The Lets Read Podcast - 332: THIS CHILDHOOD MEMORY STILL HAUNTS ME | 11 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 317

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Catskills & Childhood Trauma MemoriesHAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?[e-mail] ME ON -►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/♫ Music & Cover art: INEKThttps://www.youtube.com/@inektToday's episode is sponsored by:- Betterhelp

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. My name's Rachel. I'm from New York and I see that you post a lot of hiking and camping stories, so I figured I'd send mine in. I used to do a lot of solo hiking in my early 20s, something I picked up in college and then carried with me into the real world. It was my number one stress reliever and my chosen method of exercise, but that all changed after a trip to the Catskills, one that ended up being the last solo hiking trip I ever went on. I went to college in Pennsylvania, so while I'd visited a lot of the trails and parks over there,

my native New York remained mostly unexplored. That meant my trip to the Catskills in November of 2017, specifically to a place called Blackthorn Ridge, was my first. I enjoyed the exercise aspect of hiking, but sometimes it was the solitude I crave the most, and I'd sometimes shy away from the more pedestrian trails in order to see the left, traveled areas of the places I visited. So you can imagine my surprise when, while working through a patch of pine trees, I saw a small leather-bound object sitting at the base of a tree.

Being the naturally curious soul that I am, I walked over and picked it up. And while it had obviously been there for a long time, I found that it was in relatively good condition. It was a small leather-bound notebook, and then when I opened it up, I saw it was actually somebody's journal. It felt a little rude and obviously intrusive at first, just kind of reading someone's journal like that. But since the notes seemed to focus on the details of the writer's hike, I figured it wouldn't hurt if I just sort of thumb through it a little, especially if it meant being able to return their journal to them once I got back home. The first entries I read were pretty ordinary, and mostly talked about being on a winding path through a place called Blackthorn Ridge,

which coincidentally was pretty much exactly where I was standing. The notebook's owner was also a solo hiker, and obviously somewhat of a kindred spirit, I guess, because they wrote about the thrill of being out there alone, how beautiful and peaceful it was, and how it was their first time in the area. It was like reading my own story, all written out ahead of time, and I remember thinking how me and this person would probably be good friends

should we ever meet one day. I closed the journal, slid it into my jacket pocket, and then carried on hiking along the ridge till I felt the pang of hunger creeping up on me. I stopped near some flat rocks, took out my water bottle and a few snacks, and then as I sat cross-legged on one of the rocks, I just kept reading the journal. I'd already made a note of the person's name as there was a little note saying, if lost, please return to X, so I knew exactly where to mail it to once I got back home. But since I was lacking on any reading material, and this person's hiking journal was so relevant,

I figured that I just keep reading on a little until things got too personal. But things didn't get personal. They just got weird. I remember turning a page and then seeing how the next entry was written way different than the others. Now, in short, it was just clip sentences. The person wrote about how the woods didn't feel so friendly anymore. They wrote how the birds weren't singing anymore, and how the squirrels weren't coming down from the trees.

But obviously not like I'm doing. All they wrote was no birds, no critters, dead quiet. The next words were, predator in area, question mark? And it seemed very rushed. So I immediately glanced up, started scanning the trees around me, but I didn't get the same impression at all.

To me, and I was a pretty experienced hiker at the time, everything seemed fine. The birds were sound, the squirrels were bounding around the forest floor, I could kind of hear them, and I didn't even feel remotely under that threat or in danger. But then, as I read on, I got this creeping feeling up my spine, as the hikers' final entry mentioned a place called Hollow Crag. They said that there was this rocky clearing just beyond a meadow where the grass dropped into a shallow basin. All they wrote after that was something like, warn any other hikers, stay away.

They didn't explain what that exact danger was, they only warned against going there. But those final few words about warning other hikers, about staying away, they looked almost scratched into the page, like whoever had written it was scared out of their minds. I remember closing the journal over and tucking it back into my jacket, and with that creeping feeling working its way up my spine. Not because I feel like I was being watched or anything or my spidey sense was tingling or anything woo-woo like that, it was because Hollow Crag was on my list of actual destinations that day. I had marked it on my map as one of five checkpoints, in an oval-shaped route that had taken

me all the way up Blackthorn Ridge and back again. It was supposed to serve as my more than halfway now checkpoints, so unless I wanted to dramatically delay my return home by adding two or three hours to my journey, I had to pass by Hollow Crag to stay on schedule. I could skirt around it, but I couldn't avoid it, and at the time that seemed like it would be enough. But looking back on it, I should have just swallowed the loss and resigned myself to hiking the extra hours, because when that journal said to stay away from Hollow Crag, it should have really said, avoid it at all costs. I got myself back on the trail so I could better navigate the area,

but seeing how far out I was, it was barely any clearer than the terrain on either side of it. Roots were creeping under the soil, and low-hanging branches made it so I had to stoop down while paying extra attention to my footing. I should have been getting pretty tired at that point. I'd been hiking solidly for a few hours, but I was also getting a nice steady hit of adrenaline every time I thought about what was written in that journal. I glance over my shoulder every so often, half expecting to see someone following me, but the forest seemed empty, just me and the trees. There was no one in sight, but that didn't mean no one was there, and I remember the moment I heard this loud snap coming from behind me. It sounded like a big branch being ripped from a tree with a ton of force, like this sharp, tearing snap of wood. It sounded like it was maybe 50 yards back, but I didn't stop for a better guess, I guess, and I kept moving, thinking to myself,

it's behind you, not ahead of you. You're safe for now. Just keep beaten feet. and I started moving a little faster, risking a fall to put some distance between me and whoever made that noise. I kept my ears open for any other sounds, too, but aside from my own breathing and footsteps, there was nothing. I knew I should have looked back, just to make sure that it was clear, but I couldn't. I guess there's a part of me that was still pretending it was all just in my head, so I couldn't bring myself to look back.

I just kept moving steadily toward a curve in the trail, knowing I'd need to consider serve every last ounce of energy if I was going to make a run for it. I sped up a little as I took the curve, but as I reached its end, I found myself faced with thinning trees in the large expanse of open grass. There was a wide, shallow bowl of rock and sparse grass, just as the person's hiking journal had described. It was hollow crag, and there was no getting around it. It's not like I wanted to step out into the open, but doubling back meant facing whoever was behind me, so I did the only thing I could and started to cross it. As I walked, my eyes darted toward every flicker of movement as my heart rate began to skyrocket from the terror of being so exposed.

Once again, it seemed like I was alone, as I couldn't see anything but grass and tree trunks on the other side of the crag. But I knew that was impossible. I knew there was someone following me. And while I was alone, they weren't. I remember finally being brave enough to turn around and check behind me, but my head only made it 90 degrees before I saw the second guy off to my left. There was some type of figure walking at the far edge of the crag, one that moved out of the tree line and out into the afternoon sun in the moments after I spotted him. He was tall, strong-looking, and had the confidence of an outdoorsman about him,

but I could tell right away he was no hiker. His clothes were very wrong. They were tattered, mismatched. like he'd pieced them together from scraps of men and women's clothing. He stopped as soon as he saw me, and I mean it varied literally when I say that I felt his eyes on me. All I could do was clutch the straps of my pack and start walking faster, aiming for the trail on the other side. I had hoped that he'd stay where he was, but he didn't. He followed. The second man slipped back into the tree line again, probably in the hopes that I hadn't spotted him right away.

then he moved parallel to me, mirroring my movements as I pushed towards the trail. At this point, my legs were burning from the exertion and I wasn't even running yet. I knew that, like any predator, running would be the trigger for them to chase me. And when that chase started, it needed to start on my terms, not theirs. The trail was close now, maybe 30 to 40 yards, but I could still see the second man keeping pace to my left, ready to swoop in at any moment. I didn't know who those men were or what they wanted, but the journal's warning screamed in my mind, and I knew I had to move faster. I reached the trail and broke into a jog.

Then when I heard a gruff voice behind me yell, She getting away! I burst into a sprint. Even with low branches scratching at my face, and even with my pack bounced painfully against my back, I ran as fast and as far as my legs could carry me, because I'd never been so scared in my entire life in those moments. I needed as much distance between us as possible, but moving faster meant the risk of losing my footing,

and unfortunately for me, it didn't take long for that to happen. I remember stumbling over a root and only barely catching myself against a tree, pushing off with my hands that were already scraped and bleeding, and then kept running as my legs and lungs were still burning. I had a nice clear patch at one point, a stretch that I could really get my legs pumping, but it didn't last. The trail suddenly twisted downhill and while that meant that I was making progress, it also meant that I nearly lost my feet again. That time, I was even luckier not to go tumbling down that slope, which at that stage probably could have been fatal. So, in an attempt to stay on more stable ground, I veered off the trail and into the undergrowth, hoping that might help me.

me lose these men chasing me. I don't know how long I ran, but I was at my absolute limit when I finally stopped for what could only be a short break. I was huffing air. My vision was all dizzy as the forest blurred around me and I fought the urge to puke. My legs obviously were screaming for rest, but I couldn't stop. I had to keep moving, even if the only thing keeping me going was pure terror. I ran until the forest began to thin out and the trees gave way to a gravel path. I followed it, practically staggering from the exhaustion until I saw a ranger station, a small wooden building with a green door. The relief was overwhelming, so strong that tears started to fill my eyes as my legs felt

like they were literally going to give out. I climbed the steps and pounded on that door. No one answered, but the door was unlocked so I pushed it open and stepped inside. And like any good traumatic event, I got to endure. enjoy a wonderfully horrifying moment of a false ending. Because when I walked inside, I saw that that station was empty. There was no ranger, just a single room with a desk, a radio, and a map of the Catskills pinned to the wall. I locked the door behind me and sank to the floor, keeping my back against it as one final line of defense against anyone that might have followed me. When I heard nothing

but silence for what must have been a half hour or so. I took the journal from my jacket and placed it on the ranger's desk. I don't know why I did that at first, but now, looking back on it, it feels like I was saying, okay, no more. I give up and I don't want to play anymore. I know it was superstitious, but the sun was already setting when I arrived at the ranger station, and by the time I felt sturdy enough to walk again, it was almost full dark outside. I knew it would be incredibly stupid to head back out into the woods, so I just stayed there until morning, too afraid to move. And when the sun finally rose up, and there was just enough light coming through the station's small window for me to see, I forced myself to stand again.

My body was aching from the previous day, but it was either get on the move or stay there with no food or water for another night. I left the journal on the desk. I didn't want or need it anymore, and besides, the ranger needed to read it a hell of a lot more than I did, I think. And when I stepped outside, the forest was so much more quiet and peaceful than the previous evening that it was like being in a different place altogether. Then, after walking for some time down a large trail, I heard a truck. At first I was about to run. But when I saw the ranger decal, I started frantically flagging.

them down. The truck stopped and the ranger got out looking startled till I assured him that everything was fine. At least by then it was fine anyway. I told him about the men near Hollow Crag, how on their own it had been frightening, but coupled with what was in that journal, my mind was spinning and I'd been absolutely scared beyond all comprehension to be up there alone with those weirdos. I didn't know what kind of a reaction I was really expecting, but I definitely wasn't expecting the Ranger to just sort of sigh, like it was a pretty regular annoyance for him. Now, for me, getting chased off of that area was one of the most terrifying experiences in my whole life, but to the Ranger, that was the third time it had happened that year.

He laid it out for me as he gave me a ride back to the trailhead. The Rangers didn't know much about the men who lived up there, only that they were aggressive and didn't like people passing through. The only attempt to communicate with them had resulted in the same. a warning shot from some kind of bow, one that resulted in an arrow slamming into a tree right close to the ranger's head. So rather than risk a full-blown Ruby Ridge rerun, the Rangers decided to just close the trail off and leave them be. That's half the reason it was so overgrown. But the two men up there took down any closed trail signs that Rangers tried to put up, which is

why I didn't see any heading in. I remember asking the Ranger why they'd take the signs down if they didn't want anyone near Hollow Crag there. And he said that he didn't know exactly, but his guess was they hated everything associated with the federal government, cheap plastic signs included. It was a major shock hearing it all like that and learning so casually that they were just sort of these wild people living up in the mountains and that the government was basically like, okay, whatever, I guess. And that's what really drove it home for me that America is still a wild country, and it's wild in more ways than one. People think of the city as a dangerous place in the country is safe, but that trip to the Catskills made me realize just how wrong that is.

Some people are out there far from civilization, living by nobody's rules but their own. And while on paper that might sound cool, the reality can be horrifying for those who actually cross their paths. This might sound crazy, but I somehow made it being a 28-year-old father. of one without ever once going on a camping trip. And when my friend Caleb found out, he just about blew a gasket. He's a real bass pro shop is my personality kind of guy and the only person I ever knew who played hunting games on his Xbox. He hadn't been hunting in years, but he'd used to do a ton of camping weekends with the National Guard, and he figured that there was no better buddy bonding method than heading out into the boonies together. So since we were in

Buffalo at the time. He said the cat skills were probably the best place to go if we wanted to get as wild as possible while staying close to home. We packed light, drove up in his beat-up truck, and then set out into the woods and found a spot a couple of miles from the trailhead. I had to admit, Caleb had picked out a real nice spot. It was nestled into a small clearing surrounded by pines and maples. And the ground was soft with fallen pine needles, so even without the camping chairs, it made for a good seat, and with a stream gurgling nearby, we had ourselves a supply of fresh water, too. Caleb volunteered to set up both tents, so I occupied myself collecting firewood. It felt pretty cool, doing something useful that had contributed to building an actual fire,

and as kind of a firebug during my youth, getting to make a big one was something that I was actually very excited about. And by the time we had it crackling, the night had seven, settled in and Caleb was showing off some of the campfire cooking he'd learned in the guard. He'd made these things called pudgy pies, which are basically a ton of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff between two pieces of half-stale bread. That might not sound like anything special, but my God, out there in the woods, with a chill of the night setting in, it was one of the best things I've ever had the pleasure of eating. But as we ate, the fire burned down fast, and it wasn't long before we needed to collect more

firewood. I volunteered myself, seeing, as Caleb had brought all the food on his own dime, and then after getting up from my camping chair, I headed off into the darkness. I'd pretty much cleared the area around the camp, so I had to walk into the trees with my flashlight to find more decently sized pieces. I walked around, stacking pieces in the crook of my arm, and then all of a sudden, I heard something moving in the darkness ahead of me. I stopped dead and pointed my flashlight ahead of me, expecting to see a deer or something weird, some kind of woodland creature, but there was nothing. Now I called back.

Yo, Kayla, I think there's something out here. To which then he replied, Yeah, of course there's something out there, buddy. It's the woods. And the way he said it had me instantly kind of relaxing, thinking, Yeah, I mean, that little thing is probably more scared of me. than I am of it. Then after picking up a few more chunks of logs, I made my way back to the camp. Once the fire was roaring again, Caleb cracked open the cooler, and we had ourselves a few cold sodas

while watching the flames like they were TV. I was just about finished with my soda, so this couldn't have been more than 50 minutes later, when me and Caleb heard another sound, closer to the camp this time. We both went quiet and turned our heads in the direction of the sound. Caleb yelled something like, Hey, ain't nothing here for you, buddy. Just move along now. And he said it so confidently that I couldn't imagine anything but the hungriest black bear not listening to him.

And then a second or two later, we heard these steady footsteps moving away from us. I remember being kind of impressed that it actually worked. I expected Caleb to be pretty pleased with himself. And he didn't look pleased with himself at all. he actually looked spooked. I asked him what was up, and I'll never forget the chill that went through me when he said, That wasn't an animal buddy.

That was a person. I asked how he was sure and he said the gate was unmistakable, as in like the rhythm of the footsteps told him it was walking on two legs and not four, something I wasn't familiar with in the woods. I got up walking over to his path, and took out the little gun case that he kept his pistol in. And then after taking it out and loading it and tucking it into his jacket, he suggested that we go on a little walk to make sure the area was still clear

and maybe talk to whoever was out there. I'm not going to lie, walking the woods with an armed man who said that he just wanted to talk to whoever was out there was pretty goddamn wild. That was Caleb. He's a friendly guy, but boy can he handle himself. He wasn't looking for a fight. Neither of us were about to lay our heads down to sleep without knowing that we were in the clear.

Once we were sure the area was clear, we headed back to camp for what Caleb called a Mexican pizza. And then after a couple of beers and a pre-roll that I brought along for old time's sake, we climbed into our tents for some well-deserved sleep. But for me, sleep did not come easy. My little pine needle mattress flattened out within just a few minutes, and even with the sleeping pad that I had with me, the ground was uncomfortably hard to lay on. On top of that, I started hearing sounds outside the tent again. Not as close or rhythmic as the footsteps we'd heard,

but enough to have my eyes shooting open every time I heard something a little too loud. I remember listening out for Caleb thinking, He's got to hear this too, right? But then I suddenly heard him snoring softly in his tent. He was out cold. I lay there telling myself, if Caleb thinks it's safe enough to sleep, then it is. And then after sort of chuckling to myself and feeling like an idiot,

I managed to get comfortable enough to feel like I was drifting off to sleep too. But then, I heard it. A distant noise that sounded almost like a faint cry of something alive and in pain. I remember trying to convince myself that it was just the wind, or maybe an animal making perfectly normal animal sounds. But then I heard it again. It cut through the silence, coming from somewhere deep in the forest. It sounded almost like a baby crying,

like a sharp and intensely disturbing sound that set my nerves on edge to hear it. I sat up, straining to listen while both hearing and feeling my heart rate pick up. Then I heard it a third time. And that time, it was completely unmistakable. It was a high-pitched sob that rose and fell with the baby's breath, and I'm sure you'll know what I mean when I say the sound alone tugged at something primal in me, something which said, make it stop. I rushed to put my boots on, then unzipped my tent and rushed over to Caleb's.

I guess running woke him up because he asked, What's going on? Before I even got to his tent. I unzipped it just enough to be able to see him, and then said, Shh, listen. We listened in silence for maybe only a second before it sounded again. That same skin-crawling baby's wail.

Caleb's eyes went all wide as he pushed himself out of his sleeping bag, and the first thing he went for was his gun. I remember saying, Bro, there's a kid. I don't think the gun is going to help. Because my first thought was like, there's a kid out there, lost and afraid, who actually needs our help.

But then Caleb says, That's no kit, buddy. Listen again. And I remember being just about to launch into some counterpoint, something along the lines of, What the hell are you talking about? But then the baby cried again, and I caught on to what he meant.

There was something wrong with the sound we were hearing, something you didn't notice unless you really listened. The gut reaction, I felt, masked it, but Caleb was right. There was something off about it. Something weirdly hollow. And before I could process it, another cry started, this one from the opposite direction to the first. It sounded identical. The exact same eerie wail as the first, only louder and closer. But then suddenly, the pitch shifted a little, and we realized what we were listening to. They were recordings.

Now, I'd like to say that that was a relief, but as you can imagine, there was still the issue of who the F would play the sounds of crying babies in the woods at night. The thought obviously had Caleb going for his gun, and he told me to stay low as he crawled out of his tent and out into the night. He called out something oddly calm considering the circumstances. All right, we get it, buddy. We'll move along in the morning. I figured that might make the noises stop, but instead, they only got louder. The recordings of those babies crying kept looping before a third, and then a fourth joined in. They sounded like they were all around us by then,

like the whole forest was echoing with the sounds of wailing infants being played on a loop. They started overlapping, blending together as they seemed to get louder and closer. Caleb shouted over them, They're just trying to scare us, buddy. And if they're not, I got a gun. He yelled it like he wanted them to hear, too. Whoever was out there playing those goddamn recordings. And then, all at once, the cry stopped.

But the silence that followed was somehow even worse. We kept waiting for the sounds to start up again, or for something terrible to happen, like an attack or gunshots or whatever these psychos out there had planned for us. I asked Caleb what the hell we should do, and all he said was leave. The fire had died down and I was about to grab my flashlight when Caleb told me not to. He said he needed our night vision to see what was out there, and that flashlights would just make it easier for them to see us.

But that meant trying to gather up all our essentials in the near pitch darkness. We took turns, one of us with the gun, the others packing our stuff. Then when Caleb emerged from his tent after being the second one to gather up his things, we made our move. We didn't speak as I followed him through the trees. We moved slowly, heads on a swivel, trying to spot whoever was out there before they spotted us. Caleb had the gun, our only line of defense between us and whatever was out there, and despite the night being pretty cold, I could feel myself sweating.

My heart was racing as we pushed through the dark underbrush. and every few steps I thought I saw something. I didn't know if we were going to be attacked, chased, or if we were walking right into a trap and didn't even know it. Caleb said we were moving back towards the trail, which wasn't even that far, but it felt like it took forever to get there. In the darkness, the woods were disorienting,

the trees all looking the same. When we finally broke through to the trailhead, the sight of Caleb's truck was a huge relief to the both of us. My hands were shaking real bad as I fumbled the door and climbed into the passenger seat. Caleb didn't hesitate in gunning the engine before we tore down the dirt road with the forest blurring past us. We drove a few miles until we spotted a diner's neon sign flickering in the darkness ahead. Caleb pulled in, killed the engine, and we sat there for a moment, still pretty shaken. The parking lot was nearly empty, just a couple of cars in a delivery truck, so we figured that it was as a

safe a place as any to hang out until morning. Neither of us was going back out there to collect our gear until the sun was up. A few tense hours later, with neither of us being able to sleep, the diner opened up at 6 a.m. and we headed inside for some breakfast. A few early morning truckers filed in and at the counter as me and Caleb hunched over plates of eggs and bacon. We talked over what had happened in these whispered voices and agreed that someone was obviously trying to scare us off so they could steal whatever we'd left behind.

I said something about kicking myself for not standing my ground if that's all they planned, scaring us off, I mean. Caleb said it was better we avoided violence, or we might have ended up in a jail cell instead of eating bacon. I remember looking at the other people in the diner, trying to read their faces. I wanted to ask if they'd heard anything, if they knew about the cries in the woods, but something stopped me. I then asked Caleb if they thought that they knew about what was going on out there, and he agreed they probably did.

When we were done, I paid the bill, and we stepped back into the parking lot. The drive back to where we'd been camped was a tense one. Then once we'd finished hiking back to the campsite, we found Caleb was right. Our tents had been ransacked. All of our food and beer was gone, along with pretty much everything else of value, too. Whoever it was even took the poles out of my tent, and to this day I wonder what they planned on using them for if they didn't take the fabric along with them. Caleb's tent, which was much more expensive and roomy than mine, was gone entirely. And we didn't stick around. Not wanting to leave behind any of our crap, we tossed whatever hadn't been stolen from us onto the fabric of my tent,

and then rolled it up and carried it back to the truck before we drove home. Then what happened became just another campfire tale, I guess. We did go camping again. Caleb and I went to other places with mutual friends of ours tagging along, but we sure as hell didn't head out into the Catskills anymore. I can tell you that much. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. It often seems like everyone else has their love lives figured out,

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you clear space. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash read. That's BetterHare. I have this traumatic childhood memory that I cannot forget. Sometimes I dream about it or just think about it late at night when I can't sleep and I'm feeling stressed. It sucks and I thought maybe posting about it might help me get over it a little. So I'm sending this to you today and when I was a kid, we were always struggling for money. I feel like we moved houses maybe six or seven times, usually a downgrade to a much chance. cheaper property, even a trailer one time, followed by a big upgrade because my dad never lived within our means. As soon as he had a bit of dough, we started spending it, living in luxury.

It was kind of sweet. He wanted to provide for me, my mom, and my baby brother, but he just wasn't good at keeping hold of money. When he had a good job, we'd get takeout food every day, and he'd shower us with toys and mom with gifts. Then we'd lose everything and end up in some dirty-ass trailer park or something, and everyone would be stressed. Dad would never take it out on us, but he'd take it out on himself, smoking and drinking and falling into a stupor, so it took longer to break out of the rut and find the next job. I never really knew what my father did for work.

He didn't have a profession exactly. He took on random jobs and schemes, pretty much. He was always looking for his latest get-rich-quick gimmick, and if I'd try to list or even remember most of them might probably be here all night. One time, he sold cigarettes out of the back of his car until the law shut him down. Another time, he got a group of parolee leave friends working as home decorators until a client realized that he didn't have the necessary licenses and insurance when one of the guys fell through the roof. It was just things like this all the time, and while he was a fun dad, it also made my childhood incredibly stressful, especially after my baby brother Barton was

born and wouldn't stop crying all the time. The specific memory that sticks in my mind happened when we were renting a fairly nice house in the suburbs. I guess Dad's latest scheme had been paying off because things have been going well for a while and I was beginning to let myself relax. I remember the sun was setting so that it must have been mid-evening when the knock on the door came. I knew my mom and dad were downstairs with Barton, so I was surprised when the knock sounded again and nobody answered. I looked at the window. of my bedroom at the front of the house. A guy was standing at the door.

He looked up at me and something about him terrified me. I know it's silly, but in my head I kind of equate him to that rock-steady character from the Ninja Turtles. You know that big rhinoceros with a tank top, khaki pants, and big boots? This guy reminded me of him, only, you know, human. He had this mullet that looked ex-army and an earring that kind of glinted in one ear and tattoos all up his thick, muscled arms. He must have caught sight of me looking at him because he looked up and kind of scowled at me

from under a very thick, ugly unibrow. I know I'm probably imagining him as more troll-like and terrifying in my mind than he actually was, but I guess that's how childhood traumas kind of get at you, I guess. And now I'm going to call him rock steady, but he began hammering on the front door with a very meaty fist. He shouted that he knew we were home. He'd seen someone in the upstairs window. An instant terror and guilt flooded through me. Immediately I heard footsteps downstairs, Dad going to the front door and Mom coming upstairs. My bedroom door opened just as I heard the front door unlatch. Mom was holding Barton, reassuring me that everything was okay and to

come back into the room and play. I ignored her and ran to the window. Dad had stepped down outside into the front yard with Rocksteady. And Rocksteady was sizing up, Dad, looming over him very menacingly. And my dad wasn't a fighter. He wasn't a buff guy who worked out. He was fairly short, and in my mind, he was fragile. He was always smiling and joking and being silly, and the idea of someone like Rocksteady hurting him seemed like a genuine possibility. Even more so as I I'd watch this guy grab Dad by his shirt and drag him into the street. I started to cry and bang on the window, but Mom came and pulled me away. It made me play with Barton for a bit, even though inside I was absolutely breaking.

After five minutes or so, Mom had to use the bathroom, so I darted to the window again. Dad and Rocksteady were in the street. Dad was pacing back and forth, gesturing and talking animatedly in his way. and Rockstar seemed calmer and was leaning up against a muscle car. I watched his dad and Rockstar shook hands and then Dad came back into the house. He was all smiles and cheery after that. Nothing to worry about, he said. Just a simple misunderstanding.

Rocksteady was a guy he worked with and his paycheck hadn't gone through, but it was all sorted out now and everything had been squared away. I told my dad that that man reminded me of the Rhino from Ninja Turcad, turtles, and he seemed to find that hilarious. I thought Mom was calm and fine, too, but in retrospect, she clearly wasn't. I went to bed more relaxed that night. It was around one in the morning when I heard the crash. It was coming from downstairs, the sound of wood splintering and the front door being kicked in. I looked out the window in terror to see three men coming through our front door, and Rocksteady was taking up the rear. There was commotion from elsewhere,

Downstairs, mom and dad reacting to the break-in, I now know, and then smashing and breaking glass from downstairs, and next, screaming and yelling. I could now hear four male voices, including my father's, and then my mom screaming. Finally, Barton started crying, adding to the cacophony, and mom's footsteps came thundering upstairs. I'd already locked my door, and she rattled on it. I asked who it was, and she said it was mom. She said it was good that I'd lock my door and to keep it locked and stay there,

and she was going to take Barton into their room. She told me not to come out under any circumstances, and that Daddy was fine, and not to worry. His friends had just come over, and they were just being loud. Even at my young age, I knew that this was all nonsense, but I told Mom I'd stay put. So I had to sit there on my bed listening to the three men smash up our things downstairs.

Dad was yelling for a while, and then I heard another crash, and his voice stopped. I was crying to myself, these heavy sobs, and I felt like my chest was going to burst, and my heart would explode. It felt like the chaos went on forever. Eventually, things fell silent, and I thought I was safe. And suddenly there was a hammering on my door. The wooden frame shuddered, and I screamed.

A male voice I didn't recognize called out telling me to open the door, I'll just call this one Creep Show, and he called me a little B-word and said that if I was Colin's daughter, Colin was my dad, I was going to suffer. Creepshow started saying all these awful things he was going to do to me, that I don't want to repeat here, stuff that as a little kid I'd never even heard of before. I was still sobbing, crying, and freaking out. Then I heard a bang from out in the hallway, like someone punching a wall. A voice asked what the F creepsho was talking about, and I recognized the voice as that Rocksteady guy.

Creepchow said that Colin's daughter, the little B word, was hiding in here, and he was going to drag her out and show Colin what happened to the daughters of men who don't pay up. Rocksteady absolutely lost it. He started screaming at this guy, saying that I was only seven years old and what kind of sicko threatens a kid? that they were just here to scare Colin to get what they were owed, but this was way over the line. Creepshow didn't back down and started hurling abuse at Rocksteady. There was a moment of silence, and then suddenly my door came splintering open. A man I didn't even recognize, who I later learned was Creep Show,

flew backwards into the room, having just been drop-kicked probably through the door by that Rocksteady guy, and now Rocksteady rushed into the room, grab Creepshow from the floor, dragged him up and threw him out. He looked at me, and the terrifying guy had been so afraid of suddenly melted away, and his face softened. I've never seen someone transform like that before or since. Rocksteady told me he was sorry. He didn't really mean for things to go this way,

and then he returned to beating the absolute crap out of Crepe Show for daring to threaten a little girl like that. The outcome of this story is truly bizarre. Rocksteady genuinely felt so bad about bringing that kind of person to our house that he even offered a pay dad for the damage. Dad was a bit bruised and scared, but ultimately okay. He didn't really want to call the cops because, well, whatever he was involved in probably wasn't very legal. Rocksteady and the other guy, who was just some sidekick that I'd never even saw, promised that they'd take creep show away and deal with him. Dad told us later that the three men were some bikers he'd hired to work on a project with him,

and something had gone wrong with paying them, apparently. He made things right with Rocksteady, and after that, Dad went completely straight. I guess it took my life being threatened to finally wake him up. Dad passed away recently, and he lived an honest life ever since that day. I have no idea what happened to Rocksteady or that creep show guy, and it's not Rocksteady who causes me to wake up at night, panicking and scared. It's Creepshaw. The things he said to me through that door, the punishments he promised to beat out of me,

they're not anything that a seven-year-old girl should ever have to hear. No, I'm sure Creep Show isn't even alive anymore. When Rocksteady dropped kicked him through my bedroom door, he looked like he must have been in his 50s even then. He'd had to have been over 80 by now, so I can only hope that he did. died in pain and misery. But sometimes late at night, I imagine he's still out there, walking up the stairs to my bedroom door, and this time my dad and Rocksteady are no longer around to stop him.

A few years back, my wife Gemma and I were headed for a cozy weekend at a cabin in the Catskills when my car crapped out on me about 10 miles outside Tannersville. We've been driving for a couple of hours already on roads that we, through the forests of upstate New York, when out of nowhere, the dashboard lights flickered and then went dark. I turned the key over a few times, willing her to start up again, but the engine only coughed. Then without any signal on our phones, we had no choice but to walk someplace to get help. About a mile or two down the road, we found a small auto shop, which honestly felt like a godsend

in the circumstances. It was an old, haggard-looking place with grimy windows. but my wife and I didn't mind. We were too happy to have found exactly what we needed when we needed it most. We called out this very cheerful greeting as we walked inside, and then a mechanic promptly appeared from the back. He was probably in his 50s or 60s, and he wasn't nearly as pleased to see us as we were to see him,

but we didn't mind, especially when he assured us that he could have our car towed and fixed by the following morning. As we paid, he asked, what we were doing in the area. Then when we mentioned the cabin, he stopped writing on our bill for a moment and just stared at us. He asked where the cabins were, and then we told him, he paused before saying, you don't know much about the area, do you? And we knew that there were cabins to rent at these bargain prices, and we knew it was peaceful and very secluded too, but other than that, we didn't know much at all. The guy gave a sarcastic laugh when we mentioned

the bargain prices, and then asked us rhetorically why we thought that was. He then started explaining how the people who lived up around the cabins didn't take kindly to them being built, nor did they take kindly to the people who stayed in them. This was obviously the absolute last thing we wanted to hear. The cabin had been cheaper than many others in the area, but it was still a real nice place that cost us almost a thousand bucks of our hard-earned cash. We didn't want to just turn tail and run, but there was always a lot of the same thing. but there was also the question of how at risk we'd be if we didn't.

We asked the mechanic if he thought that we should just cancel, even if it meant losing our money. And he said he wouldn't go that far, not personally anyway, and that as long as we stayed around the cabins and didn't stray too far from the woods, we'd probably be fine. However, he did say that if anything weird started happening around the cabin, if anyone showed up and started trying to intimidate us, that the safest thing to do was to get the hell out of there.

He asked if we were armed, and as it happened to be, I brought my sig along just in case there were bears or something. He told me to keep it handy, regardless if we saw or heard anything. And then after waiting for one of his buddies to show up, we managed to get ourselves a ride to the cabin. It was a tense ride, to say the least, not only because I was super wary of what we'd been told, but me and my wife disagreed on whether the warning was actually genuinely,

or not. See, she'd gotten a completely different read on this mechanic and thought his attitude totally flipped on us once he realized we were tourists, staying in this nice, pretty much gentrified caverns. She thought that everything he said afterwards was intended to freak us out and spoil our weekend, and how that was a jerk-off thing to do to two oblivious city folks. And as I said, I didn't agree with her at all. Everything he said felt pretty genuine, and if he secretly hated us, fixing us a ride to the cabin sure was a weird way of showing it. We were both still pretty tense as we arrived, but once we got inside, our spirits were lifted immensely, because not only was the inside just as rustically luxurious as advertised,

but a little walk around the perimeter showed nothing but peaceful, barely touched forest. There were no shadowy strangers walking between the trunks, no weird symbols carved into the trees, and while there were plenty of animal noises, they were. much more exciting than they were spooky. After our walk, we unpacked our bags and made ourselves some dinner and then kept on enjoying what we thought would be a weekend of peace and quiet. Part of me kept thinking about the mechanics' warning, but as I said, seeing the place up close and taking a walk around did a lot to calm our nerves.

Not to mention I had my gun with me and I was confident in my ability to defend both of us. If anything went wrong, we'd be fine. At least that's what we told ourselves the afternoon we arrived. What was supposed to be our first night, but ended up being our last, passed uneventfully, but not quietly. The forest itself was super loud, something I really didn't expect. There were crickets, owls, and pretty sure I heard a coyote how-to, but there was nothing that passed over the line from cool to creepy, and both me and Gemma slept pretty well. The next morning we got up, took showers and made some coffee, and then we sat on the porch

looking out into the woods, wondering what the hell we were so spooked about during the previous day. At that point, with the woods all peaceful and with fine weather over us, it was like a little slice of woodland heaven right there in front of us. And then out of nowhere, I saw something that changed everything. Maybe 20 to 30 yards out, there was a tree. that looked off. One of the thicker branches near the top looked neatly cut and was leaning at an unnatural angle. After picking myself up from our seat on the porch, I walked into the trees to take a look at it. I quickly realized that there was a log jammed into one of the trees

and that it was being sandwiched against the trunk by a long stick that had been weaved between the branches. This probably sounds painfully naive to more rural folks, but when I first looked at it, I didn't realize what I was looking at. I thought that it might have been a tree sculpture or something, maybe a Native American thing I hadn't heard of, but then I noticed the wire that had been strung down the tree trunk and it ran off into the underbrush at its base. I took a few more steps along what was roughly a worn trail,

following the wire's assumed path with my eyes until I saw it emerge again, only 10 yards ahead of me. It was strung right across the path that I was on, and if I had walked any further, maybe without that coffee, there's a chance that I wouldn't have noticed it at all. But there it was, clear as day, and once I saw it running horizontally across the trail, I realized what it was. It was a trap, and it was intended for us.

When I showed Gemma, I saw the look of horror on her face, as she too realized what it was. I grabbed the stick and tossed it at the wire, and then when it hit, The wire pulled out the log support, and it came crashing down onto the trail, almost exactly where the tripwire had been. Gemma yelped when it hit the dirt, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't majorly freaked out, too. If I'd been standing there when it fell, I'd have been a dead man. We took another careful walk around the cabin, eyes glued to the ground when we were moving, and then looking up into the trees whenever we were still. We found a pile of stones stacked in an unnatural way, and we both decided it looked suspiciously like a marker of some kind.

There was also a strip of cloth tied to a branch not far from the cabin, and we wondered if that too was some kind of marker or indicator. As we walked back to the cabin, we decided that we weren't going to stay for another minute. We packed up the rest of our things and walked all the way back to that auto shop. It took us maybe an hour plus to get there, and I was worried. that we might get lost along the way, but after hitting the highway, it was a straight shot to the shop. When we arrived, our car was parked out front, and when we went inside to collect the keys, the same mechanic was there. He took one look at our faces and knew we'd found something out there. We told him all about the trap we'd found in the trees, how it would have done some serious damage

if we'd triggered it accidentally. He said he'd never heard about any traps before, but he wouldn't put it passed the folks up there to lay a few down. He also said he was glad we were okay, and when we said we were headed home early, he offered to refund the money we paid him to fix the car as a gesture of goodwill. I think he knew that we were decent enough to refuse him, but you could tell that he felt genuinely bad for us on account of how shaken up we were. We appreciated it. We really did, but we've also never returned to that area, and we never intend to. When I was a teenager, I used to share this as a ghost story. But then something happened in my adult years that made it very real, and somehow a lot

scarier than when I thought I'd encountered a spirit. So bear with me. To my child mind, this was a paranormal encounter, but it's not. And you'll find out why in the second half. I know you don't often run supernatural stories lately on the channel, so I wanted to assure you up front that this isn't that, even if it seems so at first. When I was a kid, my family lost our house and we had to downgrade. That's what I was told anyway, but honestly, I loved the new house.

It was older than our previous zero-lot line house, a row house with three floors, a tiny backyard, and an alleyway that ran in between the middle of the houses and then along the back of the properties. To this day, I insist that this new house was better than our much more valuable house from before. The garden was overgrown, filled with me, mystery and wonder for a kid like me. There was a broken-down greenhouse that contained all sorts of treasures, and the people next door owned a tortoise that would sometimes break into our

yard. There was a crumbling shed filled with the remnants of the last owners, and next to that, adjacent to the back alley, was a big pile of trash, made up of things from our move, like mattresses and boxes, but also discarded garden equipment, sort of a bunch of statues and ornaments, all sorts of crazy fun things for an eight-year-old boy like me to mess with. The trash pile in the garden was fenced off from within the garden, and the gate had rusted shut. I could climb over it, but I'd been banned from doing so by my mom and was worried about me falling over the fence and impaling myself on a rake or a garden gnome or something. If I wanted to explore the trash paradise, I had to exit through the front door, walk a few houses down, and then head down the alleyway and around the back of the back of the, houses where the trash pile had a much more accessible gate.

And this was what I was doing on the day this happened. I walked down the long, dark, and honestly a bit scary arched tunnel leading to the open-air back alley. There was all sorts of old graffiti on the bricks and not spray paint or tags, but scratches using stones from the ground. The neighborhood's past kids had left their mark, and I've always paused to read some of it before continuing on. Janice plus John forever. Betsy and Evelyn lived here in 1963, things like that. I still live in my childhood home to this day, so I see these scribblings regularly. I've added a few of my own over the years with some friends. I just read a new one that said something like, Arthur ate his kids,

and it put the spooks in me, understandably. So I guess I was a little jumpy when I emerged from the darkness and into the alley. I looked up and down just to see if any of the neighborhood kids were back here, and the alley was completely unoccupied from both ends. I walked past the three-back gardens that led to my own. When I reached mine, I tried to unlatch the gate, but the metal hook had gotten rusted or stuck somehow since the last time I used it. I was reaching over the fence trying to work out why it wouldn't come unhooked

when I felt rough pinching fingers on my arm. I spun around and came face to face with an ancient-looking man. He wasn't one of those kindly pleasant-looking old folks. This guy had a mean, spiteful look in his eyes. He had dirty whiskers sprouting from his chin and wiry white hair that had yellowed with tobacco discoloration at the temples. In my memory, his irises were non-existent, just huge black pupils swimming in his scleris.

Tufts of hair grew from his nostrils, and his big ears protruded in a way that almost made me laugh. It was hard to laugh with his tight, vicious grip on my arm, though. The man absolutely stank, too, of dampness and just body odor. I tried to pull away, but his fingernails dug into my arm. He asked me what the hell I was doing, snooping back here. I told him I lived here, and he spat out that he thought it was a liar. and when he talked I saw his teeth weren't just yellow. They were brown, black, or even missing.

His breath stank of death. And that's the best I can describe it. My mind immediately went back to the graffiti that I'd just seen. Arthur ate his kids. And this guy certainly smelled like he'd eaten a kid or two in his day. The old man tugged on my arm again hard and made me wince and pain. He called me a liar and a thief and said he'd turn me into the authorities. He told me that I had to come with him so I wouldn't run away. I've been warned by my parents and teachers about what dirty, stinky old men could do to young boys, even ones as old as eight and as brave as me. So there was absolutely no way that I was letting him take me anywhere. Besides, even if he was telling the truth and he was going to hand me over to the quote-unquote authorities. I hadn't done anything wrong.

The alleyway was public, and the house I was going into was mine. I did the only thing I could think to do, pulled myself free from his arm, and then yeated myself over the little fence leading into the backyard. Mom was right. There was a danger of impaling myself if I jumped into the trash pile recklessly, and I was damn lucky that I managed to stop with a sharp shard of metal, just slightly pressing into my thigh, enough to draw blood and make me wince, but not enough to do any damage. Quickly avoiding further damage from the spike, I turned around to tell the old man triumphantly that I was in my house now, and I lived here, and if he liked, he could knock

on the front door and ask my parents, and they could confirm that I was very much allowed to be here. The leaping-durning process must have taken all of three seconds, but what was the way to when I turned about to face this old man, he was now gone. I was almost disappointed. I was robbed of my righteous indignation, and the chance to show an adult that I was right and he was wrong. So I peered over the fence to see where he'd gone.

The alleyway was empty. I looked left and right, no sign of the guy. I hadn't heard any of the other back gates open. All the other houses had hide fences leading to the alley. It was only my house that had a small temperate. temporary fence because they'd taken the main fence down to help us move in, and we hadn't replaced it yet until this trash paradise had been removed. I unlatched the gate, noticing that a stick had been caught in the loop preventing me from unhooking it. Then I ran to the head of the alley and

looked down the tunnel. There was no way that the old man could have simply reached the street already, and yet sure enough, he was gone. I went back into my back garden, thoroughly done with playing outside. And from then on, I had a ghost story to tell. For years, I recounted the story of how a ghostly old man had appeared from nowhere, grabbed me, threatened me, and then disappeared into the ether. Of course, most people didn't believe it. They assumed I'd either imagined him, and he'd never actually grabbed me, or he had grabbed me, and he must have been one of my neighbors. He wasn't one of my neighbors, though. Like I said, I still live in that house now, and I met every neighbor from back then.

Nobody remotely matched his description, and I never saw him again, and I know that he didn't disappear into one of the back gardens. I never really considered one of the two options that must have happened, though. Either the man snuck through the fence leading to the other side of the alley, which led to a retirement home, or he sprinted away when I broke free of his grasp, fast enough to have disappeared when I went looking. I'm going to guess it was the former, though,

because many years later, I found out that the old man had come from the retirement home. It's more believable that he snuck through some type of unseen hole in the fence than this old-ass man sprinted away faster than a college athlete. So why was this dirty old man lurking in the alleyway behind my house grabbing an unsuspecting kid? I met up with a friend a couple of years ago who works in law enforcement. He asked me if I was still living at my address and I said, yeah. He'd said he thought about me recently because a case he was working on had involved someone who lived at the retirement home in the 90s.

Apparently, the guy had been a violent offender in his heyday, and it's been quite a bit of time in prison. Then eventually he'd been released and ended up at that very retirement home. My buddy wouldn't tell me exactly what this guy had done, but he was horrified and almost actively angry at the fact that I'd never been informed that such a very important. violent offender live behind my property. After I met with my buddy, I asked my parents if they'd ever known about it, and they hadn't, so I guess we just didn't have to be informed back then. Now, back to the present with my buddy, though, he told me that the guy was long dead now

and that he'd cropped up as a potential accomplice of a current suspect they had who was part of a ring. So my buddy was curious if I'd never seen anyone being weird with kids around my area. He described the man, and while I can't be sure, because ultimately he was generic, skeevy, old white dude, it very much sounded like the ghost who grabbed me in the alley. And I reminded my friend about my true ghost story from my childhood, which I told him and others a bunch of times, and we both went a bit pale and quiet. Honestly, I think I preferred it when I thought the old fogy was just some ghost.

I can look back on a ghostly encounter with wander, and excitement. But a near miss with an old petter-ass, though, well, that's a lot more traumatic. Almost 20 years ago, I joined a volunteer search party looking for a missing kid up in the Catskills. It was a cold morning when I showed up at this place called Platte Clove Valley, a retiree with too much free time on my hands and a nagging need to do something useful with myself. The kid was a six-year-old boy, last seen chasing a stray dog into the woods. The police had called the volunteers for help, and then myself and about 50 other volunteers answered the call.

Under the supervision of cops and professional search and rescuers, we searched all morning without any luck. It rained in the afternoon, and about a dozen people headed home soaking wet. The rest of us were told that we were welcome to carry on searching into the night, so that's what we did. It made for a tough going. It was very cold. It rained again, and the nature of the terrain meant that. that we were almost constantly walking up one hill after the other. The group spread out in a loose line of these bobbing flashlights,

and we called the boy's name over and over, and some of us yelled till we lost our voice. My back got really stiff from the hours of walking, and after a while it started to really hurt, but it kept moving. The thought of some kid out there all alone and afraid kept me going long into the night. I'd like to say that all of my fellow volunteers were good eggs,

but one caught my eye early on and not for the right reasons. He was quiet, kept to himself, and was always lingering at the edge of the group. He wore this faded green jacket, the hood pulled low over his face when it rained, and he moved with a very strange kind of caution about him. I thought that was because he was paying attention to his surroundings, but after a while I wasn't so sure anymore. I didn't know his name, nobody seemed to. He'd shown up with the rest of us, nodded at the,

the police briefing and then followed along. I didn't notice anything at first, but after a while, I did. He didn't call out for the boy like the rest of us did. He just walked, head down with his hands in his pockets, like he was just sort of going through the motions. And as the night dragged on, our group got more and more tense. Some of us had been there more than 12 hours, and we'd walked miles upon miles of woods without finding anything whatsoever.

ever. And there was no sign of the boy, no footprints, no scraps of clothing, nothing. The other volunteers were starting to crack from the exhaustion, and I was feeling it myself. But it wasn't just that. It was that sort of creeping dread that settles in when hope starts to fade, and people start considering the worst. We'd all been so hopeful that morning, but that night all that cheeryfulness was gone and was replaced by some of the worst. We'd all been so hopeful that morning, and was replaced by something very dark. Around that same time, I noticed the man in the green jacket avoiding a particular stretch of the valley he'd been assigned to search. It was a rocky area, thick with brambles and fallen logs, but it wasn't impassable.

We've been told to check every inch of our grids, but he steered clear, always finding a reason to drift into other areas that were already being covered. At one point I saw him staring into the ravine that he seemed to be avoiding. This flashlight beam was just kind of lingering on it for a moment before he turned and walked away. I felt my heart sink as suspicion crept into my mind. It wasn't just that he was avoiding it. It was like he knew something we didn't. I tried to shake it off. I was almost completely exhausted, so I was kind of mad at myself for jumping to conclusions.

But then I saw him do it a second time, skirting that exact same way near the ravine. I remember watching his steps quicken as he passed it. The other volunteers didn't seem to notice. They were too focused on their own patches of ground, but I did. I kept my eyes on him for a while and then decided to search the ravine myself. I walked down the valley, past the man in the green jacket, and was no more than a few feet into the ravine when I spotted something ahead of me, lit up by the beam of my flashlight.

And the sight of it stopped me cold. I remember my flashlight sweeping over the dirt, and there it was. A small blue toy car, half buried in the leaves. My breath caught in my throat when I saw it, because it was the toy the boy had with him when he ran off into the woods. It was scratched, with one wheel bent, but it perfectly matched the description the boy's parents had given. I called out to the rest of the group.

The first to arrive was one of the police officers, and I showed him the toy right away. I didn't say anything about the man in the green jacket, not yet. I didn't want to sound paranoid, but most of all I didn't want to stir up trouble in a group that was already on edge. The man in the green jacket reappeared, slipping back into the group like he'd never left. I watched him as he stood at the back,

his hood still up and his hands still stuffed deep in his pockets. I was convinced that he'd seen the toy, but had chosen not to report it, and I couldn't keep quiet. anymore. I suddenly pulled one of the officers aside and, in a low voice, I told him what I'd seen. I told him how the man avoided the ravine, and how he seemed to know more than he let on. The officer listened and nodded along, then when I was done, he thanked me for letting him know and said he'd discussed what he'd heard with his fellow officers. He didn't do anything right

away, so I figured they weren't going to act on the word of some exhausted and half-crazy old person, but a little while later I saw two officers approach the man in the green jacket. They stepped away from the group and I couldn't hear what was being said, but I saw the man's shoulders stiffen as it became very defensive. They talked for a few minutes with a man gesturing, and then he turned and walked off into the dark. Around one in the morning, before I left, I asked the officer what had happened when he spoke to the man in the green jacket. He said the man had been questioned, had denied knowing anything about the boy's disappearance, and had been so offended at having to justify himself that he actually left the search entirely.

Now, having made a note of his name on his ID, they knew who he was, but he was unlikely to be questioned unless the investigation pointed in his direction. And I understood. The police can't just arrest someone on some hunch. But on the walk back to my car, I couldn't stop thinking about the man in the green jack. and about that ravine he'd avoided. And the next day I went back for a second day of searching, but the mood seemed to be different.

Nobody talked much. There weren't as many smiles, and even when people did, the smiles never seemed to reach their eyes. The man in the green jacket didn't show up again, but his absence felt louder than his presence ever had. One little talk with the cops, and he just quit. And it didn't sit right with me, and I don't think it ever will.

I didn't find out what happened to the boy or what the man in the green jacket knew, and since he was never arrested, at least to my knowledge, I have to accept that I'm going to die not knowing. And that, my friend, is a very bitter pill to swallow. So me and my family moved to a new town in the early 2000s. Dad got a promotion at work, so we upgraded, and moved to a nice place in the suburbs. Me and my sister got to attend a better school,

Mom got to meet some new friends, and Dad had a much shorter drive to work. Everything was great. I was really excited to move, and I'd never moved to a different house before, and it seemed like a wild adventure. These days I look back and think when an idiot I was. Moving houses isn't something that I wish on my worst enemy, even under positive circumstances. It's so freaking stressful. But back then, I was a six-year-old kid, so the world was all sunshine and rainbows. I'd never known true fear or suffering, at least until the day this all happened. I remember that day that I had an argument with my sister. We were twins, so even as brother and sister, we almost never argue. She's my best friend, and I hung out with her nearly all the time, so I was really salty and upset that this day we'd fallen out.

I don't even remember why, but I definitely remember that it was her fault. Hi, Holly, if I was her If you're listening to this, you know I'm a send it to you, if Let's Read Narrates it. We'd lived in the neighborhood for about six months by this point, but it only meant and befriended the kids that lived across the street, brothers, Mike and Joe. Most of the other houses were occupied by older folks. It was kind of a quiet community, perfect for older couples, but less popular for families with kids. I knew there was one other family, though, just at the end of the cul-de-sac around the corner. They were a big family, mom, dad, three sisters, and a brother. We knew them vaguely from church, and they were known as an extremely nice, friendly family, so I thought nothing of just wandering around their house and knocking for them to see if they wanted to come play.

Two of them did, the girl my age, Kathy, and her brother Will. We played various ball games and whatever other silly things kids enjoyed back then. It was fun, and I like them. Then, from a field across the road, a group of other kids came strolling over. One of them was Will's friend and a few other kids, and then Will's friend's cousin, who was a chunky, loud, and angry girl called Hester. Hester was about 10, so older than most of us, and she lorded that fact over the other kids. Immediately I could tell that she was an insufferable little brat,

and after just an hour she started picking on five or six different kids in turn, making people cry or turn on each other in the way that bullies do. Of course, because Hester was such an obnoxious, unpleasant person, everyone wanted to impress her. And that's how it is when your kids, I guess. After a bit, Hester declared that our neighborhood was fake and gay and dumb, and if us stupid kids knew what was good for us, we'd follow her across the field to a much cooler place. None of us were allowed to go that far from home, and none of us wanted to get hurt by Hester either, as she would be threatening. And the place that Hester led us to was actually

cool. It was the beginnings of a park, sort of half set up and half under construction. A set of monkey bars and a swing set had already been set up, and a teeter-totter and a merry-go-round were abandoned on the green half covered in plastic. I guess it says something about the nature of the area that these things were just left there waiting for construction to resume after the weekend, and that the area wasn't fenced off or anything. And like moths or the flame, some of the kids waddled, wide-eyed over to the swings and began playing there. And Hester commanded everyone to follow her, though, and led us to a stack of concrete tubes. They were stacked in a pyramid shape, three on the bottom, two in the middle, one on the top. Who's brave enough to go inside?

Hester screeched, pointing at the middle tube on the bottom. And this seemed like a terribly stupid idea. The tubes were fastened together with some kind of metallic straps that held them in place, but even then, and even at six, I was aware that these tubes were potentially incredibly dangerous and incredibly stupid that anyone had left them unattended. I'll do it, I said. So I got down on my hands and knees and carefully, nervously crawled into the tube. And I called that I was in, and then behind me, the light disappeared. I tried to turn around and discovered that the tube was just too small for me to turn around in. And that's how I discovered that I suffer from crippling claustrophobia.

I began to panic almost immediately, backing down the tube. My foot pressed against something. Hester and the other kids had put some kind of bored or block over the exit. I tried to force against it, but the concrete scraped my bare knees and I couldn't get any trajectory. to kick back against whatever they were holding there. And frantically, I already started to cry. I began to sort of crawl down the pipe towards the other end. It was very slow going.

The pipe was about 20 feet long, made of rough, spiky concrete and little stones that dug painfully into my knees. That was about halfway to the end when Hester's face appeared in front of me at the end of the tube. She yelled at me that I was stuck in there and called me a little cry baby. This, of course, made me cry, which made the other kids start laughing at me, taunting me to impress Hester. Her ugly face looked in again, and then everything went dark as they covered that end of the tube with a board, too. I began to absolutely freak out, screaming and crying.

I looked over my shoulder and saw from behind me. I realized they only had one board to cover the exit and were running back and forth outside. I began moving backwards, pleading with them to let me out. I heard Hester yell, and just as I'd neared the other end, light poured in far ahead of me, and they covered the exit and freedom yet again. Like I said, I'd never experienced my true fear or suffering until that point, but suddenly it was like a little imp was sitting on my shoulders, punching me rapidly and repeatedly in the temples.

I began absolutely hollering, crying, screaming, and, begging them to let me out. Hester laughed and yelled at me to go to the other end, that the board was stuck, but I could get out if I crawled. So I crawled, blinking towards the light through my tears, and sure enough, when I was near the end, the kids jeered and howled at me, and then covered the end instead. And this process went on a couple of more times, each time with Hester promising me that they'd let me out this time, and each time they'd cover the exit. And by now I was cut up and bloody and screaming and obviously crying. And to this day, I don't know what kind of psychopathic little brat Hester must have been to keep this up.

In defense of the other kids, by now a few of them were arguing with her, shouting at her even. And I didn't know it, but Kathy and Will had already left to go get an adult at this point. As far as I knew from within my concrete tomb, though, all of those kids were out there enjoying it, and they wanted me dead. I don't know if I had some kind of actual seizure or if it was just a panic attack, but I began flailing and kicking. My skin burned with agony as I punched and kicked the concrete interior of the tube. I don't know what I was trying to do if I thought that I could break my way out or something, but regardless, something did break. I heard a cracking, a crumbling noise, heard a metallic snap, and then felt a seismic shifting as the tubes on top of me began to roll.

All hell broke loose. Hester and the other kids began screaming in fear. I started to roll, dust from the concrete tube stinging my eyes and making it almost impossible to see. I was pretty much in the middle of the damn tube. Blissful, blessed light flooded in from ahead of me, and I began to scramble as quick as I could towards freedom. I knew that I was in genuine, in serious danger of actually dying if I didn't. As I reached the end, I felt hands on me dragging me roughly out of the tube, and I was pulled out onto the grass. Then I heard this rumble and a crunch, and heard the most haunting, ear-splitting scream, the worst sound I'd ever heard in my life. Kathy and Will's dad, Jack, was the one who pulled me to safety. They'd gone and told him what Hester

was doing, and he'd come out to check and then rushed over in horror when he saw what the kids were doing to me. Meanwhile, Holly had come to apologize and witnessed me being pulled from the concrete tubes seconds before it cracked and caved in on itself. If Jack hadn't pulled me out those last few feet, I genuinely don't think that I'd be here to write this story, at least not in one piece. The horrific scream that I heard had come from Hester's cousin, George, Will's friend, who live nearby. One of the concrete tubes had just rolled off the stack and literally crushed his leg. I caught a glimpse of it as I was carried away by Jack and holy crap, it was like there wasn't even a leg there. He was eventually fine, thankfully, but he had to have multiple metal pins

surgically inserted into his leg and a bunch of physical therapy and Hester's family had to foot the entire bill. I have no idea what happened to her and I'd wish her. I'd wish her. I'd wish her all the best, and I hope she went on to have a great and fulfilling life. Just kidding. I don't think I can really say what I feel about her without getting you demonetized. And so that's the childhood trauma that still keeps me up at night to this day. I still can't stay in enclosed spaces. Even elevators make me panic, and while I can manage them if I have to, I'd always rather take the stairs. I've been photographing wildlife around Balsam for years when this happened. Trail cameras were my eyes when I wasn't there, and I'd rigged them to the trees, and they'd snap motion-triggered shots day and night.

Now that summer that this happened, I set up five cameras near a stream where bears often wandered, and the plan was simple. I'd leave them for a week, retrieve the footage, and sort through the images for keepers. But I ended up getting way, way more than I bargained for. The first sign of trouble came when I reviewed the footage back at my cabin. most of the cameras had captured what I'd hope for, bears lumbering through the brush with her eyes glinting that sort of infrared glow. But one camera, tucked much deeper in the woods, showed something else. One night, a man walked into shot, but not some hiker or camper.

This guy looked like he'd been living wild for years. His clothes were torn and filthy, and after walking into the shot, he'd started digging in the dirt with his hands, just sort of clawing at the earth like some type of animal. His movements were frantic, almost feral, but he never once looked at the camera and I assumed that he hadn't seen it. I remember staring at the grainy images, my mouth just kind of hanging wide open, just completely astounded by what I was seeing. Who the hell was he? And what the hell was he doing out there? The footage obviously gave no concrete answers. All I had were pictures of him scraping at the ground in the middle of the night. It wasn't so much what he was doing either. It was the way he was

doing it. Something about the way he moved, the way his head twitched as he worked, it scared the crap out of me. So, rather than be in the same section of the forest as this dude, I decided to retrieve the cameras the next day, a whole two days earlier than planned. I wanted those images safe, and I didn't like the idea of being alone in the woods with someone like that walking around at night. The next morning I hiked back to the stream where I'd rigged the cameras. I found the first camera easily, but the second I saw it, my heart sank. The lens was shattered and the casing cracked like someone had taken a rock to it. I checked the next one and found the same thing.

Someone had smashed it to pieces. By the third one, my hands were already shaking with anger. Four out of five were ruined with their memory cards either missing or found crowsy. crushed on the ground where they'd been rigged. Only one camera, deepest in the woods, was still intact. I hesitated before checking it, as part of me wanted to grab it and just leave, but I needed to know what was on it. So I popped out the memory card and slid it into my portable viewer. The first few clips were normal, just animals of varying shapes and sizes. And then I saw him, the same man in the same tattered clothes, but this time he wasn't digging.

He was standing right in front of the camera staring into the lens. His face filled the frame, very pale, gaunt-looking, with big dark circles under his eyes. His lips moved like he was muttering something, but the camera didn't pick up sound. His eyes locked onto the lens like he knew something was watching. I shot off the viewer, yanked the camera from the tree, and got the hell out of there. I stuffed the camera in my backpack and started back toward the trailhead. My car was a two-mile hike away, but every step felt like it took forever. The forest didn't feel peaceful at all anymore.

Now, I couldn't shake the image of that guy's face and the way those hollow eyes seemed to stare right through the lens. What did he want? Why had he smashed the cameras? And why had he left that one, the one with a video of him? It almost felt like a message and one that was easily understood. It clearly said, leave now. And I tried to reassure myself thinking that. Maybe he was just some hermit spooked by the cameras, but deep down, I knew better.

He looked right at me through the lens. He'd clearly wanted me to see him. After an hour or so, a very tense walking, the trail opened up and I saw the faint outline of the clearing where I'd parked. I walked over to my car, and then when I reached it, I glanced back at the tree line, half expecting to see him staring back at me, but there was nothing. No movement, no sound, but I knew he was out there, and that was enough to send a shiver through me. I climbed into the car, slammed the door, and locked it, and I drove all the way home without stopping. I didn't go back to Balsam after that. The footage from the last camera stayed on the memory card unviewed, and I couldn't bring myself to watch it again and see his face.

I packed up my gear and moved my work to a different range, far from those woods. The Bears of Balsam Lake would have to wait. I have an absolutely weird story for you, and it drives me nuts that I've never been able to work out the exact truth behind it, so maybe you and your listeners can give me some theories. At the very least, maybe it'll help me stop having nightmares about it if I finally talk about it to strangers on the internet. It was a pretty bad week to start with.

Mom had asked her friend if I could stay with them in the weekdays before she had to do a work thing. Mom's friend had two kids, Benny and Daniel. Benny was my age and was my friend from school, and Daniel was younger. She was kind of a whiny, wet blanket kid who was constantly crying and moaning and kicking up a fuss about stuff. And that's why Benny and I didn't really take it seriously that day when Daniel fell and wouldn't get up. Instead, he just sat there, screaming and crying, saying, it hurts, it hurts. We laughed at him to start with.

It had only been a little fall. tripping backwards onto his butt. But when he carried on crying, we realized that maybe he was serious this time. Long story short, he had fallen backwards against the furnace of this fireplace thing and cracked his tailbone. Easy enough to recover from, but it required a hospital trip. And there was no way that Benny and Daniel's mom Nancy was going to tolerate Benny and I under her feet in a hospital waiting room all day.

So Nancy called her friend Kate and asked if she could look after Benny and his friend they were babysitting, aka me. Kate was the mother of Elena and Carl. Elena was our friend from school, so we knew her. And sorry if this is some tangle web of confusion, but this is important. Me, Benny, and Elena were seven. Carl was five, and Kate was their mom who was looking after us for the day while Benny, who was four, was getting checked out. in the hospital. Another important part, Kate and her husband, Arnold, were absolutely rich.

They lived in a house that, to me, as a kid, was completely huge and daunting. It was built in the 19th century, if not before, and in my memory it was like eight stories. I'm sure it can't have been that big in retrospect, but it was this very old country house that had been in their family for probably generations at this point. creepy portraits of various old members of their family hung on the oak-paneled walls. They had a housekeeper, a gardener, and a maid, and there were at least two grandfather clocks in a house, and I swear to God there was a genuine suit of armor in one of the corridors. The whole house was absolutely mysterious and wonderful and fascinating, and it smelled of old things.

There were numerous cabinets and cupboards to explore and various closed doors that were tantalizing and appealing, and there was even a music room filled with instruments, including a piano that I was absolutely ready to try out, as I was this up-and-coming pianist who'd passed three grades already. Naturally, because it was such a cool house, there was so much promise and excitement, we were allowed to stay in the freaking hallway, where we were given a box of toys and told to sit on the floor and play all morning. Elena and Carl were both really pale and quiet and pretty weird, and they seemed a little scared of their mom. Hell, me and Benny were scared of their mom.

She was strict in a, I want to seem cool and hip, but I also hate kids' way, and clearly resented having to raise her own children, let alone look after Benny and I for the day. And I am pretty sure that she wasn't actually Elena's biological mom, but I never had any contact with the family after this one day. Things just didn't fully add up in my young boy mind, and all this just contributes to the mystery in my head. Elena called her Kate and Carl called her mom, and at the time, I could not for the life of me work out how or why this was possible.

I guess I didn't grasp the idea of a stepmob not being called mom back when I was seven. After a few hours of mind-numbing boredom in which we were forced to play with toys that were for babies, we had lunch. I forget what it was, but I remember it being the most boring, bland lunch I've ever eaten, and I remember thinking that it was glad that we didn't have a big valuable house, if it meant that you had to eat boring crap as a sort of compromise. Benny was normally the class clown. But I guess he'd been babysat by Kate before, because he was on his best boring behavior that day.

He'd barely talk, in fact, and it was really unsettling to see my friend acting so muted. He was normally the leader, and he would get us into all sorts of trouble. After lunch, Kate allowed us to play in the garden, which was a sprawling, mysterious wonderland of trees. It was a pond, flower beds, and a vegetable garden. So, of course, we were only allowed to stay on the patio area, in sight of Kate at all times while she sat in the kitchen watching daytime TV. After half an hour, it began to rain.

And Elena and Carl would apparently catch pneumonia if they stayed in the rain, so off we all went back to the cold-tiled hallway, where we had to play with baby toys again. After a while, Kate announced that she was going to take a nap, and I watched her disappear up two flights of stairs. Not that she'd been watching us before. She'd been in the other room with the door half open, but now that Kate had fully left,

I was hoping it meant that we could actually do something a bit more exciting. I suggested this to the others, but Elena seemed horrified and said that we had to do what Kate said, and we'd better stay in the hallway playing with Carl's jigsigslist. saw puzzles because it wouldn't be good to get into trouble. Benny had gone to the bathroom and hadn't come back for ten minutes. I looked around at the home with this very sad longing. Surely there had to be something cool we could do.

I asked Elena if the house was haunted, and Carl began to sniffle, and Elena explained that he was afraid of ghosts. God, what a cry, baby. He made Danny look like a badass. And Elena explained that, no, there were no ghosts. here. I asked who else lived there, and she said it was just her, Kate, and their dad, who was always away during the week in the city. Even at seven years old, I knew enough to feel bad for Elena here. Kate clearly wasn't a nice mom, and I kind of understood why Elena was always on her

own and lonely at school. I asked about the house staff, and Elena said that they came from the nearby village a few days a week. And I found it incredible that such a huge house could have so few people living in it, especially when the kids seemingly weren't allowed in most of the rooms. Benny still wasn't back, and I needed to use the bathroom. At first, Elena said that I'd have to wait, but then she relented, and said that there was one upstairs as long as I promised not to touch or break anything. I needed to pee so bad I thought that I was actually going to wet myself, so I promised her on my life. She told me it was upstairs and on the left, so I ran upstairs, quiet as I could, so Kate wouldn't hear and yell at me.

I found the bathroom, and it looked and smelled like my great nan's bathroom, full of pink doilies and one of those knitted toilet roll covers with a doll's body in it. None of it looked like it belonged to a young modern family, and the whole place was so weird. I washed my hands and left the bathroom. I was about to go downstairs and behave myself, honestly, but then I heard sounds coming from one of the rooms. I knew Kate had gone up to the next floor and their dad was away for work, so I thought maybe Benny had come upstairs even though there was no way that he could have gotten up here without seeing me.

I approached the door. I heard another sound from inside, and it sounded like a person in distress. To this day, I would swear that I heard the word help. I opened the door, and the sight that lay inside stays with me into adulthood. It was my first real experience of seeing a genuinely sick person. A four-poster bed sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by translucent medical-style curtains. Monitors and machines beep from beside the bed. I didn't recognize them at the time, but since I know there was at least a heart monitor and some kind of machine to aid with breathing.

There were a couple of other machines there, too, that I can't even begin to tell you the function of. The room stank of illness and antiseptic. It had the function of a hospital room, but otherwise it was like the rest of the house. Oak paneled walls, old furniture, fancy cabinets, and, yes, another grandfather clock. It was just the bed, the machines, and the person in the bed that were out of place. I took a step in the room, trying to see more details of the figure that lay in the bed. I genuinely can't be sure if I'm misremembering this, but it's not.

In my head, I remember her being fully covered in a sheet, almost like a shroud. I genuinely thought that I was looking at a dead body at first. Then I realized the machines at least suggested that the person was alive, and looking closer I could see the sheet rising and falling as the person breathed. I had a vague understanding of what a coma was, and it occurred to me that this mysterious person hidden away in the bedroom of this huge house might be in one. At least I'd consider this for a moment when the figure sat bolt upright and yank the curtain covering the bed away. The person in the bed was a woman.

She can't have been older than Kate or Nancy or my own mom, but she looked severely aged at the same time. Her hair was slicked back with sweat, her skin pale and gaunt. She looked a bit like Elena, but ancient. The woman held out a hand to me and I thought that she was calling to me. She started making sounds with her mouth, this sort of clicking coming from her throat, then moaning, but nothing I could recognize as words. And then her eyes snapped open wide and so did her mouth, and it was like she was screaming, but silently.

Again, I can't be sure if this was just in my head as the stories become more terrifying to me over the years, but I'm sure she pointed at me. I let out a little scream, turned, ran, and thundered down the stairs. When I asked Elena who the woman in the room was, she looked completely pale and sick. She told me it was her mom, and I told her that no, it wasn't.

It was a sick woman, not Kate. Dumb-ass me couldn't grasp that mom was someone else. Benny had returned from the bathroom by their point and I started frantically telling him about the sick woman upstairs. His eyes widened, and he said that we should go and check on her. Elena started whispering and panic to us saying that we mustn't go back upstairs. Carl, of course, started crying again. And before we could do anything, Kate came storming down. And I had never been yelled at by my friend's mom before in a way that Kate screamed at me then, calling me a disobedient little brat, a troublemaker, all sorts of

things. I burst into tears. I had no idea what I'd done wrong. I thought someone was in trouble in the room, so I checked on them, and then when I realized I disturbed some sick lady, I'd left. Kate was having none of it, though, and said that there was no way that she was putting up with this. She used a lot more swear words than that, and I remember being shocked at an adult talking to me that way. She called up Nancy, who luckily had just gotten out of the hospital with Danny. Kate stared at us silently for 20 minutes. It took for Nancy to come collect us. Nancy scolded us repeatedly on the drive home, then made us sit in the utility room for the last hour of the day until Mom came to pick me up. I heard Mom and Nancy talking in quiet voices.

Then on the way home, I told Mom exactly what had happened. I guess Mom took my side because that night I heard her on the phone yelling at Nancy that it wasn't appropriate to send me to be looked after by Kate anyway. nobody had the right to yell at her kid and punish him for something that he hadn't even done wrong. They stopped being friends after that and Benny and I kind of stopped hanging out shortly after, which was fine by me because he was always getting me in trouble anyways. I didn't really expect the incident to have such a long-lasting effect in my mind as it has. I have absolutely no idea what was going on in that house.

When I saw Elena at school the next week, she was quiet and wouldn't talk to me and had bruises. on her arms. I wish I'd been able to do something about it back then. I'm pretty sure some kind of abuse was going on in that household, but as a seven-year-old, I didn't have the vocabulary or know-how to say or do anything about it. I never did find out who that woman was, although I can hazard an educated guess that it was Elena's mom. My own mom has always been under the impression that Elena's mom was dead, so I have no idea why she was sealed away in a room in that house, hooked up to machines. I wish I could solve this mystery. And like I said, maybe your listeners have some theories, but in the meantime, I guess I'll continue waking up in the middle of the night,

haunted by nightmares of a dying woman, sitting upright in her sick bed, throwing back her shroud and pointing, straight at me. This is a story that happened to me in the UK when I was a kid. Me and my buddy Jim used to hang out at this local park near his house quite a lot, where we'd chill on the swings, smoke on the bench, play a bit of football, you know, the kind of crap teenagers get up to at the park. We were honestly good friends, goody-two shoes even, and just never got up to anything sorted, really. I had a couple of friends who made a hobby of setting fires inside public toilets, like inside the actual toilet bowls, and they'd recently been yanked into the cop shop for a warning, and it had kind of traumatized the poor lads, so Jimbo and I were extra determined to keep

our noses clean and be good kids. We were walking back to my house down a street we'd walk down a billion times. Most of the buildings along the street were houses, but a few of them were houses that had been converted into the premises for business. I forget what exactly there was, but one of them was a taxi rank. So they used the living room as a makeshift office, which you could see into through these huge bay windows of the front. There was a two-car driveway which could house two.

of the taxis, then a couple of other taxis would park on the street. I guess then people would call up and book a taxi and they'd dispatch it to a location, etc. This was years before Uber. Back when in the UK anyway, there would just be a designated area in town and whatever for taxis to wait in, or outside the cinema or Hollywood Bowl and all of that. I guess the taxis stayed on this residential street when they weren't in use because the headquarters were there. I could never work out why they needed a whole house as the taxi rank, nor could I imagine what was in the other rooms. I can make a good guess now, but I don't want to spoil anything. Anyway, I'll call these Jebens Munter Taxis, because it's as good a name as any.

So me and Jimbo were making our way home past Munter taxis when I had to stop to do my shoe lace up. These were the days before chat GPT and Skibitty Toilets, so you had to tie your own damn shoes back then. So that's what I did. I stopped and crouched down and began to tie my lace. Shock horror. I guess I'd accidentally decided to stop next to one of Munter Taxi's cars, though,

because within seconds of me dropping to my knees, the door to the taxi rank burst open, and an angry middle-aged Turkish guy came charging out. He hooted at the top of his voice, screaming at Jimbo and me. What were we doing? Why had we stopped there? What were we trying to do to his effing taxi? He was sick of his damn R-word kids effing up their cars. Were we cops?

Were we key in the taxi? Wait, were we cops? Huh? Now, I jumped to my feet gesturing to my half-tied lace and told him that I had, in fact, stopped to tie my shoe lace. The Turkish man almost exploded in rage at this. I was absolutely baffled. He grabbed me and slammed me against the taxi, which, yeah, nice one, mate. If you're worried about someone vandalizing your son,

stupid arse car, then good idea slamming a body up against it. And Jimbo, of course, decided that now was the perfect time to start taunting this taxi boss, calling him a prick and demanding that he let go of me, that we weren't doing anything wrong. But if he

didn't let me go there and then, then he'd have a lot to reckon with. And I have no idea what Jimbo even had in mind. I don't think he'd ever thrown a punch in his entire life, and still probably hasn't, but he was a mouth he sawed at times. Taxi wanker was having none of it and dragged me forward, then slammed me back again.

Then he threw me aside and pointed at the car. He screamed that I'd put a dent in it when I'd tied my shoelace, and I helpfully pointed out that it was probably when he slammed me against the taxi just then. And this caused him to grab me and punch me in the stomach. Not very hard, but enough to bring tears to my eyes. Jimbo started yelling at him again, this time taking things a bit more seriously. Meanwhile, two younger guys came out of the taxi rank, a white guy and another Turkish lad. The Turkish lad looked a bit apologetic, but the white guy was someone I'd seen driving the taxis around town before, a bit of a hard nut. He was holding a plank, getting ready to raise it like he was about to brain me with it. This plank guy started yelling at us alongside

the taxi driver, and he said that we were the kids who had been repeatedly vandalizing their taxis. and that we were going to effing pain now that they'd caught us. I had never touched their damn taxis before, apart from actually using their services a few times, and I told them this. I said we'd live nearby and were just walking home, and I'd stop to tie my lace. I again pointed out that my lace was untied,

and if they'd just look, they'd see that I hadn't done anything to the freaking taxi. Young Turk leaned in and whispered something to this taxi guy. Plank guy did that thing that the hard, kids in schools do, where they lunge at you and then stop trying to intimidate me. He waved the plank around, and I genuinely thought that he was going to hit me for a second. Jimbo had his phone out, and this was the days of the Nokia 3310s, so we didn't have cameras and stuff like that, but we did have the means to call the law. Jimbo said he was going to dial

999 because we had nothing to hide, and this caused taxi wanker to freak out. He started screaming and hollering that if we called the law we'd be dead men. And Christ, on a cracker buddy, overreacting much? And that's when I twig that maybe something more serious was going on here than a taxi firm being protective over their vehicles. I figured we probably needed to extricate ourselves from the situation pretty sharply. And I shot Jimbo a look, hoping he'd understand exactly what I was thinking. Instead, he called the men a bunch of tossers. Well, nothing for it. I showed him, I shoved Taxiwanker with all my might, knocking him into the plankman and then Jimbo and I pounded sand and ran down the street, darting across the busy main road and narrowly missing being flattened by the number eight bus to Staple Grove. Then we were back at my house and home free.

My stomach hurt where Taxiwanker had punched me. But other than that, we were safe, and we vowed that we wouldn't take that shortcut back from the park anymore and thought nothing of it. Now, a few months later, my dad showed me a story in the paper. A local taxi firm had been shut down for their role in distributing heroin and cocaine. And get this, smuggling blood diamonds. And yep, of course, it was Munter Taxis. So I guess that's why they used an entire house as their headquarters, storing and packing drugs, and again, I emphasize this, blood diamonds.

Now, Jimbo and I almost came a cropper from honest-to-god blood diamond smugglers. That's kind of badass, if not a bit terrifying. And in retrospect, it's no wonder they got so touchy-feely about me stopping to tie my shoe. This story happened my mom in the 60s, but she's given me permission to share it with you today. She was about four years old and playing with her friends at a local park. It was a whole group of them hanging out in the swings and whatnot. Back then, kids just played without supervision. And we see that as the good old days, but sometimes it's understandable why modern parents are a bit stricter on where their kids can go.

Now, this was back in the United Kingdom. Parks used to have a parkkeeper who would be employed by the council to maintain the grass, keep the play park equipment working, things like that. And now everything is done by outside contractors. But back in the day, it used to be a guy. usually a retiree who wore a parkkeeper uniform and had a little shack on the corner of the park. Most parkkeepers would become a popular staple with the kids who played there, and Mr. Claude was no different. Mum says he was a friendly old lad with a twinkle in his eye and a bag of toffee's he'd secretly offered to his favorite kids, one of whom was my mom.

Mr. Claude was friends with my grandparents, too. He'd been a local fixture in the town for as long as they could remember even, and everyone had fond opinions of the old fella. And that's why when Mr. Claude approached Mum in the park that day, she thought nothing of it. He called her over, away from her friends, and patted the bench under the tree for her to sit down. Mum joined him, and he asked if she was having a good day,

if she was having fun, if she'd be starting school that autumn, just usual friendly chit-chat from the town's grandpa. Mom was a polite kid who loved to befriend and please adults, so she was only too happy to answer his questions. Mr. Claude reached into his pocket and withdrew his traditional rumbled paper bag of toffies, which he'd buy from the local corner shop. He gave Mum a toffee, and then after a minute, he asked her if she liked kittens. Of course, what little kid doesn't like kittens? So Mom said yes, and Mr. Claude told her that the park cat, Shelly, had recently had kittens, and they were in his parkkeeper's shack on the other side of the park,

if she wanted to see them. Mum did, of course. She hadn't really been brief that well on Stranger Danger, but she says that even if she had, it was Mr. Claude, so she would have trusted him enough to go with him. Go with him, she did, and he led her by the hand to his hut. Inside he locked the door, not that Mum realized that at the time, and then had her sit on a stool.

She looked around but couldn't see Shelly or the kittens anywhere. Mr. Claude made a point of trying to find the kittens and couldn't, and then pulled a little cat sock puppet out of a drawer. Mum says he made her laugh pretending it was Shelly, the park cat, and everything seemed fine. And then Mr. Claude reached into the drawer again and pulled out a magazine. He showed it to Mum and asked her what she thought of it. It was a nudie magazine. Mum told him she didn't know and got shy and a bit scared.

And then Mr. Claude began flicking through the magazine, showing her increasingly explicit images of women. Mum can't remember for sure, as it was nearly 60 years ago now, but she thinks she remembers it being some kind of fetish magazine. Mr. Claude began asking her, a little girl, if she liked what was in the magazine. Again, Mum said that she didn't know and began to get a bit tearful and scared. Mr. Claude started to get cross with her and told her that a parkkeeper was a bit like a policeman, and she had to listen to him and do what he said. I don't want to repeat what he told her to do next, but thank God Mom said no. She jumped off that stool and stopped her foot and told him that grown-ups don't say things like that to little girls.

She remembers Mr. Claude laughing at this and telling her that she was a precious little brat. We think that he must have said precocious, but this is how she remembers it. And then he grabbed her by the wrist and began trying to guide her hand somewhere. And to this day, I'm sure someone was looking out for Mum, because before Mr. Claude could do anything, there was a harsh knocking at the door. It was Mum's brothers, Jules, and Andrew. They'd come looking for Mum to bring her home for tea, and the other little kids told them that Mr. Claude had taken her to his shed.

My uncle Jules says he always suspected that Mr. Claude was a wronging, so he ran straight over, then when they tried to enter the hut and found it locked, they began to panic. Thankfully, Jules bashing on the door caused Mr. Claude to panic, and he unlocked the door to let Mom go. When they got home, they told my grandparents how Mr. Claude had tried to behave, but they told Mum that she must have misunderstood him, and that sweet old Mr. Claude wouldn't possibly have wanted to hurt Mom,

But she should never go alone with adults like that again, but also definitely shouldn't worry or be traumatized by it. I would be so mad at my grandparents for this, except Uncle Jules concluded the story for us. When the rest of the kids had gone to bed, he stayed up and eavesdropped on granddad talking to a couple of his work buddies about Mr. Claude. They said it was high time that something was done about that dirty old man.

The next week, there was a new parkkeeper at the local park. Nobody heard from Mr. Claude again. The story went that he'd gone up country to live with his son because he was getting on in years. Maybe that's true. Maybe the local dads chased him off. Or maybe they banded together and delivered another kind of old-fashioned justice. Who can say? Hey, friends, thanks for listening.

Don't forget to hit that follow button to be alerted of our weekly episodes every Tuesday at 1 p.m. E.S.T. And if you haven't already, check out Let's Read on YouTube, where you can catch all my new video releases every Monday and Thursday at 9 p.m. EST. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you in the next episode.