The Lets Read Podcast - 334: MY TEACHER WENT CRAZY | 12 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories | EP 318

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Motels & SchoolsHAVE 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:- Mint Mobile Promo Code: [read]

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Rogers Business Point of Sale Solutions at Rogers.com slash POS. Me and my buddy Craig were younger. We did a terrible thing. Names changed to protect the not so innocent, etc. I'm going to say at the start here, TLDR, y'all have every right to hate me for this. The amount of guilt I feel is a lot. And I can't even turn myself in and get punished for it because I already did at the time. and it was treated like we were just kids and it wasn't really our fault. Maybe that's true, but I can't accept it. I ruined a guy's life, possibly forever for all I know,

and I did it by using his absolute worst fear in the world. I didn't know it was his worst fear at the time. How could I? Not many real people are deathly afraid of mummies. And I have to wonder why he volunteered to take us to the Egyptian exhibit at our local museum. It was a small suburban museum which didn't normally get exciting or rare exhibits, so I guess an Egyptian exhibit was a big deal. But we weren't studying Egypt and middle school, not in any real capacity.

And besides, Mr. Barker was our English teacher. He wasn't our history teacher. I guess maybe I figured he was interested in ancient Egypt. So then how was I meant to know that he had a major fear of it? We arrived at the museum, just some of the members. from our grade, and we were accompanied by Mr. Barker and Miss Pace, the school nurse of all people. Maybe there were other teachers present, and I'm just not really remembering them correctly. I just remember our small group being guided around the Egypt exhibit by Mr. Barker,

who alternated between really enthusiastic and strangely jumpy. And even then, we didn't put two and two together to work out that he was getting edgy around the two mummies that were on display. And after some time, Craig and I got bored and started to linger at the back of the group, and then wandered off together. We found some pots that the sign claimed to include the organs of a vizier, and I began teasing Craig that the vizier was going to haunt him. Next, we found a plastic crocodile, and we're trying to decide if the museum thought it was a real preserved crocodile

when it was clearly a piece of something from Spirit Halloween. I mean, surely they had to realize. And then Craig noticed a tiny disclaimer on a sign tucked into the back of the exhibit saying that the crocodile was for illustration purposes only, mystery solved. And then we stumbled across a gray door with a lock on the outside. It said, staff only with a sign hanging on it from the door by a string. So, being the stupid kids we were, I stole it and hid it in my school bag. Now looking inside, we could see that the room was some kind of maintenance room or more, accurately, a restoration room. There were a few exhibits from the museum dotted around the room,

along with tools that suggested that they were being restored. And that wasn't what caught our eye, though. At the end of the room, propped up against the wall, was an open sarcophagus, and inside was an actual mummy. The other mummies in the exhibit had been behind glass and only partially on display. This one was just sort of sitting there, out in the open. And as we crept into the room, we could see that the bandages on one side of the corpse had been peeled away and were clearly being restored. This meant that an actual part of the dead body underneath could be seen. And this was the most awesome thing that me and Craig had ever seen. We started to creep up on this mummy and studied it for a little bit.

Now, at the time, it didn't really strike us as weird that some priceless ancient mummy had been left exposed in an unlocked museum restoration room. You've probably worked out the secret of the mummy already from this, but if not, I'll just keep quiet for now. Now, our first thought was to go and get Mr. Barker to show him. We liked the guy and thought he was super cool and thought that he'd actually get a kick out of this. So we ran to find him, and as luck would have it, the class was having a break in the Egyptian exhibit, and everyone was just kind of hanging around doing their own thing. We told Mr. Barker that we'd found an abandoned, cursed mummy that was falling. apart in an unlocked room.

Naturally, as the grown-up, he decided it was his responsibility to look into our claims, but even then I could tell that he was unsettled or disturbed about something. We led him to the storeroom, and when we got there, Craig and I decided not to go inside. I can't remember if we'd already decided on pulling some prank at this point, or maybe we'd just been spooked by the actual dead body in the room. Either way, we let Mr. Barker go in. We watched him walk up to the mummy and then we pulled the door shut and latched it. Mr. Barker didn't notice for a minute.

We watched through the small window and the door as he looked at the mummy and then strangely jumped back. Then he reached out and touched it. Then he stepped back again. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. I was watching a man who had a unique opportunity to face his own obscure fear, even though I didn't really realize that's what I was observing. yet. I genuinely think he conquered it too. He very carefully and gently touched the mummy,

first on the bandages, and then on the actual flesh itself. Craig and I looked at each other and just gasped, making gross out sounds. Our teacher had touched a mummy. God, what was he doing? And then Mr. Barker started to turn and head for the door. We ducked out of sight, giggling when we imagined him discovering that it was actually locked. and Barker went from one to 100 and a fraction of a second. One minute he tried the door. The next, he was hammering and banging on it, screaming and yelling that he'd been trapped. Now, Kregan and I looked at each other and just ran.

We hid and watched from some distance as Mr. Barker was banging on that door and then stopped. We were not enjoying this. We were absolutely terrified at his sudden violent reaction and terrified at his sudden violent reaction and terrified at getting in a lot more trouble than we'd ever imagined. Now, just remember, at this point, we had no idea that this dude had an actual phobia of mummies. How could we possibly even know that? We were at an Egyptology exhibit. Why did he come?

I could not swear on my family's life that the next part actually happened, but it's what both Craig and I remember happening. We hung back and watched from our vantage point, as through the little window in the door, Mr. Barker disappeared back into that room. The next moment, the mummy itself came flying face first towards the tiny window, and we both swear that we heard a cry of mother effer coming from inside the restoration room. It was like Mr. Barker was trying to use the mummy to break down that door. Of course, to us, this meant that we'd driven our teacher to madness and caused him to destroy a

priceless Egyptian artifact. The amount of trouble we were going to get into at that moment was unparalleled. And there was nothing for it. We had to stay hidden and never let anyone know that it was us who'd lock that door. Craig and I argued for a moment over which one of us would go and get the museum staff. Craig insisted that if we did, we'd be under suspicion and besides, Mr. Barker was making so much noise that someone was eventually going to hear any minute now. And it took almost ten minutes.

Ten minutes of Mr. Barker bashing and crashing around with a mummy, and then going silent for some time towards the end. Eventually a couple of the museum staff came running to that restoration room. They unlatched the door, and we watched with horror as they stepped inside. There were torn bits of bandages and broken bits of that mummy all over the room. Mr. Barker had completely destroyed that thing like he'd gotten into a fight with it. And then Barker had laid it back into the sarcophagus and just sort of trembled there, burnt out, and completely spent. The museum staff were just sort of staring around in absolute horror.

And remember, Craig and I thought that Barker had destroyed a priceless Egyptian mummy. Craig whispered to me that Barker might actually go to jail for this, and that the criminal damage and charges might be insane. And that was it for me. I ran out of our hiding place, yelling how it had been us. We locked him inside and it wasn't his fault that he'd smashed up that thing. And the museum staff reacted strangely. They didn't start yelling for armed cops to come and take us away like we thought was going to happen.

They told us to calm down and we go to the director's office and figure this all out. I think that was supposed to reassure me, but instead, what happened next only served to just terrify Craig and I even more. One of the museum staff guided Mr. Barker out of the room. He walked out on these very shaky legs, took one look at me, and then just doubles over and begins to vomit. Only it wasn't just regular vomit. To me, it looked like he was puking up this black liquid, like the actual mummy's curse was

real, and I'd cause it. it to hit my teacher hard. So Mr. Barker was there throwing up, eyes locked into mine, and for all the world it looked like he was just puking hell itself up. Honestly, in that moment, I've never been more scared. I wasn't the kind of kid who believed in the supernatural, but if anything was going to make me a believer, it was that and in that moment right there. I guess one of the museum's staff saw that we were looking with complete horror because

she actually put her arm around me and told me it was probably going to be okay. She said it was just mummy dust, and that our teacher had inhaled it because he'd been around a mummy without ventilation and a mask like he should have been. Ben around a mummy was putting that very mildly. The dude had legitimately manhandled and destroyed a corpse. And honestly, Mr. Baker inhaled a mummy wasn't actually any less scary to think about than a legitimate mummy's curse. I guess the only thing that even made it.

slightly more tolerable and shifted it from unspeakable nightmare fuel to a somewhat creepy incident was the later explanation we heard for everything. And so here's what went down. Pretty much the entire Egyptian exhibit, their big deal event that they were selling tickets to and getting schools to pay for, was replicas only. They had a few disclaimer signs on the more obvious fakes like the Spirit Halloween crocodile, but much of it was being passed off as real. So Mr. Mr. Baker didn't destroy a priceless mummy, but instead destroyed a fake mummy. However, it was made using a real, legally acquired corpse from the 50s. So Mr. Barker was trapped in a room with a dead body, dressed as a mummy, which he then

smashed and inhaled dust from. So in terms of a crime being committed, thankfully it wasn't bad for any of us. But we had still driven our teacher crazy by locking him in with that mummy, no matter how fake the wrappings or modern the corpse was. We were so ridiculous. We'd do anything. We were so, so sorry. We knew we were the worst kids ever. And yet, everyone involved kept dismissing it that we didn't mean any harm and were just playing a typical schoolboy prank and had no intention of harming Mr. Barker. Now, I guess that's true, but I still felt terrible. I'm even told that Mr. Barker held no ill will towards us. But since I never directly saw him again, I can't be sure how true that actually was.

Even mine and Craig's parents were pretty soft on us. They almost acted like we were victims somehow. And to this day, I wonder if there was something that other people knew that we didn't, that maybe suggested Mr. Barker was dangerous or more volatile than we knew or something. I don't know. I just don't feel like we were ever punished, really. Mainly this, because the museum, the school, and Mr. Barker's family decided it would be better for us to just sort of cover it up. Now, this was back in the 1980s, so there was still a lot of stigma around mental illness. Barker's career as a teacher would be severely impacted if any of this came out, so he took an extended leave of absence until the next semester,

by which time Craig and I had left that school and moved on to high school. Now, we kept our word and didn't tell any of our peers about driving Mr. Barker insane with some mummy. We were pretty ashamed. And I still am even to this day, and like I said, I still feel like I should have received a harsher punishment. I have no idea how Mr. Barker is doing. I do know that he returned to teaching, but then I lost track of him in the past before there was any real internet or social media or anything, and I've never been able to remember

his real name to look him up since. Craig and I still stay in touch via Facebook these days, and both still agree that we feel terrible for triggering Mr. Barker's immense phobia of mummies. My name's Jan. I'm a grandma from the Midwest, and many years ago now, my husband Bill and I drove our two kids all the way over to Vineland, New Jersey, to spend some time with family. It made for a long trip, so long, in fact, that we decided it was better to spend the night in a motel rather than arrive at Bill's parents' place at two in the morning. We picked one of the more expensive options than the whole.

that we'd avoid anything sketchy or seedy, and when we arrived, it was every bit as nice as we had actually hoped. The staff was friendly, it was clean and well-managed, and our room was spacious and comfortable with a pretty nice bathroom, too. We checked in, hauled our suitcases from the trunk, and then went for a very nice dinner at a nearby bar and grill, before returning to the room at around 9.30. We watched some TV together, then once the kids were just about ready for bed, my husband went into the bathroom to brush his teeth while I coaxed our son and daughter under their covers. Since I promised our daughter a bedtime story that night, I was obliged to read one. But since our slightly older son was within earshot, he insisted that I tell a story about cattle-driving cowboys repelling Indian attacks,

and not one about princes and princesses finding romance and getting married. And yet while the three of us negotiated some middle ground, there was a sudden and unenestined. expected knock at the door. It was almost 10 p.m. and the unspoken arrangement in our house was that if anyone had knocked that late, it was my husband that would answer the door. So as soon as he heard the knocking, he spat and wiped his mouth and then made his way towards the door with a very irritable look. When our son asked him, who is it? He told him it was probably just one of the motel workers. But when my husband opened the door, it was not a member of the motel staff. Standing outside our motel room were four men.

The three younger-looking guys wore sweatsuits and were very tanned and muscular, almost like bodybuilders, while the one older man was frail and pale, but a much sharper dresser. And the older man apologized for bothering us so late, and then explained that he and his nephews would like to come inside and talk to us about something. My husband mirrored the man's approach and very politely explained that it wasn't a good time. We had a long drive ahead of us in the morning and we were about to head to bed. And then this man countered that he really must insist and ensured my husband after a short conversation that he'd be out of our hair.

My husband remained well-mannered but made it clear that we didn't want any company, especially at such a late hour with folks that we didn't even know. And the older man didn't say anything in response. He just sort of turned and nodded towards one of his nephews. One of them then reached around his back. When he brought his hand back around, I saw that he was holding a gun. Then, as the nephew held the black handgun discreetly against his thigh, the older man explained that unfortunately on this occasion,

he wasn't asking, he was telling. Our son, our eldest kid, was smart enough to realize that something was wrong. Maybe from the look on his face or possibly from my husband's prolonged silence after the nephew produced the gun. In a whisper, my son asked me who was at the door, and I told him I didn't know, but that he needed to take his sister into the bathroom and climb into the tub together.

When he asked why, I gave him an excuse that I'd used before during a far less frightening incident. And since he couldn't see past the open doorway and he hadn't seen the gun, I was able to tell him that we needed to talk about some grown-up stuff with a nice man outside. It wouldn't be for long, but he and his sister weren't allowed to listen to the grown-up talk. They had to go wait in the bathroom for a couple of minutes.

When he asked if he could take a pillow, I said yes, and then he took his little sister by the hand and led her into the bathroom before shutting the door. But just as he did, I looked around to see my husband backing up with his hands raised while the men entered the room. After one of the younger men closed the door behind him, the older man invited us to take a seat on the double. beds so we could get comfortable. And then after sitting in the same chair that I'd just occupied a few moments before, he took out a cigarette which was lit by one of his nephews. After taking a drag, he took a look around the room and then asked us, pretty nice place, huh? And in response, my husband's voice trembled with anger and fright, as he asked, what do you want? The older man sort of touched. and shook his head, and then after another long drag of a cigarette, he told my husband,

doesn't have to be like this, and that he could relax. He explained that we were going to come to a compromise, and when we did, he and his nephews would leave without so much as raising their voices. My husband's tone didn't change at all. He just repeated his question, and then the old man began to explain what he wanted. He said that he and the two men with him had stayed in the room just the night before, and that unfortunately he'd become forgetful in his old age. He'd left something in that room, something he knew the motel's staff wouldn't be stupid enough to steal,

and since we were the next family to occupy it, it must have been us that had found whatever he'd left behind. It was then that I finally spoke up, saying that we hadn't found anything of value in the room, and that it'd be a lot easier to help him if we knew what the missing item was. While the faces of the younger men stayed cold as ice, the older man smiled at me and explained what he'd left behind should be in the nightstand closest to me. As I stood up to go check, the older man had to stop the nephew with the gun from pointing it at me.

I was shaken, but indignant, so instead of shrinking back down onto the bed, I kept course towards the nightstand. When I opened it, I found it empty. I turned, inviting one of the younger men to come and check it for himself, so he could confirm that it was empty. No one moved. Then, with a chuckle, the older man explained how he figured that'd be the case.

He then went on to explain that if the nightstand was empty, then the explanation was simple. One of us had taken his property, and if we wanted to live, we'd return it. It was my turn to get angry because I figured that I'd worked out the guy's scam. He accused people of stealing his property and then intimidated them until they handed over the cash value. But when I confronted him on that, he laughed again. He wasn't trying to scam anyone. All he wanted was his property back. And my husband jumped in asking what property?

In response, the older man ordered us to tell our kids to come out of the bathroom. We refused at first, but then he said we could ask them to come out quietly, or one of his nephews could kick the door in and then drag them both out by the hair. He said it was our choice, so we made one, and it was me who tried to sound as calm as possible as I asked them both to come out of the bathroom. There was a pause, and everyone went quiet as the bathroom door slowly opened. Then our son let our daughter out into the bedroom by the hand. Both of them looked nervous, not terrified or on the verge of tears, just very, very anxious. The older man took on the air of a very friendly uncle, telling the kids not to be scared, and that he and his goons, I'll call them what they were, I guess, were friends of the family.

That didn't do much for them, but I guess it was better than threats. He then asked, very simply and plainly, if the kids had found anything while playing in the room. When both kids shook their heads, he asked if they were sure. Both silently nodded, their eyes very wide and frightened as they did. He asked them a few more times saying things like, You wouldn't lie to me now, would you kids? But their answers didn't change.

Neither had found anything. The older man turned back to us with a not-so-friendly look on his face and then asked if we understood what a difficult position we were putting him in. I was terrified, but the hypocritical question made me seeth with anger. And they snapped at him. Now, admittedly, this was very unwise, but when I said it was difficult to sympathize with him, seeing as he was putting us in one of the most difficult situations in our entire lives. And then, the older man stopped smiling altogether.

And then after stamping out his cigarettes in an ashtray that was on the coffee table next to him, he leaned forward in his chair and asked me something I will never, ever forget, not as long as I live. He asked me, Is my nephew going to have to really hurt you in front of your children? The question, or the implication at least, made my jaw drop and stunned my husband into silence. The older man deliberately confused our silence for incomprehension, and slowly repeated the question. And when he did, our little girl's eyes began to well up with tears,

and she started begging the older man, please don't shoot them. The man explained in that same talking to his kid voice that he didn't want to, but that mommy and daddy had taken something from him. Our son stayed quiet, hugging his sister closer as she started to cry. The older man turned his back to us, and for the first time, He looked truly angry as he told us, Look what you did.

Now you got your daughter crying. And then in a voice that set every nerve on edge, he told us he didn't want to strangle her to keep her quiet, but he would if he needed to. And the suggestion caused my husband's rage to boil over. He didn't get up, but he just sort of seethed there with anger as he told the man, You touch a single hair on her goddamn head.

But he didn't get past head before the goon with the gun suddenly pointed it at him. The older man told us to keep calm, that he didn't want either of us upsetting our daughter more than she already was. I looked to her, burying her face in her brother's pajama shirt. And it was then that I saw that not only was one of my sons' hands free, but it was fishing for something in the pocket of his pajama pants. Within seconds, everyone was seeing the same thing, and we watched in silence as my son pulled something from his pocket. It was a ring, a gold one, and it seemed to have what looked like a huge ruby surrounded by diamonds. And after taking it from his pocket, he held it up as if to say, here it is.

And my husband and I were far too relieved to be mad at first. I remember Bill's head sort of sinking into his hands covering his face almost saying, Oh, thank God. And I was still too stunned to say anything. I just watched as the older man smiled this big wolfish smile, before laughing like the whole thing was just some big joke. And I remember how he turned to his goons and said something like, even after all these years, I still got it.

He then gestured towards my son and told him, him to return the ring. Seeing my son gently pushed his sister to one side and walk towards the older man brought back this very deep, primal, motherly terror that my babies were about to get hurt. And when I whispered, please don't hurt them. The old man hushed me in that friendly uncle kind of way, and then held out his hand for my son to place the ring onto. After he did, he tried to run back to his sister, but the older man snatched him by the wrist and jerked him around so he was facing him. My son silently locked up in terror. My husband managed to say, please don't. But I mirrored my boy. I was frozen to the spot, praying the man would keep his word now his ring had been

returned. He told my son he wasn't going to hurt him, and then said it wasn't that he stole something that was wrong. It's that he stole it. from the wrong person. My son stayed silent, staring up at him with those wide, terrified eyes. And the older man laughed again. He leaned forward, gave my son a gentle slap on the cheek, and said,

He's got balls, this kid. Reminds me of a younger version of myself. After he let go of my son's wrist, the older man told him to quiet down his sister, who by then was crying very loudly. The older man then got up and sent a bunch of stuff about there being no hard feelings, how it was all water under the bridge, and he was sorry for the intrusion. But for me and my husband, we were barely listening.

We'd each rushed over to the kids as soon as those goons stepped out of the way, comforting them as the men exit the room. The last thing the man said as he walked out was, pretend we were never here. Then as quickly as they'd arrived, they were gone. And as you can imagine, the kids were completely distraught, especially my son. He was still six years old at the time, so still very much in that sticky-fingered prone to swiping things face. But after I sent him into the bathroom, he didn't realize what was going on when he came out again, and he didn't want to speak up about finding the ring in case it got us into even

more trouble. I obviously made it clear that it was wrong to have kept the ring and not mentioned it to anyone, but I also made it clear that those were very bad men, very, very bad men, and that they would have been mean to mommy and daddy no matter what happened. I didn't want to upset him any more than he was, so it wasn't until afterwards that I gave him a much harsher talking to about the consequences of stealing things, but at the end of the day, the whole thing was just a terrible case of bad luck. After going through something so frightening in that motel room, the kids refused to sleep in it. We managed to talk them into sleeping in the car,

at which point it made sense to just get back on the road again. My husband and I were hopped up on adrenaline, too, and when we didn't mind staying in the room as such, there was no way either of us were getting any real sleep if we stayed. We made the drive to Bill's parents, and as much as we apologized for waking them at almost 4.30 in the morning, they completely understood once we told them what had happened. And what happened was probably the single most terrifying thing to ever happen to me in my life.

One of the few times in life where I thought that I was about to watch one of my own children be harmed. And as a mother, I wouldn't wish that same feeling on my worst enemy. It was the kind of terror that I can barely describe, and a kind that I'm thankful that I haven't experienced in the many years since. We all know someone in the group who prefers to take the long route, like that friend who still pays for a forgotten subscription, the one clinging to their outdated phone because it still works. And now there's that person who's somehow still shelling out too much for wireless in 2026.

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supply. See mintmobile.com. This is kind of a weird one that happened to me when I was in high school in the early 2010s. So I had this boyfriend, we'll just call him Dylan, and I don't mean to brag, but he was the kind of hot that made other girls jealous. We weren't quite the school's prom king and queen power couple, but we were pretty close to it, and we were otherwise just totally normal kids having a totally normal high school time. Now, one of Dylan's electives was art, and it was one the few classes we didn't actually have together. Our school was pretty tiny, and because we were young and LOLL in love, we tried to ensure that we shared as many classes as possible. Dylan took art, though, and I didn't, so I had banned when he had his art lessons. And he was and still is a pretty

great artist, too, and he specializes in still life using pastels, acrylics, or charcoal. And these days does digital art, but back then in school it was those things. One day, early in our senior year, as we were walking home from school hand in hand, Dylan asked me the strangest question. What does draw me like one of your French girls mean? Obviously, as his loving and faithful girlfriend, that made me excited. I asked him why he was asking, and if someone had said it to him, and he just sort of laughed it off and asked a bit sheepishly, and I pushed him on it. He wouldn't tell me at first, and I got a little mad at him. Now, with his usual puppy dog eyes and hapless sincerity, he asked me why it was such a big deal.

I just laughed and explained that scene from Titanic, you know? And I'm sure everyone knows it, but just in case you're listening and you're one of those gen Alpha types, Kate Winslet says, draw me like one of your French girls, and it means draw me nude. So if someone had asked my boyfriend to draw me like one of your French girls, then it was either one of his football buddies and he was about to get a rude awakening, or it was someone who I didn't want him drawing like a French girl. And when he told me, who'd said it to him, I was a bit floored. Dylan claimed that it was his art teacher, Miss McElroy,

and she had said it jokingly to him after class while he was packing up. I started asking if anyone else had been there and he said no, it was just him. He said she must have just been kidding, though, that no way there was a teacher offering to pose news for a student, and I started to grill him again. To me, it really didn't sound like she was joking. We ended up having a little argument about it, and I went home that night, seething about Miss McElroy. Now, let me explain.

Miss McElroy was new to the school for that school year. She was young, dark-haired and pretty, with a stunning skin and a European accent that might actually have been French. Now, all the guys at school had a crush on her, and so did some of the girls. And the rest of us were just sort of low-key a little jealous of how glamorous and how this new teacher was. So we're not talking some hairy-legged cardigan-wearing old lady art teacher here. It was a woman who was less than 10 years older than my boyfriend, who, based on my observations, was kind of flirty. I didn't want to piss Dylan off, but I'd ask about Miss McElroy after that, just sort of casual. How was art today? Miss McElroy offered a strip for you again yet? Painted that

teacher yet? Jokes like that, which were kind of not jokes. Now, Dylan, surprisingly didn't get annoyed with me about it, and that's maybe why I kept it up. In fact, he'd reply in the negative, of course, nothing was happening, but he seemed almost uncomfortable and sort of cagey, like there was something he wanted to tell me, but didn't know how. I started making sure to arrange things. so I could meet Dylan after his art classes. The period where I had banned and he had art was the best one, because I was able to skip out on that class early a bunch of times. Now, one day I showed up to the art class early,

but the rest of the class had already been dismissed. The interior windows of the art class had always been frosted glass, so it was impossible to spy into the classroom by looking through them. This time, the door was ajar, though, so I kind of eavesdropped. Miss McElroy was talking to Dylan, complimenting his art, and maybe it was just my imagination, but there was definitely a flirty tone to her voice. Then, my blood ran cold when I heard her asked Dylan if he'd given any thought to her request for a portrait commission out of hours.

Dylan stuttered and stammered and said he'd work something out, and that's when I knew the kind of portrait she meant. Dylan brought it up himself later when we were hanging. out in the park with the two of our buddies. Now he swore us all to secrecy and then told us that Miss McElroy was trying to commission him to paint a nude portrait of her at her home. He also confessed that he'd been deeply uncomfortable with how she'd behaved towards him and that she'd made a few more advances that he interpreted as solicitous. Not the word he used back then, obviously. Now, I was horrified, obviously, but our two dumb-ass buddies, both guys were

kind of like, you go, bro, get that cougar pee. And then they remember that I was there and apologized and shut up, but you could tell that they didn't take it seriously at all. Now, it reminded them that Dylan was 17, and that crime was a crime. A teacher can't behave like that towards a student, and besides, Dylan was uncomfortable. He seemed relieved that I had his back and grateful that I understood, and later we talked about how people really do not take it seriously when it's a guy being preyed on, whether by a woman or often even another older man. And to this day, I still insist that we as a society do not take male victims as seriously as we should. It's something that Dylan and I have always advocated for over the years. And yes, spoiler, we're still together to this day

and married with a beautiful daughter and another on the way. Now, Dylan kept me filled in on Miss McElroy and she was definitely riszing him up as the kids say these days. She kept insinuating that she really wanted him to paint her nude and that afterwards they could see what happens. Dylan said that she then kept adding that she meant artistically, but it was very obvious that she meant some kind of physical interaction between them. Now one day I was late to getting out of class and Dylan was supposed to meet me out at the front of the school to walk home, but when I eventually got there, he was nowhere to be seen. I knew that he wouldn't have left without me and had art as the final class of the day, so I walked back inside to see if he was still there.

And the halls were almost completely deserted by then, and I realized that I was in fact very late. And when I got to the art classroom and tried the door, it was locked up. The light in the classroom was on, though, and I could hear the sounds of someone inside. Now the next thing I know, my phone starts buzzing. I looked down at the text, and it's Dylan. I'm an art class in Macquarie's stripping, he said.

Then she has her top off help. I froze. I had no idea what to do. And that's when I saw the vice principal approaching down the corridor of the hallway and maybe you could help. No, I tried to get something out, but I was actually shaking, panicking like an absolute idiot. And then my cell phone was buzzing in my hand and I could vaguely see Dylan asking for help over and over.

And I made a decision in the spur of the moment. I blurted out that I thought that there was a fire. in the classroom. And then before the vice principal could react, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from on the wall and slammed it into one of the frost glass windows. I hoped that Dylan or Miss McElroy weren't under that glass, though. Thankfully, they weren't. And the window broke apart into three large pieces, which fell into the classroom and shattered into tiny pieces that the safety glass tends to break into. This left a huge gaping look at what was going on inside. Miss McElroy had Dylan pinned into his seat.

She was completely and totally topless, straddled across the desk while Dylan just sat pressed back into the chair, this look of horror on his face. Now, it would have been funny if it wasn't so insanely disgusting to me. Miss McElroy looked like an actual predator, like some kind of creature advancing on my boyfriend. Now, the vice-principal let out some kind of strangled cry and then began shouting at Miss McElroy to get off of that student immediately.

And it was like she didn't even hear us. I'm sure it's more terrifying in my mind when I think back on it, but she was almost like a woman possessed. She was groping and grabbing at Dylan, who was sliding in his chair backwards, pinned between the teacher and the desk, his eyes wide and staring at me for help. I leaped through the waist-high broken window and did the only thing I could.

I just unleash that fire extinguisher. full foam blast at Miss McElroy. And that blast sent her falling sideways, clattering onto the ground in this mess of limbs, phone, and desks. Dylan jumped out of the way and ran over to me, and then unlatched the door from the inside and let the vice principal in. The whole thing was a bit of a chaotic poop show in our small town. Now, as a way the story went, Miss McElroy had undergone some kind of drug-induced psychotic

break over the semester. She had no history of acting like this with students before, but in the other hand, it was her first real posting as a teacher, so who knows if that meant anything. Now, no real criminal charges were brought against her because ultimately it didn't quite go far enough for a crime to have occurred, yet, other than the topless part, I guess, but I have no idea. Now, Dylan and his parents were very understanding, but of course, Miss McElroy couldn't remain as a teacher, and also had to undergo mandatory psychiatric evaluation and counseling as well as some kind of rehab stint, although I'm not sure if that was a court appointed or who forced it or anything. All I know is that my future husband came very close to being assaulted by a teacher,

and even today when I tell the story, there are certain people who don't see the severity of it. No matter your gender, if you're a young person and you're being hit on by an adult, especially one in the position of authority, then you don't have to see. stand for it. Tell someone, demand it to be taken seriously, and if that fails, well, and hopefully you have a loving partner who will spray them with a fire extinguisher. In the early 90s, way back before I got married and had kids or pulled my head out of my butt and generally got my life together, I had this girlfriend. I was madly in love with her, though, and I thought she was perfect and believed that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. And then one day, I found her

bed with a co-worker after coming home from work early. And so I grabbed a bag, packed everything I couldn't afford to lose, and then walked her out. About an hour later, I'm pulling into a motel about 15 miles out of town. It wasn't the first one I saw, but it was the first that seemed like I wouldn't wake up to find my car stolen. So I pulled in, booked a room for a week, and then asked the clerk where the nearest liquor store was. I got blasted that first night and then woke up so hungover that I poured the rest of that second bottle of vodka down the bathroom sink. It was clear alcohol wasn't going to fix anything, and so after loading up on beef and cheese at a nearby burger place, I head back to my motel room and went to sleep. Maybe three hours later, I woke up

at around 9.30 at night and then dragged myself into the shower to rinse away the cobwebs. I figured that I was in for a chill evening of TV and maybe a pizza delivery if the clerk on the front desk knew of one that had drive out that far, but I walked back into the bedroom to the sound of someone yelling in the parking lot outside. I peeked out of the curtains after I towed off and threw on some clothes and saw a woman standing at the far end of the parking lot having some kind of public freak out. She was yelling at the clerk from the front desk, but from that distance, and being behind the window, I couldn't make out what she was saying. I guess seeing someone else having a hard time made me feel a little bit better about my own. At least that's what I blame for the curiosity getting the better of me. And then within a few seconds of seeing her, I was outside on the walkway, smoking a cigarette and pretending not to watch the drama unfold.

But the second I heard what she was talking about, I didn't find it nearly as entertaining as I thought I would. I guess that probably makes me sound like some kind of a-hole, but who doesn't enjoy a harmless little confrontation between two pissed off strangers? The woman looked like she was in her late 20s or early 30s, black hair, tan, wearing jeans, sneakers, and a white t-shirt, and in between yelling for the clerk to shut up and listen to her, she kept saying crazy stuff like,

We need to get everyone out, and they're all going to die. I remember thinking, wait, what? And taking a few steps towards the parking lot so I could hear what they were saying better. The clerk was trying to calm her down, saying that he'd call the cops, but the woman didn't want to hear it. She kept telling the guy, The cops won't be able to do crap. They'd end up dead too. You need to get everyone out of here right now.

I wasn't the only person to overhear all of this. And as the yelling continued, more and more people start. started coming out of their rooms to see what all the commotion was for. A few kids came out with their parents, but quickly got ushered back inside when they heard the ladies screaming about her imminent mass murder. It was so convincing that I was like, is this girl having a mental breakdown here in the parking lot of a motel? Or is this legit?

Like, are people really coming to kill us? It seems like a hell of a thing to take a gamble on, I thought. And people in the second floor were obviously thinking the same. same thing because while some people were going back into their rooms looking very worried, one guy came out again with his car keys in hand, obviously getting ready to book it, should anything actually go down. The woman screaming sure as hell sounded like she believed what she was saying. She was scared, and that fear was infectious. People were starting to get anxious. Kids were crying, and all the while she's getting more and more agitated while yelling at the crowd of onlookers

saying, don't you get it? We can't stay here. Hell, I felt it myself. That creeping thought of, well, damn, what if she's right? Other people were obviously thinking the same thing, and not just the guy who grabbed his car keys either. People were yelling, Just call the cops, man. Things like that. But you could tell it wasn't so much that this woman was freaking out. It was because they were actually scared of the stuff she was saying. The clerk turned to the crowd on the second floor balcony, which is where the yell of call the cops had come from. He started saying something back about how the situation is under control. And then I think he was about to tell people to go back into their rooms when the woman seemed to lose her mind completely for a second.

I guess it was the guy claiming that everything was under control because as soon as those words came out of his mouth, she started pacing towards him and he didn't see how close she was until it was too late. He tried to back away from her, telling her to keep away, but she managed to grab him by the arm. I figured that she was about to start trying to hit him or something, but instead, she kind of dragged his forearm towards her while she leaned forward, and then sunk her teeth into the guy's forearm so hard that I actually think she was drawing blood. The clerk started screaming for his life, get the hell off of me, before letting out a loud screech of pain as the woman bit him. I remember the gasps and cries coming from around the motel as she bit the dude, and this prompted another handful of people to retreat to their rooms, like they didn't want to be around for

whatever happened next. I'm not sure how the clerk got her off of him, but I guess he dragged her off by the hair or something and shoved her, because the next thing I knew, she was picking herself up off the ground while the clerk ran back towards the front desk holding his arm. As the woman kept yelling about how we were all going to die, someone was going to die, someone walked out from the front desk with a gun in this hand saying the cops have been called, and she was saying to leave right now before they showed up and arrested her. Once again, the lady freaked out and started screaming at the top of her lungs about how

the cops couldn't help anyone, and they'd only die too. She then started marching towards the person I'd later discovered was the motel's manager, but he didn't make the same mistake as his employee. He backed up, keeping a distance between them as he raised that guy. gun and told her to back off. Now, looking back on it, that's when I started to think that she wasn't crazy, at least not entirely crazy, because the sight of that gun being pointed at her stopped her dead in her tracks. She kept on backing up from the manager with his gun pointed, and then she turned around and saw a couple of young parents watching from the second floor balcony with the girl holding

their baby. The crazy lady ran for the stairs, begging them to hand over their baby so it. at least it'd be spared from what was coming. She didn't even make it halfway up before the dad cut her off. He tried blocking her at first, but when she swung for him, he shoved her back so hard that she tumbled down the last couple of stairs. It wasn't some bad fall, so she got right back up again, but just as she was making her way up the stairs towards the young father again, the cops suddenly rolled into the parking lot and caught her attention. Their patrol car turned into the parking lot with a quick wail of its size. as if to say, all right, break it up.

The manager with a gun placed it on the ground and raised his hands into the air. One of the cops jumped out and pulled his own gun, but didn't point it as the manager started explaining the situation. That same cop started walking towards him so he could secure the gun, and then told the guy to head back inside until the situation was resolved. But the other cop, he started walking towards the lady who'd been screaming, and the whole thing started over again. At first, the lady acted kind of relieved, like the cops were going to help her evacuate the motel.

But as soon as that one cop made it clear that wasn't going to happen, she started screaming about how they're all going to die again. Only that time, she went from maybe a five out of ten on the crazy scale to a full-on-11. She started saying, why is no one listening to me? Are you effing stupid or something? And she's not just yelling or screaming this time. She's screeching and wailing so loud her voice was starting to break up, and some of the words are kind of getting mushed together in her rush to get them out.

I think this was one of the most disturbing aspects of the whole thing, seeing the last of this woman's mind starting to slip away from her right there in front of me. She started walking towards the cop in front of her. He backed off and pulled out this bright yellow pistol taser, and although he didn't point it right away, just seeing him take it out, sent her completely over the edge again. She rushed forward. I'm guessing to try and bite that cop, and he didn't hesitate.

He pointed his taser, fired it, and the woman's body just sort of locked up mid-run before she hit the ground face-first. It was a nasty fall, man, a really nasty fall. And then when the cops went to put the cuffs on her, it looked like she was out cold. Not long after the ambulance showed up and after wrapping the woman's face up with some bandages, the paramedics hauled her onto a stretcher and then drove to what I'm guessing was the hospital with the cops following close behind.

The motel's manager walked around the parking lot, basically begging people to not check out and assuring them everything was back under control. I went back into my room, grabbed my keys, and then went back to the burger joint for some fries and a milkshake. No one showed up at the motel and slaughtered everyone, but by then I figured that wasn't going to happen. The poor woman just, I guess, lost her mind somehow and was convinced something terrible was about to happen. The thing is, something bad was about to happen, just only for her. Someone remember Live Journal? It was kind of like Tumblr, but back before Tumblr was a thing.

Now, there was a lot more drama-focused stuff, if you can actually. believe that and a lot less socially conscious stuff, shall we say. It had a big goth and email population, but in general, people would just use it to micro-blog about their problems, their day, their faves, music, and the people they hated. And as far as I'm aware, it was the first social media blogging site. I mean, it was pretty much just exactly the same as Tumblr, but it was more oriented towards community building and having a friends list and things like that. Honestly, I was a high school kid when it was popular in the early 2000s, so my memory on the site was a little hazy. I didn't even use it myself.

It was almost like the alternative crowd, like I said, but that didn't stop LiveJournal from having a huge impact on my life, at least for around six months in the spring of 2004. A live journal started getting shared around by some of my classmates. We were in sophomore year at high school that I won't name because I still live in that town, and I actually value my anonymity. The blog had been found by one student, I'll just call her Kate. It was a big live journal user. She was a real emo chick, into all the bands that people like her were into

and dressed like that too, but she's kind of irrelevant to the story for the most part. She found the blog because it started following her and the title of the blog pointed to our high school. There was a post that caught her eye that she was sure was about her. They talked about a girl with her name who was a, lame poser, and how she'd hurt herself for attention. Now, if this was true, then Kate didn't seem to mind because she was showing the blog around like some type of badge of honor, proud that she'd

attracted a quote-unquote hater. Now, a bunch of us assumed Kate had created the blog to get attention, but we'd soon find out that that wasn't the case. The next post that really caused a stir was the one that claimed Gertrude, a senior girl, not a real name either, I'm just not good with making up names, had gotten an abortion. The baby daddy was Jamal, who was not her boyfriend, Dirk. Now, this led Dirk and Jamal to having some big fight in the cafeteria, with Gertrude yelling at them not to believe anonymous internet posts and hate blogs. Now, the next one accused my favorite teacher, Miss Whitaker, of running over a dog when she was a teenager, and it was just an absolutely bizarre accusation, and nobody wanted to believe that one. Nobody even wanted to mention

but then this class idiot Blake decided to ask her about the allegedly assaulted dog, Muffy, and it clearly visibly upset Miss Whitaker. A few days later, I had a private homeroom meeting with Mrs. Whitaker and asked her about the dog. She told me that Muffy was a dog that had belonged to her friend when they were in senior year many years ago. She told me that the dog had run out in front of her car when she was driving, and she had been unable to swerve in time. It had left the dog with just three legs, and Mrs. Whitaker's friend blamed her for it for years.

And this led to her and I having a heart to heart about people judging you, and I talked about an incident that happened during elementary school where my friend Dean had fallen off the jungle gym, and everyone said I did it for months, and even called me a murderer, despite my friend suffering just a broken arm, and not actually dying. And there were a few more live journal posts after that. A few months had passed,

and Abby had bulimia, Jack had erectile disfew, function, Rusha cheated on tests, and then came my turn. And when I saw what the post was saying about me, I was absolutely floored. It asked if everyone remembered the time I pushed Dean off the jungle gym in elementary school and whether they could be safe with an attempted murderer like me around. Now, everyone kind of lost interest in the blog after that, because they decided this post was just nonsense, and they must have all been nonsense. Now, after all, they had no idea who dean was or when I'd ever pushed him off at jungle gym. This is because I'd gone to elementary school not only in a totally different area, but in a different country altogether. I'd spent my

elementary school years in Canada and then moved to the states around middle school age, and I literally never even bothered to mention the dean falling, childish murderer rumor story to anyone because it was so silly and inconsequential. Nobody that is, of course, except for Mrs. Whitaker. I booked another homeroom meeting with her, during which time there were a couple of more blogs accusing Kelly of being a harlot and Jim being a junkie. No, just real pathetic, childish gossip girl stuff. And it was before the TV show came out, but the books had been around for a couple of years at that point, and were popular with some of the girls at my school, so we all thought the live journal was some students attempt to recreate that. But how wrong we were.

I didn't tell anyone about my discovery that it was Mrs. Whitaker. She was a sweet, kind, middle-aged drama teacher, and I wanted to know why she was running such a cruel blog about the students. When I asked her, her face went weirdly blank, almost terrifying. It was like something immediately broke inside her when I said in a very meek voice that I knew it was her. Miss Whitaker stared past me and then dispassionately explained that everything she'd posted about were things she'd overheard from different students. I asked her why, and she

simply didn't reply. I told her I knew it was her because she was the only person that whole damn school who knew about Dean and me being accused of pushing them off the jungle gym. She actually laughed sadly at that and said, typical. And then she said that if I told anyone that blog was hers, she would terminate herself, and it would be my fault. I was speaking. I was speechless. An adult, a teacher, my favorite teacher, actually, was threatening to self-delete because of their gossip blog. This didn't happen in the real world with actual grown-up people, except I guess it did, and that's the first time my eyes were open to the fact that adults are just as cruel and petty and vindictive as teenagers. Mrs. Whitaker made that threat and just openly said that I would have

blood on my hands. What a horrible and unpleasant thing to put upon a kid. And yet, she did. What could I do but to agree to it? I did agree to it, but told her that I would only keep silent if she deleted that blog and never posted anything like that again. She agreed, almost carelessly, like it was no big deal. I'd genuinely never seen such a scarily dispassionate, callous side to an adult before. I didn't have free access to home and internet myself, so I wasn't able to check that Mrs. Whitaker stuck to her word until the next day, when everyone was talking about how the live journal had been deleted. Nobody had seen if there had been a final post or any kind of swan song or dramatic goodbye.

One minute was there, the next minute was gone. I asked to transfer to a different homeroom teacher but didn't explain to anyone else why Mrs. Whitaker approved my request, of course, and she left at the end of the school year anyway. Now, to this day, I still have no idea whether or not I did the right thing by keeping Mrs. Whitaker's secret. I'm not sure what would have happened if I'd told people, but it deeply unsettles me to think of a middle-aged teacher posting those kinds of things about students. It was pathetic, childish, and completely chilling when you think about it.

It possesses a grown woman who is supposed to be responsible for the care and well-being of her students to act in such a cruel manner. I wish I'd meant Mrs. Whitaker again later in life so I could have been. ask her. I've tried to find what happened to her occasionally in the subsequent years, but with no luck. I really want to meet her again and just ask her why she did it and also get her reassurance

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Back when I was still in college, I used to drive home for the holidays and since my parents lived all the way across the country, the journey took a day and a half and included an overnight stop in a motel. It was one of those single-story L-shaped places that looked like it had been around since the 50s or something, where the rooms opened directly onto the parking lot. The paint was fading and had two buzzing neon signs out front that you could hear at night. And since the place was clean and cheap and was mostly exactly a 10-hour drive from college, I figured it was as good a place as any to get some needed sleep.

Now during my sophomore year, I pulled in and paid cash for a room and then parked right in front of my door. I dumped my overnight bag inside, checked the room over to make sure everything was as it should be, and then walked back outside to my car. But as I was locking my door, someone came up to the room next to mine. It was a woman, maybe in her mid-30s, and since she was looking down at her phone as she walked past, she slammed into me as she did so. I was about to mumble sorry out of reflex, but she beat me to speaking. Not to offer an apology of her own, but to call me a dumb effing B word who should watch where she's standing.

It was so insane that I was stunned and I didn't let it bother me. And as I walked to my car, I kind of laughed to myself at how comically terrible some people can be. I also remember being super relieved that I was only staying one night and that I most likely wouldn't have to interact with her again. I had no idea that me and Little Miss Rood were in for a much more significant encounter. I drove down to the same fried chicken place that I stopped by during my freshman year and was relieved to find that it was still open. I got myself a sandwich, some fries, and an iced tea, and then after back out into the parking lot, I spotted a man standing by what I assumed was his car. It looked like he was watching the people inside through the big panel windows.

The second he saw me, he called out in a friendly voice asking if I could help him. Then when I asked what was going on, he told me his story. So about a week prior, his wife's parents had died in a freak car accident. She was absolutely devastated, but as the days went by, she got worse and worse, until one day, when she seemed to have a complete nervous breakdown, and drove off in her car after saying she was going to find her dead parents, like she didn't really believe they were gone. Given what a fragile state of mind his wife was in,

the man said he was desperate to find her before she got herself hurt or into trouble. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to show me a picture of her, and when he turned the screen around so I could see, I recognized who it was. It was little misrude. The lady who barged into me outside my motel room

maybe only 45 minutes prior. I took a long look at the picture, staying quiet while I studied it. And then after looking up to meet the man's eyes, I told him, Oh, sorry, haven't seen her. But if you give me your cell number, I can call you if I do. And I tried to sound as genuine as possible. Took down his cell number before wishing him luck and then walked back to our cars as he thanked me for my kindness. Now, a lot of you are going to ask,

Why the hell did you just lie to that nice man searching for his wife? And I get it. I'd be asking the same thing if it was me reading this right now. But right as I was on the cusp of telling the guy, good news, I know where she is. She's in the hotel room right next to mine. I heard my friend Ali's voice in my head. Allie, who'd been one of my best friends all throughout high school,

had suffered through a horrible dating experience back when she was a senior. She ended up dating an older guy, not by much, just a couple of years. But while this guy seemed cool and had a nice car and had money to spend on her, he turned out to be an absolute psycho who could not take no for an answer. She had to quit her job and find one someplace else because he kept showing up trying to either yell at her or beg her to take him back. But just a few months into working at the new place, he showed up there too. and this time he didn't want to talk.

He tried dragging her into his car. The cops were called. It was a whole thing. But then afterwards, when one of her old middle school friends heard about it, she called her in tears saying the whole thing was her fault. The ex-boyfriend had reached out to her, told her a bunch of lies about organizing a surprise party, and then managed to trick her into spilling the beans regarding Allie's new place of work.

It was cruel, devious, and manipulative, illustrating exactly why she'd had to break up with him in the first place. So when that guy showed me a picture of his wife, after telling me a bunch of stuff I had no way to verify, I figured that I'd better play it safe. It wasn't just Allie's experience that made me lie to him either. There was something about the way he told his story that just didn't sit right with me. It sounded almost rehearsed,

and while I'd obviously help the guy out if his story turned out to be true, it's always better to be safe than sorry. When I got back to the motel, I went straight to the door of the room next to mine and then hesitated a few moments before finally knocking. I saw the curtains twitch to the right of me and then suddenly heard little Miss rude yell, What do you want? She didn't sound mad or crazy, just a little annoyed that I'd knocked on her door, sure, but nothing like the nervous breakdown her husband had described.

When I told her I had something to ask her, and it was better to ask face to face, she came to the door and opened it just a crack before peering out at me from the dark inside. She then asked me again, in a much lower voice, what business I had knocking at her door. Now, I didn't quite know what to say it first, or rather I didn't quite know how to say it. So instead I just asked her a question in the form of, ma'am, did your parents pass recently? Now, she just screwed up her face before telling me no. Her father had died many years before and her mother was still very much alive. It feels tasteless to say this given the circumstances, but that vindication, that confirmation, that I was right to withhold information, it felt great.

I hadn't been paranoid and my suspicions had been entirely correct. And the lady still had a confused look on her face, so I quickly told her about the man that I met in the parking lot of that chicken place and how he'd showed me a photograph of her. And the second I said it, her face just dropped and turned white. But not just in shock or realization. She looked more like I told her the dead were rising from their graves. She looked terrified, and after a few moments of silence, she told me, Can you come inside?

And after she set the door behind us, the first thing she said, she did was thank me, and I witnessed a total shift in this woman's demeanor. She went from rude and antisocial to sweet and vulnerable as she explained that she'd recently escaped from her abusive husband. It wasn't just arguments or bad tempers, but years of steadily escalating violence. Then by the time she got scared he might beat her to death, she knew it was time to go, and she slipped away while he was at work with nothing but a case of clothes, some cash in her car. Hearing about all the abuse she went through made my skin crawl. And when I told her, I'd lied to him about not seeing her. She looked so relieved that I thought she might cry.

I also told her about taking his cell number and joked about how I could misdirect him with a false sighting. Now, this was the first time I actually saw her smile, and she laughed weekly before warning me not to get involved. Then after thanking me a dozen more times, I went back to my room and got ready for bed. I went to sleep feeling good, like I'd done something truly special in helping a battered spouse avoid her abusive husband. But a couple of hours later, I hear this crash that had me bolting out of bed terrified. And because in that moment I had major sleepy brain, I initially thought that what I'd heard was a car accident on the highway outside, but I didn't even make it over to the window before I heard another bang. And it was coming from the room next door.

the one with Little Miss Rood, or, as she should really be called, the wife on the run. I dialed 911-owned speaker as I threw on some clothes, telling them what was going on before heading out the door into the parking lot. I hadn't seen the husband yet, but I didn't need to. I knew only one man in the world could be responsible for the things she'd screamed, and the only one who would have replied in the way he did. Once I was dressed, I ran out into the parking lot just in time to see. the same man from the chicken place parking lot. He had her by the arm, and he was dragging his escaped wife toward a pickup truck.

He was dragging her, but she wasn't on her feet. She was unconscious, her legs scraping against the gravel, and the sight of her rag doll like that made me feel sick. I started yelling and screaming for him to let her go, for people to help her, and before long, a couple of other motel guests came out of their rooms. One of them, a big guy in flannel pajama pants, ran straight toward them and shouted for him to let go. Another man from further down the road joined in. The husband swung at one of them, but in the chaos, a third man came at him from the side and shoved him so hard he let go of his wife.

After that, he seemed to realize just how outnumbered he was, and after running to his truck, he peeled out of that lot and zoomed off down the highway. Someone had already called the police and another guest was on the phone with 911 for an ambulance. And the woman just laid on the floor, still out cold with her face all swollen on one side. I started wondering how her husband could have found her and when it hit me, the realization made me feel twice as nauseous. He must have seen that I recognized her when he showed me that photo of her or maybe he just smelled the lie for what it was. then all he had to do was follow me back to the motel at a distance, and then he could have watched from afar as I knocked on that door of her room. I made it easy for him.

I thought that I'd been helping her, and instead I condemned her to face a nightmare come to life. The cops arrived to secure the area, and then not long after, the EMT showed up and wheeled her away on a stretcher. She was awake by then, but she obviously wasn't doing too well, and I couldn't bring myself to try and talk to her because of how guilty I felt. I was convinced that I'd led her abusive husband straight to her, and I'm still convinced that that's the case,

even after years upon years of trying to convince myself otherwise. After the cops and EMTs drove off, the whole lot went completely quiet again, and I went back to bed and tried to sleep, but it didn't come easy. In the morning, I packed my bag and checked out, barely making eye contact with the manager as I did so. I didn't ask about the woman and I couldn't bring myself to. I just sort of got in my car and drove off. So I grew up in America, but my dad's family is Russian.

My dad grew up in the old Soviet Union with his parents and siblings and this is a story he and my uncle have told us many times. This happened at their equivalent of middle school, which is called middle school over there. And there was this kid called Constantine, but people uncharitably knew him as lizard boy. Constantine had a skin condition that made him scaly and a bit deformed. I've never seen him, obviously, but when I was a kid, I used to watch the Batman animated series,

so one of the times when Dad was telling us the story, I asked if Constantine looked like Killer Croc from that. Dad says he looks absolutely nothing like that at all, and that the reality of these types of skin conditions and deformities are a lot more tragic and unusual looking. I never saw Constantine so I don't know exactly how to describe him, and dad has too much respect for the kid to go into the details. Whenever I've asked, he just says his skin was scaly and he earned the nickname Lizard Boy. Who called him Lizard Boy, I would ask?

Adults in the town, mostly violent Gopniks and similar. None of the other kids called Constantine Lizard Boy, but one man who did was Boris, this local journalist with delusions of Grand Jure. Boris is the other important main character in this story, but we'll come to him later. Constantine was the son of a farmer. They lived hard and were dirt poor. If there was any kind of helpful treatment for Constantine in those Soviet Union days, then they didn't have access to it. Instead, he had to work the land in cold, harsh winters and blistering summers, and none of this could have been good for his illness. Now, despite the hard work, early mornings and late nights, Constantine still mostly attended school, and even though his skin deformity prevented him from people being able to speak clearly and coherently, as his lips could inform the words properly, he was an amiable and friendly kid who was popular with the others.

He was a bit older than my dad by two years and was in the same grade as my uncle Vladislav. Constantine was Uncle Vladislav's friend and my dad's friend by proxy. Now, enter Boris. Boris was a former Gopnik who somehow became a journalist for the local paper. The local paper was far from reputable and mostly just published garbage. Boris was dating the daughter of a gangster, though, and Boris wanted to be a journalist, so he got to write for the local paper. I don't know how much dad and Uncle Vladislav really knew about Boris's work on the paper

or whether he did really date a nepo baby gangster. Now, this part seems highly unlikely to me, but that's how they want to tell the story, and it's how I'll tell it too. Boris kept invading school property, and it soon became clear that he was trying to dig up dirt on Constantine. He started interviewing students about the quote-unquote lizard boy, asking if they thought he was some kind of monster, maybe a vampire or the creature from the Black Lagoon. The teachers caught him on school property a number of times and chased him off, but he kept coming back. One day, Boris showed up with a photographer. Imagine how this wouldn't fly in the States today, a tracksuit wearing newspaper reporter and his idiot henchmen with a camera trying to snap a photo of middle school kids.

This really upset Constantine and his friends. Of course, Constantine didn't want to be the subject of a newspaper story about his deformity. What kind of cruel man subjects a kid to this? Constantine just wanted to live his life in peace and make the best of his lot in life. Now enter the third main character of this story. Mr. Kosslov. Mr. Kossloff was one of the chemistry teachers, and he was the subject of many rumors. The main one was that he'd been an illegal, bare-knuckle boxer who served in the Red Army, and this one was most likely true. He was definitely ex-armed forces and definitely a capable

bare-knuckle boxer, but whether he fought in illegal underground fights, who could say? Either way, Mr. Kostov was not a man you wanted to make an enemy of, and Mr. Kosslov had a protective fatherly instinct towards Constantine. So when Boris and his crony would show up on school premises yet again, camera at the ready, Mr. Kolslov was waiting for them. He grabbed the camera, not a cheap piece of equipment in the USSR back then, and smashed it on the ground. The cameraman fled immediately. Kolslov got a hold of Boris, though, and roughed him up so bad he had a bleeding nose and ear. Now a few days later, rumors were swirling around the school that Kolslov had been jumped while walking home from work. Now, sure enough, when he returned to the school the

next week, he'd suffered some minor injuries. The students tried asking him about it, including Konstantin himself, but Kolslov wouldn't say anything, and snapped at them for asking. Everyone knew that Boris and his cronies were responsible, though. And a few weeks passed, and there were a few more attempts by Boris to photograph Constantine. Why he was so obsessed with trying to run a newspaper story on a poor deformed kid as anybody's guess. I for one think it takes a deep decay in one's soul to behave like this, but I guess that's what men like Boris are like, decayed and warped. Now one day, Dad says that Uncle Vladislav claims he overheard the teachers talking. Kolslav was saying that Boris wasn't protected now, and if he's a lot of him, he's not a lot of

came onto school property again, they were safe to deal with him. When Dad is telling the story alone, he adds that he's not sure if Uncle Vladislav really did overhear this, or if he's just embellished things in the telling. Other way, Boris invaded school property one more time. Kolslav and the other teachers were waiting for him. They beat him, quite severely, apparently, and Boris vowed to be back and vowed that he would expose this lizard boy. And apparently, they never saw him.

calm again. Constantine and Uncle Vladislav, then eventually my dad, moved on from that middle school and went on to high school. Constantine and Uncle Vladislav graduated together, and my dad did so two years later. Unfortunately, sometime after that, Constantine passed away due to complications from other health conditions he had. The poor boy had also had a hole in his heart and incorrectly developed internal organs. Despite his poor simple upbringing, his funeral was standing room only. And Boris, the reporter, was not there. Shortly before the whole family left for the United States and new life, a body was found in a shallow grave outside of town. And according to the report in the very paper that he'd formerly worked for, the body belonged to ex-reporter, Boris.

The story didn't go into too many details, but it reported that the condition of his remains, suggested that his skin had been partially flayed. It could be a total coincidence. He was supposedly the ex-boyfriend of a gangster's daughter, so maybe he pissed off the wrong people or ran into some trouble of who knows what kind of other criminal or Gopnik. But Uncle Vladislav will swear to his dying day that the week after Boris first disappeared,

he heard Koslov and the other teachers talking about a job well done and saying that Constantine wouldn't have to worry. anymore. I've been cleaning rooms at the Cedar Pines Motel for almost 15 years now. It's not a fancy place, just one of those long, single-story motels you see off the highway, the kind with faded green doors and an ice machine that only seems to work when it wants to. We get a mix of guests. Some are just passing through, some stay for a couple of weeks, and you learn very quickly not to ask too many questions. Now, it was a quiet afternoon in late September, I remember, and I was coming back from cleaning room eight when I saw a kid, maybe five or six years old, walking back and forth outside room

14. Now, at first, I thought he was just playing, maybe waiting for his parents to come back from the vending machine. But after a while, I noticed that he wasn't playing so much as just sort of pacing up and down. And when I asked him where his mom and dad were, he just sort of shrugged and said he didn't know. I didn't look scared exactly, more like empty. Like whatever had happened had knocked all the pep out of him or something. And after taking the kid's hand, I went to the office to find Carl, the clerk on duty.

And Carl's the kind of guy who's been doing this job forever and who doesn't get rattled very easily. I told him about that kid and he checked the logbook. Now, sure enough, room 14 had been rented out the night before to a couple with a child who actually paid cash. Now, the three of us had then tried knocking on the door of room 14. Carl knocked but got no answer. He knocked again, louder this time, but still nothing. He gave me a nervous look, then went to get his master key. And the smell hit me before the door was even halfway open.

Not the strong, rotting smell you get when something's been dead a while. More like that metallic tang of fresh blood. The room was a wreck. The bed sheets were tangled and stained, drawers had been pulled out and clothes thrown all over, and one of the lamps were knocked over and cracked. I saw a flex of blood on one of the walls, little spots like someone had flicked a paintbrush dipped in red. There was more on the bed sheets, so much that we couldn't write it off as a nosebleed or something equally harmless. Carl swore under his breath and I stepped back quickly so the kid couldn't see.

I put my hands on his shoulders and turned him toward the parking lot, telling him that we were going to wait outside. I tried to keep him talking, asking about school and if he liked cartoons. He barely answered me. It was like he knew what had happened and he couldn't process it yet. The police showed up maybe 20 minutes later. The first two deputies went into search the room, and then not long after, they were joined by another officer in plain clothes, who I'm guessing was a detective. And that's when I knew that it must have been something serious, very serious.

They kept asking us the same questions over and over, stuff like how we found the kid, what time it was, if we'd seen anyone come or go. And I told them everything we knew, which wasn't much. Carl told them about the cash payment and that there was no car listed on the registry. Now, once I was done with the cops, I kept trying to keep the kid distracted. I found some old crans in the office desk and a few sheets of paper, and he sat at one of the lobby tables and drew pictures while the cops went in and out of the room. At one point, I remember looking over to see what he was drawing

and saw it look like a bed with red scribbles all over it. I don't know if it was my imagination, kind of like filling in the gaps, but I felt horrible knowing that he might have seen something happen to his parents. A few guests came by to see what the commotion was, but the cops kept moving along until one lady, the lady in room six, said that she thought that she'd heard a loud bang in the middle of the night. It had been loud enough to wake her, but since it only happened the one time, she'd figured it was just someone dropping a heavy suitcase or maybe her hearing something.

Only then did she realize that she might well have heard something terrible actually happening. It was maybe two hours before a woman from Child Protective Services stopped by to see about the kid. She was polite but firm with us, but super sweet and friendly with the kid as she told him that he needed to go with her to talk to some nice folks over at her office. He didn't ask questions. He just took her hand and followed her to her car. I don't know why, but I knew right then that whatever happened in that room, he wasn't going to see his parents ever again. The police never told us much after that. They took the sheets and the lamp and some clothing and a few other things from the room,

and it was sealed for a while, and when I finally got it back to clean, it was completely stripped bare. The mattress was gone, the curtains were gone, almost everything had been taken away to be examined as evidence. They left a faint outline on the carpet where the bed used to be, and even though I scrub for hours, I could still see a shadow of that reddish-brown stain on the wall. Every now and then, I wonder about that kid. If he remembers that day, if he ever found out what he was. happened. I have cleaned plenty of bad messes in my time. Rooms full of garbage, rooms where people overdose, heck, even rooms where people have died. But there was something different about room

14, something about the quiet way that boy paced outside like he already knew that he was alone. I still work here and not much has changed. The paint on the doors is even more faded and the ice machine still doesn't work half the time, but I can't walk past that room without glancing at the door. I half expect to see a small figure waiting there, pacing back and forth not knowing, or maybe knowing too well, why mom and dad are gone forever. For small and medium businesses, a point of sale isn't just technology. It's the morning rush, the lunchtime line, the last sale before closing. Rogers Business point of sale solutions are designed for everyday businesses with easy intuitive management tools,

lower transaction costs, and transparent pricing you can count on. Plus, you get 24, 47 professional support from a partner you trust. So your POS keeps up even on your busiest days. A good point of sale doesn't just take payments. It keeps your business moving. Check out Rogers Business Point of Sale Solutions at Rogers.com slash POS. I hail from England, somewhere up north that I'll keep to myself, but this one took place in Yorkshire at Howe-Demed Gorge,

if there's any chance at all that you've been there. Not sure if the Let's Read crew has ever taken a work jolly to the UK, but if you ever do, then I highly recommend Halstein Gorge. As the name might suggest, it's a gorge, a valley. It's made of limestone and Wikipedia tells me it forms a unit of the Upper Nitterdale's site of special scientific interest, which sounds both special and scientific. It's a tourist attraction, and there's a cave there called the Tom Taylor Cave. This is meant to be named after some highwaymen, and if I've been paying attention on the school trip,

I'm sure that I'd know why it's named after him. I also remember that there's some Narnia-based stuff there, too, and a statue of Aslan the Lion. They do school trips there, so there's a cafe, an activity center, and all sorts of stuff. It's a great place for wee kids to go, and I was in year seven when I went with my school. Our geography teacher, Mr. Fisher, was the one who led the trip.

It was 2012, I think, the good old days. It was just a small group of us, and it was an extracurricular trip that we had to pay to go on, so it was on a Sunday. We'd learned about caves and stuff in geography, and some of us had expressed an interest in the gorge, so Mr. Fisher had arranged the trip, and we were also accompanied by another teacher, a female PE teacher called Mrs. Jones. Mr. Fisher was a no-nonsense lad, a classic big man with a booming voice and a bushy beard. But that day he was acting proper strange, to say the least.

Right from the start of the day, kids were whispering and nudging each other because Mr. Fisher kept jumping, like he was receiving a mild fright or electric shock whenever anyone spoke to him, or later even looked at him. Even as we little shites, we were observant enough to notice it. Fisher was properly sketched out about, well, anyone and everyone. We'd be wandering around the gorge, looking at rocks and streams and stuff, and if another visitor came along, Fisher would act all weird. and strange. It was like he thought everyone we encountered was some kind of wronging, who was there to snatch us kids away. It's normal for a teacher to be a bit overprotective, but this wasn't

normal at all. He'd even act like we should keep away from this group of other kids we saw at one point from another school, just very strange. We've been split into two groups, and Mrs. Jones had the other group. I was in Fisher's group, and me and a couple of mates appointed ourselves as Fisher's guardians, I guess. We were weird little spots, but what can I say? So we were patrolling around play acting like we were protecting our teacher from this imaginary threat, and it was kind of silly and fun. Fisher clearly picked up on it because he took us three aside while the class was collecting rock samples from that gorge or something, and we couldn't tell if he was having a laugh or not, but he thanked us for being diligent and said he appreciated our efforts. Of course, this made us feel right

smug, so we probably didn't question it as much as we should have when Fisher said the next thing. There was this kid on the trip, we'll just call him Jason, and he was, well, actually, there's not really anything interesting to say about Jason. He was just a completely normal lad, not one of our friends, but not any kind of villain or school bully or really anything. But Fisher asked us to keep an eye on Jason, because he was, quote, up to something. One of us asked Fischer what he meant, and he looked very serious and grave, and he said that he couldn't tell us, but they had sent Jason on the trip. He then started ranting about them for a bit and even pointed out some old granddad up on

the cliff path, who Fisher claimed was a lookout for them. Then he said the word that would come to hang over our whole school trip to the Halstein Gorge. Fisher told us that he was a victim of gangstocking. Of course, we never heard of this before, back in 2012 as Youngens, but Fisher had. He told us that as his trusted lieutenants, it was okay for him to tell us. But for a while now, he'd been the victim of gang stalkers, an organized group of people who targeted and stalked individuals for unknown reasons. Of course, being stupid, I asked what those unknown reasons were,

and Fisher did his usual thing of heartily and jovially mocking one of us for being dumb, which I guess is kind of why we didn't take anything too seriously. He was probably joking about this gang-stalking malarkey, and we'd never heard the term before, so of course, how are we supposed to know that this was a growing conspiracy theory? Now, of course, these days, I've done a hell of a lot of research into gang-stalking, persecuted individuals, and things like that, and you understand why I wanted to grasp what happened that day when I tell you. Now, back then, though, we've just thought that Fisher

was having a bit of fun with us, and oh boy, were we clueless idiots, let me tell you. We had a packed itinerary for that day. Halstein Gorge has this activity center and canoeing and a whole bunch of other stuff that I won't list in case this ends up reading like a stealth ad for the place. I don't work there, I promise. I just had the scariest time of my life there, though. Anyways, Mrs. Jones' group were doing stuff at the activity center, so that meant Mr. Fisher's group was doing the tour through Tom Taylor Cave. I say tour because that's what we were promised when we paid for the school trip. When we arrived at the cave, though, Mr. Fisher announced that we wouldn't be waiting for the

tour guide and he'd take us in and show us around. Fisher was still acting dead weird, though, and me and my mates thought that that was great, until we didn't. He kept pulling us aside, whispering to keep an eye on this or that member of the public who we passed. Now at first, again, it seemed like our teacher was having some harmless fun. You're not meant to suspect that the adult in charge of you is unfit to look after you. And then, he started saying some really violent, disturbing stuff. He pointed Jason out again and said that if we saw him acting up, we were authorized to use deadly force.

We laughed this off, but he got really serious and told us that he hadn't wanted to scare us. but he noticed that at least one of us was a targeted individual too, and that we needed to be vigilant. He said that as our teacher, he was giving us permission to respond with reasonable violence, and that if we had to go on the run after this, he'd make sure to protect us. It was all a bit intense and scary from that point,

and even as young kids, we were mature enough to realize that this was very wrong and shouldn't be happening. We discussed it amongst ourselves. Is Fisher really a mental case? Is this a joke we're not understanding, etc? One of the guys was adamant that it was all a big prank, but we shut him down pretty quickly. There was no way our teacher would take things remotely this far.

He'd been telling us that we could stop Jason's face in, for God's sakes. Anyway, Fisher took the discussion away from us eventually by acting so mental that even the most skeptical among us were forced to take it seriously. We were following him through the cave system. He'd basically given up actually teaching the class at this point, and we were all following and just confused silence. Jason had no idea that Fisher even suspected him of being a gangstocker or whatever, and he seemed to be having a good time with his pals.

Why wouldn't he be? He was an 11-year-old kid, just like the rest of us. Thankfully, it wasn't Jason that eventually triggered Fisher into action. Honestly, if it had been, I'm not convinced that things would have been okay. Not that they were really okay anyway, but at least he didn't curb stop a kid or anything. What he did instead was spot a woman in the caves who was wearing sunglasses. She was up ahead and for some reason she had dark glasses on in the caves. We think looking back that she was probably near-sighted or had some kind of light sensitivity condition,

or maybe she just had those glasses that react to light and the floodlights in the caves caused them to tint over. Either way, Fisher stopped the entire group. and told us all to crowd into this alcove we were near. It's the one with the plaque that talks about mining, I think, if you've ever been there. So the whole group was crowded into the small alcove deep in a cave, and Fisher came over to me and the boys and said something like, hey, lads, look at her. She's one of them. He explained that you could tell because she was wearing dark glasses indoors,

and I remember getting really hung up on that. Like does being in a cave count as indoors or outdoors? still never decided on the actual answer. That's not the point, though. The point is that Fisher told us the woman was watching us. Next, he said, she radioed up to the surface to alert helicopters so they could track us when we emerged. He was absolutely adamant that she was some kind of agent of this gang-stalking

and the poor old dear sunglasses were the clue. He also pointed out that it was super suspicious that she had some kind of rain poncho thing covering her hair. Why this was suspicious, I don't really know, but Fisher seemed to think it was. Of course, it was just because she probably had a perm or something. She was an old lady, and we were in a damp, dank cave with water dripping from the ceiling. A bunch of people had head coverings, but Fisher decided this older lady was the root of all evil, with plans to snatch up the kids in his care to frame him or something.

He was just going absolutely off on one of these gangstalkers and then pleading with him. us to support his innocence if anything went wrong. We were just kind of taken aback because things had gone from one to crazy in a matter of seconds. I guess Fisher could tell we were unsure because he suddenly got pretty angry at us and stormed off towards the lady. We all gave each other a look and our heart sank. What was he going to do? Well, it turns out he grabbed her and started shaking her. Now we got closer and could hear him asking about her people on the surface and what her plans were. The old lady looked completely horrified and terrified, and to this day I'm convinced he genuinely

thought that she'd done something wrong, and Fisher was the law, and she was in a lot of trouble. And then a bloke came over who clearly overheard everything and realized Fisher was losing it. He told him to let go of the lady. I don't think they knew each other or anything, but he was just sort of a good Samaritan, and to step away or he'd call the cops. Fisher started laughing at this, saying he wanted him to call the cops, because there was no way the gangstalkers would reveal themselves. When Fisher said the word gangstalkers, maybe it's my imagination, but I think the guy knew what he was talking about, because he suddenly got a bit more sympathetic and gentle with Mr. Fisher.

Looking back now, I guess he watched one of those documentary series about persecuted individuals and recognized the pattern of behavior in Fisher, which of course we didn't see as little kids. So the guy was suddenly acting, oh, kid gloves, trying to gently guide Fisher away from the older lady and back towards us. Then he looked at us, realized we were an entire school trip, and must have suddenly realized how effed up it was that this teacher, having some kind of mental breakdown about gangstocking, was in charge of a whole group of kids. And that's when this fella made his big mistake. He told Fisher he was going to guide us kids back to the surface and that he'd sort everything out.

Of course, you see where Mr. Fisher's mind went, right? This guy who'd come along, he was a gangstocker too, and now he was going to mask off to take us kids away from him. So in his head, Fisher was trying to be a hero when he did what he did next, and I'll argue that to this day. Fisher grabbed the guy and slammed him against the railing in the cave. Then when he crumbled to the walkway, he began kicking and stomping on him. And it was one of the most bloody,

horrible things I'd ever seen. Even though I don't think Fisher did any real damage to the guy overall, it was just the feeling of helplessness that us kids had. Some of the girls were screaming and crying. I'm sure some of the guys were too. Immediately, we weren't bold, tough 11-year-olds anymore. We were little kids trapped underground in a cave with a man we were supposed to trust, who was beating the ever-living hell out of a stranger. Thankfully, the cave had a whole bunch of visitors that day, and people piled in to pull Fisher off the guy almost immediately. Like I said, I don't think any real damage was caused, and I know Fisher, somewhere in his addled mind, thought that he was saving us. And the next part of the day was understandably

chaos. Us kids were just left stranded there while some members of the public, and I think an employee or two of the site, frog marched our teacher away somewhere or another. And then some very kind Samaritans took the rest of the public. And I think an employee or two of the site, frog marched our teacher away somewhere or another. And then some very kind Samaritans took the rest of us back out of the caves and tried to corral us into some degree of calm while asking the more sensible kids among us where our other teachers were. Ironically, it was Jason who ended up guiding someone to Mrs. Jones's group. Except at this point, we discovered they were out in the middle of the damn lake, canoeing. So we had to wait for them to eventually come to shore before Mrs. Jones could find out what had gone on.

Eventually they hailed her in and someone explained to her while we were or watching from a distance, worried sick about Fisher, and if he was going to go to prison, and if we were somehow going to get in trouble for entertaining his delusions. I think part of us genuinely wondered if there really was some sinister group persecuting Fisher. Like I said, when an adult you trust tells you these things, as a kid, you believe it. But there were no gangs, stalking agents, no helicopters, nobody coming to snatch us, so we started swaying more and more towards Fisher has gone mental. which, I add, made us pretty sad because we actually liked the guy.

Eventually, a couple of other teachers and some of the parents arrived at the site, and we all eventually transported home in the coach that had brought us. There was a distinct lack of Mr. Fisher, and everyone was excitingly whispering to Mrs. Jones' group about what had happened. The other group were understandably miffed that they'd missed all the excitement, so kids were gossiping about it and telling all sorts of stupid stories. Fisher had killed the guy. Fisher punched a guy's head clean off.

Fisher tried to murder a granny. Fisher was wanted by the FBI, all sorts of stuff like that. Me and the boys started getting a bit cross with people telling them that no, Mr. Fisher must have had a heat stroke or some kind of head illness, and it wasn't right to go talking crap about him.

And to this day, I'm proud of me and the lads for sticking up for him. I never saw that guy again. He never came back to the school, obviously, and from what I understand, he mentally declined pretty severely after that and ended up in a home. I only got to hear about it through gossip at the school and was never really able to verify things, so I'm not sure how true any of this is, but the story went that he had some kind of early-onset Alzheimer's and had picked up the gang-stalking delusion as a sort of fixation for whatever reason, and it had come to dominate his life.

The talk at the school was that he'd mentioned gang-stalking to other older students, in the past, so it wasn't a totally new thing, just something we hadn't heard about. Like I said, though, no idea if this was true or just kids embellishing. Either way, though, Fisher had a serious mental break that in my eyes at least was impossible to predict. It was sad as hell, and I thank God every day that things weren't much worse than that day for all of us, but I guess either way, normal life was over for Fisher. That's the part of the story that terrifies me so much, honestly, not hearing. our teachers say those violent things or seeing him attack people, it's the idea that one day

your own brain can turn on you like that. It can start telling you that people are out to get you, make you feel persecuted and targeted, and then put patterns together to reinforce that. I looked into Fisher's eyes that day as he was telling us about the gangstalkers who were pursuing him, and I would swear hand on heart that he believed everything he was telling us. And clearly it wasn't real. There wasn't a sinister group out there stalking our teacher with the intent of stealing us kids away from him on a school trip. So the fact his brain could turn on him so badly in order for him to believe all this, that's the part that sometimes keeps me awake at night. For under five years, I used to work the front desk at a little motel

in the middle of nowhere. It was a quiet little place, a little rundown, but Rhonda, our cleaner, kept the place sparkling. We used to get hunters in the fall, fishermen in the summer, and the occasional trucker rolling in during the midnight hours. As much as it was mostly a boring job, I came to appreciate the safety and stability. But every so often, we got some real bad men rolling into that old parking lot of ours, and one of them came in the spring of 1996. It was late on a Sunday evening when his car turned into the lot. It had been a quiet day, maybe four or five check-ins, and I was halfway through a bad cup of coffee when he walked up to the front desk. He looked normal, A regular middle-aged white guy with a big coat and a red woolly hat.

He was friendly, too, and greeted me warmly before saying he wanted a room for the night. I checked which rooms were free, told him the rate, and then after he slid a credit card across the counter, I ran it through. But the machine declined it. And he says, huh? That's weird. It's been working fine all day. And then asked me to try the card again. I did not once, but twice, and both times the card was declined. The guy seemed really embarrassed. He pulled out his wallet as he apologized a bunch, and I told him it was fine as he handed me the cash.

Those things happened from time to time, and he didn't have anything to apologize for. He gave me this big smile as he thanked me, and then after I handed him his key and directed him to room six, he thanked me and headed off down the hall. I was working the night shift that night, 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., so aside from watching the place and making sure the vending machine, machine was all stocked up. All I did was watch movies on the little box TV that we kept in the office. I could keep an eye on the parking lot, so if guests rolled in, I could see them coming. But that night, when I saw headlights coming into the lot, I looked up to see not just one, but two cruisers from the Mason County Sheriff's Department. Two deputies stayed outside, watching all the rooms. But one deputy came inside to ask me about a declined credit card a few hours earlier.

He knew it had been declined three times, and he needed to speak to the person using it. When I mentioned the guy in the red hat, the deputy asked which room he was in, and I let him to the room. The door was locked, but they gave them the spare key. They opened it slowly, and their guns were drawn, but the room was empty. The man in the red hat was gone. One of the deputies said that he must have been watching the parking lot, and when he saw the patrol cars drive by, he slipped out through his room's rear window. He left behind nothing but a half-empty bottle of water on the nightstand, a pair of muddy boots by the bed,

and the faint smell of something that I couldn't place right away, almost like hair-dye or some type of chemical. The deputies asked me to stay out of the room until another group of cops had searched the place and taken away evidence. But then a few hours later, I was taking out some trash when I overheard two of the deputies talking to each other, and what I heard made my skin crawl. They said the forensics guy had found a bag in that room and that inside were a whole bunch of different wigs. The forensics team said that they'd need to test it to confirm it, but that at first glance, it looked and felt a hell of a lot like real human hair. But it wasn't that which got me.

It was hearing one of the deputies say how one of the wigs matched the hair of a missing woman who disappeared only a week or so earlier. and I decided that I didn't want to hear anymore. The deputies and forensics folks stayed for a couple of hours. They took the wigs and the boots and even the water bottle. I heard one of them say that they were going to check it for DNA. And when they left, the motel went quiet again, but it felt like anything but peaceful.

Just hours before, someone who may or may not have been a psychopath, trophy-seeking murderer, had been standing three feet from me. I'd handed him a key, smiled at him, and I even told him to have a good night. And all the while, maybe in that bag that he was carrying, there was some missing woman's hair. That thought will stay with me as long as I live, and you should have seen how calm he was too. You'd never have suspected in a million years that he was capable of something like that. No visible nerves, no rush, just sort of still, like he had all the time in the world.

And I didn't hear much beyond that. The sheriff came back a few days later to ask me some more questions, but they hadn't caught the guy and he couldn't say if the hair really did belong to that missing woman, but I could tell by the way he talked that it was probably bad. After that, every time someone walked through that door to check in, I watched them a little differently. I still think about that, man, a whole lot, actually, because I know people like him don't just exist in movies or the news now.

They walk through the front door with a big old smile on their face, pretending there's someone they're not. And you've got no way of knowing who they really are until it's too late. 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. EST. 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. For small and medium businesses, a point of sale isn't just technology. It's the morning rush, the lunchtime line, the last sale before closing. Rogers Business point of sale solutions are designed for everyday businesses with easy, intuitive management tools, lower transaction costs, and transparent pricing you can count on. Plus, you get 24-7 professional support from a partner you trust. So your POS keeps up even on your busiest days. A good point of sale doesn't just take payments. It keeps your business moving.

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