The Lets Read Podcast - 353: I WAS TRAPPED OUT IN THE SNOWY WILDERNESS | 9 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 339

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

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

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back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. Wave! Yep. They even got a new watermelon assaye bowl this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Like that. Booster Juice, Canadian-born, blending since 1999.

My name's Allison. I'm from Seattle, and, well, it took me way longer than I wanted to. I'm finally ready to send this over. For the longest time, I had a friend named Chris, and Chris suffered from persistent depressive disorder. It started after he lost his job, got violently mugged, and then got really sick with some kind of viral infection, all while his relationship with his fiancé was falling apart around him. He ended up moving back in with his parents up near Richmond Beach for a while, and then after finding it harder and harder to get out of bed and leave the house every day, Chris just sort of stopped trying. He was put on various cocktails of medication in the hopes one might work, but nothing did, and for a while he just rotted away indoors. But then in early spring of 2019, Chris asked if I wanted to go get sushi.

He was online a lot, which was pretty much the only way we kept in touch, so hearing from him wasn't a shock. But hearing that he wanted to meet in person, that came as a real surprise. I accepted the invitation, and while he still had a whiff of hermit about him, he'd see him. seemed way, way better than before. I didn't question it. I was just too happy to see progress. But at the same time, I knew that there had to be something going on in Chris's life to prompt such an improvement in him.

I'd be damned if I wasn't going to figure out what it was. The day after we met for sushi, I asked Chris what had changed, like if he'd been doing or taking something new. And he said he'd found a kind of support group that met once a week, and since he started going, he'd been feeling a lot better about life. They met in a coffee shop, but they didn't sit in a circle, doing land acknowledgements, and using therapy language. It was more like show up, hang out, and just talk to people for real. And that was usually a little talk at the end by the group's organizer, but that consisted of nothing more than a poem and maybe the odd announcement.

It was very informal, very laid back, and for the first time in a long time, Chris found the confidence to start living his life again. Now, this was obviously great to hear, so I asked about it, and Chris said the group was called. called Mother's Love. It seems so crazy to me that after all the medication and all the therapy, that Chris really just needed some connection, you know? I don't take it to heart that we as friends couldn't do that for him either, because Chris needed new connections with new people as concrete evidence that he could place faith in his fellow humans again.

Sometimes I'd ask him about the group, and that's how I found out that they didn't have any kind of online presence because they didn't want a whole bunch of people turning up and killing the vibe. It was supposed to be intimate and meaningful, so it was down to attendees to exercise discretion in who they invited. I had to wait months until late December of that same year, 2019, to get anything resembling an invite. But when that invite came, it was not in the form I expected it to be.

When Chris asked if I was still interested in getting involved, I told him I didn't know about involved. but I sure did want to stop by so I could check it out. And that's when he told me about the winter retreat. According to him, Mother's Love had reached a point where expansion was starting to make sense, so each current member had been instructed to pick out a plus one for a weekend of camping. And then to incentivize their attendance, the whole weekend of the retreat would be entirely free for that plus one. And at first I wasn't sure because spending two nights in a tent together and the freezing cold did not.

not sound like my idea of fun. But when Chris told me it'd be more like glamping, as in like super warm tents with super fancy features, I totally had to reconsider. He said the food would be all vegan, which was awesome, and that the open bar on Saturday night would be a really fun way of making new friends while getting lit for free. Well, that about sealed it for me, and I promptly prepared myself for a weekend of winter camping. We arrived what amounted to a luxury campground on Friday afternoon, and it was totally amazing. They had showers, a bar that served hot food, and then a kind of conference and party room. And the tents? They were more like miniature cabins. They had covered floors, a heater, separate sleeping compartments, thank God to be honest,

and a little communal space with squishy log pillows to sit on. We didn't just have super cozy, faux-fur-lined sleeping bags either. We were giving these heavy memory foam sleeping mattresses as well, and they were super squishy and soft. It was definitely not what sprang to mind when I thought free camping weekend, but I also remember wondering, like, who the hell put all the money up for this? And I definitely wasn't about to question it, though, so I just sort of went with it. Now, once we were all settled in, one of the retreats organizers stopped by mine in Chris's tent and asked us to attend a little conference hall for the welcoming ceremony.

We found about 30 people in the conference hall before Chris started introducing me to some of the people he knew. We chatted for a while, making introductions, and finally, an older lady took to the podium and asked for our attention. She introduced herself as Mary, and then after welcoming all the newcomers to Mother's love, she touched on some topics that we'd be discussing over the next 48 hours or so. And only then did I realize that Chris hadn't told me the whole story. I don't want to rehash everything that Mary Lady said because she talked for like

45 minutes, but most of it was about the seminars and this is the gist of it. There was one about maintaining a low impact on the environment, which was all well and good, but then there was one about antinatalism, which turned out to be a fancy word for thinking having babies is like wrong or something. And when I asked Chris about that afterwards, he said some people believe the earth is so overpopulated that it's messing up the environment. But I thought Chris's group was just coffee and pancakes, not hardcore political stuff. And Chris said it didn't start out that way. It was just something that they all got talking about over time.

But there seemed to be a dramatic difference between the seminar on centering oneself and nature, and the one I think was titled, The Death March of Western Capitalism. Now, I thought we were going to be drinking cocoa around a campfire and going on nature walks, but Chris just kind of shrugged it off. He said he wasn't really into the political stuff either, so we could just sit it out if I wanted to, head off on that nature walk when I was excited to. And then I asked him about something Mary had said when she was introducing herself, and his response wasn't nearly so reassuring. And so when Mary,

the organizer lady introduced herself, she set a number in the 300s, and then PPM, and I'm thinking, huh? What? In my head, but she just breeze right past it without explaining. Chris said that Mary and a lot of the regulars didn't use numbers to describe their birth years. They used PPM, which after double-checking it, definitely stands for parts per million, and then the number describes how much CO2 there was in the atmosphere during that year. And so like when Mary said, I was born in 300-whatever PPM, she meant like the 50s or something. And I remember thinking, bro, what the heck? This is goofy as hell. Because, yeah, screw the oil companies, dude, sure, but using PPM instead of just saying your birth year, just a bunch of weirdos.

But Chris didn't think it was all that funny. I mean, he smiled, but he didn't seem to think it was dumb like I did. And then I asked him if he knew what PPM he was born at. Then, without skipping a beat, he then says, 352. He laughed at my reaction and said he didn't go around telling people like Mary and the others. It was just something he Googled one time out of interest and then happened to remember. I remember feeling like I kind of let him down because it was definitely not going to be able to sit through a whole bunch of political ours, but he said not to worry. Then we'd just go to the ones that sounded interesting to me.

And then we went over to dinner and got talking about some of the other campers. And that part was actually super fun. Like, I'm a really social butterfly, so getting to meet everyone was cool. Dinner was great too, and we had vegan, Indian food, and a few drinks, and then after more that political talk from Mary, we all went back to our tents to enjoy our early night before an early start. Now, I won't bore you with everything we did that next day, because it was, was a lot, but it was actually super chill until dinner that evening when we started to get hyped about the party with all the free booze. But before we went off to our tents again to get ready, Mary had an announcement to make. She said the next morning all the retreats male attendees

would be entitled to receive a gift, a blessing of Mother Nature, in fact, and it was entirely free. Unfortunately, the same gift would not be bestowed on female attendees, but that was something that they were looking into, and anyone interested should approach an organizer with their queries. There was a lot of confused female faces, but also noticed how not all the girls there looked confused. Some of them looked like they knew exactly why, and that should have been my first big clue right there. Well, heading back to the glamping tent to get ready for the party, I asked Chris what this free gift was all about. Chris said that he had to talk to me about something, but I asked if it could wait because by that point, my curiosity

was burning. But then Chris said it was that very same free gift he wanted to talk to me about. And so I'm thinking, okay, go on. And when he told me, I remember my jaw dropping. Because Chris told me that free gift was a vasectomy. Now, I thought he was joking. And while Chris was smiling, it wasn't in a jokey way, more like in a this is good news kind of way. As it turns out, I had no idea this was the case till he'll Chris went through it with me, but a vasectomy is actually a super simple procedure. Guys only need a local anesthetic, and then a trained professional can render a dude infertile with just a single needle-thin puncture to a guy's taint.

It's not a major surgery, and while a guy definitely needs to rest up and avoid serious exercise or exertion, it's not like he's going to be held up in a hospital bed for a week like a woman after her hysterectomy. And so after I told Chris, no way, dude. They can't do surgeries out here. That's impossible. He made it clear that not only was it very possible, but he was planning on getting the snip, as he called it, that very next morning. And I'm like, this is a joke, right? But Chris wasn't kidding. He said what brought him so much hope was the idea no one else would have to suffer like he did. His parents had brought him into the world against his will without ever considering whether he might be happy or not.

And that was a mistake he wasn't going to repeat. Knowing he wouldn't be able to reproduce made him feel like he was doing something to solve the problem, even if it was just one small but significant act. Now, I'm sure a lot of heartless psychos are going to read this and say, Chris was making a choice about his body. How dare you try and prevent that? Well, first off, go jump in a dumpster.

And while you're in there, lying among the trash where you belong, and consider that I wasn't objecting to him getting a piercing or getting frosted tips or whatever. I was objecting to him getting a mother-freaking vasectomy. Oh, but what's that? I hear you cry. Oh, people from the trash, you can reverse a vasectomy. That is indeed true, but then riddle me this, dumpster dude. Does the reversal involve actual knock-you-out surgery and reopening the old vasectomy scar? Well, yes, it does. And is the surgery always successful? No, it's not. And while I didn't know that until I googled it in the panic, I sure as heck showed it to Chris when I did. And if he didn't want to have kids, he could put a damned hood on it or the hundred other not-safe-for-work things people do to make sure their humps don't mean bumps, as they say.

But no, Chris had made his mind up. He wanted his little sacred rights so he could respect his mother's love, and there was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise. But on that, he was wrong. Rather than go into the whole drama of what happened when we were drunk, I'll just cut to the important part. We got plastered on all that free alcohol, and while I tried my very best to drop the whole vasectomy objection and just enjoy our time together,

that obviously proved impossible. I got fixated on the idea the root of his motivation was destructive, not constructive, and then maybe he wasn't as mentally well as he thought he was. When we went somewhere quiet to talk, I told him how he had zero clue what was going to happen in the future, and how he might well live to regret his decision, especially if reversing the process failed and he was made infertile for good.

Now, he's drunk and says, what's the point? What woman would ever want to have kids with me? And so I told him lots of women would, maybe even myself, because, like I said, you never know how the future's going to unfold. Now, we didn't immediately start making out like in the movie or anything, but I thought I actually got through to him after saying how, once he was done putting himself together, and had a job and took care of himself, then he was attracted enough that plenty of girls would want to date him. And after that, we hugged it out, and he thanked

me for not just being his plus one, but being a good friend and giving him hope. I'll admit that made me tear up and cry a little, but I was also super smashed, so there was that. We went back to the party, had a couple of more drinks to lift our spirits again, and then we went back to our tent and went to sleep in our own separate sleeping compartments. Now, my memory of those last couple of hours is kind of hazy, I'll be honest, but what I do remember is going to sleep with the knowledge that one of my best friends was not about to do something potentially irreversible. But when I woke up the next morning, Chris wasn't in the tent. I put on a bunch of warm clothes and when looking for him, but was so humble. I was so

hung over that I only got a few steps out of our glamping tent before I ran into a tree and started puking while leaning against it. Now after that, and once I sort of cleaned myself up, I went looking for Chris. We found the atmosphere in the camp to be way different than before. During the previous two days, whenever we went anywhere, everyone was saying, hey, how's it going to us, and we're generally super friendly. But when I walked around the camp that morning, everyone just sort of stared at me in total silence. I mean, they whispered and talked among themselves as I passed, but they wouldn't say anything to me, and they wouldn't return my fake, panicking but pretending to be friendly smiles. Now, I kept asking, has anyone seen Chris? But no one would answer me. And it took until I found

one of the organizers before I got any kind of explanation. The conference room was being used as the surgery, and I could already see a couple of guys sitting in the little waiting area through a large window, but I couldn't see Chris. And that's when I was approached by that same girl who welcomed us on the first day and was asked to return to our tent so we could talk in private. On the way, I kept asking, did Chris get a vasectomy? But she wouldn't tell me. Not until we got back to our tent when she confirmed it. Chris has gotten up that morning bright and early and not only did he get the snip, but he was literally the first guy to get it done. He was actually resting in another tent as we spoke and was kept separate from me because of what a, quote, negative person

I was being. Now, she was the first one who told me what a terrible person I was for not just being like, yeah, cool, no big deal, bud. And I said the same thing to her as I'd said to anyone else. Go F yourself with a cactus, you psychos. Chris was a vulnerable, emotionally damaged person who needed serious psychiatric care. And then as his new friends, instead of encouraging him to get it, They tricked him into a physical solution to what was a mental problem.

And personally, I'll never stop hating them for that. I'll also never stop hating them for how they let people treat me as I was leaving. I cannot overstate how sickening it was to attend a seminar on feminism in Trump's America one day, and then the next have women just standing back and smiling as grown-ass men got up in my face and screamed the seaward at me so furiously that I remember their spittle, standing on my cheek. I actually thought that they were going to beat me up by the time they started shoving me and throwing rocks. They didn't give a crap that I was Chris's ride either. They said that they'd find a real friend to drive him home and I should get the hell out of there while I still could.

I was shaking by the time I got to my car with my stuff and I was in tears by the time I had the keys in the ignition. I felt like I'd enabled one of my oldest friends to do something awful to himself. And then by the time I realized what was even happening, it was too late and I'd done too little to stop it. Chris and I haven't spoken since. I've tried to reach out, but he doesn't want to now. I don't even care if he got a vasectomy anymore. I mean, it's his body his choice, right?

But I just wish he'd stop punishing me for trying to play the devil's advocate and convince him that a permanent solution to a temporary problem might not have been the way to go. And that weird cult that he joined is very, very weird. So Chris, if you're out there, there, call me. I miss you. I started a new high school in junior year. I was an army brat and I moved around a lot. Unlike a lot of kids who had this kind of upbringing, I'm going to break the mold. I loved it. Spend a year or so hanging out with people, make friends who I could keep in touch with,

and then move on to something new and exciting. genuinely wouldn't have changed my child and teenagehood for anything. My new school was no different. I won't name the school or the state or anything like that, even though it was about 2016, just cautious, I guess. Some of your viewers seem like they're pretty weird folks, not trying to be rude, but I hang out in those live streams sometimes. I'm just kidding. I love all of you. Now, anyway, I'm the kind of sad bastard who's into English and writing and aspires to be a journalist or maybe even a novelist. I know, I know, but, hey, I have a finished novel. Nowhere close to publishable quality and a work in progress, so at least I'm doing something with my life.

But back then, I spent a lot of time writing in the library. Not a shame to admit that I wrote a bunch of smutty fanfic. Now, this isn't relevant to the story, I promise you, you're just not going to have to read about Markiplier having an affair with Justin McElroy. And yes, I did write one about that. The point is, I'd often get engrossed to my dumb smut writing and wouldn't really notice who was around me. And that's why I'm not sure exactly when Andrews started hanging out in the library.

sitting a few tables away from me, pretending to read a middle-grade book but clearly watching me. Now, let me tell you about Andrew. Andrew was sort of special needs. He was autistic to some degree on the spectrum anyway, and he was kind of mathematical and actually a science-wis. Academically very smart, but he liked reading middle-grade books, and he could not, for the life of him, communicate with his peers very properly. Now, it didn't help that he was hard of hearing, and so he sort of talked with this sort of awkward voice that unfortunately made him sound special. And there were a couple of ASL students of the school, and apparently he could hold the deepest, most intellectual conversations via ASL,

on the extremely rare time that he could bring himself to engage with someone else. Now, Andrew had taken to watching me. I saw him all over the place. Pretty much everyone I spoke to admitted that this was pretty odd, so don't get me wrong. You'd assume Andrew would be the prime. target for bullying, right? Well, wrong. If one of the jocks saw a guy so much as give Andrew a hard time, that guy would regret it. Everyone loved him. He may have been almost incommunicado, but he was sort of like,

I don't know. Everyone wanted to look out for the kid, and I mean everyone. And so I was careful who I mentioned Andrews stalking to. I had a handful of friends that I'd made there, and I did bring it up to them, and at Ferris they sort of said, you have to be mistaken. Andrew isn't like that. He's a gentle giant. Now, I should mention he was nearly seven feet tall. I'm not kidding. But then I pointed him out and the way he'd watched me from corners or just openly, and they couldn't deny it. Andrew was, for want of a better word, stalking me. In the first afternoon he followed me home, I knew that I had to do something, but what? I didn't want to turn people on this otherwise harmless special need students, and all he was really doing is watching me. It wasn't like with lust. You know how you

can just tell when someone's lusting after you? It wasn't like that. It was like he was sort of fascinated with me, or that's what it seemed like at first. Maybe this will seem stupid, but I decided to do a bit of stalking my own. I stalked Andrew stalking me, stockception, and I watched him watching me and I kept a note of his behavior. One of my friends helped me too and we came to an extremely odd conclusion. He wasn't stalking me or watching me. He was making sure that he stayed near me. In some ways, this made me feel a little bit better, but it also made me feel more confused. I could not for the life of me work out what his motive was and I was beginning to feel more and more alone. And then things started getting creepy. I started spotting movements in my yard late

at night. My parents both worked for the military, and while we didn't live on base, they often worked late, and my brother was a little 12-year-old brat who was more of an expert at video games than possibly protecting me, though I love my brother, so he really in that moment wasn't going to be much use. But there was someone clearly lurking out there, and the motion detector light would constantly get triggered. Then I found the scraping on my car that looked like someone had tried to break the lock open late at night. Next, there was a note slipped into my locker. I don't want to recount exactly what it said, but it described what someone wanted to do to me.

And let's just say it was more Patrick Bateman than Patrick Swayze. It was written in beautiful, exquisite cursive, and this confused me even more. Andrew might have been a savant at many subjects, but penmanship was not one of them. I'd seen his essay work. The handwriting was like a middle schooler. Surely he hadn't somehow persuaded another person to write this disgusting note to me, and meanwhile, he just kept watching me, and he was always just sort of there. And then one day, he wasn't.

And I found out through the grapevine that Andrew had an appointment of some kind of neurological clinic and would be gone for a few days, and of course in that moment I felt some relief. Well, the fool I was. That evening I found another note in my locker, even worse than the first. and it actually had blood smeared on it. That night I was alone overnight. It was a Friday. Someone was in my yard and they were making a racket

and I could see this black-clad figure, definitely not Andrew, pulling up plants and weirdly spraying the hose around. Obviously, I called the cops. I even yelled out the window that I called the cops and the guy didn't leave until almost an hour later when the sound of sirens actually blared off in the distance. Now, I was more than.

confused than ever. There was no doubt that Andrew was stalking me, but then so was someone else. Were they in on it together? It all just seemed so unlikely. And it all came to a head when I was walking home one day. It was sunny, a warm day, so I decided to skip the bus. Who followed behind me, ducking behind walls and hedges, Andrew. Now this wasn't normal, and I was sick of it, and I had to say something, so obviously I turned to confront him. And that's when Andrew charged, almost seven feet of muscle barreling towards me from a few hundred feet away, and I was frozen on the spot. And then Andrew veered to the right, and with the scream, he dived into an overgrown hedge on the verge of the park that we were walking past. Aldi came flying with that black-clad

figure in his grasp. Andrew slammed this person down and began shaking him back and forward, bouncing his head off the grass, and he was shouting something, but it was hard to tell what in the chaos. I ran forward. I had no idea who side I was supposed to be on in that moment. And then the black-clad figures, hood, fell away and we made eye contact. He immediately led loose this tirade of disgusting slurs aimed at me, and he seemed under the impression that I duped or hired Andrew into protecting me from him. I had no idea who he was at first.

And then one of my friends came running up and yelled, The janitor? And the conclusion is absolutely insane. Andrew, and only Andrew, had been observant enough to notice that the janitor was paying unusual attention to me. And from what we could get out of him, he felt a sort of dark aura from it all. And he said that a voice in his head told him to protect me. And so why was that janitor behaving like this to me? So my dad's job in the military is specifically military police.

The janitor had been a private about 15 years back, and dad had been the one responsible for catching him in the middle of assaulting a female officer, and he ensured that he spent time in military jail and was dishonorably discharged. So, when we moved that time, the janitor recognized my dad around town, researched him, discovered he'd had kids, and discovered that I went to the high school that he worked at, and decided to terrorize me. I don't know what kind of voice Andrew heard to protect me. I don't know if I believe in that type of thing, but I do know that I think it saved my life. Maybe he didn't go about it in the best way, but he went about it the only way that he really knew how. And it later turned out that the janitor had even been threatening him,

promised to hurt him if he didn't stop watching me, and even that didn't put Andrew off. I did my best to befriend him after that. He wasn't exactly the kind of guy that you could become best of friends with, but I think he knew how grateful I was for what he was. he had done, and I didn't stay at that school for much longer, as dad's job supposedly called him away, but I think he requested a transfer at that point. I still stay in touch with Andrew via email. We sometimes play chess online, and he kicks my butt every time. We don't really have conversations as such, and it's a weird, strange relationship, really, but he's the guy who

saved my life from a pretty dangerous stalker, I think, who, for all I know, would have taken things as far as killing me. So frankly, I'm happy to lose as many chess games to Andrew as he wants. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard, and BetterHelp's latest research confirms it. BetterHelp's 2006 state of stigma report surveyed 2,000 Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise. Yet 74% say society's discourages people from doing so. I think a lot of people believe mental health matters, but taking that first step to get support can still feel intimidating. The more we talk about

therapy as something normal and encourage open conversations, the easier it becomes for people to reach out. With a friendly community of more than 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp has become the go-to online therapy platform, helping over 6 million people around the world. And you can see why it's loved, with an impressive average rating of 4.9 out of 5 from over 1.7 million client reviews for live sessions. BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp takes the hassle out of finding the right therapist for you, using a quick questionnaire to understand your needs and preferences, and with over 12 years of experience, we usually hit the mark on the first try. Plus, if you ever feel like switching things up,

you can easily choose a different therapist from our personalized recommendations any time you want. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash read. That's BetterH-E-L-P.com slash read. My name is Alf. I'm a fan from Sweden, and today I would like to tell you my very own true scary story about the most frightening experience of my whole life.

I joined the Army when I was 18 and I love being a little. soldier. Well, when I was 23, I was diagnosed with a rare medical disorder and had to be discharged. I was devastated, and while I eventually adjusted to a new routine, I still miss being in the field very much. I ended up asking a couple of my old school friends if they'd like to go camping sometime, and while most thought that that was a great idea, they didn't so much enjoy the specifics of my idea. For obvious reasons, most camping here takes place in the summertime, but I didn't want to go in the summertime, I wanted to go in the freezing Swedish winter. Most people thought that I was crazy and were saying, oh, thanks, friend, I'm out. Others said that they'd consider it and then

dropped out one by one as the days ticked down to D-Day. In the end, the only person left who was dead set on joining me was an old friend of ours who'd moved to a different city, a friend named Varg. Varg wasn't really named Varg. It was his nickname he gave himself, meaning wolf, which should give you an instant idea of what he was like as a person. And while despite it, I can safely tell you that he was even worse than you might imagine. If we hadn't been such close friends for so long, there's no way that I'd have tolerated behavior like Varks. And honestly, I think him moving to Bergen for a girl that he met online actually saved our friendship, and he wasn't around to act like a jack-wad anymore. He would drink and drive, get into big fights

with his girlfriend, and post all about it on Facebook. and he was constantly getting fired from menial jobs for doing the stupidest things, like drinking openly on the job or sleeping on shift and then getting angry when his colleagues woke him up. And like I said, I definitely wouldn't have been friends with him had I met him yesterday, but for the most part, we actually got along quite well. We had a similar sense of humor, we both enjoyed the same sort of movies and music, and we both had a big passion for outdoor survival scenarios. And that's how I ended up thinking that just me and Varg,

A winter camping trip might actually be a good time. But one of the real pros of camping in the winter was the lack of bears, which usually hibernate between late autumn and the very late spring. Now, we still insisted that we hang some bear baits somewhere away from the camp, but it didn't help, and even though we went camping in late February, we were unfortunate enough to be found by a bear who'd woken up too early and was desperate to find food. We woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a huge browned,

bear sniffing around our camp, having eaten the bait and went looking for more. We rushed out of the tent, yelling and screaming at it in the darkness to scare it away. It appeared to work at first, and the bear backed off, but then it sort of false charged and tricked me into stumbling backwards so awkwardly I actually sprained my ankle pretty badly. Thankfully, it was just a false charge otherwise had had to been in very serious trouble, but even though we managed to scare it off for good using the bear mace that we carried with us, we were almost out of food, and my ankle was in a very sorry state. I took some painkillers, and then we tried to fix up our campsite a little and salvage our food before heading back to our tent. We slept until dawn, not very well, I should add,

and then once it was light, Varg volunteered to find a shop somewhere, so he could bring back food and some stronger painkillers. I thought that was very cool of him, like just the sort of behavior that kept me friends with him, and Varg can be a pain in the way. the ass sometimes, but you could really rely on him when you really needed to. I stayed in the tent with my ankle raised in the bare mace at the ready, and then maybe two and a half hours later, Varg reappeared with his pack full of stuff. Now, I thought that he'd have more than some bread, bacon, and my painkillers, but when he emptied the bag inside her tent, he had all kinds of stuff with him. He had a few bottles of vodka, a whole carton of cigarettes, dozens of bars of chocolate, and a lot of elk jerky, or what

we call Rengja snacks. Varg also had a ton of medication with him too, but not just painkillers. There were all kinds of things from anti-allergy medicine to ant acids for stomach trouble, and while I expected Varg to be pleased with himself at having brought back such a bounty, he seemed almost angry. He emptied out the bag with some force, like he was full of spite, and when I saw that strange variety of medicine tumble out onto the ground, I started to get kind of suspicious. I asked Varg where he'd gotten all that stuff and he just said, I found a shop. But then when I asked him why he bought him me anti-allergy medication, he snapped a little and said he just grabbed whatever he could because he needed to be fast. It made sense in a way.

Varg wasn't a rich man and he wasn't generous or careless with his money. And so after a moment of thought, I turned to him and asked, did you steal these things? No, I knew the answer. I knew the before he even said anything. He had that guilty look about him that I knew all too well. And in the past, I sometimes found it funny. Because you could always read his face when he'd be the one to do something wrong, like I had the teacher's chalk or put a pin on another people's chair. But that time, I didn't find it funny, and neither did Vark. He still had that angry air about him, as he told me, I didn't have enough money. And I found this outrageous, as any normal person and would only buy what they could afford.

But at any objection, Varg tried to defend himself by explaining what had happened. He said at first, all he did was put down the painkillers, the vodka, and the cigarettes. But he was short by just a couple of crona, our dollars here. And the lady tells him he needs more money, but Varg insisted it was an emergency and she needed to accept the amount he had.

Obviously, the lady saw no emergency, just a man trying to buy vodka at like eight in the morning. And so she told him no. Varg said he offered to come back later with the rest of the money, but sensing he probably wouldn't, the woman said no once again. And this is when Varg lost his mind. He attacked the lady, beat her till she wasn't moving anymore, and then filled his pack with anything he could grab before running out of the shop. He didn't even get help from me.

He just ran before someone came along to see what he'd done. I was furious, but so was he, and if you can believe it, we argued back and forth about who was in the right. Vark insisted he did the right thing for me and him, and that was all that mattered. And to this day, I still can't believe he saw things that way. And don't get me wrong, I appreciate his instinct to take care of an injured friend, but what he did to that woman was unforgivable. And we argued about it for quite a while until finally he announced that he was getting drunk. Varg couldn't go back to the little country shop that he'd found. The only one for miles around, he'd have to walk for miles and miles to some other place to get help.

And the cold had completely killed our little flip phones so we needed a landline. And then since we were way out in the middle of nowhere, Varg would have to search long and hard to find one he could use. So before that, he was going to get drunk. Now, if you imagine Vark planned on getting drunk and then getting back behind the wheel of my car, then yes, that's exactly what he's planning on doing. And this sparked another argument between us.

But since it truly was a case of beggars not being able to be choosers, I had to shut my mouth, drink a little vodka to help the painkillers along, and wait until he was good and ready to help me. And there came a point when there was nothing but silence. I didn't have anything to say to him, and he didn't have anything to say to me. And then as we sat there, me eating and him smoking, I noticed a little plane flying in the sky above our heads. I didn't think much of it at first.

Who would? It was just a small plane, but then minutes later, I saw it fly over us again before it started circling us. Now, for the sake of nothing but my own amusement, I started waving at it with both arms as if to say, SOS, help us. I hoped it might fly straight and dip its wings or something, like a sign that it had seen us, but not a minute later, it flew away again without any kind of signal or indication. Varg kept on drinking and smoking for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, then finally stood up on very wobbly legs and said,

said, okay, time to go. I remember groaning, not in pain, but at the thought of him being pulled over or worse, driving my car off the road and getting himself hurt. But as I looked up at him, I saw someone behind him walking towards us through the snowy trees, and he had what looked like a shotgun in his hands. Varg must have seen my expression because he turned around to check out what I was seeing. And then when he did, he yelled run, and then started sprinting. away as fast as he could. I saw the man stop and aim at us, so I tried my best to also run as I heard

a single-shot boom around the landscape. As per my army training, I instinctively threw myself to the ground, and then I remembered letting out of scream of pain as I felt it shoot through my ankle. I got up and tried to run again, but fell down again. I'd then tried crawling, but knew that I wasn't moving fast enough, and so I did the only thing I could think of, and rolled on to my back to face the man approaching us and begged for my life. I knew who it was, or at least I knew why he was shooting at us. It had to be the husband or brother or son of the woman Varg had hurt, and I was right. It was her husband.

He had the shotgun pointed right at me as I explained it wasn't me, that it was my friend and that I had nothing to do with it. I think the man knew this and recognized the fleeing Varg from the description he'd been given because he loaded his shotgun and fired a second time. He missed a barg completely, but I didn't know this at the time. And so in my mind, and because there was no screaming, Varg was stone dead, and I was next. I begged him over and over not to shoot me as he loaded a third shell into his shotgun,

and then for just a moment he pointed the barrel right at my face. I thought it was all over for me. I thought it was a dead man. But after I started to pray, something I hadn't done since I was a child, the man lowered the gun and then offered me a hand to help me to my feet. All I could say was thank you, thank you again and again. It was no platitude either, but rather it stemmed from the deepest sense of gratitude I've ever felt. The man then told me his name was Oscar, and that if I wanted to leave those woods alive,

I was going to help the police find the man who had beaten his wife half to death. I told him that sounded like a good deal. and then he held me back to his four by four, and we drove over to his store to meet his wife who was being treated by paramedics, and more importantly, the policeman waiting for me. I was only too happy to talk to them, partly to clear my name and partly to fulfill my promise to Oscar. I wanted to do the right thing, but I also firmly believe that if I didn't, he would find me and kill me. Varg ended up going to prison for six years for what he did, but I heard they let him out in four. We haven't spoken since, and to be honest, I consider it good riddance. But there is a part of me that wonders if someday he may pay me a visit to ask why I was so willing to talk to the police about him.

And without pointing too fine a point on it, if he does, he won't get to escape like he did from that woman's husband. I'm a high school teacher, world history, and I have been for coming up on 25 years now. I sport a buzz cut, I rock a cardigan, and I'm kind of a school teacher. a squishy around the middle. And while my wife says it makes me lovable, I make sure that I'm hardly much to look at when it comes to younger people I work with. Now, I don't say the following to brag, though, not at all. If anything, it was a curse and it was a choice to let myself go. And when I just started out as a teacher in my mid-20s, I was, according to my girlfriend at the time, Hollywood attractive. My wife, who I didn't know at the time, look at old photos of me and say

that I look like that Glenn Powell fellow everyone loves these days. Now, I guess I knew I was good looking back in those days. I had flings with more than one of my female co-workers, all single, I'll let you know. And when I wasn't sleeping with a young art teacher or the drama one, I'd prowl the bars for one-night hookups. And you could say that I was a bit of a male slut, I guess. I admit all of this because I want you to know that I want to stress as hard as I can that as soon as I entered the classroom, I became a different person. I wanted to be approachable to the students, sure, but my mentor drummed it into me from day one

that I could not become their friend, that I had to inspire them, but I could not take them under my wing, and this was in the very early 2000s, too, so imagine how much worse it is now. I knew he wasn't screwing with me. Another teacher at the school I started at had left under a cloud. Supposedly, he was having an affair with a male student, and he very very much. vehemently denied it. Who knew the truth? But I swore to myself that I would never even wind up in a position where I could be under that suspicion. I like my women mature enough to hold a conversation with me to be on my level and most important goddamn legal. And the idea of being involved with a student sickens me and I have nothing but contempt for the men and women who go down that path. If it feels

like I'm fixating on it, there's a reason. Obviously, despite my best efforts, I found myself in a situation that became a living hell. I'll call her Billy, although that wasn't her real name. She was a senior, had just turned 18, and she really had everything. Head cheerleader, on track to be the prom queen, and a very solid GPA, and there was no reason for her to want more from academia than she did, except for some reason she wanted me. Now, when you're a teacher, at least a good one, you can just tell when a student has a crush on you. It's usually harmless. The odd comment, a little lingering after class, and it's easy to put the kabash on that. But with Billy, it was different. She had a plan, and it started off with very honest, seeming questions about

her world history assignments. She'd hang around after class, something I was pretty strict about when it came to having students alone in the classroom. And at first I thought she didn't realize, but it soon became clear that she was intentionally waiting for the classroom to clear before coming to me with questions. Questions I realized that she did not need to ask being the smart girl that she was. And very quickly, I had to set some firm boundaries. I spoke to some other members of staff and shared my concerns, and they agreed that I was right to be worried.

A couple of them had their own experiences with Billy, nothing too serious but enough to make them uncomfortable. At the same time, I didn't want to make myself unavailable to students, and so I came up with a structure where my classroom door had to be opened up at all times, and my buddy Chris, the English teacher, would conveniently drop by after Billy's World History class when his AP English class also got out. Billy soon stopped trying to get me alone when became apparent

that Chris was here to stay and we were maybe on to her. Now one day, a new member of the admin staff, who wasn't aware of the whole saga, told me that there was a student outside the teacher's lounge asking about me. Now, a cup of coffee in hand I went to see who it was. It had been a month or so since I'd really heard from Billy, so I was a bit surprised to see her standing there. Now, I was even more surprised at the somewhat revealing outfit that she was wearing.

Now, I was certain that that did not meet our dress code, but I didn't want to get into all that with her, so I just asked her what was up. Billy told me she was having some trouble with class, despite her grades very much saying the opposite, and asked if she could book some private tutor sessions with me to raise her grade. Of course I said no, maybe a little too quickly. I felt a pang of guilt and then tried to soften my words a little. I didn't have the time for private lessons. If I offered them to her, then I'd have to offer them to my entire senior class. It just wasn't possible.

I did, however, offer her the number of a private tutor who she could hire for further studies, a septuagenarian lady who'd been my world history teacher and tutored occasionally as part of a retirement. And surprisingly, Billy never called her. called the number. I guess the business card caused Billy to sort of snap because that's when I started finding the typed notes tucked under my windshield. They were typed on those old digital word processors that were popular in the 80s, the follow-up from typewriters, and exactly the kind of technology that a rich family such as Billy's might actually own. Now this didn't prove anything, of course, but the increasingly weird love letter content did, and I openly ignored them entirely,

but made sure to file everyone with the principal. And by now, the entire staff was sure that Billy was the culprit, but A, we had no evidence, and B, we didn't want to accuse an innocent girl, and C, Billy's father was somewhat of a pillar of the community, working in construction building of affordable housing, and also something of a large donor to the school. And they were a decent family, honestly, generous, charitable, and beloved. And if there was some way to handle the Billy's situation without,

ruining her reputation, either at school or with her parents, we wanted to take it. It became harder, though, when those love ladders started to become threats. What had started as descriptions of things this person wanted to do to me in a very intimate way, shifted into a much more sadist method. I got to the point where myself and the principal were a few notes away from actually going to the cops. What if it wasn't Billy after all? What if it was some sick coincidence? some woman I hadn't called back after what I'd considered in a greed one-night stand or a husband

I hadn't been informed about. And this theory kind of fell by the wayside when I found a pair of crotchless panties tucked into a drawer in my desk. I kept my classroom locked and made sure no students could be in there alone, so how she'd gotten in was a complete mystery. And if it was Billy, she didn't want to make a secret of it. There was a crocheted letter above the lack of crotch, and the first letter of her real name, and while that didn't mean anything, part of me wondered if she somehow knew that she'd gone too far and had to take steps to ensure that I knew that it was her. She knew I wouldn't call the cops on her.

Now handing a pair of crotchless panties over to my middle-aged female principal was one of the most embarrassing moments of my entire life, even if they were in an envelope, but I still had to explain what they were and then stand there as she removed and studied them. She told me that this couldn't escalate, that she was genuinely concerned for me at this point, as I was young and good-looking, and no, the principal was not one of the colleagues that I'd hooked up with, and made me promise that no matter how guilty I might feel, if it came to it, the law needed to get involved. We were nearing the end of the semester, though, in prom and graduation and all of that, and then I'd never have to see her again, and I wondered if maybe these panties were her final hurrah.

But how wrong I was. Much like many of the staff, I was a chaperone at the prom. Billy was a shoe-in-to-be prom queen along with her prom-king boyfriend, Brad. And I kind of hope that maybe the romantic win up on stage might change things for her, maybe help whatever was going on in her life. Christ, looking back, I was a dumb 25-year-old, and I really did not understand women or anything, really. And I don't remember much about the prom.

I remember some students getting rowdy and a couple of ejections for drinking on the premises. and weirdly, my biggest memory, save for the incidents, is just how much Billy Idol the DJ played. He was this British guy, and the majority of his repertoire was British music, and I'm not sure how well it landed with the students. But then came the announcement of prom, king, and queen. Of course, it was Brad and Billy. They took the stage, and Brad gave some gushing speech about how he was with the woman he loved, and he wanted to make her happy for as long as he could, and she'd always be his queen. And then Billy spoke. I'll always remember her opening Gambit.

She turned to Brad, smack the crown off his head and said, You sicken me. And then she launched into a tirade about how he was a boy playing a man, and how he constantly wanted intimacy, and she said some extremely crude things that did not paint Brad in a good light. And my heart broke for her. But then she turned to me and told me that I was the one that she was destined to be with, that I was a real man, and we were soulmates, and we were destined to be together.

Some absolute joker manning the lights put a spotlight on me, and there was just complete, awkward silence. What could I do? I had no choice but to tell Billy that there was no chance, that she was a child, and I was an adult. And I tried to be as kind as possible. I told her that she'd find someone, but it couldn't be me. And I told her that I did not find her attractive, that she was nothing but just some kid to me. I didn't notice. I really didn't notice how much it actually broke her.

I was staring in my shoes, worried that I couldn't finish my speech if I looked up at her, and I didn't see the tears pouring down her face and all that mascara. But I did hear the slow clapping and then the laughter and erupting from the entire dance hall, all aimed at Billy, the most embarrassing, mortifying moment of her life, and I'd been the cause of it. But I didn't have time to feel guilty. I saw some movements, and I saw Billy leaping down. off of the stage. I saw her grab the sharp, lengthy knife that was resting near one of the prom cakes, and I saw her charge straight at me, blade-raised, prom dress flying behind her, her face blackened by

mascara and tears. And I did the only thing I could think to do is someone that was charging at me with a huge carving knife. I used my years of defensive martial arts training to sidestep her and send her sprawling to the ground. Only she didn't hit the ground. She hit a table behind. She hit a table behind me on which stood another prom sponge cake, and this one was untouched. The knife flew from her hand, and Billy slammed straight into that cake, and the table collapsing under her weight. Everyone was silent for a moment, and then the crowd erupted with even more laughter. Billy pulled herself to her feet, her prom dress ruined, cake and punch and food all over her, and she turned to me, and she stared at me, and I braced myself for the most terrifying threat of my life.

and all Billy said was, I'm sorry, and then turned around and left the school gym. Now, long story short, Billy quite obviously needed obvious psychiatric help that she'd hidden the need for. She had managed to graduate and with a high GPA, but college wasn't on the cards for her. Following the prom in her year of obsession, she spent two entire years in a rehabilitation institute. I expected her parents to blame me, and instead they thanked me for her. how I handled the situation and kept me up to date with her progress. After a year, I moved schools to a different state, and they would write me occasionally. Eventually, they let me know that Billy had been released and asked if I would be willing to receive a letter from her,

and they told me they understood if the answer was no, but I decided to say yes. It was a single sheet containing a single paragraph, and I still have that letter to this day, and I can type it verbatim. It said, Thank you. Thank you for not taking advantage of me. I'm sorry I push you so far and I'm better now. I'm going to college in the fall and I'm going to study world history

and I will make you proud, sir, Billy. I don't know what kind of life she's living now. I hope it's her best life and I hope she recovered from whatever caused her behavior. But I know one thing. As I near retirement, Billy taught me as many lessons as I've

taught all my students over the years. and I still refused to be alone in a classroom with anyone who isn't a colleague. Just over two years ago now, I got a call from an old friend's wife. I thought it'd be her and my old friend Luke passing on some belated Christmas wishes, as I hadn't seen either of them over the festive period. It marked the first time in almost 20 years that I hadn't seen him during that time, but for that, there was a very reasonable explanation. The week before Christmas, Luke's mom had suddenly passed away.

He and his family were devastated, so instead of doing the usual and spending every spare moment down at the pub, he very understandably wanted to have a quiet Christmas. The funeral had been small, a family affair, and so when the name of Luke's wife popped up on my phone, I was excited to hear from her and my old friend. But as it turned out, Luke wasn't there, and in fact, he'd gone missing. Sarah said it wasn't so much Luke's absence that worried her. It was what he'd said before he left. He was still grieving, so the idea of him needing some time alone was understandable.

But when Sarah said he mentioned something about talking to an angel, my jaw dropped. Sarah asked where he was going and why, and Luke only told her, You wouldn't understand, or you wouldn't believe me. Sarah then said she wouldn't let him leave until he told her where he was going, and when Luke replied, To talk to an angel, she was too stunned to stop him as he shoved his way past her with a bag full of supplies and some spare clothes.

When she asked if I knew what that meant, I said yes, that I did, and that while I couldn't promise anything, I had a pretty good idea where I could find him, and not only would I tell her where that was, I'd do one better. I'd drive all the way up to Scotland, and I'd bring Luke home myself. Sarah was worried Luke had gone insane, and while I didn't know if that was the case,

I knew that if we got the police involved, Luke might end up getting into some serious trouble. And we didn't want him locked in a cell or doing 30 days in a mental health unit if all he needed was just a nice hug. And if he needed serious treatment, then sure, we could go down that road if we needed to. But both me and Sarah agreed that the best thing to do was to find him before he got himself into trouble. and not just the legal kind either, more like trouble from the weather. Sarah noticed how Luke was packing some camping gear into his car before he left, another thing which frightened her because where was he planning on camping in the middle of

bloody winter? She had no idea, but I did. Like I said, Scotland. More than 20 years before, when myself, Luke, and two friends of ours were all either 21 and 22, we went on a camping trip to Ershire. We drove out to a place called Locke Braden, set up a campsite near the Locks Edge, and then spent a few days roasting chestnuts on an open fire, getting pissed drunk and hoping it would snow. And yes, you heard that right.

We didn't head out camping in the summertime like normal people. We went two days after Christmas, because we felt cheated out of a white one and fancy an excuse to booze it up around a warm, crackling fire. Now, I know that probably sounds mental to some people who would rightly assume winter camping to be a pretty terrible idea, but we were young, dumb, and full of such terrible ideas. And so off we went. It didn't snow while we were there, but we did find a chestnut tree, and now the taste forever reminds me of freezing my balls off up in Scotland. It was worth it for the fire and booze and the banter, though, and it wasn't just beer and vodka keeping our own fires

burning, if you know what I mean. We were passing spliffs back and forth, but not Luke. Luke didn't do anything like that, so nothing but alcohol passed his lips, or at least it seemed that way, right up until the point he just sort of walked off. Now, me and our two friends were absolutely bombed, so while we were splitting our sides over absolute nonsense, Luke seemed to be on a different wavelength. I kept an eye on him to make sure that he was doing okay, and he didn't seem sad, but over time he got quieter and quieter until eventually he just got up and walked off on his own. We called out to him, asking where he was going, because we'd usually announced if we were going for a piss or whatever, for safety purposes, I suppose. But Luke didn't say anything, and we had to call out and ask where he was going just to be told, just going for a walk.

Now, me and our two palsy fun at him and saying he was slinking off to take the knock, as we called it, which just means vomiting after drinking or smoking too much. Now, I thought that he'd be back in a few minutes, but I think maybe an hour flew by with us just laughing. away before we realized that Luke still hadn't come back. And we started panicking a bit, because our mobiles were useless out there in the middle of nowhere, so off we went with our torches to go looking for Luke. Now it got quite scary at times, and not just because we were so drunk and stoned, but because reality started to become something of an elastic concept at times. That was mostly my fault, and that admission will make a lot more sense later.

But for now, let me quickly reassure you by saying, that we found Luke, safe and sound, and got him back to the campsite. Now, we were all knackered by then, so not long after getting back to camp, we got into our sleeping bags and let the campfire burn down as we got some much-needed rest. But then, as we're all lying there in our tents, and there's nothing but quiet and stillness, Luke spoke up in this obviously drunken voice and said something like, guys, I saw an angel out there. Now, he said it so sincerely that we all just sort of burst out laughing.

One of our friends, Ben, replied asking, Bloody hell, mate, how much you had to drink. Now, our other friend was laughing, saying, You saw a Christmas angel, did you? My arse you did. The angel flew out of those loggers you were drinking. Now, Luke insisted he wasn't mistaken, but sounded like he was on the verge of passing out.

And then once the laughter died down, we all just sort of slowly fell asleep. Now the next day, we packed away the camping gear and agreed on a nice fried breakfast and a cafe before heading home. We poked a bit of fun at Luke over his claim that he'd seen an angel, but he took it on the chin with a very much fine. You don't have to believe me kind of attitude. Now, I assume Luke might feel a bit embarrassed and was all too willing to move on from his little sighting, but he didn't. In fact, over the next year or so, the angel sighting seemed to be the basis for Luke's newfound faith. He didn't turn into a complete Bible thump or anything like that, and since he

didn't shove it down our throats or anything, me and his other friends were just kind of like, whatever floats your boat, pal. Some came to believe that whenever Luke talked about the angel, he was weaving a kind of metaphor about finding God up in Scotland one Christmas after having a bit too much to drink. But I knew Luke wasn't talking in metaphors. He really did think that he'd seen an angel. And so when he told his wife that he was going to talk to one, I had a pretty good idea of where he was heading. And that place was Lock Braden, the same place that we'd gone camping all those years before. I rang into work, told them I needed a few days off of work for personal reasons, and then drove up to Ershir first thing in the morning. I then reached Lockbraden by about half one in the afternoon, and there was snow at the time, not much of it, but enough to give it that proper.

her desolate look. And I can't say it was enjoyable, though, because strong winds meant that it was absolutely freezing, and I had to bundle up against the cold before heading out in search of Luke. I didn't wander around the lock, calling out his name. Instead, I was laser-guided towards the place we'd camped at all those years earlier, and when I found it, there stood a dark green tent with a dead campfire and a few bits of camping equipment sitting near the entrance. I called out to Luke asking, are you there, mate? But the tent was empty. I had no way of knowing if the tent was really his, not until I found the Bible he had sitting next to a rolled-up sleeping bag, and then I knew. I then spent the next hour or so wandering around the snowy woods, calling out

Luke's name. But when I didn't find him, I wandered back to his camp and decided to wait for him there while I got a fire going to keep warm. It was almost dark by the time I heard footst steps approaching. And at first, I was a bit nervous that it wouldn't be Luke. But it was. And since I already had a feeling that he wouldn't be pleased to see me, I wasn't surprised when he wasn't. No, I said something to him like, hey mate, and was about to offer an explanation as to why I was there. But Luke cut me off by asking who told me where he was. Now, I didn't want to get his backup by treating him like a kid. I wanted cooperation, so that's what I went with, and told him Sarah was worried about him. He didn't get angry or anything, not yet, because he knew we were just concerned about him,

but Luke did let me know, and very firmly, that he wouldn't be leaving till he talked to his angel. I honestly couldn't tell if he had gone crackers or not, so I tried to test him, and my own little way on little bits of info. I asked him how long he'd been there, what route he'd taken on the drive up, and what he'd said to Sarah before leaving. All his answers seemed kind of lucid, and he didn't mention any kind of wild conspiracy theories or anything delusional like that, and he didn't go off on any religious rants either. He said he didn't expect me, his wife, or anyone else to understand, but he needed to find his guardian angel because he needed to get a message to his mom.

And when he said that last part, it felt almost like a punch to the gut. Or maybe that's the wrong way of describing it. it, but it was just such a sad but almost sort of relatable thing to want. Like I said earlier, Luke's mom had suddenly passed away, and he was understandably taking that very badly. But it wasn't a question of what he was doing being healthy or not, or if what was happening was something much more damaging. It was a question of what Luke was going to do when I told him the truth. We had a nice long chat about the camp trip that we went on and and then touched on how his mom's funeral had been.

It was nice to reminisce, but seeing him grieving so deeply was very tough. But then as we continued talking over a campfire supper and the darkness fully crept in, we got talking about Luke's angel and what it may or may not have been. Again, he was weirdly reasonable about it and didn't expect anyone to understand. It was just something that he had to do so he could be at peace with his mom's passing. But then, I asked how he'd feel if I could guarantee he wouldn't find his angel again, because it was my fault he thought he'd seen one in the first place. Luke just sort of laughed,

because the very idea that it was me that was responsible for him seeing his angel was laughable. But the only reason he didn't full-on belly laugh, at least in my opinion, was the look on my face when suggesting it, because I wasn't joking. In fact, I was very serious. because the reason Luke wandered off in a dazed like he did, and the reason he believed that he saw an angel, was because I put a tiny bit of LSD in his alcohol when he went off for a piss.

He was already drunk and he was drinking some cheap piss, so he didn't pick up on the taste at first. And I thought it'd have a funnier effect on him, but I guess it didn't. And when he didn't come back when he thought he would, I felt very personally responsible. No one but me knew I'd brought any, and I was planning on telling him that what I'd done come bedtime or the next morning. But after we, or should I say I, almost lost Luke, I decided not to tell anyone what I'd done for fear of the backlash. And then as the years went by, I felt more and more guilty about what I'd done.

So much so that when Luke's wife told me that he'd put himself in danger by camping up in Scotland in the middle of winter, I felt personally responsible. It might have only been a snort, but Luke laughed when I suggested I was responsible for his angel sighting. But when I mentioned the acid that I'd slipped into his beer, not even trace of amusement was visible in his face. He went full-on denial mode and argued that I was only saying that to get him to come home. Now, I suppose I should make it clear to anyone reading this that I wasn't just making it up and I really did put drugs in my friend's drink. My defense at the time, was that it wasn't much. Enough to get him loosey-goosey, you know, but not full on tripping.

But that's no excuse, I know that, because that one stupid joke had altered Luke's whole reality. And although he completely refused to accept it at first, that didn't last long. I think the thing that really pushed him over the edge was when I started describing his symptoms back to him. I told him that although he was quiet, I was worried about him because I knew the dose that I'd given him would serve as a real mood enhancer.

And I also knew that he'd walked away from the fire at first because it was too bright for him. First time trips can be like that, especially if you don't know what's going on. And I added it was me who initiated the Luke's going to vomit joke, partly to try and distract from the fact that I'd dosed him. I told him whatever he'd seen out there, be it a trick of the light, or a big bird of prey passing over the face of the moon. His imagination had taken hold of it and turned it into something it wasn't. I was halfway into explaining how I knew it.

It couldn't have been some full-on hallucination because I'd given him such a low dosage when Luke just charged me. He didn't shout or scream. He just started attacking me in a complete frenzy, punching and kicking till I was on the ground, and curled up in a ball shouting, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I did try and defend myself at first, purely on instinct, I suppose. But as you can imagine, it was a complete mismatch in terms of how angry he was versus how sorry I was. And when he stopped kicking me, Luke dropped to his knees and kind of rolled me over. I thought he was going to start punching me in the face, but instead, his hands went from my throat,

and he started to strangle me. I reached up to try and claw his fingers away from my neck, and then I tried grabbing his arms at the elbows to drag them away, but neither thing worked. And it was then that I had this horrible moment of realization that this was how it was going to die. Murdered up in Scotland by one of my oldest friends because I'd revealed his entire belief system was the result of nothing more than a prank. I don't think I deserved to die for something like that, but in the moment, I had a very dark sense of, I get it, I brought this on myself. I still tried to get his hands off of me, but all that rage in him, it was like it gave him super strength

or something, and I think it was only the thoughts of the consequences that made him stop. And by that, I mean, if he thought he could have gotten away with killing me, I'm not sure Luke would have let go. But he did. And when he did, it was like taking my very first breath of life all over again. I've never known a lungful like that, but I could feel how puffy and hot my face was from how red it had turned. And all the amsarries got replaced with thank-yus

because it was clear he'd just spared my life. But Luke wasn't ready to let bygones, be bygones, and after pacing back and forth for a minute straight, still in a rage, he told me to do one, meaning get lost. I remember wanting to ask him if he was sure we couldn't just talk it out, but I knew that it'd be a waste of breath. I'd never seen him that angry before, and not that I deserved it, but I knew that there'd be no reasoning with him at this point. Luke saw me hesitating to leave, and then came at me shouting to F off, and making out like he was going to hit me. And so I did his...

he asked and left. I walked back to my car, feeling the aches from Luke's punches and kicks and the soreness in my throat, and then drove back home, and we never spoke since. I called his wife from a service station and filled her in on everything that had happened. I put off telling her about the spiking incident for as long as I could, but when I did, she did a kind of verbal double-take in asking me to repeat myself, and when I did, she immediately hung up. There was no anger, no insults. She just hung up the phone, and that was the last time I spoke to her, too. I understand why they've chosen to cut me off.

I just hope that one day they find it in their hearts to forgive me, and if Luke still has his faith after I told him, then I hope that I'll one day be the case. Because after thinking about it for quite a while, and I think that in a way, Luke really did find his angel out there at that old air-shear campsite, And when it spoke to him And told him to spare my life

He listened Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice All summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave. Yep.

They even got a new watermelon Asai Bowl this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Mmm. Like that. Booster Juice. Canadian born.

blending since 1999. I don't think Alex Crowley was his real name, but that's what he went by, and that's what we called him. I didn't know him at first, not personally anyway. He was a sophomore when I was a freshman. I was a grungy skater kid in the late 90s, into real big fish and Green Day and sublime and a bit of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I know, I know both. And I felt kind of like a badass posseur because I was into failure, a band most of my friends didn't even know, and even more badass, I was an American fan of Jesus and Mary Chain. I'd found Darklands

and Automatic in an indie record store, and I'd fallen in love with both LPs. I was a bit of a musical snob is what I mean, despite being a 90s skater kid who could do a bit of grinding in a few ollies and landed a 180 spin about once, but mostly just made bailing videos with my buddy. We were the skaters, the losers, the punks, and we loved it. And our heroes, our absolute idols in high school, were the trench coat goths in the year above us. Their leader was a fellow called Alex Crowley, and he claimed to be a direct descendant of famed occultist, mountaineer, ceremonial magician,

and founder of the religion of the Lema, Alistair Crowley. But of course, he couldn't prove that, because Alistaird had so many illegitimate descendants that if you were one of them, you just knew. I suppose maybe that was true, but I'm pretty sure neither of Alex's parents were secret descendants of Alistaira Crowley either. and I'm pretty sure the guy ate poop too, so I'm not sure that I'd brag about being related to him personally.

Now, I remember when Alex and his crew first approached us as we were sort of skating around. They just stood there in their trench coats, staring and scowling, and there were four of them. Alex, Ashley, Jack, and Felicity, the only girl in the group who I had the biggest, maddest crush on and who drove me absolutely wild in her low-cut corsets and goth makeup. Now, she was actually nice, too, unlike the others. Jack in particular was a thug, and I'm pretty sure he liked to hurt animals, but I won't dwell on that too much. Alex and Flick are the key players here that you'll have to remember as well as me, Frankie, and my twin sister Kimmy, who were part of the skate crew. Now, this is how things would play out for about a week.

Our group would just nonchalantly skate around on the steps outside the high school, and Alex's group, who I later found, doubt he nicknamed the Sons of Joseph would just stand there watching us, kind of sneering. And then one weekend we were hanging out at the skate park when we saw the Sons of Joseph come stalking in. One of the skaters yelled insults in derogatory terms at them, and they weren't exactly seen as the cool people by the older guys. But Alex and Coe gave us as good as they got, and we were enamored. I was even more enamored when I saw Flick walk over to us. Was she going to speak to me? Oh, my God. Well, no. Actually, she spoke to Kimmy and told her that she was a whiz on the skateboard.

And later that night, I told Kimmy how jealous I was, and she would not let me live it down. However, being a good sister, she told me that Flick had invited her to the mall tomorrow and maybe I could tag along. Hell yes, of course I would. And so Kimmy and I got there and we didn't tell the other guys, and I was a little disappointed to discover that Alex, Jack, and Ashley were there too. I didn't have to worry about Jack for long. He got into a fight with a security guard and he got thrown out of the mall. And Alex said that he was done with that prick. He was a liability and he didn't understand the ways.

And maybe Kimmy and I would like to take Jack's place in the Sons of Joseph. Now one look from Flick's bright, masquerade eyes, and I was nodding like some puppy dog. Kimmy was a little bit more sensible and asked what the Sons of Joseph actually meant. I remember Alex tapping his nose and said that was something we'd discover in time. Sure, whatever, Kimmy said. And Alex replied saying that he'd hope we'd brought money because we'd need whole new wardrobes to join their crew. I'm not ashamed to say that Kimmy and I came from a pretty wealthy family and Kimmy was trusted with dad's credit card.

Not me, though. He knew that I'd wasted on probably video games. And she was pretty certain that spending the money on clothes would please our parents. so Alex, Ashley, and Flick led us to a hot topic. My outfit was a trench coat, a Mitzfitz t-shirt, and a pair of leather pants that squeaked when I walked. Now, I wasn't so sure about this, but Alex promised me the squeaking would eventually wear off.

And I thought about buying some cool boots, but they convinced me that my purple and black skater DCs look kind of dope with the goth outfit. Kimmy, meanwhile, got dressed out by Flick, and I got to say it was extremely disconcerting to see my sister and fishnep. a miniskirt and a mesh top with her bra visible beneath. In fact, I actually tried to persuade her that our parents really wouldn't approve of that.

And she kind of listened and bought a second outfit that was more like a velour dress and made her look like a vampire and I suppose that was pretty cool. Now, I could tell that Alex had eyes for Kimmy and I wasn't sure how I felt about that. I wasn't sure how I felt about him at all now that I'd spent in an afternoon with him. He talked and talked and talked about his connection to Aleister Crowley and thalamic magic and crap like that. Ashley brought up the Satanic Bible and Alex laughed. I kid you not, for five minutes straight in the food court of KFC before declaring that Anton LeVay was a fraud who wouldn't know true Satanism if it bit him in the ass.

I figured now wasn't the best time to tell them that Kimmy and I were Christians, so we just nodded along. I did do some reading about thelamic lore and the order of thelemma and things like that over the next few months because I'm nothing, if not academically curious. It amused me to discover that Alex was basically just making up crap. None of the garbage he spewed was accurate at all, and even though by then I'd already realized that he was a complete charlatan, it was nice to have something to laugh with Kimmy about. Speaking of Kimmy, Alex was constantly relentlessly trying to get into her pants.

Kimmy could hold her own and had obviously no interest in letting Alex take her virginity, but it still made me defensive. He was a creep and a weirdo, and not only that, he was always claiming to hear voices from his true father. He could never decide whether his true father was Alistair Crowley or Satan himself, and in his head I think that they were sort of interchangeable. One of the messages he mysteriously received was that Kimmy should engage in thalamic, intimate magic with him. And when she flout out refused, he said that dancing naked for him with sigils drawn on her body would be enough.

Kimmy stopped hanging out with him after that. Too exhausting, she said, and she begged me to ditch them too, but at this point I'd kind of abandon all my other friends. But to make matters worse, I was deeply, hopelessly head over heels in love with Flick, and it wasn't unrequitted either. We were a couple. But we had to keep it a secret from Alex because according to him, the sons of Joseph, male or female, must only lay with him and nobody else. Ashley had ditched the group by this. time too and started hanging out with the chess club. We had a new member, and by the name of Norbit, I'm being serious, a nerdy kid whose presence I couldn't even begin to explain. And so the only way for me and Flick to be together was to pretend to tolerate Alex. Any attempt that we made to ditch him resulted in him mysteriously appearing or showing up in my house, which was even worse because I didn't want him anywhere near my sister. Things would have been fine, I think, if Alex hadn't suddenly had an influx of hormones and decided that his true father was sending him messages that we all needed to obey. Suddenly, Norbert's presence made sense. He was a member of the A.V. Club, and Alex's

dark father had instructed him to rig a video camera hidden in the vents in the female changing rooms, so we could corrupt the fair sex in the name of Satan without them even knowing. Of course, Flick and I were horrified by this, and Kimmy wanted to kill Alex as soon as I. I told her, but simply talking about something wasn't a crime. We needed proof that he was actually planning on doing it. He gave Norbert a list of times for the recordings. I stole a copy and surprise surprise, they were all times when Kimmy would be coming out of the gym or out of the pool, and this creep was basically planning to stalk my sister by filming her naked. I took Norbert to one side and flick, and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he went ahead with his plan,

We would not only ruin him in his entire high school career, but there was a good chance we'd end his life, too. This dumb freshman, I was a sophomore at this point, Flick was a junior, fell for it, and I guess took it so seriously that he changed schools within the month. When it became clear to Alex that his plan to film the girl's locker room had failed, he flew into a rage. He slammed me up against the wall of the AV room, which we now had the keys to thanks to Norbert,

and told me that this wasn't going to happen. and that I was going to have to be the one to film Kimmy. I'd be able to do it at home easily, and his true father, the Dark Lord, would bestow upon me untold riches. I told him where he could shove his untold riches, and if he came anywhere near us again, he'd wish he'd never been born. Finally, myself, Kimmy, and Flick were free. Flick and I were able to date openly now, and Kimmy didn't have to worry about this creep trying to, well, creep on her. Or so we thought. As one night Kimmy Flick and I were hanging out in Kimmy's bedroom playing three-player

Gold Night Death Match, and suddenly a red light kept glaring on the screen. Initially, Kimmy jokingly blamed one of us saying that we were trying to put her off with a laser pointer. But then the red light quickly disappeared and we heard some scuffling and banging outside. I ran to the window to see this trench coat figure fleeing into the night. It was obviously Alex. He'd been testing to see if he could film Kimmy himself through her bedroom window. Flick had the dumbest yet funniest idea. Using our brand-new color printer, we printed out a huge image of a fat man's ass and taped it on the window.

And then we waited for Alex to come back that night, which we knew he would. And we heard him out there. He was hardly subtle. Kimmy yelled that she was going to take a shower, and we gave it ten minutes, and then we pulled the blinds open, revealing the large print out of that ass. and I guess Alex had been filming because we heard this sort of strangled shriek and then the clattering of something falling to the floor and saw that a trench-coated figure was running away again. When we went out there, the school's camcorder lay abandoned in the flower bed.

We watched through the tape. It turned out he'd filmed Kimmy more than he thought. We were all watching when she snatched the videotape away from us and watched the next few minutes alone, and her face went pale. just underwear she said but i feel sick kimmie didn't tell us anything else neither of us asked either but a few days later alex was found with both of his legs broken apparently by a baseball bat and he claimed that he'd been jumped by a gang of black guys when we asked kimmie if she had planned to pursue the video any further she just said no i don't want to say that my sister kneecapped a goth stalker while in high school but let's just say years later

later, and even though you passed away six years ago, I'll always be proud of you, Kimmy. My high school years took place in the mid-2000s. I'm a female, and for most of my high school career, probably until senior year, my entire friend group was made up of girls and one single guy, called Guy, who was probably the gayest fellow you could ever meet. We all had this weird thing where we decided that none of us were going to date during high school, and this completely went out of the way during senior year when, I guess, hormones just became too much, but as far as I know, most of us stuck to it. Sure, we snuck a kiss at a party here and there, and I'm not saying that we were prude little good girls, but we had this packed with each other that we were just going to

focus on our studies. And that's why we were so shocked when one of our girlies, perhaps the most straight-laced, accidentally let slip that she had a mother-effing sugar daddy. We grilled our friend Samantha within an inch of her life. What had he bought you? Shoes, clothes, jewelry? She had it all to display. Was she physical with him? Of course, very much so. She was sorry that she'd broken the pact. But Mr. X might be the one, and she didn't want to let that slip through her fingers. Not when he was so much older than her. Of course, that was scandalous by itself and led to another round of questioning. How old was he? Mid-40s? Was he married? and Samantha shyly admitted that yes he was married with kids did we know this guy Samantha said no but her hesitation in her eyes they said yes it was a man in his forties with kids that we knew now we were pretended to let it drop we lied and said we were happy for her of course we were all pretty disgusted that our 16 year old friend was being taken advantage of by a 45-year-old man who was clearly lying about leaving his wife

for her and keeping her sweet by giving her some fairly gaudy stuff. I don't know much about sugar daddies, but honestly, I would have expected a little more from the gifts. She said he took her out to dinner, too, and stayed in some nice hotels, but still. So we pretended to drop it, and instead, we all secretly spied on Samantha individually. I know it sounds awful, but I'll stand by it. We didn't want our friend being seduced by some dirty old man. And there was one guy whose name kept coming up, Mr. Cursewell, one of the science teachers. Samantha would often meet with him after class, and while we couldn't spy for too long, it was absolutely the only lead we had. So Mr. Cursewell became our target, and there was definitely

something off about him. He'd sneak phone calls into hidden corners during lunch break. If he was using his laptop when class started, he'd often slam it closed and make sure that we weren't looking before he opened it again. There was something very off about this guy, and we became more and more convinced that this balding, bespeckled biology teacher was the one boinking our buddy. But the question was, what next? That's when Guy had this bright idea of trying to follow Mr. Cursewell one weekend. We had no idea where he'd go or when he'd go, but we decided to time it for a Saturday, where Samantha had also refrained from hanging out, and heavily claimed that she had a hot date with her mystery sugar daddy.

If it was Kurtzwell, then boom, we were in luck. If not, maybe we'd catch sight of the real culprit. And so we all loaded into a guy's car, and apparently, as subtle as a cop tailing a suspect, we followed Samantha for nearly an hour and found ourselves in the next town over. It was one of those little towns that you kind of looked down on, jokes about the folks there being inbred,

and the fact that there was a weird smell. A cellophane factory explained that and just kind of overall crappy. Not exactly the place that you'd expect a hot date with a sugar daddy. Samantha headed into this crappy mall and we followed at a pretty long distance and it became clear pretty quickly that she was checking out some stores. There were four of us without Samantha, so we decided that it didn't make sense for the entire group to tail her. We'd be spotted in an instant. And she was headed mostly into these girly stores, so despite her pension, for glitter and pink, we figured guys should hang back.

It was decided that I was the most nondescript and unnoticeable. Not sure if that was a compliment, but it worked well enough here. And so I followed Samantha into a bunch of stores, and what I saw shocked me. The gifts her sugar daddy had been bestowing on her, she was shoplifting them. I followed her into four stores and watched as she stole costume jewelry, lingerie, a crop top and all sorts of crap. Not once did she get spotted by security either. I high-tailed it out of there.

I didn't want to get wrapped up in all of that, and I didn't want to look complicit. And so I met my friends at the agreed point, a sort of hidden area where we weren't in much danger of being spotted by Samantha. I was all ready to hit them with my revelation, but I didn't have a chance. They were the ones who hit me with the gossip.

We were right. Our science teacher, Mr. Cursewell, was here and the same mall's Samantha, and what more proof did we need? I waited until they finished chattering and then told them what I'd observed. There was no sugar daddy offering gifts. Samantha was a kleptomaniac. Presumably she'd traveled to the next town over because the local mall security were getting suspicious in our town, and so everyone was absolutely baffled.

They definitely seemed Kurtzwell, and he definitely seemed sketchy, and at the same mall as Samantha, too. Could it be possible that they were having a fling, but the gifts were stolen for our benefit to try and justify all of it? Or had we been stalking our friend for literally no reason? And didn't make any sense. Why would Kurtzwell be at this mall? It was over an hour outside of town, and our local mall was a thousand times better. All we could do was head out and plan to head home, but first we decided to stop by the food court to grab some macas.

And that's when we saw. Mr. Kurtzwell sat at a god-dust. damn McDonald's two-seater, holding hands with someone who was not his wife. And it wasn't Samantha though, either. Mr. Kurtzwell, and the man whose hand he held both turned to us, the unknown man looked puzzled. Mr. Kurtzwell looked sick. He stood up and immediately began pleading for us to come over. Now, let's get this straight. If we hadn't suspected Kurtzwell of being Samantha's sugar daddy, we would have gone on liking the dude. He was one of our favorite teachers, in fact. And now, He looked close to tears.

The idea of him having an affair, even if it was to hide the truth of his identity, kind of made me feel sick, and the first thing I thought was his poor wife. But then he called it over and explained everything. His wife knew. She, too, was of the same kind of proclivities as he was. She'd also always wanted kids, which were indeed his, and they both loved their kids very much. And they loved each other, too, but in their own little way. But this whole business had begun years ago before homosexuality was quite so acceptable,

and the whole deal that they had with the kids and an unusual marriage, it had been a long-term lie that they just didn't want to have to explain to friends and family. He said that we could call his wife if we wanted. He said that he knew we were good kids, and he said that he was sure that some of us understood, looking pointedly at Guy at this point. And that's how the stalking of our best friend and our science teacher led us to helping him and his wife, cover up their conventional marriage. We provided alibis and we did all sorts of things.

And we also kind of cut Samantha off after we tried our best to talk her out of being a klepto. She refused and also saw no problem with the sugar daddy lie. We didn't tell her anything about Kurtzwell, but we did tell her that we'd had a suspect and she didn't seem to care about their well-being. It just made us realize that people are never who they seem to be or who you expect them to be. And as a funny aside, guy who is the campiest, gayest man I've ever met, eventually realized that he was just as into women as he was into men. And now he's one of the biggest players, in a nice way, that I've ever met. Mr. Kurzweil still lives with his wife, and their kids have gone off to

college now, and they're considering finally living their true lives. Their kids know the truth and have done so for many years, but ultimately, it's whatever makes them happy. All I'm glad is that our one little jaunt into stalking didn't lead to the ruination of multiple lives. But I'll tell you what, from now on, I decided that unless it seems like someone's in danger, nothing is my business to get involved in. It was my idea to put on a horror production. We were the alternative theater kids. We begged the drama teacher to let a bunch of us do our own thing,

and instead of yet another performance of West Side Story or Greece, all our bitching worked and eventually Mrs. Jay relented. Now, my friend Kirsten wrote the script. It was a slasher play rife with squibs and blood and fake ghosts and low on plot, really. Nobody was going to attend expecting to see waiting for Godot, though. They wanted blood, guts, and one shocking scene, boobs. Now, don't worry, we used prosthetics. None of us were getting her boobs out for a goddamn school play. Plus, we didn't want to get expelled, obviously. We practiced that play for God knows how many times. And at that stage, we knew it off by heart. But something we'd never done is perform it at night.

And that's when it would be debuting as a horror play, so, of course, we begged and pleaded with Mrs. Jay to let us start one final rehearsal at 8 p.m. It took some cajoling, but she relented. The grumpy, scary janitor even agreed to stay late to keep an eye on us, so we didn't break as crap. Now, we were all excited. There were eight of us in total.

Six players, the director, myself, and the lighting and sound guy, I won't list all eight names because you'll forget them all. But the four important ones are me, Aela, Victor as an actor, Judd as an actor who plays the killer, and Clyde as an actor, the tragic hero. And so we ran through the first scene where a few of the characters are playing spin the bottle and a cabin in the woods. The bottle stops five times creating the shape of a pentagram, and a visual effect causes a mysterious puff of smoke to leave the bottle. dead impressive. Of course all the characters decide that it's the ghosts of Rancid Jack, a serial killer who stalked those woods a hundred years ago. And of course it is.

So the rest of the play continues with the characters getting picked off by Rancid Jack one by one, until only Vicky, the Virgin Final Girl, and Clyde, the boyfriend, are left. After we ran through the first scene, two of the actors went outside for a smoke break and they never returned. It didn't matter too much. We'd just, decided to mess around tweaking some of the practical effects. The sound guy did a much of improvements too, and I really think we had something special on our hands. To this day, I swear that if we'd actually got to perform this damn play, it would have gone down in our high school history, and not just because of the prosthetic bloody boobs. Now, eventually, we needed our two

missing actors, so the other actor, Layla, went to look for them. She didn't return either, but we did hear a scream. This caused Judd and Clyde to go running out into the barely lit corridor. Me and Vicky stayed behind like the nervous girls we were, and of course, Denny, the sound guy, had to stay and protect us. Now, this was his excuse anyway. Eventually, Clyde and Judd returned, looking pale and terrified. There'd been no sign of any of the missing three, except for a bucket load of blood. Some of it was outside and some of it was in the corridor. Now, of course, we all started freaking out. The only person in the building he wasn't accounted for was the freaky janitor, Mr. Williams. All sorts of rumors circulated about this guy.

He was an ex-con. He'd spent time inside for killing a man in a bar fight, and he'd fought in Vietnam and had the highest kill count in his unit. He had a tin of Viet Cong teeth in his little basement office. One student swore blind that they'd seen it before Williams had chased him off. Now, there was no doubt in my mind, freaked out by constant horror play rehearsals in the alleged blood, that this janitor had killed our friends. Maybe he'd watched the play and had triggered the NAM flashbacks. Who knew? Denny and Vicky and Judd volunteered to go get help,

which, thinking back now, was kind of an odd group. Why three of them? All I knew was that this left me with Clyde, my IRL boyfriend, and I wasn't going to argue against holding up with him. Now, we hid in the sound booth and listened in horror as we heard running footsteps and screams and even please for help. All three of our friends had met grisly faiths, we thought, and that just left us. We had no choice but to try and escape the building and call the cops.

Clyde grabbed a heavy metal bar and we made our way into the corridors, and if there had been blood there before, it was gone now. Williams must have cleaned it up and there was no sign of the bodies either. I was crying, begging Clyde to protect me, begging him not to let me die. And then, up ahead of us, the door to the maintenance area burst. open. The janitor stood there, some pole held in his hand and a look of fury on his face. He yelled, asking what the hell we thought we were doing. Clyde didn't even think this stop. He charged Williams with a metal pipe and cracked him in the skull, and this sent him collapsing

to the ground and then Clyde went to town hammering the guy's leg so he couldn't come after us. And between the grunts, he told me that he didn't want to kill him, that he had to face justice, but he had to make sure the guy never walked again and couldn't come after us. And by the time he was done, William's right leg was a bloody pulp, and the left had visible bone fractures in three places. Williams was trying to say something. Blood was bubbling out of his mouth, but Clyde kicked him in the side. Then the door burst open, and the rest of the cast yelled,

Surprise! The cry died on their lips as they saw Williams lying on the floor, Clyde standing over him with a bloody dripping pipe like a madman, and the whole thing had been an idiotic, ill-fated prank. Everyone was in on it except for myself and Clyde, and Mr. Williams apparently. The prank ruined all of our lives. Despite thinking he was protecting his girlfriend from a stalker, Clyde faced charges when Williams, quite understandably,

demanded that the full weight of the law come down upon him. And due to the extenuating circumstances, he only spent a couple of years in Juvie, but it still ruined his life. The others had to live with the guilt of what they caused. They were all expelled, of course, and more than one of them ended up taking a dark path through life. And from what I know, at least one of them has ended their life over that guilt. As for me, I don't know that I'll ever get over it. Seeing Clyde defend me like that only to mutilate an innocent man,

and even then I can't convince myself that there wasn't a serial killer trying to take us all out that night. My head is a mess. I've been in and out of institutes, and my latest therapist recommended that I blog about my teenage drama. I don't know if sending my story into Let's Read is the best most cathartic idea. I know many of your audience will tell me I'm a terrible person and that we all deserve what we got. Maybe that's what I need to hear. Maybe I need to accept that we all jump the gun and acted like fucking retards. I know we did. I guess I just need to self-flagellate and I'm hoping that the Let's Read audience will finally either have help me move on or help me blame myself enough to make a final decision.

All I want to say is, Mr. Williams, if you happen to hear this from heaven or wherever you are right now, I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of that, and you weren't a stalker, and I'm sorry my boyfriend crippled you. Hey, Dark Somnium. I'm a YouTuber just like you. Not quite as big, sadly. I've only got a few thousand subscribers since 2012, but I'm getting there. I got some plans for the next year that should bring me into the big time. I'd love to pick your brain for some help in getting bigger, actually, and if you got the time one day, email me at Drink the Piss at gmail.com anytime you want to chat and would be really appreciated. Now, I'm not just emailing you trying to collaborate, though, I promise. I have a quick, scary story that I want to share with you in your lovely audience.

Please subscribe to me on my channel, by the way. And so my channel is I've kind of hit a brick wall. I hit a few thousand subscribers back in the 2010s when stupid Call of Duty videos and YouTube poops were popular and I've never really grown since then. People don't care about goofy cod videos anymore, it seems, or baked memes, and it makes me sad. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, I was a high schooler when I got big on YouTube. As you know, being an old man veteran, a few thousand subs was a big deal back in 2013 before the likes of my heroes like leafy and eye. not to mention the main man Charlie and that Hassan Piker, the Twitch streamer. And the way I figure it, when you factor in inflation, 3,000 subs in 2013 is about the same as 10 million now, give or take.

And so when some kids at my school discovered that I was a YouTuber with what they saw was a crazy amount of subs, I became something of a celebrity. They uncovered my double life because I made the mistake of watching my own content on the library computers and they saw what I was up to. Oh, well, I thought. I kind of expected that I'd just become a minor celebrity in sixth form, as I went to one of the U.K. schools that includes sixth form as part of the school itself. And, yeah, I guess that happened.

Now, what I didn't foresee, though, was Rick. Rick was in the year below me, so AS level, and he was a film study student. When he discovered I was a successful YouTuber, he went kind of nuts. It took him a few days to gather the courage to approach me, but when he did that day in the cafeteria, there was no stopping him. Rick talked. A lot. He had all these ideas for my YouTube channel.

Ideas that even I, as a forward-thinking and imaginative individual, could clearly tell we're too ambitious. Now, I was out there making Cod fail videos, SpongeBob memes, and Counterstrike Parkour videos while talking about the latest online drama. Rick basically wanted us to make a goddamn feature film. I wouldn't have minded so much about Rick's, sitting at the cafeteria table with me every free period.

Nobody else really did, and they were a bit intimidated by me being a big YouTuber, except for the fact that Rick stunk. Now, excuse my language, but he smelled like Jason Mamoa's armpit hair. In the end, my nasal cavities couldn't put up with Rick's stink anymore, so I told him that I just wasn't interested in his stupid video ideas. And I can see the tears welling up in this kid's eyes, as I told him the home truths he needed to hear. and I thought that'd be the end of it.

But no, I kept finding notes in the common room, the cafeteria, and all of my classrooms pinned to the notice board and the whiteboard. Sometimes they'd just say, make videos with me, please, Rick. And other times they'd be an entire page describing some idea about an entire zombie movie that he wanted us to film and release on my YouTube channel. And the more I found the notes, the more Rick kept bragging about how his YouTube channel was growing. So in the end, I looked up the channel name that he'd given me, Ricky Dicky Davy, it's thankfully gone now, and saw that the Chode had eight subscribers.

Effing heck, mate. I subscribe anyway, at a pity, big mistake, I think, and this inspired Rick to start posting. A lot. But he didn't just post the usual YTPs or takedowns of Pokemon or content cop or elephants pooping at the zoo. No. Every video he posted was a clip of behind the scenes of a famous YouTuber. He didn't say a famous YouTuber. He said my username, but I don't want to do too much self-promotion here. It was crazy. The dude had been filming me all around college, from a distance, seating alone in a cafe, hanging out on the quad smoking a cigarette, playing squash in the gym, coming out of the changing rooms all sweaty. I kid you not. He filmed me in the changing rooms, not naked, thankfully, but titled, Famous YouTuber works hard for his fans. Now, I can immediately tell this was stalking,

pure and simple. Now, I'd had enough of this Rick guy. I found him spying on me one day and took his digital camera and smashed it to pieces on the ground. I slammed him up against a wall and told him that if he ever filmed me ever again, if I ever saw him on my channel again, I would ruin his life with all of the power of a certain Chan-based message board who I had a good relationship with thanks to my videos. I thought Rick got the message. I got an in-school suspension for fighting, but it was worth it. Rick left the school at the end of the term, but not before telling me he'd get even with me.

I thought nothing more of the confused little prick for three years. He never uploaded again, and I went off to college and continued my career. Things weren't great. I struggled to make friends and then hit rock bottom when my girlfriend left me, and I'd never know what true suffering was like until then. I became a bit of a shut-in for a while, but eventually got over it and became a party animal.

filming at all, of course. And speaking of filming, there was one final twist in the tale. One day, I get an alert on YouTube saying that Ricky Dickie Davy has uploaded, and so I click the video out of morbid curiosity. It's a series of videos, in fact. A series of videos taken on a handheld camera of filming a house at night from outside. My house, my shared house at college, somehow Rick had tracked me down. I watched in horrors he just filmed me through my living room doing my stretches and exercises and playing the PlayStation. And that was all. Just hours and hours of footage of me doing nothing. The video ended with a movie maker text saying, this is the price of fame. Then Rick walked back towards the camera showing a steaming turd on my driveway.

A turd that I remembered picking up that morning and believing it to belong to the dog next door. Riky Tiki Davies channel is now gone. Mine's still up and Again, I'd really appreciate a shout-out to the channel if you read the story. But even though I only have a few thousand followers and I've moved twice since the events of the story, I still live in fear that one day, Stinky Rick will find me and make me the subject of his new video. And this time, it'll be a snuff film. 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.