the way, I'm begging you. And I had this horrible idea in my head that the police wouldn't be able to get to us in time. You hear all sorts of horrible stories about budget cuts and long response times, but the lady on the other end kept telling me, someone's on the way my love, don't you worry,

they'll be there in just a couple of minutes, alright? And I started shouting all that to Paul outside and I suppose on some level it actually got through to him a little bit. He stopped kicking on our door, then in a voice that sounded a little bit more composed he just said, I know she's in there. I went back to playing ignorant and told him I had no idea what he was on about and that I was home alone and no one was with me. In response, Paul went absolutely mental. He started slamming his foot into the door, really trying to kick it down, and he started screaming, I can see her blood on the door, really trying to kick it down, and he started screaming, I can see her blood on the door, you stupid cow. And I felt my heart sink all the way down to my stomach. Kate must have had

some on her hands when she banged on the door. My attempt at playing ignorant hadn't worked for a second, and Paul knew that she was in our house from the moment he saw the blood smear on our bright white front door. And I suddenly realized that there was nothing I could say or do to keep him from breaking his way in. And so I did the same thing I'd seen Kate do just minutes before and ran to my kitchen to grab something to defend myself with. In this case, another knife. I started telling him how if he got inside, I was going to cut him up. But it was like he couldn't even hear me anymore. Paul started to take these big run-ups and doing flying kicks to the door.

And then after one or two, which must have weakened the frame enough, the door kind of popped out of the lock or something and it came ajar enough for him to shoulder barge it all the way open. I held the knife up as he came through the door, and I honestly thought that'd keep him away from me. But to my absolute horror, Paul didn't seem even remotely put off. He took a few steps towards me as I was screaming, get out, leave me alone.

And then he suddenly lunged towards me and shoved me backwards to the ground. And he was so strong. I didn't stand a chance, but as I was falling backwards, I managed to catch him with that big bread knife I was holding. And so, all that force he used to shove me came back to almost literally bite him because the blade of that knife caught his skin as I fell and opened up a huge cut on his wrist and forearm. He screamed as I hit the carpet in our hallway and I remember scrambling backwards as he put a hand over the wound.

Then, as blood started to well up from between his fingers, I remember he looked at me and started screaming, I'm gonna effing kill you. His eyes were just completely gone by that point and by that I mean he was just absolutely berserk. I honestly think if the police hadn't have turned up when they did, they really would have killed me. But as I was kicking and screaming trying to keep him off of me, I just remember seeing these flashing lights outside in the street behind him. From our front door, it was a straight walk down the hall and into the kitchen

so you could see outside from where I was lying. The second I saw those lights, I started screaming, help, help me, he's going to kill me at the top of my lungs and it only took a second for Paul to work out that we weren't alone anymore. I remember how he turned around,

blood still pouring out of his arm and when he saw the police, he just charged towards them. It took five of them, with tasers, pepper spray and batons to get Paul in the ground and in handcuffs and it caused so much of a ruckus that almost everyone in our whole street came out to watch as they bundled him to the back of the police van. Kate wouldn't come out of hiding until she saw the police. She'd been hiding in our cupboard upstairs, still gripping that kitchen knife she'd grabbed when she first arrived. She ended up staying with us for a while after that, and the whole Paul story didn't end then either. It took months of court dates and police visits

before Kate was finally able to get a restraining order, but even then, she didn't feel 100% safe living in that area of Essex. All the legal stuff was just mega depressing too. All the judges had to be 100% sure Paul had definitely been stalking her before they finally put pen to paper. And for a while, it didn't look like she was going to get a restraining order at all. It all worked out for the best in the end, just not in Boram. We both live somewhere else now, at a distance, it's not so easy to see each other every week like we used to. But we're still really close, me and Cade will always be really close.

Not just because I rescued her, like she says, because I think she rescued herself to be honest, I just helped a bit. Because I love her so much, and I'd willingly go through all that crap again if it meant keeping one of my friends safe from a monster like Paul. Not long ago, I decided to listen to a friend of mine about picking up some babysitting jobs from Craigslist. I know that seems weird, but I was surprised at how many postings for that type of work were on there. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have needed the job, but at the time, I had just broken up with my boyfriend, and I didn't think that I was going to be able to pay my rent. This seemed like the easiest way to make some money. It helps that I used to babysit when I was a teenager

and my brother has two small kids so I felt like an expert in the field. After all, how hard could looking after some children for a few hours be? I set up a job for early Saturday evening and I started messaging a woman named Chloe. The woman said that her and her husband would be leaving the house at around 5.15pm and they would be back sometime after 10. She gave me the address and all the information about the children. I would be watching two boys, and one of the boys was 7 and the other was 9. I was figuring that this was going to be easy money.

In my opinion, boys that age are easy to entertain, and because they weren't babies, they wouldn't need my undivided attention. After I talked to the lady, I told my friend about the job who was jealous of the money that I was about to make. She had been doing the Craigslist babysitting jobs for a few months now and had never come close to the money I was about to make, or at least told that I was about to make. On Saturday evening, I made my way to the address given was about to make, or at least told that I was about to make. On Saturday evening,

I made my way to the address given to me by Chloe, and right away, I had some regrets. The house was in a very sketchy neighborhood, not necessarily crime-ridden, but it was a poor and run-down area. When I knocked on the door, there was no answer. I waited for several minutes and attempted several more knocks on the door when, finally, a strange and very rough looking man answered the door. He was tall and skinny with this massive grey beard. I would say that he was at least in his fifties, unless he just looked rough for his age. And in this very low and gruff voice he said, Come on in sweetheart, sorry I didn't hear the knocks, my ears ain't what they used to be.

I walked inside and the first thing I noticed was how not child friendly the house was. A lot of trash and just general clutter was lying about, and I was just standing in the front of the door and the man then says, my wife should be back any minute with the kids. Go and sit down and make yourself at home. Sorry, I know the place ain't the cleanest. I was trying not to be judgmental. I know it sounds like I should be running for the hills, but I didn't want to unfairly judge this guy or his family, and the man pointed down the hall and told me that the living room was in the back of the house. I made my way back there and sat on this bluish couch. The amount of anxiety I felt at this moment was absolutely crushing though. I saw no pictures of children,

no toys, and no indication whatsoever that children even lived there. While I was waiting on the couch, I could hear the man walking back and forth in the other room, and I think he was mumbling to himself. Every few minutes he would begin to shout, hey, sorry about this, ma'am. My wife can be forgetful with the time. I promise she'll be back soon. A few minutes later, he ran into the room scratching his head. With this big smile, he said, You know what? I'm an idiot. I bet my wife came inside with the kids through the basement entrance.

She's probably waiting for you down there. Nobody uses the front door that you came in. The basement's right over there. Why don't you go check it out and I'll meet you all down there in a minute. He stood there like some scarecrow pointing to a door on the far side of the room. I didn't know what to do and just nodded and told him I would go check and truthfully I had enough at this point though. He smiled and this very unsettling voice says, that's great, I'll see you in a second, sweetie. And then he walked back into the front door.

I opened the door to the basement out of curiosity and it was obvious that nobody was down there. The lights were off and the smell was just horrific when it hit my nose. There was no chance I was going to go down there. And while staring into the dark basement, I heard that he was still bumping around in the front room and, without thinking, I ran as fast as I could toward the front door that I came from. Once I hit it, the door was locked. I quickly unlocked it and ran for my car. As I opened the car door, I could hear him yelling from inside the house, but I didn't look back. I started backing down the driveway and I could see him running out of the house, waving his hands back and forth. And thankfully, by the time he reached

the driveway, I was already flying down the road. I almost didn't call the police because technically I was physically fine and maybe even overreacting. But after calling my friend, she convinced me to call the authorities just in case. After the phone call, I had no idea what had happened. The dispatcher on the phone told me that they would take it from here and that that was the end of it, at least on my end. Maybe there was a wife and kids. Maybe this was just a poor family that I just very unfairly judged. Maybe there really was an entrance to the basement that his wife used instead of that front door. But honestly, I'd rather look like some crazy jerk who judged

the family than potentially be the victim of something very much worse. The unnerving nature of the situation told me to run and I stand by that gut feeling. That very well could have been the best decision of my life. Around the holidays last year, the guy I'd been dating came over and almost murdered me. It started when he saw an Instagram archive story that I posted, and he took issue with it and we argued and that argument turned violent towards me. I yelled at him to leave, but he wouldn't, and instead pushed me around the house and strangled me on three, maybe four separate occasions. The final time he strangled me, I went unconscious for maybe 20 to 30 seconds. I'm not 100% sure on the time that I was out, but I was definitely unconscious. One second I was standing up and the next second I was on the ground. I also don't remember him taking a picture of me while I was out, but

he did and he later sent it to me as a way of taunting me. Of course, I got the cops involved but I felt terrible about it. I only did it because my mom and dad basically forced me to snitch and at the time I still loved my boyfriend so I felt awful about getting him into trouble. I wondered if he hated me or if he was upset with me but when I heard he got arrested and let out the same day, I became afraid. I was going to have to see him in court for the peace order, and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing him and his family, who I once thought would end up being my in-laws, eventually. I have some nightmares and trouble sleeping these days, but I still don't really feel anything. I don't know what the future holds for us, but I just know I don't want to go to court because I feel like that'll make everything worse. 4 hours ago, I got home from a night out with two of my friends at our usual bar. We arrived around 9pm, nothing too late, and then after a couple of drinks I walked back home as me and my girlfriend lived

close by. The lights were still on and so was the tv so I switched everything off, had a fast shower then got into bed next to my girlfriend who I thought was asleep. I usually watch my phone before bed so I left my bedside lamp on next to me. Then as I climbed into bed my girlfriend suddenly turned around. I thought maybe I'd given her sort of a little bit of a scare climbing in next to her, but she suddenly reached under her pillow and pulled out one of our knives from the kitchen and then started trying to stab me. I fell out of bed, phone still in my hand, then ran out the door. I didn't bother putting shoes on and ran outside.

I had no keys so I couldn't lock the door but my girlfriend didn't follow me. I stood in the middle of the street, made sure that there was plenty of space around me and dialed 911. It's the same numbers as here in Buenos Aires. It felt like my chest was just soaked in warm water. There was a trickle going down my front and a few splatters of blood on the drive too by now. And I was pretty shocked and didn't really feel much pain until a lot later. Two cars and an ambulance came by and I was put in the ambulance with an officer. The pain from my gash had now begun to get more painful and they gave me some pain relief as well as having one of the medics apply pressure on my wound. I puked as well, probably because of the shock and

the blood. I don't do well with blood at all. Meanwhile, another three or four officers ran into our apartment. I found out much later that my girlfriend was just sitting on the bed. She hadn't said anything and was just crying, saying how sorry she was but they took her away pretty easily. I'm now sitting in the emergency department, just got stitches from my shoulder. It feels numb but not too painful. I got my phone back about three hours ago and since I have nothing else to do I thought I would just write up my own true story to you as a way to cope. I haven't really slept at all, and it's almost noon when I'm writing this,

but I get to go home today, at least after I'm interviewed. I'm not sure if I'll be taken to a police station or interviewed here, and I'm just completely exhausted right now. And it's hard to believe the entire situation is real sometimes, like I fall asleep and wake up again, but my bad dream is my reality. I still don't know for sure if she was actually trying to kill me. It is incredibly difficult for me to even come to terms with it, but I can't imagine she only wanted to hurt me.

I feel lucky that she didn't actually stab me and only slash me, as from how close we were, she could have easily stabbed my heart or lungs. My biggest worry in all of this is the publicity this sort of thing might generate. I live in a pretty small city and news like this is very rare, and for the sake of her I absolutely do not want to make it public, and I'm also worried about the mental repercussions that this will have on me and her. Writing this is the only moment I've had to fully process this event and I'm writing this both for my own sake and mental health as well as to share it with all of you, my friends. And I'm completely lost with what to do.

It's not been long since it happened but I've got absolutely no idea how I'm going to proceed on with my life and I'm so worried about my girlfriend. They haven't told me anything about her since I got here and hopefully once I'm interviewed by the police, they'll help clear things up for me. I feel incredibly lucky to be alive now. Things could have gone a lot differently. I don't think I've really fully processed the fact that if she sliced me any deeper, I could be lying in a pool of blood in my very own bed. My boyfriend of three years is normally a lovely, caring person who treats me very well. But after a few drinks, his temper really scares me. The last time it happened, him and my girlfriend and I were out drinking for her birthday.

Her husband left early and she was left with no money so we covered her drinks and I agreed to drive her home at 8am the next day. On the way home, my boyfriend flipped out about how much we spent and how he was not driving her home, etc. She heard it all and I apologized the next day. That wasn't the only time either. Other times he's gotten mad and broken doors, punched walls, smashed things and thrown things. In the past I've excused his behavior more than I should as I felt responsible for setting him off either with a comment or something I did. I know now that his actions are not okay. Last night he and that same girlfriend and myself and his brother went out dancing.

Due to the fact that he didn't want to spend money on drinks, my girlfriend went to the bar, presumably to buy drinks, and ended up getting drinks bought for us after a man told us that we were beautiful and offered to get us some drinks. Now I get that this was probably not the right call but after last time and my boyfriend flipping out about not spending money I figured why the hell not. But then when he sees us talking to this guy he went crazy. Had us all go back to the car and drove home at like 95 miles per hour despite everyone screaming to slow down all the while he was yelling at me. When we got home, he screamed at my friend for stabbing him in the back by trying to hook his girlfriend up with some random guy and then took a taxi somewhere. Today I only heard from him once but he's basically blaming it entirely on me. He says that I caused it by being disrespectful to him and

I deserved every bit of it. I feel partially at fault. Although I don't care if he flirts with other women, I think flirting is healthy if it remains innocent because I should have realized that he would have been upset. And I don't really know what to do. Right now I'm in a position where I can't afford the place that we live in alone and I feel trapped I don't have the option of living with my friends as they're all married with kids and I really don't have any other family to go to I've been seeing this girl for a few months now, and over the last few weeks, she told me that when we fight, she has intrusive thoughts about killing me. She told me that I don't have anything to worry about in reality because she's never acted on it. When she's doing well she literally couldn't bring herself to harm a fly and she has the sweetest

soul. When she gets mad she has very little control over her emotions and body. She's gotten abusive in the past, pushing, shoving, hitting, and name-calling. I've told her that it's not acceptable while remaining as calm as possible, and so far it seems like she's somewhat respectful of that. She won't hit me as hard, and I can see that she's really trying to control herself. I'm not saying I'm really worried about the intrusive thoughts of murdering me because I understand the difference between a thought and acting on it, but I have to say it's new to me and I've never had to deal with it before. I don't know if I'm being ignorant or gullible in believing that nothing would happen though. I don't know, it's a tough situation and I'm hoping to get some

guidance because I really do love her very much. I'm just trying my best to be there for her without judgment. The End During the opening months of 2018, William Andrew Jones Jr., or Willie as he was known to those close to him, was a promising former high school football player in his home of Scott County, Mississippi. Willie's mother, Tammy Townsend, once referred to her son as a cheerful and optimistic young man who possessed a wicked sense of humor. In his spare time, 21-year-old Willie could often be found hanging out with friends or tending to the horses his family kept on their property. He loved those horses, but that love paled in comparison to that which he felt for his girlfriend, Alexis Rankin, and their four-month-old baby.

Willie wanted nothing more than to provide for his new family, and as of February of 2018, he planned to qualify as an oil pipeline operator, where even an entry-level position would land him anywhere between $40,000 to $60,000 a year. Yet to his mother's infinite horror and heartbreak, William would never live to realize his ambitions. On the evening of February 8th, Alexis Rankin was driving back to her place with Willie in the front passenger seat and a mutual friend named Shania Pace behind them. Shania later told police that Willie and Alexis had been engaged in a heated disagreement during the drive and that the argument stemmed from the fact that Shania had been texting a male acquaintance that Willie had not been aware of. Alexis Rankin confirmed this but added that, at the confrontation's climax,

Willie had struck her violently across the face. By the time Alexis pulled into the driveway of her home, she was as terrified as she was distraught, and after parking her car and turning off the engine, she ran towards the front door with Willie in hot pursuit. Alexis's grandmother later testified that as she ran up to her bedroom in tears, Willie had attempted to follow her but was halted by herself and Alexis' stepfather, Harold O'Brien. Harold ordered Willie to leave his home, with Alexis herself watching him walk out of the door. Yet after confining herself to her bedroom for a minute or two, she suddenly changed her mind and expressed a desire to go after him.

Alexis walked out of her bedroom and downstairs towards the front door of her home, when suddenly, her mother began blocking her path. She wouldn't let me leave, Alexis later said. She made me stay inside till the police got there and I had no idea what happened until my stepdaddy came back. Harold O'Brien, Alexis' stepfather, recounted a similar version of events. He told police that Willie and his stepdaughter had been loudly arguing in one of the home's back bedrooms and after checking up on the situation with Alexis' mother, they found that Willie had confiscated her phone and refused to return it. Harold claimed that they'd ordered their daughter's boyfriend to give back her phone,

at which point he obliged them. And after that, he walked through our home mumbling something to himself and then out the front door, Harold explained. I figured he'd be back in a few minutes. They argued before and he'd always come back after a few minutes outside. Harold claimed he waited five minutes and then ten, but after an hour had elapsed and there was still no sign of Willie, he walked out into the porch to see if he could spot him. He did. Willie was lying at the base of a nearby tree,

having been strangled to death with a leather belt. Upon spotting Willie's lifeless corpse, Harold claimed he rushed back inside to call 911. He asked the dispatcher if he should remove the belt from Willie's neck and began performing CPR. The dispatcher responded by telling him to leave Willie's body alone, to which Harold replies with audible relief, I don't want to touch him. I don't want to be involved. Within 40 minutes of Harold's call to emergency services, emergency medical technicians had pronounced Willie dead at the scene. But when his mother, Tammy Townsend, asked how he died,

she was given an answer that shocked her to her core. Willie had been deliberately asphyxiated. Tammy was bereft, but she was also deeply confused. Willie had no history of psychological problems, and at least in his mother's opinion, no one loathed him enough to want to murder him. However, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the FBI both disagreed, claiming Willie's death had been the result of a tragic but ultimately personal misadventure, and that no further investigation was necessary.

Tammy Townsend protested, claiming that there was no way her son could have died in such a manner. Yet after a grand jury convened to analyze the evidence, they too rolled out any kind of homicide investigation. Yet it appeared in their initial analysis of the facts, law enforcement glossed over some deeply troubling details. On February 4th of 2018, just four days before Willie's death, Harold O'Brien is believed to have openly threatened him following an argument with Alexis at her place of work. According to her co-workers,

Alexis's stepfather had told her, if this happens again, he'd know what I'm going to do to him, and this was not the first time he'd acted in an aggressive manner to one of his stepdaughter's boyfriends. In a previous incident, Harold had threatened a boy with a broken beer bottle and was arrested after chasing him for half a mile down a city street. Shania Pace, the mutual friend in Alexis' car on the night Willie died, also testified that Harold was a violent man. She told police on the night in question, Harold had argued viciously with

Willie prior to his departure, then had to be physically restrained by Alexis' mother, Melissa. He said something about getting his gun, Shania later told police. Alexis' mom stopped him, but he followed Willie outside without it. Neighbors told law enforcement they heard three men arguing outside before a loud, machine-like noise drowned out the voices. What created this noise has never been established, but to one neighbor, it sounded an awful lot like a truck's engine revving violently for a moment or two before suddenly ceasing. Jill Jefferson, who investigated the case on behalf of Willie's mother, has pointed to several pieces of evidence that, in her mind, have some deeply chilling implications.

Firstly, Willie was known to have suffered a rather serious sports injury during the latter stages of his high school football career. This injury was so severe that it precluded any chance of him continuing at a college level, as it made it almost impossible for Willie to raise his right arm above the shoulder. According to Jill Jefferson, this made it almost impossible that Willie had tied the belt around his own neck, which completely contradicted the narrative of the local sheriff's department. But Jill wasn't the only one who disagreed with law enforcement. Rather than characterize Willie's injuries as self-sustained, the Scott County coroner claimed the manner of his death was, quote, undetermined. They noted the pronounced bruising patterns associated with

ligature strangulation and refused to rule out the possibility that Willie had been murdered. And that's not all their report read. In one section, the coroner wrote that blades of grass had been recovered from Willie's wallet, suggesting that he'd been dragged along a patch of grass with a great deal of force in the hours prior to his death. The fact that his right shoulder was dislocated, a relic of his old sports injury, also pointed towards the theory that he'd been violently dragged across the ground prior to his passing. Jill Jefferson also attempted to draw attention to a piece of security camera footage which dramatically challenges the official narrative surrounding Willie's death.

Taken from the security camera of a neighboring house, the footage shows Alexis, Willie, and Shania arriving at her home at exactly 10.35pm. Alexis jumps out of the driver's seat, deeply upset and then runs towards the front door and into the house. Shania follows, but Willie does not. Instead, he stays in the car until exactly 10.44pm and only then does he exit the vehicle and approach Alexis' home. Not long after, Harold asks Willie to leave and he does so. And then just minutes later, at exactly 10.50pm, Harold Bryant makes that all-important 911 call and proceeds to relay a startlingly inaccurate piece of information. If you remember, he claimed Willie had been gone for around 30

minutes, but the security camera footage showed that no more than six minutes had elapsed between Willie getting out of Alexis' car and the 911 call being made. Harold claimed it had been 30 minutes before he'd stepped onto his porch to see Willie's lifeless body, in which case, why did he make the 911 call after only six? Jill Jefferson had also pointed to the fact that on the night of Willie's death, his mother received a deeply troubling phone call. At exactly 10.45pm, Tammy Townsend received a call from Melissa Rankin, Alexis' mother, who screamed at Tammy that she needed to come and pick up her son, and then promptly hung up. Tammy then got into her car and, on the drive over to the scene of the crime,

called Alexis at exactly 10.48pm, in an attempt to better discern what exactly was going on. Tammy claimed that Alexis answered the call but didn't say anything, and quickly terminated the connection. Yet she also claimed that during the few short seconds the call connected, she heard a faint voice calling out, He's dead. This is at least 60 seconds before Harold O'Brien placed his 911 call. All things considered, Jill Jefferson puts forward a compelling argument.

Not only are there many inconsistencies in the official narrative, but several pertinent details seem to have been completely ignored by both state and federal law enforcement. The dislocated shoulder, the grass in Willie's wallet, and the dramatic differences in Harold's timeline all point to a deeply sinister explanation. What was painted as a tragic accident, even upon the most cursory of glances, looks an awful lot like cold-blooded murder. In August of the year 2012, a 45-year-old Michigan City man named David Morris contacted law enforcement to report his wife's disappearance. 29-year-old Candy Brown Morris was the mother of his three children,

and so naturally, David seemed understandably desperate to bring her home safe and sound. Just days later, one of Candy's friends contacted the police to inform them that, in the wee small hours of August 25th, she'd given him a ride back to his apartment. Tyrone Harris claimed that Candy hadn't been acting out of the ordinary, leading police to suspect that her so-called disappearance was merely an effort to avoid her husband, potentially as the result of marital discord. A few days later, Candy's wallet was recovered from a Michigan

City bar called Riley's. A short time afterward, her car was discovered parked in a different establishment, the nearby Three Sheets Bar. Obviously, this indicated that she was still in the state of Indiana, with analyses of her cell phone records showing she'd last sent a text near the corner of County Line and Chandler Roads in Pines, Indiana, just four miles down the road from Michigan City. Law enforcement stated that the text message's contents were, quote, nothing out of the ordinary and that they were considering an end of the investigation. David, on the other other hand insisted that something must have been terribly wrong for his wife to simply disappear and enlisted the help of around two

dozen volunteers in patrolling the area surrounding the town of Pines. It was during one of these searches that David met a 30-year-old volunteer named Anna Reeves. David and Anna spend a great deal of time together, going from door to door around Pines while seeking information on the missing Candy. Then, around a month after the volunteer search had concluded, it became increasingly obvious that David and Anna were dating. Several months later, during May of 2013, David and Anna were still an item when a shocking piece of news hit the airwaves. Candy Morris, who by that point hadn't been seen since late August of 2012, was found dead in a wooded area less than a quarter mile from the place she'd sent that final text message.

Seeing as her corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition, it was impossible to determine the exact cause of her death. Yet Candies wasn't the only dead body found that day. That same morning, Anna Reeves, David Morris' girlfriend of several months, was discovered to have passed away in her sleep. An Indiana coroner declared that the cause of death was accidental due to acute drug intoxication or overdose. Yet many in law enforcement were concerned by the reports that, in the weeks prior to her death,

Anna had attempted to file domestic violence charges against David. Despite the highly suspicious circumstances, David was never charged in connection with either his wife's or his girlfriend's sudden deaths. But just a few years later, he showed his hand in the most vile and violent of circumstances. In 2016, Frascio Ortega was a Mexican migrant who had relocated to the United States just three years prior. The 65-year-old co-owned Michigan City's Easy Drive Auto with a man named Sergio Serrano, and spent almost every waking moment plying his trade at the shop in the hopes of providing a better life for his family who remained south of the border. In early 2016, Sergio sold half of the auto shop business to Hufrascio, yet despite no longer working together,

the two men remained very close. So in April of that same year, when Hefrascio suddenly stopped returning his old friend's texts and calls, Sergio became increasingly concerned for his well-being. On April 23rd of 2016, Sergio decided to pay his old establishment an impromptu visit, mainly to check up on his old business partner. He found the shop closed and shuttered, but with him still in possession of the business's keys, he used them to open the place up before looking around inside. Upon entering the shop, Sergio immediately noticed signs of a violent struggle. Toolboxes had been thrown over, their contents having spilled across the floor while sheets of paperwork lay scattered across the shop. Sergio called out for her fragile and then headed towards the office they used to share. And there he found his old friend, lying lifeless on the carpet, covered in a large plastic tarp.

Sergio rushed to contact 911 and upon the arrival of emergency services, police officers discovered that Jafragio had been the victim of a brutally vicious murder. There were multiple stab wounds to his throat and chest and he appeared to have been deceased for the better part of four days. Blood trails leading to another area of the auto shop suggested that Raffragio had been dragged across the floor following his slaying, while a broken window indicated the killer's clear point of entry. Officers then noticed that Raffragio's wallet was missing, as were the keys to his white Hyundai Tiburon, which was also nowhere to be found. Investigators also established that another vehicle, a green Subaru, had also been stolen from

the lot. Despite Easy Drive Auto's dearth of security cameras, police were able to locate one attached to a neighboring business which had a view of the auto shop. This is how detectives discovered that on the very same day Hathragio was murdered, a rotund African-American gentleman arrived at the shop. After a brief conversation, Hathragio and the large visitor are seen climbing into the green Subaru, after which they depart on what appears to be a routine test drive. Exactly six minutes later, the two men return to the auto shop in the same car before Hathragio appears to enter the business's office and the African-American man departs on foot. However, just over an hour later, the portly gentleman reappears on camera,

only this time, instead of approaching the business overtly, the man appears to sneak around the side of the auto shop out of Hathrasio's sight. The footage is grainy, meaning it was impossible to properly identify the man, but the very next day, the man returns and appears to drive off in Hathrasio's white Hyundai, while his dead body lies in the office. Then on the same day Sergio discovered his old friend's body, the large black gentleman can be seen returning to the business before driving off in the green Subaru. In the aftermath of Fafragio's killing, local police appealed to the public for information leading to his killer's capture. Just days later, a woman named Kristen told investigators that just two days prior to

Fafragio's murder, she had witnessed a heavyset African-American male exiting the auto shop's office through the window before calmly walking away. She had found the incident slightly suspicious, but didn't think to contact police until she learned of Hufragio's murder. Following an analysis of Hufragio's bank statements, investigators learned that on the morning he was murdered, he visited a nearby gas station in the company of that heavyset African-American. And once his transaction concludes, Hathragio seems to invite the man to climb into the passenger seat of his white Hyundai before the pair drive off together. The security camera footage from the

gas station was crystal clear, allowing officers to positively identify the larger black gentleman. It was none other than David Morris. And it was later established that David had used Hathrasio's credit card to make several large purchases, including an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. David also used the credit card to purchase fast food, liquor, and several bags worth of groceries. Police also discovered that just two days after the vacuum was purchased, it was sold to a pawn shop in Portage, Indiana. The shop's security cameras showed David Morris arriving with a friend in the missing green Subaru before using the friend's ID to sell the vacuum, supposedly in an attempt to avoid detection. Just days later, David arrived at an Indiana courthouse for a probation hearing pertaining to a previous crime. As he walked down the courthouse steps following the conclusion of the hearing,

he was promptly arrested by members of law enforcement. David admitted to stealing the cars, but denied any involvement in Hefragio's murder, arguing that the purpose of the visit on the 19th of April had been to give the mechanic a pack of cigarettes. However, during the interview, police noticed that David appeared to be wearing the exact same clothes visible in the surveillance footage from the day of Jafragio's murder. Officers ordered them confiscated and then sent them away to a lab for analysis. Just a few days later, the results were returned. Having made no attempt to properly clean them, David's clothes were found to be covered in Jafragio's DNA, specifically as a result of coming into contact

with his blood. The murder weapon, a serrated kitchen knife, was found hidden under the hood of the green Subaru. At the climax of his trial in December of 2016, David Morris was found guilty of first-degree murder and then sentenced to a total of 82 years in prison. The murder of his wife, however, remains unsolved, as does the mysterious death of his girlfriend, Anna Reeves. I'm sure we've all made some stupid mistakes when we were in high school. Sometimes it's not even you who makes the mistake, but just by joining in with your peers, you can find yourself in a very bad situation. When I was in high school, my friends and I would visit Craigslist and just roast all the weirdos we would find. Trust me when I say there is a lot of weirdos on Craigslist. One night, my friend group let things go a little too far, though.

We found an ad from a guy who was looking for a woman to come over and massage his feet. Yeah, some weird stuff right out the gate there. And we all pretended to be the woman named Molly and we started messaging this guy from a fake email account that we created. This was before the whole catfish phenomenon was talked about, but we were basically doing that same thing, it just didn't have a mainstream name yet. Even though this guy was a creep, we were still in the wrong for leading him on and pretending to be something we were not. My friend Dan was pushing the envelope though. He was flirting and saying some things that he should not have been saying, and it was only a matter of time before this man sent us his address. Everyone started laughing and I also laugh,

really not finding it that funny, finding it very weird, but I did just want to fit in. But I just wanted this practical joke to end to be honest and I hoped we could arrive at that. Dan wasn't ready to let the joke end just yet. He wanted to visit the creep's house and actually try and get a glimpse of the man. I very much voted against this, but Dan peer pressured the group and before I even knew it, we were in the car and on the way to this weirdo's house. The car ride was mostly quiet other than Dan trying to get us fired up for the occasion. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the neighborhood of the man looking for his

foot therapy, as he put it. And it was a pretty rough part of town, I remember. Definitely the area you don't want to be wandering around in after dark. It was clear that everyone was now regretting this decision, except for Dan. We all thought that we were just going to drive by the house and then head back, but he had other plans. We stopped in front of the house and while we were stopped, Dan opened the door and started making his way to that guy's front door. And we all started freaking out, trying to get him to come back into the car. Everyone except my friend who was driving got out of the car and tried pleading with Dan, and I remember even forcibly trying to

hold Dan back but he just started pushing through. We were arguing, really whisper arguing, trying to not bring attention to ourselves and Dan looked at us and I remember him saying, listen guys, I need to see what this freak looks like. I promise once I get a quick glimpse, I'll just leave. What's the worst that can happen? I was still against the idea, but I could tell that he won my friends over saying this. And not wanting to be the coward that I always was, I joined in as we snuck toward the house. I thought maybe Dan would peer through the window or something weird like that, but this absolute maniac went right to the front door. He really was a loose cannon back in those days, and without giving us any notice or any time to prepare or

hide, he rang the doorbell. I remember my heart was beating so fast I was convinced that I was going to have a heart attack. Seconds later, this very short but very overweight man wearing a bathrobe answered the door and we all froze and in a squeaky and I admit pretty comical voice this guy says what's the meaning of this where's Molly Dan made some very inappropriate joke or comment and then proceeded to call the man a freak and we all just started laughing and just briskly walking to the car. I was incredibly anxious but I was trying to fit in, hence why I was laughing with the group. And we couldn't have been more than 10 feet away from the front of the house when this creepy man grabbed a rifle that he must have had right next to the door.

And he was pointing it in our direction. His face was all red and he looked like he was shaking and at that moment we were all freaking out. Finally Dan realized that we may have crossed a line there, obviously. The creepy man did say something but through all the paranoia none of us could hear what he said. We all ran as fast as we could, dove into the car, and I looked behind me as I closed the car door and I could see the man starting to give chase with that rifle, still aiming it in our direction. We drove off as fast as we could and when I looked behind me, he was now standing in the middle of the road, still staring down that barrel of the rifle. I ducked down expecting to hear the rear window glass shatter at any second, but

thank god it never did. We eventually made it back to the house and we panicked for the entire night. We actually ended up receiving an email from him not long after we got home that said, I will find you. I saw your car and your license plate. I will find where you live. And at that moment, we were beside ourselves. We didn't know what to do. We turned off all the lights and I'm not kidding, we stared out that window the entire night, holding our breath every time a car would drive by. I remember I suggested maybe calling the police, but my friends talked me out of it. They made me believe that we were the ones who would get in trouble if we called them, so we didn't. And that was the longest night of my

entire life. The creep never showed up though, and we never heard from him again. I tried convincing myself that his threat was just some bluff, but I still never felt safe. It took months of not hearing from him for me to finally feel like I was safe. All these years later I still haven't been down that street since that night and even though I'm older I still have an irrational fear that he'll be outside, waiting for me. And for that reason, I'll continue to avoid that area of town as long as I can. I want to acknowledge right from the start that I realize how dangerous a place like Craigslist can truly be. Even though there are tons of genuine and legitimate postings, I understand that it's still a hotbed of dangerous and horrible humans. I learned this from myself ten years ago. Even back then, I knew that it wasn't the best place in the world, but I ignored all the horror stories because honestly, I was having some pretty

good luck on Craigslist. I was making a ton of money doing side jobs from random postings. I've done everything from pet sitting to picking up a pizza and delivering it to someone's house. My friends at the time called me crazy for doing all these side jobs but I was addicted to the hustle I guess I could say. I was bringing home more money than most of my friends and often the work was pretty easy. I continued answering the weird ads for several months. I even had my own special vetting process for identifying when postings weren't legitimate. I got myself a cheap track phone that I had used just in case I did deal with some kind of freak

and that way they wouldn't have my real number. Like all good things though, this hustle eventually came to an end and one day I answered a posting that scared me a little too much. Right from the beginning, I should have ignored the posting, and it said something along the lines of, a secretive gig for big cash. I don't remember exactly what the wording was, but I do remember that it specifically said big cash, and this kind of weird wording is usually some creep on the internet looking for something dirty if you catch my drift. But like I said, I had a vetting process,

so I wasn't going to pass up the chance for this big cash just in case this was legitimate. I clicked the posting, and of course, it was incredibly vague. I got in touch with the person who posted the job with my track phone, and I was surprised that a nice woman answered the phone. She was so nice and pleasant and introduced herself as I remember being Lydia. She explained to me what the job was and explained why the posting was so vague. She made the posting for her elderly grandfather and he wanted to maintain his privacy. He wanted someone to come over to his house and clean his guns. I told her that I didn't have a clue how to do something like that but she told me that he would be watching over me making sure that I do everything

the correct way. She told me that she didn't include that information in the ad because she didn't know if it was technically illegal to post about guns on Craigslist. I also just want to say that for any gun people out there that may be losing their minds, remember, I didn't know anything about guns at the time and I really still don't. I didn't know if he needed any sort of training to clean a gun and I just assumed since the owner would be there, I'd be fine. So we agreed on the money and went to meet and then Lydia gave me the address. The day came and I made the drive to the address given. It was only about 20 minutes from my house but it was still in a very secluded area. The house seemed to be old and beat up and I knocked on the door and an attractive woman answered. I pegged her to be in her early 20s and she introduced herself as

being Lydia and I could tell right away from her voice that it was the woman that I spoke to on the phone. And just like on the phone, she was very pleasant. She guided me through the house and it was honestly a very beautiful home. All throughout the house, it had that old school wood finish. It almost looked like a cabin on the inside. As we're walking through the kitchen, Lydia told me that I could just throw my stuff on the counter and that she would take me to her grandfather. Because she was so bubbly and very chipper, I felt very comfortable and at ease. And without even thinking, I threw my purse right on the counter and continued to follow her down the hall. In the back of the house was a small room filled with all sorts of amazing war memorabilia.

It was clear that this guy was a very decorated veteran. While I was looking at all the awards that this man had, I heard a loud slam behind me. Lydia slammed the door to the small room and stood in front of the doorway. Next to her was a taller man, and unlike Lydia, he was not good looking. His face was dirty and his hair had that perpetual wet look even though it clearly was not wet. I would have to say that it was most likely in his early twenties as well, and realizing that the situation I was in was not good, I just put my hands up in defense. It didn't matter though. Lydia charged at me, threw me to the wooden floor,

and I could see the long legs of the man still standing in the doorway as I laid on the floor. Lydia began kicking me in the ribs. I remember wanting to fight back but my body just wouldn't move. Finally the kicking stopped and I could feel Lydia's face get close to mine and she whispered something like, if you even try to get up, my boyfriend will put you down for good. I stayed on the floor and listened as this Lydia and the tall man left the room. They scurried around the house a little bit and then after a few minutes I heard two car doors shut. Apparently they had peeled away. And figuring that it was that Lydia and her boyfriend who left, I tried to get off the ground and made my way to

the kitchen. My purse that I set on the counter was now gone and that's where I had my phone and my keys. I looked out the window and I saw that my car was also gone. The car that drove out of here was my car and I was freaking out on the inside but I was trying to keep a very level headed on the outside. I started walking down the road until I reached an old man actually selling vegetables from a farm stand outside of his house. The man could not have been more of a sweetheart though. He gave me some food and water and we called the police, and I reported everything with as much detail as I could. The police found my car about 20 miles away from where all this took place. All the windows were broken out and the inside of the vehicle was completely slashed and destroyed.

Thankfully my purse was left behind with my ID but all the money had been stolen which really wasn't a lot. And as it turns out I got lucky with the police being able to actually solve this case. Lydia did a great job covering her tracks on Craigslist and making it seem like she was just a shadow. But fortunately for me, she was also a complete idiot. She lured me to her actual grandfather's house. He was living in Florida for the season, so the house was vacant at that time. Lydia and her boyfriend robbed the house and they intended to lure someone to the house and steal their car. Why they ditched the car so close to the house I

still don't understand, and they ended up finding this Lydia in a motel about an hour away from home. She was alone, and from what I understand, she never told the cops who this man was or where he went. In case it wasn't obvious, this was the last job I ever took on Craigslist, and I advise anyone reading this, please be careful. To be continued... I'm also someone who is lucky enough to be able to fix just about anything. I'm what you might refer to as a handyman of sorts. And so anytime I could pick up some side work for cash, I was totally in. I'm not really sure exactly how long ago this happened, but I was in my early 20s for sure. I'm 33 now for a point of reference. And at the time I was struggling a little bit to make ends meet. My girlfriend at the time told me about Craigslist and about how there is a chance to make some money there.

I'd heard about Craigslist but never really gave it a shot. I didn't know that there was work posted there though. Once I started exploring Craigslist I found a lot of job offers. People looking for painting, yard work and even plumbing. I was weighing my options and trying to find the best posting for me and I ended up answering this post from a guy named Steve. He was really weird just my straight up first impression of the guy was not great. He was middle-aged short and a little round. He had these huge eyes that bulged out of his head

and he was rocking that sort of horseshoe haircut. You know the one, bald on the top and hair on the sides. But weird appearances aside, he was going to pay me some pretty good money to basically build him a little room in his basement. Specifically, he wanted to finish a small chunk of his basement and make it a sort of man cave. We set up times where I could go and work for several hours at a time and he would pay me after each session. The house itself was weird. It was a big house in a nice neighborhood, but the inside of the house was kind of gross and basically empty. It looked like a frat house, even though the guy was middle-aged, and in the basement Steve had already bought a ton of

supplies. Everything I needed for the job and then some. And he explained in detail exactly how he wanted everything. This guy had intricate blueprints and everything. And I made sure that I constantly checked with him before I did any more work, just because I wanted to make sure that we were always on the same page. Other than being weird, Steve wasn't a bad guy. We talked about the project a little bit and then he disappeared and I wouldn't see him again until I left after the first session I started bringing

my brother with me from time to time the job was more ambitious than I had intended whenever my brother came with me Steve would never come into the basement I'd only see him when I was alone for the next few weeks we worked on the basement whenever we could find the time. We thought it was weird that Steve only wanted to finish a small portion of the basement and not the whole room. He clearly had more than enough supplies so it just seemed weird to want to renovate a small little room. My brother and I would constantly talk about how he would ever even turn this into a man cave. It was going to be so small that you would barely be able to fit a love seat in the room.

But ultimately the conversation always led to us not caring because we were getting paid. One late afternoon while we were there I was finishing putting up a door for the small room and I was proud of the little room that I had built and the door was nearing the finishing touches. My brother was out in the truck just grabbing some tools and probably having a cigarette. Steve must have thought that I was alone because he joined me in the basement. He looked eager and excited as I was finishing putting up the door. I made some comments about the door being ready and without notice, Steve kicked me in the knee and pushed me into the room, slamming the door behind me. While I was getting to my feet, I could hear him putting some type of lock on the door and I was more confused at this point trying to process

what was happening. I tried opening the door but just as I expected, Steve had locked it somehow and I remember he starts yelling something like, you're mine now, you're staying here and you're not leaving. He just kept repeating versions of that same sentence repeatedly. I tried banging on the door, but it wasn't doing anything. I tried pleading with a guy, but he just kept screaming at me. After only a few minutes of this nonsense, I heard a loud thud, loud enough that I could feel the vibration through the door. In my confusion and panicked state, I had totally forgot that my brother was still outside. He started making his way downstairs and witnessed everything that

had just happened, and my brother wasted no time and hit Steve in the head with a wrench, and that apparently was the loud thud that I had heard seconds prior. While Steve was unconscious on the ground, my brother was able to find the key to the padlock in his pocket and also found two different pocket knives on his belt. My brother got me out of that room and we immediately called the police. While we were waiting, my brother pretty much stood over Steve and made sure that he stayed unconscious. When the police finally showed up, Steve was arrested for attempting to keep me as a prisoner or something like that. I'm so thankful that my

brother was there that day though. I still get freaked out thinking about this Steve character and whatever his intentions he had that day. If my brother wasn't there, who knows how long I could have been stuck there. I'm not sure what happened to Steve though. After this ordeal, I tried to move on and forget about it, and this is the first time I'm even revisiting this memory since it happened. It was probably the stupidest thing that guy could have done, but also the scariest. Back in the mid-2010s, I had some pretty good luck doing odd jobs on Craigslist. They were mostly landscaping jobs that paid decently most of the time, and my full-time gig allowed me a lot of free time,

so this was a great way for me to make some side money and also be outside. On a Monday I answered an ad for a landscaping job on a Friday. I started communicating with a woman and we eventually exchanged numbers and the way she was texting seemed almost flirtatious. Her name was Tracy and after she told me about the job, she continued texting me. Asking very probing questions like, How big are your muscles? I hope you're able to lift all this mulch. And she would accompany all these messages with some smiling emojis. At the time, being a single guy, in my early 20s, I loved the attention.

I have to say, I'm not the best at picking up the signs though, but I felt like it was obvious at this point that she was flirting with me. I started to roll the dice more with my messages back and I tried to see how far I could take the conversation without going over the line. It was becoming clear to me that there was no line though. We texted that entire night and continued texting throughout the entire week. It was crazy, I admit that, but the weirdness of the situation was kind of hot for me. Right in the middle of the week, the flirting evolved into something much more personal. She started sending me pictures of her posing in the kitchen and doing that duck face.

I don't even know if girls still do that, but back then, all the girls did the duck face. We started sharing details about ourselves, and she told me that she was divorced and now single. She said that she was 37 years old, and I loved the idea of talking to an older woman, just as she admitted that she loved talking to a younger guy. We texted non-stop for days, and we even made a plan for Friday night after the landscaping job. She told me that I could shower at her place and let's just say that she implied much, much more. I'd never been more excited to do a landscaping job in my life to be honest. On Friday morning, the day of the job, she texted me and said that she would be at work when I got there but everything I would need was in the backyard in the shed. After that text, I never got another message from her for the entire day,

which was kind of weird. And I'm not kidding when I tell you that I messaged this girl all day every day since Monday, so not hearing from her was kind of strange. I messaged her a few times just to see how she was doing and see if we were still hanging out after the job but like I said, no answer. All day long, I couldn't shake the thought that I had been catfished all week. Some creep was probably messaging me pretending to be a woman. And by four in the afternoon, I was just about done with the job and since I hadn't heard from Tracy, I had given up hope that she was even a real person. Not five minutes later, I felt a jolt of excitement as I saw a green sedan pull into the driveway and I couldn't believe my eyes. It was Tracy. The same woman from all the pictures on my phone.

I smiled but she didn't even look at me and just parked and walked inside the house. I started walking to the house and then this big white truck pulled in behind Tracy's car. The driver got out aggressively and stormed into the house. He was a huge man, like very muscular huge, and he looked almost like a professional wrestler, even like a pro football player. He was bald, but he had that sort of clean bald look. I had no idea what was happening, but no matter what, I had to go inside so I could get paid for all this work. The front door was open, and only the screen door was shut. I sort of shouted through the screen that I was finished with the work and that I was coming inside to meet Tracy for the payment.

I entered the screen, and as I walked a few feet into the house, the large man moved in behind me, standing in front of the screen door. Tracy emerged from the room in front of me and in a very hysterical voice she shouted, that's the guy babe, that's the creep from Craigslist who won't stop texting me. This giant man started stepping to me and cussing me out for hitting on his wife I immediately went into self-defense mode and shouted Whoa man, she told me she was single, I got the messages to prove it The guy paused for a second, looking at me

And I could hear Tracy shouting liar behind me And while she was screaming the man started to get hot and he started screaming at her. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of an argument that I didn't want to be in. Tracy continued to call me a liar among many other things and at the same time was yelling at the large man. Tracy's husband effortlessly pushed me out of the way and aggressively made his way towards her. When he was just inches away, she pulled out from behind her back one of those sort of meat tenderizers, I think it was. It was almost like a spiked mallet thing that some people might have in their kitchen, and she strikes him in the head.

And it must have been a pretty good shot because he fell over instantly. He tried to get up, but couldn't get up off his knees. He just stood there, clutching his head in pain. I kept shouting, asking if he was okay, but he wasn't saying anything. I was so confused. And I looked up, and now Tracy started running at me with that mallet in her hand. And without thinking, I just kick at her, towards her ankle or something, causing her to fall on her face. And while both these freaking psychos are on the ground, I ran out of the house. And once I drove off, I called the police telling them everything that had happened. And from what I know, they did

arrest Tracy that evening, but I don't think the husband pressed charges though. That man, who was no saint I might add, eventually paid me for the work that I did, and in hindsight I just think I was an innocent victim of a very toxic relationship that hit a very strong boiling point. In many ways, it's a good thing that I was there and called the police when I did, because if I didn't, who knows what Tracy or her husband could have done to one another, or worse, what they could have done to somebody else if they answered that ad instead of me. As all of you know, life can be a struggle sometimes. Making ends meet isn't always as easy as just getting a job. Several years back, I couldn't find a job.

It was rejection after rejection. And at the time, nobody was really hiring and the few places that were hiring were very ultra competitive. I was barely making over minimum wage as a deli employee at a grocery store. I remember one night I was working online for ways to make extra money and I ended up stumbling upon Craigslist. I'd heard of Craigslist but never really explored it for myself. I found an ad on Craigslist for a freelance job where I would be what's called a secret shopper. For those of you who may not be familiar with what a secret shopper is, it's basically an anonymous customer who comes into a store and

asks the employees a series of questions. The employee is then graded on certain criteria. For example, does the employee make eye contact, greet you, give a suggestion, offer to escort the customer, and give a parting comment, etc. It seems simple, but a lot of companies, specifically the store I work for, will reprimand the employee for a bad secret shopper score and even fire the employee if they get more than one bad score. Since I had experience in a store and I know exactly what they're looking for, I thought that this would be an easy way to make some money on the side. The first store I visited was a local chain of grocery stores in my hometown.

Oddly enough, it was the same company I worked for but not the same store though. I started making my rounds and noticed a man, probably in his twenties, stocking the shelves. He looked at me and immediately put his head back down. He didn't greet me so he got points off right away. I had to greet him and ask him where the canned tuna was. He never lifted his head from stocking the shelves and just sort of angrily said, I'll too, halfway down. Again, this guy lost points for not making eye contact and offering to show me where it was located. Also, just for the record, I know how ridiculous all of this is,

but these stupid companies take this junk so seriously. They don't care if you're waiting on another customer or what the excuse is. If you get a bad score, you're kind of screwed. I was trying to pause and give the guy a chance to redeem himself by telling me to have a good day, but he never did. And I eventually had to initiate the parting remark and that's when he finally looked up and said, yeah, you too. And I finally saw his name tag and wrote down on it was a name Patrick. And I smiled and walked away and I noticed that Patrick kept his eye on me. I felt a stare as I walked away and I started to figure that he was on to me, that I was maybe a secret

shopper. I was going to ask a few more employees questions but I started to feel uncomfortable. Every time I looked up I could see this Patrick at the end of the aisles. It almost seemed like he was following me. I wasn't sure what the end game was for this guy but I didn't want to find out. I cashed out and the cashier passed her a secret shop with flying colors though and after I cashed out I briskly made my way to my car and I just wanted to get out of the store so bad and be done with this. Once I was in the car I started writing down the full report before I drove off. I just wanted to get all the information down while it was still fresh. But while I was writing, I looked up and

saw my buddy from the aisle intensely walking through the parking lot, Patrick. I ducked down a little bit, but thankfully it didn't appear like he had noticed me. He just kept walking until he got to his car, which was a dark four-door sedan of some kind, and he sped off and I waited a few minutes before I departed. I don't know why, but this guy just gave me the creeps though. I kept thinking to myself, why was he following me around the store like that? If he really was, but it truly did feel like he was, and it just felt so weird. I'm a textbook overthinker, so I tried telling myself that maybe I was overthinking, but something about him was just definitely off. That night, I went home and I emailed my supervisor the report, and life went on.

It only took a day or two for me to completely forget about that interaction. A few nights after I turned in the report, I was having a late night dinner with my boyfriend. We were just hanging out enjoying each other's company. The relaxing evening was interrupted by a loud and consistent banging on the front door. It wasn't just an aggressive knock either. It was like the sound of someone throwing their entire body weight at the door. You have no idea how horrifying it is to hear a knock at the door at that hour, let alone a banging knock like this one? We looked out the window, and I was at a loss for words. It was that Patrick guy from the grocery store, and he looked horrible.

His eyes looked like they were sunken in and he looked like he hadn't slept in days. I called out telling him to leave right now that I was calling the police and he didn't even flinch. He just kept banging and demanding that I let him enter the home. Repeatedly he kept saying that I ruined his life and that I needed to pay. That there would be an eye for an eye I remember him saying. I didn't even want to think about what he meant by that. While this interaction was happening, my boyfriend had called the police though. They must have been in the area because the first squad car showed up in less than two minutes and it's a good thing too because I don't

know how much longer my door was going to hold up. Patrick was really throwing himself into the door and this whole sight was nuts. A cop tackled Patrick right on my front steps and handcuffed him and while they were apprehending him, they ended up finding a knife concealed in his waistband which for me was the most terrifying information about this entire ordeal. I still can't stop thinking about what he intended to do with that knife if he had broken down the door. After he was arrested, I did get some closure on this whole nightmare. It turns out it was just a situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apparently, Patrick was at the end of the cliff and my visit to the store that day was what forced him to fall completely off. He was struggling to pay his

bills and from what I was told, his girlfriend had just broken up with him the day of that secret shopping event. And when I approached him in the store that day, he was only minutes away from the end of his shift and was just mentally completely done at that point. I get it, we've all been there, well, to a degree. And I happened to catch him on a bad day and asking for a can of tuna was the last thing on his mind. He ended up losing his job because he had failed another secret shopper report, a report that I sent in. The part that I can't still figure out about this is I have no idea how he found out where I lived. I don't think he followed me that day after the store, but there's no other way that he found out where I lived. I don't think he followed me that day after the store, but there's no other way that he would know where I lived.

I stayed at my boyfriend's house after that night, and I rarely stayed at my old house alone. I don't know what happened to this guy, but I genuinely hope that he figured it out, and more importantly, I hope these stores get rid of the secret shopper program, because it's just horrible. I really want to share one of the weirdest experiences of my life. It's something that isn't directly scary on the surface, but when you stop and think about it, it's truly unsettling.

This took place before Instacart was a thing, and one day I happened to stumble on this Craigslist posting for a gopher. Essentially, it's the same thing as Instacart. It was an old man who wanted someone to take his list and go grocery shopping for him since he didn't move around very well anymore. I thought it was probably a scam, but I checked it out anyways anyways and I was surprised that the job was legit. I did this for a few months if not a year and it was a simple gig that virtually didn't take me very long. Once a week I would drive to the old man's house and grab his list and cash and without knowing anything about me this old guy would hand me cash every week and trusted that I would return with what he wanted. Lucky for him, I'm a trustworthy guy. So I would grab his groceries and then he would pay me $200 when I would return. And this

was the easiest money I had ever made in my entire life. One spring day, I showed up to the man's house on Tuesday afternoon, just like I did every single week. The man seemed tense though, more so than usual. He was always a little grumpy and strange but not tense and paranoid. On this day though, he kept looking out the windows and was frantically pacing around the house with his cane. I kept asking him if he was alright and he would just tell me to shut up and mind my own business. I swear I could hear him saying stuff under his breath like they're coming, they're coming. But I'm honestly not 100% sure if that's what he was saying. And it got to the point where I was practically begging him to give me the list so I could grab his groceries, but he just seemed too distracted. After about five minutes of watching this man

pace around like Yoda, he finally shouted for me to come into the kitchen. All of a sudden, his demeanor was completely changed. He looked sad, almost regretful, in a very soft voice he said to me, you've been a good and patient helper over these last months. When you come back, I'm going to give you a bonus. You've become my best friend, kiddo. It actually made me a little sad to hear something like that. After dealing with this guy as long as I did, it was clear that I didn't have any family or friends, but I soon forgot about that sadness when I started thinking about the bonus that he mentioned. I thanked him, grabbed the list, and made my way to the door.

And just as I was about to leave, the man shouted for me to wait. I turned around and as he limped down the hall, he extended his hand for a handshake. I smiled, shook his hand and then left. The entire time I was at the store, I kept trying to figure out what was going on with the old guy. He clearly wasn't himself and his affectionate actions towards me were pretty out of character for this grumpy old guy. I spent about 30 minutes at the store and as I was turning onto the street where the old man lived, I was stopped by the police telling me that the road was closed off. I looked up and I couldn't believe my eyes. There were at least ten cop cars outside the old man's house. I was hoping that maybe they were at another house but the more I examined the

scene I could see that some of the cars were in the driveway of the old man. I tried asking the police what was happening and they ignored me for the most part. I pulled over and stood at the police barricade trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on. While I was standing there, two cops were escorting the old man out of the house in handcuffs and putting him in the back of a squad car. I started to get more erratic and told the cops that I was working for that old man and that I needed to know what was going on. Instead of giving me any information, the police were more concerned with how I knew the old man. And after some back and forth, I got nowhere with the police and to this day I still have no idea what the man did. When I looked up his name, nothing comes up so clear the old man

had given me a fake name or something like that but what's really frustrating about this is that this is one of those cases that had virtually no coverage in my hometown with all the excitement with gangs and things like that some old man getting arrested really wasn't much news i was telling a friend of mine the story recently and he told me that i could schedule a meeting with the police to find out who he was and what he did. I guess technically they have to give me that information, but honestly I don't even know if that's true, I'm just going by what my friend told me. And at the time of me writing this though I haven't followed through and found out what he did, and since then I've tried to think back to those visits to his house and

tried to think about anything in the house that could have given me a clue. The house was plain for the most part. There wasn't a lot of clutter and it was mostly meat other than an old man's smell, I guess. And this is horrible to say, but I'm sure the old man is dead by now. What do you think he did? Am I just super overthinking this? Even though nothing directly happened to me here, I still think about it to this day and I don't think I'll ever forget the image of that man being brought outside in handcuffs. I got my first job when I was 15. Back then we barely made anything per hour. I honestly think I started at like five bucks or something like that. I was working in customer service which seemed like

it would be relatively easy but I knew instantly that I hated it. The customers were always rude and miserable to deal with most of the time. I did like getting a paycheck though and it allowed me to get a cell phone and just have some toss around cash when hanging out with my friends. This was in the early days of things like Craigslist and Facebook, just as my space was winding down. Trying to find a better way to make some cash, I started strolling Craigslist for opportunities where I didn't have to deal directly with customers. It was pretty slim pickings. I called for a few landscaping jobs but never heard back. I stumbled across an ad looking for someone who could help with

a summer cleanup of a few properties that were purchased adjacent to my neighborhood. The ad was pretty vague, I guess, and didn't mention much of that work actually needing to be done. I sent a response and the next morning I got a call asking if I could show up to work. I was ecstatic. I figured if this worked out, I could kiss customer service goodbye, at least for the summer. I arrived at a property that was a little overgrown and a little shady from all the trees. I walked to a door that I assumed was the front door and was eventually greeted by this guy who introduced himself as Chip, and he had a smile almost like the Grinch,

crooked yellow teeth and absolutely rancid breath. It was honestly one of the worst things I'd ever smelled, and I can still see a smile in my mind to this day. Anyways, this guy Chip started giving me a tour of the grounds and outlined some of the work that needed to be day. Anyways, this guy Chip started giving me a tour of the grounds and outlined some of the work that needed to be done. Some outdoor maintenance, tree trimming, chopping wood, but wanted me to start with some interior cleaning. I remember him taking me down a narrow flight of stairs into a finished basement. It was one room and completely square. The ceiling, floor, and walls were all wood. It was extremely dim and only gave off a small amount of yellow light. He gave me Pledge or Pine Sol, I don't

remember which one, but I remember I wasn't familiar with the product as it had a very strong smell and I thought after attempting to clean the walls that I was either staining them or ruining them with how I was attempting to clean. I had chores all my life, so I wasn't a novice to cleaning, but it definitely wasn't the spray stuff my mom had for us at home to clean the woodwork. After about what I think was two hours of cleaning, I took a quick seat to wipe the sweat from my head and take a sip of water. As I sat on the floor, I looked up the stairway that was barely illuminated and thought

that I saw a dog or something laying at the top of the stairs. I wiped off my glasses and squinted up the stairs to see if I could make out what it was, but I just couldn't. I slowly got up and walked closer and saw that it was that chip guy lying on the floor with a seemingly blank expression. As I got closer, I called out, is that you? The blank stare turned into this very grotesque smile with those yellow crooked teeth, and he then whispered something like, whoops, he caught me, followed by a quiet little laugh. I decided to do some of the outdoor work to pass the time and everything was going fine, but I kept getting a weird feeling from recalling that very strange moment. Yes, it was extremely weird and I probably should have just gotten out of there

then, but I was a teenage kid at the time and I was a big kid so I really didn't have too many worries and I just wanted to make some money. While I was outside, this chip guy would be out there having a cigarette, staring at me. Or if he wasn't outside, every so often I would look at one of the windows and the blinds would suddenly be moving. I started to pretend like I was looking the other way but had my eyes fixated on the window. I could see his head trying to poke through the curtains looking at me and what I was doing. The day was about half over give or take if I recall correctly and he asked if I could clean another basement similar to the one I had done before. I really didn't want to because I was freaked out from the last time and because I felt

like I was destroying this guy's damn wooden walls and floors with that pine saw. But I followed him to where I needed to go anyway and as we got to the staircase he stepped to the side and said something like, there you go. But the basement was completely pitch black. I could barely see the stairs that I'd be walking down. I asked him, is there some light or something I can't see? And he says, unfortunately not. And then went on to say that he had someone coming to install one, but there would be a light when I got down there. To this day, I still feel like he was breathing extremely heavily. I don't know if it was the hot breath hitting my neck and cheek or if he was really breathing like Darth Vader. I took a few steps towards the stairs and felt his breathing stop, like he was getting excited or nervous.

I quickly grabbed my phone like I was getting a call and took a few steps back and headed towards the door to go outside. I sort of did a mock phone call as Chip stared at me with his hands on his hips. I looked at him and said, Hey, I'm really sorry, I got a family emergency and I gotta go. Given it was my first day, he was really understanding. He was passive aggressive and kind of short, but he probably had the right to be. I knew right at that moment that there was no chance in hell that I was going back though. I went back to my customer service job where even though I had to deal with people's crap it was pretty easy work. About halfway through the summer I was eating dinner in the

living room after getting out of work while my parents were watching the news and I heard a report about a stalking incident which also led to an attempted breaking and entering. I hated the news and thought nothing of it, but then I heard the anchor mention a name, and it was that guy Chip's name. I immediately threw my plate down, asked them to turn it up, and sure enough, there he was. It was his complete full name, and I could not believe it. My parents asked why I was all of a sudden interested in the news and I just gave them some stupid answers so I didn't make them worried. But to this day, I wonder what would have happened if I continued working with this chip guy. He was clearly some type of predator with pending charges of stalking and B&E. But anyways, now I work from home and don't

have to deal with customers or any bosses that creep me out the way that guy did. My family owns a cabin in the mountains. My great-grandfather built the original section and my grandfather, father, and I have all added more to the cabin over the decades. It went from a small two-room cabin to a two-story five-room cabin with a porch. Upstairs is the bedroom with two beds and downstairs is the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and study. The study has an old steel tanker desk my grandpa put there, bookshelves full of old hunting, fishing, and trapping books, and a ton of old sci-fi novels my dad read as a kid. I decided to stay at that cabin over the summer instead of working

between college semesters to maintain the property. Neighbors in the area had complained of vandalism and theft, and my dad was worried about someone breaking into the cabin, and so I planned to live there in the cabin for the summer and take care of the property. I packed up the old Ford Bronco with food and other necessities, took a rifle and a revolver, and even brought my dog. The dog, an Australian Shepherd named Roscoe, and he was a great companion. The five-hour drive to the cabin was pretty uneventful, and when I arrived, I was greeted by the serenity of nature. Yes, I would be alone for the whole summer with only human contact being trips into town for gas and food but I was cool with that. I spent the rest of the day unloading my supplies into the

cabin, getting the generator started, turning on the lights, and generally settling in. And nothing unusual happened the first night. The next day, I mowed the grass around the cabin, hacked down weeds and small trees growing along the trails, cleaned out deer blinds and got rid of wasp nests on the eaves of the cabin. Roscoe kept freezing and staring off into the woods like he saw something, but then he would just shrug it off and follow me, panting and wagging his tail. I spent the rest of the day cleaning solar panels and checking batteries so I wouldn't need to run the generator for anything except the AC or TV. The TV was an old console style from the 60s and the antenna didn't pick up anything but static since everything is digital

now. However, it had my old NES from when I was a kid hooked up to it which was very nostalgic. That night, I cooked some wolf brand chili, no beans because chili doesn't have beans you heretics, on the gas stove in the kitchen and admired the view out the kitchen window. The motion triggered lights picked up a raccoon hanging around behind the cabin and I watched it while I cooked. I ate dinner in the living room while reading a book on African big game hunting, Death in the Tallgrass I think it was called, and the lights started dimming and something was wrong with the inverter and the solar cells weren't charging the batteries fully. I called it an early night and headed to

bed to save the batteries. The following day, I tried to figure out why the batteries weren't charging but was completely clueless. Roscoe kept looking off into the woods and whining and I gave up on fixing the battery charger and decided to run solar by day in the generator at night. I headed off into the woods to check the fence line of the property. I had my grandpa's old S&W Model 10, a.38 revolver from when he was a cop in the 60s on my hip in case of snakes or whatever. Roscoe was acting increasingly nervous though, refusing to leave my sight and staring into the woods and whining. It was unusual behavior, but I just kind of shrugged it off. The fence was damaged in a couple of places, so I made a note of where I needed to do repairs.

I had all summer, so I was in no hurry. Suddenly, Roscoe started barking and snarling like something was there. I turned to look but didn't see anything. I drew my revolver and called out, Who's there? Roscoe charged off into the woods, still barking, and something big went crashing through the brush pursued by Roscoe. I called my dog and chased after him, worried that he was going to get into a fight with a bear or something. Suddenly, I heard Roscoe yelp, and he ran back to join me, tail tucked between his legs. There was a loud roar, like nothing I had ever heard before,

and more crashing in the brush ahead. I still hadn't seen whatever the dog was chasing, and at this point, I didn't want to see it. I ran back to the cabin with Roscoe right behind me to load the rifle. It was a Gibbs carbine, basically a sporterized Enfield rifle in.308 with a nickel finish. I had only brought it along in case a bear tried to break into the cabin, not because I intended to actually shoot anything. And with a round in the chamber and the magazine fully loaded, I stayed in the cabin for the rest of the day.

I didn't see or hear anything unusual, and eventually I relaxed. I cooked some dinner, I fed Roscoe and read some more of my book and headed to bed, revolver now under my pillow and rifle leaning against the wall next to the bed of course. And the next day, I set out to finish checking the fence line, taking the rifle with me this time. Roscoe was increasingly nervous, tail tucked between his legs, shaking and growling while staring off into the woods. He was making me nervous too, but I didn't see or hear anything odd. The birds were chirping, squirrels were doing their thing, and everything seemed normal except for the dog.

I started checking the area near the creek and that's when things got bizarre. The berry bushes were picked clean. Normally they would have berries this time of the year and I started to suspect that we had a bear in the area and that's what we had encountered the previous day. There were weird footprints in the mud around the creek, too big and shaped wrong to be a deer or a pig, but there were so many prints that the mud was churned up and I couldn't get a clear look at any of them. Suddenly something sailed through the air and landed on the trail a few feet from me. It was a pinecone.

What the heck? Another one flew out of the woods and landed on the trail. Somebody was throwing pine cones at me, and so I shouted, who's there? No response. I informed whoever was in the woods that they were trespassing on private property and that I was armed. A large stick flew at me and missed. I threw it back and yelled that I was calling the sheriff if they didn't leave And they threw a rock at me Forget this I flipped off the safety on my rifle and fired a shot into the air

There was dead silence other than the ringing in my ears I made a show of chambering another round and yelled that I was going to call the sheriff So they needed to leave immediately. There was dead silence again for a long, tense moment, and then a hailstorm of rocks, sticks, pine cones, and other stuff was thrown at me from the woods. A couple of them hit me hard enough to hurt, and Roscoe yelped when a rock hit him. I still couldn't see who was throwing things. I fired another shot, this time into the woods in the direction the rocks were

coming from instead of into the air. There was that loud roar again and I said forget this. I was out of there and I ran back to the cabin with whoever was throwing rocks and things crashing through the brush parallel to the trail, still throwing stuff. Roscoe finally had enough and charged off into the woods snarling. There was an ear-splitting scream, and my dog was snarling and barking like he was fighting something. I started to follow Roscoe, chambering another round in my rifle, but then another rock flew through the air and hit me in the head and that one knocked me for a loop. I saw that there was blood everywhere and I

retreated back to the cabin and locked myself inside. Roscoe showed up a few minutes later. He was covered in mud, blood and leaves. I checked my phone and of course, no signal out here, and I topped off the magazine of my rifle and considered driving into town to call the sheriff. Forget that, I thought. My heart was going a mile a minute, and whoever was throwing rocks should be more scared of me than vice versa. After all, I had a gun, and Roscoe clearly got into a fight with whoever it was. I cleaned the dog up and put some antibiotic on his wounds and then I checked mine. I had a nasty bruise on my forehead and a small cut and I cleaned it up and slapped a band-aid on it. I was in siege mode just in case that thing returned. I ran the generator so I had lights.

I kept checking out the windows while I cooked dinner. The motion triggered lights went off a few times but I never saw anything and I eventually decided the trespasser had enough and wasn't going to come back. I shut off the generator and headed to bed, guns still ready to go of course. I woke up the next morning, grabbed my rifle and Roscoe and went to check the property for any signs of the trespasser. The woods were eerily quiet though. Roscoe was acting nervous once again and I was at this point thoroughly creeped out. I decided to spend the entire day hauled up inside the cabin. I didn't see or hear anything unusual whenever I checked outside, but it was still eerily quiet. No birds, no animals moving, nothing.

And I spent the entire day alternating between reading and nervously looking out the windows. Come nightfall, I refueled the generator and started it before it got too dark outside, then headed into the kitchen and started it before it got too dark outside, then headed into the kitchen and started cooking a pot of canned beef stew. The motion triggered lights kept going off but I didn't see anything. Roscoe was whining and acting nervous again. I kept the.38 holstered on my hip and the rifle next to my chair in the living room and after checking the front windows again, I walked back into the kitchen just in time to see something looking through the window at me.

I couldn't tell what it was, I just saw its eyes and a dark silhouette. I shouted and I drew my revolver, pointing it at the window, and at that moment, whatever it was, vanished. Running up to the window, I looked outside as the motion lights went off and saw a large shadow disappearing into the trees. The window was high off the ground, and walking out the back kitchen door required going down a short flight of steps. I'm six feet tall and wouldn't be able to look into the kitchen window from outside, so whatever was peering into the window must have been massive.

I was convinced it was a bear, and so I holstered my gun again, stirred the stew on the stove pot and turned down the heat so it wouldn't burn, and then retrieved the rifle and stepped out the kitchen door to see if I could see or hear anything. The lights flickered and the generator sputtered, coughed, and then died. I was left in the dark. I headed back into the cabin, barked my shin on the coffee table, and laid my rifle in the chair. Roscoe was whining, and then I grabbed an old army angle head flashlight from by the front door and stepped onto the porch. The generator was in an enclosure to the left of the door. I opened it up to double check the fuel tank and didn't see anything obviously wrong,

then started the generator up again, and the lights came back on. There was the sound of shattering glass, and I ran back into the kitchen just in time to see a long, hairy arm reaching through the broken window and grabbing my pot of stew on the stove. I whipped out the.38 and emptied it at the window, and there was an ear-splitting screech and the pot of stew was dropped, making a mess all over the stove top and kitchen floor. I ran to the window in time to see a huge figure vanish into the trees again. I grabbed my rifle from my chair and then ran upstairs to the bedroom. I ejected the empty cases from my revolver and reloaded from the box of ammo on the nightstand.

I checked out the bedroom window. Motion lights were on, but I didn't see anything. And I headed back downstairs and went out the kitchen door. Roscoe was shaking and refused to follow me and I stood at the very edge of where the motion lights illuminated the tree line, shining my light into the woods and shouting threats. Something rustled in the brush and I caught a glimpse of motion in the beam of my flashlight. Shouldering my rifle, I started to squeeze the trigger when the lights went out. Wait, the lights didn't go out, I could still see the yard lit up, and I turned, and there was something huge between me and the lights, creating the dark spot.

I somehow avoided defecating myself and fired my rifle at the silhouette. There was a scream, and something shaped like a person ran off into the woods. I chambered a new round and fired again, and a rock came sailing out of the woods and in the direction of where I saw motion. There were two of them. I fired a third shot in the direction of the rock thrower, then drew my revolver and emptied it into the woods. There was another loud roar and something huge crashing into the brush as another rock sailed towards me. I heard more crashing off to the side where the one that got between me and the cabin ran. Forget this, I thought.

I wasn't getting surrounded. And I hauled my butt into the cabin, double-checked all the doors and windows were locked, reloaded both guns, and covered the broken kitchen window with a piece of plywood, nailing it into the wall. There was a constant thumping sound as at least two of the creatures were hurling rocks and sticks at the walls of the cabin. I retreated upstairs with Roscoe, opened the bedroom windows and fired multiple shots into the woods around the cabin. The rain of rocks and sticks stopped, and after a while, the motion lights stopped going off. I heard a weird noise coming from the woods, like a cross between animal grunts and somebody singing without words.

I fired another shot into the woods and the noise stopped. I stayed up all night, too afraid to sleep, and the generator ran out of gas at around 3am and the cabin switched to battery power. The batteries still weren't charging properly, so the lights went out less than an hour later, leaving nothing but dead silence. Dawn finally arrived and I jumped in the Bronco with Roscoe and hauled ass into town. As soon as I reached the gas station on the edge of the small town near the cabin, I pulled out my phone and called my dad to tell him what happened. He told me to stay put and that he was on his way. It was

a five hour drive so I had a bit of a wait and I just sat in the Bronco with Roscoe the entire time, dozing but too high strung to actually fall asleep. Dad finally pulled into the parking lot next to me, had me tell the whole story and then we called the sheriff. A deputy showed up and I told him the whole story. The deputy was obviously very skeptical but followed us to the cabin and we showed him the rocks and sticks all around the cabin and the scuff marks on the wall, the broken window and the spilled stew, etc. The deputy also noticed all the spent brass where I had been shooting and decided that something obviously happened and I wasn't just making it up. And we all three hunted around for footprints or other evidence and we found a few, but

they were never very clear enough to really make out. The deputy wrote it all down in his little notebook and said three other people reported similar incidents in the past month, and then he left. Dad helped me clean up the mess in the kitchen, refuel the generator, and fix the inverter so the solar cells charge the batteries properly. I threw all my things in the Bronco because screw staying here all summer. I didn't return to the cabin until hunting season the following winter and only with my dad and uncle with me. And I never saw or heard anything unusual again. To be continued... and there are super fun live streams on Sundays and Wednesday nights. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official,

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