The Lets Read Podcast - 83: Episode 074 | Mall & Crazy Neighbor Stories | 29 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

Welcome to the seventy-fourth 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 Malls, Stranded During Winter & Crazy Neighbors... 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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Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Like Toyo's open country family of tires. Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. Tread Experts.ca so a little backstory before i tell you one of the crazy experiences of mine that happened during my two year security career from 2013 to 2015. I'm a 6'7 male in Australia. I'd like to think I'm a fairly tough and intimidating guy but some of the stuff that used to go on at that mall I used to work the night shift for still gives me goosebumps to this day.

So the mall I worked at was very very large, probably the largest in my state I'd say and all the way up to about 8.30pm it would still be quite busy. Only around 9.30 would we manage to usher all of the stragglers out and only at about 11pm would all of the business owners have left. My job was basically to patrol the mall and make sure there was no one sticking around after the doors were closed during the night. We didn't have guns or batons, only a can of mace that was very rarely used. There were multiple occasions where we would find would-be thieves hiding around trying to break into shops after dark, but they were normally far outnumbered by

the four to five of us on shift at a time and they would usually be intimidated by me or some of the other imposing members of security. This one night though, things started getting really weird for me on the night shift. So I'd say it was about 2 o'clock and I was standing in the middle of the empty food court eating a sandwich. This was the only part of the mall that had any light at night time due to the skylight so it was comfortable to eat there. While I was eating though, I heard a dull scraping noise from the hallway leading off from the food courts into some toilets. It sounded like a piece of metal dragging across the floor.

I was immediately put on edge and I flicked on my torchlight without a moment of hesitation. I can remember creeping down the hallway, flashlight in hand, illuminating a good 6-7 meters in front of me. As it got closer and closer to the end of the hall, the noise became louder and louder until I was at the end of the hallway and there was the toilet doors to the left and right of me. I could tell the sound was coming from the female toilets though. I gripped the handle and opened the door a tiny little crack. The noise was now very clear and had me not scared but confused so I yelled, oi who's in there? The noise quickly stopped. I paused a moment listening hard through the tiny crack of the door and I swear to god I could hear

breathing, low male breathing. I shut the door still gripping the handle tightly and flicked on my radio. This is 13, I need help in food court bathrooms, I think someone's here. No response. This was really strange and it put me further on edge. Policy was to always answer the radio and now I was truly becoming quite alarmed. This is 1-3, does anyone copy? Still no response. I can remember whispering to myself, what is going on? I again opened the door a tiny crack. Listen mate, I said sounding as intimidating as possible, if you don't come out with your hands up you're gonna end up eating your teeth tonight, do you want that? I sat there at the door quite honestly terrified at this point but there was no response, In fact there was no noise at all. I yelled into the

bathroom. Okay mate I'm coming in. If you do anything stupid it's not my fault you'll never walk again. I tried my hardest to sound scary but my voice was quivering at this point. This whole situation made no sense at all. Why would someone be in the female bathrooms? What was the metal noise? What was even happening? I very slowly opened the door and scanned my flashlight across the room. All the cubicles were open, which was weird. But other than that, the room was totally empty. I was crapping myself about now. I was definitely losing it.

I walked into the center of the bathroom, closing the door behind me. Scared to the core, closing the door behind me. Scared to the core, I let out a faint, this is some horror movie stuff right here, eh? Come out. When I heard the long, whining squeak at the door behind me, I span around, basically crying at this point and shone my torch on a massive man, at least a head taller than me or so it seemed in my state at the time. He was Caucasian and at least in his forties with matte grey hair all over his forehead. He was mid-opening the door but he stopped dead still in the middle of his action. He just looked at me, smiling this guilty smile like a kid would make when he gets caught stealing biscuits or something like that. I'm not going to lie,

I was so scared I froze. He lifted his finger to his mouth, before swinging the door all the way open and sprinting out with what looked like some type of small metal box in his hand. Turns out he was just behind the toilet door when I was opening it and I totally missed him. I was so close to him I didn't even notice him. He could have killed me if he had a knife or something and that thought still haunts me to this day. Later that night my radio miraculously started working again and I got right on telling my co-workers about my story. They collectively went pale when I told them what happened. They all had similar stories but none that were as much of a close shave as mine. I worked the night shift at that mall for another week after that

before I quit. I'm not sticking around in a job like that. I needed help and for some reason my radio screwed the pooch. Why? I may never know. I was walking with my dad in a mall. I, 19 at the time, a seller of a car was talking of a giveaway that they were going to make. I signed up but my dad was extremely rude, as always, because in his words, the guy wasn't a good seller. I told him, dad stop, and gave the papers back to the guy. So we were leaving and the seller came running to tell me I forgot to write my number in the application. I did.

I need to point out that back then I was nice and polite with strangers. Not anymore. So I get home and an unknown number texted me. The conversation kind of went like this. Hi beautiful. Sorry I don't have you on my contacts list. Who is this? It's me, the seller from the mall. What? Why is this guy texting me? I hate when guys call me beautiful to flirt with me but this was beyond my limits. He goes on saying, your dad was a bit grumpy but he seemed so nice and beautiful. Actually, you didn't have to write your cell phone number in the application but

I really wanted to talk to you again. I froze. So unprofessional from this guy. I don't know if that guy thought I was going to see that as romantic but it just came off as incredibly creepy. I was dumb at the time so the guy kept pushing a conversation and I answered back with short sentences until he stopped texting me and I blocked his number. I realize now I either should have told my dad or filed a formal complaint to the mall but that was back when I was an old me. The new me wouldn't stand for that at all. I'm a 16 year old female and I recently asked my mom about this since I don't remember all the details. When I was 3 years old I lived in Ohio and was what we called a happy child. Rarely cried, always smiled, loved to talk to people. I also looked really adorable. Short red hair,

green eyes, loved wearing a yellow polka dot dress with many mouse pins. I also had a really high pitched squeaky voice. I wouldn't say it was annoying but you could definitely tell if I was talking and what I had to say. That's what's really important to keep in mind. It was sometime in the summer, my dad worked at a DVD company before the days of Netflix so it was just mommy and me time. On this particular day my mom took me to the mall to shop around since she was expecting a baby boy and me, being the happy little kid I was, came with her to help, which was just to run around stores, look at toys and stuff kids do. When we got to the Gap, I was really bored and was starting to get cranky, but my mom said if I was good I would get to go to Build-A-Bear and to

a three-year-old that place was like heaven. I decided to sit at the front of the store and pretend to be a mannequin. My mom was cool with it since she wasn't that far away and people walking by smiled and waved at me. That is until I saw creepy guy. The way this certain mall was set up there were benches in front of certain stores near small carts that sold random things in trash bins. Well this bench faced directly at the gap and usually other moms would sit there with strollers and try to calm down their screaming kids. My mom told me that later since I couldn't remember anything other than the rest. But this guy, he just sat on the end of the bench and stared directly at me and was looking me over. This dude was the most disgusting man I have ever

seen in my life. Long, greasy, unkempt hair, black hair, dark green torn and stained shirt, ripped and dirty jeans, long greasy beard. This dude was gross. But me, being the friendly three-year-old I was, waved and smiled at him. He smiled the most creepy smile and I could remember how yellow his teeth were as he waved at me. At this point, I didn't feel scared or threatened, I just thought that a nice man smiled at me. I then climbed out from the mannequin display area and was about to go to my mom when I heard him behind me. Hey sweetie, what's your name? I quickly turned around and saw this dude now kneeling at my height, smiling at me. Um, I'm Madeline, is along the lines of what I probably said. Nice to meet you. I'm Tony,

how old are you? He said to me, not seeing what was wrong with this, I told him my age. Wow, three, that's really cool. Say, do you like candy? Now I'm older, I really facepalm at knowing that this dude was using the whole candy shtick and that I was actually falling for it. Yeah, I like chocolate and gummy bears and lollipops. Again, I don't remember word for word what I said, but it was along those lines. Oh really? Me too. Say, the candy store has a ton of gummy bears. Why don't you come with

me and pick out all the candy you want? It was then that he stood and held his hand out for me and innocent little me gladly took his hand and began to jump around excitedly. But as my hand was in his, my heart sank and my excitement immediately died this dude began to drag me out by my hand until I hear the best thing I could hear in that moment hey get away from my kid my mom screamed this point I think literally everyone's head turned toward my mom I've never seen my mom so angry in my life but at that moment she went into full mama bear mode. My mom told me that the man looked down at me, looked back at my mom before letting go of my hand and running as fast as he could out of the store. My mom literally ran to me and pulled me into the tightest hug a

very pregnant woman can do and by then security had come and started searching the whole mall. But by then he was long gone. To give a little background information, I was 13 when this happened, around 5'1 and 95 pounds, and the usual European looking girl. Blue eyes, light skin, light hair, so not very intimidating at all. My friend who was with me is this heavily set ethnic looking friend. He was 15 at the time. My friend and I had just finished shopping for Halloween costumes and we were sitting outside this mall at around 6pm-ish.

So it was still light out but kind of hard for me to make out details of objects. We were sitting on the trolley rail within 5 meters from the kiss and ride his father was going to pick us up from. We were chatting and basically just messing around with snapchat filters and sending videos of ourselves to friends. This area in Australia is very known in my state for bogans and druggies. I see this man walking from person to person looking very homeless. I have some pity for him and I nudge my friend, let's call him Henry, directing his attention towards the homeless man. He goes rigid and keeps his eyes trained on the guy at all time, obviously a bit intimidated. Of course he comes up to us and I give him a long look over. He's this 5'8 man, dark skin, sores and scabs all along his face.

His clothing is all ratty and caked in dirt. He reeks like death and obvious drugs. His eyes are very bloodshot and I'm thinking he's either on drugs or alcohol or maybe both. As he's got an empty vodka bottle with a disgusting smelling liquid similar to the leftovers from homemade drugs. Got any change? He asks me. His eyes obviously drawn to my body and I feel disgusted as I have a very childish body and I don't look very old with this 40 something man staring at me like a piece of meat. I'm too scared to even answer so I simply shake my head. He sneers at me and looks at my friend, asking the same question. Henry, being the idiot he is, opens his wallet to check,

flashing his bright yellow $50 note and the druggie notices it and reaches out. Henry, realizing what he's done and quickly closes his wallet, says, No, sorry mate, I don't have any. He glares at me, I don't even know why, I wasn't the one with 50 bloody bucks, and bares his disgusting teeth, all blackish yellow and his breath reeks of vodka and something similar to rotting meat. He then steps forward, so we're almost chest to chest and he looks down at me. Henry is too shocked to do anything and I can't step backwards as my back is pressed against the trolley return bar. My adrenaline kicks in and I assume an offence position,

fists obviously raised and I glare back at him attempting to intimidate him. This didn't work. He eventually steps backwards and walks off, not before calling us a couple of names. Henry of course does the stupidest thing he can do then and calls out, Oi, I said I was sorry bro. This causes the guy to turn around and stalk over to us. He gets right and close making sure we can't move away without bumping into him. He gets right up in Henry's face and says, What do you gotta say you bloody wog? Henry, as I said, belongs to ethnic culture. He's something like Greek, Italian, and Irish. So the word wog makes him angry very much so.

He gets obviously ticked off and stands up and gets right into this guy, his shoulder pressed into his chest. Henry is a good 6'1 to 6'2, so he easily towered over this guy, basically breathing into his face. The druggie backs off and runs towards the bus station across the road, asking the people under the shelter for their money. I completely lose it at this point, shaking and talking incoherently whilst Henry calls his dad and tells him to hurry up because Kat, me, is in trouble. His dad arrives shortly and yells at us to get in the car and Didn't take care that some guy had just scared the life out of us. He promptly drives me home yelling at Henry the whole time. He pulls into my street and I get out and sprint home. I was scared of just even being outside.

I run inside and my dad sees that I'm obviously shaken up. Calls the police and tries to get the appearance of the drogo out of me whilst I'm having a mini panic attack. The police are very helpful and send a car to the mall to check for the guy, coming up with nothing. The people who we sent were absolutely lovely and kept monitoring that place for a good month or two. I'd like to say it ends here but sadly it does not. That same year I got a job at a small store in that very same mall. I hadn't seen this druggie for a good few months and the police never came up with anything so they completely forgot about it. At my work we get pretty festive during Christmas with Santa hats and reindeer antlers so we obviously did the same during Easter. I had myself a cute little pair of ears and a cotton tail to go

with it. On the registers we joked around a lot and were always having conversations with our frequent customers. I was in a very good mood as I had such a lovely conversation with a lady and we were all laughing at her jokes. I called for the next customer to come over to me and I start scanning a few items before I hear this guy start talking to me. Cute ears. A girl like you shouldn't be dressing so adorably with such horrible boys working with you. The boys I worked with are absolutely lovely and they have never made a comment about my bunny get up. I look up and freeze. The same druggie guy from before is there. I try to keep my cool. I start silently crying and continue serving him before he makes a disgusting comment about me having to dress up sometime for him in his home. I knew what he was

getting at and I was horrified that he'd say that to an underage girl. The boy on the register next to me hears and stalks over to my register, standing directly beside me just staring the guy down. This guy looks obviously ticked off and says oi mate I'm just talking to this lovely girl. He reads my name tag and says Kat and I are having such a nice conversation aren't we? I choke out a yes and reply and my friend sees I'm visibly scared. He basically moves me out of the way and finished the transaction for me before telling my duty manager to make sure that that guy can't come back in. I've worked at that store since and I've only ever seen the guy once more. The same boy pushed me into the small room that the money

machines were in and told me to stay put until that guy left the store. The managers were pretty ticked off that I wasn't working for a good 15 minutes but the boy informed them of what had happened with me and that freaking creep. Seven years ago I was pregnant with my daughter. My niece, 15 at the time, would come with me to the local mall so I could walk around in aimless circles trying to induce labor. It was a rare mild break in the weather so we sat outside for a bit, enjoying the brief warmth before yet another snowstorm would pummel us. While sitting there, a guy walked over to us. He seemed a bit sketchy, probably a bit older than my 24 years. Hey there. He smiled, showing yellow dirty teeth. I forced a polite smile, not really wanting to talk. He focused his attention on my niece.

I'm Justin. Who are you? Reluctantly, she answered. I'm Ashlyn. Cool, cool. I'm 19. How old are you? Ash glanced over at me. I was trying not to pull a face. 19, my big pregnant butt. Um, I'm 15, she answered. This went on for a while, just short polite answers. Finally he started to get a bit weird, turning his attention to me. I took care to make sure my wedding ring was highly visible. He didn't take the hint. I finally tried to politely excuse us. Instead of leaving us alone, he proceeded to follow us inside. To try to get him to go away, I feigned baby on the bladder and pulled my niece into the bathroom with me.

What is up with this guy? Ash hissed. Thanks for having to pee. I didn't have to, you just gave me the creeps. Especially the whole you're a beautiful pregnant woman, I would be thrilled if you were mine. I cringed. Let's hang out in here for a while before we go back out. Hopefully he'll be gone. We waited about ten minutes before venturing back out. Looking around I was relieved that he was nowhere in sight. We conferred real fast and decided that we would go on the walk as planned, just a few

circuits. We were closing in on the bookstore with its tall floor to ceiling glass front. That's when I caught him following us. He was being sure to stay just far enough behind that we wouldn't realize he was there but I caught his reflection. I nudged Ash and pointed towards the bookstore, hoping she could see the same reflection I did. Come on, let's go ahead and take a look, I know you hate books but I want to see if they have anything new. We ducked in,

thankful for being short it allowed us to disappear behind low shelves. Again we waited it out and we didn't see him around before continuing our trek but yet again i caught a glimpse of him not far behind us oh my god i groaned under my breath he's still there i whispered to ash this time she grabbed my arm and dragged me into victoria's secret oh yes perfect store for a woman who was nine months pregnant. This time we decided to head back for the doors and get out of there. Neither of us was comfortable with this creep behind us. Before taking the exit, we looked around carefully making sure he was actually gone. We didn't see him. We hurried to my car and thank goodness for reserved pregnancy parking.

The next night I turned on the news. It was the usual politics. Then the local news. A man had been arrested for a brutal beating of a local pregnant woman. He was caught in the act. The mugshot flashed up and my jaw dropped. It was the creep from the mall. He had attacked the woman the day before, the same day we had been to the mall, he attacked her in the parking lot. I live in a fairly small city, but we have a pretty impressive mall called Destiny USA. It's huge, like seven stories in some parts. It's the sixth largest mall in the US or something like that. You're probably wondering why I'm rambling on about this but it plays a part in the story. Like normal teenagers, me and my best friend at the time were there quite often.

One Saturday my dad dropped us off at around 3.30 and we began walking around. About two hours after we got there, these two guys make really loud and unnecessary gross comments to each other about us as we walk by. They made sure we heard too and were staring us down. We were only 14 at the time and we've gotten catcalled quite a few times despite our age. Disgusting I know so we didn't really think anything of it at first. Not even two minutes later I look back for whatever reason and realize the two guys from before are walking behind us. I'm a little uneasy from this, but not too worried.

But I tell my friends anyways, and we decide to keep going and take unexpected turns in the stores to make sure that they weren't following us. We went into various stores on that floor, and when we came out, they were always lingering nearby a bench but not actually sitting down and they always began walking again as soon as we exited the store. At this point we were panicking as neither of us were large or intimidating girls. I was only 5'2 and she stood at a mere 4'9 and neither of us weighed any more than 105 pounds. We speedwalked to the nearest elevator,

trying not to let them know that we caught on to them following us. We pushed a random button and ended up getting off on the floor underneath the one we were previously on. We walked around for a while until we saw the same guys coming from the opposite direction towards us. My friend alerts me about it, and we go back the way we came from and took the escalator up to another floor, then run over to a section of the mall that was recently built. After we're a good distance into the new section of the mall we start peeking over the railing onto the floor below us.

It doesn't take long for these two idiots to show up there frantically looking around to try to figure out where we were. As I mentioned before, our mall is huge. It's super unlikely to see the same person twice, let alone multiple times in a matter of 15 minutes. I start planning in my head what we were going to do, but I soon realize that since they were directly underneath us, even if we decided to take off, there's a balcony sort of thing on all the floors that allows you to look both down the floors below you and above you onto higher floors which means they could see us pretty much anywhere we decided to go. We try sneaking into a nearby store and out of view of these two creeps all the while praying that they don't look up to the floor above them and just then we heard a loud there they are come on let's go. We look back and one of the guys is

pointing at us and they're both looking at us with this angry expression. They start booking it to one of the escalators that leads to the floor we are currently on. Me and my friend are in full panic mode by now. She's hyperventilating and I feel like I'm going to throw up, so we start hauling it, trying to get away from them. We continue running, starting to slow down from exhaustion, but now the two dudes are off of the escalator and are almost directly adjacent from us. My friend tells me to text my dad to tell him that we were ready to leave, and to get to his car from the parking lot and bring it up front to the entrance to pick us up. Luckily, my dad usually drops us off then does shopping of his own while we're

walking around. Therefore, if anything happens, he isn't far away and we can meet up with him easily. So we're tearing around this huge building, scared out of our minds, trying to text my dad while these two intimidating dudes are running after us, gaining speed and getting closer by the minute. Luckily, when we get to the entrance of the mall we see my dad and the two guys that followed us reluctantly backed off. I'm very thankful for my dad since the security guards at that mall were basically useless and no bystanders asked us what we were running or hiding from. It may not seem too scary but it was terrifying given we were only 14. I know I've heard a much more interesting story about a survivor of Ted Bundy, but I still find this story interesting.

It puts into perspective how many people out there may have had close calls with serial killers. My dad can be pretty paranoid, but he's still a reasonable man. And come to think of it, this story may be the cause of that paranoia. This story takes place back in the good old days, specifically between 1978 and 1991. My dad was at that Grand Avenue mall. He always lived in some sort of Milwaukee suburb, less than 30 minutes away from the actual city. So he's walking around the mall, doing whatever, when he notices this man following him. He brushes it off for a bit, thinking he was one of those undercover security guys.

A few minutes later, after he left the store, this guy is still trailing him. To test whether this guy was really following him, he made a few pointless detours, ones that the man following him would only be mimicking if he was indeed following him. Needless to say, the man was still walking comfortably behind him. From that point, my dad knew something was wrong and made his way to the nearest mall security guard. When he turned around, the guy was hightailing it out of there. About a year later, my dad was watching the news only to recognize the mugshot of his stalker, if you will, which identified the man as the one and only Jeffrey Dahmer. I love shopping. It's easily my favorite thing to do, especially when seasons change and all the new clothes appear, hanging neatly on gleaming silver racks. Last weekend I decided to pay my

favorite mall a visit. I was looking for a nice pair of spring flats to wear with my jean overalls. I got the flats and a little something extra I definitely did not pay for. Really it was my own fault. I got so wrapped up in finding the perfect shoe that I tripped over his foot nearly sending a carefully placed display of sunglasses to the floor along with my own clumsy self. I apologized instantly, embarrassed and flustered but he didn't seem upset. He actually looked quite amused. I assumed it was because my face took on a becoming shade of hot red but maybe it was my panic at the thought that I might have hurt his ankle and all the commotion. Now I kind of wish I

had. After getting up and trying fruitlessly to regain my dignity, I took a good look at the man I accidentally assaulted. He looked at least 30, tall, dark haired, lanky and a bit hunched over. I guess he must have worked at a desk all day. The features that really caught my attention though were his teeth, pearly white and straight, like in a toothpaste commercial. He must have noticed me looking because after that he smiled too much. I excused myself and backed away from him, apologizing one last time for not paying much attention of my surroundings and then left the store. There were plenty more shoe stores in the mall I could shop in, if only to get the sour

taste of that humiliating encounter out of my mouth. I ended up going to three more stores before finding the right shoes. As I was standing at the till ready to purchase the newest addition in my footwear collection, the woman working the register smiled adoringly at me and then at something behind me. I turned my head and saw the man with the teeth staring unblinkingly at me, a wide bright white grin plastered on his face. I flinched and asked the woman how long he'd been standing there. She said she'd seen him watching me since I entered the store and assumed he was just my beau waiting for me. I wondered if he'd followed me to the other stores as well but I hadn't been paying attention. I bought the shoes

and slowly made my way out of the store, feeling him watching me through the glass. As soon as I stepped out of the shop, he started towards me. I quickly weaved through a group of people and hurried towards the doors I came through praying he wouldn't catch me before I made it to my car. Groping through my purse to find my keys I cursed myself for not having them on hand just as I pushed through the doors and was momentarily blinded by the sun. Conveniently I managed to squeeze my tiny car into a parking space right close to the doors and I practically jumped for joy when my hand finally closed around the sharp metal of my key I saw the flash of the mall door open just as I unlocked the door and squished myself into my seat

the man stalled as he walked into the sunlight probably also stunned by the brightness of the day he squinted and smiled when he saw me pull out of the parking lot. I would have to drive by him to get out. I sped up and triple checked that my doors were locked before preparing to pass this terrifying stranger. As my car came out about an arm's length away, the man smiled his deranged smile, stuck one of his hands into his mouth, and pulled out a set of dentures. He then shrieked and threw them at my car. I haven't returned to that mall since and I don't plan to.

My senior year of high school and all throughout my winter and summer breaks from college, I worked at a kiosk in my hometown's mall that was associated with a local tattoo shop. We sold body jewelry and lighters and random crap like that. I really liked the job. I felt cool because people thought I was cool for working there and because my job was to convince them to buy way overpriced body jewelry, which I happen to be good at. On this particular day I was home for summer break after my freshman year of college

and working at the kiosk one afternoon. My brother was graduating from middle school that day and I was waiting for my shift to end and for my parents to come pick me up to go to the ceremony. During the summer usually only one person worked a shift unless it was a Friday or Saturday night since most people were at the beach or doing outdoor activities. As my shift was ending it suddenly became very busy and I was scrambling to help all the various customers. An older guy came up to the stand and asked for a business card. I handed him one and didn't pay him much attention. After all, he was walking away. I had already given him what he wanted and he kept his head down so I went back to helping the other customers.

A few minutes later the phone rang to my store and I answered it. Hello, this is Tanya, thank you for calling the tattoo shop, how can I help you? The voice on the other line told me that he was the man who had just stopped and asked for a business card. I immediately thought that that was weird, why didn't he just ask me whatever it was while he was there? But his next sentence cleared it up pretty quickly for me. I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me sometime. I said thank you and then I was flattered but I would have to decline and ended the conversation. I left to go meet my parents and didn't think of it again. A few days later I was working alone again when the phone rang and I answered as always. Hello this is Tanya thank you for calling the tattoo shop how can

I help you? It was the same man from the other day asking me out yet again. I told him that it was very nice of him to ask me but I wasn't interested. Well then I'll be waiting for you when you get out of work so I can do what I want with you, you wench. I didn't even know what to do. I hung up the phone and did my best to not start sobbing as I was again working alone. Fortunately because of the nature of my job, lots of really sweet but very scary looking mall rats hung out around my store and my very tall, very dreadlocked, very facially pierced friend stood at my work with me all day while I called the police and my boss. I filed a million reports but there was really nothing anyone could do if I didn't see him actually do anything. Unfortunately his face

was hazy to me because he had approached me with his head down and during a time while I was attending to other customers and I constantly wondered if he was actually in the mall, staring at me or even talking to me and I wouldn't even know it. This guy continued to call and harass all of the female employees that worked at my store for almost a year with threats. Everyone was escorted to the car at the end of the night by mall security and this continued for long after I went back to school. By the end of the summer I had regressed to wearing only baggy clothes and sweats with very little makeup because I didn't want to attract any extra attention to myself.

Even though this happened close to 10 years ago, I still don't feel comfortable wearing tight or revealing clothes. One day I was walking around at the mall with my mother, my younger brother and my little sister. I was 18 years old and my brother was 17. Now a little background, my brother was not a tiny teen. He was 6'3 at 17 years old already. My mother as well is 6 foot. We were walking around in the mall when off in the distance we heard a shout. My mom looked up and saw this huge man about 6'1 and probably 300 pounds walking at an aggressively fast pace. He looked really angry and was closing in on my mom for some reason. When he was about 10 feet away my brother noticed he was going to stop and looked like he was about to attack my mother.

My brother then stepped in front of her in between her and the man. The man walked right up to my brother, pushed him hard with his entire body trying to get around him to get to my mother. At this point the man and my brother were screaming at each other, the man telling my brother to move and my brother telling this man to screw off. They had just started throwing punches when another man who had a very small build probably about 5'10 and around 50-60 years old jumped on this man's back and started to drag the man off of my brother and away from my family. This is when mall security decided to come around and drag the man away. The cops showed up took statements from all of us including the

older gentleman. The cops and mall security told us that the man had attacked a number of other women in the mall for reasons unbeknownst to them. The older gentleman who jumped onto the man told us that he saw what the man was doing to my brother and that he was attempting to attack my mom and decided to help us out. He was very kind. It was such a scary event and to this day we aren't sure what happened to that man in the mall. So this happened about five years ago while I was nine months pregnant. I was Christmas shopping at the mall with my then seven and fifteen year old daughters one Saturday night in a very safe city with a very low crime rate. There was an Applebee's connected to the mall and we ended our shopping pretty late and

the mall stores were starting to close. So I took my kids to the connected Applebee's for a late dinner. We finished up eating at around 10pm and left out of the Applebee's entrance into the practically deserted mall parking lot with shopping bags in tow. As we got to the car I was in the middle of maneuvering the shopping bags on my arms to find my keys when a 50-ish year old crusty looking guy starts walking up from somewhere in the parking lot with shaggy gray white hair and a faded flannel shirt and old jeans. I noticed him briskly approaching when he was about 40 feet away and he said, this is a stick-up, give me all your money. My blood ran cold and I stared at him owlishly and shakingly said, what? He then said he was just kidding and came up and stood right

next to my daughters who were standing on the other side of the car waiting for me to unlock the car to let them in. He then starts making small talk with me and my girls. He's asking things like if they were being good girls for Santa, how old they were and if we got all of her Christmas shopping done, what kind of things did we get etc. He didn't seem drunk, high, slow, or mentally challenged at all. He was very coherent and seemed sound of mind. Mind you, I was a heavily pregnant woman, alone with my two daughters in a mostly deserted parking lot at 10 o'clock at night, who was being approached by a stranger who came and stood right next to my kids on the other side of the car, just shooting the breeze, talking to me and

my kids with his hands in his pockets and occasionally looking over his shoulder. I didn't want to aggravate him, so I was politely conversing with him and trying to look calm and nonchalant while trying to disguise my frantic hands digging inside my giant purse for my car keys. This exchange went on for a couple of minutes while he periodically kept looking over his shoulder. I was silently panicking and trying to politely keep the situation from escalating by calmly and nonchalantly talking to him while also trying in vain to find my car keys to get us out of there. They were in there hiding good. I felt that at any moment he was going to pull a knife or gun or rob me and my kids were right next to him, away from the mother on the other side of the car and I couldn't find my car keys to get my kids into the safety of the car.

He kept trying to engage them in conversation and I could see that my oldest daughter was a little weirded out and she kept glancing at me to gauge my assessment or reaction to the situation. Kids often tend not to recognize potential danger when they are with their parents since they see us as their protectors and being that he was only talking and acting friendly and I was doing my best to stay calm they were oblivious to the alarming situation we were all in and being nine months pregnant and that I was no match for this full-grown man especially if he was hiding a weapon on him. While still desperately digging for my keys I tried politely to give him hints that the conversation was over by saying things like it was nice chatting with you but I gotta get these kids to bed and it was nice meeting you and telling my girls to say that it was nice meeting

him too. My polite attempts to get this guy to leave wasn't working because he kept sidestepping my attempts and asking them what their favorite school subjects are and how nice young ladies they were etc while I was struggling with the shopping bags and digging in my giant cluttered purse once again for my car keys. My outgoing seven-year-old was completely oblivious to how not okay the situation was because he was being friendly and because of the whole I'm with mommy so I'm safe child mentality. So she started to talk about what she picked out for daddy for Christmas and started enthusiastically talking about kid stuff and asking if he knew what Minecraft was etc and keeping this creep from leaving us alone by keeping him engaged in

conversation. They didn't realize that I was becoming desperate to get them out of there. Then I suddenly felt this sinking feeling of dread when I realized that I may have lost my keys in the mall and they were stuck outside with this strange man who kept looking over his shoulders and was showing no signs of walking away and I was thinking that he was waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. All he had to do was grab one of my girls and threaten their life and knowing it would make me do whatever he wanted as long as he wouldn't hurt them. I started to feel my adrenaline start to spike and my heart and stomach started doing flip-flops and I felt like at any moment something was going to go down as the gravity of realizing that there was no other people or witnesses around and that we were totally alone with him and in that moment the odds were stacked against us and that he has his chance. Then he all of a sudden was like,

okay it was nice talking to you see you later and walked off in the same direction as to which he came. It wasn't until then I found my car keys and unlocked the car and told my kids to get in fast and I got in too and locked the doors and started the car and drove out of there like a madwoman. My 15 year old lightheartedly and jokingly said, Okay, that was weird and laughed. I was overwhelmed with relief and then I was confused over what just happened. I thought to myself, Why would a guy of seemingly sound mind think it's totally acceptable to go out of his

way just to approach a woman and her kids in a deserted mall parking lot late at night just to chit chat. But being that nothing bad happened I brushed it off and joked about it too. When we got home my husband greeted us and asked us how shopping went and I said it went well and my 15 year old told him what happened in the parking lot and I said it went well and my 15 year old told him what happened in the parking lot and how weird it was and was kind of joking about it. I started joking too saying how I was mentally having a panic attack while trying to look calm and I started making fun of myself by telling my husband how I was attempting to inconspicuously rummage through my purse to find my car keys. My husband went completely white,

and I acknowledged his horrified look of alarm and I assured him that, albeit creepy, the guy was just talking and eventually left on his own. Now, my father-in-law is a retired sheriff deputy, and my husband went through police academy training after graduating high school. He decided to go into business school instead of becoming a cop and being that the knowledge he gained from that plus growing up with a cop for a dad, I found out why my husband looked absolutely horrified when I told him the details. What my husband told me completely rattled me to the bone. My husband told me that he was 100% sure that the reason why the guy was hanging around us and chit-chatting was because he was 100% sure that the reason why the guy was hanging around us and chit-chatting was because he was waiting for me to unlock my car. And the reason why he was standing next to our kids was

because once I unlocked the car and the kids started to get inside, he was most likely going to force himself into the car with the kids and hold a knife or gun to them to gain leverage on me to force me to cooperate knowing that I wouldn't abandon my kids which would force me to get into the car with them and do whatever he wanted me to do which most likely would be to drive to a remote location to do god knows what and being that he wasn't wearing a mask suggests that his intentions were to also leave no witnesses to identify him. I then remembered that he was positioned by the backseat passenger door where my seven-year-old was standing by waiting to get in.

My husband told me that the most likely reason why the guy ended up leaving was because it took so long for me to find my keys and the longer it took the more anxious and spooked it made him. And that whole time I was desperate to find my car keys which through some sort of divine intervention stayed hidden in my purse thus saving us from potentially being abducted. Before I write this out, I want everyone to know that it made zero sense to me at the time, and it's still a difficult story to tell because of that. When I was around 9 or 10, my parents and I went to a mall one weekend in Jacksonville, Florida, like we did all the time.

We were walking back to our car, and a woman walking with a limp approached us let it be known that my dad walks with a pretty clear limp she asked if we can give her a ride to the home depot across the street because her car is over there and it's out of gas or something she explains herself one or two more times and changes the destination also to lowes then back to home depot only one of those places is actually across the street which I think was more like six lanes of traffic with no ability to cross so it isn't so crazy. My parents are kind, somewhat gullible people so they said sure because it was the right Christian thing to do in their own words. I'm sketched out by her immediately just because it seemed really

weird. She just keeps talking and trying to give us different explanations for why she needs a ride. We get to the car and I accidentally dump all of my stuff out of my back seat onto the ground to stall time just because I'm really creeped out. I take my sweet time doing this. My dad starts the car and we're about to drive when a cop approaches the car and tells us we shouldn't give this woman a ride as she is a former and wanted criminal. This is the part that doesn't make sense, maybe I misheard something, but I remember him stopping us and being adamant not to give her a ride as it was a terrible idea. She got out of the car and walked away normally with no limp.

I'm guessing she was a grifter, homeless person, just petty former current criminal who did stuff like this all the time. It just bothers me knowing that she could have mugged my parents or hurt me or them. I'm just happy that cop was there to give us that warning. Everyone's got a pro. Need tires? I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro.

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19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This happened only a few weeks ago. I'm from Saskatchewan, Canada, where the land is mostly flat where I live, with very few clumps of trees or protection from the elements. A friend and I decided to drive to the neighboring town at around 7pm and negative 30 degrees Celsius outside

and pick up some food and just drive around talking, as we've dozens of times before. It's close to 9pm at this time, and we decided to go looking for this abandoned house that we had found just last year to kill some time. This required going down the back roads, which were fairly clear at the time and not at all blocked. Without luck, we couldn't find the house,

but realized that we were only about 30 kilometers away from our town and decided to find another road away from there to avoid going home so early. So we turned right at this intersection still in the back roads. The road was clear at first with the railway track a few kilometers down the road. Just past the track however the road narrowed drastically and snow had piled up heavily. For more context, my friend was driving a quite small and low car without winter tires and several issues with it. Oh, and we had a quarter tank of gas. I had a bad feeling but didn't tell her to turn around quite yet as I thought that maybe the road would clear off.

But as we drove, the snow became thicker and harder to traverse. And then we got stuck. I asked if she had a shovel or anything in her car. There was absolutely nothing we could use. She was wearing slides and a thin pair of leggings and didn't have any winter boots, blankets, gloves, ski pants or even a snow brush. The car had most of the snow jammed under the front of it, making it difficult to clear away. In between efforts of rocking the car back and forth and picking at snow, she was trying to contact anyone to help. No one would answer and service was incredibly spotty in the area. Eventually we

managed to get the car unstuck and drive it a few meters before we got trapped again. Rinse and repeat everything from before and we were briefly free before being confined again. At this point the wind was awful. Our feet were damp and her pants were soaked through from laying on the ground. I remember we were told to turn the vehicle off to conserve fuel and start it once an hour for ten minutes. She agreed and we cut the ignition. Her phone was at 15% and mine at 30% and we needed to act fast. She went to turn the car on again and it wouldn't start. The amount of dread that hit me was absolutely awful and there was nothing I could do. We decided to walk back the way we came, where farmhouses would be scattered in the rural area. Halfway back up the road, one of the guys she tried to call called her back and asked where we were.

My friend doesn't know directions at all all so I gave the best description I could and had our location sent to him when the services would cut back in. We walked for about a half an hour before we came across an intersection where we camped out until our ride found us. Her phone would cut in and out with the low battery life and extreme cold. I couldn't feel my legs, my hands were numb, and the wind picked up in gusts much worse than before with us being out in the complete open without any shelter. My eyes began playing tricks on me, and the few trees in the distance began to look like they were moving. Then, the headlights of a truck shone over the horizon, and it was none other than our friend who came to pick us up.

We jumped in the box of his truck since that was where there was room available. It was terrifying as we flew down the road in a less than stable vehicle with the snow able to catch it at any time. We reached the car, and the guy got a tow rope set up then boosted the car. Getting out at this point was the easiest part of the entire ordeal. We gave him whatever cash we had on us for thanks and then my friends slowly reversed the rest of the way. This was a lesson that we both learned the hard way. While this isn't the scariest thing ever, the utter hopelessness is something I would never wish to experience again. Exposure is a dangerous thing.

Please be safe out there and use your judgment to a larger extent than I did. The following story takes place in April of 2010. At that time, I was working as an overnight security guard for a dairy manufacturing facility located in Boyle Heights, California. Having worked there for just over a year, I had grown accustomed to my job and its surrounding environment, or so I thought. The facility was part of a decent sized industrial area. Directly across from this facility sat a housing development surrounded by a small neighborhood. Although the housing development was called Romana Gardens, it was commonly referred to as the Hazard Projects. This urban nickname was attributed to a local street gang. My means of getting to work either involved public transportation or lengthy recreational walking.

Whichever I chose, my trip would always culminate in a shortcut through the back of the Hazard Projects. My mother, who was greatly familiar with this area, would constantly express her concern over me working there. After all, the area was known for its fair share of gang activity. She would even go as far as evaluating my route to work. Once she caught wind of my shortcut, she wasn't exactly thrilled. I'm not suggesting that she had little faith in her son, she was just being a mother. Let me take this opportunity to apologize for any lack of detail when it comes to describing the following incident. Given the circumstances of this situation, I hope you can understand. It was a Friday evening and I was relatively early to work.

I was less than a block away from the shortcut with a little over an hour left to spare. Before stepping onto the much-traveled path, I hesitated. I'm not a habitual smoker, yet here I was with an odd craving for a cigarette. I didn't have any on hand and the nearest liquor store was just about a block away. If I would have given in to my usual temptation, I would have avoided the shortcut altogether. Emphasis on the word avoided. I stepped onto the path preoccupied with my cell phone. I was in the middle of a texting conversation with a friend of mine. Suddenly my path was cut off by a teenage boy riding a scooter. He was no older than 16, Hispanic, roughly 5'3", shaved head and

wearing all black baggy clothing. He stared me down intently before asking in an aggressive tone. Where you stay at, dog? For those of you who are not familiar with the situation, it usually means bad news. Due to the fact that the little guy was riding a scooter of all things, stupid me had decided not to take him seriously. I ignored his question and tried to walk around him. Once again, he cut off my path and repeated the question. I'm not from around here. I'm just trying to get to work. I responded in a firm tone.

Once again, he stared me down intently. He shot me a look of malicious intent as he responded with, Well, give me your stuff. That's when I realized that he wasn't alone. His four friends, all presumably the same age, revealed themselves at the appropriate time. I acknowledged their presence with a heavy sigh. I responded firmly with, I'm not giving you my stuff man. As one of the four boys drew closer to the scene, he proclaimed, Well, if he ain't gonna give it up, let's take it. The odds were obviously not in my favor. Be that as it may, I knew I had no choice but to stand my ground. There was an awkward moment of silence before someone had decided to make a move. Unfortunately, that someone wasn't me. Scooter Boy, the one who had confronted me in

the first place, took notice of my cell phone being held in my left hand. He smacked it out of my hand. As it fell to the ground, I stupidly allowed my head to follow its path. Suddenly, my face was met with a right hook. I was circled by the five boys as each of them began to strike me on multiple spots in my body. Get him down! One of them yelled out in desperation. In my moment, a misplaced awareness, my adrenaline began to run its course. I knew if I was somehow able to prevent them from taking me to the ground,

maybe I could have a chance. I began to swing wildly until I hit something. I struck one of the boys on his chin. As he staggered backwards, I grabbed him by his collar and began to repeatedly strike his face without mercy. Why I focused all my aggression on only one of them, I have no clue. Suddenly I felt a great blow to the back of my head. The impact was sufficient enough to knock me off my feet. They had taken me to the ground and began to viciously stomp on my body before blacking out. I remember feeling one of the boys reach

into my pants pocket. They made off with my cell phone and wallet. The wallet must have been an incredible steal. After all, it did have $300 in it. When I had regained consciousness moments later, I was able to immediately react to the situation. Once I had become fully aware and decided to assess the damage inflicted on my body while taking in my surrounding area, I wasn't alone. I was cautiously approached by a much older gentleman. Thankfully his presence was of good intent. He carefully helped me to my feet and looked at me with pity as I told him of the situation. As I began to regain my composure, I had made the sudden

realization that my wallet had been stolen. The old man was caught off guard as I began to scream out violent threats intended for my aggressors. He tried to calm me down and suggested that I should just walk away from the situation. At first, I protested. He grabbed me calm me down and suggested that I should just walk away from the situation. At first, I protested. He grabbed me by the shoulder and said in a firm tone, I know you're angry, but you can't be stupid. You told me your job was around the corner. I suggest you get there and get out.

Just walk away. I took his advice with a grain of salt. Before going our separate ways, I had expressed my deepest gratitude. I began to make my way to work trying to collect my thoughts. Suddenly I was met with some outrageous exclamation. The same five boys who had attacked me earlier had returned for an encore performance. They wanted the backpack I was wearing. Something both parties had overlooked earlier. Not even two minutes earlier I was ready to fight to retain what was rightfully mine. Let's just say, reality hit me like a ton of bricks. As the five boys approached me demanding

my backpack, I had realized that I was in no condition to put up a fight. I wish I could tell you that. But East Los is no fairytale world. I was knocked to the ground. Before taking the backpack, they once again stomped on my body viciously. Getting back on my feet proved to be much more difficult this time around. It didn't help that my sense of equilibrium was completely out of it. Nevertheless, I somehow managed to make it work. In order to gain access to the facility, my co-worker would have to unlock the staff entrance gate. Luckily, he had just returned from a perimeter patrol. As he spotted me crossing the street, he approached the gate with

a childish smile on his face. Mind you, the streets were dimly lit. When he had noticed my disoriented walking he assumed I was simply messing around. Once I stepped into the light his smile quickly faded. He panicked with the lock as he began to frantically ask, what happened dude? Within 10 minutes a black and white had made its way onto our property. The LAPD had been contacted by my supervisor once he was notified of the incident. I was met by two young officers. One took my statement while the other took a look at my injuries. He strongly suggested that I seek medical attention. For some reason I tried to reject it. The officer looked me dead in the eyes and said, listen, you're in pretty bad shape. You suffered some major head trauma and your nose is broken. How you managed to walk here in your current

conditions is a literal miracle, man. I was then transported to White Memorial Hospital. The next thing I remember was waiting patiently in urgent care. The officers who attended to me earlier were present at the hospital. They were having a lengthy discussion with my examiner just as my mother arrived. She was accompanied by my uncle, aunt and cousins. The examiner took time to discuss the injuries with my mother and me. He indicated that we were more concerned with the blunt force trauma that I had received to the back of my head. Thankfully there were no immediate signs of potential brain damage and the swelling on my face would most likely go down within a couple of days. The following week I was set up to visit an

ENT specialist regarding my broken nose. On top of that they were going to perform an additional CAT scan for safe measure. A few days after the incident, I had met with my employer, their regional office which was the size of your local 7-Eleven. Their first course of action was to transfer me to another work site. My manager had arranged for me to receive a check for compensation. Since then, I have not once returned to that part of the neighborhood. My attackers were never caught and the identity of the Good Samaritan remains a mystery to this day. My parents were pretty big horse lovers when I was growing up. They had a big 40 foot trailer that was half horse trailer and half

camper trailer that they would travel around going to various shows and competitions and stuff. I never got quite that into it but I definitely have a love for the animals as well. To be honest I really don't remember how this story starts all that well as I was fairly young at the time. At the time my parents had a new horse that they were training to become their main show horse as their current one was getting up in years and was close to retirement. He was supposedly a purebred Morgan but something else definitely got into his genetics since he was abnormally large for his breed. I remember being out in the barn one morning helping my parents feed the horses and there seemed to be

some panic in the air. I didn't understand why until they brought in the new horse from the pasture and his back, left hip and leg were covered in dried blood. The way our barn was built the backs of all the stalls opened up into the pasture so the horses could come and go as they pleased so we figured something must have attacked him while he was outside the previous night. My dad called the vet and he was there within a half an hour. My dad told him that he figured a coyote or something had got a hold of the horse's back leg. The vet didn't seem to think that was the case since coyotes don't usually bother horses because they're so much bigger. Either way, they needed to clean up

all the blood before they got a good look at the wound. The vet had to sedate our horse as he was clearly still in pain and didn't want anyone touching him. After that they were able to clean up most of the blood and finally found where it had all come from. The one thing I remember very clearly from the story was the horrified look at the vet's face when he finally found the wound. After a second he stood up and took a step back, turned to my dad and said, this definitely wasn't an animal. Instead of scratches or bite marks, what the vet found was an extremely precise and very deep cut into the horse's hip. So deep he could stick his whole hand inside it but so precise that if you push the skin back together you could barely tell anything was there. It was as if someone had taken a large watermelon knife and driven it straight into our horse's hip.

While the vet stitched up the horse we searched the whole barnyard and pasture for anything that he could have hurt himself on but there was nothing. Anything that would have potentially injured a horse like a bolt sticking out of a gate or something wouldn't have made such a precise or deep cut. At that point we all knew this had to be human inflicted. The horse made a full recovery and went on to win my parents a ton of ribbons in various events and only passed away recently for unrelated reasons. However, to know that there was some psychopath wandering around our farm in the middle of the night with a large knife like that, it still makes me nervous to be outside at night alone.

Who knows what would have happened if he had found someone else first. I used to work at a summer camp in Muskoka, Ontario. While I was technically a camp counselor, I had the added responsibility of performing a lot of maintenance tasks around the property. This was nice because I could still join in on camp activities if I wanted to, or if the kids were acting up, I could just leave it to everyone else to deal with and go cut grass or hide out in the workshop tinkering with stuff for a bit. I probably had the best job there to be honest. The camp was located on the shoreline of a massive lake. There were two rows of cabins with a path between them leading down to the water

where our dock jutted out into the lake. This is where we kept all of our small sailboats, our rescue boat which was a Boston Whaler and a couple of Sea-Doos. Behind where the cabins were was mostly forest except for the five kilometer trail that led back out to the main road with a few cottages on it. A little ways up this trail there was a clearing where the staff all kept their cars and where the buses would park. There was also a large barn that we used as a workshop to build picnic tables and other things the camp might need. We also kept our two ATVs, a John Deere gator, and a Kubota L-series tractor with a few attachments in there.

These were mostly used to move things around the camp and for various maintenance jobs. Changeover was probably the best time to be there. It was when the previous group of kids had all left but the next group hadn't arrived yet so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves for the weekend we would usually bust our butts all day saturday to get all the actual work out of the way so that we could spend the night partying and just sleep most of sunday there's one change over weekend though that none of us will ever forget.

It started out normally, all the kids loaded onto the buses, the cabins were checked and cleaned while I took the gator and a trailer into the woods to collect more firewood, just like we had done hundreds of times. When I returned from my expedition I grabbed an axe from the barn and began splitting the logs I had cut up with the chainsaw when one of the other staff members comes on the radio. Hey, did anybody else hear that noise out in the lake? She asked. I admitted that I hadn't but judging by the responses of the rest of the staff, they had all heard it. I figured it was just a moose calling across the lake and I didn't hear it because the barn was further back than all the other buildings.

I continued chopping and stacking firewood in the back of the barn and after I was done I took my toolbox and got one of the ATVs and drove down to the cabins. By this point the other staff had finished cleaning and all I really had to do was make a few minor repairs and we would be done for the night. At dinner that night all anyone could talk about was the mysterious noise out in the lake. They described it as sounding like a very distorted elephant call. We all sort of laughed it off though as the alcohol was starting to sink in and no one really took it seriously. As the only sober one left it was my responsibility to start the fire that night. I brought the gator down with a load of wood in the dump box and began to light the fire while everyone else cleaned up

from dinner inside. Slowly the other staff finished up and began to trickle out to join me at the fire pit. It was a full moon and the fire pit was right next to the lake so you could see all the way across. The lake almost seemed to glow in the moonlight and the twinkle of the lights from the cottages on the other side made the whole scene quite magical. Everyone sat around the fire drinking and laughing, telling stories of who their favorite kid was or which kid they hated the most, basically talking about exactly what you would expect camp counselors to talk about when not on duty. Later that night, one of the girls brought out her guitar and sang for us while the impromptu couples of the night cuddled around the fire. I, of course, always seemed to be left out of

the hookup culture around the camp. Maybe it was because of my role, they saw me as a more senior staff member, I don't know. Either way, none of the girls ever wanted to hook up with me. As a result of not being otherwise engaged in romance as the music played, I gazed out across the lake. I could see the navigation lights of a small boat coming towards us from across the lake and as it drew closer, I could hear the engines and it sounded like it was going at full throttle. I ignored it for a while as this part of the lake had pretty high boat traffic since it was possible to drive into town by boat through here so seeing a boat late at night wasn't out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was when the boat got closer to shore and didn't seem to show any signs of slowing down. I pointed this

out to one of the guys sitting next to me and he stood up to look. A few others joined him and even the girl playing guitar stopped and turned around. With the music stopped we all could hear the boat engine running at full RPM as it headed for shore. There was a loud crack as the boat hit the dock of a neighboring cottage which deflected it back towards us where it missed the beach entirely and ran up on the rocks a little ways down the shore and out of sight from us. The engines sounded awful as they were now out of the water and sucking air but they didn't turn off or even idle down. Because of this I immediately assumed the driver had to

be unconscious and I grabbed a first aid kit out of the main cabin as well as the keys from the Boston Whaler and ran down to our dock. A few of the other staff who were relatively sober came with me as we cast off and drove a little ways down the shoreline to the runaway boat. When we got there, one of the other staff jumped on board and immediately shut the engines down. Using the searchlight on our boat, we could now get a good look at this mystery boat. It was an older Sea Ray Bowrider and looked pretty trashed. The windshield on the driver's side had been smashed and the back of the driver's seat had been ripped off and was laying on the floor near the back of the boat. There also seemed to be blood splattered across the rear of the boat and over top of the engine compartment. The most disturbing part though was that no one was on

board. From the evidence that we had seen it appeared as though the driver had been ripped out of the boat by something while driving at full speed. We called 911 and when the police arrived they determined that the boat could still float and we helped them tow it over to our dock where they could get a better look at it. They figured some cottager had been driving recklessly out on the lake and had been thrown from the boat and we all agreed that seemed like the most logical explanation. A search was put out for a missing person on the lake that night and within an hour a helicopter was hovering over the lake scanning it with a searchlight. The next day the police were able to track down the owner of the boat who came to inspect it. Him and his whole family were accounted for so none of them had been the person driving the boat the previous night. Someone had stolen this poor man's boat and had been ripped out of it while trying to get away

that's when i remembered the distorted elephant noise the other staff had been talking about the damage to the boat did look an awful lot like some large creature had taken a swipe at the boat and ripped the driver right out i kept my thoughts to myself as i didn't want to look stupid but later that night after the police had the boat hauled away another one of the staff mentioned the same theory that whatever had made that noise had attacked the stolen boat and killed the driver or maybe the driver was trying to get away from the creature and had stolen the boat as a means of escape. We all talked about the incident for weeks after that, speculating on what happened. Given the circumstances and local legends,

our running theory is that some unfortunate soul ran across a wendigo in the woods and in their attempt to escape had found this boat with the keys in it but was ripped from the boat as they were taking off from the dock, leaving the boat to continue on with no driver as the person was devoured. I moved in my first apartment on Pearl Street in June 2008. I was almost 24 years old. I was done with college and was renting the apartment from one classmate that I had met at Eastern Maine Community College. I was going to live by myself. Immediately I could feel some residual energy on this apartment. It was faint. I didn't think

much of it. By autumn, the residual energy slowly got stronger. Every day I lived with a ghost. The experiences varied depending on whether I went to work or not that day. All of these experiences wouldn't happen every single day but I'll do my best to explain. On my day at work, I worked at Wendy's 4pm to midnight. I'd be home around 1 or 2 in the morning, depending on how well the clothes went. When I got home, I never turned on lights because the street lights outside were enough. I would go upstairs to my bedroom, which was a sharp left from the top of the stairs, to change my clothes, lounge pants, and a comfortable t-shirt. I go to the bathroom to pee before I even step foot to the bathroom. At the door immediately at the top of the stairs I'd pause as if someone was there, finishing up in the toilet or at the sink. I could sense an old lady. In my mind I

pictured a skinny lady with curly white hair. I had to tell myself that there was no one in the bathroom. All the while, while I'm standing in front of the toilet, I feel like I'm intruding. I just ignored it and brushed it off. After I'm all done, I head downstairs to the living room, lock the front door that is immediately at the bottom of the stairs and head right to the living room. I sit at the couch, sitting against the wall directly across the room from the entrance I walk through. I turn on the TV, watch a movie or TV show on DVD and play on my laptop to unwind. I'd stay up to about 4am with nothing else weird through the night. On my day off, I'd wake up pretty well rested in the morning between 9am to 10am, rush to the bathroom, stand in front of the toilet and take a shower.

I wouldn't sense anything. Then I would head to the kitchen to make breakfast. The kitchen was a straight shot through the dining room by way of double wide archway of the living room and dining room to a small arch in the corner of the dining room. As I walked into the kitchen I noticed that the cabinet above the washer and dryer in the far back right corner would be opened. I never used or stored anything in these cabinets because they were full of stuff like junk that the landlord never took care of that apparently belonged to a former tenant. So I had no business opening it and never did. I'd just shrug off the incident and cook my scrambled eggs and wheat toast with butter and strawberry jam. Lastly, I'd grab a tall

glass of orange juice and head to eat in the living room on the couch in front of the TV. After breakfast, I'd have the TV playing in the background as I browsed the internet. I remained on the couch. Out of nowhere, my cat, Amika, would all of a sudden jump from the top of the upper cabinets, right on the floor and bolt it in a blur through the dining room and through the living room. Ridiculously quick, turn 180 degrees and continue sprinting up the stairs. At the same time, Amika begins running across the apartment, I could faintly hear the rattling of dishes being rinsed to be put in the dishwasher. I peeked over at the kitchen from the living room.

There's a clear view of the sink. I'm certain I see the faucet running. I'll double take and it's off. From then on I can feel an old lady walking around the apartment going about her day. Throughout the day I'd periodically feel her sitting next to me on the couch. I'd see the couch slightly dip and she sits. I didn't react very much as there was no threat in this sort of energy. I don't think she knew she had a roommate.

I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it. I felt as if if I, I might stir up something. After a while I realized the energy next to me isn't there and her presence would almost fill the whole apartment but be centralized in my bedroom. When I would go upstairs to use the bathroom I could almost see the old lady floating in the middle of the room as she was sitting in a chair. The best way I can describe it was white but a transparent shadow. Inside the shadow my bedroom looked a little distorted. Again she never felt threatening so I wasn't scared. I go back downstairs the energy stayed the same for most of the day. Every once in a while I would use the bathroom I felt like I wasn't the only one using it. When it came time

for bed it would be around one o'clock in the morning. If I had upstairs to go to bed I could sense that the old lady's presence was in the bedroom on the other side of the bathroom. Often the sense would be so strong I'd have to check the room for an intruder. Of course aside from the presence the room was completely empty. Then I'd not experience anything while I slept. Now a sort of energy shift. The roommate scenario lasted slightly under a year. Then the energy changed to a little bit annoyed and borderline angry. Her routine didn't change. My routine didn't either. One day while I was sitting on the couch, there was a loud crash in the kitchen. It sounded. One day while I was sitting on the couch there was a loud

crash in the kitchen. It sounded like tons of dishes fell and shattered on the floor. Thinking it was the cat, I'd rushed over to the kitchen to see how much broke. The kitchen was as spotless as I'd left it the day before. After the dishes fell, manifestations of the old lady would appear in the bathroom mirror. I never turned the lights on. Nearly every time I used the bathroom, especially in the morning and late at night, she would be directly behind me, kind of look like she just stepped out of the shower. She always had an awful scowl on her face, a mixture of livid and confusion.

It was very unsettling. One night I glanced at the dark mirror, I didn't see my reflection, I saw hers. I didn't sleep the rest of that night. Then the final straw that made me feel like it's probably best that I move out. In the very early hours of the morning, probably around 3am, I am certain I'm awake. I'm facing the wall as my bed is in the corner of the bedroom and I feel like I'm being watched. I turn over and standing in my doorway to my room is the old lady, clear as day but slightly opaque. Her pearl necklace was awkwardly bright. She had that livid and confused look on her face. Her energy was mean,

very mean. I can live here too, I whispered. Her energy didn't believe it so. That was the only time I saw the full-bodied apparition but I knew then I wasn't welcome anymore. I tried to ignore it as I did like the apartment but the energy was getting to be very depressing and it was beginning to take its toll on me. I then moved out in July of 2010. I want to start by saying this has been the only time I've ever been close to anything paranormal. I do believe in ghosts, but I also believe there can be, most of the time, good explanations. That being said, here's my short personal experience. Before I moved to San Diego, California, I used to visit here mostly every other month along with my family,

mostly for shopping or just hanging by the beach. On our way back east we'd do our last stop at this very old Ross in La Mesa. One of these occasions and probably the last one I was around nine years old. I was looking at the toy section playing with some hot wheels when I got nature's call. The only customer, unisex single restroom, was just a few feet away. I walked towards it. Some old lady too hurried to use it but before either of us could even grab the handle, some kid looking around six to seven years old made his way in without even looking at us. Little idiot I thought. Five minutes passed by and the lady and I kept glancing at each other, wondering whether the kid had gotten injured or something. There was no sound coming from inside, no flushing. Silence. As we got tired of waiting, the lady

got a hold of some employee walking by. Excuse me, she said. There's some kiddo inside the restroom and it's been a while. Without hesitation, the employee grabbed some keys from his pocket, but he didn't need them. The door was never locked. He opened it and to our surprise, the restroom had always been empty. Now you could ask yourself, maybe the kid went out and we never noticed, but I remember we were facing the door all the time and even if we weren't, I remember that door to be really noisy when swung. Secondly that was the only entry, no other door or anything related plus the kid was

too small to climb into some vent. Besides the lady was just as shocked as I was, so I never imagined it. Only a year or so, I decided to visit that Ross again. I went to that restroom and stayed there for a little while, checking for any doors or any place some kid could hide in, but it was just a plain, dirty restroom. So who was that kid? So this incident happened 78 years ago and only a few people will believe what happened to me on this icy, snowy night. So I worked 45 minutes away from where I was living at that time. I worked at a pizza restaurant and was one of those lucky people that had to help close.

When me and my other two co-workers left we were stuck in front of the building for a while trying to get the snow and ice off our cars. We weren't used to the weather because we lived in Texas so the ice and snow was a new thing for me. Never had to drive in that kind of weather until then. After I got my windshield cleaned off I contemplated driving to my place 45 minutes away or going to my parents house that was 3 minutes away and they had my sister's old room that still had her bed. Decided not to risk my life and called my parents to make sure it was ok for me to come over. Of course they said yes and I drove slowly to their house. As soon as I got inside I got ready for bed and went to sleep. I'm unaware of the time I ended up waking up but I remember it was in the

middle of the night. I don't know why I woke up. All I knew next after I was aware I was awake I felt hands on both my feet being pulled by them at the end of the bed. I honestly didn't know what to do so I froze and started panicking but I tried my best not to let whatever know that I was. After a few seconds that I felt like minutes the tugging stopped. I finally started to calm down when I felt something slide up next to me and wrap its arm around me. No one else could have been in that room with me. My parents' room was in the back of the house and the room I was staying in was on the side close to the front. My brother's room was next to the one I was in but he's a heavy sleeper and never woke up to get in bed with someone. He was never that kind of kid.

So I was very confused to feel what was going on and started panicking again. Next thing I know I hear a little boy giggle like around the age of five to seven. Funny story is eight years before then I was in a car accident with my family and lost my brother and ever since then I've noticed a couple of things but never thought anything of it. To be honest I thought it was him that was with me but I was so terrified I passed out from being scared and woke up to my alarm the next morning to get ready for work. I told my parents what happened that night and they looked at me like I was crazy. I told my sister and she said she experienced something close to that but she sensed an older woman.

I'm now 26 and see things here and there almost every place I go and can't really talk to anyone about it without being made fun of. I wanted to get this story out that happened to me because I listen to your podcasts and videos on YouTube and it gave me the courage to get my story out there. I now live at the same home but different bedrooms and still have unexplained things happen to me every now and then. Let's just say I'm not as scared anymore. All the way back in 2009 I was spending the summer in my high school band room. I was a sophomore without any friends and I thought joining band council as the historian, person who takes photos of the band events, could break me out of my shell and I would meet some new people. Sure enough, this is how I met my best friend, who I now consider a sister. I'll call her Kay, you know, for privacy or whatever. So Kay and I headed off right away,

both being huge nerds who loved all things cats, Halloween, and photography. As I spent more and more time with her, I also became familiar with her mother. A kind-hearted woman who always seemed ready to help us on any crazy adventure we had planned. Whether it be helping us to afford stuff, giving us rides, supplying snacks, you name it, she was there. She also helped me on a more personal level. My family was not destitute, however we didn't have a lot in the way of spending money so a lot of the time I just made do with whatever I had. When Kay's mom saw me shivering at late night marching band rehearsal because all I had was a thin sweater, she bought me a jacket. When I was running around barefoot at car washes because the

only shoes I owned were sneakers I didn't want to get wet, she bought me sandals. I'm telling you all this because I want you to understand. This woman was almost like a second mother to me. She gave me a job at her pet sitting business when I couldn't get work due to my social anxiety. Allowing me to work with the animals and never having to speak with their owners. She seemed to really care about me. Now about two years ago Kay got married and I was her maid of honor. I worked very hard alongside Kay and her mom trying to plan and ease stress on Kay wherever I could.

We were a good team and everything seemed to be going smoothly. The day of the wedding came. The bridal party, we were all getting ready, laughing, having fun. I made mimosas on the floor into red solo cups, not important, I just think it's funny. And Kay's mom sat in the corner, looking stormy. This was very unusual for her, I had never seen her like this. I tried to invite her over, smiling in her direction, trying to include her in the conversation, offering her a floor of mimosa, but she wasn't having it. She continued to sulk.

I left to change into my dress, and when I got back, Kay rushed over to me, pulled me back into the bathroom. She told me that she tried to talk to her mom, but her mom said that she wasn't going to tell her what was wrong. She was upset, yes, but refused to say why. Kay asked me to talk to her mom for her so I went into the main room and went to stand next to Kay's mom. If she's upset I don't want to know. She said very matter-of-factly to me. Well she she is upset, but only because... Well, she should be! I was taken aback. I didn't even get to finish my sentence. This woman had never so much as tisked in my general direction, and all of a sudden she was full-on yelling at me.

I asked her if she wanted to step outside and talk about what was wrong but she refused, just yelling me about how we were so inconsiderate, so mean and unthoughtful. I asked her what she was talking about and do you know what she responded? You didn't get me any coffee. Coffee? She didn't even like coffee. She didn't even like coffee. You see, that morning, Kay's mom had left for the venue early to watch over some setting up of things, while Kay and I went to a separate location to get ready with the rest of the girls and take some pictures. On the way, we stopped and got coffee. I happened to be on the phone with one of the other girls, trying to give her directions, and we got her a coffee too. When we got to the location we all started to get

ready and Kay's mom showed up a little later and that's when she started sulking. I asked her to clarify, was I hearing her right? Yes she was in fact standing in the middle of the room in front of everyone on her daughter's wedding day yelling at me because we hadn't thought to call and ask her if she wanted coffee. I was so stunned. I couldn't even think what to say. What was happening? I tried to apologize, but she refused to accept. I tried to calm her down, talk to her, but she wouldn't stop. She started yelling that she was going to leave. Finally, I gave up. I looked her in the eyes and I said, fine, you can leave the room, but I want you to realize this is how you're choosing to behave on today of all days. This is what you chose. And she left. I looked around at the other people in the room, the photographers, the other girls, all stunned, speechless.

Kay came out of the bathroom, crying. I tried to comfort her, telling her her mom was probably just upset because of something going wrong at the venue or whatever. Weddings can be stressful after all. But Kay told me that no, this was normal behavior for her mom. I guess her mom, the woman that I thought to always be so kind, was prone to flying into rages, screaming and ranting for hours on end about almost anything. What I had just experienced wasn't even that bad in comparison. Why do you think I always try to get out of the house? Kay sniffed. She cried the rest of the morning. I've been having nightmares about being stuck in a situation with this woman where she's screaming at me, telling me how horrible of a person I am, attacking me ever since.

I can't believe I was so completely taken in by her. I wish Kay had told me so, so I could have helped her sooner. Anyway, that's the story of how I was the worst maid of honor in history. Now, it's not spooky or scary, but unsettling to know that someone you trust so completely could turn out to be so utterly insane. For privacy reasons, I won't use real names. To be continued... She is 31 years old and she said she's from Australia. I am 21 from an Asian country. Meeting people and being friends with them is absolutely what I love.

No matter how old you are or where you're from. So meeting Cora is not something special for me. Although she is the only one whom I match to whose age is like a mom already. Anyway I said hi to her and she replied with a long message telling me that she's not from Japan and that she's from Australia and she wants to be my friend and that she's sorry. Now I'm gonna tell y'all quickly that in my bio on that app I said that I want to meet Japanese friends because I'll be visiting Japan this year. I wanted to meet them and hang out but I also stated that I am open for other nationalities

because I like meeting new friends. It's cool to have a friend from a different country, at least for me. Now back to the story, she kept saying she was sorry for not being Japanese and that she really wants to be my friend. I said it's okay that I could be her friend. I asked her Instagram so that we can continue talking on there. She said, why not Facebook? Are you hiding something? Now I was shocked, like why are you saying that and the first red flags started to slap my face. No, it's just that I'm much more active on Instagram, I replied. She says that she wants to be my friend for maybe a thousand times and not gonna lie, it started to actually freak me out. I then kept chatting with her because I

didn't want to be rude. The messages just became creepier and I started to feel uneasy and I just wanted to stop and so I did. I figured we just met and I didn't tell her anything personal about me so there's not going to be any repercussions. I was wrong. After an hour I received a friend request on Facebook from Cora and it sent chills up my spine. How did she find me? I didn't give her my full name and I was using my nickname on the app. I blocked her and about 30 minutes later she followed me on Twitter and then on Instagram. I blocked her there too. I started to panic. What if her profile is fake?

What if she's a poser? What if she lives near me? What if she tries to harm me? Stuff like that started to blow through my mind. I then decided to delete my profile on that app and I stopped using it for a while. It's been a month now since that happened and I low-key freak out whenever a name pops up on my screen on several social medias I use like on the who to follow thing on twitter and friend suggestions from facebook. Maybe someday I'll download that app again but we'll be very careful in communicating with strangers. I'm not a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro. So who's that pro? The pros at Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, Tread Experts is always there, helping you with Toyo tires you can trust.

Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires, like Toyo's open country family of tires. Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca local tread experts. This is a story of something that my dad witnessed unfold when he was a kid in northern Texas. He was born and grew up on his family's farm until he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. In that neck of the woods, most of your neighbor's farms may be over five miles away, but the neighborly spirit of helpfulness meant all one had to do was ask and assistance would be given without a second thought.

There was an exception to that rule, however. The two landowners located to the north of his family's place had been at war since some said the Civil War. One farmer had been a loyal Democrat and slave owner, while the other was supposedly the head of a recently arrived Yankee family who was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party. The Yankees were also wealthy and had purchased a large plot of land that the other farmer had his eyes on for some time. Like so many other families at that time and in that part of Texas, what started off as a disagreement over politics, the coming war would only serve to worsen.

Upon the end of that bloody conflict and with the return of both men from fighting in it, those in the surrounding area hoped the differences between them would be squashed, but this was not to be. The bitterness that had always been there, seething just below the surface, would break free anew after a dispute over a property line sprang up. Josiah Campbell, the patriarch of the pro-union Campbell clan, had purchased a 500 acre piece of land just before the war had broken out. This large parcel had joined to his neighbor to the east, Samuel Johnson's property, but it wasn't until 1883 when Campbell began to put in fencing to keep his neighbor's cattle from encroaching onto his land. Did the already hostile relationship between the two landowners reach a new and dangerous boiling point? Multiple face-to-face

confrontations would ultimately lead to a court battle in which Campbell would come out the victor. If Campbell believed the court's judgment would be the end of the argument between the two families, he would be proven terribly wrong. Many more disagreements, some of them over insignificant things, would arise in the following generations. One of the more notable involved, Josiah, now an octogenarian grandfather, in which a stray bullet would come very close to striking him. Although most in the area assumed Samuel or one of his sons fired the bullet, it could never be proven. Incidents similar to this would only serve to keep the bad blood between the families

just hot enough. My family's part in this drama is small. Financially and politically, our lot was similar to that of the Johnsons, a native southern family arriving in Texas during the Republican period from Tennessee. However, that's where the similarities ended. From what has been passed down through the generations, Samuel Johnson and most of his offspring were ignorant and always looking for a fight. One specific story claims that my great-great-grandfather even stopped attending church because of them. Their attempt at avoiding any involvement in this whole mess was well-thought, at least

until a quiet morning in 1962 when they would be pulled into it whether they liked it or not. It was a warm June morning. My dad and his family went to church like usual. Everything was normal that day, except for the conspicuous absence of the Campbell family. The section they had been sitting in since the building of the church was glaringly empty. Because of this, mutterings quickly began to spread throughout the congregation. The Johnsons sat quietly in their own section, doing their best to ignore the rumblings around them.

The Reverend waited, but was eventually forced to go on with the service. On the drive home, the family passed the Campbell Place, expecting to see the bustle of the daily work and those involved in doing it. However, not a soul was seen, and the house sat still, showing no life within. My grandfather dropped the woman off at the house and he and my dad returned to the Campbell place to take a closer look around. As they approached the home, the uncomfortable silence was broken by the slamming of the screen door. It had been left open and free to swing in the wind. The noise brought out the livestock and their incessant mooing showed they had yet to be fed

or milked. If this was truly the case, something had to be very wrong inside. My dad ran into the barn and fed them quickly and rejoined his dad at the door. They weren't able to enter with no problems. Unlocked doors were still a common practice in those parts but that would soon change. There were no signs of life in the back part of the house. My grandfather called out but received no answer. If anyone was still alive inside the creaking of the stairs as they climbed them certainly would have caused them to stir, but no one appeared. The two men separated as they reached the landing, each heading for different closed doors. Just by chance, my father was the first to discover the fate of the Campbell clan.

Two small bodies laid still. In their little blood-soaked beds, Johnr and william had been shot repeatedly as they slept upon taking in the sight my dad rushed from the room battling the urge to throw up he was still just barely out of childhood himself and yet to have witnessed something so horrible his father was just about to enter the bedroom of the Campbell parents when his son came rushing from the room. Although no words were exchanged between the two, my grandfather knew what horrors the room behind him likely held. The scene in the parents' room was much like that of the children. Both elder Campbells laid motionless and bloody in their large Victorian bed. They had both been shot with a shotgun to

the head, but John Sr., the patriarch, had been shot several more times, so much so it was impossible to definitively identify him. Despite this, there was no doubt the heinously slaughtered man was indeed John Campbell, and the man behind the shotgun was his lifelong adversary, Matthew Johnson. The ill-tempered Matthew's absence from this morning's service was almost as noticeable as that of the Campbells. The manhunt that followed didn't last long. Matthew's body was found hanging in the loft of the barn, and it was clear that he took his own life. The motive behind the terrible act, more than likely, was the latest in their long string of court battles. This time the Campbells found it necessary to bring Matthew into another expansive and drawn-out case

over the water rights along the long, disputed property line the two families shared. After more than three years of fighting, the Johnsons would ultimately come up on the short end of the stick. What would have been just another link in the chain that had connected the two farm dynasties for over a hundred years proved to be the end of the Johnson family's hold on their land. It was later discovered that they had been barely managing to keep their heads above water from harvest to harvest, and John Campbell's suit and their eventual loss was the final blow. Once Matthew no longer had anything left to lose,

the century-old bitterness between the neighboring families broke free and gave him the justification many of those before him lacked. His family told the sheriff all she claimed she knew. Her husband had stepped out just after sundown, only to return two hours later with a substantial bit of blood on his shirt. She stood by their bedroom window and watched as he burned those same clothes. After he finished this, he came to bed and went to sleep like normal. However, the next morning when she awoke, Matthew was not in the bed next to her. She searched the farm but he was nowhere to be found.

The family went to church like normal because she feared their absence would cause people to talk. She swore she had no idea what her husband was going to do when he left that evening or what he had done when he returned. It was clear he had done something dark, but his target wasn't known. The remaining members of the Johnson family held an auction for their few valuables and vacated the property soon after. Dad said that they were rumored to be living in Wichita Falls and Matthew's wife had remarried, but once he went off to war, he never heard anything else about them. The ownership of their former homestead and adjoining land was purchased by a big land company out of Fort Worth who broke the land up into smaller

parcels and sold it off to new buyers. As for the Campbell land, the place would sit empty for many years. The slaughter that took place inside, tainting the value of an otherwise beautiful home. That land too would invariably be broken up and become a massive housing subdivision when the area and all the remaining family farms were consumed by the nearby city. The whole sad mess started in May of 2011. I'd been living in a two bedroom house next to campus for two years. No girlfriend to speak of and incredibly lonely. So when Rachel moved in next door, I was praying for a shot. I was so lonely,

in fact, her 10-year-old son didn't scare me off. Being a tall, buxom redhead made her my dream girl. I say girl, but she was 30, a woman, and almost 8 years older than me. Hellos and how are yous were shared each morning, and I did my utmost to keep her from noticing how creepy and awkward I really was. The way in which I fumbled over my words, as embarrassing as it was, didn't drive her away. As the months compounded, our talks became more personal and I less nervous. Before I knew it, she had asked me to take her out and I agreed. I was still a poor student but even with that our dinner went well and we progressively drew closer and closer. Her son actually turned out to be a cool kid and he and I would often play video games together.

I did my best to not appear as if though I was trying to be a father to him, more of a friend really. The situation did cause me to wonder why his father wasn't in his life. The possibility of him being dead did enter my mind and I thought if I asked, it may bring up unresolved issues. The truth would turn out to be far worse. Things really hit the fan when her ex-husband arrived unannounced at her house. I wasn't there when he showed up but the fight between the two clued me in. At the time I was just waking up and heard yelling coming from across the street. I peeked through the blinds in time to witness him hitting her across the head

and body. This instance would be the first of many and was the moment I knew what we had was over. Long ago I learned the hard way to not get involved in an argument between partners. If you're lucky you get out unscathed but if you try to be the hero the effort rarely gets rewarded. Even if she would have asked for help I probably wouldn't have done it but she never did. In fact for the remaining time her and her son lived there, no words passed between the two of us. The ex would move in not long after and stayed until they moved out. A few times her and I would share a passing look, her eyes projecting an air of regret and apology, but nothing became of it. I made the choice to move in, just as she had.

Many times more I would witness the abuse and at least once she knew I had. No one was going to save her but herself. I did have one more brief conversation with her son. He let me know his father had returned home from jail and the whole family was about to move across town to a trailer park. This talk was probably more of a way to let me know what happened than a friendly goodbye. I thanked him and said a goodbye myself. They moved the next week and that was the last time I saw either of them. Despite the overwhelming feeling of loss I carry with me, the truth is she was always too good for me. An unconfident and shy boy was never a match for a beautiful

young woman, at least that's what I tell myself. No matter how brief our time together was, it was the best of my life and I pray nightly I'll feel that joy again. I had a female neighbor as a kid. Her family was a little odd. They do very unsafe things like Chuck throwing stars at each other. Normally the stars never struck one of them, except for this one time when the girl threw one at her younger brother and it stuck in the back of his forearm. It wasn't really deep, mind you, but it still was deep enough to not fall out when he moved the arm. Instead of freaking out like any sane 10-year-old would,

he laughed and pulled the thing out. Rather than calling it quits for the day, he threw it back at her. For a while I thought it was because they were half Japanese and that's just what they did, but as I grew up, I realized that they were just crazy people. When I was 16, the girl and I started messing around. Not sure how it happened. One day, I was hanging out at their house and I realized I was attracted to her. Not long after, we happened to be wrestling around with each other and she pinned me down and began kissing me. It was all uphill from there.

Some days we'd only touch one another's bodies and some days it went all the way. We'd been doing our best to hide what we were doing but one day her older brother found out and decided to torture me for it. I never could get a straight answer from her on how he found out, but he had, and that was all that mattered. When he first approached me, I lied, but he saw right through me. Next, I began apologizing, but he still said nothing. His silence was terrifying, but not as much as the knife he was holding in his hand. At that moment I was

standing roughly 10 feet away from him. I eventually ran out of things to say and we just stared at each other. The long seconds started to get to me and I yelled at him to say something. Instead he smiled, raised his hand and threw the knife at me. I instinctively cowered and covered my head, but it sailed above me and hit the wall. There was no way I was going to stick around and become a pincushion, so I fled across the living room. He kept up his silent treatment. It was clearly working. I stopped to turn to look and see where he was. I saw him bend over and pick up the knife. When he'd seen I'd stopped, he threw it again. I saw what he was about to do and ran out the front door of the house. I didn't stop this time until I was inside my own house. As I ran into our living room,

my mom stopped me and asked why I was running. It wasn't the first time I'd come running into the house, but I must have been horrified looking. I very nearly blurted out but remembered what had initiated the chase in the first place. Telling my mom anything about what I'd been doing or even admitting I had those type of thoughts scared me much more than having sharp things thrown at me. So I told her I was very thirsty and was running into the kitchen to get a coke. I'm not sure she believed me, but let it go and I slipped off to the kitchen. Later in the day, my playmate called me to come over, but I swore I'd never go over there again,

as long as her brother was around. She didn't know what had happened until I explained it to her. I hoped she'd get mad about how I was treated. Instead, she changed the subject and said she'd come over to my house. It was a little harder to mess around at my place. My folks were always around, at least one of them. I was kind of mad she didn't stick up for me and obviously still shaken from nearly dying, but she was able to take my mind off of all of that rather easily. We took the opportunity to make up when my mom stepped out for a few things

and we continued messing around any chance we had. I did stick by my pledge however. I didn't step one foot in her house for the remainder of my time living with my folks. College came around in a few years and other than small visits at holidays, her and I never saw each other after I left. I did run into her older brother during one Thanksgiving. Even though we were both adults now and many years had passed since our talk, the memory of it was still strong and I expected him to chuck a knife at me any second. My next door neighbor was the best you could dream of. She worked nights and when she was off rarely made a peep.

Her little dog was a concern early on but I would soon discover it was as quiet as its owner. I'd been at the complex for a year when she told me she found a boyfriend and things were going well. After that I saw her even less than before and was more than happy to sign another 12 month lease. Things proved to be too good to be true however. Barely a month into my second year, things began to change drastically next door. Loud arguments were often heard through the walls and the dog reacted to these as badly as I did. The poor little guy barked his head off while she and the new love of her life screamed at each other repeatedly. I did attempt to ignore the racket for a couple of weeks but would finally lose my mind and began banging on the wall. I was shocked that it worked, but only the first time.

All the others after were ignored. This garbage went on for over three months and after several visits from the cops, she showed up at my door to apologize. She claimed things were going well, just as she had told me prior, but after he moved in, his behavior changed. After that, it seemed all they would do is fight. He could hit her during one, and she foolishly forgave him. He'd sworn it would never happen again, but it did, and she kicked him out. Her hope was that he'd move on to someone else. However, he soon appeared at her door out of the blue begging her to take him back. The cops were called and she filed a restraining order. It was almost a month ago and she hoped he was gone for good. From what I could

see and hear, things had gone back to the way they had been originally. I went back to living a peaceful life and I assumed so had she. Considering we had opposite schedules it wasn't strange for us to go weeks without seeing or hearing one another and I was happy for it to stay that way. Then something terrifying would happen one day as I returned from work. I pulled into the complex and turned to enter my section of the lot and was blocked by several cop cars and ambulances. It was a surprising thing to see, but none of my business, I suppose. I found another spot to park and headed for my apartment.

As I neared my place, I noticed my neighbor's door was wide open and cops were going in and out. After what she'd told me, I assumed her ex had showed up uninvited. Upon approaching our building another officer stopped me and informed me the area was closed. I let him know I lived in the building and asked what had happened. He couldn't tell me but if I waited for a detective to come out he'd probably have some questions for me. The cop said something over his radio and a minute later a guy in a suit came out of the apartment and took me aside. He only had a few questions, if I'd seen anything of the like.

As the seconds passed I got increasingly nervous and begged him to tell me what was going on. He paused and said in a very serious voice that my neighbor had been found dead in her apartment earlier that day. My eyes had to have looked like saucers to him. I was completely shocked and wondered how I had noticed something so major. Before he could ask the question I blurted out her ex's name. They were familiar with him and I could tell from his demeanor he was their main suspect. He handed me his card and let me go. I turned to walk away but stopped a few steps later. What's going to happen to her dog? The detective hesitated and a sad look popped up on his face. The assailant appears to have killed him too. I'm sorry.

I'm not sure why this angered me so much. Struck me as needless, I guess. The cops probably thought I was crazy, mumbling cuss words under my breath as I walked away. The following morning, I was browsing through the local paper online and came across a story about the murder. breath as I walked away. The following morning I was browsing through the local paper online and came across a story about the murder. It explained that my neighbor was a week late on a rent and received a notice. When no reply came after two days, the manager visited the apartment personally.

There was no answer even after she knocked so she let herself in and found the body. The detective was quoted as saying that they had yet to find her ex and they believed that he had fled back to his original home in Lebanon. Not much information has come out since then. The ex-boyfriend is still unlocated and no other suspects exist at this time. I've moved on to a different apartment complex now, but for the remainder of my time in that one, things went back to business as usual. Two months before my lease was up, new tenants moved in.

This was a young couple with a five-year-old boy. The noise coming from them was endless, and I was overjoyed when the time came for me to move. The place I'm now in is majority older couples and the noise level is almost non-existent. As nice as things are at present, I don't believe I'll ever have a neighbor as good as her. Anytime I hear a bang on my ceiling or loud talking through the walls, I think back on her and how great of a woman and neighbor she was. I'm not sure of how common it was in your neck of the woods, but most people I've discussed the subject with had at least one kid whose dad would

beat his mom in his neighborhood. My friend Mike was that kid where I grew up. I can count at least a dozen times from memory that I saw his mom with a black eye or busted lip, sometimes both. It was rare that Mike or his brother got knocked around but if it did happen, the abuse was more in the form of hard spanking or whipping with a switch. I grew up in a rural area in the south in the 1980s. Some folks were just starting to take abuse seriously but whether it was striking your child or your wife most didn't want to get involved. You have to realize a lot of the old church people live by the spare the rod spoil the child motto and many of them

among others in the community still believed a woman didn't get hit unless they said something they shouldn't have. It was an odd time indeed but many others in my community despised any form of abuse and said so as often as they could. My parents were some of those but let me play at Mike's house anyways I'd see his dad every once in a while and he seemed nice He was quiet and not many words were exchanged between us But I never saw any reason to be afraid of him No matter what the adults around me told me However I did tend to be around later in the day after he had a few beers Unfortunately one day I would stay too long and

see the man for who he truly was. That day Mike and I had been playing a game on his Nintendo. I can't remember which one but I got distracted and didn't notice the sun was going down. Back then I could go anywhere in the neighborhood as long as I was back by dark. I had lost track of what I was doing and the next thing I knew I was running late. Cell phones were not a common thing in those days so my mom couldn't just pick one up and tell me to come home. I started to panic because I knew I'd be in trouble. I threw down the controller and said bye to Mike. When I got up to open the door, Mike's dad flung an open and asked me where I thought I

was going. I told him that I was late and needed to get home. The entire time I was respectful and even called him Mr. Hughes like my parents had taught me to do when speaking to adults. He replied by saying that I was just a stupid little rat because I was already there. The words were slurred as he said them and confused me. I looked over at Mike, bewildered. His expression showed utter fear. I wasn't sure what to say, so I said nothing. I stared back at Mr. Hughes, hoping he was just playing a joke on me.

His next words were, What's wrong with you? Cat got your tongue? These were just as slurred and he swayed as he said them. That's when I saw the beer in his hand and I became very afraid. If I could have shrank in size and rolled away, I would have. With the knowledge I had surrounding how he acted when drunk, I was sure I was about to be beaten for nothing. His eyes were very glassy, and he looked around hoping for someone to speak, but we were too scared. Well, if you're not going to talk to your old man,

go outside and help your brother pick up the stuff out of the yard. Instead of looking at Mike when he said this, he was turned toward me. I could only assume he mistook me for Mike. The real Mike was sitting just behind me on the floor, well within range, but I guess he was so drunk Mike was invisible, or maybe he was so used to seeing double he he thought that was the case at that moment. I was about to correct him before I saw this as my way out. I did as he said, but rather than stop to help Mike's little brother, I booked at three houses down to my own and hid in my room.

I got lucky that night. Neither of my parents heard me sneak in, and when they came to check on me, they assumed I'd been in my room the entire time. After weighing the pros and cons of telling them about what had just occurred, I chose not to. It wouldn't have achieved anything other than putting more unneeded stress on Mike and his family so I let it go and counted myself fortunate. I'm not sure what happened when I left. Mike never mentioned

it. The situation did teach me a lesson, however. I stayed away from his house, at least until his folks got divorced and his dad moved out. The family's life greatly improved after that and Mike graduated valedictorian of our class. The man that would marry his mom later was an exact opposite of his father and became the dad he'd always dreamed of. In the years since my childhood, the attitudes towards domestic violence has improved greatly. I for one can say I'm very pleased to see it. Children living in fear can never be a good or godly way to be and because of this I know I can be far more confident that my son and his group of friends will be less likely to find themselves in the same situation that I did.

I've recently had to move to a new apartment because of a terrifying incident I had with another resident at my former one. He had become obsessed with me to the point that he tried to kidnap me at knife point and end my life. He's currently on remand in jail and will be for at least the next few years. However, his family is still living in the same apartment and they have threatened me and my family more than once. My mom decided we would be safer if we left that complex and in the middle of the night last week, we packed everything we could fit in our car and slipped away. I suppose it wouldn't be fair to end the story there, so I'll include all that I can remember that led up to the attack.

My mom and younger sister had lived in that particular apartment for around 7 years before I moved in. I'd been living with my dad in California since my parents' divorce. I liked living there and didn't want to leave my friends. The only real negative was that I hardly ever got to see my sister. We both missed each other a lot so I made the decision to move to Arizona with her and my mom. The day I arrived I noticed a group of older boys about 18 or 19 hanging out in front of their apartment. One of them sat under a tree staring at me. There was something about the way he watched me that made me very uncomfortable. This was Brett and he would be the boy that very nearly took my life. Our first few times to see each other he kept his distance.

It would take around a month for him to introduce himself and it was the circumstances that forced his hand. We ran into each other at the mailboxes. The surroundings pushed us very close together and our eyes met. I still remember the feeling I had of indecision as I looked into his eyes. On one hand, he was a very handsome guy, but that deep down feeling of mistrust was still there. He stared for a long moment before he finally introduced himself and I did the same. He offered his hand and we had a very awkward shake. That was the beginning of a short but eventually terrifying friendship. Our first day hanging out would be a fun one and no indication of how things would turn out.

Brett remained shy for a little while and on this day he wouldn't say much. I found myself making small talk to avoid any silence. He had told me about a wooded area close by that the other older kids hung out in so I asked him to show me around. When we walked up there were already three other kids, one boy and two girls hanging out smoking. Brett and I stuck around for a little while and smoked with the group by the end of that day everything went well and I'd made three new friends he and I continued hanging out at the clubhouse as the wooded area was called and we're getting along great until the day he asked me to be his girlfriend. The question caught me off guard.

Honestly, although I thought he was good looking, I wasn't attracted to him. We'd become good friends, and that was the way I wanted things to stay. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I tried to let him down as softly as I could. He took the no, much better than I expected, and quickly changed the subject,

but did so in the most horrible way possible. He had seen a tabby cat walking about 30 feet away and picked up a handful of rocks. He began throwing the rocks at the poor creature. Fortunately, he missed each time. I was naturally appalled by this and yelled at him. He kind of just blew me off and walked away. With no one else to hang out with, I headed home unsure of our friendship going forward. We ran into each other later in the week and tried to put what would have happened behind us. Brett's brother and a few others were

swimming at the pool and invited us to join them, so we did. I ran back home and put my favorite swimsuit on. I rejoined them and jumped in the pool. I was having a good time splashing around with the others. It was over 100 degrees that day and the water felt great. I had stopped to get a drink of water and was talking to one of the boys I'd just met. Out of nowhere, Brett ran up to the boy and pushed him into the pool. Everyone, including the victim, began yelling at him, but rather than apologize, he walked off just as he had in the woods. When I caught up to him later, I asked why he had done it and he said he'd become overwhelmed

with jealousy. He'd seen us speaking to each other and I looked like I wanted him to be my boyfriend. A shudder of horror ripped through me when I heard this. If I was smart, I would have run away at that moment, but I felt sorry for him for some reason and assured him I had no intention to do that. The smile and look of sheer relief on his face should have been another red flag, but we've already established I'm not very smart. The rest of the day went fine and nothing creepy would happen for another week. We had been playing Fortnite and smoking in a friend's apartment that afternoon when Brett tried to steal a kiss from me. This made me mad and when I began yelling

at him he put on a sad face to make me feel sorry for him. If this would have been the first time he'd tried that I may have let it go but he had tried just the day before in the woods. No one was around to see it then, but this day, a room full of people saw. That was the final straw. I told Brett off and left. I never intended to speak to him again, but he arrived at my door the following day like nothing had happened. I let him say hello before I slammed the door in his face. My hope was that he'd get the point and leave me alone but within hours

the apology text began and would continue for at least another week. I very nearly answered one just to tell him to leave me alone but my sister convinced me it would only give him hope and he'd never stop after that. The messages eventually stopped on their own and for the first time in almost a month I had reason to hope it was all over. Things around the apartment soon began to quiet down and there were no signs of Brett outside. Being cooped up inside so long was starting to drive me crazy. Therefore, after I scanned the area around outside my place and across the way for Brett, I deemed it safe and took the short walk to the mailboxes. I stepped out of the door, walking slowly at first, ready to run back inside at the first

sight of him, but the closer I got the more confident I became. A few pieces of junk mail were all that greeted me. Feeling a tad more relaxed, I inhaled a lungful of hot Arizona evening air and made my way back to the apartment. I took a moment to tie my shoes. As I did, I thought to myself that this would be the perfect time for Brett to walk up. But when I finished and walked on, he was nowhere to be seen. I could see my door when I turned the corner and then, out of the near darkness, Brett stepped out from behind the wall and grabbed me. His hand quickly covered my mouth before I could scream,

but when I felt the sharp point of the knife, I lost any will to. He shuffled us back behind the wall and told me he needed to talk to me. When we were safely hidden, he slowly pulled his hand away. I could tell he was watching and waiting for me to make any noise. However, the presence of the knife resting just under my neck prevented me from doing any more than whispering. He claimed he wasn't going to hurt me. He only wanted to talk to me and explain how he felt about me. The knife made me think otherwise. I asked him as quietly as possible if that was true. Why was he attacking me with a

knife? This is the only way I could get you to listen to me. His reply was quick and confident. The shy and reserved Brett was elsewhere. The knife had apparently instilled him with a sense of power that he lacked without it. This realization terrified me even more and left me with little doubt he would use it if he felt a challenge to that power in any way. I decided at that moment I was going to do anything necessary to get away from this alive. Well, I'm listening. What do you want to tell me? When I said this, I used the softest feminine voice I could muster. I also relaxed my body to give him the idea that I was complying willingly. He said there were far too many distractions where we were.

He was going to take me to the clubhouse so we could be alone. I stifled the chill as well as I could. The only thought I had was that he was going to take me there and kill me. If this was the case, I was going to attempt to get free whenever I could, even if I had to kill him to do it. He followed behind me as we walked towards the woods, pressing the point of the blade firmly against my spine the whole way. As we traveled, he told me about how he had fallen in love with me the second he saw me and how angry he felt any time another guy talked to me. I said nothing this entire time. In truth, I was doing my most to block out what he was saying and looking for my chance to get away. We drew closer and I could see a campfire burning off in the

distance. My god, how long has he been planning this? was my only thought. When we reached it, we sat together on a long log. He stared longingly into my eyes and talked about how much I hurt him by refusing to be his girlfriend. He had held onto that hope that I would see we belonged together and got the idea if he kissed me, I'd realize it sooner. For a brief moment, I forgot how I had been brought there and a feeling of pity crept in my mind but it was fleeting and the seriousness of my predicament returned. What he would say next convinced me that my earlier suspicions were true. Our time apart had proven to him that I would never really be ready to accept our destiny

together and he was a fool to ever think a girl so beautiful would ever want to be with a screw-up like him. A dream he had showed him that if we died together, things would be better. When he said this, he hid his face and tears began falling from his eyes. He raised his hand with a knife in it to wipe the tear away and that's when I took my chance. That split second he looked down and took the knife away from me was all it took. I turned and began running as fast as my legs could carry me. It was dark but I had made the walk back and forth enough to know what set of lights in the distance belonged to home.

Only once did I dare glance back he was uncomfortably close but I gave it all I had knowing if he caught me I was dead I neared the edge of the trees and could see the lights of the complex growing closer I began screaming for help the burning of my legs was becoming unbearable and I knew I couldn't go much further the The parking lot neared and then, poof, a mass of bright lights flooded all I saw before me and I ran into something. The something grabbed me and picked me up. For a second, I thought he had caught me and this was the end. I screamed as loud as my burning lungs would allow me. I was not going to die silent and meek. A voice calmly told me it was all over and put his hand on my head.

I looked up one last time, confident my defying eyes would be the last thing he saw. But the face was not Brett. It was an older man with a bushy mustache. Our eyes met. It's okay. I'm a police officer. You're safe now. His words were the sweetest I'd ever heard. I went limp and wailed with relief. A relief I hoped to never exceed. The nightmare was finally over. My mother and sister wrapped their arms around me. We held each other tightly and cried like babies.

They got worried when they saw the male on the ground and called the cops. I glanced over to see a police officer with his knee and Brett's back putting handcuffs on his wrists. Another led us over to a waiting ambulance where I was checked out and eventually cleared Brett was taken away and when the time came to determine his bail it was decided not to give him any so at least until the trial dates he will be stuck in jail God knows that's where he belongs since this all happened we had repeated problems with Brett's family. They hold me responsible for what occurred, like I'm some heartless tramp that let him on and caused him to have a nervous breakdown. They egged my mom's car and broke our windows.

Even after we called the cops on them, we had no proof they were the people doing it, so they got off. The entire situation became more trouble than it was worth, so we moved to our new place. It's only been a few months since this occurred, and from what the district attorney tells me, it'll likely be over a year before the trial begins. Any updates won't be for a long while, however, if anyone is interested, I'll post any new information I get. Please, everyone, wish me luck. And for all that is holy, let's pray this monster never gets to victimize another girl in his life.

As your neighbor ever once tried to kill you, mine did. Wanna guess why? Because my dog defecated in his yard once. Once? Yes, once. This dude has been nothing but trouble since I moved in. He would strut around without a shirt on in summer and occasionally flex and then look around to see if anyone was watching. He would think a guy trying to appear as macho as possible would be a man's man, but this was not the case. Anything that required any real physical labor, except for lifting weights, was done by his wife, a woman who was maybe 110 pounds soaking wet. I may have given him a pass on the lawn mowing, maybe he had bad allergies but that wasn't it. They owned this ridiculous jacked up truck with an annoyingly loud exhaust and you know who did all the maintenance on it? The wife. She had to

use a stepladder just to get in the thing. When I realized he was just something to look at and had no bite behind his bark, any fear I may have had of him faded away. Not that the small talk though. The point of this whole post is what happened one quiet Sunday morning as I stepped out to get the paper. Nine times out of ten my wife's little furry rat of a dog follows me's actually pretty cool, follows me out of the door when I go to retrieve it. This morning was one of the nine and while I searched the fading darkness for my paper, he pranced off to the grassy area alongside the driveway to relieve himself.

I thought nothing of it at the time, it's something that happens occasionally and when I notice he does, I return from the house with a bag to pick it up. Not even I like dog feces in my yard but I generally don't go super saiyan when I see it. They gotta go somewhere after all. Anyway, after I found it, I returned to the house with my paper. I noticed out of the corner of my eye the yappy bugger was in the familiar stance and I'd have to come back and pick it up. So I grabbed a bag and head for the door. This had to have been 30 seconds from dump to door, maybe. I reach the door and before I can grab the knob, my neighbor comes banging on it.

Not a kind knock either. This is 7.30 in the morning. Everyone else in the house is still in bed. So his loud knocking and yelling, yes there was yelling too, made me angry before a word was even said between us. I open the door and he starts ranting about how my dog just took a huge one in his yard. I automatically tell him to lower his voice but he kept on with the yelling. I tried to explain to him what I was doing. I even showed him the bag but he continued. I push past the idiot and go to pick it up. When I find the pile I see that it's actually well within the bounds of my

property so I get even angrier than I already was. I dispose of it in a nearby trash can and turn to go back in. This whole time I'd been swallowing my feelings but then he made a big mistake. He threatened to hurt the dog if it ever came into his yard again. This was something I couldn't let pass. I may make jokes about the little thing but my wife loves him like he's her own child and I love my wife so even if it was only a threat I knew my wife would be upset if she heard it. I got in his face and started yelling threats back at him. When he began poking me in the chest with his finger I reflexively pushed him away and he fell right on his back end. He stared at me speechless with a look of shock on his

well-moisturized face. Now that he'd shut up, I assume he got the point and I could finally go back inside my house. I foolishly thought that was the end of it, at least for the time being. However, less than two minutes later, he starts pounding on our door again. By now, my wife had awakened and was in the kitchen asking me what was going on. I forgot to mention this whole time that furry bugger was barking his head off. My wife picks him up to calm him down and I storm to the door ready to strangle this idiot. When I yank the thing open the psycho is standing there with a gun and actually takes a shot at me.

Just by a hair the bullet zips past my head and comes incredibly close to hitting my wife. How he missed it that near of a distance I don't know but I'm incredibly thankful he did. I slammed the door closed and expected more shots to come roaring through but none came. I ran for the phone and saw my wife had already called the cops. They tell her that there's been a few calls from the area and cars had already been dispatched. They show up and we tell our side of the story and show them the bullet in the wall. The guy couldn't deny he'd fired a gun.

The proof was right there and a few of the other neighbors had made complaints about someone shooting so they put the cuffs on him and we watched as they took him away. Later in the day his wife came over and apologized to us for all the problems. I've never had a problem with her in the first place and told her so. She thanked me and let me know that they were going to be moving. The truth of the matter was they couldn't afford the house anymore, and with what he'd just pulled, they were going to need all the money they could to hire a lawyer. She didn't say much else after that, just apologized once more and left. Less than a week later, they were gone.

It wasn't long before another family moved in and they've actually been great neighbors. Although the entire comedy of errors was what it took to get rid of him, I'm still not sure my wife and I almost getting killed was worth it. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, rLetsReadOfficial, and give and receive feedback from the community, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And join my Discord to interact with me and other listeners directly.

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