The Lets Read Podcast - 354: I WAS ATTACKED IN THE WOODS BY MADMEN | 7 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories | EP 340

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Cabins in the Woods & BlackoutsHAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?[e-mail] ME ON -►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/♫ Music & Cover art: INEKThttps://www.youtube.com/@inektToday's episode is sponsored by:Mint Mobile --> Promo Code: [read]

Last year, in the state of California, there were more than 1,200 log cabins listed for sale. About a third of those change hands, some were multi-story monstrosities which sold for millions of dollars, while others were a little more humble, both on the outside and on the inside. Some places stay in the families for generations, getting passed down from one relative to the next, until they finally either decide to sell it or make it livable. And either way, that's where I come in. I market my business as a kind of cabin renovation service, and I worked in tandem with various realtors for a quick turnaround. If someone was a little skeptical in buying a run-down old cabin,

they often changed their tune when told their new purchase would be ready for sale or a vacation in just under two weeks. I work on around 50 to 20 cabins a year, fixing them up, dusting them off, and then spending a night or two there to make sure everything's working as it should be. It was something I kind of fell into after the crash in 08. And then when my old boss retired in 2013 and without any kids to pass it on to, the business went to me and I never looked back. I consider myself very lucky. I've worked on some incredible homes for some incredible people. But I also worked about a dozen or so jobs that didn't have the outcomes I was hoping for.

And among them, there's one that I thought might end both my career and my life. Way back in 2015, so more than 10 years ago now, good Lord, where does the time go? I got a call about a job. The guy said he'd just purchased a cabin up near Marble Mountain, way out in the woods for the peace and quiet. It was a nice place, but it hadn't been occupied in almost five years. All the cobwebs, bird nests, and accompanying bird poop had really knocked the price down, and so he managed to get himself a really good deal on it. And then when he'd asked about options for cleaning and renovation,

the realtor had given him my number. I was only too happy to be of service, so I gave him my account details and asked him for the property's exact location. And that was one of the nifty things about my job, that it could be conducted almost entirely by email. But in this case, the man hiring me wanted to meet in person. While that wasn't unusual,

maybe one in ten were old-timers who wanted a face-to-face, the way he acted just struck me as kind of odd. The first thing, and this didn't strike me as suspicious until much later, for reasons I'll explain, but he showed up wearing a baseball cap in what could only be described as oversized sunglasses. Now, this is Northern California, so a ball cap in shades is practically the uniform for any man over 30 here, and so his glasses didn't strike me as weird until later on when I tried to contact him again. The thing that did strike me as weird, and I'm talking right there upon meeting him, was the length of time he held my hand for after he shook it.

I tried to pull it away after we shook hands, but he gripped it gently and held it firm for maybe four or five seconds after he stopped shaking. Now, after I pulled my hand away politely, he said something about being able to tell a lot about a man from his handshake, and then he invited me into the roadside diner he elected to meet at, and then we hashed out the specifics of the job over cups of coffee. He agreed to pay me half the money, up front and then the other half plus expenses when the job was done.

But when I asked him to transfer the first half in the next 48 hours or so, he told me he'd rather pay there and then, and in cash. That was the second thing that struck me as sort of odd about the job. I hadn't taken a cash payment since the very early days of taking over the business, as naturally no one wanted to walk around with thousands of dollars and cash on them. But for some reason, this guy didn't mind at all. He seemed perfectly content to walk back to his car, take out an envelope stuff with cash, and count out a couple of thousand and hundreds right there in front of me.

I remember thinking, this guy is either rich, crazy, or both. But since his money was just as green as the next guys, I took it, went home, and then drove out to the cabin in my truck the next morning. Despite making it out to be a wreck, the cabin wasn't that bad, but the guy was right about one thing, and that's just how secluded the place was. I had to drive down about five miles of dirt road before I found it and only got lost twice, and then apart from the animal sounds, the peace and quiet out there was phenomenal. I got to work right away, clearing out anything that looked like junk before I stacked the furniture and swept the floors.

The place was a mess, with no one having given it any serious maintenance for at least two to three years. But after about six hours of solid work, it was close to being livable again. Close. but I still elected to sleep in my truck that night. That was a regular thing of mine, because a single man can't clean up an entire cabin in one day, not even if he starts at dawn and ends at dusk. And so I was used to sleeping out in the woods at night

and having all kinds of deer and coyotes come wandering around my truck. After a couple of years, I always slept through the night, and that night was no different. I was out like a light just a couple of minutes after I reclined my seat, and then I didn't wake up until I saw the day. dawn breaking through the trees. I finished off the coffee I'd brought, had a smoke, and then got back to work. And then another eight hours later, and with a huge bunch of trash piled up outside, the place was just about livable again. I'd cleared out the bedroom, replaced the mattresses and sheets,

and then cleaned up the little living area and kitchen area too. These were nothing more than a table and chairs and a workspace and stove, and it was a long way from being anything like luxury, but it was still a fine place for what he'd paid for it. Now, there was just the matter of field testing it to make sure everything worked all right. I got to cleaning out the stove and then went about collecting up the firewood that I'd earned by chopping up an old, moldy armchair. I loaded up the stove, made sure that it wasn't about to explode on me or anything, and then set about boiling up some water so I could make myself some noodles. Now, the place didn't have any running water, but I had a multi-pack of bottles,

that I kept in my truck, and so after a quick bottled watered shower to make sure that I wasn't stinking too bad, I laid down in the new mattress and drifted off to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later with a full bladder, and once I remembered where I was, I knew that I'd have to go outside to make a little piss. I rolled out of bed, admired my handiwork for a moment as I saw how much cleaner the bedroom was, and then slid on my boots and my bare feet before I started clunking across the wooden floor. But the second I did, I heard a voice coming from outside the cabin. It sounded brief and panicked almost exactly how someone might sound if they suddenly realized

if someone was inside the cabin and awake. I used to keep a pump-action shotgun with me wherever I went out on a job, mainly for Grizzlies, but it sure helped me feel safer around people too. And so the first thing I did was grab it and rack a shell nice and loud so whoever was outside would be able to hear it. Now, I figured that they'd just run off at the first sign of trouble, and I'd hear them beating feet as soon as they heard that chunk chunk of my shotgun. Now, after I did, I heard one of the men outside crystal clear as he kind of loudly whispered, Hurry up!

I immediately ran outside because I'm thinking, what the hell did these guys up to? And then once I was out there in the dark, I started yelling about how they were dead unless they got the hell away from the cabin. and that's when I saw the smallest of sparks in the darkness ahead of me, and then it flew, and then whoosh, the corner of the cabin where the bed just so happened to be went up in flames. I remember seeing two guys running with their backs to me, both lit up by the rush of that flame, but I didn't shoot, and I didn't chase them either. My mind went straight to preserving all of my hard work, so I ran in my truck to grab the fire extinguisher. Luckily, I'd interrupted the two men, at least I think it was two,

and one must have been the most crucial moment of their venture. They'd been in such a rush, once they'd heard someone was inside, that they didn't take the time to actually cover a whole wall and what I can only assume was gasoline. So when they were forced to spark a match early, it didn't do anything like the damage they'd hoped, and I was able to put the fire out in just a couple of minutes. Once it was out, I remember dropping the extinguisher

and grabbing my shotgun again. Then I was so wired with adrenaline that all I did till sunup was circled the cabin with a shotgun in my grip. Eyes and ears peeled for any kind of movement or sound. And once it was light enough, I tried to trace the path of the men's escape to see if they'd been camped out nearby or anything. But I'm not some trackers, so I didn't find anything. I just made my way back to the cabin and got packed up to leave. I didn't leave right away. I was still scared that those guys would come back and, for whatever reason, finish what they started.

And so while I waited for 7.30 to roll around, which I thought was an appropriate time to call the client and give him the bad and very strange news, I did a few final laughs of the cabin, some nice wide ones to make sure that no one was out there, just waiting to creep in. And that's when I found the trail cams. Now, for those that don't know, a trail cam is just a camera that you put on a trail. mostly to record animals and their movement patterns and their behavior, but also sometimes for security. The trail cam I found tied to a branch looked to be just that, a creative way of providing security for the guy's new cabin, and it figured that because they looked to be almost brand new. And I say they because they were more than one. There were five in total, all brand new and all surrounding the cabinet would look to be fairly even spacing,

and as you can imagine, I was very happy to see that they'd been recorded. If they were the night vision kind, and by 2015, most were, then they'd have captured our arsonists in the act. I was hoping we'd have enough footage of the arsonists that they could be positively identified. All I needed to do was contact the client, inform him of the situation, then get him to share the recordings with the cops. But when 7.30 rolled around and I hit dial on the client's contact, I got nothing but a robotic voice saying, we're sorry.

You have reached a number that has been disconnected and is no longer in service. I remember just standing there outside the cabin for a second wondering why the hell a client would disconnect a phone like that when I suddenly felt this strange chill come over me. I was hired by a guy with what felt like oversized sunglasses, and then someone tried to burn the cabin down with me inside of it. And then when I tried contacting the client, their phone was dead. And what's more, if the guy wanted to see you, security, why not hook the cameras up to the cabin itself? I started to suspect that they weren't

there to record anyone who approached the cabin, but rather the cabin itself, in which case, did the client really want to protect his new investment, or were those cameras there to simply record the cabin being burned down? Now, the first thing that came to mind was some kind of insurance scam, but then, as I thought about it, I remembered how these arsonists didn't stop trying to burn the place down when they realized I was in some kind of insurance scam. But then, as I thought about it, I remembered how these arsonists didn't stop trying to burn the place down when they realized I was inside. In fact, one of them actually said hurry up once they realized someone was there. And that's when the creeping feelings started to get way more intense because it dawned on me that they weren't just trying to burn the cabin down. They wanted to wait until I was inside of it

before roasting me alive. And that's why nothing happened on that first night. They probably snuck up to the cabin, saw me sleeping in my truck, and then retreated until the next night when they could try again. But why? And what beef did these dudes have with a client that they wanted to burn his property down? And why would they want me inside when they set the place on fire? Those are the kind of questions I've struggled with over the years, wondering to what extent my client was in league with the men who tried to burn me alive. I can't help but think that they were connected somehow.

I mean, why would he make such an effort to obscure his face, pay me in cash, and then disconnect the phone he'd used to contact me. I also can't help but wonder, why me? Was I picked out specifically, or did they just need any poor bastard in there when it burned down? And when it comes to whether I was specifically chosen, I think the answer is yes. I think about the guy in the oversight glasses and the way he gripped my hand after I tried to pull it out of the shake. And I told the coughs about him and passed on the description of the man in his car as well as the cell number that he'd used to contact me. This might not come as a surprise, but they had no luck in finding him, and since I was expected,

it didn't bother me too much. But what does bother me is the way that guy acted after we shook hands. I know now that he was sizing me up in some way. I don't know by what criteria, but I know that when he invited me into the diner for some coffee, he decided that I was the right man for the job. But the question is, at least the one that I struggle with the most these days. Did he pick me to fix up his cabin, or did he pick me out to die in it? I grew up in Bushwick during the 70s, and as a kid, it was my whole entire world.

Everybody knew everybody back then, and the streets were full of us kids, either playing stickball or jumping double-dutch on the sidewalks. It was mostly Italians and Puerto Ricans, with a couple of black and Cuban families, too, but everyone was getting along by then, and all that community tension you heard about was mostly a thing of the past. Kids of every color and creed would all hang out at the corner of the bodega grabbing candy bars or sodas after school, and then I'd run home and be greeted by the smell of my grandma's cooking wafting out from the open kitchen window. Life was good back then. It was simple, but I remember around the time that I was 10 going on 11, things started to change.

There was some kind of oil crisis over there in the Middle East, and that messed with a lot of people's money. And then when the Rine Gold and F&M brewery shut down in 1976, it was like a meteor hit us. People lost their jobs, stores around the neighborhood started to close, and friends of mine had to move away from the block because their parents couldn't afford the rent anymore. Kids like me still dreamed about making it big, even as the neighborhood was starting to show cracks. But man, by the time I turned 13 in 1977, things were starting to get really rough around Brooklyn in the city as a whole. Crime was creeping in, and I remember waking up to sirens blaring outside on more than one occasion. More and more good people started to leave, not even by choice sometimes

either, because some of them were getting block-busted out of their apartments by shady real estate guys offering easy cash. And then to make things worse, the son of Sam killings had started up again. And that rotten son of a bitch who'd already killed a bunch of people shot two kids dead in their car over in Queens, and then he wrote letters to the cops and the newspapers bragging about it. It was terrible, but me and my buddy stuck together and watched each other's backs, and back then, my best friend in the whole world was this Puerto Rican kid named Oscar. And since it was summer break, Oscar and I were hanging out almost all day, every day, and while the summer started off nice and warm, it reached 104 in the shade by July, and it was brutal. The A.S.com. The A.S.

see in our apartment was just a fan that moved the muggy air around, so you had to go outside and bust open a fire hydrant if you wanted even a chance of keeping cool. People were already tense from the son of Sam's shootings, and then pile on all that economic pressure, and with the heat making sure that nobody was sleeping good, and the whole freaking city was getting cranky. And then one Wednesday night, July 13th, to be exact, I was getting ready to walk home from Oscar's place, where the AC actually worked. when something spooked the hell out of us. Things were different back then, I guess,

and my mom didn't mind if I stayed late over at Oscar's place. She worked afternoons and evenings, so she didn't even get home until about 11 and sometimes midnight. And Oscar's dad worked night shifts, so he left the apartment at about 7.30. I used to leave around 9.30 to 10, because mom always wanted me washed up and in bed by the time she got home. But then, just as I picked myself up off the living room floor,

the TV suddenly flicked off, along with every single light in the apartment. At first, when the lights went off, Oscar said something along the lines of, oh, maybe Mom didn't pay the electric bill. But then when I looked outside, I saw all the power had gone out everywhere else, too, and the only lights were those shining out from passing cars. And then it clicked. It was a blackout, just like the one back in the 60s that we'd heard so much about, meaning the entire city of New York was without electricity.

It was kind of exciting at first. It felt like something special was happening. We lit some candles and then Oscar when looking for the small battery-powered radio his mom had stashed somewhere, probably for occasions just like that. And then once he found it, we tuned into WABC and then listened to George Michael, not the singer, another guy, to try to figure out what was going on. They were being powered by the generators they had over there, as were a whole bunch of other buildings, so they were able to talk to each other and relay information.

And that's how we started getting advice, like turn off any appliances, and that we shouldn't use the phones, which were still working unless it was an absolute emergency. Both airports have been shut down and closed to air traffic to prevent crashes, and certain highways have been closed down, too. We were all advised to stay indoors, stay safe, and waited out. It seems crazy looking back on it, but I mean it when I say that there was this sort of block party atmosphere at first. People were coming out of their homes with flashlights, asking each other what was going on. Cars were cruising to a stop and doing the same thing. But all while kids were playing with her flashlights and people were laughing at how crazy it all was.

Once we figured it was safe, Oscar and I stepped out into the street to get some fresh air. It was still pushing 80 degrees even at night, so it felt good to get out. out there feeling safe among Oscar's neighbors. I figured the best thing to do was to just stay put, like the radio said, so that's what I did. I was normally ready to hit the hay by around 11, but that night, the clock was coming up on midnight, and I was just feeling wired. The street outside had already started to quiet down, as people figured the best thing to do was just try and get some sleep.

We had all the windows open and were still listening to the radio while we were wondering if we should also just try and get some sleep as well, and that's when we heard it. We heard the sound of someone yelling, and then glass breaking somewhere down the block. We got up and looked outside and saw people running around with their faces covered, holding baseball bats and hammers and all sorts of stuff, and we couldn't really see them, not unless a car drove past with its high beams on, but you could sure as they'll hear them as they shattered the glass on the storefronts and yelled stuff like, come on, let's go.

We saw some people hauling away pieces of furniture, big bundles of clothes that they'd stolen, and even big hunks of frozen meat from where the meat market on Broadway got looted. It was all pure chaos out there. Sirens started wailing non-stop, and from every direction, too, while cop cars and fire trucks race by. But no matter how many we saw or heard, it didn't feel like there were enough of them or like there could ever be enough of them for the job that they had at hand. It wasn't even like it was just looters anymore.

There were all kinds of people down there, people drinking, or people just out to break stuff just for the hell of it. I mean, it was scary to watch, you know, almost like watching society fall apart right there in front of your eyes. And I remember we were looking down at this one group of guys, and one of them looked up and caught us staring. He yelled something about how we should have been in bed, and then he threw a glass bottle so hard it only missed us by a couple of feet. And after that, Oscar wanted us to stay inside, and I couldn't blame them. The radio was saying it, too, that people in areas where there was violence should stay inside and stay away from any windows as well. We couldn't just sit there and listen to the radio, so we went up to the roof and looked up,

and we saw flames licking up buildings along Broadway and other orange glows that dotted the skyline. It looked like the end of the world, honestly, and it sounded like it, too. We heard gunshots echoing every now and then and then the sound of people screaming. The looting went on for hours, too, and I later heard that a stretch of Broadway got hit hardest, with like 30 blocks of stores completely gutted. After we got bored of being on the roof, Oscar and I went back downstairs, but although we tried to get some sleep in his living room with a radio on, all the noise and the smell of smoke coming from outside kept us awake.

The radio was crackling with reports about looom. including on Myrtle, riots breaking out in bedstay, and how the cops were completely overwhelmed in both areas. I remember how the radio man's voice got louder as he announced that they were smashing up the ANP on Broadway and setting whole buildings on fire. Oscar asked if I thought that they might come our way. I tried to act cool and shrug it off saying that I didn't know, but my heart was thumping, thinking about what would happen if that mob came towards us.

We've been smelling burning for hours by the time 2.30 in the morning rolled around, but I remember there being this moment where the smell started to get really intense, like whatever was burning this time was much closer than the other fires. And that's when it got thicker, not just drifting in from down the block, but like it was coming from inside the building. And then suddenly, someone started banging on the apartment's front door so loud it seemed like they were trying to break it down. Both me and Oscar heard someone yelling, Fuego, Fuego, at the top of their voice,

and the panic hit us both like a damn freight train as we ran for the door, and then as we rushed out into the hallway, the air was thick with black smoke hanging in the air. We made our way to the fire escape, joining the other folks as we tried to keep as calm as possible. Oscar was right behind me, and I remember hearing him coughing as he took in a lung full of smoke.

Oscar's neighbors were pouring out of their apartments, and I remember seeing one guy on the first floor hauling his mom who could barely walk outside towards the escape. He was yelling for her to hold her breath, and then his yells were joined by babies crying and a bunch of other yelling too. It was complete and utter chaos, easily the scariest memory of my whole childhood. But I remember how brave people were too and how some people took control of the situation to help save lives. There was a guy Oscar knew, this Mr. Ortiz, who he later said, said was a cop back in the day. He was the one who led us down the fire escape with a metal groaning underneath us. I was terrified it was going to break under the weight of everyone and

we'd be smushed against the alleyway concrete, but it didn't, and it held. And in one point, there was so many people on the fire escape that had got clogged up as some older lady struggled to get down on the concrete below. A younger mom started to freak out, worried that her baby was going to inhale smoke, so we ended up passing it down the stairs. from person to person like we were a freaking bucket brigade. And I had never been so scared to drop something in my whole life, and I was so scared to take it from Oscar that he had to say, come on, man, don't punk out.

I remember that, and I took the baby, passed it on, and then got a miniature round of applause with the folks above me saying, Adaboy, he did great, and let's get him moving down there. Now we soon got moving again as people made their way down the fire escape, but it was a mess. Everyone was yelling in Spanish and English and every kind of accent you can imagine, but we managed to get down into the alley, and then from there we went spilling out into the streets, gasping for air.

We stumbled around the corner, far enough to turn and look and saw how flames were licking up the back of the building. And then before long, they came shooting out the front windows, orange and angry, while they ate their way up to the third floor where Oscar's family lived. We watched his kitchen curtains catching, as the living room where we played after school all went up in flames. Oscar just stood there staring before he finally said, Everything's in there, in this voice that made him sound so much younger.

And after what seems like forever, a fire truck finally showed up and then started hosing down the houses, but it was obviously too late. People were drinking water like it was champagne from a hydrant someone had cracked open and slapping each other in the back like we'd won something just by getting out. And I guess we were lucky to get out with our lives before the whole building burned down around us. But the look on Oscar's face, watching his childhood home burn, that just stuck with me. When morning came, there was still no power, and the sun lit up the mess. Oscar and I had to walk all the way back to my place after the fire to where my mom almost threw a fit

because she'd heard about Oscar's block and was scared that I've been burned to death. But we slept there for a few hours before Mom walked us back to Oscar's place. to try and find his parents. Walking toward Broadway was something else, man. It was like a movie, an end-of-the-world kind of movie with glass everywhere, burned out storefronts, and smoke still rising from spots that had only recently stopped burning. The cops were out in force by then, the National Guard too, I think, and people tried to put

brave faces on, but you could see that people were broken, especially when Oscar found his mom and dad, and they burst into tears of relief at having found him. Oscar and his parents might have been reunited, but the block was gone. It turns out some idiot down the street had torched a car, and the flames jumped to the trash pout up against the building in an old tenement like Oscars. It was dry as Tinder in that heat. The lights came back on late that next night, but Bushwick wasn't the same after. It felt like something broke that could never be fixed, and as a kid, that was as scary as it was confusing.

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unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. My name's Greg, and after listening to a lot of your stories since the holidays, I figured I'd share one of my own from my time with Colorado parks and wildlife. And this story starts with a type of fish, the Colorado pike minnow. Overfishing reduced the pike minnow's numbers dramatically over the years. And then when the rivers started getting underpopulated, settlers introduced invasive species to replace them, and they were driven out of their native spawning grounds. Unlike the northern pike minnow, on which there are pretty generous bounties, fishermen have to throw the native pike minnows If they don't, they face hefty fines or even prison time for repeated offenders.

But reinforcing the law out there in the wild is no easy task. I'd say maybe 90% of the hunters and fishermen in the state of Colorado are respectable and responsible sportsmen. But that other 10% mean we're forced to send officers into state parks and sometimes up into the mountains to ensure they're following the rules. And in the late summer of 1993, that's exactly what I would. was tasked to do among the lakes and rivers of the Wemenucci wilderness area. At almost 800 square miles, the Wemenucci is the largest wilderness area in the state of Colorado.

We got the San Juan and Rio Grande rivers, both flowing through the area, which in turn feed the Rio Blanco, Navajo, and Piedra rivers. And then when it comes to lakes, Wemenucci's got 11 of them, all spaced around within the 780 square miles. I guess now you understand that. what a task were faced with in terms of monitoring such a vast area. And when you head out into the Wemenucci, you really are heading out into the middle of goddamn nowhere. The same could be said for the task that I was given back in the summer of 1993. I was asked to survey the area around a body of water called Granite Lake, which was home to about a dozen different rivers, lakes, and streams.

Naturally, it's popular with fishermen, but it's also pretty far from any road, and a lot of on the northern slopes of Granite Peak. That makes it just about hidden away as it's possible to get out there, meaning if anyone was looking to do a little illegal pickmino fishing, it would most likely be there. On top of that, there was an old ranger cabin out there on Granite Peak's southern slope, one that had been serviced as recently as 18 months prior. That meant that it would take some cleaning up,

but it would be livable for at least a day or two while I did my survey. I remember making my way out there in mid-July, and I had to be on the trail by 0.5.30 in the morning, just to make it out there by noon. The cabin wasn't as bad as I pictured, and then once I got done getting settled in, I decided to make my way down Granite Peak towards the lake of the same name. The woods were nice and quiet, and the shores of Granite Lake were derelict, too. I could see the place from up on high, how quiet and tranquil it looked, so instead of heading all the way down there, I split off northwest to check out the Los Pinos River.

I've been walking along the bank for maybe 20 minutes or so when I saw my first fisherman standing off in the distance. He looked calm and peaceful just sitting there on his little camping stool, watching the water with his rod in his hand. I didn't want to call out from too far off because that'd be loud enough to frighten any animals, including his fish. And so I waited until I was a little closer before saying nothing more. than... Afternoon, sir. Now, I wasn't expecting the friendliest reaction. Fishermen are generally pretty wary whenever they're approached by strangers, but this guy just about jumped out of his skin.

For a moment, it looked like he was going for a gun or something, but when he saw me, he sighed with relief so hard that he almost looked like a balloon deflating. I told him I was sorry for spooking him like I did, and then introduced myself as a wildlife officer and told him what my business was. Now the whole time he's looking at me with this sort of expression that was half confused and half nervous. Then when I asked him if he'd caught any pike minnows recently, he completely ignored my question and only asked if they knew I was there. I assumed that he meant my superiors in the CPWs, so I told him sure they did that I didn't go anywhere without their say-so. And then once again, I asked if he'd caught in a pike minnows recently.

Now that time, not only did the guy look at me like I was speaking another language, but he started looking around as if he was expecting me to have company. And that's the point that I started to get suspicious, because not only was this guy completely ducking my questions, but he seemed worried that he was about to be arrested or something. And I told him he wasn't in any trouble, that the first timers always get away with a warning not to do it again, but he didn't even seem to be listening at that point. When he tuned back in, he told me they wouldn't like me being out there, not without permission. Now, I was halfway to telling him that I already had permission when I realized that's not what he was asking. I asked him who he meant when he said they, and after taking another look around us, he told me with just the slightest hint of a grin that they don't like you saying their name. And the response gave me pause, obviously.

Not so much because of what he said, but the wry smirk on his face is, he said it. I'd had fishermen and hunters try to intimidate me off their patches before, so it wasn't like I was unaccustomed to it. I just never had anyone do it with such a twilight zone kind of line like that. I decided to humor him a little and asked why they wouldn't like me being in the area. And he gave me some scattered-brained speech about how it was their land and I needed to seek permission to be there. Then when I asked how it might go about doing that, he told me to leave something outside the cabinet night. If they took it, that was their permission. If not, then I was to leave immediately. With just a hint of sarcasm, I told the guy, message received, but that the next time a

wildlife officer was up there and found him fishing for pike minnow, he couldn't say I didn't warn him. I mean, I really did think he was just trying to spook me into leaving the area without doing my job, and so that's exactly how I treated it. I thanked him for his time, again with a hint. I thanked him for his time, again with a hint of sarcasm and then carried on walking along the riverbank. But as I did, he called out to me and when I turned, he told me in so many words, "'Best advice I can give you is to leave a little food behind. Maybe some money, too, and hope they see it fit to let you walk out of here.' I just rolled my eyes, told them they better, unless they wanted the FBI roaming around in force

and then kept going on my way. I was back at the cabin by sundown, having spotted not a single other fishermen anywhere on the rivers or lakes. And after lighting a campfire, I started on prepping a little camp food in the form of some boil-in-the-bag Mexican chicken and rice. But as I was eating, I noticed something on the ground. I've been walking all over the area outside the camp, so my bootprints were everywhere in the dirt. But in between two tracks of my own creation, there was a footprint that I didn't recognize. First off, it wasn't shape like a boot print. It was slightly narrower and longer, so more like a shoe of some kind. But unlike my own tracks, which left a clear impression on my boots treads in the dirt, the print I didn't recognize had a very unusual but strangely familiar sort of tread pattern.

It took me a second to realize why I was so familiar, but then it clicked. It was the tread of a tire from a car or a truck. and after shining my flashlight on it I could clearly see the two parallel vertical lines and then the smaller horizontal ones which gave it that sort of ribbed pattern. The tracks were fresh too, at least made that day fresh, which meant that whoever had been walking around the cabin had done so either before my arrival or after I'd settled in and went off to check the rivers. I didn't like the idea of someone having walked around the cabin while I was away,

but it didn't seem like they'd been inside or touched any of my stuff, so I wasn't too alarmed, but there were two thoughts that I couldn't seem to shake. First off, I figured the fisherman I spoke to might have stopped by to talk or something, but found the cabin empty. It made sense if he knew the area well, and it also wasn't out of the question that he wanted to apologize for getting off on the wrong foot. But whoever had walked around the cabin had done so in what looked like homemade shoes with souls made of rubber tires.

and while I remember a handful of details about the fishermen, homemade footwear was not one of them. And this led me to the second thought that I couldn't shake, and this thought concerned who the fisherman had referred to only as they. Now, I assumed they were nothing but a fabrication intended to scare me away from the area, but if it hadn't been the fisherman who was walking around my cabin just a few hours before, then who the hell did? It was maybe an hour or two past sundown by the time I was checking out the weird shoe print,

so too late to just back up and get out of there. At least, not without the risk of getting lost out there in the dark. It was my first time there and all. But aside from that, I wasn't even close to being spooked enough to pack my stuff up and run. I mean, sure, it was weird that whoever walked past my cabin had very probably made their own shoes, but if they wanted to be gone, they could have just as easily trashed. my cabin or maybe even set it on fire. I didn't even know for certain where the tracks led, as like I said, I figured somebody probably just walked past it while heading to or from their favorite fishing

hole, maybe. And that's when I decided to follow them, with my flashlight as best I could. And that's how I found out that they led all the way around my cabin and then up towards Granite Peak. and then on a rise which overlooked the cabin by maybe 70 to 80 yards, I found another set of strange shoe prints which joined the others. I could see two sets of very firm prints in the dirt, one of which seemed to match those at my cabin's campfire, and two that were very different. They had the same kind of tread, two vertical lines and many horizontals, but their positioning was visibly different from that of the first, meaning in my best estimations, whoever had

walked around my cabin had been joined by someone else as they watched it from a distance, and from the looks of things, they did so for quite some time, too. Now, that's when I started to get a little spooked, because it was one thing for someone to just walk around the cabin, maybe out of curiosity, and it was another thing entirely to just sit there watching it. And then while it was quite possible that the two guys just wanted to rest for a little bit before continuing their journey, it didn't sit right with me that they chose to do so in a place to overlooked my sleeping arrangement and while facing it too. But still, I wasn't all that worried.

I might have only been a wildlife officer, but they didn't send us out there defenseless. I carried handcuffs, a smaller can of bear mace that can fit into my belt, and I carried my M&P 45 too, and since that thing packs enough punch to take down a bear, you can bet your ass that's got enough punch to take down a person or two. I felt more capable of defending myself against whoever might decide. to pay me a visit, and besides, I only had to spend one night there to get the job done, and then the following afternoon I'd be able to start making my way back towards the highway and to where my truck was parked. And so I chose to stay the night and complete my work,

and in doing so, made a very grave and almost fatal mistake. Now the cabin was little more than a one room shack with one door, one bed, and one window. There was a chair in one corner and empty wooden chest in the other, and then aside from a little sign on the wall which said the cabin was property of the state of Colorado, the walls were completely bare. And the place looked sturdy enough. And then since I was able to lock the doors and shutter the window, I figured that it'd be as safe a place as any to spend the night, especially since I had my gun with me too. And since I was technically federal law enforcement, I used to get tested on my shooting about twice a years, so while I wasn't still convinced that I was in danger, I felt very confident in my abilities to

actually defend myself, like I said. But there was just one thing that I didn't like about the cabin, and that's how there was a mail slot on the front door. The mailbox was gone, so it was just a rectangular slot in the door with a thin, hinged hatch to cover it. But since the beds stood almost perfectly in front of it, and there was no way of keeping it closed, I decided to shift the furniture around a little before I got any sleep. I didn't want anyone being able to push the barrel of a shotgun through that thing in the middle of the night, or if they did, I didn't want to be lying right there in front of it when it did. But something did come through that mailbox, and it sure is how it wasn't a shotgun. I slept very poorly that night, and I tend not to sleep great in new places, especially

when they're out in the middle of the woods because I'm such a light sleeper that so much as a rustle outside wakes me up. And I think that I must have been in and out about a dozen and a half times before I woke up to this strange silence in the cabin. And right away, that struck me as a bit odd. The woods are noisy at night, sometimes noisier than the daytime if you're not counting for birdsong, because all the critters that only come out at night start scurrying around chittering and chirping and fighting amongst themselves. I'd lost count of how many times I woke up to hear something growling or barking or sniffling outside the cabin, and so to suddenly wake up and hear none of it, that set me on edge right away.

The absence of any other sound then made it much easier to hear this gentle scraping sound that seemed to be coming from near the front door. And then I looked, and I could see moonlight creeping through the hatch, which appeared to have been pushed open by something. In my half-sleep state, I figured that it might have been that shotgun, that I've been so terrified of, so I grabbed my flashlight and pistol, and then got ready to put a few rounds through the door and whoever was on the other side. Thankfully, it wasn't a shotgun, but seeing what it actually was didn't make me feel any better,

because reaching through the mailbox and up towards the lock keeping the door shut was a man's arm. It wasn't just the arm which scared me, though. It was the condition it was in. I remember how the arm was partially covered by a dark red sweater. how the skin underneath looked weathered and worn, but how the muscle underneath was very clearly defined. This person was strong, very strong,

and by the looks of things, hygiene, and in particular, nail care, didn't seem to be their strong suit. The guy's hand looked so badly burned, it was like it had been dipped in a barrel of acid. Like so badly melted and scarred, it looked like his fingers were webbed, and then his fingernails. Hell, they might as well have been claws.

They were long, jagged and chipped with this distinctly yellowy brown sort of color under the bright white of my flashlight, and they were reaching for the lock, getting closer every second while clearly trying to stay as quiet as possible. I just reacted. I had no idea who it was or why they were trying to get into the cabin, but I also knew I wanted to give whoever it was one clear warning before I opened fire. And so I hurled across the cabin in my bare feet and then kind of slammed my shoulder against the guy's arm to crush it against the thick, heavy wood of the front door. I heard a yelp from the other side before the arm suddenly disappeared back through the mailbox. And then I issued my warning, loud and clear. I told whoever it was that the cabin was the property of the state, and then inside was an armed federal law enforcement officer. I told them that if they left, there and then, nothing would have.

happened to them. But if they continued to try and gain access to the cabin, someone was going to get shot. I half expected someone to apologize and I explained that there had been some confusion. It made sense that someone might have been using the place thinking it was abandoned despite the sign and the last thing I wanted to do was shoot that person dead because they figured they'd locked themselves out by accident. But I didn't hear an apology. I didn't hear any voices at all. There was just silence for a moment or two before suddenly I heard someone banging on the small window shutter. It wasn't banging like someone saying open up. They were trying to break the shutter on the window open,

and it only took a couple of more swings of whatever they were holding before the hinges broke, and the shutter fell away. After that, all they had to do was smash the glass, but by then I had both my flashlight and my 45 trained on that window. So when I saw that rifle barrel get pushed past the broken glass, I fell to my right to minimize my profile and then fired all ten rounds into the cabin wall where I thought the shooter would be. I saw the flash and smoke of the rifle going off, sending a bullet harmlessly into the cabin wall to my left. But Wood really caught my attention about that rifle, and what I find myself wondering over all these years later is the fact that it had a ramrod below the barrel. I can't tell you exactly what kind of rifle it was, although I do have my suspicions,

but what I can tell you is how that thing couldn't have been produced any later than about 1890, meaning by the time that guy shot in my direction through that busted cabin window, it had to have been around 100 years old. A rifle like that belongs in a museum, but there it was, fully functional, long after it should have been tossed on a scrap heap or locked in a glass case. As I reloaded my pistol, I remember hearing somebody groaning in pain on the other side of the wall, and I called out. I warned you, buddy. And I remember how mad I was when I said it too.

I was madder than I'd ever been in my entire life, so there may or may not have been a couple of extra curses in there too, but I didn't hear a response, at least not to me. And when I heard someone speaking, who I assumed was the wounded rifleman, I could barely. understand a word. Now, it sounded like pigeon English, and I'll try my best to recall it word for word, but don't blame me if it sounds dumb as hell. But I'm being honest here. I think whoever I shot, named Benny, because I heard someone say, Benny, what's it do? What's it do, Benny? The Benny guy seemed to groan something in reply, but I couldn't tell if it was a word or just him whining in pain, and then whoever spoke first said something like, Go see you to the hoggar, go put you some bad.

I gave them one final warning for them to keep away from the broken window, that it was locked and loaded again and anything they presented to me was going to get blown to pieces. Again, and I'm assuming it was only two guys out there, but neither said anything in response. I just heard groans of pain, and then the sound of one guy dragging the other across the forest floor. I wanted to approach the window, shine my flashlight out there, and get a damn look at the people who had just tried to kill me, but I also knew that doing so would present them with the same

perfectly framed target, so I didn't. I simply stood still as a statue, ears keen for anything that sounded like it was close to the cabin, and I stayed like that, not just till everything was quiet again, but till those natural forest sounds returned and I knew I was relatively safe again. I didn't think it was a particularly good idea to try and run. I didn't know where I was and I'd be making a hell of a lot of noise and although I was certain I'd injured one of them, I didn't know how many people were out there intent on doing me harm. If I ran, I could end up running right into an ambush of some kind. But then if I stayed, it seemed like only a matter of time before whoever was out there might rustle up

some reinforcements and come back to finish me off. It was a long, intense way before I got the answer to my question, when a bullet suddenly ripped its way through the cabin wall. As I could imagine, seeing the wood splinter and hearing the loud cracks scared the absolute crap out of me. I rolled out of bed and hit the floor, and then, considering my next move, I realized just how much of a sitting duck I truly was. The nightmare scenario was there being more rifles that time, and as I wondered if

reinforcements had arrived, a second shot ripped its way through the wood and buried itself in the wood behind me. If they really were using old muzzleloaders and trying to kill me, then there was no way one guy could reload that fast, so there had to be two of them out there by that point, and with sure-fire reinforcements since a badly wounded man couldn't load no muzzleloader. I didn't know if I was surrounded, if people were moving in closer with knives or hatchets or all that kind of stuff, but I knew that I had to get out of there. And so I ran. I didn't run out shooting like some old western.

I just picked my moment, committed to an angle, and then ran as fast as I think I ever did in my entire life. I tripped on something and fell at one point and heard voices behind me, yelling like they were pointing me out. But I was up on my feet and moving again in no time, and despite them firing a shot in my direction, I don't think it got near me. I must have ran for maybe an hour or maybe two on and off, coughing and panting till I finally couldn't run any more and stopped to take an actual breather. I didn't count on anyone having the stamina to follow me, and for a while I thought that I'd outrun them, but before long, I heard this sound getting louder and louder, like this rustling that I could hear behind me in the dark coming from up and down the forest.

They'd followed me, a lot of them too, and they'd been behind me the whole, time. I ran until the sun came up, and I reached a highway, and then I kept on running until I saw a truck coming my way. I flagged it down frantically, my eyes darting between the trees and the truck, looking out for any goddamn inbreds running at me with antique rifles ready to fire, but the woods were empty and quiet, and there were no people out there coming for me. The guy behind the wheel thought that I was taking him hostage at first, because after hopping into his passenger seat, dripping with sweat and holding my 45, I screamed at him to drive before he got his head blown off. He was relieved as hell when I started to thank him for picking me up,

and said that I'd wire him a hundred bucks if he'd just drop me off at the next town. But once I told him what had happened, he told me so much payment was unnecessary and that he was just happy to help someone in need. I didn't mention the old guns, the weird dialect they were talking in, or that I might well have killed a man. if even half the bullets I fired had hit him. Now, I shared that last part with my superiors, but not the first two parts. I didn't want them to think that I was going nuts or that I was embellishing my story to make it look like a clean shoot, and I ended up telling that story over and over and over again.

I had to tell it a second time to the local sheriff's department, and then again to two detectives from the state police once it was clear that something significant had taken place. It was tough on me mentally because the procedures stated that they were to treat it as a potential homicide until proven otherwise. They photographed the area, collected my 45 for ballistics testing, and searched the area for blood or bodies. They found plenty of the former. None of the latter, so murder was off the table. But I still had to undo the same multi-agency process mandated by Colorado law for officer-involved shootings.

There was a recorded interview with a union rep. I was placed on paid leave, and then a couple of weeks later, the district attorney confirmed the use of deadly force was justified under self-defense statutes, which meant no charges and an immediate return to work following a psychological evaluation. I dressed it up like I'd run into some very aggressive poachers, guys who felt so disrespected that they'd rather kill a fed than move off their patch of area. And I know that wasn't the whole story. I know the poachers don't have their own damn language.

that they speak among themselves, and I know they got better gear than muzzle-loading rifles that would have looked more at home in the Civil War. I've read a lot of crazy stuff online about who those men might have been, so much that, honestly, I don't know what to think anymore. I just know that there's folks out there in places people barely even know exist, and they've been living the same way for a long, long time now. And from what I can gather, they sure as hell don't like anyone showing us. up to try and change things.

My name is Mariana, and although I live in Argentina these days, I'm from Venezuela, and I grew up there during the 2000s. My family and I lived in a district of Caracas, a place that was very loud and a lot of people very cramped together, but it also had a lot of passion, love of life, and amazing food cooked by our friends and neighbors. My father ran a small pharmacy on the corner of our street, and I didn't really realize it growing up. but that pharmacy was almost like the beating heart of our community.

My father knew everyone, and I mean everyone, because everyone came into the pharmacy whenever they got sick and needed medicine. He knew all the young mothers and their babies who stopped by to pick up formula and diapers. He knew all the abuelas, too, the grandmothers and single seniors, who came to him for their monthly medication. He cared for them deeply and they cared for him too. He gave his best advice and helped keep the community healthy, year-in, and year out. He'd listen to their stories, recommend remedies from everything from a stubborn cough

to a broken heart, and sometimes even extend credit to families who couldn't afford to pay right away. He was quiet, a kind man in his white coat who always smelled faintly of antiseptic and mince. Sometimes, before we went off to school, he'd sneak me those little candies from the counter when no one was looking. Being his daughter meant that I spent a lot of afternoons there after school, watching him dispense as much advice as he did medication. On Sundays, when the pharmacy would open late and close early, he would often take us to the beach. And that was our escape with him.

Those afternoons that we'd spent at Playa El Agua or Chironi, and we'd pack our erpas stuffed with cheese and avocado, and we'd laugh as we played with our cousins until the sun dipped down low and it was time for us to go home again. And music was everywhere. Life was good, and we had a sense of possibility. like the country was alive with energy, even if it wasn't perfect. But underneath it all, things were tough, especially as the decade wore on.

Around the time of my 14th birthday, Maduro changed the country's energy policy, meaning they had to squeeze the average person harder and harder. Then, inflation hit us hard, with prices skyrocketing overnight and making things which cost a few bolivores one week, cost double the next. And it felt like an invisible thief was very much. robbing us, and I remember my parents arguing at the dinner table for the first time of my life. They had to stretch their savings, and sometimes goods became so scarce that my mother had to line up for hours every morning to ensure that we got basic essentials. Poverty crept in,

crimes started to rise, and there were riots, there were deaths, and I remember the first time my father told me not to wander too far after dark, because the streets I played on so freely as a child were no longer safe. For my father, running the pharmacy became a battle. He was proud of it, but with the economy tanking and heavy government regulation creeping in, it became harder and harder to get certain medicines. Instead of being excited to see us and spend time with us, he'd finished the day exhausted and unhappy,

telling stories of patients who couldn't afford their prescriptions anymore. He never stopped helping, slipping free samples to neighbors or staying open late for emergencies. But in 2019, something happened. that meant for the first time in his life, my father considered a life outside of Venezuela. When the afternoon of March 7, 2019, at around 5 o'clock, the lights went out. All over Venezuela, from my home Caracas to the smallest town, the electricity suddenly died. We had blackouts all the time, and power usually came back on after an hour or two, but this time it was different. The power stayed off for hours and hours than around 9 p.m., the government broadcasts at a radio message

to the people who could listen on these battery-powered devices we had. And they said that the power had been caused by the CIA and the U.S. military, who performed a sabotage attack on the Guri Dam. And next to the dam is a massive hydroelectric plant that powers most of Venezuela, but no one believe them. The power had failed just like everything else was failing because of years of neglect, no maintenance, and a system that was rotten from the inside out. We heard news reports, too, and I can remember to this day how frightening they were. The hospitals were by far the worst affected because they could only afford to keep enough fuel stocked up to keep the generators running for a few hours at a time. And when they ran out, babies and incubators were at risk

and surgeries halted mid-procedure. They had to rush people out into the parking lot to hook machines up to car batteries just to keep people from dying. And as he can imagine, people were understandably very angry about this and demonstrated the next day for the government to do something. They sent in riot police, but also promised that they would do something, the power would return within 24 hours. But yet again, this was nothing but a lie. Over the next few days, food rotted in fridges and the water pumps stopped, so we had no running water until the power came back on. The metro shut down, but people still had to work as best they could, so in the mornings and afternoons, the streets clogged with people walking miles home. And this dragged on for days,

turning into the worst blackout we'd ever seen with parts of the country in the dark for a full week. But the worst part was the looting. By the third day, people were getting more and more desperate, and in places like Maracaibo, it was like the end of the world. I heard a crowd of almost a thousand people storm a shopping district, looting supermarkets and bakeries and even hardware stores. They weren't just looking for food either. They had furniture, electricals, anything they could trade for daily essentials from those hoarding supplies. People guarded their homes with whatever they had to keep looters away. Sticks, machetes, hammers, anything. In Caracas, it wasn't as bad, but still on Avenida San Martin, groups broke into shops at night,

smashing windows and grabbing what they could before the police showed up with tear gas. We heard gunshots echoing through the streets, and families like mine locked the metal concertina gates on their homes and shop fronts. We prayed it wouldn't spread to our block, and for the most part it didn't. But then on the fourth day, something terrible happened. Our pharmacy was on the ground floor with our apartment right above it, and they were connected by those smooth stone stairs inside. My father had always been prepared to be robbed, being that we sold medicines which actually got a high price in the black market, but never in my life had we ever been robbed or had anything stolen. And so when my father heard that a local gang was planning on targeting his store,

it was proof of just how much things had truly changed. But it didn't dwell on that, not for long anyway. He just simply began his preparations. We knew we couldn't rely on the police who were too focused on protecting the wealthier and more. industrial areas of Caracas, along with government facilities which held food and clean drinking water. But the gangs knew that too. And so when my father heard that he was their latest target, he took the rumor very seriously. And he thought that they might hit us on the third night once things had started to become really bad for people, but they didn't. And yet on the fourth

night at around midnight, we were all woken up to the sound of banging against the metal shutters downstairs, as five or six men worked silently to gain entry into our home. My father said they must have been rough, desperate types, probably from the barrios who were robbing to make money and not to survive, but he didn't panic. He rigged up defenses days before, so instead of losing his head, he simply put his shoes on and went to work. He grabbed this big slab of steel that he'd salvaged from an old construction site, one that he'd welded straps to to create a sort of makeshift shield. He said it was heavy as hell, but he trusted it to block bullets, if need be.

Now he carried it to the landing on the stairs because from there, he could see all the way through the pharmacy into the shutter which kept the robbers out. It was kind of like a cage in that there were large diamond-shaped gaps through which he could see the robbers. And so after planting his metal shield down and crouching behind it, he gave the robbers their one warning that they should leave. I remember hearing them shouting and reply, telling him to go back upstairs so they could work in peace. If he didn't, they would hurt him.

And in reply, my father said only in Spanish, so be it. My father hauled his metal shield down the rest of the stairs and planted it in the gap in the counter we used to get behind it. He then reached for something that he'd been keeping under the counter, something of his own creation. He'd mixed it up in the back room using over-the-counter stuff, a moaned. from cleaning supplies, chili powder for extra burn, and some vinegar to react and create a nasty gas, all stuffed in a glass jar with a fuse from fireworks that we'd saved. And what it amounted to was a homemade tear gas bomb. And as the robbers kept hammering at the lock holding the shutters closed, my father lit the fuse, let it burn down a little, and then tossed it across the pharmacy

towards the shutters. And then boom, it exploded near the robbers and surrounded them in a choke a poking cloud that had them coughing and cursing with their eyes watering like rivers. A couple backed off right then, but the others, tougher or maybe more desperate, kept at it. And one of them fired a shot towards my father, which bounced off the metal shield that he was holding. It saved his life, but he knew that it might not hold if it was weakened, and so after a second shot bounced off the thick metal surface, he began backing off to the stairs for his next phase of the plan. After my father retreated upstairs and abandoned his huge metal shield,

it wasn't long before the robbers finally broke open the gate and entered the pharmacy. I remember hearing them laughing with glee when they finally got inside, and my heart was pounding. My mom and I went upstairs, locked in the bedroom, ready to climb out of the back window and jump if that gang got past my father and tried to get into the room. We could hear as the gang started ransacking the shelves below, grabbing painkillers, antibiotics, whatever they could stuff into bags, but when they were done, they still weren't satisfied. They spotted the stairs and started climbing, probably figuring that we

had money or food up there, and since it was dark, they couldn't see what my father had done to the stairs. As they advanced upward, one of the robbers slipped and fell and then screamed. It was like a triple scream almost. One of the pain of the impact, and one when he realized why it had hurt so badly, and a third when he slipped and injured himself again. My father said another man tried to push past the fallen man, and he too slipped and fell before screaming in agony. You see, the smooth stone stairs were covered in cooking oil, but not just oil because, after dropping his shield,

my father covered them both in oil and broken glass. As the group of robbers tried to retreat back down the stairs, the two men at the lead came down again as they tried to get up, and as their feet slid out from under them, they tumbled back into the others. They all went down in a pile, slipping and crashing and slicing themselves in the broken glass, so they had deep cuts on their hands and arms and legs with blood everywhere. And their screams echoed up the stairs, and since I didn't know what was going on, I was terrified. My mom, on the other hand, knew exactly what was happening,

which is why she was reassuring me that everything was fine. Dad said that he looked down the stairs and he saw one guy's face gashed open and another limping with the shards in his foot. And I imagine him standing there like some warrior, shouting for them to get out or he'd do worse. But in reality, he didn't say a thing. He didn't feel triumphant because we knew how close that we'd come to potentially being murdered by these people. But we were alive and all the robbers had done was leave empty shelves in these trails of blood. And the aftermath was a mess that I don't think I'll ever forget. The pharmacy was almost completely trashed.

The shelves were empty. There was broken glass all over and bloodstains on the floor that took days to scrub away. We lost a lot of stock and were completely cleared out of any foreign medicines which cost a lot of money to import. But that was only the half of it. My father feared the robbers would return to carry out some revenge for resisting their robbery. He said he slept with one I opened for the next few days and even, even if he had to be able to When the power came back on, he knew that we were no longer safe here in Caracas. Now, neighbors came by the next day, helping board up the door and sharing what little food

they had left before it spoiled. And the whole community knew of what had happened, so everyone was very much on edge. Now, we all had heard about the number of deaths being reported at the hospitals, and we all knew my father could have been one of them, maybe even myself and my mother, too. We rationed candles and batteries, boiled river. water to drink and waited, all while the air was thick with the smell of rotting garbage because the trash trucks couldn't run. It was horrible, truly horrible, and there was a bright, shining, silver lining that my father was a hero. At long last, on the 14th of March, power began to

return to Caracas. It was sporadic at first, with some districts getting power before others, but then slowly but surely it crept back to the towns and villages, and soon power had been completely restored. People celebrated like it was a miracle, unaware that we'd have another big blackout in late March and then another that summer in July. But on those occasions, the community came out to create a human wall blocking any potential thieves or robbers from hitting the pharmacy. It was an incredible show of community spirit, but for my father, it was too little too late. He loved his friends and neighbors. He didn't feel as if they had let him down, and we all miss them very much.

But those three blackouts showed just how fragile our country was and how weak and selfish our leaders were. Those days changed my father. They changed me too, so that when he announced that he was going to flee the country and in the middle of the night, so we could not be stripped of our possessions for illegally migrating, he found no argument from me and my mother.

And as I said at the start, we've lived in Argentina ever since, and although I miss my homeland very much, I know that we will never return until there are some big, big changes. This is the story of what might be the single worst thing to ever happen in my life, and kind of ironically, it started with a vacation. Because back in the fall of 1987, my girlfriend of two years suggested a weekend in a log cabin. Kate, not a real name, had fallen in love with the idea of living this remote, rustic lifestyle

after reading some historical romance novel. But while she knew that she wouldn't last more than a week out there chopping firewood and gutting deer carcasses, we both thought that it'd be very romantic and pretty cool to spend a few days playing pretend. We found a place out in Vermont that had all the peace and seclusion that we were looking for, but one that also had a kitchen, a feather bed, and a bathroom with hot running water. It sent us back a few hundred bucks, but after we drove out on the Friday afternoon for checking, and collected the keys from a man in the nearby town of Bartlett, we discovered it was worth every penny.

This place was beautiful. All the appliances were spotless and working okay, but the wood burning stove was worth the price of admission alone because not only did it keep us nice and toasty, but it gave the whole place this kind of rustic and cozy feel. That first night was fantastic, everything we could have hoped for, and then the next day we took a walk into town to get some food before hiking back to the cabin and settling for the evening to get some well-deserved rest.

We both changed into our evening wear and we're sharing the big three-seater couch, each reading the books that we brought with us when, out of nowhere, we heard someone's voice coming from outside. Now, seconds later, there was a heavy knocking on the front door of the cabin. Kate told me not to answer it because who the heck would be out there so late at night in the middle of nowhere, too. And then came another round of banging on the door, before someone called out.

Please, I'm hurt. I need help. Kate and I both looked at each other, and then I remember blurting out something like, We don't have a phone here. We can't call anyone. I guess it was the practical thing to say while keeping Kate's sweet not opening the door,

but then we both heard the same panic-stricken voice tell us, and with a dash of fear, too, that they were hurt, real bad, and that they were scared that they were going to die. I looked at Kate and said we needed to do something, and she agreed, so we rushed to the door and opened it. We were greeted by the sight of a man in hiking gear. Big coat, boots, woolen hat, with dark eyes and a mustache.

But what really caught my attention was all the blood that seemed to be seeping from the hole of his jacket, only kept one hand clamped over it at all times. He stumbled into the cabin and then collapsed near the couch. panting and thanking us before begging us to lock the door again. He said he'd been stabbed and that he'd run a long way to get away from the people who did it, but he was still scared that they'd catch up to him somehow. My first thought was to drive the guy into town into the nearest ER,

so I grabbed my keys and ran from my car. My plan was to move it closer to the cabin, so the guy wouldn't have to stumble very far to flop into the back seat. But when I put my key in the ignition and turned it, silence. The engine wouldn't start. I tried over and over yelling and screaming and then rushed around to the front to pop the hood. I looked around and the moment I saw some cut wires, I ran back into the cabin to tell Kate what needed to be done. First off, I was going to have to run into town and if I went full jog the whole way, then it'd take another 20 to 25 minutes. And while it was away,

she needed to grab a knife, lock all the doors and windows, and then turn the lights off and stay very quiet. I figured if someone came by and found the place was empty, they might move on and not try to look inside. But if they did, and they push past all the furniture I told Kate to push in front of the door to blockade, she needed to run. I didn't say that in front of that guy. I said it quietly before I left, because as much as the Christian thing to do was to help this dude and save his life, I didn't want her to dive from some total stranger. It was a crazy thing to have to tell her, but it was a crazy situation we were in, I guess. And then after giving her a kiss, I started running back to the dirt road and kept going

like that for three and a half miles before I finally arrived in that town I mentioned earlier, Bartlett. Now, there wasn't an ER there, but I found a guy named Andrew with a working car who said he'd call 911 from his place before driving me back to the cabin so we can make sure that Kate and that stranger were okay. We rushed into his house, and I remember barely being able to get any words out from having run so hard and for so long, but we got there in the end, and then we jumped into his car, and he sped off with him following the same directions I'd just given him.

I think I must have thanked him a hundred times between running into him in the street and getting him back to the cabin, but then when we pulled up outside and saw the lights were still off, I was relieved. I pictured Kate and the strangers sitting quietly in the dark, not. not knowing who was sitting behind the wheel of the car approaching them. But then, all it'd take was one quick yell of, it's me, and they'd just be as relieved as I was when Andrews said he'd help me. I got out of his car and walked towards the cabin's front door.

I yelled out to identify myself and got ready to push past the barricade that Kate had blocked off the door with, but as I got close, I saw that the door was slightly ajar. I called out again, but no one responded. And that's when I started to panic. Kate hadn't pushed anything in front of the door, and when I walked into the room with the couch where I'd last seen her in the wounded stranger, it was empty. Now, I ran around like a headless chicken looking for them,

but when I found Kate alone in the bedroom, there was no relief that time, because she'd been stripped, severely beaten, and was laying unconscious on the floor next to the bed. I didn't even take all that much comfort in the fact an ambulance was on its way to us, and that whatever injuries she'd received, they'd soon be treated. All that was in my head were all these questions.

Like, when did they find her? Why didn't she run like we'd agreed? And what the hell happened to the wounded stranger? It took another 24 hours to get any answers because Kate was barely conscious when we got her to the hospital, and she had to rest up a bunch before anyone could even talk to her. But when she finally did talk, it was devastating. She and the stranger hadn't been found by the people looking for him.

She'd been attacked by the man himself. Kate said that not long after I ran off, she grabbed some dish cloths from the kitchen and tried to open up the guy's jacket to put pressure on the wound and keep him from bleeding to death. And that's when he dropped the act. He hit her, jumped up, then kept on hitting and kicking her until she was too weak to fight back. The guy hadn't been stabbed. He wasn't heard in any way, shape or form. The whole thing was an act, a complete put-on that he'd hoisted on us after disabling my car,

stabbing a hole in his jacket, and then using a little fake blood for the finishing touches. Now the rest he achieved by sheer force a personality and by the fear that I thought that I saw on his eyes, which I guess looking back on it was more like excitement of the prospect of what he was about to do. They did end up catching the guy and he ended up getting light. because it wasn't the first time he'd violated the woman after tricking his way into her home, but Kate has never fully recovered. She might have since found some kind of peace, and I hope she has. We haven't spoken in a long time now, but I sincerely hope that she has.

But sadly, in what remained of our relationship, she was unable to find it. She said I reminded her of what happened and how since that wasn't my fault and there wasn't anything I could do about it, she knew we had no future together. It broke my heart, but I respected her wishes, and we slowly drifted apart over the years that followed. Kate, if somehow you're listening, I know you'll recognize this story, and I'm sorry if you hate the fake name I picked for you what I hope and pray that you're doing better. Growing up in Rio made for a wild upbringing. I was born and raised in Babylonia, which overlooks a neighborhood called Lame.

Lame is a very wealthy place, but Babylonia is a favela, which roughly translates into English as slum or ghetto. While the rich lived down there in their mansions and luxury apartments, they looked up to see us living in stacked hillsides that look like colorful puzzle pieces, but they do not look up to us, as you say in English, and we could not look down on them, even though that's all we do from our high perch above them. We are poor people, but we are rich in spirit.

Football was a big part of our lives, too, and while I'm sure that we're not. to many of you, this is an apt cliche for us. Football was, and is, life. Whether it be the organized futsal, which took place on colorful concrete pitches, or the volley games the kids would play under flickering streetlights while they laughed and chased each other, football was everywhere. And since it makes us happy and happiness was everywhere too, Babylonia felt alive, full of so much joy that could light up the whole city. But let me tell you, and this is the same for all favelas and poor places across the world. Things could turn dark very, very fast. The favela is a place with two governments. In the daytime, politicians and the police

are in charge, and people go about their business as normal. But after the sun goes down, the police rarely visits, and the politicians are all safely back in their expensive homes. And it's then that the gangs take charge. On a bad night, you'd hear gunfire popping off like fireworks, but it could happen in the daytime too if the police decided to raid a gang hideout or carry out some other kind of operation. Entire streets could be shut down for hours with police and gang members sniping each other, and sometimes the fights only ended when someone died, be it a gang member or a policeman or even an innocent person caught in the crossfire. You learned early to keep your head down, trust your instincts, and never walk to different

neighborhoods after sunset. But sometimes, avoiding trouble in the favelas was impossible, because even if you try to dodge it, it has a way of just finding you anyways. And to me, there is no greater example of that than the blackout of 1999. And I remember it like it was yesterday, and I'll remember the date of March 11th until I'm old and senile. I was just a teenager back then, and 14 going on 15, and it was a Thursday night, so just about as quiet and regular as a night in the favelas could be. I was at home looking after my little sister when suddenly, all the power suddenly went out. I later heard it was caused by a lightning bolt slamming into a big substation of Baru,

but that strike tripped the circuits, and like dominoes, the whole grid collapsed. Generators shut down one after another. Even the massive Itaipu Dam couldn't hold it together. And suddenly the entire southern part of Brazil went pitch black, Sao Paulo, Rio, all of it, and all without warning. It was exactly 10.16 p.m. when everything went dark, and while my little brother was asleep upstairs, it was my job to watch him while my mother was at her friend's place.

I went upstairs and out onto the small balcony we had, which looked over the city, and all the buildings were dark, and all the street lights were completely out. Everything but the roads were plunged into darkness, even the traffic lights were dead. It was an amazing sight. It was exciting, but also frightening, too. People called out in the confusion as candles started to flicker in windows all over the favela, and you could also hear the sound of generators starting up too, because while blackouts were a regular thing, they tended not to last very long.

But this one was different, and the longer at least, lasted, the more the atmosphere around the neighborhood became more and more tense. Whenever anything happened like that, be it a blackout or anything else which might cause unrest, the police usually sent patrols around to keep the peace. But on that night, a whole hour went by and I didn't see a single light or siren anywhere around the favela. They were all headed either downtown or what looked to me like Vajuka, where all the high-end fashion and electrical stores were.

Some people were listening to radio stations on portable radio sets, thanks to the station's backup generators, and when they heard there was looting and other chaos going on all over the city, people started getting worried. Because if the police were overwhelmed, it was no telling what the gangs would do. I got scared, and I was only a kid, so I forgive myself for it, but I got so frightened that I went looking for my mom. I know I shouldn't have left my little brother alone up there in our bedroom, but that night had been, really quiet up until then, so I figured that it wouldn't do any harm if I just ran over to my mom's friend's place and brought her home with me. And the streets were buzzing like a party at first. It seemed like people were laughing and cracking open beers by flashlight. Music blasted from people's

radios as they danced by candlelight and battery and turning the black out into a sort of carnival. Now, I found it reassuring because there was none of the looting or violence that I'd heard about elsewhere. But that fun didn't last, and by the time I made it to my mom's friend's place, the atmosphere in that favela had changed dramatically. When the gangs heard that all the police were all tied up downtown, guarding the commercial districts from looters smashing windows, they got together and began planning their attacks. Rival crews, the ones who had been eyeing each other for weeks, saw their chance, and no cops meant no one to stand their way.

I've been happy to see my mom, but I don't think more than five minutes. had passed before I heard the first shots ringing out. She'd been mad at me for leaving my little brother at home and had been preparing to take me home again so he wasn't alone, but when the first bang started and we realized that they weren't some firecrackers, she said that we had to stay put. I blame my age for how foolish my thinking was, but I felt so guilty to leave my little brother alone in that blackout, with gunshots now going off that I couldn't bear to just stay put and wait until it died down. And so I ran. And what I saw while running will stay with me for the rest of my life.

As I ran, I heard automatic weapons rattling off in bursts and then the sound of the bullets echoing off the concrete walls, and it sounded like thunder as their shots lit up the night with these muzzle flashes. I saw it all as the party turned to panic, groups of guys charging down alleys, spraying bullets wildly and dropping bodies after suddenly coming across a group of rivals. Sparks flew as bullets hit metal roofs, and I heard the sound of women and children screaming as they got caught in the crossfire. I remember seeing one guy I knew from school, an older boy who was just running for cover when a burst hit him in the back, cutting him down and turning the front of his white shirt, black. In another incident, I saw two gangs clashing at a corner, shooting each other with these rifles and barking at each other from behind barricades of wrecked cars. I ducked down behind a wall as bullets whizzed past and chipped the concrete near me,

and I remember how the air reeked of gunpowder and how the gunshots made my shadow flash in front of me. It was all so engraved into my young mind. It felt like I was suddenly in the middle of a full-on war with bodies piling up and the wails of the wounded mixing with a non-stop shooting of machine guns. My heart was pounding, and I knew I should have been scared for my life, but all I could think about was my little brother, all alone in the dark of our bedroom and probably terrified. I had to get back, and in the moment I didn't care if I died trying. I remember weaving through this madness, dodging groups trading fire with rifles. Bullets zipped overhead as people

crumpled like rags, and I remember tripping over someone moaning on the ground. It was hell. It's all I can really say, pure and simple. The blackout had turned our home. into a war zone. And I remember stopping to take cover and suddenly hearing someone calling out to me. I turned and saw a man standing at his doorway and offering to give me shelter. And I was so scared that I couldn't say no, and I was certain that I'd be shot if I kept going, so I figured that it might be a good idea to take shelter for a few minutes and hope the shooting died down. And so I ran to the man, and he shut the door behind us. Now he seemed all right at first. He talked calmly, said that he'd

see me around the favela and that he knew my family. It gave me some water and then patted my shoulder from behind as if to comfort me. But then I noticed how he was patting them a little too long and when I tried to get him to stop, he started to grip tighter. She pulled me closer and one of his hands began to wander, whispering how I should relax and stay put. Now I should make it clear that I'm a man and was a boy around this time so this is the last thing I expected him to do. And when I realized what his real intentions were, panic hit me like a speeding truck. I shoved him off, bolted out the door into the night again, and this time with tears in my eyes his bullets flew past me. And I just ran completely blind, with my heart in my throat,

dodging gunfights as gangs unloaded clips into the dark, screaming and laughing as they did. And I ran, and I ran, until I finally reached my home. I burst through the door and ran upstairs to the bedroom, me and my little brother shared. And there he was, huddled under a blanket, having cried so much that he'd gone quiet again. And I pulled him into a hug, and we cried together as he asked me, Where did you go? Where did you go? All I could say was, I'm sorry, over and over and hugged him as hard as I could. That night stayed with me, and as long as I live, I don't think I'll ever forget the lesson it taught me.

In time of crisis, it's the children that need our parents. protection the most, the little ones especially so, because the world is so much more frightening when you don't understand it. My name is Prya, and I live in America now, but I grew up in New Delhi and a slum, and as the name suggests, it wasn't easy. Our home was a very modest two-bedroom home, and I shared it with my parents and my little brother, Arshun. My father worked as a rickshaw polar and suffered from severe back pain after years of peddling through busy traffic, while my mother's stitched garments and dimly lit workshops for just a few hundred rupees a week. And when times were bad, they were really bad,

and my least favorite time of year was monsoon season because our home flooded with filthy water and forced us to sleep on uncomfortable elevated pallets. But there were also joys that kept my spirit alive. India is a place of many vibrant festivals, and some of my fondest childhood memories are of lighting dais and share of, Sweets with my brother. And then there were the kite battles on Independence Day where you could watch rival kites cutting each other down as these operators we called them either cheered in victory or cursed in defeat. We ate rice and lentils most days and power cuts were so frequent that we

joke about the electricity being so unreliable. But then came one power cut that wasn't at all funny. In fact, it terrifies me to think about it even all these years later. I was still a student, back in 2012, but I also had a part-time job at a local garment factory, not the same as my mother's, at least until one day when a boy named Rajesh proposed to me. Now, he was the son of a factory supervisor, a smug older boy with a slicked-backed hairstyle and a gold chain around his neck. His family lived in a proper apartment block on the edge of the slums, not quite middle class, but worlds above me and my family. I remember how he cornered me after work one evening, grinning as he asked me if I had plans to marry. When I said no, he asked to meet my father,

the implication being so they could arrange my marriage to Rajesh. And when I refused to arrange the meeting, he turned nasty. He didn't shout, but he got very angry as he recommended I reconsider. And I told him to leave me alone, but he stood there in front of me, seething as he told me once more to reconsider. And I told him if he didn't leave me alone, I'd tell his father what he was doing. Rajesh said that I'd regret my decision and then walked away so angry it looked like he was shaking. Now that was June, and then just over a month later, a large blackout hit. Now, I don't know how it happened, but at around 9 p.m., the lights suddenly started stuttering and then died completely. Street lamps blinked out, fans just ceased, and the only sounds were of distant traffic,

and the uneasy murmur of voices wondering how long it'd continue for. Our parents were still at their night shift, so it was just Arjun and me at home. Now, he was only 10, playing with his toy cars by the glow of our only emergency lantern, and I was in the kitchen boiling water for some tea when I heard a knocking on her front door. And when I called out for them to enter, it was the brother of a friend from school, and he had some terrifying news for me. Now, Rajesh and his friends were coming to do something unspeakable to me, and he knew this because they were just minutes away, and he'd heard them talk.

talking about it with his own ears. My friend's brothers sprinted all the way over to us as fast as he could, and I mean it when I say that he saved my life that night. I grabbed Arjun, snuffed out the emergency lantern, and then we ran upstairs to our bedroom and barricaded the door shut with a wooden dresser that we shared. And then we waited, scared and silent, until we heard the sound of someone kicking the door open downstairs. I heard Rajas shouting, find her.

before people began searching downstairs. I don't know exactly how many of them there were, but there had to be at least four of them searching for us, so it wasn't long before they found the stairs. I heard Rajesh shouting for me to come out, and I knew our little barricade wouldn't last a second once he'd found our bedroom. I could hear him muttering about teaching me a lesson, about making me beg for that proposal.

Arjun trembled beside me, clutching a small kitchen knife that he'd snatched on the way up as footsteps thudded up the stairs. I pressed a finger to my lips to keep them quiet, but every creak of the floorboards only made my fear worse and worse. They began probing the rooms as they reached the top of the stairs, and their flashlight beams were slicing through the cracks of the doors as they got closer to our hiding spot.

And I remember Arjun whispering, they're coming, and I realized the window was our only escape. It was already open, so I didn't have to risk alerting Rajesh to our presence by prying it open, but I hoisted Arjun through first and then followed, scraping my knees on the sill as I clambered out onto the flat stone roof. The night air was cold, I remember, but fear made it feel suffocating as I quietly directed Arjun to climb up onto the roof of our bedroom and out of sight of its window. Seconds after we reached it and flattened ourselves out, we heard the sound of the dresser scraping against the floor as someone pushed open our bedroom door.

I heard one of them shout, she was in here, before several of them ran for the window. I could hear them talking as they looked out of it, and then, in my infinite relief, I heard Rajesh suddenly ask, where are she hiding? We didn't move, and we didn't dare speak as seconds stretched out to feel like eternity. We lay there in silent agony, and my mind raced with visions of them spotting us, dragging us down, and doing things worse than murder to us. But then thankfully, and to my indescribable relief, I suddenly heard Rajesh say, She must be hiding outside somewhere.

We heard them running off, but we didn't dare move, not until we heard the sound of our mother screaming at the sight of her ransacked home. We cried as we told her what happened, and he helped her clean up. But it took two whole days for power to return to all the affected areas. My father ended up going to the police who rounded up two of the inviated. and they turned out to be small-time criminals with records who were recognized by our neighbors having kicked our door in after banging on it. They confessed to being hired for what was basically a scare job, but clammed up on who paid them, meaning Rajesh, and he went untouched. I saw him, swaggering through the neighborhood days later, smirking as if nothing happened, and that turned

not to be the only advantage. He didn't want to talk about it and try anything else, because he didn't want anyone to know about not one of his failures, but two of them. What happened was truly horrifying and traumatic, but strangely Arjun and I grew closer from it. I was so proud of how brave he was, and I wanted to be there for him always, just like he was with me on that roof that night when Rajesh came looking for me. Sadly, our paths took us to different places in life, but I send him money every month to ensure that he and his children have a better life than our own family did. 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.