The Lets Read Podcast - 67: Episode 059 | Yandere Stalker & Florida Stories | 25 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Welcome to the fifty-ninth 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 Stalkers , Yandere and Florida Stories. 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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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. 2002. I was 14 years old, starting freshman year. I was an awkward, nerdy girl that didn't know how to handle attention from boys, so you could say I made things worse for my situation. I had a knack for making friends with weird people no one liked, but I tried to be friendly with everyone I met, so it wasn't a big deal to me. Unfortunately, that was also my downfall.

Clubs were a big deal, and they actually had an anime club, so of course I was all about that. First club meeting, I sat next to a couple of friends and soaked it all up. I thought I was finally with my people. Then here comes Stalker Kid. I'd use his real name, but to this day I have no clue what it is. He sat in front of me and being that person I said hi. I could tell he was uncomfortable and didn't know anyone so I was just being nice and boy did this guy cling to me for that one word. At first he would just find me during lunch

and just stand there mumbling things to me. He had such a soft voice, high pitched, mousy little guy that you just felt unnerved when he spoke to you. The way he would look at you as he spoke, I could never look him in the eyes. After a while, it became more asking about my personal life and what I was into. Me being dumb and naive, I tried to be friendly and chat while feeling incredibly uncomfortable. After a while, my friends and I would move to different tables, benches, and even hallways to avoid him, but he always found me. After about a year of this, my best friend finally told me that if I didn't tell him to buzz off, he would.

I really didn't want him around anymore, so sure, go ahead. So one day during lunch, here comes Stalker Kid with his signature greeting, barely above a whisper, Hey, to my name. My buddy just goes, Dude, she's not interested. Looking hurt, he shuffles away. I was like, man, you didn't have to be so hard on him, but thanks.

I didn't see him much around school after that except for club days where he would just sit across the room and stare at me while my best friend glared at him. Cut to me being 16 and driving now, minus the awkward club days, I didn't really notice anything from him. That is until an old grey beat up car started parking next to me extremely close. One day after school, he was waiting for me in that car. He started asking me how I'd been, what about prom and all that stuff. I was trying to rack my brain on how he knew that was my car unless he had been watching me before and after school. I started getting there and leaving later to avoid him because he was like clockwork. Finally, a boy I used to be friends with in elementary school was walking out with me and made a comment about how that guy is always next to my car and asked if it was my boyfriend.

I immediately said no and he's always following me around and I hated it. It was really starting to freak me out. Bless this guy because he walked right up to him and scared him off. Threatening if he ever parked near me again he would beat him up. I figured maybe that was enough to keep him away. So again there was a small space where I would hear nothing of him except for my friends who had classes with him telling me how creepy he was. One friend had art class with him and said that he would draw nude women constantly in his books. All big, busty poses. Classy guy.

Junior year is wrapping up and I started taking my BFF Phil, we'll call him, to and from school. He was on my way, so I figured why not. At some point, Phil started noticing that little gray car was always heading the same way after school, and made a joke thinking what if stalker kid lived next to him. Small world, right? I could only be so lucky. One day, as per usual, little gray car was following us, so we took a detour. Sure enough, he was with us every step of the way, and it was no longer a joke. We both started freaking out. I pushed that gas pedal as hard as my foot could push it and got out of sight. I went home and told my mom everything, because at this point, I knew this wasn't normal. She shoved it aside, saying I was probably seeing things. Well, it came time for our end of the year club party. Of course,

SK, we'll call stalker kid from now on, was a senior, so I would never have to see him again. For whatever stupid reason, I offered to host the party thinking he hasn't gone to one yet. Let's celebrate this moment. I was terrified when my dad let him in the door. I don't remember giving him an invitation to the party so someone must have given it to him. He spent the whole party talking to me and my dad, being all buddy-buddy with him, asking where my room was. I just wanted to cry and hide. It was all downhill after that. I remember there were days where I would hear a car pull up outside my front door and my room having a window that saw the front. I would there were days where I would hear a car pull up outside my front door, and my room having a window that saw the front, I would call my buddy Phil and peek to see if it was him. Three times in one month, I just hid under my desk and cried on the phone with Phil.

Other events from school would be him asking a girl I played softball with to prom, only to dump her and follow me all night. This includes to the after prom, where I never saw him in person. Our high school had a radio TV channel for kids to run, and during prom they would record us going to the stairs and playing around in the gym at after prom for the parents to see their kids having fun. It took one of my friends to point it out, but it showed me playing DDR for a while against my friend Phil, and Stalker Kid was standing right behind me watching for a good five minutes. Never knew.

And the one that still creeps me out to this day is graduation for his class. Our classes were so big, they did a day and night ceremony where all the students had to attend the day one. I was scanning the crowd to see my friends who were graduating when I saw a hand wave as I passed by. I looked back and, of course, it was Stalker Kid waving at me. How he picked me out of the crowd of thousands, I will never know. 2006 senior year was great. No signs of creepy stalker kid to the point where I kind of forget about him. I graduate, choose a college in town, get a job at a local retail store and move on. Life was beginning to be normal.

I work the gaming department, so you get the weird randos once in a while. One that I saw a lot was this little Mexican guy with glasses, this is important I swear, who never purchased anything but would just walk around from time to time. Then, this stalker kid comes strolling in the doors and walks into gaming and just talks. I asked how he knew I worked here. He said his friends saw me and knew we were friends. I tried to radio for help over and over for someone to come and get him out. Finally, a big guy from computers walks by and asks for my help in the back.

Once he pulls me to safety, I tell him everything. From that point, security is aware and is told to watch for this guy. Of course, he wasn't doing anything physical, so all they could do for me is watch out for him. So every time he came in, they would walkie-talkie me, and I would dip back to the warehouse. I started seeing his friend, who we'll call Ninja Friend, constantly, and all he ever did was walk around on his phone. I began to suspect he was texting Stalker Kid to tell him I was at work, because sure enough, ten minutes later, he would come in too. So I tested this theory and started walking randomly around the store.

At one point, a friend who worked register asked why I would do this, so I had her take a walk with me on her break. I told her this ninja friend would follow us everywhere, even just going down a random aisle. Sure enough he did and she began freaking out. A few minutes later I told her my stalker would walk through those doors. Again, sure enough. So I'm making my way to the warehouse and out steps ninja friend from an aisle and says, she's right here. I just stared at him like, who do you think you are? Stalker kid walks up behind me and asks why I'm always running away from him and, oh, he lost my number and asks if I can give it to him again. I say, knowing good and well I never gave it to him, sure. I go to the warehouse, write, this is where I work, don't ever come here again, and hand it to him, glare at his friend, walkie-talkie security about him and sit in the

warehouse and about break down. Security tells me later that he also cried while they took him out. Later that day as I'm leaving work, security offers to walk me to my car. This of course isn't the rules but friends caring about friends so I say sure. Stalker kid is out by my car waiting for me so this is where security says forget it and calls police which are conveniently next to their headquarters. He books it when he sees the car. Now a few years go by, nothing comes up. I buy a fancy new car and don't see him much. I'm thinking that did the trick and I'm finally free. My buddies and I are leaving work ready to hit a night at the bar per usual, a Thursday deal. We're all walking out the door where we'll

have to stand and wait to hear the alarm sound to verify it's armed. As we are walking out, I hear it. The awful sound. Hey. I cringe, grab my friend's arm and turn. There he is leaning on his car, waiting. My friend recognizes him and asks him what he wants. Guy says he just wants to talk to me. He didn't ever see my car so he didn't think I worked

here anymore. His other friend is sitting in the back seat of his car just staring at me blankly. I start to think the worst. If my friends leave me here, my gut tells me I'm not coming into work the next day, or ever. I'm terrified that he's had years of time to think about our last encounter where I wrote my number down and made him cry. I grab my friend's arm tighter. My friend goes off, pretends to be my boyfriend and rips into him. My friend is about two feet taller and much, much bigger. They get into it and I'm just standing in the parking lot and I'm a terrible person for this but I'm sure you understand at this point. Thinking, please, beat him up. He spooks stalker kids so bad that I'm pretty sure he peed himself

before getting in his car and booking it. Ever since, if he comes into the store, my friend stares him down from his office and he leaves. Never has bought anything in all these years. Years later, I've moved on, gotten married and moved out of town. Recently we moved back to start a business and to this day I still feel myself looking behind me at stores just in case I randomly bump into him. He caused me to have anxiety, mental and emotional pain, fear and trust issues for a decade. Even after moving on I still feel the effects today and I never even knew his name. When I was a kid my mom and I lived in a somewhat terrible neighborhood in Chicago. Despite the condition of the neighborhood, the apartment complex we lived in, however, was fantastic.

Our top floor unit had a fireplace that saved our lives in the winter. For those that don't live in or haven't ever visited Chicago, the Windy City is particularly icy in colder seasons, and a nice quality, considering the area, AC that iced out the front area of the unit in the summer, but the back area, where the bedrooms were, remained hotter than Satan's armpits. Because of the temperature on hot, or cold in these case days, my mom and I would camp out in the living room to sleep on those nights. Despite the rough neighborhood, I remember having a good childhood in the short time we were there. Maybe because my mom always made sure to protect me from the parts of the neighborhood that were exceptionally

rough. So one winter night, our apartment was freezing cold. My mom told me to grab my pillows and a blanket because we were going to have a sleepover in the living room. She popped some popcorn, made some hot chocolate, one with no marshmallows for me and one loaded with them for her. We ate and drank and watched Christmas movies before I passed out. Clearly, white girl wasted on hot chocolate. At some point in the middle of the night I woke up to go to the bathroom and saw movement in the kitchen. I don't know if it was because I was stupid tired or oblivious to what was going on but I called out, mommy? Even though she was asleep on the couch

next to me. The person who I soon realized was a guy because of his huge stature and lack of hair under the mask he wore, walked over and crouched down to eye level in front of me and whispered, Shhh. I simply shrugged, went to the bathroom, and came back to the living room to go to sleep. And that was that. The guy was no longer there, and the door was left slightly ajar. I chalked it up to one of those lucid dreams and filed it away in my repressed memories. I do, however, remember moving the next day into my grandparents' place for about a month

until we found something, but because I was so young, my mom never told me why. Not until I was grown, at least. The topic of the apartment randomly came up in conversation and I offhandedly told her about the dream I remembered I had. This is the terrifying conversation that ensued. Did I ever tell you about the weird dream I had? No, I don't think so. What dream? After I told her, she went pale as a ghost. Now, my mother is a dark-skinned black woman, so seeing her go pale scared the life out of me. That wasn't a dream, sweetie. That really happened. Now it was my turn to go pale.

I felt my stomach fall out of myself and stared at her like, speak, go on, why are you silent sis? I woke up in the middle of the night and this, this man was standing above me, staring. I remember immediately demanding, where is my child, where is my child? I tried to get up but he growled. Yes, growled. Then whispered angrily, Don't move. At this point I started tearing up. I saw the fear in her eyes, the utter terror of thinking something had happened to her only child.

I hated seeing my mom so upset. It's been just us practically all my life, so to imagine her having to move herself and a young girl out of a neighborhood from sheer terror is hard to say the least. The man just continued to stare at me. He rushed out of the apartment when he heard you flushed the toilet and left everything he was going to steal. The next morning I packed up our stuff and we went to live with Nana and Papa. Child, I left all the furniture, plates, silverware, TV. I just got our clothes and got out of Dodge. But because we vacated the lease, it kind of effed up my credit, but I couldn't imagine sleeping in that place another night. We just sat there in silence, freaking out because of my dream, which happened to actually not be a dream.

It was all too real. I'd say it was simply some addict trying to make off with some stuff, but why walk up to a child and tell her to be quiet instead of just leaving with what you already packed? Why stare at a woman making her lie still in place then leave when the kid comes out of the bathroom? Just why? Back when I was 18, I'm a female. My mom had been working in the garden, so she was exhausted and went to bed early. It was winter, so it got dark early. I knew I would be the only one awake for the next few hours until her partner got in from working at 4 a.m. I went about my usual nightly routine.

Rolled a joint and went out back to smoke it as I did every night. You're not allowed to smoke in the house. The house has two floors and my bedroom was on the top floor. After I had my smoke and I went back upstairs and continued watching whatever. About an hour later I decided I would have one more joint then head to bed. I finished rolling and got myself ready to head out into the cold but just before I headed downstairs something on my phone distracted me and I sat back on the bed concentrated on that when a minute or two passed I heard a loud bang from downstairs. I thought to myself, it's just my mom's partner coming home. Then seconds later I realized I didn't hear the

front gate open, didn't hear the taxi pull up outside, didn't hear the front door open. My cat is on the bed next to me so it wasn't him and my mom is asleep next door so what was that bang? So I grab my taser, which looks like a Nokia phone that my mom also didn't know about, and stick it in my dressing gown pocket and go into my mom's room. Normally, she is such a light sleeper, but because she was tired from gardening, she slept through the noise. I wake her up and tell her what I've heard. She gets herself ready, grabs a metal pole, and we head downstairs. I insisted on going first because in all fairness, my mom is like 5'6", 130 pounds, has MS and is holding a flimsy metal pole.

I figured my taser would be a little bit better should we encounter anyone. Looking around everything seems fine, however the last room we check is the bathroom, which is on the ground floor, to find that the window that sits just above the bath is wide open, and our two 1 liter bottles of Tresemme shampoo and conditioner which were on the windows have been knocked into the bath, creating the loud bang. Of course, we're like, how could this happen? The wind maybe? Obviously not. We were just really scared and trying to make ourselves feel better. It's like 2.30am at this point and my mom calls her partner to tell him someone has just tried to break in through the window.

To please come. His response? It's probably just a fox or something. Close it and go back to bed. You guys are just being paranoid. Uh, what? So we're like, well, you're no help. So we make sure everywhere is secure and call 101, UK's non-emergency police, to report it.

Five minutes after calling, four police cars and dogs all turn up. They look around, then come to the door and ask the obvious questions. After doing a walk around the house and area they come back again and ask do we usually keep our plastic garden chairs under the bathroom window. Uh no. The police advise us that a dodgy gang have been going around the area and trying doors etc to break in and steal whatever. They must have taken the garden chairs to stand on it to help them get in. The police also advised that a house a few streets over had been broken into and everything was taken and the house was destroyed on the inside. I don't think they were ever caught. The thing that freaks me out the most is had I not gotten distracted by my phone before

going out the back to smoke, I would have been outside sitting on them same chairs in the pitch black, outdoor light was broke, where the intruders would have came around, seen me, and god knows what would have happened then. Growing up I always visited my cousin who lived in a not so great neighborhood. It wasn't that bad but bad enough to have creepy neighbors. She's half hispanic and was fairly pretty so one day she and I were hanging out around the end of her street. I was about 15 which made her 13 or so. We were talking about the boy she had a crush on and laughing about stupid stuff.

I remember I was standing up while she was sitting on the curb when this car drives slowly by. We both look up and it's this Hispanic man probably in his 30s. He was looking at her smiling but never said anything and drove off. We didn't think anything about it and actually laughed it off as what was his problem? A few minutes later he drives back by even slower than before. He's closer now and is saying something to her in Spanish. She's always been an angry little ball of hate and said something along the lines of, I don't speak to creeps like you. He drives off and we laugh again

before going back to talking about her crush. Again, a few minutes later he drives back by. This time he looks angry and is still saying something in Spanish. This time I get a really bad feeling and pull her up off the curb and start to pull her away. The lot that we were in front of was empty, overgrown and had a way to get to her backyard. He's starting to drive alongside the street and keeps saying things we didn't understand, getting angrier. Me being the paranoid person, even at that age, start trying to get her to run. I'm starting to panic. I think she noticed and she grabs my hand and does run. We run through the empty lot,

not looking back to see if he's still there. The way this empty lot is set up, you can kind of see the backyards of the houses on the street. So we hide behind some of the bushes waiting for him to drive off. He does and we start running through our neighbor's backyards and finally get to hers. We run as fast as we can to her back door. My heart was beating so fast. We get inside and for whatever reason we grab a knife. I don't know, we were kids. We look outside from the kitchen and still see him circling the block looking for us. We hide and the panic starts to die down. We end up laughing about it and decide not to tell our moms.

It still creeps me out thinking about it and I was terrified of being outside at her house from then on. We later found out she told her crush who lived in front of the guy. The crush told his dad front of the guy. The crush told his dad, who threatened the creep. Needless to say, I never wanted to be in that situation again. This happened in May of this year, and honestly, I need to get off my chest. For context, I'm a 19-year-old girl, but everyone tells me I look younger. This particular day, I was walking home in the afternoon, around the time children leave from school, on what was supposed to be a busy road. It was eerily quiet, but nothing was unusual. I was talking to my friend with headphones on and felt comfortable alone.

As my friend suddenly went quiet I realized my phone had died. I looked a little further to see a lay-by where a cab was parked, which isn't unusual. Sometimes cabs will park there so they can sleep on a break. Despite my headphones I could still hear a car behind me pick up speed as I approached this layby. And the next events unfolded within a matter of minutes, though it felt much longer than that at the time. This, for some reason, made me pay attention. I'm not sure what it was because my area is known for people racing in cars, but it nerved me. I was right to feel this way because the guy in the car began making hand signals. I was really anxious at the time and was

trying not to look, but I think he was trying to get me to come closer. I guess he got annoyed when I began to pick up pace because he quickly pulled over into the lay-by, a little bit behind this other car and got out from his side to the pavement. I began to pick up pace again, half running to get to the front of the other car. I got a good look at the guy as he stalked towards me. I'm a fan of true crime and I often find a lot of the most evil people will look charming or harmless, like you would not be able to tell at all. This guy was not like that. I think that's what struck me originally and why this moment sticks out in my mind. He looked like he was in his early 40s, balding at the top of his head except for ginger hairs at the sides. His eyes seemed like light blue hidden behind those glasses.

His shirt was blue and I remember, I don't know how, it seemed stained at the top, just beneath the neck. He looked like a slob. I can't really remember what else he wore, I think shorts maybe, but it isn't really important. I also saw slightly into the front of his car before he had gotten out, which seemed like it was full of trash. Anyways, as he approached me, now also half running, I just got in front of the other car and went across to the crossing. I honestly can't remember the other guy's reaction, the car in front I mean. I don't know if he saw all of this happen as he was in front but I do remember hoping that he was watching me so

the other guy felt like he couldn't grab me. The guy following me gets angry and gets back into his car, slamming the door. I'm at the crossing now which was just in front of the layby. I watch him speed down the end of the road as I cross to the other side. At the end of this road is a roundabout and I was terrified that he was going to turn around the road I was now walking on, where there were no cars, hidden by a shrub at the crossing. I start running to the bottom of the road so I can get onto the one on the right, which is usually busy, not really paying attention. I can't see this car and luckily there are a bunch more so I continue walking.

My phone is dead so I'm freaking out. I'm also in my head downplaying the experience already. As I reach the end of the road I can see my house and I begin to cross it. Behind the line of cars I see this guy's car again. I don't even know if he saw me. I don't know if he saw me enter my house. I called the police to report this guy. They really weren't helpful, saying things like, when it happens again, get the license plate. After I told them, I had to run. They did put out a warning, I think. What freaks me out the most is what I learned after. I told my friend, a different one, and she had the same experience 30 minutes earlier on another side of town, but she didn't see the guy. The next thing is the string of disappearances in the surrounding areas. I sometimes see a girl's missing poster on my way to work. She was in my year at school.

We have a mutual friend. I'm not saying it's the same guy, just the coincidence made me a little more nerved. The last thing I considered was that it looked kind of like I was wearing a uniform. I had come from work so black skirt and white shirt was about maybe ten minutes away from a school at closing time. I don't know if this guy was looking for kids, but it just really freaks me out. My town is known for being dangerous, but I haven't lived here for very long, so I take that with a grain of salt. I was out walking my dog, it was around 7pm and the sun was still shining. As she was walking behind me and I could tell she had stopped, I turned around to watch her. As I turned, I ran my hand through my hair and I was smiling about the song I was listening to.

What caught me off guard was the guy walking past me in the exact same second. I felt pretty awkward so I stared into the air with the same smile but this time with my mouth open. He smiled at me and then continued down the path. He was wearing loose work shorts, the kind with tools in them and a white wife beater. I thought, oh god, because I just had smiled at a stranger that was definitely nearing his 30s and I'm only 19. But then again, he could tell I wasn't interested, right? I discreetly paid attention to his body language as I walked behind him. I saw him look back at me several times, but I always looked down every time to try and show I wasn't interested. When I saw he walked over the road I sighed in relief and headed to the right instead since the path split up. I saw him watch me. I saw his face when he

realized I was going a different direction and I saw him slow down. He came to a full stop and pretended to look around and kind of walked in circles on the spot. Then he walked back over the road and just looked in my direction. He wasn't moving, just had his hands in his pockets and staring right at me. I got nervous at this point. The next bit of the walk is just one long sidewalk that my dog loves to sniff. Every time I walked, he walked. Every time I stopped to let my dog sniff, he stopped. I yanked my dog after me, walking as fast as I could without running and quickly dialed my dad. I figured I could either act like I was

talking to myself and hopefully he would get freaked out and think I was weird, or at least maybe he wouldn't do anything if he knew someone else would be able to hear it. I didn't want to look back. I could feel his presence behind me and I did not want to know how close he was. I make a right into a parking lot as soon as I can and start sprinting since I knew he couldn't see me. My dad is laughing in the phone which calmed me down and made it all seem less serious. I ran the rest of the way home and kept an eye on the front door through the window, just to make sure he hadn't followed.

Before going to high school I went for 8 years to a school in my neighborhood. The school was a few hundred meters from my house which would be covered in either a 10 minute walk or a 3 minute car ride. One winter evening back in 2010-2011, I was leaving school with a bunch of my classmates and we were headed for the bus station. We were all about 13-14 and in 8th grade back then. Among those classmates, there was a friend who lived one street away from me with whom I'd usually walk to and from school. Generally, when we left school, we would rather take the 10-minute walk through the side streets to our homes instead of walking all the way to the boulevard, take the bus, and then walk back into the side streets. The reason we were going

for the bus station was that it was about 6pm on a winter day and therefore it was already as dark as it would be at midnight. Two preteen kids walking all by themselves through those dark streets wouldn't be a wise thing to do. As we were waiting for the bus I noticed a bunch of boys, four of them if memory serves, approaching my friend. These boys were considerably taller than us. We were both around 1.6 meters tall and they easily had 10 centimeters over us. They weren't adults though. They asked him for his phone in order for them to make a call. This is where I am glad I wasn't by myself at that point. I am also glad that they didn't come to me first. I was one of the

youngest kids from my class and grew up to be more naive than the rest. My friend was eight months older than me and with far more street smarts. He told them he doesn't have a phone. That's when I caught on to what was going on, since I knew fully well that he had his phone on him. They came to me and asked the same thing. I responded the same way my friend did. The bus arrived and we all climbed in, including my other classmates and the four older guys. While I was waiting at the door, my friend was talking to our other classmates. Halfway through, he climbed down next to me and started whispering. I just spoke to some of the other guys.

They live near those thugs. They said that they are most likely planning to chase us after we climb down and steal our phones. We climb down from the bus. Let's run. Alright then. We both go to my house. My house was one street away from the bus station

and close to the boulevard which his was the next street over and much deeper. In other words we had to run less than 100 meters to my house and he would have to run about twice as much to his. I didn't sense any real danger in the situation since I didn't think these guys would bother chasing two boys who most likely have nothing of value on them. It was the safer option though as I was underweight and easily the weakest boy from our class while he was overweight and clearly lacked agility. We probably could barely hold our own in a 2v2 fight and let alone 2v4. I was also immediately down for the run since I loved the idea of the thrill it would give us.

We got out and my friend put his hand on my shoulder to steady me. Since we were still in a crowded bus station and there was no need to run yet. We walked fast to the only street we had to cross and after making sure no cars were coming, we sprinted. Since he was a bit ahead of us, he could afford to lose a bit of distance so I asked him if he could look back. Are they following us? They are crossing the street right now. Still in disbelief, I turned my head to look. They were indeed crossing the street running between upcoming cars after us. This sidewalk, unlike the bus station, was completely empty so if they caught us here, there would be no witnesses unless a car would drive down the boulevard that very moment. We hurried to my street, turned the corner.

I quietly opened the gate and ushered my friend in, after which I got in and quietly closed it. We stood there, in the shade of the trees in front of my yard, watching the street-lit boulevard through my vents. I made sure they didn't know where we went. They searched the crossroad and stopped. They looked around dumbfounded not realizing where we went. We silently got into my house and told my mom why I came home with an unannounced guest. My friend called his mom to come pick him up with her car since he obviously could not walk home alone. Quick background. My sister and I work at the same place. We work at a golf course.

I've been there for three years and she's been there for two. Overall, it's a great job. I like 96% of the staff. We have one guy, I wrote about him earlier, that was kind of a pain. Thankfully, he's straightened out and has gotten it together. This story is about a different guy. To be honest, I have no clue what this guy even does for the golf course. All of what I'm about to tell you leads up to what happened with my sister. To be honest, I have no clue what this guy even does for the golf course.

All of what I'm about to tell you leads up to what happened with my sister. He told me he worked there, but I was just recently informed he didn't actually. This guy, about early 40s, was nice to me when I started working there. We had good conversations, but at the end of last season and the beginning of this season, something felt off. First thing he asked me when I came back in mid-spring for the start of the season was, How old are you? I didn't like that opening line at all.

I hate when that's the first thing men ask me. I'm 21, but I could pass for 17. I said, Why are you asking? He responds, Just curious. I was just shy of 21 at the time. I answered 20 and he was like, cool. Asked me how college is going, etc. Like a normal conversation. About three to four weeks later, he asked me for my Snapchat. I didn't like that. I told him no,

and that's weird. He also decided to come behind the counter while I was busy to ask me something. Unless you work inside the clubhouse, you're not allowed behind the snack counter. I told him he can't be back there and he was kind of mad. The rule was set by the health department. He decided he didn't like me after that. Now fast forward to about two weeks ago, this guy won't even come near me or look me in the eye. I really could care less. Then one day I get a ton of frantic text messages from my sister who was working there. She sent me pictures of him saying all these terribly harassing things to her. He kept saying he could see through her shirt and if she had a tinder

would swipe left on her. She was wearing a red t-shirt and jeans. He couldn't see through her shirt and then he said he wanted to take her shirt off. I freaked out. That's my 19 year old younger sister. I was supposed to drop her off a jacket anyway so I headed up there. I called the supervisor who was there and he was shocked. He had no clue and was angry. I got there and was thinking, this idiot better pray he doesn't run into me. Well he wasn't there and I got out of there. When I get really really mad I begin to shake. I went inside the clubhouse and stayed there for about 15 minutes with my sister. She was a little shaken up but okay. She was more shocked because she says he's never hit on her or anything. She said he used to confuse her for me. This idiot also said, oh man your sister's really

mean. My supervisor was not happy at all and said that he would deal with it. Well he did alright and it was pure gold. We have two guys, one in his twenties and one in his early thirties that work at the golf course too. They're brothers and we all went to the same school. Well the two brothers don't like the creepy guy and my supervisor told them what happened. The two brothers cornered him and scared him half to death. I'm pretty sure they threatened him. He came back in and apologized.

He had the nerve to say, I didn't mean to be a creep. My sister responded, Are you serious? You're creepy. Don't ever speak to me again. One of the golfers that comes in all the time with his daughter heard about the incident too. His daughter offered to walk my sister to her car. My supervisor spoke to him the next day and told him he's not allowed to speak to me or my sister. Two days ago is when I found out he doesn't even

work here anymore. I saw him the other day and he wouldn't even look me in the eye. My supervisor was waiting for me to lose my mind on him, but I decided against it. We were packed and I didn't want to cause a scene. I'm just hoping he learned his lesson. This is by far the scariest thing to happen to me. I recently graduated from university in Birmingham, but about four months ago I was still living in a shared six-bedroom house with three other students. Myself and another student, Shauna, had been staying up late for weeks doing coursework together in the living room

and listening to Sleepy Masquerade permanently. This is important so you understand why we were shaken up even more by the events that followed. Our entire house had decided to go to a local pub earlier in the night one evening and then we returned around 11pm. Half of us went to sleep but half of us stayed in the spare bedroom talking and listening to music. It was around 1am and I could hear the letterbox downstairs blowing in the wind and clanking over my friend's voices. I noted it and then ignored it. At least 30 to 49 minutes later I heard it again.

I decided to hang my head out of the bedroom door, look down the stairs where our two glass PVC doors could be seen through. There was a dark tall silhouette with its head turned pressing against the door, his hand on the handle. He must have been there for a long while since the letterbox had been making noises. I felt myself come over with a blanket of cold like the blood had drained out of my body into the floor. I said in a whisper which felt like a shout, oh god there's a man against our door. I'm certain that for a fraction of a second my friends didn't take me seriously until I turned and they saw the fear in my face. Shauna looked at me with dread and I could see the blood drain from her face too and our other friend Mary looked eyes wide open at me and paced to me to confirm it.

Shauna looked too and said, oh my god. I ran over to the window and then they followed. The window to this room was facing the front garden. I held onto the frame and leant out as far as was safe and said hesitantly, excuse me. I couldn't see the man because he was sheltered by the slight window porches we had, but we could see his shadow being stretched and catch over the drive lit by our hallway light. Excuse me, can I help you? I said a little louder. I continued to shout variations of this as my concern grew, so did

the bass in my voice. We stopped to listen and we heard an awful grumbling. He was talking to himself. We grew even more concerned and judged that he was either on something or not mentally put together. We panicked even more, considering what we could do. We decided to wake up Nozoa and her boyfriend. He was the only man in the house and we felt like we could be able to take the guy if worse came to worse. We stopped and looked at each other and realized that none of us can confirm if or who locked the door when we stumbled back from the pub earlier on in the night. We had a street door and a front door.

The front door was wide open and street door possibly unlocked. Zoe's boyfriend was panicked by her sense of panic. Him and Mary took control of the situation. Gathering courage to run downstairs, they decided to shut the front door and lock it. His hand was on the street door handle and we didn't know when he would try to open it. Shauna was on the phone with the police at the same time. I ran and hung out the window again and noticed the man stumbling away from our drive onto the next house's drive. I alerted everybody and as I did I realized he was trying

to let himself into next door's house too. I panicked because I was sure I heard the sound of their PVC door handle open. Fortunately, I was wrong. As we grew in concern and told the police this information, he continued to try every house for around three houses, before disappearing from the sight of a front window. After we all debriefed from the event that just unfolded and refolded, everybody went to their rooms. Me and Shauna stayed in the same room that night and didn't sleep for quite some time. I was on holiday in Lisbon and taking in the sights one day in the Alfama district.

I stumbled on this beautiful terrace garden on the side of a cliff face. I have a thing for Portuguese mosaics, and this terrace had a huge mosaic on the side of a building I just had to see up close. So going into the garden, I see there's about four or five people, and as I'm looking the other way, a little wrinkled old man sidles up to me with bottles of water in a big bag. He asks me in broken English if I'd like some water and I said, no, I'm fine. To be honest, if I was in the driest desert dying of thirst, I would have refused that water.

He then asks me where I'm from. I tell him Scotland. He smiles and extends his hand so I go to shake it, while all of a sudden he grabs my hand and pulls me towards him as he puckers up for a kiss. In that second what I thought had been just an old wizened man turned into a much stronger man with a strange glint in his eyes. His eyes scared the living daylights out of me. As you can imagine I was having none of that and walked hurriedly out of the terrace back onto the street. So I'm making my way up the hill and look behind me to see that little old man pick up the pace and follow me.

Just shows you how looks can be deceiving. So I'm trying to shake him off but he keeps following me. Thankfully there are people around about so I don't really feel threatened but I notice two police officers so head towards them thinking that he'll halt him in his tracks. Sure enough as I approach the police he ducks down an alley and is out of sight. I don't see him again after that and carry on with my day. I remember the first time I came across the term yandere. I remember exactly where I was, exactly what I was doing. It was on one of my visits to a seedier part of Reddit that I came across on rforeveralone dating, a post from a girl looking for an online companionship.

She seemed charming, and the picture she attached proved she was very attractive. I remember how she asked respondents to put the words green bean in their message somewhere just to prove that they read the full post. I don't know, I thought that was cute so maybe it wasn't the brightest thing I've ever done but I fired over a message asking if she was interested in getting talking. We talked fairly anonymously at first which I understood as the internet can be a weird place sometimes. But the more we talked, the more candid our conversations were, and by the time we revealed to each other just exactly where we lived, we were shocked to find out we both lived in the northeast. Not only that, but we were only a hundred miles or so apart. It was round about then that she began to act a little reticent. Being late to reply to

messages, generally not seeming as enthusiastic as she has previously, I asked her if anything was wrong or if she wanted to talk about anything and she replied that she did in fact have something on her mind. She went on to tell me that she was feeling a little anxious because she was starting to like me quite a bit. Honestly, I didn't quite understand what she meant. I was starting to like her a lot too, but I was just happy about it. There were no reservations. She explained when she really liked someone, she could get a little intense. That was the word she used, intense. When I said that didn't really bother me, she changed her choice of words switching out intense for obsessive. She told me there was a Japanese term for girls like her, yandere. I didn't know a thing about Japanese culture.

I didn't care about anime or anything like that, so I just figured she was just interested in the culture. I didn't stop to question exactly what the word meant. Now any self-respecting guy would have walked away right then and there but let's just say I've never been the most successful with girls so when I heard obsessive I just figured she'd be loyal and attentive. Sure it might grate on me from time to time but a girl that was obsessed with me would surely never cheat. That had happened to a friend, and it had a serious effect on his mental health and self-esteem. By the time we were organizing our first meet-up, we were throwing around the idea of a long-distance relationship, reassuring ourselves that we could see each other on weekends, alternating between her traveling and me traveling. I was a little nervous as I packed up my things for the train ride out to a major city that was

roughly halfway between us, nervous but excited. I never had a relationship with a girl that had been this consistent. We talked every day and she actually seemed to really like me. I just hoped the chemistry would be the same once we met in person, but to my relief, it was. She was an absolute dream to hang out with. All our little inside jokes and private thoughts hit their mark, just as I hoped they would. However, she did display some pretty unusual behavior.

She seemed to find it difficult to maintain eye contact for any prolonged period. Also, when we went out to dinner on the first night, I was initially confused when she apparently refused to interact with anyone but me. When the waitress asked what she liked to drink, it's as if she just shut down, staring at the table or occasionally shooting me a look. I actually had to order for her the entire time. She'd tell me what she wanted, but then it'd be down to me to get the attention of a server to ask for that particular thing. I figured it was just because she was shy, which, I don't know, I just found extra cute. It wasn't until after an emotional goodbye that things started to get weird.

We'd gotten into the habit of calling each other every night before sleep, but these calls started coming from her in the middle of the day at times when I was busy. But whenever I tried to explain that I couldn't talk, she'd always get really salty about it, becoming increasingly angry every time I told her I couldn't talk. I was heartbroken when she accused me of being unfaithful. The more I tried to explain that there was no one else but her, the more she accused me of lying. If there's no one else, why can't you take ten minutes out of your busy day to talk to your girlfriend? She always was a smart girl. She ran rings around me when it came to arguing logic. The longer this went on, the more it grated on me, to the point where I just didn't like her anymore. She wasn't just intense or obsessive, she was dangerously paranoid and abusive when she wanted to be.

I finally plucked up the courage to call her to break up. Needless to say, she did not take it well. I went no contact almost straight away, blocking her on social media to make the period of separation less hard on us both. It hurt but I knew it was what she needed. There was no way she'd be able to detach herself from me if we kept trying to be just friends or whatever. A few months later my parents are away on vacation without me. I didn't mind at all. I gave them some time to themselves while allowing me to live in a gigantic bachelor pad for a

fortnight. It was all going fantastic until I awoke one night to find that someone had broken into the house. First thing I did was call 911 from my bedroom before venturing down the stairs with a baseball bat in hand. I had no idea what I was planning to do, maybe just scare the burglar, but I was absolutely terrified as I crept down the stairs. I expected some huge crackhead or something, but instead of some burly career criminal, the figure I found was small, almost dainty. They turned and to my horror I saw it was my ex. In her hand was one of my mom's kitchen knives, the huge stainless steel one that she always kept extra sharp. She told me how good it was to see me again, but stopped when she saw the look in my face asking me why I was so scared to see her. Apparently she only had a knife to defend herself against any other girls that were

there, but when I told her there were none she turned the knife on me. Long story short, the cops arrived in time to arrest her before an ambulance took me to the hospital. I needed 153 stitches to wounds on my arms and face. Yes, 153. It took over an hour to get everything sewn up while they gave me a blood transfusion from the lost. Moral of the story, don't meet people you find on the internet. It's that simple. You can never, ever really know someone unless you have talked face to face. At least, that's what I've found from hard experience. I actually met the girl who turned my life upside down twice before she became my stalker.

A friend and I had wandered down to a local chain pub on a summer's day to watch football. You know, the kind that attracts 30-something singles with cheap cocktail offers while still masquerading as a sports bar. Our team lost, so we stayed an hour or so after full-time to drink away the disappointment. That's the first time we met. She recognized me as being on the same dating website as her and so introduced herself. She seemed charming enough and we enjoyed each other's skewering commentary on the fickleness and desperation of online dating. There was absolutely nothing to give me a clue as to her true character. No thousand yard stare, no deranged cackling to tip me off that she was anyway mentally unbalanced. We swapped phone numbers and arranged to see each other over drinks the following week. The second time we met was just as delightful as the first. We each found it deeply amusing

that we'd invested so much time in Tinder and dating sites only to meet by happenstance in the flesh. She seemed to really like me which I must confess was as flattering as it was refreshing. We hit it off in a big way and at the end of the night I asked if she wanted to come back to my place for coffee. We slept together and it was incredible but then having known me for all of a few hours she told me that she loved me. It came as sort of a shock but I I laughed it off back then, only I really shouldn't have. From the moment Glenn Close boiled her first bunny, popular culture has been fascinated with the female stalker. As with most, if not all, cinematic archetypes, they've become an object

of humor. They became funny, adorable, misguided cranks, deluded but charmingly harmless. Women stalking men was such an absurd concept that it didn't take long to become overtly comical. But I have to admit that I haven't found much of the last three years particularly amusing as my stalker ended up comprehensively boiling my inner bunny. Although it was funny in the first few months when she chased me down the street on foot as I cycled home from work, I had fun sharing her voicemails with friends, her whiny, immature tone causing us to crack up. The fact a grown woman could make herself sound like a toddler was genuinely hilarious, but the joke wore very thin very fast. It stopped being funny when she threatened to counter-allege that I had drugged her and assaulted her.

If I went to the police with a complaint. It also wasn't especially amusing when she did exactly that, then posted extensively on social media detailing the night I apparently abused her. I only found out she did that because she tagged me in the bloody post. My friends list halved overnight. My inbox filled with hate and bile filled messages from total strangers. But the ones that hurt the most were from friends and relatives. I couldn't believe they'd taken the word of someone they'd never met over mine. Even the ones that offered a little comfort implied that if you're guilty, then fair enough, you should be punished.

It was like they annoyed every word I'd said about being completely innocent of the accusation. Long before the days of hashtag MeToo, it was downright infuriating when I found that while she immediately got free legal advice and counseling as a result of the nature of her fabrications, I was left to my own devices for five long months with the allegations hanging over my head. By the time I was cleared, I was a depressed, borderline alcoholic insomniac terrified of his own doorbell. Not very funny. I even had male police officers laugh at her loopy voicemails, only this time I wasn't laughing like I'd done with my friends. I don't

blame them though, in fact, I get it. Most people in my experience could not help but find the idea of a man living in fear of an obsessed female stalker faintly amusing. I had one girlfriend, now an ex, tell me that I had to man up, as if I could somehow puff my chest out and produce the magical instant cure to mend a profoundly disturbed woman. As if any forceful action on my part wouldn't end up with me in even more trouble with the police. The reality of being a stalked man is a mixture of grinding tedium, of disturbed sleep, violent nightmares, and isolation. Your first instincts may well be to attempt dialogue with your apparent stalker, but eventually you come to realize that you may as well be trying

to bring reason to a small child. Attention is something they crave, so any instance where you actually do acknowledge them, even if it's begging to leave you alone, is seen as a kind of admission that you want to talk or see them. And above all, it becomes apparent that it's down to you to create your own case. So your life becomes one of logging missed calls, taping voicemails, transcribing texts, and having a camera phone ready to record every time you enter the door. Visits to the police station are frequent and time-consuming. Being stalked is a massive pain. One day in the future, I hope to God that I may be able to laugh about it all, but the current reality is that my stalker forced me out of the home I had lived in for five years, left me with deep trust and anger issues, and nursing post-traumatic stress disorder which will only subside as I put time and distance between me and her.

And I have to pin my hopes on the notion that when I agreed to her being merely cautioned for harassment on the basis that she agreed never to try to contact me again, she was telling the truth. It feels like I might be asking for a little too much from someone so awfully disturbed. This was way back in the summer of 2010, and you might be relieved to hear that I have not heard from nor seen her since. I've received messages telling me how rare it is to read admissions of this kind because everyone else who has tried found the process too upsetting. People have asked if I'm worried that it will provoke her into fresh activity and that question, I must admit, does make me laugh because there is nothing left that she can do to me.

My name is Bob Coftry. I'm a 54-year-old driving instructor from Lancashire in the UK. Previously to my career as a driving instructor, I spent many years as part of a training team in the Royal Air Force. My time in the military taught me patience and discipline which really helped with my transition into the civilian workforce. I'd spent time in conflict zones around the world, sometimes in some pretty harrowing conditions, but nothing prepared me for the ordeal that would turn my entire life upside down. One morning I received a call from a woman who wished to book some driving and theory lessons. Donna Hartley seemed to be a shy but affable young woman with deep red hair and small brown eyes. Her meek manner meant she found the experience rather stressful but I pride myself on being able to effectively turn such people into competent, competent drivers.

Thanks to my tutoring, it took her just six weeks to pass both practical and theory tests. Naturally, she was elated, as was I. I've always loved the sense of achievement that comes from having trained or coached someone successfully. It doesn't just mean that you've done your job correctly, but now someone else can advance their own lives thanks to the skills you've taught them. The fact I've always found a way to earn money that way has been one of the blessings of my life. Usually speaking, passing a driving test means the world to someone, especially when they require the transport to further their own careers. This means they usually thank me with more than just the monetary compensation for

their lessons. A bottle of wine or whiskey with a sticker ribbon and a little thank you note usually arrives at my home address within a week or two of them earning their license. Donna Hartley told me she was a supervisor for an air conditioning company And therefore needed to travel a fair bit to attend sales conferences So, obviously, she was particularly grateful Sending a thank you gift along with a few text messages expressing her gratitude Now, usually, everyone remains professional And we go our separate ways

But not Miss Hartley. She continued to send me thank you texts long after lessons and tests were completed, usually something along the lines of, I'd like to thank you again for helping me pass, would you like to go for a drink or something to eat? This was rather flattering, but I'm a happily married man, so I simply opted to politely decline before ignoring any follow-up messages. But the texts didn't stop coming, and each one was more awkward than the last. At one point, she sent me a message that just said, Part of me wishes I hadn't passed my test because I would have got to spend more time with you.

I couldn't bring myself to reply, but the messages kept coming, almost non-stop. And what's more, over time, they grew darker and darker. Donna kept texting, calling, and visiting my Lancashire home. She asked me to meet and hug me. One text read, I don't want to hurt you, but you can hurt me. When it became evident to her that I was ignoring her messages, she threatened to hurt herself if I didn't reply. This was the final straw. I immediately contacted the local police and informed them that she was both a

threat to me and apparently herself as well. They subsequently visited Donna at home, but when I spoke to one of the officers, they said that Donna had made a counterclaim that she was simply frustrated that her driver instructor was ignoring her. She must have played the part of a poor treated customer because from then on, the police seemed content to treat the case as some kind of business disagreement, which obviously was not the case. Frankly, I feel the Lancashire police utterly failed to deal with the situation in a timely manner. Even after they visited Donna at home, her stalking didn't abate. She wasn't just texting at all hours of the day now, she was calling. The calls came mostly at night so it wasn't an issue just to turn off my phone but each morning when I switched it on I dreaded the inevitable barrage of voicemails.

There were 15 or 16 sometimes but I couldn't bear to listen to a single one. Again I contacted the police but to my utter disbelief they actually told me there was nothing they could do. Donna had not made direct contact with me and therefore it was still down to me to have my mobile carrier block her number. I can't state how terrible it felt to be a grown man, yet to feel that kind of vulnerability. I couldn't sleep at night. I was missing work because I hadn't had any sleep. All I could think was one evening, I'm just going to get out of the car, she's going to be there, and you know, that'll be it. At one point I was at home during

the weekend, alone, when I began to hear some incredibly loud music from outside in the street. It was irritating, but I just assumed it was teenagers and they'd cleared off after a while. But then my phone buzzed on a countertop with a text message from an unknown number. Follow the music, it read. Confused, I headed to the front door, wandering out into the street with my phone in hand. There, parked around 50 feet away, was a silver Nissan, blasting some sickly romantic music from open windows.

I didn't need to see that streak of red hair in the driver's seat to know who it was. When Donna turned and smiled out of the window at me, I turned and rushed back into my home, locking the doors and windows before calling the police, but yet again Donna seemed to get away with little more than a warning. A few days later I was again at home alone when she texted me from yet another unknown number telling me she was outside. She said she wanted to talk that she'd followed me home and would keep doing so until I finally gave in and talked to her. She rang my doorbell repeatedly banging on the door. She then phoned me eight times while she

was outside, ranting and raving about me having the nerve to treat her that way. I phoned the police again and within a few minutes a police car arrived and they arrested her on suspicion of harassment. Finally, they had done their bloody job and taken that mad woman away. She was given a suspended prison sentence and a restraining order banning her from going anywhere near my home or making any form of contact with me. I later discovered that Donna had told her psychiatrist that she wanted to hold me hostage, torture me with a knife before ending me. I went stone cold when I was told. I knew I was right to be afraid. It was suffocating. The whole ordeal had a long lasting impact on me. It completely changed my

life. It's changed how I feel about people. It's changed my relationship with my wife. I've had to uproot my entire lifestyle as a way of defending myself against Donna. But the worst thing is that no one really takes you seriously about it because you're a man dealing with an obsessive woman. There's a kind of locker room culture to it like, oh it's because you're such a stud you should be flattered to be paid that kind of attention. Some people might think it's harmless, just a woman that's just giving you some attention. It's not, because the attention is unwanted, the attention is unsolicited, and it was never reciprocated. I'm very cautious now, always looking around me when I go outside.

I don't feel safe. What will it take for Donna to be jailed? She ruined my life and showed me no regard for the first sentence. It makes a farce of the whole justice system. My name's Jackie. I wound up in Arizona after a road trip from Florida looking for, I guess, love. I was following the number 33. I used to wake up every day and every night at 3.33, so I kept following the number and I asked, why, self, why? Why am I following the number 33? So I spoke to a psychic and she told me I have the same birth chart as Jesus. So then I said, okay, I'll look up Jesus who was 33 when he came to be.

My left eye access is 33. The location I came from in Miami was 33111, the zip code. I met a guy online. I was looking for my healing angel. The psychic I had met told me I would meet a healing angel. So I was in Utah, Mount Zion, looking for my healing angel. I was at a bar and I was talking to the bartender about the number three. So I told him the story of how I came to be in Utah, the story of the number three. So I told him the story of how I came to be in Utah, the story of the number three. He said, not to say anything, but look behind you. So I look behind me and there's this giant number three. I was like, are you my healing angel? And he was like, no, I'm not. And then I was like, okay, but maybe you're the one who's going to lead me to my healing angel. So he said, maybe you should go to Sedona, Arizona,

which I had never even heard of. So I look up Sedona, Arizona, and find it's the 33rd most spiritual place on earth. So I cancel my road trip, I cancel my trip to Mount Zion and I decide to go to Arizona. I had never been there. So Isaac, my healing angel, texted me and he says, have you ever been to Arizona? I was like, this is really weird, I just decided to go there. So I said, I'm not going to meet him unless God throws it in my face. So we start talking and I'm like, I'm not going to go there. Then he told me that he has the same birthday as me. So I was like, okay, I have to go meet him.

Because I told God that's what I have to do. So I go meet him. We have the same birthday. Our brothers are both named Jacob and David. Our fathers are both Egyptian Jews from Cairo. We're both vegetarians. Then I find out he does stuff with the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has 33% salt in it, while Disney's club is called Club 33. The reason they're called this is because the location of Atlantis is inside the Earth. The coordinates are 3333. It's the soul of the earth. A lot of

the people have been asking me if I broke into my healing angel's home. I'd rather not talk about those things. I met him using the online dating site Luxie. It's the shallowest website ever where the rich men meet the pretty girls. People said I messaged him some pretty weird stuff but I'd rather not talk about those things either. People said I texted them 65,000 times. To me it seemed like more but I don't deny that. It helped me gain all the information I needed to. Loving him selflessly brought this information because everyone just wants to take. But if you just give and you don't stop giving, even if you don't receive, you all of a sudden receive a lot. We went on three dates. I felt like I'd met my soulmate. Everything was just the way it was and I thought we would just do

what everybody else does and we would just like get married and everything would be fine. But that's not what happened. People have said that texting him 65,000 times was excessive, but love is an excessive thing. I get why people think I'm a little bit out there, but I'm not a crazy person. I'm the person that discovered love. The equation to light. Einstein discovered that the equation for light is E equals MC squared. To finish that equation, everything we see or touch is made out of light and the composition of the light that it's made of. A lot of people have said that my messages sometimes didn't sound loving, that sometimes they sounded threatening.

But when you're finding love, not everything is perfect. This one was a real journey, and I want to apologize because no one could ever be more sorry. I would never have hurt him. I love him. So the rest of the equation is L equals 3.33. L equals 3.33 times E equals MC squared and that's the equation of eternal love. It means one boy thing and one girl thing. The boy is the light, the light that makes the love work really hard. We as women are supposed to worship the men and they're supposed to lead us to where we're supposed to go. When instead we all believe in the number zero. The number zero is a belief system that the Illuminati created to create the undertaking of all humankind.

This is important for me to tell you this because I have to share, share the message of love. That everybody has to love each other. My healing angel is not a victim. I want him to know that I love him, that if he really wants me to, I'll leave him alone. People ask me about that over and over again but I tell them they have negative energy and I don't want to talk to them anymore. There's no need to be negative when everyone should just be nice. I only want to be nice. On the dollar bill it says she refers her undertaking new world order in latin and the pyramid represents slavery while the third eye is the imagination. So everybody is essentially a Jew, and that's

what the imagination is. The pyramid is how we were enslaved, so we've been enslaved by money. We enslave each other, a self-perpetuating cycle of enslaving each other and taking from each other and being selfish. In the past, if I've said something bad, I apologize. I want everyone else to be nice. I want all of you to be nice. If Isaac wants me to go to jail I should be in jail. I appreciate that because I love him and I should know better. He is the light and I am the love. He knows what to do. I don't mind being in jail because I like everything and everyone. If I was released today I would leave him alone. If he asked me to, I would.

But I know I need to go back home and spread the message there too. I wish Isaac had been nicer to me, but he was the meanest person I'd ever met. It's hard that we're soulmates, but he's so mean to me. There's one boy and one girl, one boy thing and one girl thing, and it equals 3.33. Instead of having the number zero, we're supposed to count to 3.3. One, two, 3.3. 3.3 is infinity. So if we counted from one boy thing to one girl thing, it would equal forever, just like the universe and all the planets. Police arrested 33-year-old Jackie Aides last April as she took a bath in the man's home while he was out of the country. She allegedly took her two dogs, food, and a bottle of wine with her, along with an 8-inch butcher knife that was found in the front passenger seat of her Mercedes-Benz parked outside the home.

Ades' journey requested a hearing in January to evaluate the woman's mental competency and to determine whether she could assist in her own defense. She was deemed mentally incompetent but restorable last month by two of three mental health officials. Addies had pleaded not guilty to charges of stalking and criminal trespassing. Leathers said she could have ended her incarceration months ago by accepting a plea deal, but that would have imposed a 10-year ban from contacting the man she allegedly barraged with texts. Addies insists jurors will not only find her not guilty, but they also order that she and her alleged victim get married. What you just read above was her letter from in jail. Whether or not you're a fan, no one can deny the monumental rise of Korean pop music over the past few years. Modern K-pop culture began with the boy band H.O.T. in 1996,

as K-pop grew into a subculture that amassed enormous fandoms of teenagers and young adults. With the advent of online social networking services, K-pop has gained a widespread audience all over the world, but the immense popularity of the genre has given rise to a new kind of obsessive fan, known as a sasaeng. The term sasaeng comes from the Korean word sa, meaning private, and saeng, meaning life, in reference to the fan's intrusion into celebrities' private lives. Sasaeng fans are often described as being female, aged from 16 to 25, and driven to commit borderline criminal acts in order to gain attention from their favorite celebrities.

Examples have included seeking out celebrities at their apartment or house, stealing their personal belongings or information, harassing family members, and even sending their idols inappropriate gifts Many Sasang fans are motivated by a desire to gain recognition from their idols And stand out from other, lesser fans One Sasang fan interviewed gave an explanation for this obsessive behavior I feel like I get to know more about and get closer to the idol I love If I go to a concert, there are thousands of people attending so the idol would not know

who I am, but if I become Sasang they will recognize me. If I keep telling them I am so and so, I saw you at that place before, I am so and so, they will start to take note of me and ask, did you come again today? To Sasang fans being recognized by idols is a good thing. This burning desire for individual recognition from their favorite idols has been the root cause of some infamous Sasang acts. Physical assault is one perceived way of being remembered. In 2012, a Sasang fan repeatedly slapped Yoo Chun of the boy group JYJ, justifying the assault by claiming that the idol would definitely remember her from then on. Sasangs

have also used social media to form a network of contacts to help spread and share information. The Sasang's activity is also extremely competitive. The Sasang who can get the closest to an idol, or who can acquire privilege information that no one else has, gains greater respect among other Sasang for their commitment. It has been noted that Sasang fans will try to get jobs in industries so that they're closer either to their idols or to information concerning them. Sasang targets employers such as airlines, phone companies, and credit card distributors. In 2017, Brave Entertainment, home of solo artist Samuel, dismissed two staff members for Sasang behavior that included following other artists

and communicating personal information about Samuel in return for cash from other Sasang. There are also so-called Sasang taxis. These are cab drivers who offer to drive Sasang fans around, following their idols to their scheduled activities or personal appointments. Such taxis charge an average of $600 a day and will follow an idol or group for the entirety as long as a fan wishes, sometimes exceeding speed limits and breaking other traffic rules. Drivers of such taxis may wait outside venues for customers wishing to follow their idols

as they leave whatever venue they've been performing in. Such methods, costly in terms of both time and money, have resulted in Sasang fans missing or dropping out of school, sleeping in internet cafes, or turning to selling their bodies to cover the expensive costs of their sasaeng related activities. The Korean media has reported that sasaeng fans are often people who begin as regular fans, but go on to obsessively devote their personal and social lives to the quest of standing out, or become closer to an idol or celebrity. The portrayal of such behavior in the media often attaches fear and stigma to selectively represented actions identified as problematic,

including the aforementioned acts of missing school and sleeping in internet cafes to meet with idols. Typical media reports of Sasang behavior focus on an instance or instances of socially disruptive fan activity and include criticism from sources including average fans, industry representatives, and other figures whose social standing lends moral weight to the negative coverage. One such case involves a Korean girl who committed acts of fraud by selling exclusive items that she never intended to send. Her reasoning was that she needed the money to continue her obsessive but expensive activities. Fans of K-pop are often quick to point out the differences between regular fandom and behaviors said to characterize a sasaang fan. A Sasang fan's identity is often represented in mass and social media using terms that carry negative connotations and express extremes, such as crazed, abnormal, psychotic,

or disturbing. Back in November of 2009, a Sasang fan of boy band 2PM posted writing in what appeared to be blood, later confirmed to be menstrual blood, as proof of her complete adulation for the group. This worryingly obsessive behavior toward the celebrity led to criticism of her actions, including from other 2PM fans and the band itself. Just two months later, an obsessive fan of MBLAQ's Lee Joon wrote and posted a message written in blood on social media. The message read, Don't forget me, Li Changsun. I only have you. I love you. She cited the 2pm blood writing incident as impetus and motive for her act writing in her caption. What was that 2pm's fan blood writing? Period blood is so gross,

I'll show what blood writing is. Not long after, in January 2010, an obsessive fan of the group Wonder Girls reacted very very badly to the news that the group was on hiatus. She cut her wrist and used her own blood to write, please come back Wonder Girls. She posted the picture of her face half covered by her hand, showed the blood writing and the scar on her wrist. The actions of Sasang fans are reported to have a devastating psychological impact on their idols. A young member of the boy band EXO said in an interview that he had developed a victim mentality due to Sasangs

and that it had severely affected his public appearances and activities. In 2016, Hetchel of Super Junior described intense feelings of paranoia and the crippling trauma that the actions of certain Sasang fans had caused him. With the increased use of social media, idols must be more cautious than ever in order to prevent private information from reaching the public, both Sasang and other fans. On the TV show Handsome Boys of the 20th Century, first generation singers of the band H.O.T. also admitted to paranoid feelings whenever they left their homes. One singer stated that he developed an addiction to video games, as he would stay at home out of fear of being accosted by crowds of fans.

It is clear that the culture surrounding K-pop acts is extremely intense, as has always occurred when young women begin to adore a certain celebrity. From Elvis and the Beatles to NSYNC and Justin Bieber, there will always be sections of society who develop dangerous obsessions with revered celebrities. Born in 1972 in Quebec, Genevieve Sabarin is an actress who mostly worked on low-budget commercials in her Canada. But the actress also had smaller roles in movies like Swindle, Eternal, and even Eddie Murphy's Pluto Nash from 2002. But Miss Sabarin is perhaps most famous for something considerably

more sinister. Sabarin was a unit publicist for the ill-conceived sci-fi comedy Pluto Nash, starring Eddie Murphy, in which actor Alec Baldwin made an uncredited cameo appearance as the character MZN. The two then attended a private dinner meeting almost a decade later in 2010. Baldwin was working in Montreal, shooting his latest movie when he was asked by a friend to meet with Miss Sabarin. He claimed that the meeting was simply to give Miss Sabarin career advice, but she later asserted the pair then drove to a nearby hotel where they'd engage in intimate relations. In the aftermath of the so-called business meeting, Miss Sabarin is then alleged to have later bombarded Alec Baldwin with phone calls and emails, in most of which she attempted to urge Baldwin to leave his wife for her before planning a Caribbean wedding. She turned up at his home unsolicited on multiple occasions, once at his New York City apartment,

another at his home in Long Island. She also made a surprise visit to an event Baldwin was part of at the local Lincoln Center in another apparently attempt to communicate with him. She has previously claimed via a lawyer that she was only ever attempting to determine face to face whether her amorous feelings for Mr. Baldwin were shared by him. I found myself in love with Mr. Baldwin very fast, she said. He reached my heart in a very deep sense. He promised me the night of my life. He was a charmer. She said the actor also made it explicitly clear that he was in love with her too. I'm naive or stupid but I don't know I believed him she later claimed. He called me every single day and as time went on it became more and more personal the besotted actress said. He would call me later and later and the conversation would go

longer and longer. In April 2012, Saverin was finally arrested for stalking after sending Mr. Baldwin's wife abusive messages via social media. She turned up at Baldwin's apartment in Greenwich Village with her dog and belongings on the day the actor had proposed to his wife and was quickly apprehended by police after a complaint was filed. Baldwin would go on to describe Sabarin's appearances at his house in a movie screening as, like something out of a Hitchcock movie.

Her apparently intimate knowledge of his whereabouts must have been highly disturbing. During the trial, Miss Sabarin would repeatedly jeer or heckle Baldwin as he testified before the court. At one point, she shouted out the word liar when he repeatedly denied the pair had been intimate together. Sabarin later shouted that she had proof that they had slept together, her knowledge of a scar on Baldwin's hip. You have a scar, she yelled. Why are you lying about me? Sabarin also interrupted her own lawyer time and time again as he was fighting for her favor

and complained that the press had vilified her. This is a complete and utter miscarriage of justice, she said. Everybody has used their force on me. It's ruined my life. I can't even get a job as a waitress now. On the stand, Baldwin said Sabarin had made him fear for his own safety and that she ruined his proposal to his then-fiancee Hilaria, a Spanish yoga instructor. While recounting all of this, he said, I ran to tell my wife not to go near the door because I wasn't sure if she had a gun or a weapon or where we were at this point, and then I called the East Hampton police. At this point, the emotional stress of the proceedings were evidently beginning to have severe effect on Baldwin. While testifying,

his eyes began to redden and he began to cry. Again, Sabarin, as if live tweeting from her seat, shouted, why is he crying? He has nothing to cry about. He's not the victim here. Baldwin said that on an average day he would get 20, 30, or sometimes 50 voicemails from Sabarin, some featuring her crying, some laughing, with a grand total numbering in the thousands. As Baldwin shared this shocking information with the court, Sabarin reportedly shouted, no, and are you crazy, until the judge ordered her to be silent. Mr. Baldwin's wife, Hilaria, also took the stand and spoke about her fear of Saverin, revealing that she had been forced to radically change her yoga teaching schedule after Saverin confronted her on the street. Hilaria also told the court that Saverin had tweeted frequently under her handle, Scarface

Madam. Saverin, according to Baldwin, was reportedly the on-and-off handle, Scarface Madam. Sabarin, according to Baldwin, was reportedly the on-and-off mistress of Scarface producer Martin Bregman. She told the court that Miss Sabarin relentlessly harassed her in increasingly threatening ways, even during her pregnancy. She cited a tweet from Sabarin that stated she hoped Hilaria would have a miscarriage. This feels like there's nothing we can do to make this stop. I'm terrified of her, she told jurors during an emotional account of the ordeal. At one point, as a direct result of all her interruptions, Genevieve Sabarin was escorted out of the courtroom by her lawyer and bailiffs after the judge threatened to hold her

in contempt of court. Tensions remained high for the entire trial. At one point, when Mr. Baldwin left the courtroom, he told a nuisance reporter he recognized, I hope you choke to death, you miserable scumbag. On the 14th of November 2013, Sabarin was convicted on five counts of harassment and sentenced to 210 days in prison. The judge sentenced Sabarin to an extra 30 days in prison because she had disrupted the trial proceedings over and over again and thus failed to give due respect to the court. Ms. Sabarin cried in court as a Manhattan judge sentenced her to seven months in prison for stalking Baldwin. Judge Thomas Mandelbaum said

Saverin had engaged in a relentless and escalating campaign of threats that showed an utter lack of respect for the law. The Canadian actress was found guilty of attempting aggravated harassment, harassment, attempted contempt of court, and stalking. Severin was taken away in handcuffs and told she would be fined $250 should she contact Baldwin or his family over the next five years. Shirley Jane Turner was born on January 28, 1961. Daughter of an American serviceman and a Canadian woman he'd met while on leave, Turner and her three siblings were raised in Wichita, Kansas. Yet after their parents' separation,

Turner moved with her mother to her native Newfoundland, where she attained Canadian citizenship. Shirley was a bright student, and after achieving excellent high school grades, enrolled at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, seeking to embark on a medical career. In early 1999, Shirley Turner began dating a man by the name of Andrew David Bagby, an American medical student in his third year of study at Memorial University. Bagby hailed from California, the son of a British immigrant and the U.S. Navy veteran turned computer engineer. Turner and Bagby must have found themselves with a great deal in common,

their childhoods bearing all the same hallmarks of military brats who constantly moved and therefore struggled with interpersonal relationships in their formative years. In August of the year 2000, Turner moved to Sac City, Iowa to begin a lucrative new job working for the Trimark Physicians Corporation. Meanwhile, after graduating from Memorial University in May of the same year, Bagby landed a surgical residency in Syracuse, New York. Despite the distance between them, he and Turner initially seemed committed to maintaining a long distance relationship with a view to reuniting in the future. According to Turner's own account, she visited Bagby's residence in Syracuse more than seven times while he only bothered to visit

her once during her time in Sac City. She wrote that this caused her some distress and led her to believe he was becoming disinterested. The following year, Turner obtained a permit to buy a firearm and later purchased a .22 handgun along with ammunition, which she used during subsequent shooting lessons. Around the same time, Turner began displaying increasingly possessive behavior towards Bagby, frequently harassing him over the phone and by email. In October of 2001, Turner broke the news to Bagby that she was three months pregnant. Stunned, he agreed to talk with her about the baby during a family event

that he was scheduled to attend in nearby Latrobe, PA. During the visit, despite the news of the apparent pregnancy, Bagby and Turner's relationship began to drastically deteriorate. Although Bagby seemed to be open to the idea of starting a family, the couple argued over Bagby's admission that he had been casually seeing another woman. It is believed that around this time, Turner had finished the last of her firearms lessons. Just a month later, Turner visited Bagby in Pennsylvania and confessed that she had been lying about her pregnancy in an effort to trick Bagby into staying in a relationship with her. Furious about this, he immediately drove Turner to the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport and ended the relationship Before sending her back to Iowa on a last minute bookend But Turner had a dark past

Three years before she and Bagby had met, Turner began a relationship with a fellow Canadian who was 13 years younger than her After the man broke up with Turner and relocated, she plagued him with angry phone calls. Turner then confronted the man in Halifax and a violent confrontation began. According to police reports, Turner had slapped the man repeatedly before he attempted to defend himself by pushing her away. Turner retaliated by taking off her high-heeled shoe and striking the man in the jaw so hard it caused a fracture. Fearing for his life, the man consulted his parents before emigrating to the Midwestern U.S. in an attempt to evade her. But to his horror, Turner followed and found him, leaving threatening voicemails and stalking the man over the following year. Turner began making frequent visits to

Pennsylvania, arriving unannounced at the ex-boyfriend's apartment. On more than one occasion, he called on state troopers to convince her to leave, claiming she had threatened his safety. Then, on April 7th, 1999, the ex-boyfriend found Turner lying semi-conscious outside of his apartment complex. She had taken an overdose of over-the-counter drugs. Turner was wearing a black dress and carried a bouquet of red roses and two notes on her person. One was addressed to the man and the other to her psychiatrist. The latter read, I am not evil, just sick. Turner was rushed to a hospital where her stomach was pumped and she survived. However, the very next day, the ex-boyfriend found a voicemail left by a female caller who said something along the lines of, We're terribly sorry to inform you that Dr. Turner passed away last night.

This was later confirmed to be a faked call from Turner herself. Two and a half years later, Andrew Bagby must have had no idea how much danger he was in. On the 4th of November 2001, Turner made a total of three phone calls to Bagby's residence in La Trobe. What they spoke of is unclear, but at approximately 1 p.m., Turner embarked on a 16-hour,000-mile drive to Pennsylvania, complete with her.22 pistol. In the early hours of the following morning, she confronted Bagby at his residence, located across the street from the medical clinic he was employed by. He later arrived at work in an agitated state and told a colleague of her appearance, but dismissed his advice to not meet

with her in private. Bagby subsequently promised to call that same colleague after meeting Turner later that evening, but he never showed up. Turner later drove home and left a message on Bagby's answering machine. The following morning, Bagby was found in a day-use parking lot at Keystone State Park in Derry Township, Pennsylvania. He had been shot five times in the face, the chest, and buttocks with 22 bullets. Acting on statements from Bagby's colleagues regarding his meeting with Turner, the Pennsylvania State Police contacted her for questioning. Despite her claim to have been in bed sick on November 5th, cell phone and internet records clearly showed that she had made a cross-country call both to and from Latrobe, accessed eBay and Hotmail from Bagby's home computer, and used his home phone to inform her employees of a brief absence due to sickness. When confronted with this evidence, Turner claimed that she met with Bagby at Keystone State Park, but that he put the gun in his trunk.

Turner alternately told her shooting instructor that her gun had been stolen. Investigators interviewed Turner's shooting instructor, who explained that her handgun was faulty and had ejected live rounds during some of her lessons. This was consistent with an unspent round recovered near Bagby's body. Later, a hiker traveling through the park reported seeing Bagby's Toyota Corolla parked next to Turner's own vehicle, just ten minutes after Bagby made his last phone call to Simpson. The residents later saw the Corolla parked alone the following morning. The lot number on a box of condoms found in Turner's Council Bluffs apartment matched a box purchased by Bagby and La Trobe on the night of the breakup. Also in Turner's apartment were MapQuest printouts for road directions to La Trobe.

Despite the evidence gathered, Turner had fled the country by the time authorities obtained a warrant for her arrest, but to her horror, upon arrival in Canada, she discovered that she was in fact pregnant with Andrew Bagby's child. On Independence Day 2003, Shirley Turner met a young man at a bar in St. John's. The pair dated and were intimate on two occasions afterwards. The man broke off the relationship after learning from friends about Turner's connection to Bagby's murder. Turner subsequently made a total of 200 threatening phone calls to the man over the following month. Turner claimed to have gotten pregnant by the man, but no evidence was ever found showing this to be the case. The man contacted the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary on three occasions to complain about Turner's harassment, which violated the terms of her bail

and would have been grounds to lose custody of her son Zachary. Because the man did not identify himself and declined to file any criminal complaint against Turner, no investigation was launched by the RNC. When an RNC constable contacted Turner's lawyer about the harassment, Turner denied the allegations. On August 18, 2003, Turner purchased multiple packets of sleeping pills from a St. John's pharmacy. She then drove with Zachary to nearby Conception Bay South, where her former boyfriend lived. There, Turner parked her car near his house and left photographs of herself and Zachary, as well as a used tampon on the front seat. Police concluded that she was attempting to frame the boyfriend for the impending murder

suicide. After spiking Zachary's baby formula with Ativan and ingesting it herself, Turner strapped the infant to her chest and jumped off a fishing wharf into the Atlantic Ocean. Both drowned. She had no intention of losing custody to Bagby's parents. It was determined that Zachary Turner was rendered unconscious by the Ativan and did not suffer. When I was 19, I moved from Oregon to Florida to be with my boyfriend at the time. I was thinking white sand beaches and Mickey Mouse, but instead got the swamps and bugs and dirt roads. It was a huge shock to the system.

We lived in this dinky little town called Hawthorne, just outside of Gainesville. Very small, one-stop light and four stores. Dollar General, Steve's Market, Eckerd's Pharmacy and Sunny BBQ. Whoopee. I got a job at the now-defunct Eckerd's in the middle of the town. It was next to the grocery store so everyone shopped there. After about three months or so working there I walked in to start my shift one day when the manager pulled me into his office. Laid out on his desk was about 30 to 40 open letters all addressed by hand to me. Do you know this person? My manager asked. No, I thought to myself.

Read one. So I picked the cheerful yellow one. Inside were two handwritten letters and a magazine cut out of a woman with long blonde hair, just like me. As the Eckerd manager watched on, I read the letter. I skipped around a lot of confusion desperately trying to find out why I'm in this room. From what I read, it was mostly someone imagining what spending time with me would be like. There were descriptions and comments about my hair, washing it, smelling it, and something about the moonlight. A few sentences were highlighted, others were underlined. My first thought was, am I getting fired?

Do you know this David Elrod? Hair. I said yes, I think so. The tall lanky guy with thick glasses and frizzy dark blonde hair. The regular who comes in a couple of times a week to pick up a diet coke and medication for his mom. Late 20s and obviously socially or mentally challenged. On rare occasions he would make small talk as I rang up his soda. Once or twice he would linger at my register or stare at me but I figured he was just trying to adjust his eyes or had poor

social cues. Harmless compared to some of the other people I've met here in Florida so I didn't pay him any mind. Until that day in the Eckerd's office. I knew he wrote the letters because of a strange encounter two weeks earlier. While working he came up behind me and caressed my hair. I had to remove it from his hands and he apologized. Weird. No harm. I went back to work. After telling my manager this he informed me that the customer was going to be banned from the store and I was being sent home while they worked out the details. What details? Confused, I walked out of the store and drove home. Strange. Two hours after I got home from my non-shift at work, there was a knock at the door. I look out my window and see what

resembles a SWAT team. I saw men in tactical gear with large weapons, two men dressed in suits and several uniformed cops and what seemed like slow motion at the time I opened the door. A female officer holds up a few oddly familiar letters. Can we come in and talk to you about these? Realizing everyone in town had read the letters, I wanted to pass out. I don't even know the guy. We have a seat on my couch and she begins to speak. Out of the corner of my eye I see my boyfriend shooting me dirty looks from the bedroom.

The female officer mentions getting the letters from Eckerd's and attempting to issue a trespassing notice. They wanted to speak to him directly she says because her whole department is aware of David. The officers confronted him at his residence and attempted to evoke the trespassing notice from Eckhart's store. Apparently, he was not happy about this. He insisted for over 45 minutes how this was all a big mistake and I wanted to talk to him. He was so combative and persistent, they decided to pursue stalking charges. Stalking charges, I thought.

She continues. You need to be aware that David killed and partially dismembered his mother when he was 12 years old. He was released from a juvenile psychiatric facility less than four years ago. Diet Coke. We found disturbing materials at his house. She continued. We believe he materials at his house, she continued. We believe he's been stalking you. My mind kept wondering.

It's my mom's favorite drink, he would say. David was arrested the next day for stalking after he was found in the Eckert's parking lot, but the last official word was he went back to the psychiatric hospital, at least temporarily. I didn't have the chance to read the letters in full before they were entered into some vault of evidence, nor did they explain what they found at his house, so I never had the complete picture of what was happening. My boyfriend at the time was a huge idiot about the whole thing, so I moved back to Oregon a week later. Besides, who wants to hang around when Norman Bates is fixated on you? I live in Florida and this incident happened about three weeks after Hurricane Irma. Back in July, the ex and I had just finalized

the divorce and I moved into a gated neighborhood where every house was rented out by the same rental company and landlords. It's a very small neighborhood with about 15 houses tops. All 15 houses are bordered around a man-made lake with the backyards facing the lake. No one really has a fence backyard. When you walk out of your back door, you see the lake in front of you and your neighbor's backyard on each side of you. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed very close. Someone was always hosting a family friendly party or barbecue or having people over to watch sports. I was and am still depressed about my divorce so I never partook in these social gatherings. The only person I got to know was my next door neighbor Steve, an active navy soldier with a huge love for guns. Steve is the true hero in

this nightmare. My daughter Alice is four years old and I get her every weekend. Alice's bedroom window faces the backyard towards the lake. I spoil that girl to death. She truly is my everything and I count down the days to the weekend every week just to be with her. That's why I was upset when Irma came and I had to go almost three weekends without seeing her. The weekend before the storm she was with her mom, then obviously the weekend of the storm she was with her mom, then on top of that the weekend after she had to be with her mom because my power was still out. No AC in Florida is miserable. The humidity was so bad that week that I slept in my daughter's room the whole week because she was the only room with a window that faced the lake. I opened the window, exposing just the window screen,

so the wind from the lake could cool the room as much as possible while I slept. Eventually the power comes back and Alice starts visiting me again like normal. That was when the nightmare started. My daughter would explain about the singing lady and how she doesn't like her anymore. I thought maybe she was referring to one of my ex's friends or one of the teachers at her school. Maybe there was a teacher at her school that sang to the kids and that she didn't like it. But that Saturday night Alice woke up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder. I ran into her room and turned on the light and found her hiding under her covers.

I asked her what was wrong and all she could do was point to an empty corner of her room and yell look look. There was nothing there. She was acting as if though she had seen a ghost. After I calmed her down she started to talk about the singing lady again. Please tell the singing lady not to come back. Please daddy, make her go away, she would say. Obviously she is having nightmares, right? I showed her that there was nothing in the closet and nothing under the bed and that there was nothing to be afraid of. She calmed down and went back to sleep. I went back to my room and quickly fell back asleep as well. It couldn't have been more than 20 minutes before Alice comes running into my room screaming,

she's back, she's back. Alice absolutely refused to go back to her room so I let her sleep with me. The next morning, Sunday morning, I took Alice out to breakfast and we stopped by Target to pick up a baby monitor. I haven't used one since her and her mom and I were still married but I wanted to easily be able to hear her and if and when she was having nightmares again so I could respond quicker. After I set them up I showed Alice how they worked to give her assurance that I could hear her and she was safe. That night she slept soundly and didn't make a peep all night. The following weekend Alice had to stay with her mother again because she had caught a stomach virus from one of her little friends at school. It was Saturday night and I

was sound asleep in my bed. Around 2am is when I heard it, a woman's voice humming a soft nursery rhyme through the baby monitor. The humming and soft singing got louder and clearer as the voice got closer to the monitor. I wasn't dreaming. I could hear a woman softly singing lullabies in my daughter's bedroom. I had never been so scared and dumbfounded in my life. I was feeling a mixture of pure terror and disbelief. Then the voice spoke out. Alice, sweetie, are you awake? Adrenaline shot through my veins. I jumped out of bed and locked my bedroom door. I picked up my cell and called Steve from next door. He didn't waste a

second. As soon as I got off the phone with him I heard him storm out of his back door screaming, don't you move. I ran outside and found him aiming his shotgun at a woman crouched outside my daughter's window. The one I had left open after Irma and never closed. Steve quickly dropped his guard when he recognized the woman. It was Jean, the neighborhood maintenance woman. Steve's wife came running out after him and confirmed it was her. Jean played dumb. She said she was not singing and didn't even know my daughter's name. She said she was near my daughter's window because she was doing her weekly patrol for gators and thought she saw one approaching her house from

the lake. Full of crap. That chick was singing and she called out to my daughter by name. Yes it's true that there have been a few gator spottings around the neighborhood and yes part of Jean's job was to patrol the lake at night every now and then but at 2am? I obviously knew it was bull crap and even though neither Steve or his wife called her out on it I could tell by the look on their faces that they didn't believe her either. The next morning I went over to Steve's house to thank him and tell him exactly what happened. He told me Jean and her husband had been known to be a little cuckoo but this is by far the craziest thing to have happened so far.

Steve helped me install metal bars on Alice's window that afternoon. I'm a proud Floridian. At the time of this story, in the early 2000s, I was going to college in South Florida and lived with my family in my hometown in the Florida Panhandle. It was about a 7 hour drive up through Central Florida to get between the two places so I mostly only went home for the holidays. It was the Thanksgiving of my junior year and I was excited that I had managed to rearrange my midterms to be able to leave campus three days ahead of everyone else. I was hoping to beat the masses of traffic and was hoping for a quick trip back home. My roommates wanted to have a last meal together before we all left for break so I ate in the campus dining hall at around 4pm and I set off

on my journey back home at around 5.30. Around 10pm I had just passed my two-thirds mark where I always stopped at this little mom and pops type of diner by the side of the highway to grab a snack, use the restroom, and call my dad to let him know I was okay. I didn't have a cell phone yet. pancakes, I just kept going. There really wasn't much build up around there at that time, so when I saw signs for a rest stop in, of all places on God's green earth, some little town called Alachua, I went for it. So I went and parked directly under the streetlight for safety and used the facilities called my dad, etc, etc. I didn't see anyone else there, except for a very exhausted looking woman who approached me asking for directions, saying she was with her husband and two small children from Virginia and they had made a wrong turn trying to get to Disney. So I left the rest area and was walking back to my car, when I noticed a beat up, unmarked, greyish-bluish work van parked incredibly close to the driver's side of my 95 Honda Civic. Yeah, okay, I thought that's pretty weird. It had Florida tags on it, so it couldn't have been the ladies I had talked to in

the bathroom. I distinctly remembered she said she was from Virginia. I turned around and hightailed it back to the rest stop, promptly running into some random middle-aged guy with two little boys. Getting to talk to him, it turned out it was his wife I had spoken to as she emerged from the bathroom a second later and I felt comfortable speaking to him. I told him what was going on with the van and how I didn't know what to do. He said he'd go check it out so he left the kids with his wife and strutted up to the driver's side of the van. He stood there for a moment before speaking, his voice awkwardly quivered, but we could hear him yell it from where we were standing some hundred feet away. Excuse me gentlemen, we already called the police, so I'm going to have to politely suggest that you get out of here.

And then he ran back to us, grabbed his wife and his kids, pointed to me with a swift, You! And said, Come on, let's all get in the car now, and we ran together. So here I was, confusedly sitting in the back of this stranger's SUV while he went and used the payphone to presumably call the police. Meanwhile, the van peeled out of there, like I've never seen someone get out of there quite like they had gotten out of there. They ran up on the curve on the way out. It burned rubber. It was almost comical. The cops got there and I found out what

had happened. The man went to go check out the van. He could see in it pretty well because I had parked under the streetlight. The first thing he noticed was that all of the seats except for the driver's seat had been removed and there was a guy sitting in the driver's seat and a guy sitting in the back. A tarp laid out in the back and a bunch of random items back there he couldn't immediately identify. Neither of the guys were reading a newspaper or a map or anything. They were apparently both just sitting there. It still makes me sick thinking about it. I was around five or six when this happened and although some things are a little hard to recall, please forgive me as I attempt to translate memories of my childhood self along with what my mother and sister have told me since the terror instilled in me from this ordeal still remains.

Maybe this will prove to be therapeutic. This happened in 1990 and 1991. My mother suffers from bipolar disorder and did not like to take her medication because she felt cloudy and numb on it. She's originally from Thailand and she always told me, It's America that makes me crazy. She'd often self-medicate with booze and cigarettes. She even kept a mason jar under the sink of something red that she had made herself. No idea what it was, but it smelled awful and she called it mommy's Kool-Aid. She told

me I was not to touch it, taste it, and definitely not to tell my dad and since I was the world's pickiest eater who hardly ever saw my busy father that was never a problem. My dad was in the military and he would often go on tdy's out of the country so my older sister and I were left at home with our mother who was for the most part perfectly capable of caring for us but you know she had her bad days as all parents must complete with off the chart mood swings that fluctuated between laying on the couch all day to wanting to play hide and seek with us and chasing anyone she found with a large kitchen knife. You know, typical childhood. Sometimes she'd go to Tampa for a few days to gamble or party with friends that she had made, most of them also from

Thailand or the Philippines. They all seemed outgoing and loud, like my mom. I watched a lot of TV when I was little and just assumed that's how real life was or should be, and no one on TV acted like my mommy, so I just thought she was a huge weirdo. I was always embarrassed at how people reacted to her because that's how my dad and sister acted and being so young I didn't have much compassion or understanding. I wanted her to be like the TV mom and it didn't help that my dad was always berating her for acting crazy and that she had to be careful while he was gone and straighten up or the state's going to take our kids away. My dad looked down on her and after a

while I followed his example. I can't believe I did that and I am totally ashamed of myself but I can only blame my youth and ignorance. One day I remember she was in a super good mood but super distracted. She was curling her hair, putting on lipstick, jewelry and her perfume was in the air. Offhandedly she informed us she was going to Tampa. I was a little confused because my dad was still gone on TDY and wouldn't be back for another week and we had school in the morning. She'd never left us when those things were going on and I'd never had to get ready for school without my mom. Not ever. She even took me there on her bicycle because I could still fit into the toddler seat on the back. When she saw my panicked face,

she reassured me that she just wanted to go see a friend who was having a birthday party and that she would be back in the morning to take me to school. My sister was 8 years older than me, so she was for the most part competent enough to look after me, but I wasn't looking forward to being left with her because she bullied me. I suspect it was due to my mom always favoring the baby, me at the time, and since I was super duper small for my age that's how everyone treated me. I should mention that although she was a huge bully to me, my sister also had this tremendous and oftentimes irrational fear that since I was so small I could easily be kidnapped and she always drilled me with questions on the daily about how to deal with strangers and what to do if anyone ever tried to take me with them. She'd even have mock drills where she'd pretend to be a stranger by wearing this awful latex

mask that I hated and making me run while timing me with her stopwatch and making me do it all over if I was too slow or tricking me and popping out of nowhere saying stuff like, congratulations, you're kidnapped. It was ridiculous and I hated feeling like I always had to watch my back. I learned later on in my life she did this because she and my mom had to thwart two would-be kidnappers on two separate occasions. So anyways, my mom drove away to Tampa and my sister watched TV while I played with my pound puppies. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. No tricks and teasing. I didn't even give her

any toot when she told me to go to bed. I always slept with my closet light on and my pound puppies. After positioning them all around my pillow, I settled into bed and fell asleep. I awoke suddenly because I was being shaken roughly awake by my sister, who was hissing my name through gritted teeth. I was so confused. What time was it? Had it only been a few minutes or hours since I'd come to bed? My mom always woke me up for school, but I had a clock radio by my bed that read six something, and although my window shades were down, I could see traces of soft blue pre-dawn. My sister pulled me out of bed and whispered furiously for me to get dressed.

I was completely dismayed. Where was mom? Why was my sister whispering? Why was she so mad? I would soon learn later she wasn't mad. She was terrified. She got down on her knees so that her face was about an inch away from mine and looked right into my eyes and whispered as calmly as she could, There's a man sleeping on the couch. I'm going to take you downstairs and I want you to run through the backyard and go to Kathy's, our neighbor, and have her take you to school. Great. After a whole night of not being timed or having to run and hide in less than 15 seconds,

she was at it again. I was a big fan of rolling my eyes at this age so that's what I did. My sister gaped at me. I informed her loudly that I didn't believe her and asked her where mom was. She covered my mouth and whispered that mom wasn't home. Then she walked me over to the staircase, picked me up and we slowly descended the stairs. I realized she was trying not to make the stairs creak and I craned my neck around to see in the living room and to my satisfaction there wasn't anyone on the couch. I looked at her triumphantly like, yeah right, who's on the couch? But she shook her head and pointed down where the family room was by the garage and half bath which was on the lower level of the first story, not a basement, just like a down a

hallway of four steps. After opening the door to this hallway she put me down at the foot of these steps in motion for me to go forward. We had thick curtains drawn in this room and they were on orange and white and brown floral prints so their outlines practically glowed as the sun came up behind them and as my eyes adjusted I made out a figure on our smaller couch who was turned away from us facing the couch back. At first glance I thought it was my mother because of the long hair and tan skin but the hair on the back of my neck prickled as I realized this person was all balled up and seemed crammed into the couch meaning they were a lot taller than my mother. Their shoulders were broader and they were wearing dirty sneakers and painted stained jeans that were loose like a

man's because it was a man. I started shaking all over. This had never happened before and my parents weren't here and I had no idea what to do. My sister put her hand back over my mouth and ran me back up the stairs. She closed the door quietly and pushed the lock button on it. She had locked him down there which made me feel a little bit better. I put a lot of trust into locked doors. My sister took me to the kitchen and gave me my book bag but not my lunch box and as I was about to inform her of this she opened the backyard porch door and gave me the solemn look so I shut up. She told me to run as fast as I could not to stop until I got there and not to tell anyone about the man because she was going to take care of it. She helped me put on my backpack

then counted to three just like in all the drills she made me do and I took She helped me put on my backpack, then counted to three, just like in all the drills she made me do, and I took off. I dodged my dogs, I unlatched the chain link gate, I ran down the back walkway toward the driveway, across the front yard, and off our property. I wasn't allowed to cross the street, but here, I was crossing it, flying across it even. I ran through other people's yards that were still wet with dew, and didn't stop until I was crossing it, flying across it even. I ran through other people's yards that were still wet with dew and didn't stop until I was knocking as hard as I could on Kathy's front door. Kathy opened the door in her bathrobe and her hair all mussy and I told her she had to take me to school.

That's all I said. She gave me a look like, oh do I now, before letting me in. I sat in her kitchen as she offered me breakfast food I wouldn't eat and got her kids ready for daycare. I'm sure she asked me why she had to take me to school, but I can't really remember the conversation. I think I just told her that my mom wasn't home and she just left it at that. Everyone in the neighborhood knew about my mom. Mostly she was always out in the yard gardening and being super friendly but they all had to take care of my sister and I at some point just like my mom would take care of their kids when they

went out to run errands. This was the only time in my life I felt like neighbors were just automatic friends. I went to school and didn't have lunch so the receptionist gave me a quarter to buy PB&J and milk which I didn't need or drink but knew I had to take so the school wouldn't look like they weren't taking care of me. Once I was talking with my friends all recollection of the events of that morning faded from my mind. It wasn't until after school that I remembered everything because I didn't see my mom's van waiting for me. I didn't see her on her bike or waving an umbrella at me. I didn't see Kathy or my sister or anyone that was there for me I stood there looking and thinking I could probably walk home

But I was terrified of having to do that simply because I never had But more because I was always told that I wasn't supposed to There was a boy in my class with white blonde hair who lived in my neighborhood And he was staring at me I felt uncomfortable and turned away staring at me. I felt uncomfortable and turned away trying to look like I belonged there and that everything was okay but I caught the attention of his father who had been helping his younger kids onto their bicycles. Honey, where's your mommy? He asked me. I didn't want to lie but I also didn't want to confess that

I didn't know. I didn't want them to know about all the weird stuff that was happening because if they told other people or my teacher or the police, I didn't want my mom to get in trouble and I didn't want to get in trouble either. Do you want to walk with us? She lives close, right? He asked his son, who nodded. He made his son walk his bike and keep pace with me while we watched his younger kids. I think this kid asked me where my mom was but I don't know what I told him or if I told him anything because I knew his dad was listening. I think I said that my sister was supposed to come get me so the issue would

be minimized to an irresponsible older sibling and not all out parental abandonment. I think children that are raised around the threat of impending instability are quick on their feet with responses like that, or they just play dumb. Once we got to my house, I ran up the driveway as the father watched, waiting to have responsibility relinquished, but I noticed with sinking stomach that the garage was down, which meant my mom's van was not in it, which meant my mom was not there. I froze, fearing discovery, wondering if I could just wave goodbye and go to the backyard and sit in my playhouse, but almost as if by magic, I saw my sister turn in the driveway on her bicycle. The dad gave her major disapproving side-eye and they talked a bit, and then he smiled at me and they all waved goodbye.

She ran up to me and grabbed my hand so I followed her up the walkway towards the stairs of our front porch and went into our house. I asked her if the man was still here and she said no. She told me after she saw that I made it to the neighbors. She went back down to the family room with the biggest knife she could find. She kicked the cushions to wake the guy up and yelled, Who are you and what are you doing in my house and he seeing her towering above him with this knife and being super disoriented probably hung over screamed in bloody terror and cowered behind some pillows i'm a friend of your mom's

he told her she told me to look after you i i folded the clothes. I folded the clothes. My sister then pointed the knife at him and told him to get up slowly. She waved at his face and told him to get out, which he was only too happy to do. He managed to unlock and pull open the sliding door in the family room, which we never used because it was too hard for anyone but my father to shut all the way. And she said the dogs jumped on him, trying to be friendly. Spaniels love everyone, the dummies. but he just thought that they were going to attack him so he picked up the pace as he climbed over the chain link fence and disappeared. After locking everything up, so she thought, my sister said the phone rang and it was our mother.

She said mom sounded drunk and asked her if we met her friend and my sister flipped out on her. Our mother could not understand why she was so upset and explained that she was driving a few friends home when they met a real live Seminole walking down the road as they pulled over and harassed him long enough to find out he didn't have a place to stay that night. mood since she loves making new friends my mom told him he could stay at her house but he had to fold some laundry and watch her kids so she could stay out and keep partying and he agreed. She let him in through the garage told him where to find the basket of laundry which I do recall seeing neatly folded by the couch in the family room and told him there's some beers in the fridge but not to go up to the second story. My sister said it like she said, well I told him not to go upstairs, like that ensured our safety or something. I wish I could end the story on a happy note because that right there seems like a great place to end it.

It's kind of light and funny even but sadly no. That weekend my sister asked to sleep over at a friend's house and my mom let her. She always let us do stuff like that and she was always being extra nice to us, I guess because of what happened earlier that week. She even told me I could have someone sleep over so I called all my friends from best to worst around 8 to 9pm and invited them to come sleep over. No notice at all, it was just how I rolled and though I expected they would all jump at the chance, sadly one by one their parents all said no. I kept trying to come up with more girls in my class that I could call until my mom told me it was too late and past my bedtime so I made my way up the stairs full of the pouts. She asked if I wanted to sleep in her room and have a sleepover with her but I just

whined no, as mean as I could and got ready for bed. All the energy I was putting into being a huge brat must have been exhausting because I fell asleep immediately. I woke up with a startle because my dogs were barking in the backyard. I remember I opened my eyes and instantly felt strange. It was pitch black. That shouldn't be. My closet light was always on. Always. Sometimes my dad would turn it off before he left work early in the morning, but I always woke up and turned it back on, even if the sun was almost up and I could see around in my room. When I was in bed, the closet light was on. Period. Besides, it was not only early in the morning this time and my dad was not home. I got super angry. Who turned out my light,

I thought. I stared into the black until my eyes adjusted enough that I saw the darker black rectangle of my open bedroom door. I always left my door wide open, but in the dark, it looked like it was opening into a void and anything or nothing was just through it. My anger faded and I started to shake. I decided to leave the safety of my covers, walk over to my closet and flip the switch back on. That would set everything right. I made my way over to the closet, felt around on the wall until I felt the switch and flipped it. Nothing. I flipped it off then on again. Repeat, repeat. Nothing. It was still dark. I noticed the clock radio wasn't on either,

and the lamppost by our mailbox wasn't emitting any light through my window shade either. My hopes sank as I came to the realization that the electricity was out. It wasn't storming, so it must have been the breaker box. I knew it was outside because sometimes I'd run a bath and water would stay cold so my dad would go out to the backyard to wherever the thing was and flip it for me. I instantly regretted not sleeping in my mom's room and was deciding whether or not to be brave and feel my way down the hall to it. But I never had a chance to do this because suddenly I heard thumping, like someone was trudging around downstairs. If it was Christmas Eve I would have been stoked but it wasn't and I knew that wasn't Santa. Maybe it was my mom trying to turn the electricity back on but that seemed unlikely somehow. I backed away from my closet toward

the foot of my bed where I kept all of my big stuffed animals propped against it and sat on top of them until the weight shifted them back and I sank into them. I felt safer having them all around me and only my head peeped through. I reached up my bed and pulled the covers down so they hung over the edge and covered my head so I could just peek through. If you walked into my room, the bed would be in the far right corner and the closet would be directly across from it on the same wall as the door. The door swung open to the right so where I was I couldn't see down the hallway anymore but I could see through a crack of black by the hinges. I heard the trudging get louder until it was coming up the stairs.

Once you got to the top you could either go left to the bathroom in my parents room or right toward my sisters room or my room. I wondered where this person would go and I noticed there was a movement through the hinge crack coming toward my door so I held my breath and closed my eyes tight. Whoever it was came in slowly as if they weren't sure about their surroundings. I heard them stop then move over to my bed. I smelled something like mommy's Kool-Aid and heard them grab my pillow, then toss it toward the closet. I know because it hit me in the head and then tumbled to the floor. The pound puppies must have gone flying because I heard the soft pit pat of them landing around me,

and after a pause that seemed to last forever, but was probably more like 15 seconds, whoever walked out and went into my sister's room, shutting her door behind them. My first reaction was to run to my mom's room because I was scared this person would soon discover the room was empty and come out quickly so I got up and looked down the hallway. I heard something faintly down at the end so I ducked down by my rocking chair. From this vantage point I was able to see directly down the hallway but I couldn't really see anything down it at all. It was just a big black space. I always threw all my clothes on this rocking chair so I got down low under where they were

draped and stared in front of me. I remember feeling the strain of my eyes dilating not knowing that's what they were doing as I watched the black rectangle of my doorway change ever so slightly. There was something darker, something moving towards me. It was close to the ground and sounded like a scurrying animal crawling on all fours but I knew it was deceptively small in its posture and all I could do was stare in horror as it came closer and closer, this thing that was darker than the dark. I watched it as it crawled over to my bed and heard it as it felt all over the sheets and covers. My teeth started chattering as I realized it was searching for me. It started feeling around the floor, under the bed, touching my stuffed animals and as it got closer to me, I let out a small

gasp. It stopped and turned toward me. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my face, another on my shoulder, and someone was pulling me out from under the drapes of my clothing and pulling me against them, holding me. They were shaking too, and I realized it was my mother. She knew her way around her house in the dark, and suddenly, we were gliding down the stairs and out the front door into the cool night air, running across the yard in our PJs to our next door neighbors who let us in and called the cops. My mom wouldn't let me go outside with her while she talked to the police but told me later the guy, her friend who my sister had kicked out, had returned because he was furious at her for being unforgivably rude and my mom, who had felt

had cheated him out of their deal. He knew our dad wasn't home and since our breaker box was located outside, he managed to turn off our power, come back in through the sliding door my sister hadn't managed to lock, thinking he'd scare us and make my mom apologize or something. That's what my mom told us that the police had told her. She said that when they pulled him in and handcuffed him, he kept repeating, but I folded the clothes. She still to this day tries to make it into a joke by imitating him when my sis and I cringe, although lately I find myself wanting to laugh with her. Maybe someday I will. I'm thankful that no one was hurt and that my dad

installed a security system and got a breaker box locked but unfortunately afterwards he hospitalized my mom and told her she had to take her medication every day or he'd leave her in there. She agreed but they ended up divorced five years later and it took my entire childhood before I could understand and forgive them. I'm still working on learning how to forgive myself, but I imagine a lot of people are in the same boat as me. Looking back on that time now, I'm just so relieved my sister wasn't home because who knows what that guy had planned. This happened almost two years ago when I was 22.

I live in an area outside of Pittsburgh. I was single at the time and the only thing I wanted to do was have fun and forget about my ex. I should say that I am a very cautious person, verging on the paranoid sometimes. I've never even broken a bone. I never trusted anyone I didn't know. I learned my lessons very young. So I felt very equipped to go out by myself to the local bar because I knew how to make the environment safe. I made fast friends with the bartenders, got along with the regular guys there as well. I made it very clear to everyone that I didn't want any sort of romantic attention. I literally just wanted friends and booze. Out of all the men there, one stuck out.

Phil was attractive, funny, and best of all, wasn't interested in me one bit. I had problems having male friends as all of them always girlfriend zoned me eventually. Phil actually liked having me as a friend, nothing else. It was awesome. We went to the local bars all the time together. I'd be his wingman, he'd be my bodyguard. When guys hung around me too long and I wasn't interested, if Phil gave a look, he'd usher the guy away. Perfect setup. We both felt pretty safe no matter where we went, but neither of us saw this one coming. A few months into our friendship Phil rings me and asks me if I wanted to go cosmic bowling. Emphatic yes. I

hadn't been since I'd been a preteen so I was really stoked. I get ready, I did my makeup very bright and expressive, threw on a bright blue shirt and overall shorts. I don't wear them anymore, I don't know what I was thinking. And some black combat boots and I'm good to go. The car that pulls up isn't Phil's. I call him and cautiously ask who is in front of my house and he says to come on out and that it's a few of his friends. This reassures me and I head to the rather large Ford SUV. I sit next to Phil and he introduces me to everyone. The man driving is Jason. His girlfriend is in the passenger seat. There's some gross kid in a fedora and this goofy hillbilly kid. Not uncommon

outside of Pittsburgh. They say they were going to a few towns over. That's where there's a bar we're stopping at first then bowling. Cool. I'm up for that. We get to the bar and it turns out Jason knows the bar owner and we drink for free and get a free pizza while we're at it. I went up to the front of the building for a smoke and turn around to find Jason walking up behind me. He shakes my hand and apologizes not introducing himself properly. I said it was fine and we made casual talk while we smoked. He expressed how much he loved my style. Burlesque rockabilly pinup is how I believe he described me. I thanked him and he began to tell me about the gay bar he DJs at and how his girlfriend isn't comfortable with the fact that he's bi. As a pansexual I can relate to what he's going through. I immediately

feel more at ease with him. I tended to trust men who weren't straight more because I felt as though they were less of a threat which was a mistake in hindsight. His girlfriend came out and seemed annoyed with me but I treated her very nicely as I understood it's easy to get jealous. We've all been there. Fast forward to bowling. Phil is way too drunk and ends up getting thrown out of the bowling alley. His girlfriend comes up to pick him up and apologizes that she can't take me home as well. I tell them that it's okay and I'll be safe. Jason agreed to take me home. Fast forward, bowling is over and Jason decided to head back to the bar and have the owner reopen after hours for us. I thought that that was pretty freaking rad and that he had connections like that. They reopened the bar for us and Jason actually attended the bar. I sat and talked with the owner for a while while Jason fed me alcohol.

I kept trying to refuse but he was really convincing. This shot tastes like a toasted marshmallow. You have to try it. Before I know it, I'm hammered. I don't remember much but I do remember getting home safe and I had made new friends. How exciting, I thought. Jason adds me on Facebook and invites me to the gay bar the very next day. I'm excited. I've never been to one he works at. I trusted him.

The months go by and we were fast friends. I started to hang out with him without Phil. He would pick me up. I'd set up his DJ equipment at the bar and get him wherever he needed. Then party the night away and he'd take me home. Sometimes his girlfriend was there but most times not. She didn't seem to like me still but I was nothing but nice to her. It began to bother her. Maybe she saw something I didn't. Valentine's day rolled around and as I was the local single woman who hated everyone, Jason invited me to a burlesque show that he was going to be doing the lighting for. His girlfriend was going and so was the hillbilly they mentioned earlier. Ten minutes into the adventure and I already had to tell off the hillbilly.

Just because it's Valentine's Day and you are single and going to the same club as I am does not a date make. The show happens, it's long and eventually I get bored and head to the bar. Jason's girlfriend comes up to me and is silent. She buys two shots of tequila and hands me one. She clinks my glass and says, good luck, and we take our shots. I realize what she had said as she walked away and thought it was odd. The hillbilly drives me home. I wake up. 46 missed calls, 20 some texts from Jason. I call him, concerned. He doesn't seem upset. He says he just wanted to talk to me. That maybe he had a few too many to drink and he was sorry. Okay, I guess. No big deal. He wanted me to come help him take the lights out of the club. I agreed. He picked me up and something seemed off but I couldn't place it. His face looked haggard.

He talked like his emotions were stretched too thin. We get to the club and it's locked. He called the owners and they said they'd be there soon, within the hour. He seems very agitated and doesn't even want to get out of the car to walk around at the shops. He then ignores my attempt at conversation and calls someone on the phone, an EMT whom he's acquainted with. He's asking him for things to steal from the ambulance. It started off innocent enough. Gauze, bandages, tongue depressors, and eventually... Do you still have that leather restraints for mental patients?

Do you guys have scalpels on the ambulance? One of those big needles, like the huge syringes. What about those pads that soak up fluid, like to put under a patient when they're bleeding, the full body ones? The phone was on speaker. I could hear the tension in the man's voice. He told him no to each request and was getting more and more nervous as this bizarre back and forth continued. Eventually the man hung up on Jason. I sat there trying not to seem conspicuous and he screamed in my face, what is your problem now? I smiled and said nothing was wrong trying to defuse whatever

was going on with my friend. He laughed nervously and apologized and said he had a rough valentine's day and he was trying to get stuff for his friend's performance art piece and wasn't having any luck. I trusted him. After we took down the equipment, he took me to the gay bar and one of the male strippers took a liking to me. Long story short, I may or may not have had made a poor life choice that night. Anyway, the bar closes and Jason isn't talking to me. We get in his car and drive a little down the road and he explodes. How could you do that to me? Alice, how could you? He started to cry, swerving all over the road. Don't you have any respect? Any respect for me? I told him to mind his own business and pull over. I'm walking home and he follows me and I'm

calling the police. I took out my phone and dialed 911 but didn't press send. Everything finally made sense that this was not a person who was my friend and it's time to be strong and fight. He pulls over and lets me out, silently, drives off. I call my father for a ride and he picks me up and asks what happened. I'm not a personal human, I'm not good at sharing, I only told my father that if a man with awful sideburns shows up at our door, bring a gun. Fast forward, I went to another bar with Phil. He was very protective of me after the incident, never leaving me out of sight for long. I walked to the bathroom which was down a dark hall at this particular establishment

and felt someone latch onto my arm. Jason. Internally I was furious and scared, but on the outside I did my best to remain calm. He looked dead inside, nothing in his eyes, just blank. I left Chrissy for you Alice, I did. You did this to me but that's okay, really because we're going to be fine. You can also sleep with whoever you want. I know how you are so it doesn't matter if it's girls or guys or what, I'm sorry I let it get to me before you're just so amazing, I don't want to lose you

it's okay, it is you can treat me like garbage if you have to if that's what makes you happy we're going to be together now, yes you're perfect I've always liked winter weddings. I let my rage get the better of me, and with as much venom in my voice as I could manage, I snarled. No.

I'm not your girlfriend. I'm not, never have been, never will be attracted to you. You need to let go of me now, you pathetic little worm. He blinked and squeezed tighter and began to drag me towards the car we're going to florida now and there's nothing you're going to be able to do about it the next thing i know i fall to the ground with him and he let go phil was on top of him beating the crap out of him after he was satisfied he took him by the shirt and dragged him out the door. A bartender helped me up. A few guys gathered around me and tried talking to me to calm me down.

Some even apologized that they didn't see the confrontation in the hall go down. I didn't call the police because I wasn't thinking straight and didn't want Phil to get in trouble for beating him within an inch of his life. I don't know what his plans were with me down in Florida, but needless to say, I don't go out much anymore. I lived in Florida for a year when I was five and I witnessed the special kind of crazy that the South has in store for a family from Cape Cod. The people I encountered were like the sights you see in Walmart at 2am. I'll start with the Bennett family. Kathy, the mother, met my mom at the bus stop and they became friends instantly. She invited my mother and father over to meet her husband, Rich, who at first thought

my mother was a stripper and my dad a pimp. Kathy would repeat her sentences like a broken record and was almost completely illiterate. The daughter who was friends with my sister was very pleasant, except for the fact that she was verbally abusive to the grandmother. Rich was as redneck as it got and the son never showered. My father was sent over to the Middle East for work reasons about halfway through the year we lived in Florida. During that time, mom planned a trip for her and us kids to go to Universal Studios and Busch Gardens for a week. Kathy invited herself. My mother was nice to tell her no. When we got to the hotel, Kathy thought she was having a heart attack in the elevator.

She wasn't. It was just flatulence. During our time in the park, we had to stop multiple times so Kathy could chain smoke. Our hotel rooms were connected, one for mom and Kathy and one for me and my siblings. The first night there, Kathy saw someone standing by the TV and asked my mom if she was up. She was asleep. That morning, my mother was dressing me in their room and what I saw when I turned around is forever burned in my head. Kathy was in the nude. Now this was a very large older woman so you can imagine the horror for a five-year-old. I quickly turned away and stared out the window until we left for Bush Gardens. The next night my oldest sister witnessed

Kathy come into the bedroom of our suite and sit on the table with the door open right in front of my sister. She also started dragging a chair back and forth for about an hour. We went back to Port Charlotte that morning because Kathy missed her kids. The next encounter was centered mainly around me. A boy who was in first grade moved on to our cul-de-sac and was drawn to me because I was, to him, perfect. Every day he would look in the windows of my house till I got up. My oldest sister dubbed him the window shopper. One day, me and Jessica, Kathy's daughter, went over to his house.

He started chasing me around with a knife till I finally slapped him and went home. One time he pinned me down and started kissing me, to which I responded with a swift kick in the balls. One time he brought a calendar filled with pictures of naked women to my house and I still don't understand why. On another occasion he pushed me into a mound of red ants. If you know anything about red ants in Florida, then you will understand why this was a very scary experience for me. I got up and threw him into the mound and kicked him in the stomach and ran inside to put bandages on my legs. He was a real creepy kid and I'm so glad he wasn't a lot older than me because I think he would have tried

to do something awful. I saw some posts on here from a guy talking about people he witnessed in Florida and just wanted to share my experience because they don't get much weirder than there. I was walking down the main street through Destin, Florida. Bright sunny day, me in a mini dress and flats and a jacket. Hey, this is Florida, this shouldn't be this big of a deal, right? So I'm walking along and some guy in a white sedan pulls up next to me, asks me if I want a ride. I say no and keep walking. Next crosswalk, I cross the street because I can see that he has pulled in a few blocks down. I keep walking. I can see the guy notice me, pulls out, drives down

a ways then turns around. He drives back toward me, slowing as he gets close. I ignore him and keep walking. He takes a right, turns around and pulls out the next block down, right in front of me. As I walk in front of his car, he asks if I want to ride. I ignore him. He makes the same maneuver again, pulling in front of me two blocks down. As I walk in front of his car again, he asks if I want to ride. I turn on him and yelled, I've told you three times that I don't want to ride. I'm not a prostitute. If you bother me again, I will call the police. Now get lost. He drove by a couple of more times, but he didn't accost me again. Needless to say, I didn't wear a mini-dress in that town again. A couple of years ago, I was in our neighboring town.

Our town is small, so if you need anything you have to drive 30 miles to the city to get it there. Interstate 75 runs at the center of this town. While I was there I stopped at a local sub shop to pick up lunch. As I was heading my truck I saw an older Lexus drive past and a man put his seat down all the way. I didn't see his face much but I saw his sleeve tattooed arm in the window. I got to my truck, hopped inside when the Lexus pulled up a few spots away. There were no other cars around me. A scraggly, cracked out looking woman got out of the car and ran up to my truck. I locked the doors and I cracked the window because I had already seen the man trying to hide in their car.

These folks are up to no good, I thought. The woman started talking a hundred miles a minute. She tells me that she and her daughter, she says she and the car sleeping, left her abusive relationship and they are on their way to Florida to stay with family. She asked if I had any money to help them out. I told her, sorry, I don't have any cash. She kept on talking and I just kept on listening instead of driving away like I should have. She kept on talking and I just kept on listening instead of driving away like I should have. She's in tears now and really putting on a show. In the back of my mind I kept thinking, there is a man in your car, I saw him, but I didn't mention it. She asked me if she and

her daughter could follow me to the ATM to get them some money since they were about out of gas. I told her again, sorry, no. I put my truck into drive and started to pull away. Her tears stopped and she stormed off to her car. I don't remember exactly all of what she said. It was a long, fast-paced story, but looking back, her story made no sense. She said they were from a town that was south of where we were. If she was truly heading to Florida, she wouldn't be north of her destination. I am guessing they were drug addicts trying to scam a few bucks off of people in parking lots. If they were really smart, the guy would have stayed at home and sent her out on her own. If I hadn't have seen him in the car, there's a good possibility I would have believed her story

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