The Lets Read Podcast - 98: Episode 087 | Repairman & Internet Stalker Stories | 27 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Welcome to the eighty-seventh 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 Internet Stalkers, Repairmen & A Man In Our Backyard... 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 & Audio Remastering: Simon de Beer https://www.instagram.com/simon_db98/ 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. TreadExperts.ca This is a long one that lasted the entirety of a school year, getting worse as the year went by. I met Brandon my senior year of high school. I was technically a junior, but I was graduating a year early. The only reason that is relevant is because that meant that I had a junior English

class, which is where I met Brandon. Brandon was the obvious standout weird kid. He was easily over six foot tall and morbidly obese, with long black greasy hair and always had a death metal t-shirt on. As the weird kids always do, Brandon instantly took a liking to me. I was a bit of a weird kid myself, always wearing black with long red hair, piercings, contacts, and heels I'd wear. My family moved an average of every year and a half, so I was plenty used to changing schools and having to awkwardly try to make some sort of connection to someone to make the classes go by quicker. I knew better than to do that with Brandon. It would be social implosion, honestly. Luckily we had assigned seats in that class but unluckily Brandon was seated no more than two desks away from me. I was seated with a girl named Alice and we quickly became friends, often talking with Brandon intervening,

even in conversations where it was obvious his opinion wasn't appreciated. But I tried to be a nice person so I'd give small replies and talk politely, but I never encouraged or acknowledged his flirting. A few weeks into the school year, our teacher told us to get into groups of four with people closest to us to do a poster project. That meant that Brandon was doing the poster with us. Brandon immediately made it clear that he wasn't going to help at all, claiming he never did any of his work and that he wasn't about to start now. He instantly laid his head down on the desk, presumably trying to sleep.

That annoyed me, Alice, and the other guy, but we didn't say anything. Alice and I sailed through this class with ease and had finished the project in less than half the class time which gave us time to do whatever we wanted. Alice and I talked and she brought up hanging out and asked for my number. I happily agreed and immediately after Brandon interjected. Can I have your number? Loud enough for the tables around us to turn and look. I couldn't help but scrunch up my face in distaste, but I have no backbone and don't want to be rude. Most of the kids in the class are to him, so I hesitate and say, Uh, I don't really text a lot.

I mean, I'm really busy with work and school because I graduate this year, but... Uh, okay. But to be clear, I do not want a boyfriend at all just friends. He immediately laughs and says I know that someone like you would never be with someone like me. As much as I wanted to say something nice I knew better than to set myself up to compliment him. I shift my gaze and ask, do you have your phone so I can put in my contact info? His eyes enlarge for a moment and says, no, can you just write it down for me? I frown, having seen him on his phone earlier but just write down my number on a small ripped corner of paper, hoping he'll lose the slip. This is the beginning

of the warning signs. Brandon had started following me out to the exit of the school a few days before, just with a tap on the shoulder and a quick, have a good day. But this is when it changed. As class lets out, I rush away, hoping to outrun Brandon from catching up. I'm holding my phone, texting my dad I'm about to head out of school to walk to work. I'm holding my phone, texting my dad I'm about to head out of school to walk to work. That's when my phone beeps and it's a text from an unknown number. Got you. And before I have time to question it I feel two hands clamped down on my shoulders. I was only 20 feet from the door but of course there was Brandon. He says it out loud then, got you, and then laughs. I kind of half smile and nod. Are you heading to work now? I frown at the question but I had

talked to Alice in class about my job at the gas station down the road from school so I figured that's how he knew. Yeah Brandon, it's great not having a last period, though. I say half-heartedly. He just stands there, full-on grinning at me, menacingly. After an awkward moment, I say, Shouldn't you get to class? And he scoffs. No rush. I have auto mechanics.

The teacher doesn't care if we're late. Well, as you said, I have to get to work, so bye, Brandon. Goodbye, Victoria. I'll text you and see you very soon. And with that, he shuffled away. Even though I didn't know it then, this would become a daily occurrence. I would rush out of class and no matter what, Brandon would catch up and try to keep me. As I'd find out later, Brandon's teacher did care if he was late and had given Brandon detention multiple times and threatened to suspend him if he kept it

up. Brandon supposedly assured him he wouldn't care, and I also found that his class was located on the exact opposite side of the school where I left, which gave him even less justification for following me. Over the days, Brandon would continually text me and send me memes after school, some violent and some pretty intimate. I'd yell at him and tell him to stop, but other than that, I might respond once or twice a week to his massive messages. That never stopped him from sending 10 plus messages a day. I silenced his conversation and really didn't think about it or him if I could avoid it. Brandon would stare at me creepily in class, with multiple students noticing it and pointing it out loudly with a laugh,

though that wouldn't stop him. There was a few times Brandon lost his cool in class and would begin screaming curses and throwing things like his backpack and notebooks. Brandon would always be back the next day though, which he explained to me was because the school was well aware of the abusive home life he had and they know if they suspended him, he'll just drop out of school. But Brandon began being more violent with me. It was our last day in school before winter break when a boy from our class asked me out in front of Brandon and it visibly angered Brandon who immediately stood up which caused the desk to loudly lurch forward. You're not worthy of her. No one is. If you touch her or talk to her again, I'll rip your spine out and will beat you with it.

The whole class became silent and was staring. My teacher had overheard this and immediately yelled at him, telling him he needed to apologize. He just flipped off the class, not looking at me, and stormed out. With that, the boy looked at me bewildered and I politely turned him down. Class wasn't even five more minutes so I left like normal already forgetting the Brandon drama and feeling excited because it was finally winter break and I had like two weeks to spend my evening smoking and listening to Let's Read podcasts. I had stepped out of the glass doors when my thoughts were abruptly interrupted. Brandon stood by the bench right outside of the school staring at me.

I was the only person I knew who got off early without having a car and the student parking lot was on the other side of the school, so it was only the two of us. I was so startled to see him that the first thing I blurted out was, What are you doing, Brandon? You still have another class, don't you? He didn't respond so I continued, and what was up with you blowing up in class like that? I'm a big girl, I'm even older than you, I don't need you trying to protect me, it's weird. He merely blinked and began walking towards me with a cold look on his face

i hate school i don't care about that i care about you i could kidnap you you know when you close on fridays i could just come up behind you and shove you in a van i didn't know where to start on that one How did he know I closed on Fridays? Had I ever told Alice that? I didn't think so and I definitely had never told Brandon that I don't know why I reacted this way but my reaction was to laugh and say If you really care about me, please don't kidnap me now We're just about to be on break

Kidnap me on Monday or something when we're back at school. He was only a few feet away from me now and he continued staring at me. He then rushed forward and tried to grab me. He grabbed both my arms and tried to wrap his arms around me. As I said, he's at least six foot and morbidly obese while I'm quite the opposite at a petite 5 foot 3 and 95 pounds. Don't touch me Brandon! My struggle was useless as he holds me and whispers. I'll be like this always, soon. And he let me go as the bell rang. He just takes a step back and watches as I begin running away as fast as I can, constantly looking back. Brennan didn't text me for a few days until Christmas Eve when I noticed that he had texted me a few hours earlier. Do you think if I ask Santa for you this year he'll kidnap you for me? So I responded, no, especially if I asked Santa for a restraining order on you.

Less than a minute later he sent a frowny face in response. After break I returned to school, so motivated to get the next few months over so that I can finally be free. I don't think about Brandon until the sixth period that day as I take my seat. Before class starts with no sign of Brandon I decided to see if Brandon had sent me anything over break after the frowny face. My eyes enlarged in disbelief. I have fifty plus unread messages starting from hey and quickly escalating to I just sold my soul to Satan so that I could have you as my slave. I'll take good care of you. Alice walks in and notices my look of disbelief and all I can do to respond is to hand her my phone, showing all of the crazy messages and pictures he had sent me. Alice and

I don't have time to talk about it when the bell rings and I put my phone away. Brandon walks in a few minutes later, this absolute look of hate on his face. My teacher tries asking him where he's been but he ignores her and sits down, head turned so that he's directly giving me that cold hard look. Alice looks as scared as I do and my teacher is still yelling at him but he completely is tuning her out, head cocked like in a horror movie staring blankly at me. I keep my eyes on the teacher hoping she'll do something but she's one of those who had given up a long time ago, sighed and went on with the lesson like nothing had happened. I decide that when I get to work I'm going to text him to leave me alone because he's scaring me which might please him but I know I need to tell him to stop.

If he hadn't looked so out of his mind I might have told him in person but he looks so angry. I rush out of class like always and Brandon blatantly moves slowly as if to show me he's not going to rush after me. I scurry through the masses of people and make it outside just to hear my name as the door begins to close behind Brandon is standing at the door where I was moments ago, unmoving, just staring at me the door closes and I rush away out of eyesight of the doors

I'm so freaked out about it the entire way to work I compose a long text to Brandon trying to be nice but firm and telling him to leave me alone. That evening, I unsilenced his notification while I'm at work and continue to anxiously glance at my phone, waiting for his response back, but for hours I don't hear anything. It's not until 9pm when business has gotten slow that my phone begins to blow up with notifications. It's a bunch of horror movie gifs with words and bloody letters saying things like, I'm going to get you,

look outside, it's time, and my throat tightens. I look up at the monitor into the security camera footage but other than the area immediately around the gas pumps, the rest of the parking lot is dark. I look down at my screen again and he sent, I see you. And with that I heard a loud smashing noise from outside that practically made me fall off the counter. I shakily grabbed the keys to lock the front door and looked towards the security footage again. Of course, the bang came from the one side of the building without a camera. Nope, not going out there.

I still have over an hour until I close and I'm in no rush to go check it out. That's when Brandon tries calling me. I immediately answer and he's sobbing. Why won't you let me take you away? I'm stunned by this question, but unsteadily say, Brandon, Brandon, why are you crying? Are you the one outside? Please stop. You're freaking me out. I walk to the front glass door, squinting my eyes to look for movement amidst the darkness. Are you out there? I practically whisper into the phone, terrified. Then bang. Brandon's standing to the left of the door now, smashing his fist into the glass. I'm calling the police, Brandon! I scream.

It's only when I hear Brandon clearly wail again that I realize he was still on the phone with me. He's shaking the other trash can and stomping and screaming, sounding like he's having a full-on tantrum. I slam the keys into the door and lock it as Brandon stands feet away, losing his mind. Then silence. With my phone still on speaker, Brandon's voice rings out. You make me feel so much pain. I'm gonna make you feel so much pain too. And before I can threaten to call the police again, he hangs up on me and smacks the door one last time.

This was before I had to call the police. I would multiple times to the gas station after this, but to this point I never had before and I was afraid that they wouldn't take me seriously and at this point I was supposed to close soon. So I call my aunt who also works at the gas station and she drives over. By the time she arrives there's less than half an hour until I close and she informs me that there's no sign of anyone. But someone knocked over the trash can and threw the lid into the road 15 feet away on the side with no camera as well as the trash can by the front door being stomped in. I told my aunt what happened and she insisted that when I returned to school that I had to tell someone what happened. So the next day I hesitantly went to the main office and talked to the guidance counselor assigned to my last name who also happened to be the counselor for Brandon's last name too

when I showed her the messages and told her everything that happened she really tried to convince me that it wasn't a big deal that Brandon had mental issues that he suffered from and that if Brandon got suspended again he wouldn't be able to go here and would likely drop out, emphasizing just how bad that would be for him. I didn't know how that was my fault, but she also assured me that she would guide him and that I was graduating in a few short months anyway so I shouldn't destroy Brandon's life, so I dropped it. Brandon didn't come to school for about a week after and his seat was moved to the other side of the room from me in our shared class. He didn't talk to me for a month.

To the week leading up to my 18th birthday and my last month of school, Brandon had seemed more cheerful than normal and was being friendly but not even directly towards me. So, I was hoping that something good had changed in Brandon's life. Brandon even randomly apologized to me for his behavior and said that he had gotten super drunk that night when he showed up at the gas station and was sorry about the way he acted. But by my birthday, he was back to acting creepy again. The first thing he said to me on my birthday was, Congratulations, you're 18 now. Police aren't going to take it as seriously when you go missing now. I ignored him and by the end of class I was rushing out like old times to avoid him. The bell rings and I stand up, grabbing my small bag and throwing it over my shoulder, no longer bothering with the backpack. That's why I could directly feel the point shoved into the middle

of my back as another hand yanked my head back hard by grabbing my ponytail. I made a startled noise and spun around to see Brandon standing over me, still holding a sharpened stake at me. What are you doing, Brandon? Where'd you get that? And he laughs, carefree, and said that he can make whatever he wants in his mechanics class. There's still people rushing to class change around us and he continues to brandish the stake at me. Why are you holding a stake up at me? That hurt. His eyes seem to lighten up as I say that last part. He doesn't answer me, instead saying, I could stake you to the wall and keep you as my prize, and continues, you know I really hate this school. I could end everyone here, not feel anything. Once again, I listened to all the horror podcasts, watched true crime shows,

read the news, I know the warning signs signs and that was definitely one of them. But my dumb reaction was to act like I was on his side, immediately snapping. What's wrong with you? You say stuff like that, you're gonna get suspended. And he grins at me. The halls are starting to clear and I turn to leave when he grabs me by the wrist and yanks me forward with the stake pointed up against my ribs. I wouldn't want to shoot everyone. I want to gut them. And before I can force myself out of his grip, I hear, Hey! And Brandon pushes me away. Of all the people, it's Mr. B from my last story who is the one who spotted us. Brandon quickly shoves the steak back into his backpack and just glares at me, stomping away. Mr. B looks concerned and asks me, was that a steak? I just nodded,

looking uncomfortable and Mr. B says, you must be into some pretty dark stuff, Victoria. And my mouth drops in shock and he walks away with a laugh. Nothing came of it and with so little time left, everything became a blur until my final day. Brandon didn't show up to school, but one of his friends was waiting for me at the door as I left and gave me a super long notebook from Brandon. The first five pages were nothing but sketch after sketch of me, some of them immediately making me uncomfortable because of the provocative positions he had drawn me in. I glance at the pages, ramblings about wanting me, wanting to hurt me, wanting to save me, wanting me to be his forever.

I stand there less than five minutes, looking over it all before I moved away from the high school for the last time and throw away all the papers into the nearby bin. It was only coincidentally that a year later I got an update on him. I graduated a year early as I said, so a year later I had my twin sister's graduation to go to. It was while taking our seats before the ceremony that I heard the larger couple directly in front of us talking about what a miracle it was that their son, Brandon, had made it to graduation. I'm not normally nosy, but as soon as I had confirmation that these were creepy Brandon's parents, I heard his mother say, I really wasn't sure after that girl last year that he'd make it to this day. I'd never seen him like that. He spent all summer just staring at the wall, unblinking.

Now I have no way of knowing if there was some other girl that Brandon really cared for around the same time I had my issues with him. He would go on telling me anything and everything, so it would surprise me to know if there was someone else he talked to. He made it sound like I was the only person ever remotely nice to him. But I'd rather not be the reason for Brandon's misery. I hardly knew him, and despite what he thought, he hardly knew me. So I'm an actress, but I'm still in college and do a lot of other things to supplement my income. Makeup, writing, dressing, a day job, etc. My last theater job was working as a dresser because the show involved three six-foot something men having to be put in corsets and period piece drag, which included huge wigs and

they needed all the help that they could get. It was hard work, but a lot of fun. This particular theater does late night shows and I don't have a car so I always took public transportation there and home. Shows would end around 10 then I'd catch a train that would take me as close to home as possible before I call a lift. The train ride was about 45 to 50 minutes so by the time I got home it was around midnight then I'd have to get up the next morning at 7am to go to school. It was tiring but I felt so happy to be making money doing what I loved so I didn't care. One night near the end of the production I had made my way to the train station under the watchful eye of one of my cast and I got on the train no problem. As I mentioned

it's a long train ride and the line I ride goes through some unsavory parts of town. If you're from Dallas I'm sure you're familiar with West End. It's a gathering place for drugs and homeless people. I've taken the bus and train since I was very young, so people like this didn't bother me none. They're still human beings and deserve to be treated as such. As usual, I listened to music, but I kept the volume low enough so I could hear what was going on around me.

It was West End Station that a man got on. He was unhealthily skinny, dark skin with his head shaved. He was a good looking guy but one look in his eyes and he was obviously out of it. Right behind him was an older white woman. It was cold so she had a scarf wrapped around her face and I could only see her blue eyes and blonde hair sticking out from underneath her knit hat. I was seated in the type of train seat where you sit sideways rather than forward. I usually pick these seats because I have long legs and to be fair I had a backpack and a big metal makeup case. Your girl needs space. The older woman sat in the forward facing seat to my left and the super out of it guy sat across

from me. It was around 11.20pm and I'm sitting there thinking, why do these people sit right next to and across from me? I enjoy having a car to myself especially since I'm theatrical and like to sing along to my music. I gave them both a polite nod and went back to my business. Something told me to get up and move but I was tired from school and work and knowing I'd have to do it all again the next day made me reluctant to move so I stayed. If you've read any of my other stories you'll know I'm an empath so of course I could feel the guy staring at me. I may be introverted but I was raised by a Scottish Irish no-nonsense extrovert who taught me to stand up for myself so with a frown I said,

What? The guy shrugged and said nothing so I went back to my music again. It was then that he started mouthing something. He was clearly really messed up so I looked at him again, clearly starting to get annoyed. I've worked retail a long time so I've learned to control my face in work-related situations. However, if I'm in public, my attitude will come out. I was tired and didn't want to get into a confrontation so I started to ignore him. At some point he slammed on something and shouted, look at me. His voice was deep and echoed off the walls. Now he wouldn't know this but because of an abusive stepfather slamming is a trigger for me.

I tensed up feeling like I was 16 and ready to start crying but I quickly shoved that back to deal with later. At that point, anger started pooling in my mouth. I looked at him and said, it's not a nice way to get someone's attention. I grew up around stoners and treating them like children when they were out of it. It was a habit, so I resulted to that. I slowly moved my hand into my pocket, clutching my pocket knife at this point. He apologized and moved closer, squeezing himself next to my makeup case. Can I ask you something? Will you be honest? I nodded, going along with what he had to say.

He talked about how everyone in his life only wanted to use him. I don't know why I tried to give this guy genuine advice but I asked him, you sure you want me to be honest? He nodded taking out a pen to doodle on my makeup case. I wasn't pleased with this but I kept talking. I told him that he needed to sit back and think and decide if it was really worth keeping those people in his life. He nodded in agreement before he started babbling about some nonsense about a home run in his life. He then told me the next stop was his. I caught his eye and said, is there anyone I can call to help you out? He nodded and said, yeah, my nurse. He fumbled in his pocket looking for what I assumed was a card or something. He pulled out another pen and stared at it for a full three minutes unblinking.

I don't know how my patience stayed intact but I said, Sir? He responds, Hmm? And I said, Can I have your nurse's phone number? You wanted me to call her. At that moment he let out a small laugh and said,

Nah, it doesn't matter. I just blinked at him and suddenly he was upset again asking why life was so hard. I simply told him I didn't know but we were at his stop. He suddenly looked suspicious and asked how I knew that. He just told me. Was all I said. Keeping my tone even, I repeated my last statements multiple times before he suddenly stood and moved to the door. He looked back at me one last time before running away to God knows where.

At this point, I turned to look at the older woman who was still sitting on my left and she looked, I don't know, impressed or shocked I guess. I'm baby faced so most people think I'm around 16 even though I'm 27. I suppose she was no different and was wondering how someone so young had kept her composure throughout such an encounter and maybe she sat so close to me to keep an eye on me or something I didn't realize. I still have those pen markings on my makeup case as a reminder and while I think I handled the situation alright, it irritates me that this guy had the nerve to get close to me, a complete stranger, and asked me to solve all of his problems. And it angers me that I was full on ready to stab someone. I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't like violence,

but I hate my personal space being invaded, so he'd clearly put me in fight mode. To the guy who was strung out on something, I hope you get your stuff together, for the sake of your nurse, if nobody else. When I was about 8 years old, my sister, who was 18 at the time, brought home her new boyfriend. He was around 30 years old, which concerned my mom, but it wasn't abnormal for my sister to do this. At this point in her life, she was falling rapidly into a deep depression. Drugs and one night stands were very common at this time for her, so an actual boyfriend seemed better than my mom not knowing where she was every night.

Boyfriend was very nice to us, and especially to me. He and my sister took me to different places. He bought quite expensive gifts for me, and my 8 year old self liked him very much for this of course. This will be relevant later. I even went to his house for a sleepover but of course my sister was there with me. I should tell you that I never got any creepy vibes from him. He never said anything weird or creepy as far as I can remember. Fast forward to the day they broke up. It's quite a blur so I don't remember all of it but I do remember him showing up at our house and my sister refusing to let him in. My mom wasn't home but it was still light out and luckily we're very close with our neighbors. My other sister, she was around 13 or 14, kind of

locked herself in her room but every now and then she'd walk up to our older sister and ask, has he left yet? Now I was a very curious kid and I had no clue what was going on. I saw my older sister was very distraught and very snappy towards me. Understandable considering I was constantly following her and asking questions. I remember looking out my mom's window while my sister tried to push my head out of sight. Boyfriend yelled at her that he had come all this way, he lived about an hour away, and something about the police, though I can't remember what, he left shortly after.

Years later, I thought of this evening and finally asked my mom about it. What she told me left me in shock. Apparently my sister had found very inappropriate pictures of children on his phone. It still gives me shivers thinking about how nice he was and why my sister tried to keep me out of view that night. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo tread experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca.

Discover the exciting action of BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Let me start off by saying I'm new to this sub, but not new to the channel. I actually listen daily on my night shifts, ironically. Because of this, I always remain vigilant. So for me, this is the scariest encounter I have had working retail. I am 29 and have been working various retail jobs since finishing high school.

Never have I had something bad ever happen other than the occasional rude customer. For context, I am female as well and very small, only about 5 foot, not intimidating at all. I moved back to my hometown of South Florida a few months ago from North Carolina. It was right before the pandemic blew up to give you a time reference. I of course needed a job to support my family and was living with my in-laws, husband and daughter. I was able to quickly get an interview with a gas station thanks to my mother-in-law. So I interview and get the job and with this chaos going on I was glad to have an essential job with full time and decent pay.

So far I've been here for about two months and without any incident. It is important to know that I was originally hired for mornings but have had to cover night shift temporarily for a co-worker on medical leave. I adapted to night shift as best as possible and get to know some of the regulars. In particular one couple who fell on hard times would visit just about every night and this is relevant for later. My gas station is locked during nights for safety so I never felt threatened or anything. I only had to service customers through the window so much safer and less risk. This particular night started out as planned and going smoothly.

I had just finished all the stocking and cleaning. It was approximately 1am at this point when the story begins. A guy walks up and I greet him as usual. Hey, what can I do for you? He didn't respond for a minute and then asked, Can I get a hot dog with peppers? I reply, I'm sorry, but we aren't serving hot dogs right now. This is the reason I brought

up the pandemic because we aren't serving any hot food due to contamination risk. He gets annoyed but starts to walk away. I thought to myself, okay just walk away I guess. I started to turn to go about my shift when I hear a tap on the window. He has now come back again. I ask again. Hey, what's up? He begins to get very agitated and raises his voice. He says, what do you mean you don't got any hot dogs?

Get me a hot dog with peppers. I again restate what I said earlier as polite as possible. You would think that that would be the end. So did I, but this was just the start. He keeps repeating this and then begins shouting, I can't believe it. She isn't giving me food, this little wench. It's relevant to know I'm pretty passive.

I mean, I will defend myself if needed, but I'm usually quiet. I stood there frozen and started to worry. Well, you better call the cops since you ain't getting my hot dog, he exclaimed angrily. I almost thought he was joking until I stared at his face. He was actually seriously upset. Then I saw him walk off again toward one of the pumps, talking to I assume a friend getting gas. I even began to think how silly it was. Really? Upset over food? This made me begin to think he was under the influence with his irrational behavior.

I wasn't calling the cops for that no matter how much he asked. Anyways, a few minutes go by and he again comes back. Oh boy, here we go again I thought and sighed to myself. I reluctantly opened the drawer to the window and again asked what he needed getting fed up at that point but not really scared yet. Give me a steel reserve. Go get it now. He replied with emotion gesturing telling me where it was. I thought to myself, do I sell it to him? No, he's irrational.

We can also deny sales if we feel someone is intoxicated or being threatening. I calmly tell him, I know where it is, but I'm not serving you alcohol. He naturally asked why and I replied, you're being irrational, rude and threatening, so I don't have to sell you anything. That set him off and this didn't surprise me but I was trying to stand my ground. Listen here fatty, you call the cops and you see how much time I'm about to get for this. I'm seriously starting to panic at this point. Listen, if you don't leave, I will call the cops, I explained. He didn't seem to care and now began to bang on the glass.

He kept exclaiming, You don't know anything. You're a bum. I'm beginning to shake and trying to stand my ground but extremely terrified. Supposedly these windows are reinforced but I didn't want to find out. He continued to ask me things like, come on, how much money do you even make here? You're a bum, you don't know anything. I reply, it's irrelevant. I don't know you and it doesn't matter what you think of me. He kept calling me every profanity while continuing to bang on the window. At this point, he forced my hand and I knew to call 911. I pick up the phone to show him

I'm serious and even tell him what I'm doing. A part of me didn't want to tell him because I wanted him to be caught but I was so scared. I had never been that terrified in my life. Time felt slow as I explained to the dispatcher what was happening. He continued to bang and yell while I was on the phone, but I ignored him. My safety and any potential customers were my priority. I, of course, give a description, the address, etc. I always hear that time is slow or as it feels like forever when you're waiting for the cops. Well, it definitely does.

I kept thinking, what if he has a weapon? What if another guy is in on it? So many thoughts racing and my panic is interrupted by more voices arguing. I look to see my regulars, the couple I mentioned earlier, yelling at this guy. They heard the commotion when they were walking up and confronted him. This guy even had the audacity to try to grab the regular's wife. He said, why don't you come with me to my hotel room? You can make me some money. I'm in 305. I thought her husband was going to pummel him and I was

hoping so. I also was afraid for them because who knows if he has something on him. He was definitely on something for sure. They scare him off and he disappears behind the building. I thank them and they tell me they're glad that they can help and hopefully the police get him. They inform me he was staying in a nearby Days Inn based on what he said during this brief encounter. This hotel is within walking distance to my job so this is all terrifying. The police were great and responded quickly and went to check at the hotel. If anything, it hopefully scared him off because odds are they probably won't find him. Now with this just happening I keep scanning all the windows wondering if he'll come back. Thankfully we do

lock up at night because who knows what he would have done if he was inside. I live in the Philippines and for some context I am currently in college taking up a bachelor's degree in one of the oldest universities in Asia. My school was founded by the year 1600 during the Spanish colonial era so my university is pretty old and it's being managed by the Catholic Church. If you're from the Philippines you'll probably know what school this is. I have a night class at one of the oldest original buildings of our university. We are only eight students attending that particular class because it's currently typhoon season that time and most of my classmates are absent. My professor called our name one by one for our class attendance

when suddenly he shouted, hey you, mister, at the back, why don't you take a seat up front, since most of the seats are not occupied. At first we ignored it, thinking it's one of the irregular students that is tending our class, so we just shrugged it off. Then my professor shouted again, Excuse me, are you deaf? And could you please take your jacket hood down, please? Now in a very serious tone. This time me and my classmates paid attention to the mysterious man at the back. Because our professor is now furious and finally decided to check on our mysterious classmate, suddenly the lights went out for a few minutes. During the blackout, we were suddenly struck by a cold breeze, even though all the windows are closed because it was raining crazy this time of year.

After a few minutes the electricity finally came back and to our surprise when we looked at the back, the mysterious man wasn't there anymore. There's an eerie moment of silence after that, when my classmate finally asked the professor where that man went, our professor was so speechless that he suddenly just decided to cancel class. I've been debating for some time if I should share this story or not. However, after having a short conversation with my parents about the events, I've decided to write it down. Before going into the story, I would like to say that as much as I, my family, and extended family like to joke about calling ourselves witches, we know there's some kind of small gift given to the women in particular.

We mostly believe it to be just stronger intuition, but sometimes I and some others do hear a, let's say, whisper in the back of our minds that might give a surprising but correct answer. Now to the story. It happened in 1991. Back then I wasn't even born. Not sure if I was even a thought, but my country had been in independence from the Soviet Union for about a year. Lithuania was the first but others joined soon after. Yet travels among former Soviet Union countries were not difficult back then. My parents had decided to visit my uncle who got happily married years prior and moved to a small town in Russia.

It was supposed to just be a small visit to celebrate my parents' recent wedding and then quickly return home. However, that day was different. My aunt had a worried look on her face and although she couldn't really tell what was wrong, she begged my parents to stay the night and leave in the morning. Normally, when my parents visited, they would head back home during the night time because there was less cars on the road and the weather was nicer, in hopes that when they reach the Lithuanian borders, procedures will go much faster. For once, my parents agreed to stay. It was only around midday, when they were at the border, that they noticed that something was very wrong. There were police officers who were redirecting cars, showing us just to drive.

When my parents reached home, they got the news what happened. The staff of the border station in Mendeninkei had been massacred. Seven people died and only one survived. There isn't much details given to the public but what is known that it all happened during the night. Today this event is known as the Mennoninkai Massacre. Had my parents decided to leave that night there would have been a change that they would have been in the middle of the events. There could have been nine people instead. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps, she said, and I can't blame her. Only now, nearly thirty years later, did my mom wonder why she agreed to stay that night.

She believes that some guardians of the family from both my mom's and aunt's side decided that it wasn't my parents' time and tried their best to keep them safe. Although there's a huge language barrier between me and my aunt, I will forever be thankful for her. If it weren't for her and the bad feeling that she had that day, my parents would have likely been among the casualties, and I wouldn't be here today. First of all, I would like to say that I am not the only victim of this person.

This is just a recount of my experiences being harassed and stalked by this guy. Junior year, I began getting followed on social media by a ton of fake accounts. These accounts would go after the hot girls at my high school. A double-edged sword, I was included in this group. At first it was just a bunch of message requests which could easily be ignored. Then, one morning, I woke up to the sight of one of the most disgusting things I'd ever seen. Worse than when I was tricked into watching two girls one cup in middle school. I had been tagged in a picture of a micro-wiener that I can only assume this garbage had. I mean, this thing looked like if a baby elephant in the womb had a growth

stunt that affected its trunk. Gross. Untagged, blocked, reported. The account was deleted eventually and all was well in my 16 year old world for a while after. Beginning my senior year more of these accounts began to pop up, this time impersonating people at our school. I began getting threats almost daily from different users posing as my fellow classmates about how they were going to send inappropriate photos of me to my family, college, and post them to the internet if I didn't do as asked, which was to send explicit photos of myself. I also received a threat about sending a photo of me hitting a jewel to my college, which I thought was hilarious, but scary at the time due to the fact that the photo was only saved on my Snapchat memories.

I've never been a mean girl, but when someone crosses me with threats, I leap into fight mode. I didn't have any illicit photos, so I knew he was bluffing, but still played along at first to see what he wanted from me. Fortunately for me, the guy wasn't too bright. I ended up telling at least 15 of these accounts that I knew that they were bluffing and to cut the act as if there were multiple different people at our school. Not to mention, it was eerie that he obtained this photo of me jeweling that I had not posted to any form of social media. I graduate and I'm not too concerned about it anymore

since I knew I was going off to college soon. However, he took it up a notch that summer, hacking multiple girls' social media accounts and even got his hands on one of my friend's illicit photos that was saved in her My Eyes Only section of Snapchat and sent it to me, pretending to be her to coerce explicit photos out of me. About a week later, his IP address was traced. It turned out to be a guy in my graduating class,

and he was charged with 21 counts of underage photographs and coercion. The threats and fake accounts ended for a while, but after he was released from jail at the end of my freshman year of college, I received a random ad from one of the common aliases he used on Snapchat. Thankfully, I still had the screenshots of the messages he sent under the same alias years back. I was always friends with some of the other victims but they had not been added by the account. I reported all the evidence to the police and ended up being the whistleblower to his probation violation which led to his arrest again. It still creeps me out to this day that he persisted for years to try and solicit explicit

photos from teenage girls and how I passed him in the halls without knowing he was the one that was attempting to blackmail me for pleasure. And not to forget, he was also photoshopping the faces of minors onto certain selfies of actual women. Just such a weirdo. I'm an 18 year old female who lives in Victoria, Australia. I recently moved out by myself into a two bedroom unit with three other units in the complex. The way the complex is set out is the four units are to the left side with a driveway down the right and a carport leading down the back. My neighbors are all single males who work long hours so I have never met them before. One night I got home from work at about 6.30pm so it was already quite dark. I parked my car in the carport and turned my front light on from my phone while I walked the 10 meters to the front door. There were no other lights to show where to go so I used it to see more than anything else.

I was walking to the gate that conceals my front door when I heard a sniffling sound coming from behind the gate. I paused, wondering if maybe it was an animal like a possum or a cat and slowly made my way back to my car, not wanting to scare it so that it jumps out at me. I called my parents who live about 5 minutes away and asked my dad to come have a look. I'm a very cautious and paranoid person so I get spooked by things like this quite easily. After about 10 minutes my dad arrives and pulls up to the driveway next to the gate. He's a pretty big guy who boxed and can throw a wicked punch so I instantly felt safer with him there. My dad opened the gate and a fist flew around the corner narrowly missing my

dad's right shoulder. My dad yelled, threw a punch and knocked out a skinny man who looked as though he was a junkie or possibly homeless. We called the police and he was arrested. This happened a few weeks ago and whilst I'm not as shaken up by it as I was then, I am still nervous that every time I get home, someone will be waiting behind that gate. This one happened just a few hours ago and it scared me. So I was on a bike ride and while I was biking up to the trail I bike on, there was a car parked in front of it. Normally I wouldn't think much of it but this trail was in a pretty shady part of town. Nothing too bad, just not the place you would go camping. Anyways, I went past the car and started down the trail.

After a while, I heard a car behind me and so I went into the side of the road to let the car pass. When I looked at the car, it was the same one from before, but when I went to the side of the trail, the car stopped. Okay, weird I thought and moved on, But then as soon as I started again so did the car. This is when I started to get a little bit scared. I do know a lot about cars so knowing that this Ford Explorer would not be able to go off road I went into a smaller trail for bikes. After doing that I heard car doors slamming and people yelling where are you and running coming towards me. Now I was biking as fast as I could and luckily made it out of there but while riding to my house I saw the car again. They were able to easily recognize me because I was wearing baggy pants and a Santa

Cruz hoodie and so they started to drive towards me slowly but I just rode back down into the trail I had just come from and I don't think they saw me because nobody came after me. After I called the cops and they asked me if there was a license plate and I said not that I could see. They just said okay, call us again if it happens once more and that was pretty much it, but terrifying nonetheless. I don't know what they wanted, but it obviously couldn't have been good. Hi, my name is Jake. I remember when I was five or six I was waiting outside my house for my mom to come outside to bring me to swimming lessons. So I was just standing there and the next thing I knew there was a blonde haired woman wearing a black coat and hat walking in my direction. Now I used to live in an estate from which we moved from

and on my side at the end of the road you had to turn a corner to get out of the estate by car. Anyway, when the woman gets to me, we'll call her Karen, she asks me, hey there, what's your name little boy? Me being a dumb kid that I was says Jake. Karen smiled and responded with, oh cool, my son is also called Jake. Say, want to come with me and play with him? I told her that I had swimming lessons so it could only be for a little while. She said that was fine and began to lead me to the end of the footpath where the corner was. When we got to the corner, Karen points at a young man wearing a hoodie and dirty tracksuit bottoms and says, that's my son, go and introduce yourself.

Up until now I had been expecting another boy my age, not an adult man like I was being shown. Karen's son looked to be roughly around the ages of 18 to 20 and sent a blonde hair like his mom. He had unkempt short black hair and now that I think of it was probably high on something because his eyes were bloodshot and darting everywhere. When I greeted him with, Hi, my name's Jake. He responded by flashing me the most gross looking creepy grin ever. At that point my mom had come out of the house and called me to get in the car because I have swimming lessons. I ran off to the car and as we went around the corner we passed Karen and her son. They looked like they were arguing about something but the thing that's chilling about this story is

when we got back from swimming lessons there were police cars all over the estate. My mom asked our neighbor what happened and she said a man and a woman had tried to lure a kid out of the estate. My mom asked our neighbor what happened and she said a man and a woman had tried to lure a kid out of the estate with them. A few years later I found out from a buddy of mine whose father was a policeman assigned to the case of the man and woman arrested were Karen and her son. Karen had been pretending to be a mother looking for a child to play with her son so that they could lure kids out of the park to do god knows what with them. I'm very glad to have my mom and dad protect me from these types of things and incredibly grateful towards them.

My first few paranormal experiences happened in my family's, my ma'am, brother and dad's first house. I think I was about three at the time. When I think back to our first house, I remember it to be a dark and not a very bright house for some reason. Even though it was like any other house, it had windows in every room and mostly the rooms were small, so you would assume each room would be brightly lit. My first experience I remember in that house was when I was lying in bed ready to go to sleep. My bed faced the window and I kept my curtains open because I liked to watch the sky. It helped me fall asleep but that night I was watching a silhouetted figure in front of the

window. I don't think I was scared. I didn't even think anything of it. Another night I was laying in my bed and watching my door to the landing and I remember a dark silhouette walk by my bedroom door. I speak to my ma'am about our first house a few times and she tells me about her paranormal experiences in that house. Not long after my ma'am lost my little sister through birth, my little brother was asleep in his travel cot. He would look and point at the ceiling laughing, saying baby over and over again. His toys would also go off and on. When my ma'am was in the sitting room, the room would go cold and feel as if though she was being watched. She said to me that she feels as if it was an

older man's presence. A couple of years go by in that house and my ma'am decides to move due to my dad walking out on us and financial problems. In our second house I was trying to fall asleep on the couch because my ma'am would have to keep my brother upstairs and me downstairs because when we were upstairs together we would play on our playstation 2 together or we would be hyper all night and not go to sleep so she had to keep an eye on us when it was time for us to go to sleep when she was ready to go to bed she would carry me up to bed but anyway when i was trying to sleep i was staring at the tv and i watched the silhouette walk by the TV.

Yet again, it never scared me. When I think about the silhouette, I think about my great-grandma, my granddad's ma'am. She passed away a few weeks after my sister passed away at birth. My nana thinks that she was taken from us to look after my sister. I haven't seen any silhouette after moving into our third house back in 2010. I have had a few strange experiences. My grandma's husky Storm passed away in 2014. I was very close to my grandma's dog because I grew up around them. In 2017 I was at Drayton Manor theme park when a white feather fell on my shoulder. I did a shrug to get it off because we were outside and it could have come from a bird. A few hours passed by and we were ready

to leave. I go to the gift shop and look at the little animal teddies and I notice that there are no husky ones left but I get a feeling to pick up a tiger teddy and behind it was a husky teddy so I picked it up and read the name tag of the teddy and I just froze in shock. The name of the husky teddy was Storm. My mom also caught her dog Diesel barking at the steps and possible orbs floating around on camera. I have also been to a spiritualist church and was told that they can see an older lady and little girl by my side. I would like to add that none of these experiences have frightened me in any way and if anything I feel like my family members who have passed away are still with me. When I was little my parents divorced and my mom got full custody of me so I was living with her

when this happened. My mom was extremely religious and if you've ever seen Jesus Camp, that was pretty much the kind of environment I grew up in, sprinkled with a lot of mental abuse and a house that belonged on an episode of Hoarders. My mom homeschooled me through a religious program, half because she wanted to indoctrinate me and half because I know she didn't want me to have contact with adults outside the family that would report her. This was back in 2008-2009 and my mom had finally broken down and gotten me a computer since it had become increasingly necessary for school. My mom was pretty ignorant of the capabilities and also the dangers of the internet.

She had bought it with antivirus software and thought that while protecting my computer, it would also prevent me from being able to do much else on the internet. Because of this, she didn't really monitor my activity. I usually kept another tab open so I could quickly switch over to something harmless if she was around, but usually I would get on late at night when I knew she was sleeping. Fast forward a couple of months into me having my own laptop, I had discovered several online forums that interested me and had made accounts. Mind you, this was during the peak emo scene goth trend and of course, I identified with the emo scene group. The main forum I frequented was a board geared towards emo teenagers. I'm not going to include the name of this forum for safety

reasons but it was similar to Vampire Freaks. Now this board was specifically geared toward teenagers and obviously most of the people on these forums were well under 18. The minimum age to create an account was 13 and I was just shy. I opted to lie about my age and say I was 15 because I didn't want members to think I was a child. Kind of funny now, this is important for later. I would spend hours on this forum browsing and talking to my fellow misunderstood emo comrades. I became pretty close to a group of people in this forum and ended up talking to them outside the forum through MSN messenger virtually every day. Everything was pretty laid back and we mostly would talk about how awful our parents were and screamo bands that we loved. The group I was close with

was mostly girls around my age and we would group chat over webcam often, so I knew these girls weren't old creeps. However, there was a guy in this group who always seemed kind of off, but everyone chalked it up to him being awkward and harmless. I had talked to this guy a few times in passing in group chats but never one-on-one. That changed one night when this guy messaged me privately telling me how depressed and upset he was because his girlfriend had just left him. He made several comments that insinuated that he was thinking of ending his own life. I panicked and did my best to comfort him and calm him down. After this conversation he thanked me, told me how helpful I hadicked and did my best to comfort him and calm him down. After this conversation he thanked me, told me how helpful I had been and how sweet I was.

After this the guy would not leave me alone and started messaging me every day. At this point I didn't think much of it. I didn't have enough life experience for my red flags to start going off yet. And so begins one of the worst periods of my life. This guy was admittedly older than most people on the forum. He claimed to be in his early 20s and based on his appearance I believe that much was true. He continued messaging me every day and we became pretty good friends. Every now and again he would say something that felt off but I ignored it me this guy and a few other people were in a group chat one day he said something funny and I jokingly responded with

haha I love you that was it that was all the fuel he needed he immediately messaged me asking if I meant what I said and if I was serious. Uncomfortable I tried pushing it off but there was no use. He started posting on the forums that we were dating, calling me his girlfriend and even escalating to fiancé at one point. He kept messaging me telling me he couldn't wait till I turned 18 and could move out to where he was on the west coast. By this time I was around 14 and I knew something was off with this guy and I slowly started becoming less active on the forums and anytime I logged on to MSN Messenger I would appear offline. He had sent me hundreds of emails asking where I was and they slowly became more threatening as time went on.

I never responded to any of them but he continued to send them. He would tell me he was worried, then say he was going to find me because I belonged to him. Before long I became totally inactive on the forum and MSN and didn't even turn on my computer anymore. I thought if I distanced myself from the internet the issue would resolve itself. I had begun to forget about the whole ordeal until one day I went to check the mail. There was an envelope with no return address and it was addressed to me. Weird I thought but when I opened it there was a handwritten letter. It was from him.

The letter basically went on to say that he was trying to save up enough money to buy a car so he could drive out to see me and bring me home with him. I honestly don't remember what else the letter said because I was so beyond horrified of what I was reading. I remember my entire body shaking with fear and panic and immediately ripping up the letter and burying it at the bottom of the trash can. Let me just say, I never even told this guy my whole first name. He knew my nickname, which is common amongst several names that are similar to mine, but mine itself is pretty unusual. I never told him my first name, let alone my last. I never gave him my address him or anyone else any of these things. I may have been young and dumb but I still knew enough not to be telling people on the internet personal details. I lived in fear for years, really up until I moved away from that place. I was always looking over my shoulder, afraid he would show up at any time and do god knows what.

A year or two after receiving this letter I got a message from some woman on Facebook. This woman claimed that she was a friend of that guy and how she knew him personally. She basically wanted to say that I had broken his heart by leaving him and wished that I would give him another chance because he really is such a great guy. I panicked and blocked her without responding. To this day I still believe it was him under someone else's name. It is important to note I listed my age as 15 when I joined this site. This guy was open about being older than me and would often joke about how I was jailbait. This form has since been taken down but I recently looked it up using the Wayback Machine. I was able to find his profile in a lot of the posts that he had made previous to myself joining.

He'd been very aggressively flirting with girls on the forum who were openly 14 and probably younger. He would call them his wives and if they posted pictures he would comment about how attractive they were. Looking back on that, being an adult makes my skin crawl. This guy was no doubt a predator and had been preying on young girls since he started the forum. This has been 11 years ago and I don't think of it very often now. Occasionally something will trigger a memory and I relive it for a bit and wonder what could have happened to me. I never told either of my parents. At the time, I felt the punishment from my mom would have been worse than whatever that creep had planned for me. I hope my story can

serve as a warning to any young people that may read this. The internet has some very dark places hidden in plain sight. Please, be careful and protect yourself. Tread Experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. Tread Experts.ca When I was still young, maybe six or seven, my folks got the great idea of converting our garage into a family game room. This was in the 80s.

The idea of the family game room was really becoming popular, mostly because of the rise of arcades and the availability of arcade games and consoles like the Atari 2600 to the consumer market. It was truly an amazing time to be a kid. Although my parents often used the garage to store things, my dad grew tired of being unable to watch TV because my brother and I were always using it to play games. He had seen a conversion a neighbor had done and decided this would be the best way to get his television back. First, he traveled to the local hardware store and purchased a steel shed to make up for the storage space he'd be losing. Along with a six-pack of Miller High Life, he spent a few days putting it up in our backyard. He seemed pleased with his work, despite it falling in on itself within a year. His next steps was to find a company able to do the conversion for a

fair price. He called every company in the phone book but they wanted more than he wanted to pay. After asking around, a friend of his recommended a group of guys who had remodeled his kitchen for dirt cheap. Since my dad was a first class cheapskate, these were the guys for him. They were contacted and after a lot of haggling, dad hired them for the job. Dad was in such a hurry to regain control of the TV that he couldn't wait until the spring to start the renovation. As a result, the guys had to use space heaters in order to be comfortable working in the Kansas winter. For the start, these guys were nothing but trouble. When they did show up to the house, they did very little

and often called it a day by 3pm My dad had to complain several times Once or twice, he even had to make them redo some piece of shoddy work If I remember right, my mother tried to get him to fire the guys and hire a new company but regardless of all the headaches, dad was a miser to the bone Eventually, he would be forced to get a new company but regardless of all the headaches, dad was a miser to the bone. Eventually he would be forced to get a new set of contractors. However, this was only because a near deadly disaster was forcing him to. One day, Billy, my little brother and I, would be put to bed just

like any other evening. At some point in the middle of the night, my mother would shake me awake. She was yelling and had a very panicked look on her face. I slowly started to rise when I began to smell smoke. Mother was next door yelling at my brother. It wasn't long before the smoke caused me to start choking and coughing. I remember I was putting on my robe when my mother came running back into my room, carrying Billy on her shoulder. I don't think he was even awake yet. She pushed me out of my room and ran down the hall towards the front door. My dad was standing in the foyer. He must have been waiting for us.

The house had filled with a thick black smoke by then, but I couldn't see any fire. This changed once we all made it out to the front lawn. I stood with the rest of them watching the flames engulfing the house and illuminating the neighborhood. Fire trucks arrived a minute later and we all got checked out by the paramedics. They fought the fire for over an hour but the house was already done for. We would be living in a motel for the next six months or more. After a week after the fire, dad got the report that stated it had been started by a faulty space heater in the garage. I can only imagine how furious he was to read this.

This still didn't stop him from wanting to hire the yahoos back to rebuild the whole house. My mother put her foot down at this point though. When she threatened to take Billy and I and move in with her parents, dad folded and hired a very reputable company to do the job I'm suspicious he only chose them because he wasn't paying for it The check from the insurance company did He probably would have found another group of cowboy builders to do the job And kept the extra money but I don't think he thought of that I love the man but Jesus

The work was completed rather quickly. My parents chose to have the new house rebuilt in almost the exact same design as the original. The one major difference was the construction of a large game room at the back. The family would spend the majority of our next ten years in there, even dad. The garage was put back to work, storing things in, the shed left to collapse. It's still there, a big pile of rusty steel, all these years later. October 10th, 1999 was just another ordinary Sunday around our house. After the four of us returned from morning services, I helped Erin, my beautiful wife, finish preparing the last few sides for lunch. Just before noon, the children were called to the table and, as usual, a great meal was had.

When we were all satisfied, the kids ran off to do their thing and I assisted Erin in cleaning the table. Once I had completed my husbandly duties, I slipped away to the living room to nap for the few hours. Around 3.45 I was awakened by a phone call from my grandmother Annie, my dad's mother and the only remaining grandparent or parent on either side of my family. She had raised myself and my sister after our parents had passed and we were all very close. She asked if I knew any young men that needed work as a repair and maintenance man. Her last guy had gotten too old to do the work and she needed someone new to help around the house every once in a while.

I helped her out as much as I could but between my long hours at work and driving the girls back and forth to their various school related commitments, I couldn't be relied on to do as much as she sometimes needed. Although I had no one in mind at that very moment, I told her that I'd put the word out and get back to her the next day. My first stop was to Erin. She had nothing for me. A few calls were made to various friends, but they couldn't think of anyone. However, they promised to get back with if the situation was to change. It was a waiting game now so I plopped myself back down in the chair and dozed off again. A knock came at the door just as I began to drift off. The interruption annoyed me and for a second I considered not answering it. I decided to go ahead, if just to stop them from banging on the door. When I opened it, I was met by a smiling young man holding business cards.

He asked if I needed him to mow the yard. I declined his offer, but just then, Grandmother Annie's request popped into my mind. He was about to walk away until I caught him and asked him if he could do basic repairs, things like fixing broken garbage disposals. When I asked this, his eyes lit up and he said yes. In fact, he had been a Mr. Fix-It in his last job, but unfortunately there was not enough work, so he was forced to fall back on lawn mowing to make ends meet. I briefly looked him over and thought about it in my head for a moment. He seemed like a nice, well-mannered kid.

He said thank you, which is more than you can say about most people these days. Finally, I told him to give me a card. I might have a steady job for him. He did and I promised to let him know in the morning. I let him go and I returned to the house to enjoy my lazy afternoon. The next morning, I called Miss Annie, my family's name for her, to let her know I may have somebody and I'd be sending him over that morning. When I hung up with her, I called the young man, Mark, and gave him the address. I told him he'd be doing small repairs and maintenance around my grandmother's house. At the end of each week, he was to come over to my place and I'd pay him.

Once the specifics were nailed down, he thanked me and went on his way. With that out of the way I focused on the task in front of me and put everything else out of my mind. When I returned home that day I rang Miss Annie up to see how Mark had done. Her report of his work was encouraging. She spoke on more than one occasion of how eager he was to do well in his great attention to detail. This news was very pleasing to hear and assured me I'd made the right decision. Life would continue as normal. That Friday, Mark showed up at 6pm to get his money and thank me, once again for the opportunity. Dinner was just moments from hitting the tables, so I had to cut our talk short I told him to come

around about the same time next week and he took off with what I assumed was a song in his heart a smile on his face this routine would repeat itself for the next several months however as time went by Mark's smile would fade and his appreciation seemed to become more of an attitude of entitlement he got to the point where he wouldn't even say thank you or anything for that matter to me. He'd just snatch the money from my hand and walk away. While this behavior ticked me off, I didn't have to like him as long as he did his job. I hadn't talked to Miss Annie for a while so one Monday morning I gave her a ring to see how things were going. She said all was well but I could tell from her voice something was bothering her.

After a few minutes of coaxing she admitted that Mark hadn't been doing his job as well as he had at first. Once a month or so had passed he began making comments about money and not getting enough work. Since I was the one paying him, she had no idea how much he was making so she said nothing. I assured her I was paying him plenty, enough money for a full-time employee as a matter of fact. He had no reason to complain. When she mentioned he would get angry toward her and it scared her, I became a little concerned. Just to calm her fears, I told her I would talk to him that Friday. Even after we hung up with one another, her remark about being scared continued to eat at me.

Miss Annie was very special to me and the idea of her being afraid made me mad. I was determined to nip his behavior in the bud, but it became a problem, but I had to make sure I did so with a clear and calm head. Anger would only serve to exacerbate the situation and breed bitterness between us. I'd cooled off by the time Friday came around. In fact, I was in a pretty good mood. Spring was just beginning to rear its head and I was looking forward to more sunny and warm days. Mark arrived at the usual time and had the now common scowl across his face. He attempted to snatch the cash from my hand but before he could I stopped him and said we needed to talk.

He said nothing as I spoke, just stared with an annoyed look. I finished and asked if we had a problem between us and made sure to express how serious I was. All he could say was no and assured me we were cool before he slowly reached out for the money and pulled it from my hand. This time he at least said thank you before walking away quickly. I couldn't be positive but things seemed to be clearer if not better. I wouldn't know for sure until I spoke to Miss Annie that Monday but I felt optimistic about it. Things at work were very hectic that Monday so I wasn't able to call Miss Annie until later in the felt optimistic about it. Things at work were very hectic that Monday so I wasn't able to call Miss Annie until later in the day. Strangely I got no answer but

figured she was out or busy and I could try again later. Work got busy again and it was not until I clocked out that I could call her back. Once again no answer came but I decided to let it go until the next day. Tuesday morning was much quieter around the office. I had plenty of time to make a call. For the third time, she didn't answer. Now I was becoming scared. So I contacted the police and asked if they could do a wellness check. Miss Annie was almost 80 by then and the chance of falls were high in people that age.

I was told they would and to call back in a few hours. However, it was they who called me back. The tone of the officer's voice uneased me and he seemed to be dragging out things. This made me mad. I was already on edge from worry although I'm not proud of it now at the time it was understandable. I yelled at him to spit it out, so he did just that. They had done the wellness and found Miss Annie dead. This was unexpected but not shocking. Assuming she'd died of a heart attack, I asked what the causes were. When he told me that she'd been murdered, I blanked out for a minute. Never in my wildest fears had I expected to hear those words. He had to yell out a few more times before I responded and even then, I felt like I

was in a fog. This stuck with me for about an hour but once I had to tell my family the news, the weight of it knocked me back into reality. The only information the officer could give me at the time was that she appeared to have been attacked by one or more people with hammers or blunt objects. If I would have had my wits about me then, the second I heard the word hammer, I could have told him who it was, but that didn't turn out to be required. I give the cop credit for being kind with his words, even after I'd screamed at him. He could tell from my hemming and hawing what I wanted to ask, and assured me that there were no signs that she had been messed with, if you catch my drift, and I thanked him later for this. The rest of the family took the news almost as hard as I did.

Miss Annie had become like a second mother to my wife and my kids loved her greatly We'd become very dependent on her after we relocated here And the thought of her not being around was agonizing It took a day or two before I remembered Mark and gave him a call I didn't answer but after I left a message to contact me ASAP The longer I thought about it however it struck me as odd that he hadn't called me The first day he received no answer at the door, he should have called me My confusion would grow into full blown suspicion once I discovered two important things The pathologist determined Miss Annie had died sometime before noon on Monday

And perhaps the more scary of the two, Mark was still unreachable. The results came in that Friday morning and the cops had been to his home twice and called him every day since I mentioned him to them on Wednesday afternoon. I expected to see him that evening to get his pay but he never showed. This all but cemented his guilt in my mind. I told the police as much and over the following weeks they would come to agree with me. Other than having his fingerprints and blood at the scene, everything pointed to him. All they had to do was get him in a room alone and hopefully he would confess, but just locating him to do this would be a five-year struggle. Countless tips were sent in, but none would pan out. Finally, on a rainy and cold morning in January of 2006, an arrest would take place across the country in Arizona that would put the search to an end.

The Tucson police would be led on a high-speed chase after attempting to pull a man over for expired plates. At the end of the chase, Marco Javier Robles would be apprehended, and our search would finally be over. Marco was quickly extradited back east, and the trial was soon to begin. What we feared would be a long and drawn-out affair ended within the week. The district attorney had offered him a very generous plea, and after a strong recommendation from his attorney, he agreed. He'll have to do at least 25 years, but after that, it's up to the parole board. If I have any sway in the matter, I'll do my best to see that he dies in there. We were left with only one question.

Some would say the most important one, perhaps. Why? As a stipulation to his plea, Mark was required to tell why he committed the crime and in full. According to him, Miss Annie had become very demanding and he felt he wasn't being paid enough to put up with it. He had been planning on hitting me up for more money once summer came along. However, when he found out she had told me that he was unhappy with his pay, in his eyes his chance for a raise was ruined. That Monday morning he was angry about this and confronted Miss Annie about what she had said and a fight broke out. He claimed she grabbed a poker from the fire set and hit him. In self-defense he struck

her with his hammer, but only did so once. His intent was never to end her life, only to make her stop. Unfortunately, it did just that and more, and my family will never be the same because of it. A less rational man than myself would probably put some if not all the blame onto myself for hiring the guy. I, however, am not that man. No one else but Mark is responsible for Miss Annie's death. Any other conclusion would be foolish and a desecration to her memory. If there is anything I would say I feel guilty about it would be that my children weren't able to spend as much time with her as I did growing up. A better example of selfless love and kindness never existed and I savor every memory I have of her.

I hope I can live up to her example and teach my children to be half the human being she was. I'd never had any problems with my guys until Don Bollard came along. He'd arrived with a raftload of recommendations and obviously knew his stuff. His attitude was the only thing I foresaw being a barrier, but it wasn't bad enough for me to change my mind. His first day on the clock was early May. By June, I was already regretting my decision to hire him. I'd seen my share of idiots in my time but that kid took the cake. Any words I spoke to him had to be met with some needlessly sarcastic remark. Had he been any other plumber, I'd have fired him. Unfortunately, he just happened to be the best at his job that I'd witnessed in a long time. This was more than likely why he was such a jerk. Even though he'd

become such a thorn in my side, I would have never have guessed he was capable of what he was about to do. We did a call out to find the source of the leak, a job that any first year guy could do. So I told Don to handle it himself. I had far more pressing matters elsewhere and he was overqualified for the job in the first place. I handed him the paperwork and he took off in one of the vans. About 4 or 5 hours later I get a call from the cops. They wanted me to come in and talk to them about a problem one of my guys had just had with a customer and his wife. I was naturally curious about what had happened. It had only

been a few hours and no one had called to make a complaint. Don was the only guy out on a job at the time, I knew it had to be him. It wouldn't be the first time that he had butted heads with a homeowner, but even after I pressed the officer on what had occurred, he wouldn't say over the phone. I wrapped up what I was doing as fast as possible and headed down there. When I arrived, the front desk officer led me down a long hall and into a small office with a couple of messy desks. He asked me to sit down and an officer would be with me in a minute. I twiddled my thumbs and looked around at all the diplomas and pictures on the wall. This went on for a good ten minutes before a young, skinny kid with a gun on his side came into the room and introduced himself.

I told him who I was and he commenced to lay out the craziest, most shocking story I'd ever heard about someone I knew. Don had arrived at the customer's house and knocked on the door. He mumbled his purpose for being there under his breath. When the male homeowner asked him to speak up, Don repeated himself but this time in a very loud voice. The homeowner just pointed at the crawlspace and walked off. Don disappeared under the house for about half an hour. When he returned, he was wet and covered in mud. The homeowner approached him and asked if he had discovered the source of the leak.

Don was said to have screwed up his face and sarcastically answered him with a, what do you think, look at me. The remark annoyed the homeowner even more and he called Don an arrogant little a-hole. This made him fly into a rage and he began beating the homeowner about his head with a wrench. The homeowner's wife had heard her husband's screams and ran into the room to help him. She began punching Don in the back and he spun around and returned the favor by punching her in the face over and over until she stopped moving. He must have thought that they were both dead because he sat down on their couch and smoked a cigarette. What he didn't know was that the couple had a young son in the house and he had called the police when the fight first began. Don was on his way out the door when the officers arrived and he was taken into custody. The mother was in critical

condition at the hospital but the husband had unfortunately been pronounced at the scene. Most of the information they had at that point was because of Don. The detective said that all through their investigation he had been calm and happy to answer their questions in depth, almost as if he was proud of what he had done. By the time the cop finished the story I was almost catatonic. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and at first I thought this was all a dream. I pinched myself just to make sure. Even today, when I tell people who knew him what he did, they're shocked almost as much as I was.

The detective spent the next hour asking me questions about Don and if I knew why he would do such a thing. There was very little I could give him. Don had always been sarcastic but never violent in any way. I was out of it for most of the remainder of that day. I still didn't understand what had happened until I relayed the story to my wife and listened to the words that came out of my mouth.

This all happened in August of last year. As of the time I'm writing this, Don is scheduled to begin his trial the first week of April. The charges are one count of second-degree murder and one count of second degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Despite being offered a more than fair plea deal, he's chosen to take it the whole way. Regardless of the result, he'll probably be spending the next 40 plus years in prison. This thought eats me up inside. Even if I couldn't stand the kid, it all just seems like such a terrible waste.

Like any reasonable man, my dad took the medium's words with a very small pinch of salt. His girlfriend at the time had drug him down to the palm reader's place to see his future. She claimed upon their meeting that he felt he had some type of danger looming ahead. He didn't put much credit into this psychic mumbo-jumbo, but he loved the girl and was willing to do almost anything to make her happy. The old woman said he was in grave danger and should be very careful where he went. He laughed it off and paid her. Outside of the shop, the girlfriend whined at him for not taking it seriously. He stared into the beautiful blue eyes of the hippie girl and had assured her he would watch

out. Inside, however, he was laughing at the unfounded fear she was feeling and had no intent in changing the way he lived his life. This is how he said it all began. He and my mom had just started dating earlier that summer and he was falling deeply in love with her by the day. Despite her new age ideas and beliefs, she was a smart girl. They would continue to see one another for several years before he got the guts to pop the question. Mom claims he cried more than she did when she said yes. They moved in together soon after and the wedding photos show two people very much in love and happy. I didn't make an appearance until late 1980, almost two years after the wedding, but no matter my age, they included me in all of their special occasions and holidays.

Even before I reached my 12th birthday, Dad had me answering phones and making appointments on my school vacations. It was almost like the three of us were put together to make others' lives better and more joyful. At the moment I write this, I have a photo of all of us in front of me. It was taken outside of our camp in Colorado during a summer vacation. Not long after that trip, I began to have a very bad feeling my father was in danger. I'd yet to hear the story of the palm reader, so I was still unaware of my mom's fears,

and when I mentioned my feelings to dad, he laughed them off. I guess at this point I should mention what dad did for a living, as it had a lot to do with the story. A few years prior to meeting my mom, he'd inherited a garage door business from his father. He had been running it by himself through most of the 70s, but as it became more stressful, he took on a partner to share the workload. When I began working the phones there, he and his partner had already began leaving it to the employees to do the majority of the installations. They would only go out into the field in special circumstances. One of those special circumstances would arise

when an older customer requested he and his partner come out and replace one of his automatic door openers. Any other time he would have handed the job off to one of the installers but the customer asked for them in particular. This guy wasn't your run-of-the-mill homeowner. He had 25 properties and they all had my dad's products in them. If he asked for something special, dad listened. His partner wasn't pleased to hear about it but knew just like dad that his customer was business they wanted to keep. Therefore, dad and his partner Mike dug their tools out of storage in the warehouse and got to work. When they arrived at the property, there was no indication this job would be any more dangerous than any other. Dad set up a ladder and prepared to loosen the bolts holding the main unit to the ceiling.

He realized quickly that he'd chosen the wrong size socket and stepped down to get the right one. Mike, who had been at the end of the tracking, standing on a ladder, made a harmless verbal jab at Dad for forgetting the size of a bolt he'd screwed in and out thousands of times. Perhaps to make the process go faster, Mike climbed Dad's ladder and began loosening the bolts himself. He'd made maybe two turns on the second bolt when it unexpectedly popped out, causing the other bolt to pop out from its socket. Once this happened, nothing was left to hold up the unit and it dropped, swinging into Mike's face. The weight of the unit combined with the force in which it struck him caused him to fly backwards uncontrollably onto the floor. This all happened in a matter of about a second.

Dad said he felt helpless as he watched it occur. I believe even all these years later he's still been unable to forgive himself. I probably don't have to tell you, Mike didn't survive. Regardless of the quick response by the EMS, he was most likely gone before he arrived at the hospital. Dad returned to the scene soon after to see most likely gone before he arrived at the hospital. Dad returned to the scene soon after to see if he could discover the reason for the accident. It appeared whoever installed that opener had used very short bolts. When Mike began to loosen them, expecting there to be plenty of threads to hold the unit, his fate was sealed. Dad thought about tracking down the installer but realized it wouldn't bring Mike back. He did however return to every one of their rental properties and check the bolts.

Fortunately, none of the others had short bolts and dad could truly move on and begin to mourn his lost friend. As I sat and listened to him describe the accident, something struck me as strange about it. To me, it appeared as if Dad was the intended target, but Mike walked into it by mistake. When I say target, I don't mean someone conspired to harm him. I mean rather, that fate had chosen Dad to die that day instead, but Mike foiled its plans. After he completed the story, I mentioned this to him. He attempted to blow it off as he had when I had mentioned my concerns in the past But this time something deep inside was stirred up and he told me the tale of the palm reader

When he was done telling it he promised me from that day on that he'd never go back out on a job No matter the customer He also promised to take my mom's and my concerns more seriously now. I could sense that there were some incidents in his past that helped strengthen his resolve to do this, but he kept those to himself and I didn't pry. I was just happy to know he was going to be more mindful of his fears and feelings that I wasn't crazy thinking I had some form of ESP or whatever you choose to call it. The weird looks mom used to get on her face sometimes right before something bad would happen

made much more sense now. It also explains why dad always said I take after mom. Not soon after, maybe five years later, dad sold the business to Mike's son and retired. He and mom bought one of those massive RVs and have toured America for the last 12 years or so. Once or twice a month, we talk with one another over the phone and my mom admitted to me during one of those discussions that she hadn't had a single bad feeling about dad in the 16 years since the accident. I didn't have to tell her it was the same for me as she already knew. It's just another aspect of the connection the three of us have shared all these years. I hadn't been working for myself very long when I got a call to rewire a small house by the new owner. She expressed a fear to me that the old outdated wiring could be a fire hazard and I agreed. This homeowner just happened

to be a young and beautiful woman, not to mention newly single one. Despite being very attracted to her, I kept things professional between us. The large amount of work I had to do meant I had to return to the home every day for about a week. Much of the time I was present in the house, we were in separate rooms and only spoke two or three times in the entire five days. Nothing untoward ever took place. I knew this. She knew this. I only wish her ex would have known this. Friday morning arrived and I only had a few small things to finish. The homeowner, Crystal, had paid me the day before. My plan was to wrap up the job and move on. I'll be honest, I had plans to contact her in the month or two and ask her out but

for now, I had one foot out the door. When I first heard the loud noises upstairs, I was in the basement cleaning up my work area. Without thinking, I ran upstairs to see what had caused it. Unfortunately for me, I turned the corner just in time to come eye to eye with a stranger with a gun. I froze and used that opportunity to move closer. Now he was so close I could smell the oil in the gun. It was aimed directly at my face. Crystal ran up behind me and screamed when she saw the gunman. I closed my eyes tight,

expecting him to blow my brains out when she did this. Instead, I hear him begin yelling at her, and in return, she began screaming his name and telling him to get out. It was obvious now that they had known each other. I wasn't sure if this was good or bad for me but I stayed right where I was. The yelling soon stopped and he told me to step back, slowly into the living room behind me. Crystal, who had been behind me all this time, joined me. We were then ordered to sit on the couch and say nothing. This was when he began calling me a home-wrecking a-hole. This confused me until he followed up by asking how long I'd been banging Crystal. We both denied this, but were quickly told to shut up. He said there was no reason to deny it.

He'd been watching the house all week and he knew I'd been over every day. I was boiling over, wanting to explain while I was there, but I was afraid of being shot. Crystal asked him if she could explain the situation and he agreed. To begin, she introduced him to me. It was Victor, her ex-husband. Victor's face tensed up when she said this, but she continued. Then she introduced me to Victor by explaining I was an electrician who she had hired to redo the wiring. Her and I had no personal relationship whatsoever. He interjected himself into the conversation and said that was BS because I didn't have any signs on my truck.

Sensing it may be my turn to speak, I countered his claim by explaining I was new in business for myself and I hadn't had the spare cash to have the signs made, but if he looked in the basement, he'd see my tool belt and supplies in a pile. Victor had a look of doubt on his face, but his body language betrayed his inner curiosity. I said nothing else, allowing the possibility to turn around in his mind. What seemed like a good idea at first began to worry me. He could take us down there and shoot us and get away while the neighbors would be none the wiser. To this day, I'm not sure how, but Crystal must have read my mind. When Victor agreed and waved us to the door, we did what we were told. In my head, I'm crapping myself this whole time thinking I was about to die. Unknown to me, Crystal had a plan for me to get away.

I can only assume she was confident Victor wouldn't shoot her. So as we approached the door to the stairs, he stood there with a pistol locked on me and waved me by. I complied and Crystal followed. However, instead of going down, she jumped on Victor as she passed him. He had his body facing down the stairs and was watching me, so she nailed him square on his side and they fell to the floor. Crystal wasn't a particularly large girl and Victor was about average size for a man, but somehow she tackled him like a football player three times her size. I just happened to be looking back when she did this.

As soon as they hit the ground, she began yelling for me to run while hitting and slapping him over and over. Victor was still holding the gun in his hand, but he was holding both hands up to protect his face from her elbows. He didn't look like he was about to shoot, so I ran back up the two stairs and out of the house. You can call me a coward all you want, but I wager you'd probably do the same. The door had been broken off the hinges when Victor forced himself in so I ran straight out and across the street to the neighbor's house and started banging on the door. The homeowner, an older gentleman, threw it open and I began yelling about a man with a gun before he could say a word. He opened the screen right away and let me in, closing the door behind him.

The phone was on the wall next to us and he grabbed it off the hook and handed it to me. I dialed as fast as I could and gave the operator the fax. I answered her questions and waited for the sound of gunshots but instead heard the muffled screams of Crystal outside. She had gotten away somehow and was running from door to door yelling for help. When I looked out the window for her, I saw a woman and a man run out of one of the nearby houses and bring her in. Confident she was now safe, I began begging the operator to get the cops on scene before Victor could escape. She assured me that they were close. Sure enough, two cars soon followed by two more pulled up outside the house and the cops rushed inside. I watched with bated breath for them to come out. I had no idea Victor was still inside but thankfully a minute or two later

they came out with him in handcuffs. This is when I finally came out and introduced myself as the caller and told them what had occurred. Crystal and I finally came out and introduced myself as the caller and told him what had occurred. Crystal and the couple came out and joined us not long after. I looked over and asked her if she was okay. She said yes but I could see a bleeding cut on the webbing of her left hand. It wasn't until a few hours later that she told me she had been fighting him for the gun and he must have pulled the trigger but fortunately for her, she had grabbed it high up and the hammer came down on the webbing of her hand preventing it from firing. At some point she clawed at his eyes and he dropped it. This was when she made a break for it, hoping she wasn't going to be shot in the back as she ran away.

The police told us while the paramedics were checking us out that Victor was just sitting on the floor crying when they came in. He didn't fight or argue as they handcuffed him and loaded him into the car. They bandaged up Crystal's hand and after two hours took off. I volunteered to repair her door as much as possible until it could be replaced and the couple that had helped her invited her to stay with them for the night. She accepted. On the way to my truck I thanked the neighbor once again for helping us and gave him my card. I told him to call me anytime he needed any electrical work done and it would all be done on the house. It was the least I could do. Crystal and I wouldn't see each other again until the trial. I showed up to testify and stayed around to watch her testimony.

It carried on for another week until the jury came back with a guilty verdict. A few months later, Victor was given a 10-year sentence agreed upon by the DA and ultimately ended up doing 7 and some change. I don't hold any ill will against him after all these years. I can only pray he feels the same and has bettered himself. The trial was the last time I'd seen Crystal and I haven't spoken to her since. As you can imagine, it didn't feel right to ask her out after all that happened. I hope she's doing okay now and knows how thankful I really am for risking her life to save mine.

That was far more than I would expect a person to do for someone they barely knew. And if you're wondering, yes, I did get a call from that neighbor and I did do some work for him for free. And I will again. He didn't have to help me either. In these days and times, you never know if that person asking for help outside your door is really in danger or just trying to bait you. It's a sad thing to say, but a fact nonetheless. This is something that happened long before I was born, but still gives me chills every time I hear it. To provide a bit of context, my grandpa Martin had just returned from fighting in the Korean War. After all the horrors he experienced, he was ready

to start a family and put it all behind him. He and Granny Martin took all the money they'd been saving for grandpa's pay and bought a two-bedroom house a few blocks from elementary school. The World War I era house had its share of problems, but none were as severe as the plumbing. Roots from the many oak trees crisis crossed the road, busting and blocking up the ancient pipes. Now, Grandpa was a near master when it came to working with his hands, but he had neither the knowledge nor the time to do all the labor it would take to resolve the problem. It just happened that Granny Martin had plumbers on her side of the family, very well respected ones in fact. Unfortunately

for them, Grandpa had differences with them in the past and he was determined not to put any of his own money in their pockets. All through the spring and early summer of 55, Grandpa called plumbers one by one, but none would take on a job so large for what he had wanted to pay. He was very near to attempting it all himself when Granny confessed she had went to her family behind his back and they had agreed to do the job for his price, but only as a favor to her. She would mention to me later how she knew Grandpa would be furious at what she'd done, but the state of the pipes was driving them both crazy. He certainly was angry at hearing this but Granny reminded him no one

else was volunteering to take it on and he had to swallow his pride and go along with it. The first week in July Granny's uncle, his son and their men showed up at the house to start the work. I won't bore you with the details on how the argument started, but I will say it escalated quickly. Before I get into the specifics of what occurred, I want to warn you, what you are about to hear is graphic and may upset those who have been victims or witnesses to violence in their past. You've been warned.

I don't want to repeat what was said, but suffice to say it was something men usually won't let go, especially men of that time. Grandpa took exception with what the nephew said and decked him. The nephew, knowing he was outmatched, chose to back off. However, his father was furious at seeing his son get his butt kicked and attacked Grandpa with a pocket knife. Grandpa had his back turned when the attack began and took one stab to the back. He quickly turned around to defend himself but got two more stabs to the midsection before the knife blade thankfully snapped off. Unfortunately, Granny's uncle wasn't

done. He picked up a nearby pipe wrench and smashed Grandpa across the jaw, then the head several times. If he thought Grandpa was going down, he was wrong. After all, the man had been bayoneted twice and shot once but didn't die. Him being angry just made him more dangerous. Grandpa was holding himself up on one knee and noticed a nearby length of pipe that the plumbers had been using and picked it up. Granny's uncle had stopped the attack for a moment but when he saw grandpa rise back to his feet, he swung again. This time grandpa blocked his arm and connected with his own weapon across his attacker's head. Granny described the noise as the pipe made

contact like a hammer smashing a watermelon. Her uncle remained on his feet and tried to renew his attack but grandpa smashed him twice more across the head and he dropped to the ground, never to rise again. Everyone present was understandably upset but the violence was over for the day. Grandpa would lose consciousness just minutes later. Even when he did regain his wits, the next day he was unable to speak to the police because of his wired jaw. The knife wounds turned out to be not that serious. The broken jaw was not the worst of his injuries, however. Doctors were forced to put a plate in his head to replace the pieces of skull lost when he was struck there. The district attorney wanted to make an example of him, so

upon release from the hospital, the cops were there to arrest him. The most serious charges were felony assault and second degree murder. He was miraculously released on bail only because he was the family's only source of income. I imagine in a large town or city he would have to spend the next year or more in the county jail. In some ways it was a more civilized time. The trial did finally happen and because witnesses testified on his behalf, the jury decided Grandpa was acting in self-defense and found him not guilty. Granny Martin's support for her husband would ensure a rift would remain between her and the rest of her family until just recently. The horrible state of their home's plumbing, which

started all this mess in the first place, was resolved when they sold it to another young couple. The new buyers were all aware of the problem and had hired a company from out of town to finish the work. They must have done a good job. I believe the couple still lives there to this day. Grandpa and Granny stayed in an apartment a few years before Mom was born and they purchased a house in the same neighborhood as before. Grandpa would go on to live another 55 years without even getting as much as a cold. In the end, it was a stroke in his sleep that took him. Granny Martin is still alive and kicking at the age of 80. I was proud to know this man, but I don't have to agree with how he handled the situation

to love him. Granny and I often reminisce about him and recently while doing so I had her recount the incident to me, so I could write it down and share it with all you listeners. I hope the way I wrote it properly conveys the feelings of unease I feel every time I hear it. I try to portray each man without making either out to be the good guy. Even grandpa would probably acknowledge that he could have handled things better in the beginning. If any moral could be taken away from this story, I'd think it would be that we should try to talk through our problems before we resort to violence and if we do so, I think the world would be better for it, don't you?

This began a few days before last year's Super Bowl. The cable box in our living room had been cutting in and out for almost a month. Under normal conditions, I wouldn't have paid much attention to it. I don't watch much television these days, even football. Besides, it worked most of the time, but my wife had invited some people over from work to have a Super Bowl party. I learned long ago if I keep the wife happy, she'll leave me alone to fiddle around in the woodshop. I called into the cable company earlier in the week and made an appointment for after lunch on Thursday.

When the day came, the repairman showed up right before the family was going to sit down for dinner. For a moment I thought I saw smoke coming out of my wife's ears. There are few things she hates more. I knew better not to say a word. After I showed the guy the location of the TV, we sat down to eat. After a quick meal, I retreated to the living room to watch the cable guy and help if needed. He checked the box first and then moved on to the cables. He asked for access to the attic and I led him to the hall and lowered the stairs.

About ten minutes later, he returned with a frayed section of cable. It appeared that some critter had been chewing on it. Once he replaced it, everything was fine. I thanked him and he asked to use the restroom before he left. I said sure and pointed him in the direction of it. My son and I were in front of the TV fiddling with the channels for a while before I remembered the repair guy was still on the john. I didn't want to badger the fella but he'd been in there for a really long time so just to be safe I politely knocked on the door and asked if all was well. No reply came but a few seconds later I heard a man's voice echoing from my daughter's bedroom.

Naturally I was curious and leaned over to peek in. The repairman was talking to my daughter at the connecting door. This scene slightly peeved me but it seemed innocent enough. He was a young kid after all but she was barely 16 so I stepped in and nixed it. He kindly excused himself and made his way out of the house. From that moment he ceased to exist in my mind. That was until April of the same year. I was on my way home from work when I got a frantic call from my wife. It took a minute to figure out what she was saying but eventually I realized someone had tried to grab our daughter on her walk home from school. When I made it home, a few minutes later, the cops were already on the scene and talking to her. My wife and I were both so frazzled they

asked us to sit calmly and listen while they questioned her. I did my best but when it came around to identifying the guy, I almost went through the roof. She described how she and another girl were just a few blocks from home, our house is only four blocks from the high school, and a truck pulled up to them. The driver said hello and my daughter recognized the guy. She walked up to the truck and started talking to him. She said he seemed really nice in the beginning but when he asked her to go with him and she declined multiple times, he got mad and attempted to pull her into the truck. Only because she fought so hard was she able to get free and run away with her friend.

Finally, the officer asked her who the guy was, and she said it was the very same cable repair man she had met just months prior in our home. Now, I was beyond furious. I had treated that kid with respect, and he tried this. I could have thrown him out on his butt when I caught him talking to her but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and think back to how it was when I was young. Even after I let him know she was a little young for him and he tried to force himself on her. The officers managed to calm me down and left to continue the investigation. The wife and I did our best to shift our anger into helping our daughter deal with the shock and trauma from the incident.

We were all relieved to hear when the scumbag was arrested later that night. He'd been spotted and pulled over by the highway patrol officer that had heard the APB. Although he'd done something very stupid, he was wise enough to take the offer put forth by the district attorney. Hopefully when he comes out in three years, he'll have learned to take no for an answer. Since the legal proceedings wrapped up, the rest of the family have made it our goal to help my daughter move past the attack. In addition to attending counseling alone, everyone else has joined her in two separate sessions to learn best how to make her healing process go as smoothly as possible. We all plan to be in attendance for her upcoming graduation.

Providing her with this show of support in such a hard time is the best way I can think of to let her know we've got her back. There was a time not long ago when her achieving this milestone was in question, but I attribute her same will to fight that saved her that day with driving her to move forward. I've never been prouder to be her father and I hope she knows I'll always be there for her no matter the circumstances. I went on a family holiday with my dad, mom, and brother to Tasmania, which is kind of like a big island to the south of Australia. I wasn't terribly interested in the trip, just wanted to spend time with my family, so I left all the bookings to my dad, and I never will again. He has his own Airbnb he manages so I thought he would be able to find decent places on his own. When we walked up to the Airbnb my dad booked, the first thought

I had was, if I wanted to sell drugs, I would do it here. My mom wasn't impressed at all and was already telling my dad off for booking it. I didn't say anything. Maybe the inside is nicer. It was a dingy little house. The paint was peeling, the roof was rusty, and there were plants overgrown to the side of the building. Imagine it's grown into the actual foundation and wooden planks. There were three entrances. The first one I worked out was the entrance for the host.

It looked okay, not as bad as our entrance, a little tidier. It went downstairs so we figured out after a while the host most likely lived below us. The second looked like it was the main entrance to the house but it was sealed shut. The door looked like it would break down if anyone was to even push on it slightly and was obviously unused. The third was ours. Aside from the overgrown it slightly and was obviously unused. The third was ours, aside from the overgrown plants, it was fairly normal. From the looks of it, we figured out later that it looks like the host has divided the house up somehow. She lives below, we live upstairs, but there was one half of the house upstairs that wasn't accounted for. Hard to

explain, but the space we occupied only accounted for half the house and only went up the main entrance I spoke of which is in the middle of the house. We checked in, just grabbed the keys as the host had never contacted us at this point. All was well on the inside. It looked a little old but wasn't creepy from the get-go. I did notice some odd things. I only mentioned this to my dad. There were a bunch of antique instruments displayed at the entrance and right on top of one of the pianos were three things that looked like urns. Now to explain, I am of Chinese descent. These urns freaked me out. Some people think they're for displaying but we use it to store dead people's ashes so I really really didn't like them being there. I told my dad and he didn't like it either

but he went and tapped the urn, okay dad, to see if there was something in it. He couldn't tell though but he mentioned the one he tapped was definitely one we use for ashes. It had scripts on it for like safe passage to the heavens from what I could make out. After I stopped freaking out I went and picked first dibs on the biggest room as per my usual but then noticed that there were heaps of mirrors around the room. Again another thing not sure if it's a Chinese thing but we don't like sleeping with mirrors facing us when we're in bed if we can help it. So I went to move one of them which was smack bang in the front of the bed. It was leaning against the door and when I took the mirror away the door actually opened ajar a little. That freaked me out. I got my dad and we decided it's better I slept with my mom in another room

and he would take this room with my brother. Again, my dad, being dad, he opened the door a little and shouted, Hello? before I told him to shut up. I had a peek inside but couldn't make out much, only that it was dusty and seemed to be a part of the other half of the house. My dad soon after put a chair and his suitcase on top of it in front of the door to keep it shut. Fast forward to that night, everyone was sleepy and went to head to bed. I stayed up a little because I had some emails from work to catch up on and went to work in the living room area. At one point in the night at around 11.30pm, I remember there was a few thumps on the roof,

sounded like someone's footsteps, then followed by the loudest and most horrendous noise. It sounded like a train was on top of me. It was screeching like steel on steel. It lasted maybe for 30 seconds. I literally froze at that point, didn't know what to do, thought my dad would come check on me but no one ever did. I didn't say anything the next morning because I thought I may have imagined it out of tiredness. The following night, same thing again except I was in bed this time. Just got into it so not asleep yet. It was around the same time that the exact same noise started again. My mom woke up but was frozen like me. Dad came to check on us and we were all just frozen there listening to this noise wondering what it was. After it stopped we were freaked out but managed to shrug

it off and went back to sleep. Before I fell asleep I remember hearing some faint thumps that stopped shortly after it started. The next morning we kind of had a meeting of some sort to discuss this. This is when I told them about the night before. We were extremely unsettled at this point and luckily it was our checkout day. We just got out of there. We never found out what it was. The creepiest thing was, after we packed up and was well away from the place, dad was driving but he still looked really disturbed so I asked him if he was okay. He said, I am now but I didn't have a good sleep last night. I pressed on and asked him what was that noise.

He said, nope, that didn't bother him much compared to another thing he experienced. What bothered him most was when we left from our tour on the second day. He still had his suitcase on the top of the chair blocking the door in his room. He just showered so he also left the towel on the chair to hang. He said when he came back he noticed the door was slightly ajar. The chair had moved slightly and the towel was sitting on the floor as if someone had tried to push it from the other side but unsuccessfully after they noticed that there was a lot of stuff on the other end. I forced him to ask the host about the noise in the door. She replied that the door was the door to her art room and the noise was just a

possum on the roof. I don't believe her. The noise was not something an animal or even a human could make. So for about 3 or 4 years from the age of about 15 I worked in a small shop in a town about 10 miles from where I live. I guess because the town, although small, is the hippie area, I live in a rural part of the UK, and because the shop is small enough to only need one person working, I experienced a few slightly strange characters. This girl Lily was one of our regulars. She was quite sweet and non-threatening, and used to come in and just lurk around for a while and talk to whoever was working. I think she may have had some slight learning or communication difficulties, though I don't want to be presumptuous.

Anyway, Lily soon took a real shining to me and would come in and ask my boss for my schedule, or where I was and when I was going to be coming in, and would come in every time I was working just to talk to me. She didn't seem to notice I was beginning to be a bit blunt as she was kind of putting off customers and I was busy as the only person working. I guess because she was a girl and although probably five years older than me, much smaller, I didn't find it at all creepy. Even when she started asking very personal questions like where I lived, what bus I got,

and ask what time, she would sometimes come in and say that she had seen me or watched me and described what I had been doing. For example, I saw you yesterday looking at shoes in Oxfam at the top of the street. I'm fairly conspicuous looking and it's quite a small town so again this wasn't that strange. Anyway as this went on I would often kind of ignore her and serve other customers and she would just stand and stare at me or look around the shop usually staying at least half an hour often longer. One day we've just started to opening Sundays and the shop is dead. I see her walk past outside and she spots me and comes in. We're the only two in the shop and she starts making me quite uncomfortable and then she suddenly grabs her right arm and asks if I'm controlling it and if I can see it shaking and

out of control like an animal. She is very obviously shaking it herself. This goes on and gets more extreme and I'm getting quite uncomfortable so I say I have to pack orders and go out to the stock room. She follows me and waits outside the door which again doesn't seem that strange until she starts to speak quietly. She speaks for a while before I catch what she's saying. She's asking herself questions to herself and a more high-pitched childish sounding voice replying and I realize after the conversation goes on that the high-pitched voice is supposed to be me and I'm replying to these things about myself to her and the conversation goes on and on between Lily and me and she knows a lot about me. Some of it things I'd said over the past few months, some of it things she must have just noticed from really watching me or following me.

I finally freak out a bit and text my boss to call the shop so I can act like I have to lock up and run errands. I got out quite quickly and found it skin-crawlingly strange but I suppose for now non-threatening. I don't work or live there anymore but it's one of the few strange encounters I've had there. I guess because only young girls were employed and it was very quiet, it was kind of inevitable. My colleagues had equally strange, if not worse, experiences with her. This series of events took place about seven years ago. I was having a smoke outside my small duplex apartment at about 4am. I worked 12s and had an odd schedule, so it wasn't unusual for me

to be alone in those early morning hours when almost nobody else was awake. Occasionally I'd have a chat with my neighbor. She was probably in her early 60s, had suffered a stroke in the past. She was very sweet and didn't have anyone to vent to so I would listen, smile and try to be good company. She's mostly unrelated but will come up again later. I sat there alone smoking, square in one hand, half a blunt in the other. It was practically silent that early in the morning which is the only reason I was able to hear some footsteps coming from the nearby alleyway. The view was obscured by some tall bushes in my neighbor's yard but I could see a small figure approaching. Gonna bum a smoke bro, says the figure, who's finally about to turn the corner and reveal themselves. I immediately responded, sure, no problem. As a person comes

into view, I was a bit surprised to see it was a short man. Maybe I shouldn't note these next details, but I feel like I must because I feel like it adds some context to the situation. If you're sensitive to the mention of ethnicity, skip forward to the next paragraph. I'm mixed, white and black, and have waist-length dreads. This guy is a dark-skinned African-American. I live in a small town in rural Ohio and am one of the very few non-white people in the area, excluding the kids from the local colleges who come from all over the world but are rarely seen off campus or outside of the bars and whatnot in my experience. The fellow was dressed like he was from the city or

somewhere a bit fancier, more stylish, urban than what I'm used to locally. He seemed oddly super relieved to see me and even more excited when he saw I had a blunt burning. I offered to share and basically let him have the rest. We instantly headed off making random small talk. I have pretty serious social anxiety. I always think I sound stupid or lame when I talk so I really just wanted to shake hands and part ways. I eventually asked him how he ended up in the alley at 4am and he had a pretty crazy excuse. Allegedly he had come to Ohio from somewhere south. Can't remember which state he told me, I didn't care too much. According to him, they sold him the idea that rural Ohio was a wonderland of druggies, which is pretty much true, and he intended to come here and hustle up a small fortune.

Unfortunately for him, soon after arriving to town, he went to a local bar with the two women, began flirting with other women, and the females he was allegedly with got angry and jealous. They all stormed out of the bar, got in the car, sped off, and eventually tossed him and all of his loose belongings out of the vehicle. In the short time before going to the bar, he also allegedly spent all of his money doing these illicit substances instead of hustling so he was dead broke. He also reveals that he's had a history of being arrested and shot at. He alleged that it was all based on baby mama drama and that he was the victim. I was in no position to argue so I just listened and smiled. He told me great prison stories of defending a man then after being released being taught how to make meth as a favor for the defensed man's brother.

It's all tied in with his big hustle plans I suppose. I on the other hand worked 12s and had a new baby so I wasn't really about that life. Anymore at least. I went through a wannabe rapper phase in the early 2000s. Before I knew it, two or three hours had passed and he's still talking and shows no intention on moving on. I'm overly polite so I was stuck. My now wife came out and saw what was going on. She's understandably confused. She makes it awkward enough that he leaves a few hours later my downstairs neighbor is banging on my door i hardly slept so i didn't even want to answer he tells me my friend is outside waiting for me so he was there and wanting to chill and chat which a year prior i would have

been fine about and smoked him out and chilled but i had a kid and a girlfriend and responsibilities so it caused issues to say the least. Said he was out looking for money or a ride, trying to make calls etc. The whole thing was shady and I had a weird feeling about him but he was generally cool towards me and treated me like he'd know me for years. I felt pretty bad for him considering that the small town we live in can be kind of racist and suspicious etc And he stood out like a sore thumb even to me Myself being amongst the weirdest looking most noticeable person in town Plus I thought somehow I was discriminating I knew how that felt and wasn't going to pass it on

Plus I knew I was his only bastion of hope Nobody else was going to help or let him hang around I knew I was his only bastion of hope. Nobody else was going to help or let him hang around. It's a small town, there's nowhere to go. So, I ignored things like, for instance, when I asked him where his stuff was. He went back to the alley and came back with a few trash bags and a big girl's purse. He said that a man saw him get kicked out and gave the bags to him. He offered the purse to me for my wife. I politely declined but appreciated the gesture I guess. It felt weird but again I was afraid I was discriminating somehow. I gave him a big luggage type bag I had gotten as a gift years before and never used. He transferred all the stuff into the bag.

I only saw a few things like a sweatshirt. He wore the sweatshirt later that day and it totally clashed with his style and seemed too small. It felt like it wasn't his but thought I was just jumping to conclusions. I grabbed him some food from inside and gave him like $20 for survival and also bribed him to leave. He eventually took off in search of rides, women to stay with, and money or whatever. As night fell it got super cold and when I cautiously crept back out to smoke he appeared again like he'd been hanging around the area for a while. He looked super cold and was shivering and rubbing his hands together.

At this point I really just wanted to let him crash on the couch but again I had a woman and a new baby in my house and I didn't know this dude so I got him some blankets and hot pockets and snacks and let him crash in the garage we shared with the neighbors. Needless to say they were surprised to find him there in the morning. This time he said he was my cousin. They didn't like it and confronted me about it. I apologized and told them the truth, excluding some important sketchy details because I knew they'd probably get him in trouble somehow and I felt bad. I knew I had to work in the morning and was not going to leave with him creeping around my house and with family home alone.

He was a stranger and I wasn't going to take the risk, even though I sort of blindly hoped and trusted that we respected each other. I went online and found tickets for that day and was ready to just pay for them as a good deed and drive him to the stop. When I came out and told him, he was really thankful and thanked me so much for looking out for him. At some point it took a weird turn and he showed me a broken looking security camera and offered it to me or was trying to sell it for cash. I didn't want it and doubted it worked and knew that there was no way he was just legally obtaining that. Still, I just wanted him gone and didn't want to betray him or dime him out. He left on one final search for

money. I gave him another 20 or so in hopes that it would keep him out of trouble. Finally, after another few hours, I heard radios outside of my window. I headed downstairs before I even heard knocking. It was the cops. Luckily for me, it was a very calm, professional officer officer Much unlike many I've dealt with in town He told me that my wife's bike had been stolen and they have it He starts to question me about the individual I guess when they arrested him he described me as a tall white guy with a mohawk I'm guessing he was actually possibly looking out for me And not trying to involve me further or cover up what came next

I think he planned on returning the bike because his possessions were still in my garage. I told the officer the truth. I told him about how I met him, how he'd been around a few days, how I gave him some money, was going to buy him a ride because I didn't want him around when I went to work. I didn't tell him any of the stories he told me or anything about his hustle plans, etc. I felt like I was definitely going to be accused as an accomplice. I have tattoos all over, long dreads, wore hoodies and jeans every day. I thought for sure they'd assume the worst. Luckily for me, they'd already spoken to my neighbor, the woman who had the stroke, and she said I was a very nice man that I rarely had visitors and

I'm a good dad. A stellar review to be honest. The officer said I was smart not to let him inside and didn't ask much else. We got the bike back. He was on parole or something and not supposed to be out of state. All of the items in the bag were stolen from my neighbors around the corner down the alley he appeared from. Turns out the people you robbed were into drugs and stuff and ran into him earlier to make some deal and he came back and stole a bunch of clothes and allegedly panties and other toys. I'm not sure if the panties and things like that was true and I only found that info out because the person he robbed was also my co-worker. So yeah, don't share sigs and blunts with randos at 4am. My car died a while back and I've been using Lyft to get around town as needed.

I am within walking distance to a good variety of stores so it hasn't been too pricey for me. However, I recently needed to go to the pharmacy and the pet supply store, both too far to walk. So I go to the pharmacy, pick up my prescription and call my ride to the pet supply store. The driver who picked me up seemed initially very polite, asking how my day was, commenting on the weather, etc. but things got weird very fast. He abruptly asked me if I was hungry. When I said no, he began to insist that we stop at a restaurant to get food and would not stop until I lied and said that I had just eaten a large lunch. Then he asked if I wanted to get coffee. Again, no. He backed off and turned up the radio. A minute later he asked if I

like music and if I like to dance. I answered that I don't care for dancing to which he asked, well, why not? Then he asked if I like to drink and if so what bars do I like. I felt very uncomfortable at this point and said I don't drink much. Why not? he asked again. Not even a little? Not even a little here and there? I lied that alcohol makes me nauseous. Then he asked if I live alone. I said no that I live with my husband. He asked how long I've been married and if I am happy with my husband.

Then he casually asked if my husband is a strong guy if he hits the gym. I began to feel very panicked at this point. Why would this guy want to know if I live alone or how physically strong my husband is? He was being very pleasant and cheerful the whole time but staring intently at me through the rear view mirror which disturbed me. I lied a third time that my husband was military and that I was so happy to have him home with me. He became disinterested after I began gushing about my husband and abruptly turned up the radio. So loud it hurt my ears in the back seat. I'm not even kidding. The windows were vibrating from the noise. We arrived at the pet supply store. I jumped out of the car and hurried away.

Once in the store I took my time perusing the aisles to ensure that the driver had left. I stayed there nearly 40 minutes. It was rush hour so I was fairly confident he had received another passenger request and left. After buying feed for my bunny I headed out and requested another ride. I kid you not dude was waiting in the parking lot and whipped his car out in front of me as soon as I walked out the doors. He accepted my ride request after blocking me from walking into the parking lot, jumped out of his car and took my bag of feed out of my hands and bundled it into the car. It all happened very quickly and looking back I should have cancelled my ride right then and there.

I regret not putting my foot down and calling him out on his creepiness. I freeze up and start panicking. I tell myself that I'm being dramatic, that it's all just a coincidence. I get in his car and realize with misery that my home address is logged into his GPS. He is very jolly now and asks if I'll be happy to get home. I had a stroke of genius and lied, number four, that I was visiting my friend for dinner. But oh yes, I can't wait to get home later on. It's been such a long day.

He didn't seem to like hearing this and gave me the loud radio treatment again. I arrived home and grabbed my bag of bunny feeds so he wouldn't try to help me carry it inside. The driver got out when I did and tried to push a paper into my hand. It had his phone number on it and he said, you'll call me tonight when you're ready to go home. Yes, your boy demanded that I call his personal phone to get a ride home after dinner with my friend. I refused, and he tried to force the paper into my hand, grabbing my fingers and crumpling them into a fist around said paper. I lied a fifth time that my friend was driving me home later and dropped the paper on the sidewalk. He finally gave up and got back into his car. I walked up to the door but then realized that the driver was still parked at the curb, watching me. He saw me looking and quickly pretended to

mess with his phone, but I suspect he was waiting to see if my friend would come to the door or if I was lying. I casually knocked on the door, waited a moment, then pulled out my phone as though to call my friend. While making the call, I decided to turn and stare pointedly at him. It worked and he eventually eased his car out and away. Once he was around the corner, I rushed into the house and locked the door behind me. Thank God, that was the last I saw of him. This happened in January 2017. I was going to visit my boyfriend at his flat, so I caught the train across town.

Important to note I was traveling with my pet dog, a 5 year old border collie. I was traveling at peak time at around 5.30pm so it was fairly busy. When getting off the train there was the usual rush and push for people to climb the stairs across the platform and leave the train station. I don't know what made me notice him but there was this guy directly behind me when I first got off the train. Mid-thirties, smart casual dress, just an ordinary looking guy but something made me notice him. As it was so busy it took a few minutes to climb the stairs, cross the bridge across the train platform and down the other stairs. During this time I noticed

this guy two more times, once walking very near me, the next directly in front of me and then he disappeared. As I got through the ticket barrier and left the train station, I then started to cross the car park which had already cleared quite a bit. Suddenly this guy is in front of me again but he's stopping me in my tracks trying to talk to me. He's smiling at me and he says, I noticed your dog was limping. Want to hop in the car and I'll give you a lift? I've got a dog and I know how it feels when they're not well. At this point, I just remember looking down at my dog in confusion because she wasn't limping and wasn't sick. I started to get this horrible gut feeling and I just said to him, she's fine thanks, I'll just walk home, it's not far. I then started to walk away from him and he deliberately sidestepped to block my way before saying,

no honestly it's fine, just get in the car. I again told him no and tried to walk away. I could feel my dog start to tense up and I tried to act really calm and nonchalant but I was so scared by this guy. I'm so glad I had my dog with me though, at least I had some sort of protection. Again, he blocks my path and says, what's your problem? Just get in the car, I'm trying to help you out. At this point, I don't even reply to him. I push past him and sped walked away. The path I take runs parallel to the car park and he's standing there watching me before getting in his car. I'm totally paranoid about walking now in case he's following me in his car so I deliberately linger on a main road where there's nowhere for traffic to stop. I eventually see his car stroll by, slower than other cars passing by,

and I swear I can make out another person's head in the back seat peeking out the window as they pass. I immediately sprinted to my boyfriend's house. I just got off of work. Today I work 7am to 1pm. At around 10.45 a man walks in. I've had previous odd encounters with this man such as seeing him walk behind me around my neighborhood and him hanging out near my street. I had brushed those off since I live right next to where I work and figured he lived there also but always kept an eye on him. Anyway, the man comes in and orders his usual pastry, I work at a bakery, and tells me I'm going to stay inside and eat my pastry. For anyone who doesn't know, my county is currently under lockdown for obvious reasons and all dining indoors is strictly prohibited.

Not to mention my bakery is tiny and there have never been any tables to sit inside, only a coffee bar that has never had space to sit. I tell him, we're on lockdown, you can't really eat inside. His response chills me. Are you alone here? Yes. I respond stupidly but quickly try to catch myself, but my co-worker will be here soon. A complete lie. It's only about 11am and my co-worker isn't scheduled till 1pm when I'm off. Then no one will see me in here. He responds and goes back to eating his pastry at the coffee counter. I roll my eyes and go back to work, not getting paid enough to care

if he quickly eats his pastry and leaves. 10 minutes pass, then 15. This guy is still in my bakery. I look over and he's finished his pastry and has moved closer to the open space in the counter meant for employees to walk back and forth between the front of the store and to the employees only side. Now I'm starting to get uncomfortable. I quickly text my co-worker, a 30 year old man who owns a lot of guns and treats me like his little sister. I send 911. I look over again and now the man is even closer and is now reading a book. He's putting the book in front of his face and peeking at me from above it, watching me. Multiple customers come in and out during his stay. Every time I turn my back to him he gets closer and closer and closer until eventually he is

halfway in our employee only area. I begin frantically texting my co-worker, he tells me he's 4 minutes away and I finally make the decision to text my boyfriend. I had avoided doing so to keep from scaring him but now I'm feeling terrified. I sat in the back of the employee area watching this guy. I held a knife just in case he decided to come any closer. Just as he takes a step closer my co-worker busts through the door. A small confrontation ensues and the man leaves the shop but continues to sit in his parked car right out front and stares at me. I tell my co-worker about the previous experiences I've had with him and he's had enough.

He marches out to the guy's car and tells him next time he comes around and bothers me, it'll be his last. Thankfully my boyfriend also pulls up at this point and joins in with the verbal warnings. I'm hoping and praying that this'll be the last time I see this guy. This just happened two nights ago and I'm not over it. I was working in my bedroom which is where my desktop is set up and it was about 12.45 a.m. when I decided to wind down for the night. My husband had gone to bed at around 9pm but selflessly offered to take up the guest room so I didn't have to stop working. He's awesome. Typically when this happens my husband takes our dog with him. So imagine my surprise when I turned the lights off and saw my pup crawl out from the other side of the bed, give a big stretch and come up to

me. It was 1am on the dot. I turn on the patio light and let the dog out to go to the bathroom. She is older and tends to wake us up in the middle of the night to go and I thought I'd prevent that from happening. I watched through the blinds as my dog stared out of my sight line and began to wag her tail profusely. She crept just out of view, her eyes very focused. I got a gross sense of dread and began to panic. I threw the door open and called for her. That's when I heard him. I don't know what he said. I was too petrified to listen really. She didn't come at first, just kinda looked at me and back at the person on the porch, who I couldn't see.

I noticed then that there were pillows and a blanket stacked on top of my grill that for sure weren't mine. I screamed my dog's name as she came back in. I ran to the other side of the house and woke up my husband shouting that there was someone on our porch. He got up in disbelief and wandered to the patio entrance from the kitchen and opened the door. There, a young man, about 20 or so, sat on the ground against our house. He was barefoot and on the same wall that the bedroom entrance to the patio is on, which is why I couldn't see him unless I had stepped out. My husband asked if he was alright but I couldn't hear his response. Husband told him he was at the wrong house and that he needed to leave. He later told

me that the kid looked extremely disoriented and even had a knife in his one hand. We went to our safe and grabbed our handgun, trying to talk through the insanity in our nerves. We don't live in a crime-heavy city, we never heard anything happening in our neighborhood and nothing like this had ever happened to us before. But there we were at 1am with a stranger on our patio who had been there for God only knew how long in the dark. When we walked back out to the living room we saw he had moved to a chair on the patio. My husband shined the light on the handgun at him and shouted for him to leave and I began calling the police. When they arrived, the man was gone, but his pillows and blanket were still there.

One of the officers told us he believed he knew who the young man was. He had a psychotic episode earlier in the week after coming off of his bipolar meds. He lived nearby and was probably headed back that way. We're no strangers to mental illness so naturally I felt awful that we had leapt to calling the police and brandishing a weapon but at the same time, what was he doing in my yard with a knife? So, to the young man who opened my gate, closed my gate behind him and sat on my patio at 1am, I still have your pillows. They're on my back porch where you left them. Come back and grab them, but just not when I'm home. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to To be continued... and join my Discord to interact with me and other listeners directly. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon

and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast where you can hear all these stories in long compilation form and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the bio. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon.