The Lets Read Podcast - 37: Episode 035 | Crazy Family & Catfish Stories | 27 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

Welcome to the thirty fifth episode of The Lets Read Podcast! This podcast includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Crazy Family, Snapchat & Catfish/Dating.  HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON- ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ♫ Background Music: Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFvrqVSJE8E PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead 

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Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This story all starts back when I was about six or seven. I was always a quiet girl that liked spending a lot of time alone, reading or playing. I had a lot of friends but never spent much time with them outside of school because my alone time was always very important to me. After moving to a new city closer to some relatives that I didn't see much growing up, my aunt decided that it would be a great idea if I spent my after school hours playing with her son who was 7 years older than me. My cousin was an odd kid.

He never got on well with other people and usually ended up being an outcast he had no friends and spent much of his time indoors watching tv or playing video games he was prone to fits of raids that usually ended with him breaking things or screaming a lot he was also a lot bigger than most people his age and was huge compared to me around when we started hanging out he was already six foot four and very overweight. He also had what I've come to call dead eyes. When he looks at you it's like he's looking through you and any emotion he showed never reached his eyes other than anger. My aunt thought it would be beneficial for the both of us if we started spending our free time together so he would have a friend and I wouldn't be spending so much time alone. My parents weren't

as enthusiastic but thought it couldn't cause any harm. Everyone in my family always felt bad for my cousin due to him always being alone and having parents that weren't fit to be parents. It was more like I was babysitting him more than anything which looking back was a horrible situation to put a young girl in with a guy so much older and bigger. It started out innocent enough. We shared some common interests and such as reading and video games and he seemed to not be as violent with me. Maybe because I was family, it's hard to say. It got to the point that we were talking or hanging out every day. People often mistook him for my older brother. When I got to be about 9 or 10, things started to change.

By that time, he was 17, kicked out of school, and regularly intimidating people. He was socially awkward to the point that I was the only person who he could have a conversation with and he came to depend on my presence. I couldn't hang out with friends or have free time or he would call up screaming and cry that I was betraying him or abandoning him. Then the threats started. I remember being in his apartment with him one day while his parents were out and he was showing me a new knife that he bought. For whatever reason I was never afraid of him. Even when he would have outbursts around me it always seemed I could calm him down and I

couldn't imagine he would hurt me as I was his only friend. It was this day that he dropped the bomb that we were going to run away from home when I turned 16, and that I was going to be his wife and take care of him like a mother basically, while he would spend his days playing video games. I sort of laughed it off, thinking it was a bizarre joke or some sort of game he was playing. This really made him angry. He flew off the handle and started screaming and waving the knife around with the blade out that we were meant for each other and there was no way he would let me live if he couldn't have me. Being a naive idiot I didn't tell my parents or his parents and things got worse from there. If I tried to put it off hanging out with him,

he would threaten my parents or my cats or his parents. He would come to my apartment late at night, knock on the door then run off, I guess to let me know he could. At the same time he began doubling down on me being destined to be his lover. He would use his allowance to buy inappropriate clothing for me or flowers. He would write poems and fanfics about our life together. He would call me in the middle of the night and try to get me to talk about inappropriate things with him. He also became very controlling. It got to the point that just going to school for the day would set him off because it was less time that he got to spend with me. I remember him being about 14 and him killing his pet parrot

in a fit of rage because I was late coming over to his apartment after school. It's cliche but he was screaming look what you made me do over and over then crying and hugging the parrot. It was one of the most terrifying things I've seen. He had a new parrot the next day. I can't remember how but I ended up telling my parents about everything he was doing and that I was afraid to be around him. They banned him from seeing me anymore and told his aunt that he was scaring me and not to bring him to family get-togethers. I was honestly relieved and thought it was over and that I could start living some sort of life of my own without

being tied to the hip to him. But then the threatening phone calls and the text messages and the social media messages started. He would either try to catfish me by pretending to be someone else or he would straight up tell me that I was going to die soon or my family was and it was my fault for ruining his life. He sounded so deranged, the way he would scream and scream, his all caps messages. I had to stop going out for walks because he started showing up and watching me. I honestly thought that he was going to end my life. Every day was constant fear until I was 16 or so and got my first boyfriend. When he heard that I was with someone, I got my last message from him, saying that I betrayed him in the worst way possible and one day, it could be weeks from now or years from now, he would find me. And end me.

Everything died down after that. He never came to family gatherings. And became a complete shut-in. And lives off his parents playing video games all day. He found someone online that he started to talk to. Which I guess took his focus off of me. My life went back to some sort of normality until I was 21. Then I received a phone call from him asking me to help get his life back together because according to him the day I left his

life was the day that he lost all hope. I hung up on him. It's been years now, he's in his mid-30s, still completely shut in. I still fear he'll come for me one day. I see him every once in a while walking around where I now live. He looks terrifying. There is honestly so much more to this story that I have forgotten over the years. It has become such a blur due to a lot of other stuff that I was coping with around the same time but I can say he made my life a nightmare for many years. Some of the more painful aspects of the story I can't even get into without throwing myself into a fit of anxiety. I hope to god that I never have to be in the same room as him again because if that happens I don't think I'll come out the other side, alive.

I have been dating my girlfriend for about two and a half years. She is a small blonde with a positive attitude about everything. We both go to college so we only get to see each other so much. Her college is in New Hampshire and mine is in Massachusetts. Since she doesn't have a car I will drive up to hers and my old little red car that I got from my grandmother. I am not a huge fan of the car but I got it basically free so I can't complain. I never had an issue making this hour and a half drive but a few weeks ago I got more than my fill. I was visiting my grandmother and it already was becoming a rough day. We wanted the dorm room to

ourselves but her annoying roommates wouldn't leave so we hung out in the common room. After spending most of the day together we finally called it time for me to head back to my own college. I said goodbye and that I would text her when I got back. It was 6 o'clock anyways and it was getting pretty dark outside given that it was winter. I normally take the New Hampshire back roads for a more scenic route and also to avoid traffic. It doesn't affect the time of traveling at all either so that's a plus. Most people who live in or visit New Hampshire know that most of the back roads are not lit well with street lights or are not even lit at all. This isn't too much

of a problem because I can just put it on my high beams. About 30 minutes of driving I turned down a road that looked as if though it was just a wide path. The GPS said that I would be going straight for about seven miles and due to knowing about the way New Hampshire roads could be I didn't think anything of it. The street was like how I mentioned before and was narrow enough for a car and a half, was surrounded by woods and was not lit with street lights at all. I got about three or four miles in and saw a guy in my high beams standing in the middle of the road. He was waving down my car asking for help. The road wasn't big enough for me to pass around him so I had to stop. The man then came around to my driver's side window and gestured for me to put it down. I wasn't fully thinking straight so I put my window down about

halfway. He looked like an average 40-45 year old man but he gave off a disturbing presence. He told me he was having car troubles and asked me to get out of my car and help him. Now I'm a 19 year old and have an average build with brown surfer style hair. None of my physical qualities hint to me knowing anything about cars. I then told him that I knew nothing about cars and that if he really needed help that I could call him a mechanic or tow truck. He kept gesturing to his black rusted pickup truck and insisted that I got out to help him. This started to give me the chills and I didn't know what to do. That's when I noticed that there was someone crouching behind his truck. The man

couldn't tell but I began to internally panic. My fight or flight senses kicked into gear and I chose to try something risky. I then told the guy that I would pull over on the side of the road ahead and get out to see what I can help him with. This seemed to work and the guy began to smile. He backed off of my car and I stepped as hard as I could on my gas pedal. I sped off and looked into my rear view mirror to see both men run out into the middle of the road and just stand there. I kept driving as fast as I could until I got off the road to a nearby gas station where I stopped to call the police. I told the dispatch my experience and asked them if I

needed to stick around for questioning. They told me they would send some officers out to check the street and I was fine to continue on driving. I then called my girlfriend and told her what had happened. She was just happy I was safe. I have no idea what those guys intentions were. I don't know if they were actually having car troubles or if I was going to get carjacked or worse. Needless to say after that night I'll not be driving the back roads alone at night anymore. So my significant other and I were talking once, after reading stories to each other for this very subreddit, and started telling one another about creeps we had known in the past. It became clear after a while that we

had known the same creep mere months apart before we had even met each other. So let me tell you about the tale, the tale of Carl. So I would say about eight years before my significant other and I had met, my ex and I were in the market for a roommate to take up the slack on the rent that the previous roommate left behind. We found it in an individual named Carl. Now things seemed okay with Carl. He went to class and worked part-time, kept the place clean and paid rent on time. We even hung out as a group whenever we could arrange it and watch things together. We thought everything was cool. So cool in fact we saw no problem with leaving Carl alone in the apartment while my ex and I went on a trip with my ex's family. During the trip Carl let us know he needed to move out because he had lost his job and was having trouble finding another. This is important. We said that was fine

and he just had to be out by the time we got back and he said that was not a problem since this gave him almost 60 days to find a new place and we would just take the rent he couldn't pay out of the security deposit. So time goes by and we get back and see a bunch of suitcases and no Carl and my ex and I think oh he really cut this close but whatever these things happen. Then we see a random woman exit Carl's room but think nothing of it because they must be here to help Carl move right? No. This woman Nancy walks up to my ex and I and asks, who are you and what are you doing in Carl's apartment? Then the story unfolds. So while we were gone, Carl decided they weren't super big on the idea of leaving and had moved Nancy in, telling them they own the whole big studio

apartment. Those bags from earlier? Those were her bags. She was moving in. Into our room. Carl had told her that my ex and I had skipped out and was left behind to take care of our stuff and throw it all away and this and that and the other. Just an endless sea of lies. We had to show Nancy the lease in our text to

prove that Carl was subleasing from us before she would believe us, and then we offered her Carl's spot since we did have a vacancy, which they accepted since they had just moved out of their dorms and had nowhere to go now. Things are going okay and we are all geared up to face Carl when he gets home from work when Nancy mentions something offhandedly. That Carl had been putting peanuts in the milk in the fridge this morning before he left. Now, my ex had a terrible peanut allergy and loves milk. If he had taken one sip, they would have probably died because we did not have any EpiPens and Carl knew that. Now, with attempted murder now revealed and a single white female coming to mind,

Carl strolls in, sees us, and says out loud, Oh God! Yeah, oh God is right. He was very surprised that Nancy was not on his side and that he really had to leave right that second and that she had ratted him out about the milk when he tried to get my ex to drink it to prove it wasn't tainted. I repeat, Carl told my ex to drink the milk repeatedly to prove his innocence, not dump the milk out and look for peanuts. Drink the milk. And when you don't die, it proves I didn't poison it. Yeah, that's a big no.

So we made Carl pack that instant and leave because we were young and didn't think the police would take any of this seriously since they had a record of avoiding things that were not cut and dry. Now at this point, you may be saying to yourself, work? But I thought Carl didn't have a job and that's why he had to leave. That's where my significant other, whom I would not meet for years, mind you, came in. For you see, the place that Carl got a job at was my significant other's place of work. Carl was hired to stock the shelves and that was it. Just stock the shelves.

Not clean or do inventory or anything else. Just stock the shelves. Carl proceeds to follow customers around and harass them about what they were going to buy so he would know what to get more of from the back. He went so far as to pick through their carts to see what items they had while they were still shopping and follow them through the aisles, mostly women. Carl would also sit on the floor of the aisles with Nancy and just talk, blocking everyone and not moving unless someone told him to.

And since this was a specialty shop with intermittent traffic, this could be quite a while but it was also preferable to him harassing the customers, so management let it go. So what finally got Carl fired, you may ask? Well, the owner of the store came in very early one day to do inventory and saw that lights were on in the basement of the building. They followed those lights to the stockroom and found Carl sleeping there on a pile of product. When they told him to leave he asked when he could come back and they told him never to which he seemed rather angry. He tried just showing up to work several times after that like nothing happened and everyone had to keep kicking

him out. From what I understand he had a place to go he just didn't want to pay rent there and thought if he slept in the stockroom he wouldn't have to leave. No one, either myself or my significant other knows, has seen or heard from Carl since and we are all fine with that. The story happened about four years ago, spanning the end of my grade 10 year to halfway through my grade 11. I was in the band room of my school where my friends and I liked to hang out and eat our lunches since we were all friends with a band teacher. But one day, there were a few new people there. One of them was Tim. Tim was in grade 12, I was in grade 10, and we hit it off immediately. It was like we were almost the same person. Interests, hobbies, activities, etc. I didn't see it at the time, but he was basing all of his likes off of mine. We exchanged information like Snapchat, Discord,

phone number, and the whole lot, and we spent a lot of time talking. This is where things started to go downhill. I was talking to him, and at this point, we had known each other for about a week and some change. He says to me that he's in a hospital for attempting to end his life and that he's really sorry. As soon as I saw this I started crying as I and other people knew he did actually have depression and tendencies of that nature. While he was in the hospital for the week and a half he was there he kept trying to get me to come to see him while using the classic I'll end my life if you don't come see me bit. I however could not go, as the mental health recovery unit where I live has a strict family only policy for patient safety. I explicitly told him that I could not see him and he kept trying to manipulate me into doing so. A few weeks later, just after school ended and Tim and I had been talking for a while, I got a message

from this girl named Sarah in my Instagram DM saying things like, how dare you flirt with my boyfriend? Or, why did you come on to him when he has a girlfriend? And things like that. I don't remember exactly as I wanted to block this whole period of time out. After a while of explaining and telling her that I did not know he had a girlfriend, she explains to me that he's done this thing before and to just stop talking to him. Also that he did the same thing to her initially, and now she's so far trapped in this abusive relationship that she can't get out.

His M.O. per se was preying on young naive girls for mental validation, all the while making them feel horrible for not doing things for him. Before Sarah coming to me there were red flags and sirens going off in my head but I chose to ignore them since I didn't and still don't like breaking things off with people without a good reason. When he invited me out I'd make excuses since my gut told me to run. But I didn't run, at least not before Sarah. After the explanation I quickly started ghosting Tim. It was pretty simple since we didn't actually have any overlapping activities or hobbies so all I had to do was block him on social media and block his number. Fast forward to the end of November of my great 11 year, I've forgotten about Tim and tried my hardest to push what he did out

of my brain. Guess who pops into the only social media DM I forgot to block him on, but Tim himself. And me being the trusting person I was saw nothing wrong with it. Maybe he changed, maybe he was a different boy by now. He told me he was off for Christmas break the week after and wondered if I wanted to go to a frat party with him. Now the flags are rising and I say, sure, why not? Then text Sarah about what's happening. During this hiatus from Tim, Sarah and I built quite a close friendship. She says she didn't even know he was coming back and that he told her that he was going to Cancun with his family for the holiday, leaving on December 5th, but that she's away at her father's place about 45 minutes out of town for the week of the party and to do as I see fit. I wanted to have some fun so I went to this party. I was easily the youngest person in the whole party. As I was only 16 at the

time, I didn't feel comfortable drinking in a place other than my home, so I chose not to drink. Tim, however, does drink. Once he was drunk enough for his liking, we get up to go and I know where I live pretty well. Not a big city, but not a small one either, and we went down a street I had never been down before. Again, red flags were going off and I was tense and jumpy. There's no one on the street and no lights on in the houses. Tim then plants himself in front of me and tries to kiss me. I being 16 and never having kissed anyone before didn't take well to this. Luckily at the time my mother was making me take a ladies self-defense course so I punched him in the eye, kicked his groin and booked it.

Some people might say that this was an overreaction but I've been harassed before and didn't want to take my chances with a drunk guy, even one I knew. I bus it home from downtown and when I get home it's a little after 10 30 at night. I didn't tell my mom since I was scared she'd get mad at me for being at a party. That was irrational and in hindsight probably should have told her. I immediately text Sarah to tell her what happened and she doesn't reply until the next morning. From what she said he texted her all sweet like and she gave him the address of her dad's place where she was staying while he was on a business trip. He got there still intoxicated and angry. Hit her a few times and verbally abused her until she had to leave

and go to her mother's house. I tell Sarah that I'm sorry for what happened and hope it never happens again, but that I cannot keep talking to her unless I want Tim in my life, which I didn't. Back to today and Sarah is still with Tim and I see her around sometimes with a black eye one day or a swollen cheek the next. To this day I have trust issues with guys and it's extremely hard for me to form romantic relationships for fear that this will happen again. Before cutting off contact with Sarah, I did offer help and she said that other friends did too, but she didn't want people tied up in her mess. I still say hi every once in a little while, maybe once a year just to catch up. But that's it. Say hi every once in a little while, maybe once a year, just to catch up.

But that's it. This happened to me during the summer between middle school and high school. My addict older brother Jason had just moved out of my mom's garage. They'd had a falling out over something and it was a relief when he was gone. Not long after that I moved into the garage in his place. I had only been living in there less than a week when it happened. I was vegging on some good old fashioned MMO gaming with a group of friends when I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Since the door to the garage was separate from the house, I stepped onto the porch and went over to the backslider. There was a sticky note on it that informed me that my family had gone to the store and would be back soon. This immediately made me nervous as I would have

preferred to have been told but I brushed it off and went inside. Our two large dogs, Bella and Sadie, harmless but intimidating, were sleeping behind a baby gate, separated in my mom's bedroom and what was once mine, but now in the process of being made into a playroom for my three-year-old niece, Kate. There really wasn't much furniture in it other than some toys and two plush chairs, so the door was closed to discourage the dogs from going in there. They weren't destructive and were allowed to roam as they wanted to for the most part, but one of them, Bella, had a habit of eating whatever she could find. So when we weren't home, they were usually crated or kept out of places that they could eat things,

aka the kitchen. The bathroom door was just before the gate so I said hello and went in. I closed the door, locked it, did my business and washed my hands. After that, since I was there, I grabbed hold of my hairbrush. Then I heard it. I thought I was crazy at first, something I wonder if I still am. The latchable door to the baby gate clicked open, which isn't something any of our animals were capable of doing. I heard movement before the distinct sound of dog collars passing by the door. Bella and her sister Sadie didn't bark or growl, they just rushed by, straight toward the kitchen.

I was paralyzed with fear and I didn't dare move. I held my breath with a hand over my mouth, extremely worried. Our dogs were lovable, but if this had been a stranger, they would have been barking. Whoever had let them out of the gate knew them. I tried to tell myself that maybe if it was my family, but considering they'd all gone and they weren't exactly the type of people to come home quietly, I knew that was a mistake. It got worse from there, and I'll never forget the sound of the bedroom door that was mine less than a week ago creaking open slowly. There was a long pause and I heard either Bella or Sadie come close to the gate again briefly before she went back towards the kitchen. What felt like an

eternity passed in complete deafening silence, only to be stopped suddenly by an echo of the baby gate clicking shut. It seemed like hours until I could hear the back door slide open and close, followed by more silence. I didn't move. What was I supposed to do? There was no telling if whoever was in there had actually left or not, and at the time it wasn't exactly common for people to have cell phones, especially kids my age, so I had no way of contacting my family or even calling the police. Eventually I worked up the nerve and pushed the door open. Almost immediately Bella and Sadie ran up to me for attention before wandering off again, seemingly unfazed, but still on the opposite side of the gate that they'd been on before I'd entered the bathroom. The door to Kate's new playroom was open just a bit, enough for someone to peer inside despite

having been closed before that. I convinced myself it was all in my head, but hid in the bathroom until I heard my family come home. After explaining what had happened, the police were called and canvassed the area, but found nothing. Our home backed up to a park that was notorious for suspicious night activity, so anyone could have hopped the fence easily. My mother had a theory that it was probably Jason trying to break in to steal money and I didn't argue, but I didn't agree with her. If it had been Jason, it would have been even more unnerving that the person in question had only looked in the room that was once mine and hadn't seemed to be shifting around looking for money. I was a teenager. I didn't exactly have money in

there. Deep down, I was terrified it was one of Jason's many creepy old addict friends who he always brought by. They were always really unnerving and stared at me in ways that made me extremely uncomfortable. I was scared that they were stalking the house before they saw my family leave without me and since they wouldn't have known I was in the garage and I'd taken down the we're going to the store note, it probably looked as if though I was home alone and in my room. I hate to think what would have happened, had I been. It all started around two years ago when I was driving with a friend of mine back from our friend's house, who lived in a nearby town, around a ten minute drive from our town.

It was around 12.30 in the morning, and about a third of the way home a pair of headlights appeared in the rear view mirror. The lights came closer and closer to the back of the car and I presumed it was someone in a rush who wanted me to speed up. They couldn't overtake as the road is single lane with sharp turns every hundred meters or so. As I got into town I noticed that they were following the same path as me so slowed right down and pulled into the side of the road so they could overtake me. However, they continued following me, slowing down and pulling in. My friend noticed and suggested I went the long way to his house, so I drive around town for about 10 minutes,

taking extremely odd routes that you would never normally take. I eventually got to my friend's house and pull over at the side of the road. The car that was following us drives past us extremely slowly and I catch a glimpse of the driver, a middle-aged man with black sunglasses. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to describe him any further on here but he looked extremely like a well-known journalist. The car was all blacked out, brand new Range Rover and it pulled up around 50 meters ahead of us. My friend got out of the car and noticed that the car stayed there, idling. He said he lives on the sort of road that you know all the cars that frequently drive down it and

he'd never seen this car before. We both decided to drive to a pub where I was going anyway but again take an odd route there I quickly turn the car around and drive to a nearby off-road track Turning all the lights off to wait for a few minutes before driving through town again A few minutes after setting off the car passes us on the opposite side of the road And immediately brakes and performs a u-turn in the road At this point I accelerate and speed through town but the car catches up. I decide to slow down approaching a roundabout and drive around it multiple times at slow speed. The car follows us constantly staying a few feet

behind my car. I speed off in the direction of the pub and, almost crashing, pull into the road that the pub is on at the last second. This caused the car to drive on, but it slowed down. The road that the pub is on is separated from the main road by a large playing field with a few trees. There are no lights down this road, so I turned out my headlights and drove up the hill of the pub car park, hiding the car behind the pub's decking area. We get out of the car and see the car turn around in the main road and drive up the road that the pub was on. We are met by a few of our friends at the pub, who my friend phoned when we were en route, explaining the situation to them. The car then proceeds to turn into the

car park for the flats that are next to the pub and drives around the car park, with the occupants of the car shining torches out into the car park. After around 10 minutes of this, the car slowly drives down the road, parking on the main road for a few minutes before driving off to never be seen again. I presume that maybe they had the wrong car at first but had been followed a couple of times since this incident, not to the extent of this as I managed to lose them after a while. Around six months after this I was driving off of the motorway at a town a few miles away and noticed a white rental van behind me. I didn't think anything of it until it followed my every turn I made. I again started

crisscrossing the path I was taking and I eventually lost it by making an extremely last minute sharp turn. Again, I didn't link any of these until last month when I noticed a number of different cars taking turns to pull up outside my work, which is in a completely different area of the country. The cars would park next to the unit next door to work, facing my window, and sit there for an hour or so with their side lights on before driving off. This isn't a normal behavior in the area as I had never seen any cars parked outside that unit before, let alone keeping their side lights on. I'll need to give a little background to start. I live near Grand Rapids, Michigan.

As most major cities, human trafficking happens quite frequently. The reason I mention this is because I go to college in this city and I am a 19 almost 20 year old female with brown hair and blue eyes. Due to my young age and appearances, I know I fit the target they look for. This happened to me today, February 26, 2019 for those who may read this later. I had just gotten out of class for the day. As normal, I headed towards my car, placed money on my student card so I could get out of the school parking garage and was on my way. Since I live a good 20-25 minutes away from Grand Rapids, I have to go onto the highway to get home. Instead of going home today though I had made plans with one of my favorite teachers to help her out in her class and thank god I did. As I was getting off my exit I noticed a white pickup truck behind me. At the time I thought nothing of it and continued my

normal routine. To get to my old teacher's place of work I had to go past my house. When I look in my rear view mirror again I notice this truck behind me still. I still shrugged it off rationalizing that this truck just had a similar route as me. I stop next to a local bar and grill and take a right turn. This truck follows me. I was still trying to rationalize this and try my best to shut up my paranoid mind. I sum it up to me just reading and listening to true scary stories too much. However, I'm unable to quiet my mind and am now picking up on just how far the truck is keeping its distance from me, as if the driver didn't

want me to see who they were or make out any features. I take a left turn to get into the village where this teacher worked. This truck takes a left turn to get into the village where this teacher worked. This truck takes a left turn and follows me but still keeps the same distance it had before. I am panicking at this point. All thoughts are racing through my mind and my gut is screaming at me that this doesn't feel right. This truck had followed me all the way from the exit 95 on the highway all the way into Sparta. Still, part of me is trying to rationalize this. I take a deep breath and make a quick decision. When I get to the entryway to the elementary school, I will turn into there, go through the parking lot and back out onto the road. If they follow me into the parking lot, I'll know for sure that this truck is following me.

I turn into the parking lot and this truck follows. I now know for sure that this vehicle is following me. As I continue through the parking lot, I believe the person inside this vehicle realized I knew they were following me as their speed slowed incredibly. Still thinking I'm paranoid, I try to reason with myself that this person might be dropping off their kid or picking them up, but as I continue through the parking lot to leave, in my rear view mirror I see this truck slowly pull up to the T intersection as if watching me go. At this moment I know they have already passed the student pick up and drop off and there is no way they could be picking up their kid or dropping them off. Somehow I am able to remain calm. I turn onto the road again, check behind me every few seconds to see if this truck is still following me.

I turn down another road and park near a few houses, taking a couple of deep breaths, adrenaline still running through me. I stayed there for a few more moments just to make sure I lost the truck. Once I feel ready, I make my way towards a Bigby. Order the drinks I had planned to get myself and my teacher in the first place and make my way back to the school parking lot. The truck is nowhere to be seen. It's gone. It isn't until I am in the office that the adrenaline finally leaves my body, and when the office lady asks me if I'm okay, I start crying and shaking. I told both my teacher and the office what had happened. I hugged my teacher as if my life depended on it, and she told me to

stop trying to rationalize this. This truck followed me for far too long and was acting so suspiciously that my teacher believes they had malicious intent. After a couple of more hours to process what has happened, I can't say for sure but I believe this person was trying to catch me at my house or in a secluded area to try and kidnap me and possibly put me into human trafficking. I'm so glad I listened to my gut. This happened yesterday. Looking back now, it's slightly humorous in a white trash kind of way, and I wish I got it on camera. But at the time, my heart was pounding and the adrenaline was rushing. When I get home from work, I typically chill with my dog in the backyard, just relax a little after the day. After chilling with the pup a bit, I peek through the blind on the front door, purely on a whim. I see an old man walking away from our side gate which is immediately to the right of our front

door but a little further back off the road. Never seen this dude before. He's clearly homeless due to his shoddy appearance, ripped clothes and possibly poop covered jeans. He crossed the street. Of course, I go out front to keep an eye on this sketchy dude. He grabs his shopping cart, and I figured he'll just wheel it on down the line, and go on with his hobo business. But I'm posting this story, so clearly that didn't happen. He wheeled his hobo cart back across the street towards me,

and rolls right up my driveway. I retreat to the safety of my doorway. Can I help you? I said with as much attitude as I could muster. Homeboy can barely speak in a manner that I can understand. He is messed up. Saying something about looking for my husband. I do have a boyfriend but there is no way he could invite a bum to our home,

and boyfriend is still on his way from work. I'm home alone, just me and the dog who is just standing inside wagging your tail. Thanks, Chiquita. The one time I want you to be scary and you gotta be all cute. You can't be here. Get out! I start to yell. Homeboy keeps speaking his own drunkard language which i cannot understand now the neighbor kids from across the street show up at the end of my driveway he's been hanging out in the front of our house all day they start to explain we were trying to

just let him sleep it off we went to get him water and a protein bar, but when we came back out, he was over here trying to steal your jack. My boyfriend has a trailer parked in our drive with various and sundry tools and equipment, including a car jack. Since the jack is still there, I'm unsure if Hobo was trying to steal things or not. These kids are known to be a little bit of troublemakers so I'm taking their story with a grain of salt. Hobo did not like the neighbor kids telling me their story. He starts yelling at the kids, unintelligibly. He's mad and he starts squaring up with the one kid. I'm so glad to see the kid is smart enough to dip and weave away from the old dude. I tell the kids not to engage with him, to go home. I'm so glad to see the kid is smart enough to dip and weave away from the old dude.

I tell the kids not to engage with him. To go home, I'm calling the cops. The kids don't listen and hang around. To be fair, it was hard to look away from the hot mess trespassing on my front lawn. Our old buddy pulls a flagpole out of his cart and starts brandishing it, swinging it around like a baseball bat. At the kids. I dial 911. To their credit, the cop showed up in two minutes tops. The kids retreat across the street. Hobo begins to finally make his way down the street. The cop approaches and my boyfriend

pulls up, just home from work. I've been keeping him fairly up to date via text while this whole ordeal unfolds. He hops out of his truck and approaches the cop and hobo. Apparently this old dude has been around for a while. My boyfriend grew up in this neighborhood and has seen him around for ages. My boyfriend says he's mostly harmless and basically talks him down. I shared my story with one of the police officers who thanked me for giving them a call. He went and talked to the neighbor kids to get their story too. Old sketchy dude calmly rolls his cart away and the cops leave. Happy ending for now. I'm so glad no one was hurt. Later last evening I go to the quick mark a block down the road. Luckily I was feeling lazy and drove. When I pulled in, whose shopping cart do I see? You know. I got out and went to

Walgreens instead. I'm hoping beyond imagine that old dude leaves us alone for now and doesn't try to break in today while everyone's at work. I'm on lunch break now, hoping I don't have to deal with more alky hobo drama later this afternoon. Please, wish me luck. Over the summer, my friend and I got a call from another friend who asked us if we were up for an adventure. So naturally we agreed. Our friend wouldn't tell us what this adventure was until we had already gotten into the car and were on our way. He laid out the plan to us. We were going to break into a cabin to meet a boy he met on tinder. The area was pretty familiar to us. We were going to break into a cabin to meet a boy he met on Tinder. The area was pretty

familiar to us and we were already mid route so we were down. We drove up this long driveway to get to the cabin that was isolated enough for us to not get caught but not to the point where it was concerning or out of cell service. The boy we were meeting up with walks up the driveway and breaks into the cabin as we wait outside for him to open the front door. The friends immediately start exploring the cabin and going into all of the rooms but I was feeling uneasy and stood in the kitchen. The boy we had met went into one of the other rooms and my friends returned to the kitchen with me. Tender boy walks back out into the kitchen carrying a shotgun and two rounds that he had retrieved from wherever he had gone. He starts pointing the gun around and

I immediately begin yelling at him and asking him what he thought he was doing. After scaring the life out of all of us he just laughed and put the gun on the kitchen table. Seeing we were uncomfortable he tells us to follow him into the basement to which we all reluctantly agree. In the basement we begin telling stories to break the ice and try to get to know what this boy's deal is. As he tells us his own story he pulls out his pocket knife and starts throwing it around and sticking it into the wooden support posts bringing back the anxiety in me. He then says he is bored in the basement and brings us up to the kitchen where he then steals alcohol from underneath the sink. He offers us all drinks but my friends and I are more

of the smoking type and didn't want to get caught so we declined. We all rolled up and then head to the porch. On the porch my friends and I are standing along the rail smoking and he sat back behind us at a table. I get a weird feeling so I turn around to find him taking pictures of us. This made me feel really uncomfortable so I asked him what he was doing and all he responded with was another laugh. My friends and I all share a WTF look and after having a few drinks he goes around back to relieve himself. My friends and I convene to share our uneasiness and decide we needed to get out of there ASAP. He comes back and we had all made our way to the other side of the porch to distance ourselves from him. I look over again to find him taking yet another set of pictures of us and at that point I can't handle the anxiety so I text my friend to fake a text from her gram so we had a reason to leave.

She fakes the text and we go inside to pack up our stuff. As we are packing up our stuff he grabs the shotgun again and waves it at all of us one more time before putting it back. My one friend leaves a handful of change on the table as evidence in case Tinder boy decides to strike and pull some stuff. This is slightly relevant later on. So our stuff was all gathered and we were all more than ready to leave. We walk outside and head towards the car when Tinder boy pulls my friend aside explaining to him that he needed to ride back because he had a curfew. Because my friend was interested in this boy, still can't figure out why, he agreed to drive the Tinder boy home. The whole car ride I'm preparing myself to defend a knife attack which

thankfully never happened. We drop him off and a wave of relief washed over me. I'd never have to see this psycho in the making ever again. Flash forward a few months I was visiting home over Thanksgiving break and my friends told me he had showed up to their job. My two friends worked together. They said he pulled them aside and told them that if anyone were to ask, we had never went to that cabin and didn't know it existed. I'm assuming the owner noticed the change pile on the table and missing alcohol and alerted the police about it but I'll never know for sure. Though ominous and bizarre, I just kind of laughed it off what they had told me because I now live four hours away. Months passed and I am currently on my spring

break and I'm visiting home. A different set of friends and I decided to go to one of the local thrift stores and I needed a fitting room. I go up to one of the employees to ask for one and when he turns around I realize it was the tinder boy. My heart sunk and anxiety washed over me. He walked over to me and didn't say anything. I think my drastic hair change may have thrown him off and thank god it did. This happened about three years ago on Halloween. It's part of the reason I hate going out on that holiday now. It's also why I grew distant from a once close friend, Hannah. So a little background just to understand how sketchy and creepy these people are. My sorority sister had started dating a dude in the summer.

He seemed decent at first. However, as passive as this dude seemed, his friends weren't. The first time I was invited over to the boyfriend's home was in the summer. As I tried to sleep that night, I had two dudes in the same room as me making extremely inappropriate comments towards me, as well as talking about how they should pass me back and forth. Needless to say, I stayed up most of the night and I was reluctant to ever go back there. Something about these people just gave me bad vibes. Fast forward to Halloween. She invited me over again and I didn't really want to go. However, I am a sucker for the Nintendo 64 and I was rather interested in playing a few games. Between that and wanting to spend time with her, I finally relented and went over. The first two hours were normal. I was playing the N64 with some of the

more normal friends, specifically Mario Kart and Smash Brothers. Halfway through the night, Joey comes in. I'd met him before and he was your typical white trash guy. He was incredibly drunk and continued to drink as he waited for his brother to pick him up. I made small talk and was just BSing with them. Joey gets a call and picks up his phone claiming his brother to pick him up. I made small talk and was just BSing with them. Joey gets a call and picks up his phone claiming his brother is here and he immediately picks up my coat and heads towards the door. I tell him it's my coat, thinking he might be too drunk to tell. He acknowledges that it is my coat but he refuses to give it back. Everything of mine is in there from my wallet to my pepper spray.

He starts calling me a slew of derogatory names and I slap him and grab my coat and sit down. What I hadn't noticed was that he had taken out the pepper spray at some point. As I sit and turn around I hear a spraying noise and immediately my face is on fire. He missed one of my eyes thank thank god. However, he managed to spray my lower face, right eye, and mouth. It was like eating a very spicy and painful pepper. I couldn't recommend anyone inhale pepper spray at any point. I remember glaring at him and walking out to grab Hannah. Probably slightly terrifying for her as I come in, face red, eyes dripping, and this terribly angry look on my face. Meanwhile, she's getting nailed by her boyfriend.

My eyes suffered way too much that night. They tried to kick him out, but he kept trying to attack me. Oddly enough, I didn't cry. I was just angry. Someone took my only defense and used it on me. I'm 5 foot 1 and not even 90 pounds. As he was screaming he started going on about how he knows demons and I have no clue what they're like. He also started talking about how he was the Nephilim. And basically went on a crazed rant which sounded extremely familiar plot-wise. I could barely contain my laughter as his crazed ranting was supposed to instill fear in me, but was in actuality the plot to Diablo 3. Nothing happened to him.

I should have called the cops, but I didn't. He could have hurt me since my lungs are medically compromised. That pepper spray could have sent me to the hospital. The boyfriend and him continued to be friends for a while until Joey decided to punch him and give him a black eye, lost teeth, and a slew of other injuries. As for me, my face burned for the next 48 hours. I became distant from Hannah for a while, but during a dinner we had she told me things that he'd said since then. How he'd do it again if he could. He bragged to everyone how he pepper sprayed me.

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Must be 19 plus. Available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I met Mathan when I was a freshman in high school back in 2012.

We had the same P.E. period and during the game of flag football we were put on the same team. He was cute and funny and a good person to be around, so we became friends pretty fast. Mathan was a year older than me so we didn't have any other classes together and we didn't have the same lunch, but we hung out a lot during PE and eventually exchanged numbers. We would also occasionally hang out before school or walk onto the school grounds together because we arrived around the same time. Our friendship grew rapidly. He asked me out a couple of times and even though I was attracted to him I politely declined because I was in a long-distance relationship at the time and didn't want to cheat. Turns out the guy I was dating was a catfish, but

that's another story for another time. I don't know when it happened, but eventually we drifted away. He started changing his appearance and didn't really talk to me that much. He hung out with some other groups of friends who I didn't know. We occasionally waved at each other and had brief conversations but didn't really talk much. Our friendship died and it was painful for me at first but with the mental illnesses I had going on and the stress of school I eventually moved on. Around sophomore year when he was a junior we started talking again. We were both trying out for a play and helped each other on their scenes and we talked about our lives and how school was and everything. We were friends again. He didn't get in the play but I did and he came to the show to support me. Things were going good

again. Halfway through junior year I had to move to a different state due to my mom being in the army. It was a very painful move and I was very depressed and angry. I tried keeping in contact with all of my friends from California but it was difficult and I eventually lost contact with most of them, only occasionally talking to them once in a great while. Mathem was one of those friends I occasionally spoke to. I often wondered if I should try to reach out more but I was busy with life and so were they and I told myself I could eventually talk to them another

day. But Matham wouldn't be there. On April of 2017, Matham was killed by his friend Salvador. I don't want to go into a lot of detail about it, but Salvador put a video on Snapchat with Mathan crying and begging for his life. I think Salvador also took a photo of himself wearing bloody clothes. I was floored when I read the news. I didn't know what to do, what to say, how to react. I was heartbroken that a friend I was once so close to was now gone after a violent murder. I was also angry, furious that it happened to him. He was a good person. He didn't deserve a death like that.

It's a very strange feeling when someone you knew and were once very close to is suddenly gone. I felt numb and it felt unreal. It still feels unreal. I'm still angry and sad that this happened. That someone Nathan saw as a friend could hurt him and could record audio. Hearing him begging, crying and still end his life I just don't understand. It's been over a year and I'm still hurting. I have a lot of regret. I wish I had spoken to him more, spent more time with him, been a better friend. I wish there was something I could have done but I know that would have been

impossible for me to do. I didn't know Salvador and I was thousands of miles away. There was nothing I could have done even if I wanted to and that makes me angry too. Salvador was sentenced to 25 to life in prison. He tried to plead not guilty due to insanity but was found sane during the time of the crime. But I feel there's no real closure. There wasn't a reason for the killing. He just did it and he took my friend away from me and he took Mathan away from his family and friends. I will never get to talk to Matham again. His family will never see him again. His friends will never see him again.

He's gone, and Salvador is alive, and it's not fair. I hope he rots for what he did. When I was 11, I'm 17 now, my dad and I ran a haunted location with a few friends of his and their families. I won't disclose the name of the haunted location due to the fact that I don't want to draw publicity to my friends or family. I remember running around with a few of the other kids there. There were about six of us. This was in a rural area surrounded by cow fields so we had a large area to run around. A month before opening night things got weird. Things would be found broken, torn or completely misplaced. When opening night rolled around there was a weird sensation where something felt off. I told my dad about it but me being 11 at the time he just assumed I was scared and I didn't want to admit it.

I went to my location which was in a small building that contained two rooms that were separate from the main building and I waited for people to come through. People came through in groups of five every two minutes. This is important later on, about four hours in. We called for a break because, let's be real, it's a lot of work to run around and scare people, especially working in a room full of mannequins and strobe lights. I left my room and went around back to get a breather. I heard some rustling coming from the corn maze that was located right next to me. I looked back and saw nothing. I shrugged it off and assumed it was my paranoia and went back inside soon after. I got back into my room and turned on my strobe light and found a few of my mannequins dismantled and my personal belongings were tampered with. My stuff was hidden in a secret walkway along with other people's stuff. Again, I brushed this off as to someone walking in the pathway and another kid screwing with my set.

The group started coming through again. I don't remember when this happened exactly, but after group 12 to 14, someone grabbed me by my costume, turned me around, and pinned me up against a nearby wall. From the flashes of lights I could tell it was a man. In his late thirties he smelled like he didn't shower for weeks. He whispered in my ear, I can't wait to do all the things I want to do to you. He then told me what he wanted to do to me, which I don't remember exactly what he said. All I do remember was that it involved me dying or becoming severely injured. He heard the next group coming and he winked at me before dropping me and running out the door. I didn't move when the next group came through since I was still trying to wrap my head around what just happened.

I finished my shift that night without being bothered by that creep. Since this was the only night before Halloween, I had two more nights to work. I went through Halloween night without any issues. However, the night after, I went down to my building to get set up for that night and I opened the door and was hit with backdraft. Backdraft, for those who don't know, is a phenomenon in which a fire that has consumed all available oxygen suddenly explodes when more oxygen is made available, typically because a door or window has been opened, and the building erupted in flames. I had partial, thickness, second degree,

and superficial first degree burns across 13% of my body and a concussion. 911 was called and I was transported to a burn center and I gave police my statement. They never found the man responsible but I'm glad I haven't seen him as of late. Needless to say I'm now trained in martial arts and I'm currently in training to become an EMT and a firefighter. I plan to become an arson investigator to ensure that future happenings like my own never happen again. When I was about 14, 22 now, I was at a big department store with my dad. We were shopping and doing our thing when I decided to go off on my own and look at shoes. While I was looking at shoes a man came up to

me and asked if I needed any help. He had a name tag on his shirt but I can't remember what it was so for this story we'll just call him Michael. Michael started asking me questions that started off innocent like what I was looking for but they slowly got more unnerving. He started asking me questions that started off innocent like what I was looking for but they slowly got more unnerving. He started asking how old I was which I answered truthfully thinking him knowing I was 14 would turn him off of me. Then he asked me what school I went to and asked if I was here alone. I lied about my school and said no my dad was with me.

I had alarm bells ringing and decided it was time to get out of there. I left the shoe section and started walking around looking for my dad. I was cautious and every time I looked around Michael was somewhere behind me staring. I started to panic and started going up to different levels of the store and finally found my dad. At this point I was almost shaking. I told my dad everything that had happened and he immediately looked for the guy. He was nowhere to be found. Since we couldn't find him we went straight to the security office and told them everything. The most terrifying thing, there was no employee there by the name of Michael.

This guy actually took the time to print out a fake name tag. We looked at all the security cameras to try and find him in the store but he was long gone. I have no idea who this man was or what his intentions were with me but I have a feeling they were not good. This isn't the first time I've been stalked or almost kidnapped but that's a story for another time. I really hope he never got another girl alone but he's out there somewhere still preying on young girls. This happened in New York City back in the late 90s. I'm the adventurous type and had always wanted to live abroad so I decided to take a break from school after college in Europe and try living in the States for a while. I must also state that being raised in one of the safest places on earth did not prepare me for the dangers facing women in many places on earth. During my years in NYC I was stalked and harassed countless times but somehow managed to talk, smile or run my butt out of those situations for the most part. I was in my

early 20s working as a live-in nanny studying and exploring New York in my free time and enjoying every minute of it. My live-in family had recently moved to the Upper East Side from the suburbs and I was loving the transition to the city. I don't know if this matters for the story but minding my own business in the city I frequently received unwanted male attention on the street. This never happened back home, perhaps because in Iceland where I'm born men just don't do that and I probably don't stand out that much out of the tall Nordic crowd but after I moved to the States something about me seemed to be in demand with the local creeps. Don't ask me why but as soon as I got within borough limits I get stopped by pretend model

agents on the streets. Guys would rub up to me on the train while whispering what they wanted to do to me and men of all ages, several times, offered to pay me for favors while I was doing my shopping, having the car serviced, or walking home from the subway. Despite being fresh off the boat, I didn't have to stop and find out what men were after when they would not so discreetly yell, psst, at me while walking down the street. Some were discreet in their attempts to get my attention to

see if I was a lady of the night looking for a customer but several men were quite aggressive when trying to make contact with a girl that was simply minding her own business and obviously not a streetwalker. I'm not sure if this kind of thing happens to other females in NYC but I found it extremely embarrassing and was certainly not giving off any soliciting signals with clothing, makeup, eye contact or whatever. More than once I would get followed on the street or had to switch subway cars to get away from pushy strangers that many seemed fascinated by my long hair. It was unusually long and light back then and since this was the days before hair extensions quite a few people would reach out and touch it. More than once, weirdly always in Queens,

girls at clubs would yank it to see if it was real, which it was. This kind of attention was of course a huge shock to me but the creeps quickly made me street smart. I soon learned to walk with clenched fists and a purpose, avoid eye contact or exchanging smiles, scan my surroundings and learn to be rude to avoid getting into conversations and circumstances where creeps typically make their moves. Once in broad daylight a creep followed me off the street and into my building on the lower east side which back then was quite the neighborhood. I hadn't noticed him following me but as I walked up the few stairs to the front door,

opened the first door with my key and was closing it, a guy came running up the stairs asking me to hold the door. I was staying with friends that time and of course didn't know everybody from the 12 apartments in the building so I obliged and let him in. A very stupid mistake I would come to learn. Then we started scaling the floors. He a few steps behind me for the first couple of floors but when my neck hairs started to tingle and I started running up the last two floors to the fifth floor apartment when I took off the guy started coming up fast behind me but somehow I managed to get my door open and slam it in his face as he was obviously trying to enter behind me. That chase really shook me. Fortunately my friends and their roommates were home so two guys opened the door and checked for the creep.

They found him waiting on the sixth floor landing. He had followed me home and when the guys confronted him about what he was doing there he said that he was waiting for the pretty girl admitting that he had seen me on the street and followed me at least a few blocks back. It was pretty obvious that he followed me with the intent to attack me. We called the cops and they took him away but nothing more ever came of it since in the eye of the law nothing really happened and he had changed his story saying he got lost when the cops questioned him. That incident really stuck

with me but didn't discourage me from continuing enjoying New York City life. The summer of 97 I usually didn't have to work until 11am or later in the day taking care of two easygoing kids so I had a lot of free time to roam the city, go clubbing, to the movies or whatever. I had known the family for years and they were used to me being resourceful and exploring the city without them keeping too close to tabs on me. I did most of this city life exploring alone since my suburban friends rarely made the trip to come into the city. I didn't mind that all too much. I'm independent and have always been happy with my own company. I believe happiness is homemade and

am the type to laugh out loud when my thoughts are funny and they often are. Hashtag no shame. My most memorable night was a very hot and humid Thursday night in the city. I was bored and decided to go out and see a movie. I scanned the paper and found a movie I liked to see playing in a theater on 105th street in Harlem. It was only a short sub ride away and I wasn't worried much for my safety as long as I stayed around people. And there were plenty of people around. This was during the Juliana era and the city had gotten pretty safe at this point, at least in comparison to what it had been in the 80s. It was a very hot and sticky July night so I only wore sandals,

jeans and a white tank top over a bra. I took the subway to 105th, found the movie theater, bought my ticket, snacks and took a seat. Now this part really has nothing to do with the rest of the story but it sort of set the mood for the night. When I walked into the auditorium it was completely empty so I wasn't even sure there was a movie showing in that theater. But the trailers were beginning so I took a seat near the center aisle and presumed more people would be coming. But nobody came. I was all alone in a huge Harlem theater watching Romy and Michelle's high school reunion at 11pm. Understandably I found it really creepy to be sitting all alone in the middle of a theater hall so during the trailers I even went out to the concession stand to ask if I was in the right place and they assured me that indeed the movie was playing and I was in the right place so I went back into the completely empty theater, sat down, and tuned in.

At first I was creeped out sitting alone in the middle of an empty theater, but quickly I got into the movie and figured this was a unique opportunity to let loose, so I roared at the jokes like I owned the place. It was the most memorable movie experience of my life. While it has little to do with what followed, it kind of set the mood because it got me to put my guard down and enjoy the ride when my biological instincts were telling me otherwise. Since I don't often get scared and end up having the time of my life, I was sort of pumped when I exited that theater two hours later. Once the movie was over, I popped into the deli

next to the theater to buy myself some cigarettes for the road and get changed for a subway token as this was back in the olden times of subways, cigarettes, and no cell phones. I was still a bit creeped out after being alone in the theater, so when three pretty normal guys around my age that were queuing in front of me started making conversation, I welcomed the human interaction. After all, I was new in the area and open to making local friends. They were waiting outside the deli when I got out and we ended up talking on the street for a few minutes. The guys were going to a bar down on 14th street and asked me repeatedly to come along. I said it was too far, but the nice guy that was paying me most attention offered me a lift there promising to drive me back to my Upper East Side home after a couple of drinks. I was hesitant but was ready to have a couple of beers before heading home and after looking at identification I got in the front seat of his car while his two friends

took their car there. I was skeptical but I was young and brave and the city was my oyster so I figured why not. There are people everywhere and what's the worst that can happen. Famous last words. So I hop into the car and we drive to the bar and talking on the way. He is pretty nice and normal. A college grad with a nice job so no alarm bells are ringing. We get to the bar and meet his friends, have a drink and they soon leave. We sit, have a couple of drinks total and continue talking. We're only sipping beer and nobody's getting drunk so I have no reservations about getting a ride home, knowing I could always hail a cab or catch the subway. We're there talking for about an hour and are getting along fine.

I didn't want to give out my family's phone number so I memorized his instead. He's telling me about this factory loft he's recently bought cheap in Newport below Hoboken that has a fabulous view over Manhattan and the Hudson. We keep talking and he says that he wants to show it to me. I say later and he says it's so close he can do it on the way back. I'm not convinced at all but I've had enough and want to go home and this supposedly is only going to take a few minutes, through Holland Tunnel and back. He's very nice and acting normal so, okay, I don't argue. you. This is supposedly a fabulous skyline view of Manhattan from the Jersey side which I had never seen so I'm also a little interested in seeing what he's talking about. We drive to this dark and dirty street in Hoboken, walk up three or four flights of stairs of a dark

building that used to house import-export businesses and enter through a metal door into his space. It is pretty much empty aside from some construction material with no interior walls and the only light there is what's coming in through the uncovered windows. The floors are really old and creaking but through the windows you could see an absolutely gorgeous view of Manhattan. I must admit the view was breathtaking. We walk to the windows and stand there in the dark admiring the view for a few minutes. He shows me his pet iguana that was cordoned off in a small area asking me to pet. I'm from Iceland so I know nothing about iguanas, what they eat and how they react when messed with

though I was not as fond of it as he clearly was. I admire the view while he's messing around with the reptile and then I've had enough and want to go home as it's now getting close to 3am. He's clearly disappointed that he's not getting any luckier with me but I managed to convince him to come with me and walk ahead of him down the dark stairs. I felt his mood change on the way down. He tried to stop and kiss me but I said I wanted to go home and dragged him by the arm outside. I walk towards the car and he's watching me from the doorway. I look back and visibly see him make up his mind. I can't explain it but I really could feel that he wasn't

happy with how little sugar I had given him and that he was not going to accept not getting more. The mood had audibly changed when he said, I need to get some more stuff from my apartment. Come, we need to go back up. I politely say that I would rather wait by the car. No, you need to come with me, he said from the doorway and motioned for me to come over. It was a shady abandoned factory street,

not residential, little light and I was standing under the only street light by his parked car. Not at all safe surroundings, but I sensed that I would be much safer waiting outside than going back into the dark with him. I'm waiting, I said. I need you to help me, come back in, he said, waited a few seconds and then went into the building. I waited. He appeared from the third floor window and called down that he wasn't coming

and I needed to come in if I wanted him to drive me later. I was still standing by his car hoping he'd stop and come drive me home but his words were a confirmation of what I had sensed. He felt I owed him something and he was going to collect whether I liked it or not. I just knew from how he was acting that if he got me back into that building he would force himself on me. He was not going to take my repeated no's for an answer. I also concluded that I couldn't trust that he wouldn't attack me on the street or in the car if he ever got out again so I decided to leave and take my chances on my own. I'm not sure if I made the right call there or not but I have a strong feeling that despite the dangers that might come my way if I left that I was in much more danger if I stayed. I walk a little towards

the south and suddenly find myself at a huge intersection where cars are driving to and from the tunnel. I see a couple of cabs with the lights lit so I figured I might as well hail a cab here to take me home despite only having $20 to my name. So I stand there hailing cabs for a while but nobody is stopping. When I've been there a little while a guy walks out of the bar on the corner diagonally across the intersection. I see him spotting me and walking slowly on the next green light over to me. What's the trouble? He says drunkenly. I look at him. He's not bad looking but scruffy and clearly intoxicated. By now I have had enough trouble for one night to be engaging in any chit chat with him.

Nothing, I'm just trying to hail a cab. I reply. I was broke, only had my emergency mad money on me and really couldn't afford the cab fee through the tunnel so I tell him I'm stranded and ask him if there's a bus stop nearby where I can catch a bus back to the city. He keeps talking to me, drunkenly telling me that the buses don't run until morning. I say, thanks, the cab it is then, and start focusing back on the street. He starts talking about the buses, telling me I'd best wait, trying to convince me to come home with him and have some drinks and party, and then I could catch a bus in the morning. I knew very well what he had in mind.

It was written on his face when he was looking me up and down through his drunken haze, weirdly stroking my hair all the way down my back to the tips that fell at the small of my back. By now, this drunken guy had a fistful of my hair, holding between his fingers and wasn't letting go. No thanks, I reply. Sorry, I need to focus on this. He won't let up trying to convince me to come with him. Tells me the streets are dangerous and point towards the building across the street where he supposedly lives while still trying to stroke my hair with his dirty fingers.

No thanks, I reply. He continues to ogle me and invite me up to party. I decide to move in order to get rid of him, politely pull my hair back, roll it into a ponytail, stuff it down the back of my tank top and walk across the street on the next green light. What do you know? He follows me across the intersection. I ask him to leave me alone and he doesn't. I walk back across the street on the next green light and he follows. I ask the guy again to leave. Said I needed to focus on getting a cab and that I'm not down to party. The conversation goes something like this. Why are you so uptight? He asks. I've had a terrible night and I just want to be left alone. I snap back. What are you on? He asks, glaring at me through his haze. Adrenaline? I yell at him. You're creeping me out. Just please leave. He looks at me and finally registers that I'm not going home with him to party,

so he just stands there staring at me. This is getting beyond weird. He just stands there looking and doesn't move. I walk along the street again on the light and he follows, maintaining the same distance of around six feet, less than two meters. All of a sudden I spot a cab coming my way out of the tunnel feet, less than two meters. All of a sudden I spot a cab coming my way out of the tunnel with the available top light on. I run towards it and wave frantically to the driver like a madwoman.

The cab crosses one lane and pulls up to the curb. I jump in and lock the door without even looking back or at the driver. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I gush, relieved to the driver who's looking at me concerned. He asks with a thick accent, was this guy bothering you? Yes, I exclaimed. Thank you for stopping. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't arrived. He then tells me that his shift just ended and he was on the way home to sleep when he spotted me and said that I looked so frightened and in trouble so he decided to stop and offered me to be the last ride of the night. I leveled with him and tell him that I just need to get across the river and that I'm broke and can only give him $23 and a subway token for the ride. He tells me not to worry and we start talking. I ended up telling the whole

story and how stupid I was to have allowed myself to go somewhere with somebody I'd met on the street and hardly known for a couple of hours. He was probably around my age but gave me fatherly advice and a lecture on security. I thanked the driver profusely for saving me and we ended up having a great conversation on the way back about all sorts of things, the least of which being the political landscape in his homeland Pakistan and how worried he was about the growing influence of religious fanatics. When we arrived at Sotheby's around the corner where I lived he refused to accept my money and we shook hands through the divide. To this date I still send warm thoughts to the kind Pakistani cab driver that saved me that night from god knows what, but mostly my own naivety. The next day I called the number that I had memorized,

got an answering machine and let the guy have it in a voicemail. I called him a heartless, unconscionable wannabe that left me stranded in New Jersey of all terrible places and that I barely managed to get home safely no thanks to him and said firmly that we both knew I would not have gotten home unassaulted if I had stayed longer with him. I felt a little better after that one-sided phone call and unsurprisingly he didn't use star 69 or caller id to call me back i have had countless fantastic adventures since then and continue to explore the world on my own if it suits my mood but i will never forget that hot july night back when i was young adventurous and most of all ignorant to the ways of the world.

This story occurred when I was around the age of six. Quite a few things are a blur and I may not explain everything in exact detail or leave some things out. I will also replace any real names with fake ones for personal reasons. We were in the car on our way to Hobby Lobby. My brother in the front seat and me in the back seat, waiting to reach the store, hoping to get a toy or candy. When we reached Hobby Lobby we entered and everything seemed completely fine at first. There were two men I saw a bit often but I didn't think much of it considering I was young and seeing a person more than once wasn't anything that would set off an alarm. When my mom finished shopping which felt like hours, although it was most likely only around the span of 15 minutes, I started to get bored and began twirling in a circle,

watching my dress flow in the air. I wasn't spinning in one spot, I was spinning away from my mom and brother not paying attention to my surroundings. As I was focused on my dress, I bumped right into a stranger. I turned around and saw that the stranger was the same man I had seen a few times around the store. He was tall with a cowboy hat and seemed to be around his late 60s. He smiled at me. His smile wasn't friendly. It was way creepy and immediately set off an alarm in my head. Now I was shy and didn't talk to anyone outside of my family so I didn't say sorry.

I took a few steps back before turning around and running back over to my brother and mom. I have been told that I am a great judge of character. Ever since I was young, I have always been the type to follow my instincts. I felt something odd about that man though. I tapped my mom's shoulder to tell her about him and though she will say otherwise, she didn't really put much thought into it and told me to be quiet and that she is trying to pay the cashier. I continued to tug on her sleeve to get her attention, but she just ignored me and proceeded to talk to the cashier.

It wasn't until my brother backed me up telling my mom about the man that she started to listen to me. We left Hobby Lobby and began walking to our car. I noticed the man with his what we'll call friend was getting into an old looking jeep at the same time we were reaching our car. I was still naive despite my odd feelings about the man and just assumed that he was leaving at the same time as us coincidentally. As we were driving my mom and brother realized that the exact same jeep was following us. My mom called my dad asking him what we should do about the situation. I remember her saying something along the lines of,

I don't know what to do. I know we can't go home, Nick. I'm not about to let him find our address and risk anything happening to my little girl. I don't want to make this any longer than it already is just for the sake of you readers, so I'll try to make this short. Instead of going home, my brother, continuing to tell my mom that the jeep is still trailing behind us, we drive our way to Walmart. We reached Walmart a bit sooner than those men and managed to get into one of the aisles so they couldn't see us, though I was still on edge. Eventually when we were in one of the aisles I felt a tap on my

shoulder and turned around. Thank god I did and didn't shrug it off. I saw the same man with his friend behind him. He said something like ah there you are with a creepy smile curling his lips. My mom's back was facing me so she didn't see him. Still being shy I decided to grab my mom's arm and jumped in front of her trying to get her attention. She turned around confused until she saw the tall man right before her eyes. She began to snap at him sternly telling him to go away and that he's scaring me. I remember him saying something quote-unquote flattering like, oh I didn't mean to scare her, she's just very beautiful. He said this as he leaned toward me a bit with an even bigger smile on his face.

My mom snapped again telling him that he is scaring me and that he needs to go away. I still think my mom to this day that she was such a strong brave woman because after her stern voice almost yelling at him to leave us alone we never saw him again. I am very thankful that I listened to the voice in my head telling me that these men were dangerous. If I hadn't who knows what he would have tried to do with me. Readers if you have a voice in your head I advise that you listen to it right away. It's better to be safe than sorry. Throughout my very early morning work shifts, 6am here in Texas, I'm alone every day that I work for

about the first hour or so. I came across your YouTube channel via Mr. Davis listening to the creepy stories or factual crime ones and they never fail to keep my interest and amuse me as I pass the time away baking bread from where I work. I didn't start out listening to YouTube. Pandora used to be my go-to thing at first. I have to keep some kind of background noise going to fill the silence of the building until someone else comes into work. I do this because as everyone who works there knows, we have a ghost in the building. Most will laugh it off until something actually occurs that shocks them and then they finally believe. For instance, things fall off

places where no one has been around or you may see a shadow move out of the corner of your eye just ever so quickly. I have experienced more than most. I believe this is due to the fact that I said I am completely alone in the building until someone else comes in to work. I have actually felt someone tap my shoulder or pull on my work shirt, but of course when I turn around no one is ever there. You constantly get the feeling of being watched. I'm used to it actually. If I'm not having a particularly good morning I just turn around and say to the air, I don't want to play today and it seems to lessen the tension. Whether this is just a trick of my mind or not I don't know but it helps so I do it. One co-worker recently told me he finally believed our stories because when he was alone in the

building on a day I happened to be off he looked over to my work area just in time to see a leg and foot of what he thought was one of our co-workers going around into a corner of my bakery. It has no way out of there but back the way you came. He said he thought that someone was trying to scare him so he thought he would go scare them instead but when he went straight over there the space was completely empty. The idea of a haunted workplace used to scare me. Now I'm just used to it and realize that nothing is going to hurt me. And so long as our little ghost friend plays nice, I don't really mind at all. This story takes place a year ago. My best friend, let's call her S, was in town from another state and

my other best friend, let's call her K, was turning 21. S and I were 22 at the time and we had been to a few bars before so we decided to take K out bar hopping for her 21st birthday. After a few bars and plenty of drinks and also plenty of creepy dudes because women can't go anywhere alone without at least one creep lurking. We decided to go to the strip club. It sounds weird but honestly lady readers it was a ton of fun. Every woman should go to the strip club at least once. We were drinking with the dancers on their breaks and we also had most of their attention when they were dancing because we actually appreciated them instead of drooling over them like dogs. They were happy to see female faces. I'm sure they deal with their fair share of creeps. Kay has extremely long and thick hair that goes down

past her butt. She was turned around facing the dancers enjoying her 21st and listening to the music as S and I turned away talking to each other. Then all of a sudden I see a man reach out and go to pet K's hair. Yes, he was literally trying to pet her. I don't know if it was liquid courage or complete shock and rage at what I was seeing but I grabbed this man's wrist before he could even touch her. I bent his wrist backward and put my forearm up to his chest and started pushing him back and said as loud and assertive as I could, did you really just try to pet her? No, I didn't, he says with a smile. Yes, you did, I said even louder. Why don't you just sit your butt down and leave her alone? I shouted at him. Now this may have been stupid of me because this was a very large man and he had four friends with him.

But he sat down with his mouth wide open. Dumbfounded he didn't say anything. Or maybe because he got caught, I don't know. And after a few more scoldings from S to this man and his buddies, one of the dancers saw the commotion and sent a bouncer over in our direction. We told him what happened and the creeps got thrown out. Now the moral of the story I was in 6th grade. On this particular day our science teacher was out sick so we had a substitute. This teacher often subbed for our school and had two older children that also went to our school.

A son, Jerry, that was in 8th grade and a daughter that recently left for high school. Our school wasn't very big and we all knew everyone so the relationship was common knowledge. Everyone knew her by name, she was basically treated like she was a part of the full time staff. Though I knew of their existence I never really interacted with her kids as they were older than me but soon enough I was going to get to know who her son really was. About halfway through class I asked if I could use the bathroom. This teacher was the type to ask, I don't know, can you? You all know the type. This was quite irritating but I really had to go so I gave no lip and made the grammatical correction.

I grabbed the hall pass and made the long walk down the hallway running my fingers along the lockers. I had to use the bathroom but I was also in no hurry to get back right away, at least at this moment I wasn't. After I take care of my business I went for a sip of water at the fountain. I go for the short one because that water always seemed colder than the others. After a few seconds of me greedily slurping down water, our school had no AC, I feel a firm grip cupping my butt with both hands. I could feel the warmth of their body on my backside and it made my skin crawl. I immediately sat up with water running down my chin. When I turned around, I saw Jerry looking down at me with

a calm expression like this was a totally normal interaction. I say, what are you doing? But instead of waiting for a response I start fast walking back to class and I could hear him aggressively whispering for me to slow down. I'm not stupid so I don't oblige. That hallway felt like it went on forever. Hearing him a few paces behind me made my heartbeat harder than I ever thought it could. I could hear it in my ears. My footsteps and my heartbeat became indistinguishable. Once I got back to class I quickly sat down with my friends. It was only then that I realized that I was clutching the hall pass for dear life. I must have looked like a deer in headlights because they immediately

asked me what was wrong. As I fought tears and told them what happened, I tried my best to keep it out of earshot of the teacher. I was afraid that she would be mad if she found out. Stupid, I know, but I was young and thought that she wouldn't believe me. I noticed that my friend Sarita was unusually quiet for the rest of the period. After class she pulled me aside and told me the same thing happened to her not too long ago. She never told anyone. I decided to tell our math teacher during lunch. It wasn't hard to convince Sarita as now she wouldn't have to do it alone. Our math teacher, Miss Fletcher, was young and very open. She made us feel safe and comfortable.

We knew she would believe us and she did. I don't remember what happened after that. I assume he got suspended because I didn't see him for a while but I never really saw him that much anyways because of our grade difference for me to tell. After this experience, when we would have that substitute teacher, I would feel awkward around her, not knowing if she knew it was me. She never said anything and never gave me any indication that she knew. If I would have never said anything, Sarita would have never said anything. He would have been free to do it again and again as long

as everyone was too afraid to confront the issue. I can understand being scared, I really can. It's almost as if someone saying something makes it real. I guess that's why I didn't run. In 8th grade they moved 7th and 8th graders in with the high school. I would see him regularly, he never spoke to me, He only looked at me with that same calm expression. He never did anything but he still made me uncomfortable nonetheless. I know some people may not think that this was a big deal but knowing that I'm graduated now and I remember it like it was yesterday proves that it has made an impact on me. It may not be a huge impact but it will still stick with me. This experience has taught me how to deal with potentially more serious things that could

occur in the future. The place in which these events took place is a holiday resort about two hours away from where I live. I've been going there every summer for years and so do many of my friends from home. The area isn't too big. It consists of a few housing estates, some better off than others, and some restaurants, a bar and a grocery store. The main attraction is the beach and the golf course. If you don't play golf and don't do any water sports then as a 15 to 17 year old teenager the only thing there is to do is get drunk with your friends in the night. I fell into this

category. Obviously we were all minors so we'd drink on the beach when no adults were out. Nearly every teenager kid did this. The golf course I mentioned earlier drink on the beach when no adults were out. Nearly every teenager kid did this. The golf course I mentioned earlier runs onto the beach so we'd all cycle over the golf course and into the beach at night as a shortcut. So this happened a few years ago and it was just a normal night. We'd gotten our drink and we were headed for the beach. Two of my friends had left a couple of wooden pallets on the beach earlier that day so we

could light a fire to keep us warm so we went looking for pallets in pitch black dark with just the moon as a source of light. Then in the distance we saw a firelight. We assumed some of our other friends from the neighboring housing estate got to the pallets earlier. As we got closer to the light we noticed the people gathered around it weren't anyone we recognized. There were about 9 or 10 guys and not one of them that I could see were from the area. I know this because as I said the holiday resort is quite small and close knit

and everyone either knows or knows of everyone there, even the locals. They were older kids, probably around 19 to 20. They were using the pallets we brought down to the beach for a fire. They were definitely drinking heavily. One of my friends got confident and stupidly decided to shout at them not knowing what the consequences would be. They then looked at us and began running towards us from the beach. We all scattered and started running away knowing that they were after us. I remember vividly hiding in a bunker on my own. I only realize now how stupid it was to hide let alone hiding in a bunker. I could hear them shouting saying

that they'd find us and get us. I hid beneath there for around two minutes until about four guys found me. They gathered around me and demanded I follow them. I tried to run but they grabbed me. I remember I began tearing up but the terror left me emotionless. They brought me down to the beach and threw me into the sand. One guy then said, give me your phone and any money you have. I didn't want to get hurt so I complied. Unfortunately I only had a bit of change as we already bought our drink and I had no phone because we knew we could misplace things if we were too drunk which in hindsight was pretty dumb. The fact that I had very little money seriously made them mad. After accusing me of not giving them everything I had on me one of the

older guys said let's fling him into the bonfire. He said it thinking it would be fun as if it was some sort of sick joke. Before I could think to run two guys grabbed me by the arms. I'll never forget how terrified I was. I shouted no don't as if it would help. I squirmed and tried to fight their grip as they dragged me closer and closer to the fire. I could feel the heat gradually getting more intense. I really thought I was going to get lobbed into a bonfire. Then out of some miracle I managed to escape one of their grips and I shook free of the other and I ran for my life. They ran after me as far as the golf club. I think the only reason they didn't catch me is because they were drunk and I was sober and more aware.

As soon as I realized that they weren't tailing me anymore I sat down against a wall and just began crying. I was so scared. I was too scared to even get up. I didn't even have my phone to call my friends. I didn't know if they were okay. I left my bike on the golf course so I had to walk home that night. I texted my friends and explained what happened and we all assured one another we were okay. The next morning my friend and I decided to stay at home for the remainder of the holiday. We never told our parents out of fear that we get in trouble for drinking. I regret not having told them considering that these guys could have done this to someone again the next night and maybe that person wouldn't have been as lucky.

My friend Sam's birthday was coming up. She told me her birthday and I completely forgot, and a few days after she told me I decided to make an OC. For those of you not in the art community, it's an original character you create and use into stories and such. I decided this character's birthday was going to be March 14th, and when I showed off this character to her she exclaimed, Oh my god, Mary! You made see you have the same birthday as me. After she told me I put it into my phone calendar to March 14th. After a week of preparing for her birthday she reminded me it was on the 12th. I looked at her super confused. What? You told me it was on the 14th. She was just as shocked to hear me say this. But Mary, you wrote it down into your calendar. March 12th.

My boyfriend had arrived and asked what we were talking about. I gave him the rundown and he was a little skeptic. Her birthday is literally tomorrow. I was there when she told you. When I finally looked at my phone calendar, it did indeed say March 12th. I was going crazy. My whole world kind of felt odd. Did I just experience a Mandela effect? Did your mom make you birth two days earlier?

Maybe I misheard her, but that couldn't be right. I remember clearly that my boyfriend and her had both said March 14th. Ever since after her birthday, my world had begun to spiral. Every time I blinked, it felt like hours had passed. I was going through periods of weeks where it all felt like a dream. A month of this happening, one day everything seemed to go back to normal. I've had no recollection of the past month, but the mix-up of her birthday will never leave my mind. Saturday nights. It's amazing how much a city can change when the sun goes down. Streets once plotted by wholesome families and smartly dressed professionals

become the haunt of junkies and freaks once the sun dips below the horizon. Orange streetlights flicker on, giving shadowy alleyways a distinct air of menace as they're proud by drunks and delinquents. Quiet city corridors begin to bloom with deep bass of electronic dance music, so heavy that it rumbles through the earth, practically shaking the cracked concrete beneath your feet. Broken bottles, puddles of fresh vomit, and the detritus of a thousand pizza and burger boxes plastering the pavement. Bruised alpha egos led to a flurry of fists, screaming girls, and blue flashing lights. Never was there such a vision of chaos.

But that's exactly where I found myself as I was guilted into attending a friend's birthday drinking session. I mean, it was his 21st birthday, indisputably a milestone, so I thought it better to make it out for a few hours instead of staying home and sulking like some kind of wet blanket. It wasn't so bad after the first couple of beers. We enjoyed the novelty of getting to use real IDs instead of the expensive, unconvincing fakes we'd bought from a crooked owner of a corner store. I must admit to having never seen such gorgeous, well-dressed women in my entire life. Each and every female, from the waitstaff to the barstaff, could have been a model and to actually have them interact with me was almost as intoxicating as the booze. Then I saw her. Gyrating alone in the center of the dance floor was a girl with a pastel pink pixie cut and short black cocktail dress. The way she moved was straight up mesmerizing. Hypnotic hips that

were perfectly synchronized with the booming rhythm of the music. I know it's rude to state but I absolutely could not help myself. Despite conscious effort to the contrary my eyes were fixed on one of the most beautiful alluring girls I had ever laid eyes on. My buddies caught me staring and began to tease me mercilessly for it. A flurrying of hair ruffling and elbows to the ribs demands that I have to approach or forever be known as a coward. I tried to play it cool, taking a swig of my beer before assuring them that I'd make my move when I was good and ready. A little confidence seemed to keep them off my back but it didn't take long before they were back at it, pressuring me into at least offering her a drink.

Dude, she's at the bar, now's your time, go for it. One of my friends pushed me towards her so hard that he almost spilled my beer. I decided it was better to fail gracefully than to risk spending the night with a shirt that reeked of stale cores. I took one last gulp of my beer, felt the butterflies doing loops in my stomach and made my way towards the bar. At first I just pretended to be waiting for a drink as I sidled up next to her. Play a cool man, I thought to myself, having been completely unaware of just how terrifying the situation could be. The anticipation I could feel my cheeks flushing pink as my palms grew clammy. I greeted her casually, making a remark about dying of thirst if the overly casual bar staff would make it over here. To my delight, she found it amusing, looking up at me with pale blue eyes.

She was short, yeah, maybe only 5'1", but that only made her all the more adorable to me. She had this perfect combination of cuteness and sensuality that almost every guy finds to be rapidly appealing. She said her name was Katie. I offered her a drink, which she accepted and we got talking. She said she was single, that she was waiting for friends, how she was kind of annoyed that they were late. The conversation was casual, flirtatious, and only ended when one particular song began to pump out of huge industrial speakers. Her eyes lit up. I barely heard her over the music, but she said something about it being her favorite, her jam, as she put it. And that's how it went. Drinking, dancing, flirting, barely even remembering that I was

only there for a friend's birthday. I felt almost guilty until I caught his look of approval from across the club. Once I knew I had his seal of approval, that's when the night seriously began to take hold. By midnight, we were kissing in a dark corner as dry ice drifted in the air around us. I felt like the luckiest guy in the universe, especially when she took out her phone and ordered an Uber to take us back to her apartment. It was the first time I'd done anything like this in my life. I was hardly the most sociable person and the lifestyle of a college-aged Lothario hardly seemed like my cup of tea, but here I was living the dream with the

girl of my dreams. It felt like a perfect night. It ended that way too. Piles of clothes hastily discarded around her room, drunken giggling, slurring of words as the tension built to a feverish intensity. The softness of her bedsheets as naked skin touched for the first time. The scent of her hair as she held me close. We fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms. The perfect way to end a perfect night. I woke up alone. I had barely opened my eyes before the hangover kicked in. A throbbing in my skull, complete with a mouth like a sandpit and a stomach that felt like it was doing backflips. Then, I remembered the previous night's events. With a smug smile, leaned back against Katie's soft, sweet-smelling pillows and took a moment

to revel in my conquest. I checked the bedside table, half expecting a note explaining her absence. There was nothing. Just then I heard the telltale sound of keys jiggling outside, the distinct sound of a key sliding into a lock. She's home. I remember thinking as a warm smile curled my lips. What I heard next had me sitting up in bed, eyes wide and full of fear. It was a voice. A deep, gruff, booming voice.

A man's voice. The man began to call out to Katie, talking to her as if he expected her to be home. My heart was racing as I silently gathered up my clothes, throwing them on frantically as raw fear cut through my insides like a knife. This was like a bad movie. Unlike those bad movies where the lovable, scampish Romeo hilariously escapes from the predicament of infidelity, this wasn't funny at all. It was utterly terrifying.

Any moment, he would walk into the bedroom, expecting his girlfriend or wife to be there, only to find a half-naked interloper caught in the act. I had no choice. I had to hide in the only place available to me, the bedroom closet. Trying not to breathe as I stood perfectly still, I found myself peeking out of a small gap in the double doors of the closet. My eyes were glued to the bedroom threshold just waiting for my future murderer to walk in and sniff me out. When he did, it was worse than I could have imagined. He was huge, muscle-bound, and brutish with ginormous arms that were covered in tattoos. I didn't think it was possible to be any more frightened, but I was wrong. In the dim light of the closet, I began to notice something strange about some of

the clothes hanging next to me. Some of them looked like military uniforms. Old, musky smelling garments with runic looking epaulets. Some of the symbols on the uniforms were the same as those tattooed on the guy's arm. Nothing I could recognize. But one symbol was instantly recognizable. An armband on one of the uniformed jackets, red and black with a markedly rigid white star-like shape in its center. It was a swastika. With trembling hands, I reached up to my neck, feeling the absence of a certain gold necklace I usually wear. It was handed down from my great-grandfather who was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp. In utter horror, it dawned on me that my little Star of David necklace, one of my most prized possessions, was sat on the bedside table waiting to be found.

I watched the thuggish neo-Nazi ape as he scanned the bedroom, seeing it in his face that he knew something wasn't right. A bit down on my lip to keep quiet, so hard I felt my teeth splitting the thin membrane of flesh before tasting blood on my tongue. This is how I'm going to die, I thought, a cold sweat forming as my entire body began to tremble. He's going to stomp my skull into the carpet and he's going to enjoy every second of it. After what felt like an eternity, he exited the room, calling out to Katie again as he began to search the apartment for her. I saw my chance. Shaking with adrenaline, I crept out from the closet and tiptoed across the room. My eyes were glued to the star of David Pennant, my ears straining to keep track of the neo-Nazi's movements through the apartment.

Footsteps grew louder, his voice grew nearer. He was coming back to the bedroom. In a flash, I grabbed the necklace and dashed over towards the window. It was a third floor apartment, but the logic was simple. Maybe break a leg jumping to freedom, or definitely be murdered by the neo-nazi boyfriend of the girl I just slept with. I looked down, feeling my stomach churn as the vertigo hit me. 20 or 30 feet, that's all. Bend the knees, roll as you land. Whatever's down there is better than what that scumbag is going to do. Just do it.

Take the pain and take it, I told myself. I grabbed hold of the windowsill, took a deep breath, and jumped. If it hadn't been the day before garbage pickup, I don't think I'd be around to write this. Aside from a few cuts and bruises, I walked away from the jump without so much as a sprained ankle. I know I couldn't quite believe in myself. I honestly thought I was too hopped up on adrenaline to feel the pain of whatever bone I'd broken, but I guess I just got lucky. Later that year, in a college classics lecture, our lecturer got onto the subject of the Odyssey. He described Odysseus and his crew of sailors,

sailing home to Ithaca and encountering a group of sirens on a rocky cliff. They sang to the sailors, luring them in with their beauty, drawing them into dead rocks hidden among the waves. Our lecturer continued to describe how those poor doomed sailors wondered so blindly to their fates, and in that moment, I knew exactly how they felt. I know what I am. I know I'm a bad person and to tell the truth I don't really care. The world spins to the rhythm of exploitation. It's a sad fact. So why should I be any different? Why should I try and be some island of principle in a sea of abuse and manipulation?

It's people's own fault if they have too much money or if they're too lonely. If people weren't so dumb or desperate, there's no way what I do would work. Besides, if it wasn't me doing it, someone else would step up and take my place. Over the past few years, I've made thousands of dollars off the backs of pathetic, gullible men and women who think it's possible for love to bloom over a fiber optic cable. I am a catfish, and this is my confession. So here's the deal. First thing you need to do for any successful catfishing operation is building a fake but convincing profile on Facebook or Instagram, whatever medium you choose.

Finding pictures of a suitable girl is pretty hard. They need to be cute, not too sexy, and they can't be anything that a reverse image search will find. Your best bet is to use a pre-existing profile, steal the photos, and then put a block on the original profile. Once your catfish profile is up and running, the next step is choosing the right mark. First, you don't just pick one rich looking dude and focus all your attention on them. The key is picking four or five guys and working them all at once, even if you can only milk like a couple hundred dollars from each of them. That adds up pretty

quickly. You can't pick anyone too smart or anyone too dumb. Too smart, they'll figure you out in a day or two. Too dumb, and sometimes they can't even manage to set up a PayPal account or even remember their bank account details. This is where I messed up. It was my first and last poor choice of Mark that has led me to type up this confession. I can't give out this particular guy's real name but we'll just call him Mark, pun very much intended. Mark was unusual from the beginning. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who had a lot of cash, but as I said, that doesn't really matter sometimes. Catfishing is accumulative, not quantitative. I gave him the usual sob story,

telling him how I only needed a hundred dollars or so to pay rent before Christmas. December is by far the best time to pull off a catfish scam too. All that Christmas spirit so ready to be taken advantage of. You can spin all kinds of tales about needing money to buy presents for poor impoverished relatives. I also did the usual thing of promising some kind of meetup, a line about how a guy as cute and generous as him couldn't possibly be single. That line always slays. Flattering goes a long way when conning someone. High self-esteem can blind a person from their own mistakes. I must admit though, I was shocked when my PayPal balance suddenly jumped up to $5,000. The payment description just said, Mark. I knew he'd fallen for the profile, but to think he had so much cash on hand just to throw away, I was amazed.

Obviously, I wrote a long, fake thank you message to him, filling it with overly emotional hyperbole about how he'd save Christmas for my whole family. My curiosity peaked, however. I had to ask him what he did for a living that would explain such inordinate amounts of money. He said he sold things on the dark web. This is where alarm bells should have been ringing for me. He had mentioned that he was good with computers, how he could fix my laptop if I ever needed it, for free too. But I'm no tech nerd, I had no idea anyone could be so proficient with electronics. So when I finally decided to cut ties with Mark and make off with my earnings, I figured that was that. Usually guys are too ashamed to have been tricked to actually take

action, they just quietly try to forget about being scammed in the sleaziest way possible. But, like I said, Mark was different. A week after I deleted the catfish profile, my phone buzzed as an incoming message arrived in my inbox. I took out my phone, confused to see a message without a number or ID attached to it. I couldn't immediately see what the message said either. The number had sent over a picture so that the alert simply said something like, Restricted Caller has sent a picture. When I opened it, the hairs on my arms began to stand on end. I know it was you. It was a screenshot. Someone had written the words with pen and paper, took a photo, and then sent it to me. I suppose I had been waiting for something like this to happen.

It's not like I hadn't gone through the process in my head. I would simply deny, deny, deny. I feigned ignorance and replied with something along the lines of, who's this? They'd never be able to tie the catfish profile to me. At least that's what I thought. Front door came the reply. That got me worried. I tried to rationalize the messages telling myself it must be a wrong number or a friend of mine with a new number or something. A few of my buddies knew what I did to earn cash and they didn't complain so long as I spread the wealth. I figured it must be one of them pulling some kind of prank on me.

Somewhat more relaxed, I wandered downstairs towards my front door. It's one of those with a warped glass pane in the middle so you can see if there's anyone on the other side. No one was there, at least no one was there in that moment. Curiously I opened up the door scanning the street for signs of anyone. Nothing. Then I looked down. On the ground just in front of me were two pieces of raw, bloody meat. I remember being grossed out initially. Maybe one of the neighbor's cats had gotten a little too bloodthirsty on one of its nightly hunts, but on closer inspection,

I recoiled in horror. It was a heart. A heart that had been sliced in two. I could clearly recognize the distinct chambers and thick flesh that we had learned about in high school. It didn't even occur to me that it could be human. It's pretty easy to get a hole of pig or lamb's heart from a local butcher. I just kicked the pieces off of the front step, making another quick scan of the surroundings before returning to my bedroom. It was definitely one of my friends playing a prank on me, and there was no other explanation. Back in my bedroom I was setting up a fresh Facebook profile for my next catfish, when

suddenly my mouse stopped working. I wiggled the thing around but the pointer still didn't move. I was just about to check the USB connection when the mouse pointer began to move on its own. I watched in confusion as the pointer opened up a Word document, closing all other windows except one, an internet browser. I have no trouble admitting that I was terrified by the time some phantom seemed to type out a sentence before my very eyes.

I know what you did, and you're going to pay. Someone had taken remote control of my PC. The internet explorer opened up now, a webpage loading instantaneously as if queued up to do so. What appeared was a grainy video of a guy kneeling on some kind of jungle floor. A trio of men spoke Spanish behind him all wearing military camouflage. One guy took out a machete, slapping the kneeling man a few times before he began to... I know what it was. The page was Blog del Narco. The man was about to be executed. Don't look away. The words appeared in the document as if by magic. I didn't even see them being typed out this time. I watched as the

man in camo raised his machete and began to hack off the kneeling man's head. I tried my mouse again, suddenly losing patience and turning off the whole PC at the plug. Then the phone call came. I can't talk about what happened next. Mark doesn't want me to give away how he was able to find me, how he was able to do that to my PC. But I'm supposed to inform all of you that I gave back his money, every penny of it. I swear to God I will never, ever catfish anyone ever again. There are people out there who have the will and the means to find people like me

and who also have the powers to punish them. It took me a while to type this out as I'm still recovering from the final payment that Mark demanded. It was an easy choice though when he told me how he could hire an addict to kill me for considerably less money than I stole. The terrifying reality of the situation hit home. This was painful to write out. I feel genuine shame. Just please remember, not everyone on the internet is who they say they are. Some people are even more terrifying than you can possibly imagine.

I grew up in Bristol, a beautiful but small city in the southwest of England. Settled by the Romans over a thousand years ago, people have made their homes on the banks of the river Avon ever since. We get our fair share of crime much like any city but my life in Bristol had been a quiet one. Nothing terrible ever happened in our neighborhood but nothing too wonderful ever happened either. It was a quiet life, a good life. Until I met a boy that would change how I thought of the world for the rest of my life. Guys tend to think dating is easier for girls. They think we hold all the cards, that we can have our pick of the bunch.

But that's simply not true. We have just as much trouble finding a suitable partner, it just happens to manifest in other ways. I wonder if guys have any idea how difficult it is to find someone who's romantic, but not too clingy, who's engaging, but aloof. I know I might be searching for someone that doesn't exist, but a girl can dream, can't she? I think that's why I was so excited when I met Nathan. He was everything I ever wanted in a guy. He was handsome, funny, and smart. He also had this smoldering look about him. It sounds crazy to say it now, but I wanted someone a little dangerous. Not actually dangerous, but, you know, someone who gives off that kind of vibe without being an actual psycho. Nathan exuded that to a T. He had these dark circles under his eyes and this silent manner

about him that was kind of scary, but I found him anything but. He was so sweet when you penetrated that daunting veneer. The honeymoon period lasted a few months. Nathan was a few years older than me and I had a part-time job, so naturally he spent a lot of his weekly wages on dates together. We would catch a movie, grab a burger, then spend an hour or two making out in a nearby park as the sun went down. Sure, things were getting pretty serious, but I wasn't quite ready to go all the way with him, not yet anyway. That's where things started to unravel. He would become increasingly pushy and demanding. It even found its ways into our texts. Normally, he was so nice and charming,

sending me messages in the morning, wishing me a great day. But more and more, the texts were graphically explicit, the kind of things I really didn't want to wake up to first thing in the morning. I confronted him about it, asking him to maybe tone it down a little since I wasn't always in the mood to be lewd over the phone. This only made him sad. He apologized and promised he wouldn't do it again. It was easy to forgive him with him saying things like, you make it so hard for me to behave. It was flattering, I admit it. It made me feel desirable. After a while, I decided that I was about ready to take our relationship to the next level. I was a virgin at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided that it was the right

time. I was 18 after all. Most of my friends had done the deed. I was practically the only one left. Naturally Nathan was delighted to hear that I was considering that sort of thing. He began to make all kinds of plans about getting a hotel room or waiting until his parents went away for a weekend. We could have some space to ourselves just to spend some time alone. It sounded romantic. But his ideas, his fantasies, they got weirder and weirder the more time went on. I mean, I knew he was kinky, I was into it, but the things he seemed to have in mind went way beyond just a few harmless bedroom games. It seemed like he was excited by the idea of control, of corrupting something. I got the idea that he saw me as a representation

of all that was innocent and corruptible. That I was not into. So by the time he mentioned something about tying me up and leaving me in the bathroom as some kind of slave, I openly objected. I replied to the message saying that I thought we were moving too far, too fast. His demeanor changed completely. He got angry. He asked me if I even wanted to be with him, if I wanted to make him happy. It was a long tirade of a text message that made me tear up as I read it. He went from angry to downright abusive, calling me frigid and boring that someone as tedious as me could never satisfy someone like him. I remember lying in bed, crying my eyes out, black mascara tears staining the soft pink pillowcases. We didn't talk for days. I thought that was best, that it was the right

thing to do to let the situation calm itself down a little. I was still really upset. He'd never talked to me like he did when we had that fight. He was always so sweet and caring. It disturbed me that he could change so dramatically. I wondered if I'd seen another side of him. But when I saw him in public with another girl after only a few days of us having argued, I was heartbroken. It seemed like any other Saturday morning as I headed out to meet up with friends in Bristol City Centre. I caught a bus for the short journey down to High Street, idling the time by texting my girlfriends trying to work out how I would approach the Nathan situation. I had no idea

the problem would be resolved just moments later. There he was, leaning against a phone box, some black haired girl fawning over him just as I had done months before. At first I thought I was too horrified to approach him, a sick feeling in my stomach keeping me grounded to the spot, but when I saw him lean over and kiss her, outrage soon took over, a boiling indignation that I had never felt before or since. I bawled him out right there, in front of his new girl. I know I must have made a scene but I didn't care. I had been wronged and I didn't care who knew it. The new girl just stood there, shocked to the core, while Nathan gave as good as he got.

He cursed me out in turn, repeating all the stuff he'd spouted during our initial argument. I told him to have a nice life, turned and walked away. Through hanging out with Nathan, I had gotten to know his little sister rather well. Rebecca was his only half-sister, but their parents had been married for years and by that point they were just like any other family. At least it seemed that way. She was a few years younger than myself but she had a kind of maturity about her. Maybe from having grown up so fast thanks to her parents' divorce, maybe from just being the kind of girl she was. Out of curiosity I texted Rebecca asking her what

she knew about this new girl her stepbrother was seeing. She didn't reply. I tried to call her but her line went dead and I got the answering machine. This was the final straw. To think that she had sided with her idiot brother. There was no way she knew the whole story, but that didn't matter to me by then. I just deleted her and her brother's phone numbers and decided simply to move on with my life. I didn't think about either of them until some shattering news hit the airwaves. I will never, ever forget the morning I saw Rebecca's face on the news. It said she was missing. The police were appealing for information regarding her last known whereabouts.

I was absolutely horrified for her. Rebecca, or Becky as we sometimes called her, just wasn't the kind of girl who would just up and run away. Something had happened to her. I just knew it. But when the news broke that Nathan himself had been arrested in connection with her disappearance, the whole horrible affair unfolded before our eyes. That November, a jury convicted Nathan and his new girlfriend of the murder of his stepsister. The court heard that they had conspired to kidnap Becky to use her as some kind of slave.

Instantly, I thought of the message that he had sent me that night, telling me how he wanted to use me for the same purpose. My parents and I were watching a news report on the murder when I heard the details. The entire community was shocked by the grisly crimes. I burst into tears, running to my bedroom as my concerned parents followed. I told them everything. How I had been the girlfriend of the murderer we had just been watching. How it could have easily have been me that ended up dismembered with a circular saw. Some people think dating is easy for girls, but let me tell you, for some of us, it's not just tough, it can be deadly.

Tinder. A poisonous cesspool of lies and prejudgment, somehow straddling the dead ground in between apathy and desperation. The ultimate set of first world problems. Being casually ignored by a girl who sees you as little more than a backup plan. Figuring out a potential flame was only after a free plate of curry and bbq. At least, that's what I thought until one particular profile happened to find its way in front of my thumb. Her name was Faith. She was beautiful. Rich, ebony skin and deep golden brown eyes. Her hair was perfect. Marvelously aesthetic curls that tantalized the eye as they fell.

Pharmacy graduate trying to make the world a better place, her profile read. To think that she was intelligent and idealistic to boot, all my reservations were washed away as I swiped right, feeling a spark of excitement in my chest. Despite my initial enthusiasm, I was well practiced at pushing my hope for potential dates to the very back of my mind. Tinder can be terrible on a person's self-esteem, so for the sake of my own mental health, I didn't really think about the perfect girl's profile. Dawn, a few days later, my phone vibrates against the hardwood of my bedside table, a harsh buzz that echoes around my wary skull and never fails to wake me. Irritably, I rolled over in bed grabbing the offending device to see who was evil enough to text at such an ungodly hour. It was a notification from Tinder. I had a match. With tired but curious eyes, I unlocked my phone, waiting for the app to open

so I could see just who I had matched with. What I saw made my heart skip a beat. It was her. It was Faith. I left out of bed, bounding downstairs to make myself a coffee. I had to wake myself up. I had to be lucid enough to think of a witty opener. Maybe a joke or a compliment. Anything that would make a good first impression on the girl I found myself fawning over. I decided to just be polite. She was obviously something of an early riser so maybe some morning well wishes would serve me well. Good morning. Guessing you're up early for work. Hope you have a lovely day. My heart was practically pounding by the time I pressed send. My head spinning with hopelessly romantic ideas. To my absolute joy, her reply was fast.

Good morning to you. Yeah, I commute to work so I get up super early. Kinda busy right now, but I'll message you later. xxx. I couldn't believe it. She was utterly charming. I struggled to hide my delights as I completed my morning routine. We talked for a few days, sharing interests and telling each other of our worst Tinder experiences. My dating app regrets were forgotten in the midst of those rolling conversations. Eventually, we arranged a Sunday dinner date at a little Vietnamese place I knew of. The food was phenomenal and it never failed to impress, but I must admit to being incredibly nervous in the run-up to our meeting. When the time came, I shaved, put on my

best shirt, and the classiest cologne I could find before walking down to the Vietnamese place. It was a few blocks away, but I found the walk helped calm my nerves, and it gave me time to decide which anecdotes I would break out to combat laws in the conversation. Walking into the restaurant, I saw her immediately. She was radiant. She stood out from the medley of people so much that my eyes were instantly drawn to her. She smiled. I smiled. I felt my cheeks turn a shade of hot pink. It was even more magical than I imagined. I helped her choose a Vietnamese dish that wasn't too spicy. She helped me hold chopsticks like an actual grown-up. She was complimentary and an excellent conversationalist. Every minute in her company was a leisurely breeze. Until it came to her family.

Well, I was actually born in Zimbabwe, though I grew up not too far from here. She said with the same cute smile she had in her profile picture. Oh really? Wow, did your parents work over there or something? My dad works for the government over there, but he travels a lot to a lot of different countries as part of his job. She said, her smile fading slowly as she spoke. He has a hard job, I think so anyway. He has to make very important decisions, so naturally he's under a lot of pressure. Jesus, it sounds like he has a pretty important job. He does, and naturally he gets paid very well. It's something our family is very grateful for. We've always been very privileged in that respect. Seeing the way

some people live in Zimbabwe has always kept me humble. God, she was so thoughtful and world-wise. I found myself staring into her beautiful, ochre eyes as she spoke of her extraordinary life. So, what exactly does your dad do for the government? Is he like a minister or something? I asked after two bowls of chicken pho arrived at our table. He works in security. Her stutter had me paying extra attention. He was one of the top police officers in the country until an incoming president gave him, well, a lot more responsibility. Well, that sounds fantastic. He must be quite a man. He was, shall we say, tough to live with.

I think that's why my mom had us sent to school here in the US. He could be kind of mean sometimes, but he's my dad, so I love him all the same. How about you? What do your parents do? It was obvious she found the topic awkward, and her question to me was little more than a tactical subject change. Still, we continued on the subject for a while. I talked about my mom and dad, what they did for a living. We told each other little stories, tried each other's food, the whole thing was just fantastic, the best date I've ever been on. The night ended with us agreeing to see each other again, and I was elated.

But then, a couple of days go by, her message replies were arriving later and later, until one day they simply ceased. I was desperate not to come off as needy or desperate, so, although it took all the will I had, I didn't send her any follow-up texts. The next week I had a particularly bad day and the whole thing was weighing on my mind. I broke. I typed out a lengthy message about how although we've had fun that night, I was disappointed that she had just ghosted me. I said something along the lines of hoping she was okay and to get in touch if she wanted to go out again, still trying to claw back what I thought was my dream girl. This time the reply was instantaneous, only it didn't come from Faith's number, it came from a restricted one. Restricted was all it read, along with a message that was as confusing as it was mysterious. Don't try to talk to Faith anymore. Forget her.

I immediately hammered out a reply. And who is this exactly? I was horrified when it occurred to me that this could be her boyfriend, that the sweet, thoughtful girl I thought I knew was some kind of unfaithful liar. But again, the reply arrived in mere moments. What I read made my blood run cold. It was my address, house number, street name, even the zip code. I rushed to the window, scanning the dark street and parked cars for any sign of someone watching me.

There was nothing, just dead silence in the empty moonlit street. How did she know where I lived and just who in God's name was texting me? Out of pure fear, I didn't send Faith any more messages. After a while of considering approaching law enforcement about the situation, I decided that the most likely explanation was that she really did have a boyfriend. It's not uncommon for girls to use Tinder to cheat. I figured maybe I was just lucky enough to have been that guy. However, just last week I found my mind wandering back to that wonderful dinner date at the Vietnamese place. How nice it was, even if it didn't bloom into anything. I happen to know Faith's last name and although I'm not proud of

this, I decided to look her up on social media. Everything was gone. Her Instagram had vanished, no more Facebook profile, her Twitter handle came back with nothing. I decided to google her name. Again, nothing. I scoured the search pages for something, anything that would inform me of her fate. But it was like looking for a ghost. Only I did find something. An article about a Zimbabwean politician that had recently captured the presidency in a bloodless coup. He had cracked down on his political rivals, torturing and murdering thousands while subjecting prisoners to horrendous forms of torture. He also had a name that looked very familiar.

The article went on to say that he had appointed his children to positions of power within the country's security services. There were rumors that some of them even presided over advanced interrogations that used powerful narcotics to secure confessions. Needless to say, my jaw was dropped. Pharmacy graduate. My dad works for the government over there. He's in security. He could be mean sometimes. I took my phone out, removed the SIM card, and then flushed the small piece of plastic down the toilet.

I took a walk around the block, checking for idling cars, then down to the narrow river near my house, where I tossed the cell phone into the running waters. On the walk back, I thought of Faith's deep brown eyes, of how she used her chopsticks expertly while eating her noodles. I thought of the sweet, innocent young woman I thought I had come to know, and possibly how wrong I had been about her. We've all had bad dates. You know the kind. Halting, awkward conversations between two people

whose attraction bloomed from a liquor bottle. A girl who orders too many expensive cocktails. A guy who won't shut up about how great he is. We've all been there. I mean, sure, not all dates are terrible. Some are filled with magic and mystery, genuine charm and captivating conversation. This was not one of them. I met Isabelle on Plenty of Fish, what I assumed was a more sophisticated version of Tinder.

I'd been out of college for nearly ten years so I figured that superficial hookup culture was not for me. She seemed cool and creative, an artsy type who seemed as interesting as she was principled. We had a little back and forth at first and despite our interests being somewhat divergent, I'm not into visual arts at all, we got along swimmingly. It wasn't long before we were arranging drinks at a local dive bar she said was cool. It was one of those warm summer evenings perfect for a few drinks and a casual stroll. I wandered down to the dive bar expecting her to be fashionably late.

She didn't prove me wrong, but when she finally did arrive she looked absolutely stunning. An elegant vintage coat made her look like an old movie star. Her bangs hung delicately above shining green eyes. We exchanged greetings, I bought her a drink and we got to talking. It was only then that I began to notice a rather putrid smell hanging in the air. The dive bar was a little grimy. I didn't assume it to be spotless, but the funk that now offended my nostrils was unbearable. It smelt like something rotten, like decaying organic matter, a sweet tinge to an otherwise unworldly stench. Once we finished the first round of drinks, I leapt at

the chance to move to another venue. She seemed slightly confused, but she agreed when I mentioned that I knew of the best French brasserie in town, just a few blocks away. I had assumed a girl as passionate and artistic as her must have been vegan, or at the least vegetarian. I was elated that she wasn't. The waiter sat us down in a candlelit table for two, offering to bring over a wine carafe of our choosing. I opted for the red but visibly winced when the same gross smell wafted around the table. I remember asking if she could smell something. Her eyes were blank as she answered in the negative. To my absolute horror, I realized the smell was coming from her. There was no way that she was not able to smell that sickly rancid scent. Unless of course she was the source of it. Like when you eat too much garlic and are totally unaware of how much it reeks on you. Jesus Christ I remember thinking

how could she not smell that? She began pouring over the menu, musing aloud over what kind of dish she would be feeling. All I could do was look her over, wondering just how someone so pretty could smell so terrible. At the time I figured it must have been some kind of embarrassing medical condition and I instantly felt guilty for judging her so terribly. But when the friendly young waiter came bouncing over to take our order, I knew something was terribly wrong. I'll never forget what Isabelle said as she smiled up at the waiter from her seat. So I see you have the food de voile mayonnaise.

Could you hold the onions and potato puree? Oh, and ask the chef not to cook the meat if that's okay. I was certainly no expert on French cooking, but the look on the waiter's face said all he needed to know. He looked like he was trying as best as he could to keep a blatantly disgusted look from his face. You want the liver raw? He asked. She just nodded, the same pretty smile on her lips. He then turned to me. I just shook my head and told him I wasn't hungry.

I was still in complete disbelief at how the date was unfolding. The only thought in my head consisted of me sprinting out of the restaurant into the nearest cab. The girl was nuts. When her dish came the waiter seemed to be holding the plate as far away from himself as he could manage. He shot me a sympathetic look as he presented her with her chosen meal. I tried not to acknowledge it, I didn't want to embarrass her. Sure, she was repulsive but I wasn't a jerk.

At this point, I didn't think the date could go any worse. She seemed nice, but god, that stench. I get that people have strange diets, all kinds of food fads sweep across the world wide web, but I'd never, ever heard of anyone who ate raw organ meats with their hands. It was mortifying. Diners who were already repulsed by the foul odor were now utterly disgusted with the way she ate. Picking up the slimy dark colored meat with her delicately manicured fingers, she tore at it with her teeth, ripping away chunks of meat that oozed blood as she chewed. I had already decided to feign some excuse for why I had to leave early. I mean, I would have just walked out of there, but I'm not afraid to admit that by that point, I was kind of frightened

of her. It would be absolute folly to offend or annoy someone who ate raw meat with their bare hands. I tried not to watch her as she finished off her meal, ordered more and more drinks from the young waiter who seemed only too happy to increase the size of his tip by medicating me with vodka and orange juice. After enough booze, I finally had the Dutch courage to throw in the towel and call time on the date. I made something up about needing to go home and

feed my dogs. She said she loved dogs and would be only too happy to help feed them. My heart sank. She clearly wasn't ready for our date to end. I added something about having to work in the morning and she counted with an offer to make me all the coffee I wanted. I went from being slightly worried to downright frightened. She had this look in her eyes, one where you could see all of the pupils. God, it's hard to describe now, just trust me that she looked insane as she stared over the table at me. I politely declined, paying the bill in cash before I offered to get her a cab. I avoided eye contact at this point, trying not to show her how nervous I was.

I flagged down the nearest cab and tried to remain a gentleman as I opened up the door for her. Are you sure you don't want to come back to my apartment with me? She asked before we climbed into the back seats. Visions of filth and rot flashed through my mind as I tried to picture the place this girl lived at. God knows what kind of horror lay in store for me there. Um, no, I'm good thanks though. I said, finally beginning to lose patience. But, she said as she licked her lips, the smell of raw flesh wafting into my nose i immediately slammed the taxi door turning my back on her and just walking away i never ever wanted to see or smell isabel again Being single sucks on Valentine's Day.

It sucks even harder when you work in an expensive, fine-dining establishment on the edge of Boston Common, busting the tables of happy, doting couples who are fawning over extravagantly plated dishes. You try to ignore their little displays of affection, focusing on your work instead of being consumed by feelings of jealousy and disdain. Don't get me wrong, number nine parks is a great place to work. The tips are killer, but it's still utterly depressing. So in the run-up to this past Valentine's Day, I made myself a little Tinder account, complete with a witty description and a few choice photos. At first, swiping through endless faces was almost as soul-destroying as working a Valentine's shift.

Almost every profile either smacked of depression or dripped with vapid arrogance, but I soon found myself matching with a couple of attractive local girls as well as a few out-of-towners studying at Boston University. One girl in particular was simply stunning. Her arms were covered in nautical tattoos, intricately colored octopi and jellyfish, while captivating hazel eyes shined almost as bright as her dyed orange hair. Mary, 27, her profile read, Be my Valentine.

Now, as a lot of you may know, you have to have pretty thick skin to use Tinder. Slowly but surely, my match's replies dropped off as their interest waned. Some even laughed and unmatched me when I said I wouldn't be able to make a Valentine's Day date until after 10.30pm when my shift finished. But Mary never, ever failed to reply, sometimes within seconds of me sending a message. Granted, her responses tended to be monosyllabic, almost shy, but she was seriously enthusiastic about the idea of getting together. She said she got lonely on Valentine's Day, that she needed me

to be there for her on that night. Sure, it was unusual for me to get such attention, but as I said, it sucks being single on Valentine's. I met her after work at a little late night place in Chinatown, the kind of stereotypical Asian place adorned with outdated chinoiserie among a sea of red velvet. She said she liked the garlic noodles there, so I figured it'd be a surefire way of getting her back to my place afterward. Mary was even more beautiful in person, albeit with a melancholy look about her as she sat alone at a small table for two, waiting for my arrival.

I opened up with an apology, hoping she hadn't been waiting too long. It turned out she was just as shy in real life as she was online. She barely spoke, and when she did, it was just the odd word. I reminded myself that it wasn't exactly charisma that I was looking for, that it didn't matter how shy she was right now, just that I could get her back to my place after a few drinks. We ate in silence, which didn't bother me too much since I was absolutely famished from a long, tiring shift. Occasionally I would catch her staring at me, her expression blank and emotionless. Any other time I might have considered it creepy, but let's

just say I wasn't quite thinking straight thanks to the prospect of getting laid for the first time in a while. Once we'd finished, I paid the bill, tipping the Chinese waiter generously. On previous dates, I'd always try and impress the girl in question with a generous tip. Usually they're pretty impressed by the gesture, associating it with kindness and thoughtfulness. But Marie didn't even react. She just kept staring at me across the table, her gaze unflinching as the waiter reached across the table in front of her. We were walking along Boston Common back towards my apartment when she finally spoke.

She asked me if I knew the story of St. Valentine, the patron saint who the festival was named after. I remember shaking my head, only too happy to listen to her now that her shyness seemed to have abated. Quietly, in a voice barely above a whisper, she explained that St. Valentine was executed by the Roman emperor Claudius for marrying Christian couples in secret on the outskirts of Rome. I actually thought this was kind of romantic at the time. I tried to lighten the mood by mentioning just that, but she didn't react. She just carried on with the story. She grew a little more animated as she exclaimed that once Claudius had heard rumors that Christian converts were festering in the city suburbs, he ordered them to be hunted down and punished for their heresy.

Praetorian guardsmen, the most loyal of the emperor's soldiers, scoured the city for Christians, horrifically torturing prisoners to extract extensive confessions. One such confession led to the home of a man named Valentine Who, when tortured himself Revealed that not only had he pledged fealty to the one true God But that he was sanctifying marriages of local couples in the name of Christ Enraged, the Praetorians dragged Valentine into a local square Before summoning the townspeople to witness the execution. It was messy, violent, truly horrifying to watch.

The Imperial soldier's sword was blunt, an almost ceremonial addition to his uniform. It reportedly took a long, long time for the soldier to hack off the head of the confessed Christian priest. After he was beheaded, St. Valentine ascended to heaven as a blessed martyr, entered the gates of paradise with his own bloody head cradled delicately in his hands. Kneeling before the gilded throne, St. Valentine presented Christ with his own severed head, a symbol of the pure love and devotion that led to his martyrdom. I was impressed. I had no idea that such a brutal story was behind such a saccharine cliched holiday. I remember turning to ask her how she knew such a thing, but I was met with a gaze that sent a chill through me.

She then told me that she had always wondered what it would be like to be the recipient of that kind of love and devotion, the kind that could lead someone to see their own death as little more than an act of loyalty and worship and service of someone they truly loved. It was at this point that I began to actually feel unsafe around Mary. I have since had friends tell me that I shouldn't have been such a wimp, the girls that are a little crazy tend to be the best in the bedroom. But they can't understand the sense of imminent danger I felt as Mary's hazel eyes were fixed unblinkingly on mine.

We carried on walking as I racked my brain for an excuse to get home alone and I eventually settled on something involving having to be up early for work. I knew the lie didn't work. She didn't say a word to me as I flagged down a cab and helped her into it. I told her I'd call her, but it was like she could smell the untruth, like this had happened countless times before and she could recognize the pattern. But it didn't end there. She's been following me for weeks. I made a complaint to Boston PD PD but the officer taking the report was practically laughing as he wrote it out. No one believes that this girl could be dangerous. But you can imagine how terrified I am when I walk out of my apartment building and see a stuffed animal sitting on the porch.

A lone valentine's card sat next to the teddy bear, a message written in some dry, dark fluid. As I opened the card, I began to feel the intense metaphysical sensation of being watched from somewhere. Be my Valentine, it read. The year was 1978. Roman Polanski had recently fled to France after pleading guilty to indecent acts with a minor. Serial murderer Ted Bundy was found and arrested by Florida police. The Hillside Strangler, another killer local to my hometown of Los Angeles, had just claimed yet another victim, found stuffed into the trunk of an orange Datsun. It seemed no coincidence to me that I was turning 18, becoming a woman,

just in time for all the evil in the world to rear its ugly head. The peace and love of the 60s were long dead, replaced with envy and lust. It wasn't about smoking to relax anymore, it was about doing coke and fighting, or shooting up to forget the pain of the paradise lost. California was supposed to be the promised land, manifest destiny, but all I could see was corruption, decadence, greed and death. I know, I was a cynical girl, but those were just the times. Americans had only recently withdrawn from Vietnam, the Watergate scandal was fresh in our memories, people didn't trust the government or each other. There was a big black cloud hanging over the country, no one seemed to be able to escape

it. Then I met Rodney. He was tall, tanned, and outrageously handsome. When I first saw him, I legitimately thought he could have been an up-and-coming movie star. Long, coiffed brown hair framed a strong caramel-toned face with deep brown eyes that seemed to emanate a masculine broodiness. When he told me that in his deep, smooth voice that he originally hailed from Texas, I almost swooned. I had grown up on cowboy movies and Rodney seemed to embody that kind of border town exoticism that I had so romanticized during my youth. I was overjoyed when he asked me

out. He was a little older, but that didn't bother me in the least bit. He was everything I ever wanted in a man and it blew my mind that he seemed to be so into little old me. A man like that needed a queen and if that queen was to be me, then who was I to give it a second thought? It was a Friday night when he picked me up from my parents' house in his old Chevy. My father eyed him suspiciously from the kitchen window as I made my way to his car. I just thought it was sweet. The old man was protective of me and that just made me feel even more special. There I was, newly 18 and I had just bagged the hottest guy west of the Mississippi. It was a teenage dream. The first thing he did was apologize for any nasty smells that came from the car.

He said he'd hit a deer earlier in the month and still hadn't quite gotten rid of the odor. The only thing I could smell was the rich, heady scent of his cologne with a twinkle in my eye. I told him everything smelled just fine. We drove around for a while, just talking and swapping stories while we cruised all over downtown LA. He drove us to a quiet little spot on Venice Beach, produced a joint, and we smoked a little before engaging in a long sensual make-out session. He was a little rough, at one point biting my neck so hard I winced in pain, but it was all just so intoxicating. He was so manly and wonderful. I didn't dare say anything for fear of disappointing him. We arranged another date as he drove me home.

I suggested we hit the beach during but he shrugged off the idea. I tried convincing him to accompany me on a lunch date but again he brushed off my suggestion. He only seemed to want to do something in the evening. Nighttime is the right time. I remember him saying as the Chevy idled in the street outside my house. That's when things really happen. When the darkness surrounds everything. When shadows reign. God, he was a poet to me. Yeah, I was naive. Some people might even say plain dumb, but I had never, ever had a guy talk to me like that. Half of the guys at my high school could barely string a sentence together, let alone spin words like pure gold as Rodney did. I must admit I was excited when Rodney picked me up the next week and drove us out to a

secluded spot in the pines out near Hidden Springs. I wanted all of his attention, every iota of it. This seemed like the perfect time to get it. We were in another of our heavy makeout sessions when Rodney began to get a little rough again. Gentle, roaming hands began to intrude and prod. I could feel his fingernails raking against my bare skin. It hurt, almost as much as his teeth did when he nearly sank them into my flesh. I tried to tell him to stop, to slow down, but he just growled and silenced me with a kiss so hard it made my lip bleed. I wasn't enjoying it anymore. He wasn't so caring and gentle anymore. I could see another side to Rodney and I didn't like it at all. Then, before I could even react, his hands were around my throat, squeezing and choking.

I'd never been so completely terrified in my entire life. The Rodney I had thought I knew was gone. His eyes were black now, as deep and lifeless as the void. I gasped for air, feeling the life draining from me as that black-eyed devil loomed over me from the driver's seat. My eyes begged him silently to let me go. Just as I was about to pass out, his face seemed to register a kind of guilt or remorse. He panicked and let go of me, leaving me coughing and spluttering for air, clawing at the passenger's door handle. He apologized profusely, telling me he didn't know what came over him. I made him drive me home before telling him that I didn't want to

see him anymore. I just couldn't see him in the same way. He frightened the literal life out of me. I thought about going to the cops, but I was embarrassed, ashamed that I had been foolish enough to allow myself to be so mistreated. A few months later, I had almost forgotten about Rodney. I was dating another guy, one not as exciting or mysterious, but one that I knew wouldn't have it in him to put me in such danger. I was sat with my mom watching an old favorite of our shows, The Dating Game, over a couple of TV dinners. Jim Lange wore his trademark Beatles haircut along with those horrible flowery ties he was so insistent on wearing. For those of you that aren't aware of the setup, three mystery bachelors are shown cloaked in

shadow before a bachelorette is presented to the audience. The mystery men are then illuminated as she begins to ask them a series of comical questions. This addition, however, made my skin crawl. The studio lights came up and there, I kid you not, was Rodney. The same gorgeous hunk of a man that I had first laid eyes on in that LA street, the same man that had nearly strangled me to death in the passenger seat of that old Chevy 69. It made me sick to see how relaxed and cavalier he was, sitting there like he was God's gift, answering all of those poor girl's questions. She couldn't even see him, let alone recognize him for the predator that he was. What's worse, he actually won the show. The bachelorette picked him over the other contestants. Tears filled my eyes. I had to bite my hand to

keep my mom from seeing how upset I was. I wanted to get in touch with the girl, to tell her everything that had happened to me, to warn her not to go out with Rodney during the night time he seemed to thrive on. But I don't know, part of me thought he might have changed, part of me wanted him to have changed so he could once again be the dream guy I had always wanted. But I was wrong. Rodney hadn't changed. He had gotten worse. On June 20th, 1979, a 12-year-old girl named Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach

was declared missing after failing to show up to a ballet class. Less than two weeks later, her corpse was discovered in the hills that surrounded LA. Rodney James Alcaca was arrested in connection with her death. It was not the first time Rodney had taken a life. A timeline of events would reveal that at the time I was dating him, Rodney had already murdered five or six young women, often after plying them with marijuana just as he had done with me. I considered myself a survivor. I don't know what it was about me that made Rodney let go of my throat that evening, what was different about the events that led him to spare my life. Maybe it was

that, encased in the shell of a monster, there was a little piece of humanity still left in Rodney's heart. Just as in every decent person, there is a little kernel of evil lying dormant. A small piece of evil just waiting to be woken up. featured on the next video. And join my Discord to interact with me and other listeners directly. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch

on Spreadshirt. Links in the bio. Thanks so much, friends. Now feel that giddy feeling in your tum-tum.