The Lets Read Podcast - 287: WHY WERE THESE CRIMINALS AFTER THIS LITTLE GIRL? | 27 True Scary Stories | EP 275

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about crazy landlords, encounters in Japan & scary events that happened in the middle of the night HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsRead ♫ Music, Audio Mix & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt

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They offered a generous rate of pay, then after I proved myself capable, they asked if I'd be interested in babysitting for a friend of theirs. I said sure. They gave me a number to call, then once we'd made arrangements for me to babysit for them, they gave me their address. They lived out in East Hampton, about 45 minutes drive from my home in Medford. As soon as my mom found out, she said something like, East Hampton, huh? That's a real fancy place. So I kind of knew what to expect before I got there. But when I actually saw the house for myself, I was blown away. Their house was basically three of my mom's houses put together with a gigantic backyard, a huge pole, and even a giant chessboard with pieces half my size. The inside looked like the sitting room set from the

fresh prints, with a cream color scheme and a wood paneling giving the place a very distinct air of class. The kid's mom and dad were very warm and welcoming, and when they introduced me to their nine-year-old daughter, all my reservations instantly evaporated. Instead of some bratty rich kid, Angie was just as delightful as her parents, and I knew from the moment that I met her that we'd get along very well. She wasn't too demanding and was content to just watch a movie or two until she got too tired to keep her eyes open. We'd order pizza, watch some tapes, eat a ton of ice cream, then I'd either chill out or work on some homework until Angie's parents came back from wherever they'd spent the evening. Sometimes it felt almost criminal just

taking that money. You know, they paid my gas money, paid for the pizza, and they even made sure the fridge and pantry were all stocked in case I got hungry after Angie's dinner time. Then, with the family home being as incredible as it was, it fast became my favorite sitting job. Now cut to Friday, October 16th of 1992, and the family in East Hampton had arranged for me to come over for what'd be my fifth time sitting for them. I drove over after school, arrived at around 4.30, then Angie's parents left for dinner at around 5. We ordered pizza, did each other's hair while we watched TV, then broke out the crumb cake at around 7.

We were still finishing our slices when the phone rang and upon hearing it, Angie spins around and asks me if she can be the one to answer it. Her parents sometimes called just to check in on us and I figured that there was no harm letting her pick up the phone and so I said, sure, why not. Angie ran off to pick up the phone and I I said, sure, why not? Angie ran off to pick up the phone and I stayed put eating my cake. The phone was mounted to the wall dividing the sitting room and the kitchen so I could still see and hear Angie as she ran over towards it. She reached up on her tiptoes, grabbed the handset and in a way that was so adorable it almost hurt, she says, Hello, you've reached the residence, how may I take your call? And I watched her with this big proud smile on my face, but following her grand introduction, a confused look came across Angie's face before she asked,

Hello? for a second time. There was another pause and then she turned, raised the phone up and told me, There's no one there. I put down my cake and then got up and walked over to her. She needed help returning the handset to its cradle anyways, so I took the phone from her, put it to my ear, then heard the sound of a dead line. I told her it was probably just a wrong number or something and then we went back to finish off our cake, but not ten minutes later, the phone rang a second time.

That time I got up to answer it and when I did, I'm guessing I heard the same thing Angie did. I picked up the handset and asked, hello? And then got nothing in reply. I asked hello again, then after another pause, I heard the distinct sound of someone hanging up a phone, like that old plastic rattling before the line goes dead. I remember that exact moment, that feeling of confusion shifting to one of creeping dread, and that made it two silent calls in just over ten minutes,

and I'd seen enough cheap thrillers to know that that wasn't a sign that anything good was about to happen. I just didn't think that it had anything to do with the family I was babysitting for. I thought that it was all about me. And yes, I phrased that in a deliberately egotistical fashion, but only to reflect on how stupid and self-centered I felt afterwards, because due to the very severe limitations of my 17-year-old mind, I became transfixed on the idea that it was a guy from high school that had been bugging me around that time. He'd slid notes into my locker at school, ask my friends to pass on pleas to call him, or my least favorite, wait for

me outside the girl's bathroom before basically cornering me on the way out. He'd also somehow managed to get a hold of my home phone number at one point and he'd called my house one time, asked my dad if he could speak to me and then said nothing for like the first ten seconds once I'd been handed the phone. But the worst thing was, my mom and dad thought that it was cute. It didn't seem to bother them much that his attention was completely unsolicited. Their solution was, ask him to leave you alone. And then when I told them that I'd already tried that, it was, well, ask him again. And that's why when I realized that there were silent calls,

my first suspicion was that my unwanted Romeo had somehow gotten a hold of the family's home phone number. And I was too busy trying to figure out how that could happen to consider any other more frightening possibilities. Angie asked who was calling, so I lied for a second time and told her that it must have been a wrong number. She might have been one of the sweetest girls I'd ever babysat, but Angie was not gullible, and was vocally confused as to why someone would call the wrong number twice. I made an on-the-spot joke about them having pudgy fingers or something, which served as just enough of a distraction to get Angie's thoughts off of the silent calls. I didn't think my stalker, and I used that term very loosely, had the stones to actually show up to the house. He seemed to be more about opportunity than anything else.

But it was still a lingering concern for me, and one I didn't want to pass on to little old Angie. Another hour or so went by and we were fast approaching Angie's extended bedtime of 10pm, our little secret. I asked if she wanted one last soda, diet of course with no caffeine and no zoomies, and then walked into the kitchen to get us some drinks. The layout of the house was such that the kitchen led to a dining room via a set of double doors, with the dining room windows allowing a view of the driveway outside. When I walked past the doors the first time, empty-handed, everything seemed perfectly normal. But when walking past it a second time, with a can of soda in each hand, I saw the headlights of a car shining down the driveway.

The family had sort of an intercom at their automatic gate, and if you didn't have the little keycard or the code or whatever it might be, you had to be buzzed in to even get access to the driveway. The car was stationary, its front bumper pointed at the gate, but the intercom in the house wasn't buzzing. My first thought was, maybe I just caught the car turning around. But nope, it stayed put like it was waiting for the gate to open. Then I figured it was Angie's parents arriving home early and that, I don't know, maybe they

lost their keycard or something. I walked into the dining room to get a closer look out of the window, studying the headlights as the car idled by the gate. And then suddenly, silhouetted by the car's headlights, I saw three or four men climb over the gate before they began walking down the driveway at a very brisk pace. I remember the feeling, this rising panic as I put down the sodas on the ledge near the window and then walked toward the phone as quickly as I could. I remember grabbing the handset and trying not to sound too panicked as I loudly asked Angie to head upstairs. This was like a whole hour before her promised bedtime, so she was very naturally dismayed at the sudden change of plans and began asking me why.

I told her to be a good girl and do as I asked, before putting the phone's handset to my ear. I thought that I might hear the 911 person's voice, or at worst, the last few dials before one answered my call. But instead, I heard nothing. I remember pushing the little switch to reset the phone, expecting the drone of an open line to return, but I did it once, twice, and then three times before I realized that the line was dead. I didn't know it at the time. I thought that I'd simply experienced an astronomical amount of bad luck in having the phone die on me when I needed it most. But it hadn't died.

There had been no kind of malfunction. Someone had cut the home's phone line to ensure that no emergency calls could be made. I knew the family had a second phone in the master bedroom so after taking Angie's hand I quickly walked us up the stairs and toward the bedroom door. And by then, Angie had begun to sense how frightened I was and she kept asking what was going on, her terror intensifying each time I let the question go unanswered. We walked into the bedroom, and when I heard no sound at all coming from the handset of the second phone, that's when I realized something much worse was happening.

I know having a bunch of guys climbing a gate and rushing the house was bad enough, but the phone line being dead suggested a very chilling degree of organization from these guys. Those guys were not your average home invaders. If there is such a thing, and realizing that brought a level of terror that I can only barely describe. And by then, there was no hiding my fear anymore. Angie was demanding to know what was going on, and I couldn't think of a lie quick enough, so I just told her the truth. I told her that there were some bad men outside, and that they most likely wanted to break into the house and that we needed to find some place to hide from them. And I'll never forget how completely petrified Angie looked in the seconds after those words left my lips.

And I still beat myself up about it all these years later, but in the moment, there was nothing else I could think of. I was 17, scared out of my mind, and Angie knew her home better than I ever could. I was reliant on her to be able to find the best hiding place possible, and that transfer of responsibility terrified us both. Right then on cue, we each heard a loud, dull hammering sound coming from downstairs as the men outside started to try and break in. Angie screamed, and I remember grabbing each of her arms before shushing her. I tried to be gentle, trying to keep her as calm as possible. Then I asked her where the best hiding place in the house was.

There was like a voice in my head in the moments after I asked her, one that screamed at me, how the hell is she supposed to know she's just a little girl? An innocent little girl that you are failing to protect. I still feel, almost, at least in principle, that that voice was right in the milliseconds that had popped into my mind. A girl Angie's age probably thought the back of her closet was another dimension, or that the space under her bed would be sufficient to hide us both from violent criminals. But in reality, Angie knew the perfect place to hide, and it was nowhere I could have ever taken her. After I asked her about the best place to hide, Angie thought for a moment,

and then took me by the hand and started leading me towards the home's third floor. When we got to the top of the stairs, there were three doors in front of us, two of which clearly led to larger rooms and one smaller door that turned out to be a closet. Angie took us to the closet. When she opened the door, I saw shelves on either side filled with boxes of old junk along with a bookcase against the rear wall. I remember telling Angie that we needed somewhere bigger, someplace the bad men wouldn't see us if they came and opened the door.

I spoke, but it was like Angie didn't hear me. She ran over to the bookcase and reached to the back of one of the lowest shelves like she was about to retrieve a book. I was halfway telling her that this wasn't the time for reading when I heard a loud click coming from behind the bookcase. I knew in an instant what Angie just did, but that didn't stop my jaw from hitting the floor when she used all of her strength to pull the bookcase away from the rear wall. The only reason that she could do so with the strength of a nine-year-old was that the bookcase was actually mounted on a huge set of hinges, and behind it was a short, downward-leading staircase. It was weird feeling almost amazed, but at the same time I didn't feel

surprised at all. Of course they had a safe room, and of course they told their nine-year-old daughter how to access it in case of emergencies. But what really did surprise me was just how well this safe room was decked out and how Angie's demeanor shifted completely once the door was closed behind us. I remember how she reached up and flicked on a light switch that illuminated the stairs in front of us and then after taking a few steps downward, she turned and told me to close the door. I followed her downstairs after doing so and was greeted with the first of two rooms. That one was basically a small sitting area, complete with bookshelves, a TV and VHS combo,

with some snacks and bottles of water stacked in one corner. The next room, however, was essentially some kind of command center. There was a wall of TV monitors, all linked up to security cameras in each room, with an attached panel of switches that meant that you could both see and hear what was going on in the house. But the most important, and possibly the most impressive thing, was that this command center had a working phone.

I don't know if it was hooked up to a satellite or a hidden alternate phone line, but when I picked it up and heard a working dial tone, I almost burst into tears from the sheer relief that I felt. And I called the cops. I told them everything, but it didn't make Angie feel any safer. She felt safe the second the door closed behind us, and after announcing that the bad men couldn't find us in there, she went about deciding what VHS tape that she wanted to watch until the bad men had gone away. It got to the point where I couldn't decide if she was the bravest little girl I'd ever met, or this was something that had happened before. Once I was

done talking to the authorities and then telling Angie that the cops were on their way, I asked if this was something that had happened prior, and she said no, but that her mom and dad had shown her what to do in case any bad men came to the house. She then put on a DHS tape and sort of settled herself down on the couch opposite the TV and asked me, do I still gotta go to bed at 10pm? And the question alone almost knocked me off my feet. But once I'd regained what little composure I had, I told her no, that she didn't have to go to bed at 10, and that she was probably about to have her latest night ever. It was incredible, really, seeing a little girl acting calmer and more collected than myself in the middle of a crisis. But like Angie said, she knew the drill and I guess that knowledge dispelled any fear of the chaos unfolding downstairs. But not only was it chaotic, what I heard over the monitors scared

the living hell out of me. I remember walking back into the little control room or command center as I referred to it before and taking a moment to study the little switch panel. It wasn't hard to work out how to switch the monitors on and it wasn't hard to switch audio feeds either, but listening to what those men were saying down there made for some extremely difficult listening. I expected to see them looting the first floor, grabbing all the various electronics before running back down the driveway to load up their vehicle, but that's not what I saw when I switched on those monitors. They weren't looking for expensive goods to steal. They were looking for what I can only assume to be Angie. I realized before I heard anyone talking, because none of the four masked men seemed in the least bit interested in the huge TV and lavish stereo system that was in the living

room. They were going from room to room, opening up closets and looking under beds, and then moments later, I managed to catch two of them talking to one another in the same bedroom that we'd been in just minutes before. One of them asked something like, where the hell is she? Before the other told him, I heard her voice. And I was frozen, thinking about what might have been happening to us at that moment if Angie hadn't taken us to this safe room. And I carried on watching the men downstairs, waiting for the cops to show up until there was suddenly a whole bunch of commotion from them, presumably after they'd heard the sirens coming from the street outside. And after that, that's when those men ran.

And finally, when I could see only uniformed officers walking calmly into the rooms downstairs, I opened up that safe room door, and then told Angie to stay on the couch while I went to talk to the cops. And that was the one time she openly disobeyed me, and I can't say that I was mad in the moment, she just wanted to say hi to the people who had come to rescue us. It made for a very cute ending to what had been the most terrifying experience of my whole short life at that point, and to be honest, nothing has ever really topped it in the terms of sheer terror that I felt. Not to mention that skin-crawling feeling of knowing those men were after this girl

that I was watching and not just money or jewelry. The officers were then able to contact Angie's parents because they'd left the address of where they'd be that evening and they were back home and hugging their daughter within a half hour of the cops first arriving. The police managed to catch the driver of that car, but he claimed to be just some getaway driver and had no idea what the others were planning. The others, though, were never caught, but the security cameras recorded what they'd said about looking for the girl, and by the girl they almost certainly meant Angie. And Angie's parents thanked me for saving their daughter, and I had to actually sit

them down and explain that I didn't do anything. It was actually Angie, the little girl that had saved the both of us. I'd done nothing but tell her about the guys breaking in. They said that they'd understand if I didn't want to babysit for Angie anymore but all it took was the thank you letter that she sent to convince me that I had to stay. I mean it definitely sweetened the deal that they'd promised to hire armed security in the future would basically meant that Angie had a second, much more intimidating babysitter, but there was no way that I could just turn my back on her. I guess that makes me sound a little crazy, but that's honestly how I felt. My love for that girl and her family overrode any

fear of a repeat home invasion. And besides, if it did happen again, I knew exactly what to do to keep her safe from the maniacs who wanted to kidnap her. This happened quite recently, so I am keeping names anonymous for privacy reasons. To give you some context, at the time this incident occurred, I was a 20-year-old female living in Nagano, Japan. I had a passion for live streaming on the internet. I would sing and play the guitar, enjoying it so much that I streamed daily. The effort that I put into my daily stream started to pay off, and I gradually gathered a small but dedicated fan base. Regular viewers started to join, and I recognized their usernames. We would chat between songs, getting to know each other a little

better and it was great to meet people who shared my taste in music. One of these regulars was a man who I'll call Mr. A. Mr. A always joined the stream and was one of the people that I spoke with a lot. We shared music recommendations quite regularly and it felt like we had a real connection, even though we had never met in person. One day, when he joined my stream, I thanked him, saying something like, that band you recommended the other day was great, thank you. He then wrote in the chat that he had been to see the band that he recommended and got a limited edition signed CD, and I casually responded with something along the lines of, oh, that's great. And this is where the horror began for me. In addition to live streaming,

I also had a few social media accounts across different platforms. One afternoon, I was scrolling through my feed and a private message from Mr. A popped up. I went to read it and it read as the following. I sent you that limited edition CD that I mentioned on your stream. And I immediately thought, sent where? I didn't give you my address. I had never shared my address during my streams or on social media, so I was completely baffled by Mr. A's message. When I asked him what he meant, his explanation was not just surprising, but downright creepy. Mr. A had tracked down my personal social media account using my public account ID, and from there, he found my sister's account. My sister had a lax attitude toward online privacy and had publicly shared our city and town, and from her account, Mr. A discovered my full

name, our city, my boyfriend's name at the time, and even my parents' social media accounts. I was so freaked out by this because I had made a very conscious effort to not put anything personal on the internet. Despite my efforts to stay hidden, Mr. A managed to piece together enough details to send the CD to me via a postal service hold. I was so creeped out that I picked up the CD from the post office but immediately returned it, telling Mr. A a little white lie. Sorry, but it seems like the information you looked up about me was wrong, so I didn't get that CD. It should make its way back to you though I imagine. And to this point I was trying not to upset him. I mean I did like chatting with him when he joined my live streams and he had just kind of ruined that relationship though. Since I returned that

CD I felt as if Mr. A's kindness turned to malice. Mr. A's friendly demeanor seemed to turn into something more sinister. His next message, seemingly advice but potentially a subtle warning or threat, read, Be careful leaving your personal information online. There are people out there who might misuse it. And then the harassment began. He created numerous accounts with variations of name and birthdates, followed my accounts with variations of name and birth dates, followed my accounts with all these weird new user profiles. But let me explain. If my birthday was January 1st, the accounts would be named things like my name 0101. It is unnerving to see accounts with private information in their names start to follow me. And he also tweeted about places in

my town, making me feel like I was being watched. There were no direct threats, but the fear of being constantly monitored became overwhelming. I think he was being very careful. He knew if he said anything, he could just claim that tweeting about a shop in my town wasn't a crime. And I bet that he thought that he was being really smart, and then the situation escalated. Mr. A tweeted from his account, got the Zenrin maps and phone directories just a little more to go. Zenrin is Japan's database of residential maps and is used for route planning. It's very accurate, and when he mentioned that he was looking into that database and said he only needed a little bit more to go, it downright terrified me.

And that short tweet sent shivers down my spine. It was clear Mr. A was trying to pinpoint my exact address, and up to that point, he only knew my city and town, which gave me some comfort. But the thought of him finding my house horrified me, not just for my safety, but also my family's. We couldn't just pack up and move. My parents weren't renting, they were paying their mortgage. And I felt so scared because if he knew all of our names and our city, finding our exact address seemed pretty inevitable. I started obsessively checking Mr. A's account every day, praying that he wouldn't figure out our address, but my hopes were dashed when Mr. A got dangerously

close. I identified my grandparents' house from a photo of a nearby rice field that I had posted on my private account. The photo barely showed anything but fields, yet he managed to use Google Maps and the Zenrin directories to narrow down the area, looking for homes with our surname. I couldn't take it anymore and decided to contact the police, hoping they could intervene without escalating the situation. Their suggestion to directly confront Mr. A with a warning made me reluctant. However, I followed their advice and sent a cautious message to Mr. A, hoping it would put him off doing whatever he was plotting. I remember shaking as I was typing, not sure if it was fear or adrenaline, and I wrote out, I've got in touch with the police. You need to stop. He came back almost instantly with a chilling yet cowardly response. I have no idea what you're talking about.

And after that, his numerous fake accounts began gradually disappearing one by one. The tweets about finding my address also stopped. His dismissive response and the subsequent disappearance of his fake accounts brought temporary relief but the damage was done. Since then, I haven't faced any direct harm from Mr. A in years have passed, but the memories of that time linger. I still catch myself checking Mr. A's account, a habit born from those anxious days and long nights. I'm not scared anymore but I am very aware if that makes any sense at all. The internet still is a source of joy, but social media is mainly a reminder of the darker side of human nature for me. I stopped live streaming and deleted all my social media accounts. Erasing my accounts did come with some tears, but it was for the best.

I had to do what I could to protect myself and my family. I learned a harsh lesson about privacy. It's a lesson I carry with me, always cautious about what I share and who I trust. The scariest thing about my experience was not just the invasion of privacy, but the realization that behind the screens, humans can be the real monsters. I just hope that he wasn't doing this to others what he did to me, especially to those who weren't so careful with the information they share. Reflecting on the whole experience, it's alarming now how someone can piece together your life from bits of information shared online. The fact that Mr. A could track down my family members, use public records, and even analyze photos to find my location was beyond my wildest nightmares.

In the aftermath, I became almost paranoid about my online presence. I would spend hours going through old posts, deleting anything that could be even remotely revealing. I changed my passwords frequently, set all my profiles to private, and stopped engaging with anyone I didn't know personally. The internet felt less like a community and more like a potential threat. The support from my family and friends was crucial during this time. My sister felt particularly guilty. We forgave her, of course, but it was a wake-up call for sure. Despite the fear and anxiety, I tried to maintain a sense of normalcy.

I focused on my studies, spent more time with loved ones, and found other hobbies to fill the void left by my streaming. Every now and then I would consider returning to live streaming, but the thought of another Mr. A lurking in the shadows always held me back. I continue to hope that Mr. A has moved on and that no one else falls victim to him. We'll be right back. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find your pro at your local TreadExperts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca I grew up in a place called Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory. It's got a reputation for being pretty rough, and deservedly so.

It's got one of the highest crime rates in all of Australia, and things got so bad last year that the government banned alcohol sales and started introducing nighttime curfews. I moved away years back, so I couldn't tell you if it's actually as bad as it sounds, but here's a little story from back when I was a lad that'll give you an idea of what it was like back then. Just after I turned 20, I got a job working as an overnight security guard at a local youth center. They needed people to watch the place overnight, as the place had all kinds of televisions, stereos, and video games that the local scumbags were itching to get their hands on. I did five nights a week, usually with a veteran named Simon, and some nights he'd order some dimmies from the

Chinese place around the corner then send me over to pick them up. I'd grab them, then sometimes a few bottles from the bottle shop next door. Nothing too strong, but perks of working overnight, you know. Anyway, one night he sends me around to grab the dimmies, and it's a proper stinker of a night so I'm dying for a bottle of coke or something, so I nibbed into the bottle shop at around ten, like I normally would. I walked in, and there's no one at the counter, but it's as quiet as a mouse in church as well, so I don't see or hear anything amiss. But then as I walk down one of the shop's aisles and then come out the bottom near the fridges, I suddenly see someone who'd been

previously hidden from view. I remember him having long copper red hair, but worn in like a bun on the top of his head. He was shirtless and had khaki shorts and slides on too, but his chest and stomach were covered in the milk that he was swigging like he was dying of thirst. He's got this massive carton of it in one hand and he's just chug, chug, chugging it all non-stop, but then in his other hand he held a hammer and that hand was glistening with someone's blood. It sounds a bit daft to say it but it was such an unexpected sight that I couldn't help blurt out F me as I turned back around to walk out of the shop but the next thing I heard was, What you say, you effing dog?

It was right near the door when I turned my head to look behind me, and all I saw was the shirtless bloke with the hammer coming at me with his chest and beard still soaked with milk. The door was one of those heavy ones that you gotta pull on the way out, but that meant that I couldn't just fluidly slip out of the door, you know? I had to stop and pull it back on myself as the bloke was coming at me, and I realized in a split second that if I tried to slip around it, he'd have a perfect shot on me with that hammer. And so instead of doing that, I pushed myself back away from the door as quick

as I could to throw him off. Thankfully that worked and he sent that hammer smashing through the glass panel of the door with this really loud crash, but it also left me with no obvious route of escape. I did the only thing I could think of at the time which was to launch myself over the shop's counter and thank F that they didn't have all the plexiglass shields like they do now, or I'd have been royally screwed. But I managed to make it over to the other side just in time to hear this great bloody smash behind me. I'm guessing the bloke threw the hammer at me once I'd made it over the counter, and that smashed some of the bottles of grog behind me. Not that I stopped to look and make sure, I just kept on running into the back of the shop and hoping that I could find a way out.

Whoever was in the shop when the hammer bloke walked in must have just scarpered out the back doors because they were still wide open as I came running through and out into the back alley. And as I ran out, I saw this little Indian bloke on the phone with the cops, but he saw me and thought that I was the bloke on the phone with the cops, but he saw me and thought that I was the bloke because the second he saw me, he raises this massive kitchen knife into the air which has me screaming, hold your bloody horses, mate, I'm on your side. And luckily for me, he very quickly realized I wasn't the hammer man and starts apologizing for almost shanking me. But I'm still like, no time for chat,

cobber, he's still chasing me. And we ran like clappers down the alleyway till we got to the main road and by then, it was clear that the hammer bloke had no intention of chasing us down that alleyway, thankfully. It turns out, Hammer Man had walked into the shop, shirtless when he got there, and went straight for the milk fridge to help himself. The shopkeeper said another customer had said something to him about not just helping himself and then whack. The hammer man had bloody well smashed him one right in that face. And the shopkeep then started shouting about calling the police, but the hammer man didn't take that too kindly and charged that guy, causing him run out the back which is where I found him. The little Indian guy was asking if the hammer man had hit me at all and I was telling him like no I'm all right when we saw the cops coming down the road quite

fast and the Indian bloke and I then walked around the corner to watch the street theater unfold and we turned onto the street in question just as the cops are approaching the shop, one with a gun out and the other with a stun gun. We obviously stayed back, and the shop runner guy says something like, oh god he's gonna smash my shop, because we could hear the hammer man inside going bloody mental, but when we actually got a good look inside, like through the glass windows, we saw that the situation inside had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The hammer man was standing just inside the doorway, brandishing that hammer, shouting something like, I'll smash him, I'll smash him, at the cops as they shouted back, put the hammer down now.

But at his feet, there was another bloke. Bald head, all bloody, totally unconscious looking, and it's him that the hammer man is threatening to smash. I'm assuming someone else must have walked into that shop after me, and I just remember saying to that guy, I'd look away if I were you, mate. And I did the same because someone was about to either get shot or bashed in the head, and the Indian bloke just kept looking through, and right as the shouting got a bit louder behind us, bang, bang, bang, and down with the hammer man. I felt awful for the bloke, and I still do. He'd come all the way to Australia to open himself a little shop and then ended up

having some mad bastard come in to steal his milk and smash his customers. That'd be bad enough for anyone. But to have the bloke shot and killed in his shop, that's something he'll have to revisit again and again, every time he steps on the spot where it happened. But that should also give you an idea of how crazy Alice Springs was and is, and why these days, you can't legally purchase alcohol if you're from what they call a town camp, which is basically the government's subsidized housing. So, after hearing all of that, you can understand why I laugh when people ask me why I moved away. This happened about three years ago, and it was just after I had gotten into university. I was really proud of myself, and I had managed to pass a really difficult entrance exam, and I was looking forward to trying life in the city alone for the first time.

I knew it was going to be a big step, but I was ready for it. I come from the countryside, so it was going to be all new for me and tough to leave the little support network and friends that I made there. My first year at university was a mix of excitement and adjustment. I made friends with some other students and my mom would often come to visit, using my place as a kind of hotel. I didn't mind. It was nice to hear how my family was doing and see her. And I guess it was her way of making sure that it was okay and I guess that she missed me too. When I started my second year of university in April, my mom came to visit again. Apparently,

one of her favorite artists had a concert nearby, so she decided to use my place as her hotel, as per usual. I thought at the time, oh great, here we go again, but since she sends me money every month, I couldn't really complain. I didn't want to risk having my allowance reduced, and those were the days. Now that morning she said, I'm going to the concert today, so I'll be back pretty late. Okay, I nodded while eating the miso soup that she had made. And out of nowhere, she said, so how do you feel about this apartment? What do you mean? I asked, a little taken aback by the sudden question.

Any weird neighbors or noisy people or anything? I don't know. I replied. Between my part-time job, classes, and parties, I hardly knew who lived in my building. But I did remember that there was a girl from the same university on my floor. She seemed pretty outgoing, always having friends over for drinks, and I envied her a bit for that. Well, whatever. You got work today, right? My mom asked. Yeah, I nodded. Try not to stay out too late. Okay. I wanted to tell her to come home early too, but I just kept that thought to myself.

When I got back that night and said I'm back, the apartment was pitch black. It was 8.30pm and my mom wasn't back yet. I was hungry but since it was a bit warm and sweaty that day I decided to just take a shower first. While I was in the shower I heard some rattling sounds and I figured my mom had come back. I saw a dark figure moving through the frosted glass door as she entered the bathroom. You're back early, Mom. I called out, but there was no response. Hey, do you want to go get some ramen? I asked, and I heard a chhh sound, like someone clicking their tongue, and with that, the dark figure disappeared. What's up with that, I thought, stepping out of

the bathroom. She usually loved ramen. As soon as I got out of the bathroom, a smell hit me immediately. Ugh, that stinks, I blurted out. It smelled like kerosene, which was weird because I didn't use a kerosene heater. As I was wondering why, I heard the front door unlocking and my mom walked in. You came in just to go back outside again? I asked, confused, and she looked at me, kind of puzzled. What do you mean? Didn't you just come in a few minutes ago? No, I just got here, she said, holding bags filled with concert merchandise. So who was that in the bathroom? My mind raced as I told my mom what happened. Panicked, she called the police and they came right away. We quickly discovered that nothing

was stolen and that there were no signs of forced entry. I guess I didn't fully close the door when I walked in, or something. And the police suggested maybe it was just a misunderstanding. Maybe a neighbor had won too many drinks and walked in what they thought was their apartment but got it wrong, realized their error and left. And my mom was furious, but it made me wonder if I had imagined it all. Maybe I was just tired. I wasn't able to fully convince myself of that because of that strange smell of kerosene. The week after that strange incident was one of the longest and most nerve-wracking of my life. I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was off

and I found myself jumping at every little noise and double-checking the locks on my door multiple times a day. I even contemplated moving to a different place, but my lease wasn't up, and finding a new apartment in the city wasn't easy or cheap. A week after that strange incident, something terrible happened. The girl who lived on my floor was murdered by the middle-aged man who lived below us. After he went through that terrible act, he set his apartment on fire and he went with it. The news and internet said the girl had riled up other neighbors by having parties often and making lots of noise, and that's why she was targeted.

But that wasn't really true. Even when she had friends over, you could barely hear them. The revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. I couldn't help but wonder if the dark figure I saw that day was actually him. Maybe I was his initial target, but he backed off because my mom was there and would come back soon. The idea that I could have been in that poor girl's shoes kept me awake at night, and for days I replayed the incidents in my head trying to find some clarity, some sign

that could tell me what really happened. I remembered every detail, the sound of the door, the figure behind the frosted glass, and the smell of kerosene. It was all too real to have been a figment of my imagination. I'll never know for sure what happened that night and that uncertainty is something that I've had to live with. The police closed the case quickly after the man died, labeling him as a deranged individual with a grudge against the noisy neighbors. They didn't dig any deeper and there were no leads, no witnesses besides me and I wasn't even sure of what I saw. All I can do is pray for the girl who lost her life. May she rest in peace. Even now,

years later, I occasionally ago it really seems, I used to work as a bouncer on doors at pubs and clubs in Newcastle city center. It had quite a rough upbringing and the school playground could be a violent place. And so for a lot of young lads like me, who weren't particularly big or strong, you had to learn to fight if you wanted people to leave you alone. And the place to learn to fight was the local boxing gym. I started training twice after school on weekdays, then every Saturday morning for a full four hours, and I loved every second of it. I made good friends, learned how to defend myself, and it instilled two very valuable

traits in me, discipline and respect, both of which have served me very well over the years. By the time I was 18, I was lined up for a few actual organized fights. But with me still being an amateur, I wasn't making any money off of it, and that's where Graham stepped in. Graham was a mate of the boxing gym's owner, and seeing as he did a lot of boxing in his youth, he'd pop down to the gym every so often to see some of the lads train. But he wasn't just there to watch them train. He was headhunting for lads to come and work for his door firm and one Saturday morning I managed to catch his attention. He told me to show up to a club in the city center at midnight for a trial shift and if I

could handle myself then I could expect to be working every weekend from then on. It was a little bit of a I'm not asking, I'm telling kind of deal, but the money was so good that no one ever turned him down. I'm pretty sure no wasn't a word Graham was used to hearing very often, we'll put it that way. And so that's how I started working the doors around Newcastle from age 18 onward. And by the time I was 25, I had graduated from the early doors, pubs, and clubs to the late night gaffes that got proper leery after about 1 or 2 in the morning. And these places were on another level. When I first started, there'd be two of you working a Saturday night in a single floor pub,

but by the time I was trusted to work the bigger jobs, you were looking at two, three, sometimes four floor nightclubs that could fit hundreds and hundreds of punters. But with the bigger jobs came bigger money, and if you managed to get the one particular job that I got, that will go unnamed for legal reasons, then you made absolute megabucks. And that's because on top of your normal taxable pay, you got your exes, or extras, which is what you were paid to look the other way for the dealers Graham allowed into the club. This was at the time when ecstasy tablets had first hit the northeast, and when it did, it hit big.

Times were hard for people growing up back then, as most of the shipping jobs were gone, so having happiness in tablet forms sweep through town, it was like everybody wanted a bit. And since everybody wanted a bit, the money people were making was off the scale. Dealers were getting into clubs with a few hundred tablets, then walking out with fifteen hundred pounds, then they out with fifteen hundred pounds, then they'd go to the next club and do it all over again, and again, and again, and again. There was money going around like you wouldn't believe, and the only thing standing between the dealers and all that cash were us doormen. I suppose at some point it came down to a choice. Act like complete saints, refuse to partake in any of it, and settle for your hard-earned wage, or make 200 more pounds every single night just for looking the other way

with one single solitary dealer. Times that by two or three, and you're walking away with more money in exes than you did from your normal wage. And were we declaring any of it to the taxman? Were we bollocks? Things stayed sweet like that for a while and we had a really good go of it. But the more money people generated, the more people wanted in on the action. We started having loads of young lads, all of them unauthorized, trying to sneak bags of tablets past us to make a few hundred quid without us taxing them. At first, we just confiscated their gear, gave them a slap, and then sent them on their way. But the problem wouldn't stop, and that's when Graham passed down the order to make

an example of someone, and so that's exactly what we did. We took this one lad, we'll call him Sparky, who we'd dealt with a couple of times before, and we kicked seven shades of shite out of him around the back of the club one night, all on Graham's orders. It was just to make an example out of him. It wasn't anything personal, but since he ended up in hospital, Sparky took it personal. About two weeks after, a bloke I worked with called Ronnie walked out of his gym, got into the driver's seat of his car, and was about to drive home when someone tapped on his window.

Ronnie turned his head to look, and bang, someone shot him in the face. And by some stroke of miraculous good luck, Ronnie survived his brush with death because the bullet went through his eye, then out the side of his head, totally missing his brain and spine and all of that. And we were made up to hear that he'd be okay, but the message was a clear one. Ronnie had been one of the fellas to give Sparky a kicking, and when we heard Sparky was nowhere to be found, we had a pretty good idea that it was him. But without knowing where he was, we were all vulnerable. He could walk up to any door in a crowd of people, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses or something and just boom. That'd be us rubbed out. But as you can imagine, this had us properly on our toes for the next two weeks or so, and the worst thing was, we couldn't even be certain that it was Sparky

that we had to be on the lookout for. Graham had been the go-between from the police to Ronnie's family and us, but as much as he had been pestering the police for info, they told him that they had no idea who the shooter might have been, nor did they have any idea where Sparky was. But Graham didn't believe them. He thought that they were treating us like mushrooms, feeding us shite and keeping us in the dark

because God knows if we'd have figured out where Sparky was, he'd have been a dead man for what he'd done to Ronnie. But then that meant that we had no idea if or when he was coming for us and I'd never seen so many big hard blokes acting so scared for their lives. Graham told us all that he was trying to get hold of some bulletproof vests and that our door would be the first to get them when he did. But till then, we had to just sit tight, hope Sparky showed up somewhere and keep our heads on a swivel when we were at work.

Two weeks after Ronnie was shot, we were all still proper on edge, but the more time that went by, we started to think maybe Sparky had run off to the Costa del Sol after shooting Ronnie, and most definitely thinking he'd killed him. And if that was the case, then we had nothing to worry about, and we might never see Sparky ever again. But it was still that worry that he was just biding his time, waiting until we'd let our guards down a bit to strike,

and that's why we could never properly relax. And so that Saturday night, a fortnight after Ronnie was rushed to hospital, a group of five of us were working the doors of the unnamed nightclub, and three of us had been involved in Sparky's beating, so we were proper on edge and watching the street for any signs of him and his boys. Suddenly, I hear one of the lads saying, why hey man, who's this here then? And he's looking down the street at someone, so I walk over to see who he's looking at and we both see this kid walking down the street towards us.

He looks to be about 14 or 15, 5 foot 3 with a little teenage tash above his lip, and he walks right past us and towards the doors of the club. The boss doorman was like, where the bloody hell do you think you're going, young man? And the kid says, inside. And the boss asks him, and how old are you then? And when he replies, 18, we all burst out laughing. The boss tells the lad, if you're 18, then I'm Bobby Charlton. I'll bugger off before I give you a slap. And this wee lad just walks off in a huff, but we thought that he was brilliant because he'd really lighten the mood. And this was about half 11, something like that, and we were all saying, I wish something like that happened every night. But then about an hour later, it did.

We get the nod that there's a kid in the club, and that he's trying to sell tablets to the punters. And the boss sends two door staff down into the club, and who do they drag out? But the kid that we'd just given the knockback to not an hour earlier. He's kicking and screaming, and the two lads are carrying him out with a hand under each arm, so his little legs are actually flailing around as they're carrying him. And we laughed so hard that I thought I was about to blow a gasket. And off the young lad went for a second time, puffing and puffing, but before he went, the kid shouted back,

I'm gonna back with a gun, and I'm gonna blow all your heads off. And we were just about rolling around on the floor after he said that, this pint-sized gangster threatening to slot us when he probably had school in the morning. And so, we just waved him away after telling him to come back next week for another laugh. Once all the laughter had died down, we asked to the two lads who went in to get him how the kid had gotten into the club in the first place, and they said the sneaky little bugger must have slipped into one of the back doors when one of the club's staff took a bottle bin out to empty. He had to admire it, the gumption to do something like that.

But then the two lads told us the kid actually did have a little bag of tablets on him. And they weren't fakes either. He wasn't trying to flog indigestion tablets as ecstasies. They were legit, and they all had the little smiley face or bat signal designs on them. There was only about ten in the bag, but it got us thinking, where's this wee lad got tablets from? And there's no way anyone would be so daft as to send a child into an over-18s bar. And you might as well just turn yourself into a police station. So how's he got his hands on them? But it's also not like we had time to wrestle with the question.

We had a job to do, and for the next few hours when things were at their most hectic, we were occupied trying to keep order in the club. By about three in the morning, the busiest part of the night was over, and although it was still bumping in the club downstairs, the crowds were starting to thin out and people were starting to flag taxis down to make their way home. I couldn't wait to get home and get a shower. I'd had to turf about five people out that night and I'd had drinks spilled all over me in the process. My shirt stank of beer and Alka-Pops

and I'm just trying to run down the clock until I can call it a night. But then about half an hour from closing, who comes walking down the street with a Newcastle kid. Or at least, that's what one of the lads christened him as as he'd come walking up the street towards us. And we're all laughing, saying things like, Oh, here he comes. He's about to pull out a shooter and start blasting. And then, when he gets within about 10 to 15 feet of us, he pulls out this big cowboy-looking pistol from his pants and points it right at us.

It didn't look real. It was dull-looking, and it looked like the handle was coming off, like this wee lad had pulled the orange cap off of a toy gun and brought it down to the club to brandish it at us. We're just about falling all over the place, singing themes from old westerns like it's a showdown at high noon and all that. We'd been that tense over the past two weeks that it was just this big release of tension, I think. I mean, we were dying laughing at the wee lad.

Now, for a bit of context, there was a lot of gangsters using guns at the time, like our old mate Sparky, for example, but that in turn had some unexpected consequences. Because everyone was hearing about all this gun crime, everyone was terrified of one pointed at them. So what robbers and other unsavory types started doing was bringing toy guns to robberies. All they had to do was flash their toy guns or sometimes just point to a lump in their jacket like that's a gun that is, now hand over the cash, and the terrified cashier would do just that. It became a bit of a thing in Newcastle at the time.

So when we saw that kid pull that old, falling apart cowboy gun out in that poorly lit street and thought, there's not a cat in hell's chance that that's a real gun. But then, the kid pulled back the hammer of the gun, the clicky thing that they do in the movies, you know the one, and we knew toy guns did not do that. There was this moment of silence after we heard it, as everyone had this collective moment of thinking, oh bollocks.

And then the moment we started to scatter, that kid fired. It was the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life, literally deafening. The street we were on at the time was quite narrow too, so when the gun went bang, it echoed off the narrow streets and made it sound like a bloody rocket exploded or something. I had my back turned when he shot, but I remember seeing the street almost light up as he fired. I didn't know fear like that even existed. And in the blink of an eye, I went from standing there in the street to cowering behind a van, just waiting for the next shots to be fired. And that silence seemed endless. Waiting for the next shot, I mean. People were running, people were shouting, but I was focused on the next shot, I mean. People were running, people were shouting, but I was focused on the next shot, terrified the lad would find me behind the van and make me his

next target. But he didn't, and no other shots were fired, because as it turned out, this wee lad's gun misfired right after that first shot, and since he didn't know how to fix it, he just ran off. He only got one shot, but one shot was all he needed. A second of our firm had been shot in less than a month, and this time, the victim didn't get so lucky. I won't name him for privacy reasons, but even though we tried our best to stop the bleeding, my guy had lost so much blood that he died on the way to hospital. And it was devastating. But the question everyone was asking was, how could that have happened? How could such a young lad have gotten his hands on drugs and guns? We were convinced that it was connected to Sparky somehow,

that he'd put the kid up to shooting one of us. But that didn't explain why he'd tried to get into the club to sell tablets. And that was the big hold in the theory for me, the thing that made me think something else was going on, and I was right. There was no rhyme or reason to the shooting. This young lad's older brother was a dealer, and a crap house wanted that. He kept his business on show, and his little brother idolized him. And so off he went, trying to sell tablets just like his older brother did. And when we checked him, he did exactly what his brother talked big about, which was not letting anyone disrespect you. And so this young lad went to where his brother

hid his gun, loaded mind you, took it, brought it into town, and shot a young doorman dead with it. And he ended up going to a young offenders institution, and I got out of the security game about nine months afterwards, when I met the girl who'd eventually become my first wife. It was a dangerous time to work those kinds of trades, and it was those two shootings that made me decide that I had no future standing on doors. It's been almost ten years since I was awoken in the middle of the night, to the sound of screaming. My wife and I live in typical suburbia. Two-story houses as far as the eye can see, small lawns out front with house numbers in the quadruple digits. It's a quiet place, a peaceful place to live, which is why hearing a scream outside our window woke me and my wife up

with a pretty bad startle. Our bedroom window looked out onto the street outside, so we simply got up, opened up the curtains, and looked out to see a car running idle on the street. The front and back passengers doors were opened and two men were standing outside the car arguing with two more men who were sitting inside it. We couldn't make out what they were saying but they appeared to be engaged in a heated discussion and every so often one of the men outside the car would start furiously yelling. My wife asked if we should call the cops and I said to hang on. They were certainly being very anti-social I guess but I didn't think it would escalate to anything. I assumed that they'd have some kind of falling out and that the car would just speed off once the argument had concluded. And coincidentally, that's exactly what happened. The two guys slammed the car doors closed, and after some screech of tires, off they went.

We had ourselves a little bit of a relief moment, grateful that it hadn't escalated in any way, and my wife turned around and headed back to bed. And that left me just standing at the window, watching the two guys in the middle of the street as they seemed to continue their disagreement, albeit at a much quieter volume. Our kids were still asleep in the back bedrooms and although the two guys seemed more interested in each other rather than anyone else, my fatherly protectiveness told me to watch at the window, just a little longer, to make sure that they weren't going to be a problem. So I'm standing there, watching the guys, and they're not budging from the middle of the street. They're growling at each other, gesticulating wildly,

and although I still can't make out what they're saying, they're clearly not happy with each other. Then suddenly, as I'm watching them, I hear the sound of a vehicle approaching, and from the noises the engine was making, it sounded like it was coming in fast. I figured the guys in the car were back to continue their argument, presumably at yelling volume again, and I was right on the verge of asking my wife to call the police when the car came into view again. I knew from the moment I saw it that it wasn't about to slow down. It was going way too fast.

It didn't even attempt to put on its brakes as he zoomed towards the two men stood in the street. They tried to get out of the way, but they were probably just as surprised as I was and by the time they reacted, it was far too late for one of them. One guy managed to jump out of the way just in time but his friend was not so lucky. The car hit him doing 60, maybe 70 miles an hour and it sent him flying up into the air in a ragdoll somersault before he crashed back down into the asphalt. The man who dodged the car began screaming and ran over to his friend who laid unconscious on the ground. I told my wife not to come look, that something terrible was happening and that she needed

to call 911 for both a cops and an ambulance. She kept asking what was happening so I told her and after a shaky oh my god she went ahead with talking to the 911 dispatcher. I told her to tell the dispatcher how bad it was and if he didn't get someone here soon the man who got hit was probably going to die if he wasn't dead already. My wife asked if she should go out and help him, but honestly, there was nothing I'd be able to do for him. I know that sounds callous, but I know I made the best decision, because if I'd have ran out into the street, I might have gotten caught up in what came next.

As I watched from the window, feeling terrible for the man still screaming over his friend's broken body, I remember the feeling of horror I felt when I once again heard a vehicle approaching, because it was coming from the opposite way that time. I could see it coming from much further off, and from the speed it was traveling, the total lack of lights or sirens, I knew it could only be one car and one driver. The man kneeling by his friend saw the headlights and got up and ran back onto the sidewalk, but he knew it was coming, and so did I. And he kept screaming, but this time it was clear he was screaming no, no, until his voice was drowned out by the car's engine. It came in just as fast as before,

only instead of smashing into someone standing up, the car ran over his It came in just as fast as before, only instead of smashing into someone standing up, the car ran over his body at what must have been 70 miles an hour easily. It flew over his body like there was nothing there at all, but as it hit him, the guy's body almost completely came apart. There were pieces of him all over the blacktop which were shiny and if I thought his friend was loud before that was nothing compared to the noise coming out of him from when he saw what remained of his friend. It was, without a doubt, the worst thing I'd ever been unlucky enough to witness in all of my many years on this earth and I know it's something I'll never forget. My wife tried

going back to sleep, but by the time all the emergency crews were outside, scraping the victim off the road, we both knew that neither of us were getting any sleep. We ended up sitting down at the kitchen table after putting the kids back to bed because the sound of our voices woke them up, and I drank until I felt tired enough to sleep and then headed downstairs at around four or five, I can't quite remember. It was easily one of the worst nights of my life, second only to when one of my kids developed viral meningitis, and that was a night that I prayed to God for help with all of my heart. But that night with a hit and run, I knew there was no point praying for anything but that poor fellow's soul, because Lord knows that he was dead the second he hit the ground after flying up through the air,

and that second hit, well that seemed like adding insult to fatal injury. This happened when I was in the second grade. I felt sick in the morning but wanted to go to school that day. I managed the first period okay but then I go to school that day. I managed the first period okay but then I was sent home because I was running a high fever. Luckily, we lived on the same street as the school so instead of getting my parents out of work to come and pick me up, I just walked home. It was fine to walk home alone for me, I didn't ever worry. It was only a short walk. I let myself in and went straight to my bedroom. I got into bed and fell asleep before I knew it, and I was sleeping soundly, I guess, but then I was awoken by a noise from downstairs. I honestly just thought that it was

my mom coming back from her part-time job or from shopping or something, and the school probably called her. Since she woke me up, I figured that I might as well go downstairs to go and see her. I crept down the stairs quietly. I felt like surprising her that day. I likely had a smile on my face as I slowly went downstairs, however, that smile would have soon disappeared when I realized that mom wasn't down there, someone else was. It was our neighbor, a guy of about 50 years old and he lived next door. I stopped and stared at him and he had a knife in his hand. Seeing me at home, he panicked and now I'm old enough to know that he didn't

expect company. He would have assumed that the house would have been empty or, I dread to think, my mom would have been home alone. Before I could begin to process what I was seeing and begin to question what was happening, he spoke to me. Hey, can you keep a secret? No one needs to know that I was here. Okay, pal? My eyes were glued to the knife in his hand the whole time he was speaking. My brain was now in gear. Remember, I had just woken up and I had a fever, and now I was beginning to put two and two together. Well, trying as best as I could, I was only a kid when this happened. I stared at that knife and I just thought to myself, I am in danger. I was so

scared when the gravity of the situation set in that all I could do was nod yes. He smiled at me when I nodded and then to my surprise, he turned and left. I ran over to the door and locked it. I guess I must have forgotten to lock it when I got in from school. I wanted to tell my parents, but I thought that my neighbor might kill me if I told them. He had scared me so much with that knife that he had in his hand that there was no way that I could break the promise that I had with him. I had to keep that secret. And so, I didn't say anything to my parents. About a month went by and life was kind of back to normal. I thought about the neighbor often and I didn't like being home alone after school waiting for my parents to come home

but I was surviving and one afternoon after school I heard a knock at the door. I went to the door and it was the old man next door standing out there. He had a load of sweets and he wanted to give them to me. I was so stupid to open the door while I was home alone after what had happened. I realize now how foolish I was to open the door while I was home alone after what had happened, and I know better now. Reluctantly, I accepted what he offered and quickly closed the door. After that, he would bump into me or come to the house once a month, always bringing candy, and he would smile and say, here you go, eat these. At the time, I didn't understand why

he kept giving me sweets. In hindsight, I guess it was to bribe me into silence. I can't be certain, but that's what it seems like. I didn't like being rewarded for reasons I didn't understand. It felt wrong and a bit disturbing. Whenever I saw him smiling at me with his candy in his hand, I couldn't help but picture him holding a knife instead. One time he came over with candy while my mom was home. I didn't want to talk to him or make eye contact, so my mom made excuses for me, saying things like,

oh, he's just shy. She even laughed, finding my shyness endearing I guess, but she didn't know the secret that I was keeping for him. Months went by and then I heard the news that our creepy old neighbor had passed away and it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My parents thought that I would be devastated because, to them, it seemed like we had some sort of deep connection. But instead, I was celebrating, not mourning. I didn't shed a tear for that man. Life moved on. I grew up, moved away, and started a life on my own. I've always been a little on edge when home alone, but it has gotten easier over the years.

Last weekend I returned to my hometown and was reminded of our neighbor at a neighborhood party with my parents, and someone brought him up and I listened in. That old guy loved betting on horse races and playing the slots, someone mentioned. Another person added, Yeah, I just remember him being an alcoholic. He used to show up at our house uninvited all the time. I had to have strong words with him once to make him leave. And then another chimed in, isn't it funny how all the thefts in the neighborhood stopped after he passed away? And that's when it dawned on me that he was probably there that day to rob us, maybe even more.

If my mother had been home alone, something that happened often because she worked part-time, things could have turned out very differently. He must have been bribing me with sweets to keep his secret. He was an alcoholic thief who preyed on our neighborhood. I can still see his face and the knife in his hand. It's a memory that haunts me to this day. This happened when I was working part-time at a ramen restaurant. I first got the job when I was around 16 years old during the early years as a high school student. This happened in my hometown, Kota, in Shiga Prefecture.

The ramen restaurant I worked in was inside a shopping department, and I worked nearly every weekend after school serving customers and operating the register. I was started about 7 and work right up to midnight some nights, cleaning and closing down, usually. Opposite the register, there was a row of seats for anyone in the mall to use who needed to have a break. They were used by everyone, not just customers of our restaurant. My experience happened about a year and a half into working there, making me 17 years old at the time. Also, I'm female by the way.

One day during a lull in my shift, my manager and co-worker approached me and asked, hey Erica, do you have any older friends around here? I was kind of confused by that question but quickly responded with a no because I didn't want to be asked strange questions like that. Both my manager and co-worker shook their heads in what seemed like disagreement or surprise. I wasn't sure which and then my manager said, I see. I had no idea why they had asked me that and I didn't know what they were talking about. I went back to work and shrugged it off and a few weeks later my co-worker came up to me and asked, hey Erica can you please go to the bathroom and come back? It felt odd, but I stood there confused until the manager came over. When I asked them why they wanted me to do this, neither gave me a proper answer,

and the manager just replied, It's fine, it's just an experiment. Can you just go back and forth quickly? I did what they asked, going to the bathroom and coming back. I didn't understand the point of this so-called experiment though. After spending a few seconds in the bathroom, I returned to see concerned looks on both of their faces. My manager then frowned and said, I think you might be being followed by an older man. At first, I didn't understand what they meant.

I guess because I was young and a bit naive, I couldn't process why an older man would be following me, so I asked them. They both subtly glanced towards a row of seats, and I looked in that direction and saw an older man sitting there, looking our way. As soon as he noticed me looking back at him, he turned his head. I had no idea who he was, but I felt pretty creeped out. Clearly, he had been watching us. I asked my co-workers why they thought that he was following me. I mean, sitting outside the store, is that really being followed? I wasn't sure, so I let them explain. Well, every time you're on shift, that guy sits right over there and stares at you. When you leave the store or go to the restroom, he gets up too and starts following you.

It seems like he's stalking you. And it terrified me. But not in the way that a ghost story would. As they say, people are scarier than ghosts. I glanced at him again, wanting to make sure that I didn't know him. As I studied his face, I became certain that he was a complete stranger to me, and that realization left me feeling weird inside, a mix of disgust and numbness. After learning that he had been watching me, I couldn't get it out of my mind for the rest of my shift.

I spent the time either looking over my shoulder or stealing casual glances at him, trying to avoid eye contact though. When my shift ended that night, my co-workers walked part of the way home with me, which I appreciated. But later, when I was alone, I looked over my shoulder and saw that same creepy middle-aged man following me at a distance. And that's when I realized I was being stalked. I managed to get home, but it was nerve-wracking. I didn't know if he just happened to be going the same way, or if he was truly following me. At first, I didn't want to rely solely on my co-workers' suspicions. They weren't detectives, after all. But I gave the man the benefit of the doubt.

However, my thoughts changed when I went to work the following night. The creepy man was back, and at one point I noticed that he was standing uncomfortably close to the bathroom. Then during my break, I went to a nearby convenience store and realized that he was following me again. He watched me enter the store and to my surprise, left shortly after. Feeling relieved to be away from him, I returned to the restaurant. But there he was again, sitting on the seats opposite my work, never taking his eyes off me. I asked my co-workers and manager to keep an eye on him over the coming days because I still wasn't sure what to do. Chillingly, I later heard from a colleague that the stalker had been seen going into the same convenience store right after I left and had bought the exact same things as me.

Apparently, he was even interested in the magazines that I had picked up and flipped through. It was all piling up on me. It felt like he was there from the moment that I started my shift until the moment I finished, but I didn't know what I could accuse him of or how much trouble it might cause me if I did and wasn't taken seriously. At that point I was so creeped out that I began to dread going to the job that I had once enjoyed and I was feeling frightened. My manager must have noticed how anxious I was because he filed a complaint with the security guard, and the security guard approached the creepy guy asking, Excuse me, can you explain what you're doing?

It wasn't aggressive, but it worked. The man, visibly embarrassed, quickly walked away, but my relief was short-lived. The very next day, the man was back, watching me and following me again. This time my manager was furious. He stormed over to the security guard and demanded that he give the man a strong warning. And he was not to return and if he did, he would file a police report. The security guard did just that. Once again, the man got up and left, clearly embarrassed. I hope the threat of a police report had done the

trick, and for the first time in a while I had a peaceful shift, and it felt so good to glance at the seats and see them empty. When my shift ended that night, I headed to the parking lot to get my bicycle. It was always dark down there, especially after a late shift. As I unlocked my bike and tried to push off, it wouldn't move. Confused, I looked back to see if my wheel was caught on something and that's when I saw him. My stalker was standing there, gripping my back tire tightly with both hands, preventing me from leaving. It was terrifying. He seemed to have stepped out of the shadows and I hadn't even realized that he was in the parking lot with me. I was so scared that I couldn't make a sound.

I tried to push off again, but weaker this time, knowing it wouldn't work. And then I heard him muttering something. Why? Why? And something inside me shifted that moment. My fear turned to anger in an instant, and I spun around and yelled at him, What do you think you're doing? Let go of my bike! I didn't expect his response.

Why? Why did you say you were going to the police? What on earth were you thinking? His words creeped me out even more, highlighting how self-centered and delusional he was. It was all about him, with no concern for how his actions had affected me. I shouted back, I'm scared. You creep me out. Let go of my bike. I hoped to embarrass him again because it seemed to work before, but he shouted back louder,

I never put my hands on you. Are you kidding me? You're going to call the cops just because I looked at you? Good luck. His selfishness was appalling. He didn't care how his actions were affecting me, it was all about him. Thankfully, our shouting had drawn the attention of mall security who rushed over. As soon as the creeps saw them, he bolted, running off with his tail between his legs. After that encounter, my boss insisted on police patrols to ensure that if the man showed up again, he would be met by the authorities. Even with the cops around, I couldn't shake the feeling that he might show up at any moment.

I grew paranoid, feeling anxious whenever anyone so much as glanced my way for more than a few seconds. In the end, I had to leave that job. I got into a university hundreds of miles away and honestly, I'm glad I left. Before that creep came along, it had been the best job I ever had, even though some shifts were long and late. What I still have trouble getting over, though, all these years later is the fact that he was angry at me for wanting to report his behavior. He was a glimpse into a solipsistic world, a man with no ethics. He said this to a 17-year-old girl who was scared and tired of being stalked by him. I never put my hands on you, are you kidding me? You're going to call the cops just because I looked at you?

He knew what he was doing He knew to leave when security came and he knew to hide when the police arrived And he knew how to gaslight and manipulate me into thinking that I'd be in the wrong for reporting him All I can say is that I'm very grateful for the people who have helped me through this situation. If it weren't for them, but I'll never forget it. I grew up on the outskirts of Tokyo in the suburbs. It wasn't the nicest of places, it was in an apartment block, but I guess it was what we could afford at the time. The building was old and a little unsafe,

but it was home. In fact, the first floor was a restaurant, a Chinese place, and it didn't have a good reputation. I heard the adults in and around my family speaking about that place from time to time, and they never had anything nice to say about it. They said it was dirty and to be honest it did look dirty. That wasn't the problem though. The restaurant owner's son was the problem. We were about the same age, we were both in elementary school and he didn't go to my school and I'm not even sure that he went to school come to think of it. I never saw him wearing any school uniforms and he seemed to be wearing the same tattered t-shirt and bottoms that I saw him in each day. I saw him pick on kids in the area as well.

Some kids who had learning challenges and that really didn't sit right with me. And I also saw him chasing a cat around with a stick trying to club it. I just had the lowest opinion of that kid from the very beginning. And I'll go further. To be honest, I hated him, and he made me very uncomfortable. And if you don't hate him by now, let me share something extra. You see, one afternoon after school, I was playing with a couple of friends near our building, and there were four of us. Suddenly, the restaurant kid wanders over with his stick. I don't realize that he's coming at the time. I knew that he was there when I felt my

skirt being lifted. I spun around in shock and my friends gasped. I came face to face with that restaurant kid. I shouted at him. I said something like, what do you think you're doing? He looked me in the eyes, not ashamed that he had been caught doing something he shouldn't have. There was no annoyance and instead he was irritated. He was annoyed at how I had reacted and he made this kind of noise, you know, the one that sounds like a tut. I didn't wait for him to say anything else. I just kicked my right foot back at him as hard as I could, and he fell to the ground with a thud and groaned in pain. He looked up at me, and I expected him to lash out, but instead, he grinned. And man, was that grin scary.

I knew at that moment that I had to avoid that kid at all costs. When I was out playing with my friends, if I ever saw that restaurant kid, I would do my best to steer clear of him. We even started hanging out in areas far from my home just on the off chance that we would run into him. But then he began showing up in other places. He always seemed to find my little group and, of course, whenever we saw him, we just scattered like pigeons. We didn't want to be anywhere near him. Sometimes he would sneak up on us without us knowing, try to mess with us, usually when we were at the park. Every kid wanted to be in the park during the summer and

even if he was there I didn't want him to ruin it for me and my friends. And after a while he kind of backed off and seemed content to do his own thing so we stopped avoiding the park. He didn't bother us and we didn't bother him. We used to love playing on that slide and it wasn't just any slide. It was a huge one with tunnels where you could pick up quite a bit of speed and the whole thing was shaped like a whale and we thought that it was absolutely great. Now one day as we arrived and climbed the stairs to the slide we noticed four bottles of juice at the top and there was a note under the bottles written on a torn piece of paper

and it read, free, please take, and very bad handwriting. One of my friends started yelling and celebrating stuff saying things like, wow, we got something for free. But I was more cautious. I told them to be careful. My parents had always warned me not to pick up things off the streets and this felt like one of those situations, so I wanted no part of it. One of my friends, Alice, had said something like, what are you worried about? It's for us. And she picked up a bottle of juice. Two of my other friends joined her and suddenly I felt like a stick in the mud for not joining in.

They each grabbed a bottle and called out, Are you sure you don't want any? Alice looked at me, and she was annoyed that I wasn't going to join in as she unscrewed the cap of her bottle. She was the first to start drinking the juice, throwing her head back and gulping it down. She managed about three gulps before it happened. She leaned forward and started spitting out the juice, or rather,

throwing it up. She was projectile vomiting like something out of The Exorcist, and then she started coughing heavily and we all laughed it off, saying, that's what you get for chugging it. But there was one problem. She didn't stop coughing. We all stared at her, collectively thinking, that's a lot of coughing, when's it going to end? Then I broke the silence and asked, are you okay? She didn't respond. She kept coughing and spluttering. It was no longer funny. She was spitting and when I saw her spit hit the ground, it looked brown. I looked at her and saw that foamy brown spittle was trailing from the corners of her mouth and something was very wrong. We started screaming and panic hit us like a wave and we were all shouting for Alice's attention, each of us wanting her to say that she was fine. Alice looked up at us, clutching her chest,

and the last thing we heard her say was, hot, hot, mom, as she thrashed around. An older woman, who had seen us crying and wailing, rushed over and asked what had happened. The only thing we could tell her was that Alice drank the juice that we found at the top of the slide, and as we panicked and explained, we saw a look of horror across the woman's face. She dug out a flip phone from her purse and called for an ambulance. Us young girls couldn't do anything but freak out. Yet, amidst all this chaos, I felt like I needed to turn away from Alice, as if someone was watching me. I turned to meet the eyes of the restaurant kid.

He was crouching behind some plants in the park. It was summer and the grass was higher than usual. The restaurant kid was squatting down, watching our panic, smiling, so pleased with himself. My other two friends, and of course not Alice, didn't notice him, but I sure did. And as soon as he realized that I had spotted him, he ran. Moments later, the ambulance arrived for Alice. My parents and the paramedics asked me very serious questions, but I couldn't answer. It was all just some blur. I was so scared for my friend. I thought that when she left in that ambulance it might be the last time that I ever saw her. Fortunately, it wasn't. She made a recovery and was even back at school after a week or two. And later we found out that the juice that she drank wasn't just juice. It had been laced with pesticides. No one knew who would

put those bottles on the slide. I heard words like random and no motive thrown around a lot. In the end, they never caught the person who left the pesticide-laced juice on the slide, but I knew who did it. I just couldn't prove it. I was a kid and didn't know what I could do about it. I was just really glad Alice was back at school and safe. I guess I was also a little scared to come forward with my theory about who did it. I was afraid that if I told anyone, he would try to hurt me or my friends again. We all got a lecture about not touching things that aren't ours or accepting gifts from strangers. And a few months later the restaurant on the bottom floor of our building went out of business or moved, I don't know which. It became

a convenience store. I think no one missed that restaurant or that family to be honest. I have no idea where that kid went. I just know that he probably didn't stop there. And he might be out there doing worse things than poisoning little girls at the park. This happened when I was in the third grade of elementary school. I think it wasn't long after I had turned eight years old. My family and I were all out on a drive one weekend afternoon and it was bright and a sunny day. I remember we were going to see our cousins and I was really looking forward to it. We didn't end up making it to our destination that day. We got into a car crash, a really bad one. An oncoming car in the opposite lane had swerved over the central line

and came into our lane. The car hit us head on and our car was smashed backwards into the border at the side of the road. We were on the sticks in the mountains and we were hit with such force that we crashed beyond the guardrail and we ended up rear-ending the rocky outcrops of a mountain that we were passing under. I looked up to see that my mother who was driving was slumped forward in her chair. Her arms hung motionlessly at her sides. She was still in her chair though. My grandma was in the back and when we finally came to a stop, she had her head against the back of the driver's seat and she wasn't moving. My grandma was in the back and when we finally came to a stop, her head was pressed against the back of the driver's seat and she wasn't moving.

My sister was also in the car lying face down in the footwell of the driver's seat and she wasn't moving. My sister was also in the car lying face down in the footwell of the back seats. She was in an awkward position and wasn't moving either. As for me, I had insisted on riding shotgun so I was in the passenger seat. The first thing I felt was pain in my leg. It felt like my leg was stuck at a weird angle and I couldn't move. I looked forward towards the front of the car and the hood was completely destroyed. Black smoke billowed out from the crumpled metal and the windshield was smashed and the cracks in the glass made it look like the biggest spider web I had ever seen at that age. There was blood inside the car, a lot of it.

I could see it, smell it, and it felt as if I could almost taste it. I wasn't sure if I was bleeding at that point. As I mentioned before, we crashed on a mountain road. Numerous cars were passing by since it wasn't exactly a quiet road. It wasn't the kind of road with a sidewalk either. There was nowhere for people to walk alongside it. There weren't even houses in the area, it was just a stretch of highway. Cars kept passing by and I didn't know what to do other than call out for help. I was panicking, as you can probably imagine, because I seemed to be the only one in the car who was conscious. Fear consumed me in those moments.

I don't think I was even shouting words, I was just making as much noise as possible in the hope that someone would hear. I was so scared but even though I was utterly terrified, there was one thing about that day that scared me even more. The scariest thing of all was the fact that no one pulled over to see if we were okay. No one stopped. I can't forget the faces I saw through the blood-stained, shattered glass. They just stared. I know some of them must have heard me screaming because they slowed down and rolled their windows down.

The people passing along the highway just looked our way with half-hearted interest or morbid curiosity. Why didn't they stop to see if we were okay? And I still can't understand that. They didn't care. They just left us there while the smoke grew blacker and blacker, and I felt salty tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I felt so helpless. In the car, no one showed any signs of waking up, and I couldn't move.

My leg had hurt at first, but now it was numb, and I felt utterly helpless. After about 15 minutes passed, or at least that's my best estimate, it could have been longer, my voice was getting hoarse from all the screaming and shouting. More cars passed and still no one stopped. And I was beyond scared. I was, I guess, hopeless. But then I heard someone shouting and coming towards our car. Miraculously, two guys, who I can only assume were out on a hike in the nearby mountain area, came rushing over. Those middle-aged hikers were like guardian angels that day. They called for an ambulance and waited with us.

Although my mother was bleeding profusely, her wounds weren't life-threatening and she needed stitches, though. My sister got away with just a couple of stitches but she was badly bruised and had lots of minor cuts and I thought I was going to lose my leg but it wasn't that bad, it was just fractured. Unfortunately, my grandma didn't make it. She had suffered a collapsed skull as a result of the crash. The car that crashed into us belonged to an elderly couple and I still remember what the old man looked like. He had a really red face. It looked like he'd been drinking or something and I saw him at the hospital that we all ended up at. He nodded at us when I saw him

and said something like, oh you guys made it. I guess that means you're all good. That's great. Just like the passersby on the highway, his interest in the damage that he caused was minimal. I learned something horrible about people that day. Indifference in Japan can be truly chilling. I went to a wedding of my friend Courtney about two days ago and I still can't shake my mind over what happened. For context, I grew up in a very religious household and went to a church every Sunday and Courtney is probably the only person from my old church that I still keep in contact with. The situation started at the reception. Courtney was super excited to see me and was definitely the only person who felt that way judging from all the stares from the people at my old church. I sat down at my table and started playing something on my phone when some guy sat next to me. He said

that the seating chart said that he was supposed to sit at my table and introduced himself as the groom's friend, Anthony. He was pretty cute so I spent a lot of time talking to him and we really hit it off. He didn't seem to judge me for being an atheist and seemed genuinely interested in me. When the dance started, they started playing brown eyed girl and he offered to dance with me. And we danced together for most of the night until we left to go to the bathroom and a little later I did too. When I came out, I saw that my purse wasn't on the table which was weird because I swore that I left it on there. I was tired and thought that I had just left it in my car so I went to the parking lot and

into my car to look for it and found it was on the center console. I still thought it was weird because I really thought that I had brought it inside but at that point it was really late in the night so I didn't think much of it. I danced some more and noticed that Anthony was gone. I asked the groom who said that he had gone home because he wasn't feeling too good. And pretty soon I felt pretty sick too so I said bye to Courtney and went to my car. As I put my keys into the ignition I looked behind me and saw something weird. It looked like someone had ducked down from the trunk. I took my keys out and looked back there and that's when I saw him. Anthony was crouched down in the trunk of my car.

I started screaming and ran out with him chasing after me. I went inside and told Courtney who immediately told her husband who walked me back to my car where Anthony was nowhere to be seen. Courtney's husband said that he didn't see his car anywhere so he probably left. And I left. I still felt sick to my stomach thinking about it. He could have easily gone home with me and killed me if I hadn't looked back. Courtney said that she feels terrible that she invited him and that she had no idea that he would do something like that. And I haven't stepped out of my house since because I'm worried that if I do that he'll be waiting for me like he was before. Now update. The last couple of days have been kind of crazy so I haven't had the chance

to look but thank you all for your advice that I wish I'd have known about earlier. Unfortunately my address was on my ID and as I learn now Anthony took photos of it. Anthony and the groom aren't exactly friends but they know each other well enough for him to be invited. After the whole fiasco the groom tried to text Anthony about it but got no response. Anthony showed up at my job and lurked around the parking lot before he ran off when he saw security, and he left me a note on my windshield that was just saying something like, watching. Security at my job had been notified about him so hopefully I'm safe there, and I was told by other people that went to the wedding that he was introducing himself as my boyfriend,

and that he was planning on proposing. I'm currently trying to file a restraining order against this guy, but I just feel horrified. He lives in my city, and knows where I live, so I'm staying in my aunt's house as I speak, and if anything happens, I'll update again. Admittedly, I've been a lurker on this sub for a few years now. The End I'm not sure if it makes me a messed up person, but I typically tell this story at parties to manipulate drunk acquaintances into thinking that I've survived something cool. So, let's get into it. In 2015, I was 19 and working the summer at a Bible camp for inner city kids. I'm going to leave out the city name, but just know that obviously crime occurs frequently in big cities and this one was no different. I had been assured that this neighborhood, however, was in the process of being gentrified and they had even just opened up a hipster coffee shop slash dog park right down the street.

And just to give you a really clear visual, this neighborhood had dilapidated houses with trash out in the front right next to the houses with immaculate yards and square modern architecture. The Bible camp where I was working was essentially just a huge two-story house with a large fenced-in yard. Again, we were assured that we were safe though because we had bars on the windows and the outer doors locked automatically when they shut. The camp was conducted downstairs and the summer counselors, there were four of us, lived in the small upstairs that was off limits during the day to the kids. Our camp ran five days a week, 8am to 4pm, then time was ours to explore the city or rest or

whatever. Probably enough to get to the story now. I love a good setting and it could be important later. Now one weekend night in July we were all just hanging out in the house and making a spaghetti dinner. We each got our own stipend for food so we divided it accordingly for meals then brought our own snacks and stuff. We were also in charge of preparing lunch and snacks for the kids on camp days so we had two fridges and two pantries and And as you can probably guess, we labeled them camp fridge and pantry and one is labeled staff fridge and pantry. We also were super petty and wrote out our names all over our snacks in the fridge. My best friend worked at

the camp with me and we'll call her Chris and it was our turn to cook that night so I went into the staff fridge to grab the ground beef. I immediately noticed that my case of Go-Gurts is gone. They were my go-to snack and I brought like three cases a week. I had just opened my last box like an hour before to have one and left it in front of the ground beef and it sounds crazy but I knew I did. I close the fridge door and head to the dining room. Chris is closely behind me and yell at everyone, who stole all my go-gurt? And that night, in addition to Chris and myself, there were the two other summer counselors, two permanent

counselors that live in the area and then the cousin of one of the permanent counselors. Everyone looked at me wide-eyed then looked around blankly. I figured it was the cousin because I had never met her before so I sucked it up and said, whatever. Just, if it has a name on it, please don't eat it. And then pull Chris back into the kitchen to finish up the spaghetti. We all eat dinner and then the two permanent counselors volunteer to do the dishes because we let them eat with us, and the rest of us head back upstairs to get comfy in the sitting room on the couches and turn on Family Guy. We're only like two minutes in when the cousin, we'll call her Sarah, says, wait, I can't find my phone or wallet. I pause the show and roll my eyes, still annoyed about the Go-Gurt, and Chris says, where did you last have them?

And Sarah says she left them on the couch before we went downstairs to have dinner. Naturally, we all start looking around the small room, turning over couch cushions, looking under the couches, behind them, under blankets, really wherever. And finally, we're like, are you sure you didn't leave them downstairs? She agrees to head downstairs to look with the other two and Chris and I go into our room which is connected to the sitting room and we flop down on the bottom of our bunk bed and I proceeded to talk crap about Sarah who I feel like is kind of ruining our chill night. Our door is open and I'm shocked when I see a hand kind of sneak into view

like it's going to grab the door frame. I say, hey, did you find them? Thinking that Sarah or the other two have somehow made it back upstairs without me hearing them and having heard me talking crap for the past five minutes. But the hand immediately disappears out of the door frame and there's no response. I look at Chris like what the hell is that and she's looking back at me confused because she never saw the hand. I quickly explain what happened and then we both jump up and head to the top of the stairs. We yell down for the others and they yell back that they haven't found them yet and by this point I'm freaked out because who was up here with us?

Of course we're those people though and we start looking around upstairs in our bedroom, the other bedroom and the sitting room, and we find nothing and no one. We decide not to say anything yet because I might sound insane and also could someone have gotten downstairs so fast without us hearing them? When we get downstairs Sarah is super upset and crying and her cousin says, come on guys, did someone take her stuff? But Chris and I both knew that we didn't and we say so. Sarah screams that obviously someone took them and we should just be honest and then things get heated. I finally decide then to tell them about the hand because I feel like it might reduce

the tension between us. And it does, but then everyone panics. We run around the house like maniacs looking at every closet or hiding space that the kids use and find nothing and no one, and we end up calling our camp director to come over because the situation has just devolved into chaos. When he gets there, we're all sitting huddled in the foyer, freaked out, and we explain what we can. He just doesn't seem convinced that someone was in the house and threatens to call the cops if one of us doesn't give Sarah back her things. Well, none of us fesses up so we call the cops and they come over and search the property and take our statements. It seems so dumb as we repeat our stories but we didn't have much to go off of but a feeling. They do write a

report for stolen property and that makes Sarah feel at least a little better. With the house secure, everyone leaves except us four summer counselors who live there. We spend the night in the same room with the door barricaded reassuring ourselves that we're being stupid and the phone and wallet will actually turn up somewhere random and we'll just laugh about it. Fast forward a few days, we've relaxed a bit and we haven't found Sarah's things like we expected but nothing else weird has happened and we've been occupied with the kids and the job in general. The kids have all gone home at this point and it's just the four of us again in the house. We finish cleaning up outside, lock the gate and head into the dining

room door. We're all hungry and we want snacks and Chris gets to the kitchen first and says, someone left the kitchen door open again. I mean it's kind of weird but kids go in and out of that door all day so of all the doors to be open, this is the least weird. She shuts it, and then I notice that the staff fridge door is also cracked open. And then who knows what possessed me, but I go, oh no, y'all, he's back. And we all laugh because we think this is ridiculous, and Chris grabs a broom, holds it as a weapon, and says, Let's get him, girls. She starts to throw open the pantry door, screaming, Where you at?

And we know you're in here, show yourself. I'm following behind her, laughing, but I start to inexplicably feel uneasy and nervous, and she continues her charade into the next room, throwing open two more closet doors, and then moves into the front room and opens that closet door. She starts another confident, We know you're- When she stops mid-sentence and screams so loudly, the skin on my neck prickles.

She then throws the broom into the closet and sprints out of the front door, leaving it open. And my heart is pounding so hard at this point but I'm thinking she's messing with us so I turn around and go the other way into the foyer and out the front door. I see her booking it down the street towards the coffee shop and I'm like, okay, what is she doing? As soon as I turn back around to find the others, he's just there. An older man, looks really dirty, has hardly any teeth, and he's just grinning at me. He has his hands up and says, I didn't mean no harm, while slowly backing down the street in the other direction. It's so creepy because even though he says it like that, it doesn't seem like he means it. It's like his tone and the grin are mocking me,

and I'm frozen for a second and then I sputter out, you can't just leave, and he just says again with a goddamn grin, I didn't mean no harm, and then turns and runs. I fumble in my pocket for my phone and dial 911 then go to follow him but as soon as I reach the edge of the house, he's gone. Next events are kind of a blur. Sounds wild but we really all thought that we just freaked ourselves out. No way in hell did we actually think someone was in the house. And the cops took our statements and reminded us that we needed to keep the door shut at all times no matter what. Our director apologized profusely for initially not believing us. And my parents wanted me to come back home for the remainder of the summer, but I was like, eh, what else could happen?

Chris was the one who had it worse, though. She was terrified to stay in that house, and she told me later that when she opened the door, he was just grinning at her with these sort of dead eyes, like he was waiting for her to finally find him. She said that she'll never forget his face. Now, we're still best friends at almost 30, and I can't bring up that summer to her if she hasn't been drinking. And that's basically it. I think what kept me up at night after that were just the unanswered questions. Like how long had he been in the house?

Why did he randomly decide to take the phone and wallet of the one person who didn't work there? Had he listened to our private conversations? Watched us get dressed and showered? How much food had he stolen that we didn't work there? Had he listened to our private conversations? Watched us get dressed and showered? How much food had he stolen that we didn't notice? And where had he gone when we were looking for him on spaghetti night? What hiding places did we miss? Was he under my bed at night or at any point during my stay? I don't know all these answers and I'll know I'll never have them, but I guess I'm just thankful our interaction wasn't worse. I just woke up in the middle of the night remembering this and needed to get it off my chest. When I was about 16, my father, brothers and I lived in an old run-down house in the middle of nowhere.

It was a private rental. My brother would do work for the landlord to pay our rent. Our landlord never came off as particularly creepy, but that could be because I rarely went outside when he came over to talk to my dad, and he wouldn't dare do anything in front of my father. I was home alone one day. My dad and brothers went out somewhere, I don't remember exactly where, and I had my dog in a fenced-in yard outside, but that was it. I was in my room doing whatever I was doing, probably playing The Sims 2, and we lived in the middle of nowhere, and there was a long driveway which the window of my bedroom directly faced. I couldn't see or hear anyone driving up the driveway.

I saw a car, not my dad's, and kind of immediately freaked out. I ran and shut all the blinds in the house and turned off all the lights and checked the doors, making sure that they were locked. It was our landlord. He lived next door, about two miles from our house, and yes, that was the closest house. This wasn't the first time that he'd come here unexpectedly. It happened twice before and both times I was home alone. Those first two times he was only there for 10 minutes, walking around the outside of the house and then quickly leaving, but this time was different. I grabbed a big kitchen knife and hid under the kitchen table. I heard him pull up

outside and open our front gate. My dog outside was going crazy and barking and I heard him yell, Shut up, you mutt. And I could hear his footsteps walking up to the door. He tried to open the front door and I was freaking out. At this point I texted my dad and he was coming straight home but they'd be like an hour. He continued to walk around the outside of our house trying to peek into each window. The house is old and has three doors that you can enter from the outside and he tried to open all three. I thought maybe that he didn't know that I was home. Maybe the last two times

were just a coincidence but he started saying things including calling out my name and he knew that I was home alone. I couldn't hear what else he was saying through the double brick walls, but I quietly creeped through the house following his voice up and down the hallway. I was trying to hear what he was saying, and that's when he said something that I'll never forget. I'm gonna burn this house down, but I'll let you out first. Of course, I didn't take him seriously, which scares me even more. He wanted me to come out. He wanted me to take his threat seriously, and that's the part that gets me. I know exactly what would have happened if I had believed him, and my life would have been completely different. He was there for at least a half an hour,

maybe closer to an hour and he was very persistent and he left before my dad came home. I told him everything and we moved out soon after. I still don't know how he knew that I was home alone and my dad never saw him on the way driving out so he knew my dad was gone because there was no car in the driveway. But how did he know I wasn't with him? And why did he act like that? I'm 22 years old. We used to have a neighbor who was around 60 to 70 years old, and he died a few years ago. When he was still alive, he would cause us so much trouble.

Scratched our car, poisoned our apple trees and grass, blew up a firework near me to cause me to temporarily go deaf on one ear when I was like four, all kinds of things. This son was a judge in our city so pretty much everything we took to court was against us. And I remember dad often called us from work to tell us not to be alone at home and we would have to stay at grandma's. When I was little, I think about six or seven, I would frequently have nightmares about seeing a face outside the bathroom window. The window is above our bathtub. It's high enough that no one can actually see in unless they climb the roof on our shed, which is underneath the bathroom window in our garden.

Coincidentally, the shed is directly next to a fence that separates our garden from the neighbor's one. I still remember the dreams. I remember having them pretty much every other night, and I never told my parents when I was little because we never really talked about anything, so I didn't really share anything that was happening to me. Well, I grew up thinking that they were just dreams and that was it. I did mention them to my therapist last year because we were discussing some personal problems and I felt like this was kind of connected. After coming home, mom asked me what I talked about with my therapist so I finally shared that I used to have such dreams.

I never really thought about them being real, but she told me that I actually did tell her that I saw our neighbor on our shed's roof. I don't remember telling her that but she said that I did mention it several times and even my friends told her that they saw him there when they came over to our house and it really creeped them out. Apparently I never mentioned him watching me in the shower but after she told me that it really clicked for me and it was as if I suddenly remembered that yeah, I do think it was him. It would make sense. And the fact that it happened still creeps me out. There was another incident that creeped me out too and it happened when I

was around 9 to 10. I went to the balcony in the evening and the balcony door was in my room and I often went there to call my cat home in the evening. But this time I saw a person standing in the middle of our garden. It was already dark out and I couldn't really tell who it was. I waited for a little bit to see what the person does but I didn't really see him move. It was as if he was just standing there and staring in front of him. I called out, Dad? Because obviously I expected it to be him, even though I found it odd. But the person looked up at me and even though it was dark,

I could tell it was someone else. I think it was partly because my eyes had just adjusted to the dark and I could make out the silhouette of the person better. And I went to tell my dad who was downstairs, but when he looked, there was no one there. When I went back upstairs to my room and went to the balcony again, I noticed my neighbor's back door closing just when I looked there. I don't remember if it was directly the next day or a few days later, but our grass turned brown and we found out it was poisoned, most of the grass being out of reach from his property. I live in a very rural area in Tennessee, and this happened either in the summer of 92 or 93, so I was a preteen, and I can still see this in my mind like it happened yesterday. Like I said before, a rural area in Tennessee where we used to have some serious issues

with people dumping unwanted, worn out items and garbage down on our beautiful hillsides and ravines. At that time, it was common to find illegal dumping sites everywhere because there was no bulk pickup offered by our one-waste disposal monopoly. And in this part of the state, the economic disparity is obvious. You have some of the poorest people and some multiple mansion and vacation home folks. My family fell somewhere in the upper middle class. Thinking Titanic, we would be in either the lowest rung of first class or the very top of second class.

Unfortunately, the majority would be in steerage or the coal bunker. Well, it was August in Tennessee, aka sun-scorching heat and enough humidity to make it slightly uncomfortable to breathe. Many describe it as the swamp-ass capital of the state. Anyway, we had just had an extraordinarily rare murder in our county. It was all that anyone was talking about, and it was all you heard in our churches and beauty salons. The victim was largely unknown, a woman in her early thirties and nowhere near wealthy. I didn't know her, nor did anyone. She had just moved here less than a year ago and kept to herself and had not been reported missing.

Then just before our summer break came to an end, this lady was found at the base of a steep incline, deep in one of our densely wooded areas by some folks out for a nature hike. And there she was found, at the base of a large illegal dump on a winding dirt road that was barely wide enough for one vehicle. If you ever met another car, one would have to pull over so far you were almost off the road entirely. Even creepier, the road was named Bone Road. Yeah. When she was found, she had lost everything from the neck up, but both her upper and lower areas were recovered, and her killer had not been caught. So my mom was born and raised here and was of a strong yet goofy stock. She had always been my best buddy, even when

dropping the hammer on my brother and me, and she was loved by every student that she had ever taught. Our friends adored my goofy mama, often telling me how lucky I was to have her. My dad was a pharmacist in our area, smarter than most, and happy to go fill a lost or forgotten prescription even late into the night. My dad isn't from here, but is very well known because of his job. Everyone knows my mama because she and most of our huge family have been here since our ancestors settled here in the 1800s. The rest of her family lived in Middle Tennessee. On that day in August, we had been in a family reunion picnic at the beautiful, naturally made lake that we lived near.

Suddenly, a scattered thunderstorm had popped up and brought our get-together to an end. It was just me and my mom, but on the ride home, we decided that we were Sherlock Holmes and Watson. We wanted to see the crime scene. I know, brilliant. My dad was at work and my brother was with a friend. And this was 92 or 93, so no GPS, Alexa, Siri, or Google Earth, not even MapQuest. My dad was on our school board and had been given a highly detailed map of our entire county. Since neither of us knew how to reach Bone Road, it was agreed that the map would be our guide.

We went home, grabbed the map, and set out like we were Magellan, and we eventually found the place and headed to the spot. Being the ignorant rubberneckers that we were, we just planned to drive past this stupid dump site. I can't explain how creepy this place was though. A murder dump in the middle of BFE, on a road that started with blacktop, transitioned to gravel, and then good old dirt. It was mid-afternoon, but the sudden rain on the August ground made the area steamy. Literal steam was emanating from the road, the fields, the woods, and everywhere, and that just added to the thrill of her folly. And as we approached the location, there was a blind curve, making it impossible to see the place until we were right up on it. When we rounded that corner, we saw that we weren't alone.

A very dirty man had his very dirty truck pulled over at the dump just far enough to allow us to pass. Sure, Joe Dirt could have been just another looky-loo like us, but he gave off a creepy vibe. Just standing by his truck, looking down into the dump site, it wasn't a sheriff's officer, and we know all our local authorities and they had cleared the location a day or so before anyone could access the area. And as we squeezed past his truck, He was standing on the passenger side of our car. I'm 12 or 13, I can't drive, so he was on my side as we passed, so close to him that I could see his two teeth clear as day. He just smiled in his uber-creeptastic, almost leering way. Not nice, not friendly. We got past and thanked the lord that Mr. Two-Tooth hadn't followed us, and we agreed that we could reach the end of Bone Road and just get the hell out of there.

Oh, you know there's a but. We reached the end of Bone Road, ending at a field. And Bone Road was a dead end, no pun intended. My mom said the words that I had been screaming in my head. Oh, F. We had no choice. We had to do a five-point turn to go back from where we came. I bet he's gone now, my mom's feeble attempt to soothe us both. And guess what? He was still there, still smiling his huge two tooth smile.

And now as my adult self reflected on this, he could have come after us, knowing that we would be cornered, but neither of us have ever been accused of being too rational. We made it out unscathed, of course, and my dad hit the roof when he heard the tapestry of idiocy our afternoon adventure was. But you know there's always a but. Days later, our newspaper heralded the good news, that that murderer was caught. The woman had been killed by a boyfriend turned stalker. She had moved here from a town about 45 minutes away to get away from him, but he had found her. He just drove around with her body in his truck before happening upon this dump site. Happily ever after, not quite. And as we stared down at this guy's mugshot, it was real.

Mr. Two-Tooth was her killer. We never told my dad that part. Mr. Two-Tooth was convicted of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. He'll die in the state prison system serving life with no parole. Still, Mom and I promised that we would never be so dumb again. We still have weird adventures, but not to freaky remote murder dump sites on unknown terrain and with no one knowing where we are. We really could have met our literal dead end. It's an odd thing, knowing that you had been face to face with a brutal

murderer, not once, but twice. To be continued... dad when I was in elementary school. We lived in an apartment. My dad wasn't rich and neither was his family, but I wouldn't say that we were poor either. I felt like I had a normal lifestyle. This happened when I was in the sixth grade, so around 11 years old. After school, I had volleyball practice and afterwards I usually walked home. I'm a girl by the way and usually a friend walked home with me, but that day she was out sick, so I had to walk alone. I left school at around 5pm, which was later than usual for me. Since it was winter, it was already dark. The walk from school to our apartment was about 25 minutes, and because we lived in a rural area, there weren't many streetlights.

I was scared of walking home alone at that age, so I tried to go as fast as I could. Even though I was tired from practice, I felt like I was keeping a decent pace, and about five minutes into my walk, I noticed a man in his thirties walking behind me. Normally, it wouldn't have felt like a big deal if it were daytime, but since it was dark and I was alone, I was very nervous, and my heart was starting to pound. What if I get abducted? Like on the news, I wondered. Feeling paranoid, I quickened my pace. I didn't know if it was my imagination, but it seemed like when I sped up, so did he. In my rural town, you didn't see many people out after dark. Most people were at home relaxing by then,

and that's how I saw it, at least. I kept thinking if something happened to me, no one would be around to help or even notice. And the more I allowed these frightening thoughts to enter my mind, the faster I walked. I was almost home when I reached a red light at the intersection across from my street. I used the opportunity to check behind me. The man who I thought had been following me wasn't there anymore, and I felt relieved and assumed that I'd been overthinking. I slowed down to my usual walking speed. I crossed the road and turned toward our apartment, but when I looked back one last time, the man was there again, and the sight of him gave me goosebumps. Freaked out, I broke into a sprint.

I ran upstairs to our apartment, scrambled to get my keys out of my bag and quickly unlocked the door before rushing inside. We lived on the second floor. I went straight to the bedroom and cautiously opened the curtains a little to look outside and the man was standing on the street staring up at me. I was terrified and couldn't bring myself to look away. I just stood there, watching him until he slowly walked away from our building. About two hours after the man left, my dad came home from work. I desperately wanted to tell him what had happened, but I didn't want to worry him. He always seemed stressed, so I just kept quiet. A month passed, and I thought about that day often, but nothing else happened to make me feel scared or anxious. Then, about two months after that incident, on a Sunday morning at around 8

a.m., someone rang our buzzer. My dad was getting ready for work, so I went to the door and looked through the peephole. Two men in suits were standing outside. I called out and asked who they were. One of the men said that they were from City Hall so naturally I opened the door. And as soon as I did, one of the men stuck his foot in the doorway to prevent me from closing it and I was terrified. We're here to have a difficult conversation with your father, one of the men said. Is he here? I didn't know what else to do, so I called my dad.

When he came to the door, it seemed like he recognized the two men, and he turned to me and said, Go wait in the kitchen. My dad's mood shifted drastically after seeing them. I wanted to know who they were and why they needed to talk to him, so I lingered in the hallway, listening. I didn't make it to the kitchen, and my dad must have noticed because he suggested to the men, gentlemen, shall we talk outside? They stepped outside and my dad followed, shutting the door behind him. They talked for about an hour and I couldn't hear anything. When my dad finally came back in, he was quiet and I asked him about the men. Were those guys from City Hall? I asked.

It's not a big deal. Everything is fine. He said. And that was the end of the conversation. He didn't want to discuss it any further. Three days later, I woke up for school as usual. I expected to see my dad rushing around getting ready for work, but the apartment was unusually quiet. I called out for him, but there was no reply. I assumed that he had already left for work, so I didn't think much of it and headed to school. That evening, I came home and waited for my dad to return.

An hour passed, and then two, and and then three but he still wasn't home. By 9pm I was looking through the fridge for dinner and after a poor excuse of a meal I went to bed hoping everything would be back to normal in the morning. But when I woke up I already knew before I even got out of bed that my dad still wasn't home. The apartment felt too quiet and I remember it was a Saturday and there was no school. I usually like to sleep in on the weekends but I couldn't rest very easy, not knowing where my dad was. At around 7am I got a call from my aunt, my father's brother's wife. Are you okay? I'm coming to pick you up now, she said. About 30 minutes later, she arrived and rang the buzzer, and she told me to pack some clothes and things I needed for school.

And confused, I did as she asked. After I packed, she told me that I'd be staying at her place for the night, and we got in the car and drove to her house. When we arrived, I saw my uncle sitting with a glass of whiskey, looking very serious. He was bald, and if my dad ever lost all of his hair, they'd look nearly identical. He didn't mince words. He simply said, You'll be staying here from now on.

Sorry, but your dad's not coming home anymore. You'll have to go to school from here. Tearful and upset, I kept asking why. And finally he said, it looks like your dad was in a lot of debt. As the days, weeks, and months passed, I pieced together what had happened. My dad had either left me in the middle of the night or had been taken away by debt collectors. I'm sure the man who followed me home that day was a debt collector, and those two men who came to the door pretending to be from City Hall were debt collectors too.

And that all happened a long time ago. I haven't seen my dad in 15 years. I feel a lot of different emotions about everything and I'm not always sure how to express them. I've heard a rumor that my dad is now disabled and living in an institution, but it's just a rumor. Even if I knew where to find him, I'm not sure if I would. I usually read scary stories online, and I just wanted to share mine. My dad disappeared in the middle of the night when I was in elementary school, and even if I knew where to find him, I'm not sure if I would. I've had some pretty creepy experiences in my life and many of them still live with me, re-emerging when the lights go out. By that, I mean I am essentially haunted by their memory.

One experience in particular stands out. I remember being home alone and hearing a woman's voice. I couldn't make out what she was saying. She was mumbling and sobbing. It was terrifying and I just ran straight out of the house. On another occasion, I was home alone and the door to the living room slowly creaked open by itself. I immediately got to my feet to see who was there, but of course, no one was. I don't know if I'm susceptible to paranormal stuff, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a believer. But talking about the paranormal isn't why I'm here today.

I want to share with you the scariest experience I've ever had, which happened when I moved into an apartment to live alone for the first time in my life. This happened three years ago, just after I had moved in. Picture a room with just the bare essentials, furniture, and a lot of cardboard boxes. I was too tired to unpack so I thought that I'd do it the following morning, and after positioning my armchair at the perfect angle for the TV, I collapsed into it and relaxed. I must have dozed off because I was suddenly awakened by a strange noise. I heard laughter coming from the opposite side of the living

room wall. I only heard it once, or at least I think I did, so I chalked it up to being half asleep. I didn't make a big deal out of it and got up and went to bed. The next morning, as I was making breakfast, I heard another noise from the wall opposite my living room, and it was that same laughter. A weird thought crossed my mind. Was the person next door laughing at me? I need to give you some context here though. When you think of laughter, you probably imagine sitcom laughter, you know, like a live audience laughing at something funny. But this laugh wasn't like that. It wasn't someone laughing at a TV show. It was deliberate and unsettling,

like something out of a horror movie, almost like the Joker. It creeped me out. I hadn't introduced myself to my neighbors yet, and since it's customary in Japan to greet neighbors when you move in, I figured now was a good time. At least I knew the guy next door was home, judging by that laugh, and I was sure it was a man based on the sound. So I went outside and rang the doorbell. I waited a couple of moments, but no one answered. Just as I was about to give up and go back inside, one of the other neighbors came out of their apartment, and he looked like he was heading to work. No one's lived there for a long time, he said.

As you can imagine, that was strange to hear considering I had just heard someone laughing next door. I introduced myself but kept the laughter to myself and I chalked it up to another paranormal encounter. Great, I thought. Trust me to live next to a haunted apartment. Normally I would have freaked out and wanted to move immediately, but since I had previous run-ins with ghosts, I decided to stick it out. Nothing much happened, except for hearing that strange laughter now and then over the following days. Who cares about a little laughter though, anyway, you're probably telling yourself. Well, three months went by quickly and aside from the occasional laughter, things were uneventful. And then after that three month mark, I started hearing a new noise. It was a strange clanking sound coming from the living room wall.

The laughter was one thing, but a clanking, banging sound was a bit too much. I thought about moving, but honestly I was just too lazy to pack everything up and find a new place. I stalled and eventually learned to live with the noise. Life got in the way and I was out more than I was in anyway. One weekend, either a Saturday or Sunday, I got so annoyed by that noise that I decided to kick the wall where the sound was coming from. In my head I thought it was pointless, kick the wall where the sound was coming from. In my head I thought it was pointless, kicking the wall wouldn't bother a ghost. But I kicked it anyway, and I wasn't prepared for what happened next. I heard a distinct male voice shouting,

Whoa! Followed by the sound of something crashing. What the hell is going on, I thought. I froze. I didn't expect to provoke a reaction from a ghost. Then, reality hit me. Occam's Razor. There wasn't a ghost next door. Maybe someone had been living there without the landlord's knowledge, possibly squatting. I wasn't about to ring the doorbell again, but I knew someone who would. The police. I called the cops and they arrived quickly. I heard them try the door and go inside. There was a commotion, a heated exchange, and some screaming. It turned out that someone had

been living next door, and I found out later that a middle-aged man had been staying there, even though the apartment was supposed to be empty. Apparently, the man was under the influence of illicit substances, and when the police busted in, he went on a rampage, kicking and screaming. It turned out that he was the landlord's son. His father had allowed him to use the apartment to do whatever he did in there because of his struggles with addiction, and I was furious. I had been paying rent while this guy came and went as he pleased, laughing like a maniac. That laugh creeped me out, but it wasn't nearly as terrifying as what I later realized the clanking sound was. That sound was him digging a kitchen knife into the

drywall that separated our apartments. There were tons of holes on his side of the wall, and it seemed like he was trying to break through into my living room. And after that, I moved out. I got my deposit back and was forgiven a couple of weeks of rent, which, in my opinion, was the least they could do. Although I've had my run-ins with the paranormal, the fear that I feel when I remember that man slashing at the wall is unmatched, and I dread pick up a handgun that I had recently purchased for protection. Contrary to the pickup status both online and sent to my email, the store didn't have it in

stock yet and told me to come back in another week. I lived about an hour from Lacey at the time and when I had gotten there, evening rush hour was just beginning to become unbearable. I didn't want to drive all the way back home just yet as it would add an additional hour to my already long commute. Side note, the car that I was driving belonged to my dad and I was borrowing it until I had enough money saved up for a new car after my beloved Honda had broken down the previous year. I killed some time bumming around the store that I had purchased my firearm from and then decided to drive over to the nearest coffee shop. It was a newly built cabin style cafe with a modern twist. The barista handed me

my 16 ounce dirty chai and I walked back out to my car. I then drove to a gas station around the corner, still trying to kill time until traffic thinned out. The car didn't need gas so I pulled into a parking spot right at the corner of the four-way intersection where the gas station was located. I turned off the engine, stepped outside, and lit a cigarette, leaning against the driver's side door to avoid stinking up the interior. The weather was overcast and drizzly, but not overly cold. It was dusk, and most of the daylight had faded. The stoplights at the intersection were diffused by the late autumn mist and I watched them flicker from green to yellow

to red and black again as the traffic moved in sync with their signals. Zoned out by the lights and generally lost in thought while enjoying my coffee and smoke, I didn't notice the man walking toward me until he was already halfway across the street. He was a white guy of average height and strawberry blonde hair, perhaps in his mid-twenties. He definitely hadn't changed his clothes in a while and carried a backpack that I assume held the few belongings that he had. He didn't smell, but he looked raggedy and unkempt. My immediate thought was that drugs were likely part of his lifestyle. I didn't want to jump to conclusions but I'm always cautious having grown up in the suburbs of Seattle. The man finished crossing the street and awkwardly limped toward my car,

maintaining eye contact and a strained grin. I locked my car out of caution but remained outside, smoking casually. Normally I'm a social person but I don't go out of caution but remained outside, smoking casually. Normally I'm a social person but I don't go out of my way to be unpleasant either. He approached me and stood about 10 feet away when he said hello and asked if I had a light. I hesitated but saw no harm in fulfilling this very simple request. Taking two steps forward I I lit a cigarette, which he held out toward me as he approached. He attempted to make small talk, weaving in hints that he had just gotten off the bus and still needed to go another block down the road. Somewhere in his poorly crafted sob story, he stopped mid-sentence, kind of like a bad actor, and pretended to be struck by an epiphany.

Hey, would you mind just dropping me off down the road? It's not very far. I apologized and said I couldn't help because it was my dad's car, not mine, and I didn't feel comfortable driving it without his permission. A stupid but plausible excuse that I came up with on the spot. Mr. Unkempt did not like my answer, and his smile immediately turned tense and flatlined. Clearly upset, he became more insistent. It's just down the road, he whined. My leg is killing me. It wouldn't even be far for you. I'll give you a cigarette. His persistence and sudden burst of hostility made my hair stand on end and I firmly said,

no, I'm sorry, I can't help you, it's my dad's car and he's got set rules, alright? With ten years of hospitality experience under my belt, I immediately offered him alternative ideas for how he could get to where he needed to be. I even suggested that maybe someone inside the gas station could help him out or call him a ride. Each word I said made him increasingly irate and he began curling his fingers into fists, not in a threatening way but like a toddler about to scream bloody murder for not getting their way. He seemed to pause and size me up for a very fleeting moment. I'm small and not at all intimidating physically so I told him that I hoped he made it home safe, quickly unlocked my car, jumped in and locked myself

inside. When I looked up from locking the car door I saw him speedwalking back across the street heading in the direction that he originally come from. No limp, no awkward walk whatsoever, no distress or pain even showing slightly. Just the normal speed walk of a physically well person. A very rage filled person. I know I had dodged a bullet there and I felt pretty dumb for hanging around the city after dark alone. And at this point I didn't care about traffic anymore so I started the engine and hightailed it home in what ended up being an hour and 45 minute drive. But this time the traffic was 100% worth the inconvenience. And PSA, if you haven't

heard it enough already, be careful who you give your attention to, especially when you're alone. Stay aware at all times and err on the side of caution, even when strangers seem harmless at first. So this actually happened about two hours ago. I, a 26-year-old female, and my boyfriend, 36 years old, decided to go to the store to get oil. We had to drive 45 minutes to a European store located in a rough part of the city, but it's the only place that carries the exact foods I grew up with. My family and I are from Ukraine, but we now live in the US. It's challenging to find authentic stores that have exactly what we used to eat, and this is the only place I've found that even has the same brands. And as we're driving, we were on a three-lane road and needed to get into one of those midsection U-turn lanes.

We moved into our left turn lane and suddenly, a black car sped from the far right lane, cutting through the middle lane and nearly hit us as it forced its way into our lane. My boyfriend and I were shocked and then the car stopped at a green light meant for the U-turn. My boyfriend gently honked twice just in case they were distracted to let them know that it was their turn to go. They moved forward and we turned into the parking lot directly to our right, heading to the store we needed. However, the car had just cut us off and then swerved across two more lanes and drove onto the sidewalk, entering the same parking lot and

started tailgating us aggressively while laying on the horn. My boyfriend decided to drive a bit further into the lot rather than parking directly in front of the store. At that moment I realized that his car camera, which usually records the front and back while driving, wasn't on. I tapped it, thinking that it would start recording, but it didn't. We realized that it had somehow disconnected from the car. As my boyfriend was trying to plug it back in, the black car pulled up next to us. I saw three young men, probably around 18-20 years old inside. They were all African American, and the driver rolled down his window and started reaching for something, and I panicked,

screaming at my boyfriend, just drive, go, go. He slammed on the gas and we sped off with a black car still following us. My boyfriend suddenly started doing donuts in the parking lot trying to shake off while I was screaming, oh my god, call the police, I need to call the police. And I managed to dial 911 just as my boyfriend finished the last donut and began driving out of the lot. The black car continued chasing us until we got about three to four blocks away from a police station. The 911 operator asked where we were and in my panic, I stuttered, trying to describe our location. My boyfriend, who used to drive for Uber and knows the streets well, shouted out the road as we were passing. The black car kept following us until they probably realized where

we were headed and suddenly swerved off onto a random road. At some point the call disconnected, but the officer called me right back and stayed in the line with us until we arrived at the station. We explained what happened and the officer was kind and he even offered to escort us back to the store in case those guys were still around. We showed him the skid marks in the lot and he joked about them and everything was all good. He did some paperwork while we were quickly grabbing the sunflower oil that I wanted and my boyfriend tried some authentic Slavic ice cream for the first time, which he agreed was much better than American ice cream. We decided to cut our day short and

thanked that officer and went home. My boyfriend said that he was amazed how quickly I made the right decisions and was surprised I even called the police because he knows I have a history of being assaulted by two on-duty officers four years ago, which has left me terrified of calling or speaking to the police. But in that moment, I was so scared of getting shot, and my only priority was to have the police there to keep my boyfriend safe if something happened to him. I was so terrified that my chest actually hurt, and I'm so happy that we're safe now. My boyfriend was now laughing, saying he can finally prove that front-wheel drive Dodge cars can do great donuts. My earliest memory of a nightmare turned out to be a real event.

So that title sounds like a no-sleep story, and that's the first thing I thought when I first found this out about two months ago. I've been busy dealing with the wake of a family tragedy since then, but now that things are returning to the new normal, I figured it's a good time to share this. And I'm sorry in advance for any formatting issues here. Now first, I'll describe the nightmare. It's a very short dream. Like I said, it's a very clear memory just because of how scary it was. I was about four or five years old, perhaps six at the most, and my twin brother and I had a bunk bed in a room at the furthest end of the house that we grew up in.

The nightmare had me in my bed looking out the window to see a red sky. The kind that gets in the early dawn hours before sunrise but light still colors the sky. And the next and only other thing I remember in this nightmare is that a man with crazy blue colored eyes and a bald head appears at the window and stares right at me. The nightmare ends there but I remember just how much I screamed and screamed about it. I don't know where my brother was at the time when I woke up screaming and the only thing I can remember from when I woke up was having my mom come and get me and calm me down as she took me to her bedroom down the hall. I remember that event so well because I wondered where my dad was at the time. I'll fast forward to this May and my father is in a hospital in Colombia, the country where he lives.

My twin brother, our older sister and I are staying in a hotel about a five minute walk from the hospital where he's in the ICU. One night after a long day of being there for dad and the extended family, my siblings and I return to the hotel. Sit together to have a couple of beers and try to relax after everything. We start discussing things, just trying to unwind and somehow the topic of nightmares and dreams comes up. I bring up the story above and without missing a beat my sister explains that it really happened, that some guy really did look through my window and she remembers the whole thing. My sister, who was five years older than my brother and I, which would make her nine or ten years old at the time, had a bedroom adjacent to the room my

brother and I shared. Her room faced our front lawn and the street while our room faced the neighbor's house in their driveway with a very low fence between the two houses. While she didn't go into too much detail about the days before this nightmare slash event, she said that she had been followed by a bald man in a truck as she rode her bike home with some friends a couple of times before. The day immediately before this nightmare was no different, but this time the man actually drove right past the house. At the time, she was a latchkey kid since my brother and I had to attend a special school about 45 minutes away from our hometown for a speech impediment that many twins

have, and my mom had to pick us up rather than be home for my sister's after school. However, she was never home alone for more than an hour. That afternoon and evening were pretty normal as she remembers it. My dad came home from his job, he worked part time as a cop in a local hardware store, and we all had dinner, did homework, played and did the usual family things before bed. That night, at around 12 to 1am, this bald headed man parked down the street at a small industrial park, walked up to our house and tried to get in through my sister's window, which woke her up. She screamed when she saw the man nearly opening

the window as it wasn't locked. My dad stormed in and tried to shove the guy out or hit him with his nightstick and my sister doesn't remember exactly which caused the man to run off. But he only stayed away for a short time before returning to try to get in through the window in my room. He tried opening the window, but it was locked because my mom didn't want my brother and me to open it as our bed was right up against it. My sister said I screamed as loud as I could and my mom came in to get my brother and me while my dad ran out the front door to chase the guy, but to no avail, as the man fled through our backyard. Our backyard was situated against a small rail yard, part of the aforementioned industrial park.

Between our small neighborhood and that rail yard was a dense patch of trees that always made the backyards very dark, so my dad didn't want to risk being attacked there. And instead he went back inside and called the police, and then called our elderly neighbor to make sure that they were okay while our mom took care of us kids. This is all my sister could remember from that night herself, as this happened a very long time ago. Neither of us can recall anything else after that, and the story sort of just stops there. Unfortunately, my father passed away in the hospital so we can't ask him about it. Given everything that's happened, none of us have

thought to ask our mom yet, but it all started with a program that I watched on TV. I had been watching it for about two years, so I guess you could call me a fan. It wasn't a popular show, it had a minor following online, and each episode was about 30 minutes long. The show has since gone off the air, but one of the segments would ask viewers to send in creepy submissions. To be honest, I thought it was the best part of the show and I didn't love the other segments. And to give you a taste of some of the submissions, here are a few examples. One guy sent in a video of his pet acting strangely and that one was pretty scary and

another submission showed someone filming an odd billboard in town in the middle of nowhere. Definitely pretty weird. If you submitted a video of something strange or mysterious and it was selected for the show, you actually won a prize. Every time I watched, I would think to myself, I could come up with something that would make it on that show. The prize, whatever it was, didn't really matter to me. I just wanted to create something cool. And then an idea came to me. It wasn't the most entertaining idea, but it was mine and I couldn't wait to get started. I immediately began preparations and the more I worked on it, the more I loved it. The concept was fairly straightforward.

I wanted to attach a noose to something like a tree limb and make a sign to go with it. That was it. And my sign would read, Please feel free to use this. And I wanted to be able to stake it into the ground. And all I really needed was some wood. After I made the sign, next was the rope. I looked online to figure out how to tie one,

and I thought it would be difficult, but it actually turned out to be easier than expected. Now just some context as well. The phrase in Japan, please feel free to use this, is actually a common phrase that you might see outside public restrooms or near drinking fountains in the parks, just to kind of give you a little insight into that. Now once my creation was ready,

the next step was to find a location to take a photo or video of it to make my submission. I had some annual leave available, so I took a day off and drove out to the woods. I drove for miles to reach a quiet, peaceful forest just outside the city. I parked at a random spot, grabbed my rope and handmade sign, and headed into the woods. As I ventured deeper, I found what I considered the perfect spot. It was a solid pine tree, pretty big, with thick branches. One branch about three meters above the ground, close to ten feet, stuck out nicely. I planted my please feel free to use this sign in front of the tree, making sure that it was deep in the ground. Fortunately, it rained that day, so the soil was soft.

And next, I climbed the tree, which was difficult in those conditions, shimmied over to the branch that I'd chosen, and tied the noose. When everything was complete, I climbed back down and stood in admiration of my work. I was pretty satisfied. I'm sure by now you've figured out my idea. I wanted to film myself stumbling upon a noose hanging from a tree with a sign in front of it saying, Please feel free to use. I know it's not in good taste, but I was certain that it would be good enough to get on the TV show.

Maybe even on Logan Paul's YouTube channel. I just thought it was a cool idea. However, when I went to record the video, something felt off. The setup looked too new, if you know what I mean, and the sign that I'd bought from a hardware store stood out like a sore thumb. The wood that I'd used for the stake and sign looked like it had just come from the lumberyard. It didn't look authentic and I wanted the video to seem real. The rope at least didn't look too bad, but the brand new sign supposedly discovered deep in the forest just wouldn't work. I had to figure out a way to make

my video without wasting all the effort that I put in. And after thinking it over I realized that with more rain in the forecast I could leave the sign out there for a while to let the weather just sort of naturally affect it. Maybe it would get covered in dirt and leaves creating the desolate atmosphere that I was aiming for. I worried that some hiker might find it and remove it but that was a risk that I had to take. If I wasn't living in an apartment block I could have put the sign in my garden or something. I also worried that someone might destroy the sign. Someone easily offended, overly cautious, know-it-all perhaps. I didn't want the law to get involved though, and to me, this was just a little bit of

a light-hearted prank. I didn't think that I had committed a crime. It was essentially a piece of art, really, and with that all in mind, I decided not to worry and head back to my car. The next few days were busy and I completely forgot about the video, the sign, and the noose in the woods. Exactly one month later, I remembered my art while watching the TV show that I was supposed to submit my video to, and I immediately got in my car and drove to the forest. Over the past month, there had been typhoons passing through the area, and when I arrived, the forest looked different. The weeds and brush had grown thick and the forest floor was littered with broken branches and leaves.

Finding my creation was pretty tricky, and I got a bit lost, especially since it was getting dark. Eventually I found it though, but as soon as I laid eyes on it, I knew I couldn't capture it on film. The atmosphere around the tree was exactly what I had hoped for. Desolate. The brilliant white sign that I had left was now grayed and the letters had partially run. Oddly, the words feel free stood out seemingly untouched by the elements. That eerie detail made me shiver. Someone had taken my prank literally.

The noose I had tied now suspended a body a few feet off the ground. I think it was a woman, as the hair was long, matted with leaves, and slick with rainwater. I couldn't see her face, thankfully, but I could tell from the way the body hung that there was no life left in it. The wind made the body sway gently and the noose creaked and squeaked with each movement. Just as the body began to turn, possibly revealing the victim's face, I ran. I ran as fast as I could, terrified, and I'm still scared to this day. I thought about calling the police, but I was too afraid. What would happen to me if I did?

They would find out that I had set it up. They might even accuse me of encouraging someone to do so. I wondered if what I did could be considered assisting in a process like that. I didn't commit a crime, did I? All I did was make a silly sign. And at worst, it was a mean-spirited prank. But the idea that I could be accused of goading someone, that scares me the most because that was never my intention. This all happened two years ago and I never reported it. I still can't. I could get into trouble, and it plays on my mind constantly, not because I feel guilty, but because it could ruin my life. I keep an eye on the news for any discoveries in those woods, but so far there hasn't been anything, and that frightens me too.

For all I know, that body could still be there, still swinging and creaking in the breeze. So today, as I was going out for coffee, I decided to check out a new cafe that just opened. As I approached the door, I was surprised and happy to see an ex-girlfriend of mine from when I was a kid. We stared at each other for a second, and then I saw her mumble something before coming toward me. I went in for a hug, after we greeted she simply asked, Do you remember what you did to me? And I was baffled. We had dated many years ago and never had any issues of any kind. No major fights, no abuse, no toxicity.

In fact, she left me because I wouldn't commit, but we remained on good terms for a while afterward, still hanging out until she found a job abroad and left. At first, I was scared out of my mind and immediately sensed something very strange. I asked her to be more specific, but she wasn't forthcoming, and after a little chit-chat, she told me that she was referring to the time when my friend and I cleansed her house. It then came back to me at the time, we were some stupid, edgy, semi-goth kids who were really into weird and otherworldly stuff. And after she complained about her house feeling strange,

a friend from our group offered to perform a cleansing ritual, which he did while we were basically half drunk. According to her, when she talked about this years later with other people, things started to go wrong. She began to feel a presence around the house, experienced drops in temperature, all that eerie stuff. She was vague, but apparently, she believed some kind of ghost is now haunting her house,

something that was unleashed after the ritual and started manifesting after she mentioned it to her friends. Nothing happened in years prior. She eventually returned to England, but promptly came back here to escape from an abusive fiancé. At that point, I was really nervous and made an excuse to leave, and she hugged me, said there is now only Christ in her heart, and suggested that we should really have a cup of coffee. And this gave me a really weird vibe, like something from a cult. I basically ran away, terrified. Keep in mind we split on some very good terms. She looked after my dog while I was in England. As a masseuse, she took care of my bad back for months. She even introduced me to her new boyfriend and we went out for dinner a couple of times as a group. There's no way that she could have held any animosity toward me.

In fact, once she was abroad, she even offered to help me find a job in the city where she was living. This was not a prank to get back at me. And more than that, her eyes. She was once the light of the room, always laughing and cracking jokes. But the person I saw today was sad. With very still eyes, not smiling or anything. Like a completely different person. When I was house hunting, I was looking for a place that was cheap and didn't mind if it had a bit of an edge to it. A real estate company was eager to show me an apartment. It was a small place, but it had a loft and nice sun coverage.

The coolest thing about the apartment was the vast amount of storage space due to the high ceilings and it was in a great location. I literally had no complaints, so I told them that I'd take it on the spot. And man, was that a mistake. At the time I had a cat and I have to admit that I forgot to let them know. In my defense they never asked and I felt guilty about it but I didn't want to lose the place or give up my cat. It was tough. I figured it might be best to just keep quiet and see if anyone noticed. After meeting some of the residents and introducing myself, I took a look around the area to familiarize myself and find my go-to stores.

The neighbors were welcoming and I liked them. Once all the moving was done, I was exhausted. That night, I only unpacked the bare essentials. My cat was acting strangely. She stayed by the front door and occasionally hissed, and I assumed it was due to the new environment, so I didn't think anything of it. But then my cat made a low growling noise, the kind that you're probably familiar with, that unnerved me a bit because she didn't usually make that sound. I figured maybe that there was another cat nearby and tried to ignore it.

I went to sleep quickly, exhausted from the move. But my cat wouldn't stop growling night after night. One evening, I tiptoed over to her, trying to figure out what was bothering her. I realized that there was someone on the other side of the door. I'm not talking about anything supernatural. I mean, a human. You know when you see the shadow of feet through the gap beneath the door? That's what I saw. I wanted to throw the door open and confront whoever was there, but the risks were too high, and I didn't feel safe. Whoever was

out there was not normal. Who stands in front of someone's door in the middle of the night? I was terrified. I was living alone as a young woman and someone was outside my door for reasons I couldn't understand. The only thing I could do was retreat to my bedroom with my cat and wait until morning. My cat kept growling and I barely slept that night. And after that, sleeping became difficult. I wanted to move out of the apartment but I was locked into a long term lease and couldn't leave without losing a lot of money. I didn't have any family to turn to either.

I had three months left before I could move so I held on to that. The stress got to me and I ended up visiting a doctor who told me that I was suffering from stress and I even lost weight. I stayed with a friend for a few days but after a while I felt like a burden so I returned to my apartment. I decided to show my face more around the apartment complex hoping to get along better with my neighbors and let them know that I was okay. But as I bumped into them and said hello I was shocked that every single one of them in one way or another mentioned my cat or cats in general. Now here are a few examples. You know cats aren't allowed in this building, right?

That's crazy, isn't it? Just the thought I should let you know. I would never dream of bringing a pet in here without the landlord's approval. I'm sure you feel the same. You know the landlord hates cats, right? I couldn't believe it at first. Did you know that? And I never took my cat out of the room. She was an indoor cat. How did they even know I had one?

She wasn't causing any trouble. I was a proud cat owner and took good care of her. I was sick of these not-so-subtle comments, so when the next person asked me about it I responded, how did you know I had a cat? I expected them to play dumb but my neighbor's reply shocked me because we all took turns watching. And this is where the story gets truly intense. Apparently the landlord had ordered the other residents to keep an eye on me. My neighbor told me that as soon as I returned home from work, someone was assigned to keep watch. The creepiest part was that she wasn't even embarrassed or thought it was strange. She proudly and smugly admitted that she found my cat by lifting the mail slot on my door to peek inside my apartment. I argued that what she did was a complete invasion of my privacy and totally insane. Every argument I made was met with the same response.

We were just doing what the landlord told us. It was a total weird setup and it was deeply disturbing. The landlord had brainwashed them all. Since my neighbor was happy to tell me everything, I just kept asking more questions and her smug smile only grew wider as she saw how much it was affecting me. When she told me that the landlord instructed them to go through my mail to learn more about me, I decided enough was enough. I called the real estate agency immediately and informed them that I was leaving and thankfully they were sympathetic and I didn't lose any money. Now I understand why such a great place

and a great location was so cheap. I can laugh about it now and it makes for a good story but it is still deeply disturbing to me. Nowadays I live in a better place. No weirdos outside, no issues with pets and no insane landlord. Sometimes a good place is worth the price and if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. There is this street dog near my college campus that I see every day. It is one of the older dogs so it's always sleeping and very calm in general. I live very near to the college and my friend and me usually go for a walk late at night after dinner. Tonight was no different and we were walking around the same route. It's a residential area

so we had never felt unsafe since there was always college students or other families out in the road walking around. We were on our third lap and this dog was sitting at its usual spot. While we were walking past it, I was gushing about how cute it is and was clearly distracted. Suddenly my friend said that there was a weird car behind us. I turned around to see that there was in fact a car driving at a really slow speed. The car pivoted towards us, which made me think that maybe it wanted to park where we were walking and might just be a random family. As I was about to convey these assumptions to my friend, we hear a dog barking and turned around to see it chasing after this

car. Both me and my friend are scared of dogs, so she stood behind me, hoping that I would save her, but right when I turned around, it was the same street dog, and I knew right away that it wouldn't harm us. The car suddenly sped past us and the dog didn't chase us or anything, instead it just kind of stood on guard. When we recovered from the shock, we both had the same realization that the dog might have just saved us. We still don't know if this car had any evil intentions, but the way it sped right when the dog started barking, the timing of it all was just too bizarre. Plus, it was driving so slow that both of us didn't even realize it until it was too

close. Needless to say, the dog will be getting some extra pets from me every time I see it. I had just parked at the local trail that I often visit when, about 30 seconds later, an older man parked next to me. He started leaning over as if to ask for directions and I rolled down my window and he kept trying to peer into my car. Sensing something odd but dismissing it initially, I asked if he needed anything. He mentioned he was there for a walk and continued to glance inside my car. He then asked if I wanted company for my walk. I usually go on walks to be alone with my thoughts, so I wasn't interested, especially given his strange behavior. I politely declined and got out of my car.

Despite this, he followed me and invaded my personal space, making me uncomfortable with his intense staring and proximity. Although I'm a tall man and wasn't feeling physically threatened, his behavior was very disconcerting. After walking together briefly, I excused myself, saying that I needed to use the restroom, and started walking faster to create distance. When he tried to keep up, I told him that I'd catch up later and quickly left the area, feeling uneasy. I feel a bit guilty, thinking that he might just be a lonely old man, but I believe I did the right thing. Normally I'm not uneasy around others, but something about this interaction just felt off. To be continued... for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new

videos every Monday and Thursday at 7pm EST, and there are super fun live streams on Sundays and Wednesday nights. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my email, letsreadsubmissions at gmail.com, and you might even hear your story featured on the next video. If you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations and bonus content over on Patreon, or click that big join button to hear about the extra perks offered for members of the channel. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all about these stories in big compilations located anywhere you listen to podcasts. All links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends.

And remember, go to Sephora and try the goop. Last night, I awoke to the unsettling noise of loud banging and my dog's frantic barking. Living alone with my girlfriend, we had grown accustomed to our neighbor's domestic disputes and I have to call the police often. I stumble to the bathroom as the walls there are thin and separated our duplex from theirs. As I approach the bathroom door, the entire house was dark and a tall shadow was in my bathroom. I wasn't wearing my glasses and I'm an incredibly nearsighted person so I struggled to discern whether the shadow was merely the shadow curtain or what it was. Then the shadow spoke.

I don't know what he said, but the gut-wrenching panic that I felt is still fresh in my mind. I screamed and fled to the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. My girlfriend, now awake and terrified, joined me as I dialed the police. They instructed me to lock the door, but my bedroom doesn't have one. With the banging growing louder and more aggressive, I braced myself against the door, praying that help would arrive in time. To my relief, the police arrived swiftly in only five minutes, and when I finally emerged from the bathroom, I found that they had dragged him, naked, from the bathtub because he had been trying to shower. They were questioning him on my couch while he was handcuffed and he was incredibly drunk and had wandered into the wrong house.

The one night that we forgot to lock the doors. This happened about five years ago in Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. I had an office job and sometimes the hours weren't as flexible as I'd like them to be. We workers usually had to stay until the projects we were responsible for were complete. I didn't mind, I suppose, but it was hard to maintain any constants in my life. Because I didn't have a steady routine, I decided to do something about it. I made a commitment to myself. I would take a walk after work around a forest trail near my neighborhood, no matter what time a day that I finished.

Now, since I typically finished work late and the forest trail was quite remote, I usually didn't run into any people during my walks. But one night, that changed. I encountered someone standing by the side of the forest trail. He was a man of medium build, dressed in dark clothes, and the most striking thing about him was that he was completely still. And in a word, he was motionless. And from the moment I saw him, I felt something was off. He gave me the creeps and I didn't like the idea of passing him in the middle of the forest, in the dark. I didn't want to go anywhere near him, but if I turned back, it would add another 30 minutes to my walk. I didn't want to do that. I remember physically trying to stop my hands from

shaking. I was all tensed up, sure that he was about to do something as I passed him by, but fortunately he didn't. It was as if he didn't even notice me. Due to some terrible weather in the area, I hadn't been out for my walk for a few days. I also skipped my routine walks on the weekend. When I finally got back on the trail, to my shock, I encountered the same man again, standing in the exact same spot as before, four days after our first meeting. It was an unusually clear night. The full moon illuminated the forest trails well, and thanks to the moonlight, I was able to see the man from a distance and turn back quietly before he noticed me.

Once again, he was motionless with a vacant look on his face. Why was he out there? And because of him, I quit my nightly walks. I just didn't feel like doing them anymore. About two weeks later, I was in the office break room reading the newspaper when I got another shock. An article reported that a body had been found in the forest and the police suspected murder. I immediately thought of that strange man and wondered, could he be behind it? It seemed possible but in the end I thought it was probably unlikely. Still, I couldn't get it out of my mind. My curiosity got the better of me, so one Sunday morning I headed back to the trail. I found the area the police had cordoned off, and there was police tape and a detour in place. The spot covered by a white tarp, hidden from the public, was exactly where I had seen that man standing by the trail.

When I saw that, I got the shivers and immediately turned back for home. It might not be related, but after that, something strange happened. I developed insomnia and couldn't sleep without taking sleeping pills. I think I might have had a close call that night I passed by that man. And could he have been the culprit? Or had I passed by the victim who was somehow trying to be found? Or maybe it was neither. And I guess, I'll never know. To be continued... subreddit r slash let's read official and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video

and if you want to support me even more grab early access to all future narrations for just one dollar a month on patreon and maybe even pick up some let's read merch on spreadshirt and check out the let's read podcast where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data located anywhere you anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends. And I'll see you again soon.