36 True Creepy Horror Stories | The Lets Read Podcast Episode 008

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I was almost 30 in female and I have been told I look 16 to 18 depending on the outfit I have an anxiety disorder and additionally I have issues picking up social cues so sometimes I misunderstand things or get paranoid about things that are really innocent so I've learned to question my thoughts I've been working in the food service industry for a few years and in particular about two years at the Burger King this happened in this instance happened about four years ago now I had just started working some late night shifts and we hired a new manager Paul he was a footer so taller than me skinny with dark eyes and usually wore large glasses he wasn't physically imposing but still made me nervous because he was new and male there are reasons new males put me on edge but that's for another day after a few days I noticed some strange things whenever I worked the counter he would stand so close behind me that I could feel the cloth this shirt brush my neck because he was looking over my shoulder again I worked here before he did and had for a year so it bug me if I was stuck in the drive-through area instead he would stand in such a way that I was blocked in and couldn't get past him and every time I bent over if I looked up I could tell that he was staring right at me at first I figured I was just imagining it that he wasn't purposefully blocking in I had to be just paranoid again I assumed after a few more weeks of working there he started buying pizza for the crew or drinks etc for a nearby business and he always was the one to go pick it up and bring it in I wouldn't eat anything unless the rest of the crew did and I never drank anything I didn't get for myself nor did I leave anything in the back office just in case because I just felt something was wrong I kept telling myself it's overreacting you're fine but it can shake the feeling one nights I was told I had to do a late night shift just me Paul and Jack someone that has worked there for a long time and I trust him implicitly before the others left I asked Jack to please keep an eye on Paul because he scared me that night Paul asked me to clean the bathrooms and I had no choice but to agree to illustrate the layout to the bathrooms of the building in order to get to the bathrooms from the main office you go by the kitchen around the corner through a door into an entryway from there you open the men's room door in from there there is a back wall stall with the door that's the stall I was in so I'm there in the main men's Stalin Jack is in the kitchen as far as I know with Paul in the office as my back has turned I hear the propped open men's room door shut I turn around and blocking my exit to the men's stall as Paul immediately I panic because that means that's three closed doors between me and Jack Paul holds up a pair of drive-through headgear and makes a comment like so I found these new ones in the office want to use them I probably shouldn't give them to you but I like you so I figured why not I declined then honestly I was shaking out of my shoes innocent as the dialog was he was looking me up and down the whole time and it just felt creepy he stood there about a foot away and just stared at me not saying anything and after a minutes or so Jack came in and said that there was a phone call and Paul had to come get it naturally I booked it out of the bathroom and stuck myself to Jack explaining that I was really scared and felt uncomfortable with the way Paul looked at me in the odd way he was behaving well to me it was odd anyway but again I felt like I was probably being paranoid he told me he wouldn't let me out of his sight the rest of the night and meant he was sorry that he had been distracted he didn't like Paul either and he kept good on his word a few hours later Paul says he's grabbing pizza and some soda from the place I mentioned earlier when it came back he called me to the back office and offered me a glass of soda pre poured I said no thanks I'm fine thinking to myself to the time that's I'm being overly stupidly paranoid but then again why did he always bring soda we had over a hundred kinds on the premises they asked me another two to three times if I was sure and I again declined Jack right beside me then Paul asked me if I had a boyfriend I did but I lied and said fiance because I figured it may be dissuaded any potential flirting he says fiance I do a little young for that I don't know why but I told him my age he just kind of sat there and looked me up and down really slow oh I thought you were 16 or 17 from there he left me pretty much alone believe it or not three days later he was arrested because the place he worked for before he had inappropriately touched an underage female co-worker threatened them and told them he was a cop and so on and would arrest them if they told eventually he was transferred from there to where I work and we were never told anything till his arrest he comes by twice since then even though he's not allowed on the property because we have minors on site I'm still freaked out especially because the last time he came around he came through the drive-through where I was standing so - Paul I hope I never see you again and you get exactly what you deserve [Music] I was in high school at the time that was babysitting my cousin's one Friday evening the young girls were about three and five Kim was five and Tammy was three I didn't mind they were usually pretty easy to watch and it gave me extra cash we spent most of her time in the computer room so that I could do some research for a project I needed to do for school Kim and Tammy were playing with some dolls in the floor but after some time they began telling me that they were hungry I took them into the kitchen placed Abby and her booster seat to wait while I cooked I made them nuggets listen to both girls talk about silly kid stuff I noticed that tabby kept looking into a room which was across from the kitchen I shrugged it off at first thinking that she was just being a kid but she just kept looking she kept staring into a room and it looked as if though she was trying to look at something I was starting to get a little freaked out I turned off the oven and set their plates aside to cool still watching tabby carefully sis what are you looking at Kim asked and patiently tabby turned to her that she pointed into a room and I tried to follow her gaze but from where I stood in the kitchen I couldn't see that far into a room Kim looked where she pointed then a look of alarm crossed her features I frowned what is it I asked walking towards them Kim turned to me there were tears in her eyes there's a man in her room she said in a whisper she burst into tears I didn't hesitate I raced over and scooped a be out of her booster chair and took Kim's hand I glanced at the room and saw shadows slip into the closet I didn't want to panic the girls I didn't want to scare them any further but I rushed them to the back bathroom and locked the door I told them to stay quiet and do not say anything I pulled out my phone and my first instinct was to call my aunt and tell her what was going on but I knew I better call the cops first I did and they informed me that someone was on their way I turn around and called my aunt than to she was thoroughly freaked out and said she'd be coming home soon she thanked me for taking care of her girls I was very freaked out trying to calm the now crying tabby and Kim I think they were trying to be quiet but I couldn't blame them for being scared we waited in the bathroom until the police came at one point I thought I heard a thump but that could have been my imagination the police arrived shortly after over the phone I had told them where we were hiding there was a knock on the bathroom door and an officer called Rachel it's officer Ray's open the door and one of my buddies will escort you outside what we searched the house you're on is waiting outside relieved I followed the officers outside with tabby and Kim it turned out the guy in the room had already left the bedroom window was wide open I can't get over the fact that the guy had been so close that we had been so close I can't stop imagining what could have happened to my cousins or me [Music] my best friend growing up was named Sarah from the ages of 8 to 23 we were inseparable I might as well have lived with her most of my life Sarah her husband dinner her baby and we'll call her bug lived in a small house built in the early 1900s it had two rooms at first then was sloppily added on to until the early 70s the kitchen and bathroom had 6 foot ceilings the Attic was stuffed to the rafters with straw when they first moved in early insulation they replaced it with fiberglass after finding this massive fired hazard that people had been living under for a century one bug was born Sarah wood often asked me to stay the night for various reasons I love my little bug so I had no problem sleeping on the couch and even getting up when she fussed one bug was around three months old Sarah started to complain about sleep paralysis this has never happened to her before I asked her if she ever saw anything the first was just pressure on her chest the second time she said a huge Jack Skellington esque figure was standing on the edge of the bed she described the figure as bony but colorless a black mass absorbing all the light that surrounded it but clearly dressed in a nice suit her voice was shaking when she told me about the third episode when she woke up it was on top of her breathing hot moist nastiness into her face she told me its breath smelled like rotten eggs and an old mildew washrag I knew this wasn't sleep paralysis then I told her next time she was alone she needed to demand the thing to stay out of her room I should have said house as it took to the Attic where it decided to make itself known by scattering straw along the whole attic floor Sarah's husband made a fuss about it and refused to believe what was going on all the straw had been removed months prior and someone was playing a joke on him one night I stayed after Sara begged me even bribed me with alcohol and breakfast I sighed and took my place on the couch somewhere between episodes of the Golden Girls I fell asleep I woke up in that too comfortable to go peace states so I lay there with my eyes closed until I had to go when I opened my eyes I saw what Sara had been talking about the figure filled the entire top half of the doorway half its head was hidden I could feel it looking at me I tried to lay still try not to blink I could make out the edges of a nice suit it's shoulders were pointy it's torso was long and Metz a slender hip its legs seemed to seep into the floor I don't know how long I looked at it or it at me I blinked and the figure was gone I slowly got up from the couch and tiptoed into the kitchen I didn't know I was holding my breath until I sighed in the kitchen when I found nothing I finally was able to relieve myself but when i unlock the door and turn the knob it stopped halfway like someone was holding the knob on the other side I panicked like a coyote in a snare I pulled the door with my whole might even putting my foot on the doorframe the knob wouldn't budge in either direction I slumped to the floor still turning at the knob like a maniac on speed still only getting a half turn I was about to over panic and start screaming when the knob finally turned and the door came open against my legs I laughed nervously and opened the door no one was there bug hadn't even budged and I'm glad I didn't wake her in my state that blind horror I sent Sara Texan left her house at 3:30 a.m. I refused to stay in that house again come to find out it had latched onto the negative marriage between Sara and her husband and has now moved to two different houses in 2015 some life choices had led us in separate directions I blame it on my hippie soul and her husband I still wish bug all the happiness in the world and I hope she never has to fight any demons like that on her own I grew up in a really safe neighborhood my elementary school was two blocks away and another one four blocks away from the bridge down the street from my house I could see my middle school from my house which sat on the other side of the Bayou a Catholic Methodist Presbyterian and my Lutheran Church all set neatly spaced out on the same Road the Catholic adjacent to my elementary school the Methodists and Presbyterians across from my middle school and my Lutheran Church across from the neighborhood library it's as middle class and safe as you can get not rich enough to be Stepford but think Leave It to Beaver set in the late 90s that wasn't a dump kid but I could be oblivious and naive all kids whose ages are a single-digit are because I added a tendency to tell my parents I was gonna play with my friends to the park and then wander the neighborhood with them when we got bored a lot of the times my mom would make my older sister walk me to and from the elementary school playground in soccer fields and park just to make sure I was with someone a little more cautious my sister and I both hated it but now I know it was for a good reason one day my sister and I are walking home I don't even remember a whole lot of the day because it was just so ordinary it was summer hot late afternoon and I was bickering with my sister and Sawin that she could boss me around she was 11 and I was 8 and she was just as solemn that she had to babysit me we were walking along the main road in our neighborhood away from the school and towards her house the road usually had cars parked along it especially in front of the school soccer fields and Park parents Park in the streets when the school parking lot fills up and wait for soccer practice to finish or their kids to see them from the park and know it's time to go home sometimes people who cruise slowly down the street looking to see where their kids are and then drive off when they're sure little Jimmy isn't there not weird and not creepy when you live and Leave It to Beaver town my sister and I had passed the soccer fields and we're starting to pass by the park when my sister started nagging me to stay with her more than usual I don't remember what I focused on I guess I had my gameboy or a book with me or something I probably fallen behind on accident first but kept walking slowly just to anger her when she snapped at me to keep up that was vaguely away from a car slowly driving by us but like I said I figured they were looking for their kid at one point my sister turned to the car and asked the driver if they needed something I finally looked up from whatever I was focused on and glanced over towards the driver a middle-aged Indian woman was sitting there with her window rolled down and just staring at us I only remember her because I thought she looked like my friend Gretchen's mom but thinner and a little younger she asked my sister if she knew where some Street was my sister shook her head and said no she asked that the lady was looking for her kid and the lady said no my sister said ok and kept walking telling me to hurry up I followed her and went back to what I had been doing before after 30 seconds my sister stopped and bent down to mess with her shoe I looked around and noticed the lady was still even with us and had stopped - she was still staring at us that was too naive to be scared I just thought the lady was weird but my sister noticed all of this and grabbed my hand and dragged me off the sidewalk and into the park cutting through it to get away from the street and the lady that wasn't even using her gas pedal to roll along and kept up with two children walking home my sister loudly said let's take the shortcut home or we'll be late I was really confused and really dumb and said this wasn't a shortcut it was a longer route and we weren't going to be late anyways my sister snapped at me - shut up until we were on the other side of the park when she finally dropped my hand she looked back and pointed out that the lady was still there window still rolled down still watching us we were the only people in the park my sister told me that the lady was being really weird and was probably trying to kidnap us or something I didn't want to admit that sister was being responsible so I just told her she was stupid and we went on home my sister told my mom as soon as we got home and I remember making fun of her because she was scared from all those pg-13 and r-rated movies she and her friends would watch together in secret I thought I'd get her in trouble but my mom actually looked really scared and caught my dad in and made my sister tell him everything my dad left the room to go call someone police probably in the neighborhood phone tree and my mom sat me down and gave me thee if you see adults acting weird around you or they try to get you to go with them yellow that you don't know them and you need help and run away talk I can remember bits and pieces of this it was weird but boring thing that happened I remember the lady only because of how she looked like a friend's mom and remember bickering with my sister and her weird behavior and I remember the reactions of my parents and feeling like I got in trouble the rest my sister filled in for me she told me later that she asked all their friends if they had seen the lady that my dad went out and talked to all the neighbors to see if they'd ever seen the woman and that police cruised the neighborhood every day for a while after that I never saw the lady again Gretchen and family were out of the country visiting family and no one seemed to know anything about this lady it's a memory that still scares my sister especially now that she has her own kid even though she lives in a safe tight-knit community of her own I still don't know what to think about it I'd like to think that she was just lost and needed help but didn't know how to ask two young kids maybe she was hoping to follow us until we would lead her someplace familiar to her maybe she wasn't trying to kidnap us at all but then I don't know how to explain why she'd have her window rolled down in the height of Texas summer heat and keep following us when we didn't know where she was looking to go her car slowly rolling forward always staring at us as we escaped across the park [Music] so this happened about a year and a half ago when I was around 13 or 14 I'm a female and at the time I was in eighth grade my entire class in middle school is very small only around 60 to 65 kids every year so all of us knew each other very well although my school is a private school I'm now an upperclassman so I still go there I live in one of the most dangerous states in the nation and things tend to be sketchy all around not excluding the majority of the students who go there I have a lot of stories about so many kids in my grade doing sketchy and disturbing things to other people which I may get to putting up sometime in the future and of course that's where the story begins there was this kid in my class who always acted weird on purpose to freak people out and make them uncomfortable most likely for attention he would say creepy things and make jokes to all the girls in our class and even threaten to do things to one of my friends I'll call her Jenny Jenny had told me and all of her friends about how he had harassed her and threatened to hurt her at her house but then played it off as a joke and proceeded to talk to her normally as if they were friends he got reported for it immediately and was put on behavioral probation for two weeks which honestly is enough time for the things he said to her he said other things to other girls too mostly about things I don't even want to mention that are completely inappropriate to talk about especially in a school environment he also tends to act as if he's dumb like he's a child or something when he has clearly acted his age in the past with teachers and guy friends overall he overstepped boundaries so often that at this point most of the girls in our grade know to stay away from him but on one faithfully unlucky day my worst encounter with him began I had to be picked up after school by my mom who works a nine-to-five job all over the city she works in hospice and has patients all around so I would never know exactly where she be coming from the pick today she was coming from a town bordering ours that was over an hour away and then had to stop at her office to do paperwork so I had to entertain myself at least until 5:30 when she would come get me the way our pickup line works as there is a sidewalk against the main school building where most the kids wait for their parents to pick them up there's only one bench and it's near the door to the building so most of us just sit on the sidewalk with our backs against the wall looking out into the street with friends which is where I was since my mom was going to be two hours late picking me up I was practically the last person there I'll accept that boy who I'll call Nate for the sake of the story for around an hour he sat a few meters to my left and generally didn't bug me until we were both alone on the sidewalk then he started to try and strike up a conversation with me at first it was fine he started asking me questions like what I was doing on my phone and I would give him one word answers all with my earbuds in but with every question he would come a little closer to me until we full-on moved all his belongings next to me and was touching me at multiple occasions I asked him to leave each time him being childish and annoying asking why and when I would tell him exactly why I wanted to believe he would divert the conversation to something perverted he started asking more personal questions and getting creepier as he went along things like do you know what it's like to have a good time congrats to it when they're on that time of the month at this point I determined to completely ignore his gross questions and ask him to go away more firmly but he wouldn't budge he started getting closer and close to me looking over my shoulder to look at my phone and putting his face close to mine and pressing his body into my leg I contemplating getting up to leave but my phone was about to die and I needed to know when my mom would get there that and I knew that Nate would follow me wherever I went he started to put his hand on my knees and shoulders and even when I asked him to stop he would just play dumb and ask why until I pushed him off of me I asked him multiple times not to touch me and he would do that same stupid game where he would hover his finger next to my leg and say I'm not touching you I was extremely annoyed and he continued to get more invasive as he kept getting closer to me his question started escalating more and more do you know what assault is go away Nate I don't want to talk to you do you do you know what it is bus off Nate I started hitting him where he was touching my knee do you know that Jenny forced herself on me forced me to do it with her I look at him dumbfounded at that point I was done his hand was still on my knee so I hit his arm not as hard as I could have but hard enough to get him to stop touching me I turned my body to look at him and screamed at him pointing at him and slapping his arm stop touching me Nate I'm sick of you if you touch me again I'm gonna punch you and I'll tell the Dean all the things you've said to me now go away he looks shaken for only a second before he fake frowned and looked at me as if though I was the one who'd started it he started talking in a baby voice mocking me oh I'm gonna tell the Dean on you he was acting as if though he did nothing to make me mad or uncomfortable and that really push my buttons he kept talking to me and looking over my shoulder for the next five minutes until his mom showed up and then got up and hovered around me for a few seconds then as he was leaving he said goodbye to me and waved as if though nothing even happened at this point that was so shaken and angry that I couldn't react anymore I felt like crying and I felt so violated and disgusted that I couldn't do anything but sit there I did not tell anyone but my friends about what happened and to this day I regret not doing anything I have this intense fear of being assaulted as any woman does with this kid who was younger than me had just invaded my safety and I didn't try hard enough to get him to stop I sent all the signals that I didn't want to talk to him and then I didn't want to talk or interact at all and the whole encounter almost sent me to tears it's a shame that even half this story to tell or that I even had try harder than a we'll go way to get him to leave sadly Nate still goes to my school and after that experience I began hating him I left out a few of the other things he said to me because I can't remember specifics then they have lots of trouble with long-term memory in general but they're still stuck in my mind this goes out as a warning and a message to all my fellow girls and guys out there if someone is doing something that is making you uncomfortable do not hesitate to do what you can to get them to stop I regret not doing more and not telling the authorities at my school because he has continued to do these types of things throughout the years luckily he has gotten in deeper trouble for different things and has stopped doing such intense things to other people I have many more stories about people from my school as I said before but for now I hope no other girl at my school has to experience the same thing I did I'm telling you this story three years after the incident took place at the time I was a 15 year old boy and was home alone for the night with my dog which was a beagle named Dodger I was in the room with my dog and was playing some games with my friends like teenage boys do my parents had gone out for the night to go to my father's friend's birthday I was used to being home alone at night because I am an only child and my parents go out a lot during the night and day it was about 11 p.m. when I decided I was gonna take a break and shower and watch TV for a little while I'm quite the active person after all when I got out of the shower I went downstairs to make some popcorn and watch the office when I heard a large group of people sort of yell talking to each other this wasn't new to me as it lived just down the street from a bar and it happens almost every night when they walked in front of my house my dog started barking at them like dogs do suddenly there was silence outside and I was a little startled for a second then I looked out the window to see them eyeing my house down and looking right at me and my dog I didn't know what to do at this point so I turned off my TV and ran in my room with my dog I go to look out the window in my room to see that they had gone I was relieved for a moment until I heard a shattering coming from downstairs I left my dog in my room and grabbed my baseball bat since I played when I was younger I crept down my stairs just enough to see the living room and I saw one of the men peering through the window that they had broken I yelled down at him that I had my father's gun he doesn't own one but I had to try something and to my surprise they yelled back that they had a gun two of their own I was frozen at this point and didn't know what to do yet again I ran back to my room and called the police probably something I should have done long before that two minutes passed and I hear nothing downstairs so I go to investigate I see the glass of the window was now completely out of frame leading me to believe that they had climbed through luckily the police showed up within the next 45 or so seconds and when they searched my home they said they found nothing had been taken they searched the surrounding area and they were not found anywhere I have since gone to college and moved out but I will never forget that night I guess I should consider myself lucky but I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't called the police [Music] my name is Tatiana and my story takes place during my freshman year of high school while I was on winter break before I begin my story let me clarify my living situation when I was younger my mother and father separated so my father moved in with his parents and years later my mother passed away when I was around the age of six and my little brother was four this caused me to move in with my grandparents and father fast forward to December 2017 my aunt and uncle and two younger cousins live in another state and every year they visit my grandma during summer vacation and Christmas my uncle only visits in the winter however because we don't have the best AC anyways the trip started out normal and we were all excited to see each other again and the same goes on for a few days then on about the fourth day I got a weird vibe from my uncle when my older cousin told me that my uncle went up to her and said he's looking hot today babe not pretty not beautiful hot she told me that she felt sort of uncomfortable around him but I thought that maybe she was just exaggerating that later believes her when it was just me and my uncle home alone while I was sitting in the living room on my phone when he laid his arm on my shoulder sort of pushing it down leaned in and whispered in my ear you look very beautiful today the statement alone didn't bother me it was just the way he expressed it and made me realise what my cousin had told me was true for the rest of the week I didn't want to be alone around him anymore I always tried to have someone else in the room but he would still do little things like grab my shoulders her touch me in areas near my chest even with others around I sometimes felt afraid to fall asleep with him in the room because he my grandmother and I were sleeping downstairs together while the others took the upstairs one day I was upstairs in my room collecting my little cousins pajamas because I would help take care of them while they were over my uncle came into the room to thank me for helping out I wasn't bothered by this until he slid a five-dollar bill up my sleeve and accidentally touch my chest and just walked away I felt disgusted but at the same time I was able to laugh it off telling myself that he acted like I was some sort of dancer by putting money in my clothes that aside I was still disturbed the last incident I recall occurred while my grandma aunt uncle and cousins were in the room I was opening a kitchen door and he was trying to move past me they could have excused himself so I would let him through but instead he grabbed me by the hips and thrust it into me from behind and stayed there for a good 10 seconds and said excuse me babe the day they left could not have come sooner we said our good-byes I got an uncomfortable hug for my uncle and they were off it's currently the end of August and I starts school soon which means before I know it my cousin and I will have to get through another visit with him if he's willing to do all of that I'm afraid to know what else he's capable of or having to find out the hard way this happened when I was a kid I would say about six years old because that happened so long ago parts of the story are from my mom's experience as well as my own because I can't fully remember all of it so the way my house is set up our front door leads into the gaming room we use the back door because we have furniture blocking the front door my house is also located on a dead-end Road so when someone knocks at the front door automatically it sets off red flags as neighbors friends and family know to knock on the back door I remember it was a Saturday around 10:00 a.m. so I didn't have to go to school and I was spending my morning playing with my Barbie dolls in the living room which is right next to the gaming room I kept playing until I heard a knock at the front door being the naive little six-year-old girl I was I figured it was a friend of my mom's as I had previously mentioned we kept furniture in the gaming were a minute blocked off the front door because of this I ran upstairs to the balcony in which you could see the front door I leaned over the balcony Rayland saw man he was wearing an orange t-shirt and dirty baggy jeans all together he didn't look very clean his hair was as dirty as well as his face he looked up at me and smiled hi doll he yelled at me all the while waving hi I said smiling back for getting completely about the stranger-danger rule he looked around my yard noticing that there were no cars around I guess because of this he assumed that was home alone but my mom was actually in the bathroom taking a shower doll are you parents home he had a wide grin on his face almost like how a kid looks before they get a new toy the grin was filled with excitement yeah my mommy is these word made his excited face drop into a frown can you go get your mommy for me his tone was different more angry I nodded and ran into the bathroom my mom was brushing her wet hair and smiled at me mommy there's a man in our yard he wants to talk to you her smile went away and she immediately told me to go to the room while she handled it she went outside and came back in about 20 minutes later I asked her a few years later whatever happened that day then she told me the rest of the story according to her mother she went outside and greeted the man see my mother is easily set on edge because of this she immediately asked why he was bothering us he responded by explaining that he was a part of a construction company my mom couldn't remember the name but she knew she had never heard of it while he said this he pointed to the nametag which was written in cran which said the company's name he explained there was construction going on in another County and wanted to let us know this County was two hours away so there was no need to tell us he then began asking my mom to come in the house of course she said no hmmm that there was no point for him to come in but he wouldn't drop it it kept asking her saying he only wanted to see the interior design of the house as it was so beautiful from the front he then began the push past her trying to get to the back of the house for way to enter my mom pulled him back and told him that he needed to leave right then and there with that he got in this truck and left and that was the last we saw of him until my mom got a phone call that night she answered but all that could be heard was heavy breathing and we don't know if that person that called was him with it honestly was really creepy [Music] during my elementary years I went to a school that was situated on top of the hill it's the only building there and next to it is a covenant for nuns who run the school and the cemetery since the location is very secluded we heard lots of tailless about possible souls from the cemetery passing by the school grounds when I was in the fifth grade my class starts at 7:00 a.m. but I usually come in and around 6:00 a.m. because I share a ride with my cousins who went to a different school but we'll take the same around his mine one day my cousins have to leave early so I came to the school at 5:00 a.m. it was still dark during that time the guard already left the school's gate open for me as he knows that I always come early when you enter the school gate you will see a basketball courts and rows of classroom is facing the court on the side of the classrooms is the corridor leading up to the next level of classrooms you go further down and you get to the school's auditorium my classroom is in the basement area you'll have to pass the auditorium for you to get to the stairway down to the basement I know it's weird while I was on the stairway on my way down to the auditorium from there I can see the empty stage and the big empty Hall no one is around I'm the only one in the school aside from the guard at that time I continued walking and as soon as I stepped into the auditorium I can hear a girl singing at first it was very soft I can barely make out the words I looked around but I can't see anyone the girls singing became louder and louder as it gets louder the notes go higher and higher she's now singing as if though she's holding a microphone I was stunned I didn't know what to do I was so scared it's impossible there's no mic on the stage and the guard confirmed that I'm the first one to come in not even the teachers are in the school yet as the scene gets louder and higher I see a white light in front of me it slowly moves towards me like a train that's ready to hit me I couldn't move I was mesmerised by the white light suddenly I heard someone calling my name the light is gone the singing is gone I can see that I'm now standing in the middle of the auditorium I look back at the stairway and there I see my classmates looking at me they told me that they've been calling me several times but I am not responding the Sun is already up and it's already 6:00 I've been standing there for an hour I asked my classmates if they had heard anyone singing and they said no after a few hours I did some research on my experience and what happened to me in the fifth grade I read that if you see a light coming closer to you it means that the spirit is trying to take over your body I'm glad my classmates came in on time to prevent that from happening as I've mentioned in previous posts I tend to be verbally aggressive confrontational and basically I don't shy away from a fight if I feel the person is wrongly somehow I have yet to get into an actual physical situation so I digress I doubt I'd do well in an actual fight my bravado usually seems to scare people off I've also mentioned in passing my sexuality which is garnered towards the same sex female if you have to know dating hasn't always been my thing in fact I've gone on the most dates this last year out of my two short decades of existence I met this one girl on OkCupid and before you start thinking no it doesn't go awry we actually hit it off on our first date and ended up spending a few extra hours together before I went home and then we ended up going on two more so needless to say I am no longer a fish available to catch for a little more context before I get into this I don't live in the city where this takes place well I do live there for eight months at a time I'm a university student and and some Facebook photos I have there's evidence of my school logo my girlfriend M for the story had a daughter with her boyfriend but he's no longer in a relationship with her so she's a single mom living in an apartment complex in the middle of the city and it's where we're going to establish and while the story affected her the most it's now affecting me too nutty is who the story's about my nickname for her and overall description of this girl you see nutty and M worked together at a Wendy's years prior to meeting me M always had a thing for girls who were quirky and a little alternative she's also got a big heart so when nutty asked her out she couldn't turn her down M and nutty dated for four months but it wasn't long of course before the warning signs appeared nutty is mentally unstable well I get that hey I know where she's coming from it's not an excuse for the actions I'm about to describe she's also refused any sort of therapy or assistance and her family has decided not to help her so you've got a non medicated undiagnosed ball of mania that you're dating essentially now what could possibly go wrong with that warning sign number one nutty mentions that she wishes m's ex-boyfriend was dead it's one of those well okay then thing you can normally brush aside or you can't as when someone starts saying it over and over MSX wasn't abusive he's actually a really great guy by conversation the whole reason they broke up was because she figured out she liked girls so nutty continuously says I want to kill him and things revolving around that train of thought warning sign number two nutty is pushy and aggressive where I'm aggressive is that if I think someone has done myself for another person injustice I'm quick to respond verbally or with a short charge at them we're nutty is aggressive is that she got very upset if she didn't get her way or was quick to become threatening of a person she continuously pushed em to hang out to come over to go on a date and to even go further than that she wouldn't stop until she got her way not caring that her girlfriend didn't always want to do those things or hang out with her which brings me to warning sign number three nutty is clingy she would call em at all hours to do one or more message her on Facebook and basically stalked her social medias to see what she was up to she didn't like em going to things without her getting mad and insulting Em's friends and family the two major events that led up to their breakup that shows also how messed up and nutty is nutty tricked Em's daughter into telling her when her mother was home this one time she called and was in the shower her daughter answered it then because she knew nutty she told the stalker exactly where her mom was so nutty shows up comes in the m's apartment lying and saying she forgot something there when she and em we're alone nutty proceeded to attack em and she didn't beat her if you catch my drift of course the cops in our city don't get it yet that assault arbitrated by a woman against a woman is actually feasible so guess what nothing was done the boneheaded morons decided to discharge Noddy for trespassing and she got a fine I for one no longer trust the police after learning this event number two occurred after when M of course broke up with her Nettie went ballistic she threatened to end herself and that it would be m's fault she took a video of herself swallowing a ton of sleeping pills and sent it to M claiming it was her fault she was doing this and of course called the cops but yes you guessed it nothing they honestly didn't take that seriously either it's appalling what law enforcement thinks is necessary around there in all honesty I think they were mostly corrupted nonetheless none II didn't under self she threw up the pills apparently after taking the video and then waited until the next day she then contacted M pretending to be her mother and told em that she was to blame for her daughter's death well needless to say M didn't buy it for a minute she called out nutty's bullcrap and nutty came clean promptly afterwards and blocked her on everything why she hadn't earlier I don't know and quit her job at Wendy's six months later after a new position at a Starbucks and deciding to try dating one more time we met which brings me full circle to recent events I'm away from the city in the small town I'm originally from working my butt off so I can at least afford groceries for the next eight months I'll be an unemployed student Emma and I have been in contact the last four chatting and planning out to big date for the weekend I get back Emma and I have been in contact chatting and planning out a big date for the weekend I get back M contacted me out of the blue after a couple of days of radio silence she told me that nutty had come into her work when she wasn't around asking another employee about her she figured out where m was working and claimed to be an old friend the idiot blabbed telling nutty all about M and yep me so nutty is angry she gives a new number and account contacting M and threatened to cut me if she sees me and that he also found my Facebook I've since switched it to private and now knows where I'm going to university due to me also being an idiot and leaving the photos with my uni's logo up I got a threatening message from her a few weeks ago saying that when I'm found I'm going to pay for messing with what's hers the silver lining in all of this is that she thankfully doesn't know where I live I've actually kept that off my profile I also don't link any of my other social media platforms to my facebook so she has no way of cyber stalking me I just blocked her on Facebook after getting that message the bad news is that she knows where I'm going to school on that so I live in the dormitories and was worried about me she isn't sure if nutty would actually be bold enough to come onto the campus to try and find me reading all of your stories and listening to narrations of them has inspired me to take the next steps as soon as move-in day arrives and I'm back in the city I'll tell the University what's going on I'll make sure my new dormitory mates know who nutty and to not answer our security door for any reason or whoever asked for me since concealed weapons like pepper spray guns and tasers and knives aren't allowed I'll keep my alarm box on me and is also taking precautions which I will only say involves keeping one of the above concealed weapons illegally so to wrap this up two weeks ago I get a message from an unlisted account and it was you guessed it a nutty herself she said some pretty violent threatening stuff that I don't think anyone wants to read I reported and blocked her not responding with anything and I've informed my r/c of the situation and the campus is now on Lookout in case she pops up still I have a couple of weeks left so for now I'm in no real danger I may never be but I'm not pressing my luck pretending nothing might happen I will update if there's any more developments [Music] I awoke my vision blurry the room around me was dark and the only source of light seemed to be alone candle upon the dark mahogany table in front of me that was strapped to my seat and couldn't move there was one other chair to my left with no one in it there was no light than simply one door across from me I yelled for help but received no response I shuffled in my chair hoping it might move or a better yet topple over it stood fast and I realized I was stuck there I called out again with panic growing in my voice hello is anyone here after a few minutes I heard a muffled voice finally respond just a moment my dear dinner is almost ready the person said the voice sounded male but I could tell little else about him I could only sit and wonder what he meant by dinner I also could not recall how I came to be here all I knew was my head was pounding and the last thing that I remember was having drinks with my friends for girls night I had not been out of the house since my mother passed away last month and they all agreed I needed to get out of my head for a little while at that particular moment all I wanted was to get out of that chair I tried moving again in the pain post from one of my legs I cringed as it shot up my thigh I tried to lean back and see what the cause of my suffering could be but it was no use I was bound to tightly to my seat I cried out for help again but my pleas were cut short as the door swung open and light filled the room a tall pale man stepped out from what appears to be a kitchen the fluorescents behind him blinded me from his appearance to begin with but he soon stepped in to allow the door to close ah you're awake good I'll bring you some wine the man said his black hair had been slicked back and he wore a white double-breasted jacket with an apron wrapped around his waist it appeared I would be the unwilling guest of chef crazy he disappeared again into the kitchen only to return a few moments later with the bottle of wine and two glasses they set them adjacent to one another and filled them carefully then he lifted the bottle slightly and turned the label toward me this is Pinot Noir 1956 it will bear well with our meal and I hope you enjoy them both a smile curled behind his words he looking down at my secured frame then he tapped his palm against his head as if he could have forgotten before stating silly me you will need help with your drink he picked up the glass and brought it to my lips I turned my face away and stared intently at him from my peripheral I grounded him what is this he set the glass down and wiped his hands on a small black and white hand towel that rested at his hip he gave a disappointed sigh while leaning down I felt his fingers brush against my cheek but I quickly pulled away you see I do enjoy cooking I always have but I am told I am not very good at it he said Wow emoting with his hands I usually stick to the simple recipes and I am working on perfecting them I know you want to know what we are having but you have to be patient I would really hate to ruin the surprise the words fell from his lips easily and as soon as they were done he turned to walk away the whole thing unnerved me he sounded too comfortable and must have done this all before before I could speak again he had faded into the kitchen I began looking around the room for any possible means of escape but all I could see was the table set in the candle there were two windows but large crimson curtains covered them and let no light through I tried to move the chair once more and again I felt pain pulsed through my lower body the chair wasn't moving and I couldn't stand trying to make it my chest became tight and I felt as though I might hyperventilate I could barely contain the feeling of desperation I could feel the warmth of teardrops cascading down my cheeks I had been with my friends all night I never took a drink from a stranger I must have been drugged but I have no idea how or when it have occurred I had only had two Cosmopolitan's that I could remember my internal conversation was interrupted by a smell wafting through the air it was familiar but I couldn't quite put my finger on it my captor arrived again pushing a service cart with a silver tray that was covered he moved the tray from the car to the table before pushing the car to the side his hand reached for the covering lifting it quickly and shouting in a fake Italian accent voila the sudden noise made me jump my eyes shifted to the dish that revealed pail winding noodles nodded into a pile with red chunky sauce that included ground meat I had been abducted to have a spaghetti dinner with the psycho I looked at him my eyes furrowed and narrowed he was giving me the cheesiest grin I had ever seen it truly looked pleased with himself I hope you like it he beamed it's my best dish I don't know what made this man think I would be putting anything he brought me into my mouth but within moments he was wrapping strands of pasta around a fork and guiding it toward me I turned away again before speaking I'm not eating that I quickly closed my lips together and cut my eyes at him he lowered the fork and a smile faded I think you would like it if you tried he murmured it's good I promise if you don't believe me he paused and pushed the fork into his mouth they chewed for a moment before speaking again see delicious he scooped more onto the fork and twisted the strings around again and leaned toward me no I yelled just get me her this chair and get me out of this place the fork was set upon the plate and his hands rested on his hips how about this he mused if you would take a few bites of my pasta I will let you up from the chair his tongue raised to signify a question along with his eyebrows I thought for a moment as my eyes toward him I had no real way to make him let me go and maybe this was my only way out I just wasn't sure if I should because he ate it it doesn't mean something might not be wrong with it even something as simple as him now washing his hands could make me sick how well was the meat cooked I could get E coli or salmonella he had said earlier he was a bad cook I could be allergic to something in it I didn't even know what was in it well he interrupted my thought process his voice growing more annoyed fine I said with a sigh of defeat I had given in and I could only hope that this wouldn't be my last meal he clapped his hands together and gave a little giggle before turning to grab the fork again the sauce dribbled from the thin strands of pasta as it came closer just the sight of it tuned his hands made my stomach turn a little I opened my mouth slightly and he placed the portion within I closed my mouth and eyes at the same time and prayed to myself it rolled about between my teeth for a moment and when I opened my eyes he was giving me that stupid grin again surprisingly the food was good really good as a matter of fact I chewed every bit and gave a gulping swallow my eyes probably gave away my enjoyment and he went for another fork fall he brought it quickly and pressed it toward my face I hesitated but this honestly was the best spaghetti I'd ever eaten after I had consumed half the plates I finally remembered that the whole point was to taste it in order to be set free okay it was good but I really liked to be out of this chair now I gave him a stern tone he frowned a little bit but set the fork back down alright a deal is a deal his voice sounding disappointed he approached and removed the straps holding my upper body to the back of the chair then knelt down to release my legs a sound of metal clanking was heard I could only assume he was unfastening whatever held the chair in place first then I could feel his hand brush against my thigh as the binding across my legs was loosened and allowed to fall to the side as soon as I was free I attempted to stand up hot searing pain echoed up from my legs to my spine and now that I was loose I can move back enough to see why long strips of skin muscle had been removed from my thigh region and been covered slightly with bandages the cloth had been soaked through with my blood but I could tell that this wound was deep I'm sorry he frowned the numbness will wear off in a few hours I accidentally used too much anesthetic I have always been bad with measurements my body shook and tears rolled down my face I touched at the bandages my legs not wanting to move I found myself spouting anything that came to my mind why what is this who are you Oh God my legs the man simply dried his hands in the towel again and watched me his face expressionless when I noticed him staring at me I leaned forward and the words came out what have you done to me he stepped forward and picked up the plate they began taking bites of it I told you I had been trying to perfect my cooking the words were slightly garbled since he was spurting them through mouthfuls of pasta then a thought crept into my head the entire time I had been devouring the delicacy I had not even let myself consider that it hadn't smelled like any spaghetti I had ever had and definitely didn't taste the same my eyes slowly widened and I could feel vomit rising up my throat I hunched over and the rancid dinner splattered across the floor the man jumped back from the mess quickly and sat the plate on the cart did my spaghetti not agree with your stomach he asked as he rushed to wipe the remnants off my face don't worry there is plenty more on since he won't be going anywhere anytime soon why not have a few more bites the question came with that same sick smile I spat at him and tumbled on the floor my body screamed at me as I slammed hard onto the wooden floor I cried out before yelling no I'm getting out of here I going home and you're done he smiled at me and came closer he picked up the chair and placed it at the table then leaned over to try to help me up but I refused he shook his head and leaned closer the deal was I would let you out of the chair I never said anything about letting you go I leaned back and turned for the kitchen my breath held tight in my mouth at the thought of being trapped here with this man as he passed through the kitchen door I began to crawl toward it after him the wood splintered into my knees and my muscles cried for me to stop the door shut in front of me and when I reached out to press upon it I heard the distinctive sound of metal sliding upon metal he had engaged the lock and when I touched the wooden entry it didn't budge I was trapped again and when I turned back to look at the window I heard the man speak once again don't bother with the windows they have been barred shut he might've zooss sit back down at the table and finish your food that was a week ago as I finished my story the detective sat scribbling notes in a pad as he sat next to my hospital bed I lay there covered from the neck down bandages the pen stopped moving long enough for him to ask so how did you escape he took a little from me each night and I thought it was going to die I lost consciousness and when I woke up I had been dropped off here I tried to move my hand when speaking but it hurt too much he asked if I could remember where I was and I simply shook my head I had been unconscious both coming and going from the place nothing about the room or the kitchen looked familiar I know I wasn't being much help why do you think he let you go then he looked down and started writing again as he questioned I thought to myself for a moment and said the only thing I could possibly think of he needed fresh meat [Music] many places have what's called a ghost tour where you go around a town and stop at locations that are supposedly haunted of course being around Halloween I was really excited to go on a tour of a city I didn't know much about the city has the nickname of the Halloween capital of the world which I thought was just a title until what happened during the tour we started out at about 10:00 p.m. over the first couple of places nothing really happened and till we got to a house where a doorbell had been known to ring by itself this house is very old and you have to really work to ring the bell and there is no way the wind could press the Bell when we were done at the house and started to walk away the doorbell rang no one was near the door as we were all walking away and we're about ten feet from the door a while later the tour was close to an end when we stopped at this cement coin in the middle of the sidewalk the tour guide was talking about the history of it when all of a sudden my hair is pulled so hard that my head tilted backwards and my eyes started to tear up because it hurts so bad on the way home my family and I are talking about the tour one I asked if anyone else had their hair pulled or experienced anything else but I was the only one the let's read podcast is brought to you by care of care of is a monthly subscription vitamin service that delivers completely personalized vitamin and supplement packs right to your door care of fun online quiz asks you about your diet health goals and lifestyle choices and takes only five minutes to find out what vitamins and supplements you specifically need utilizing the free online quiz I realized as a night owl I haven't been getting quite enough Sun therefore missing out on precious vitamin D definitely top on my priority list of vitamins for myself and I know they'll help you identify your personal needs as well your vitamins get delivered right to your door and personalized easy to remember daily packs perfect for a busy on-the-go lifestyle it was so easy to identify exactly what each vitamin was and exactly and when to take it and also for 25% off your first month the personalized care of vitamins visit take care of calm and enter promo code lrp that's 25% off your first month the personalized care of vitamins at take care of calm promo code LRP [Music] this happened to me just last night and I'm still a little shaken up by it where I live it's winter meaning it's still dark outside when I leave for work in the morning and gets dark again while I'm on my way home last night's I'm on my way back from work and considering it's my friend's birthday the sign will get off the train and a few stations early in swing pass a local shopping center to pick up a gift and some groceries for dinner this suburb is generally known for being a little bit sketchy after dark when the cooked units come out to play but is close enough to the city to have very accessible public transport I've never seen anything too awful mainly just your garden-variety street harassment a few brazenly public narcotic dealings and a couple of arrests now and then I spent a while trying on clothes and grabbing my shopping and a bottle of wine for later by the time I head outside it's probably dark and I make my way to the closest bus stop as I'm walking there I realize it's not as populated or well-lit as I anticipated and it's in front of a number of closed cafes and shops unlike my usual stop near the probably police patrolled train station the bus drives past as I'm walking there and I figure I'll check the timetable and walk back to the other stop just to be safe for context I'm a five-six 135 pound woman and I generally tend to avoid being out alone at night especially since there have been a number of public crimes against women in my city that received widespread media attention it's only about ten minutes until the next bus when a dark car pulls up at the bus stop I assume it's someone there to pick up a friend or a family member considering this is after all a bus stop and you're not legally allowed to park there I realized the passenger side window is rolled down odd considering that it's freezing outside out of nowhere the older man in the driver seat yells out this is the ride you ordered get in assume he's talking to someone perhaps behind me is some waiting at a bus stop not for an uber I look up from my phone and there's no one around me at this point I'm startled because when as a legitimate uber driver yelled out to a random woman on the street to get in this car or had someone else in the car with them I responded with no mainly had a surprise get in the car he demands okay now I'm freaked out there's no way I'm willingly getting into that vehicle I remain at the bus stop for a few seconds tossing up my options this is until both men exit the car which is still running and begin walking in my direction nope I dropped my cigarettes and start walking frantically towards the shopping center praying the lights will change before they get there I don't care if they have non ulterior motives my potential safety matters more than Naya offending them I duck behind another bus shelter looking back as I do the younger man is still on the other side of the road waiting for the traffic depart the driver out of sight pretending to hail an oncoming bus I'd duck until the shopping center I take a few seconds to compose myself Don my scarf and hat obscuring my distinctive red hair and removed my jacket switching it for one I just purchased while still inside I order an actual uber glancing constantly between my phone and the entrance the minutes until the driver arrives pass excruciating ly slow until I make my way back outside and maneuver myself between a group people waiting out front a million thoughts are passing through my mind I always like to think I could handle myself well and potentially stressful situations and not let my emotions get the better of me but now I'm regretting not checking the dark car's license plate or getting a better look at the men in the vehicle just in case I practically fly into the uber barreling my bags and before me scanning the cars around me what fun being followed by just being paranoid either way my head is turned backwards the entire way home watching ferny dark cars with two men in the front by the time I arrive at the end of my street I'm confident there's no one tailing us but still nervous and shaking nonetheless again I run from the car to the front door fumbling with keys and shaking all the while before slamming the door behind me and bursting into tears I'm met by my startled partner whose face turns from excited to see me too incredibly concerned despite being home with doors locked behind me I continued to panic the adrenaline is overwhelming and my brain seems to think now is a good time to remind me of an article I read in the local paper recently about two offenders who escaped from prison who I recall were known to frequent the suburban those surrounding the one in which I just fled from in a paranoid frenzy I feel sick to my stomach tears streamed down my face I managed to recount the events of the past 15 or so minutes frantically searching the internet for any information regarding the convicted creeps all the while considering calling the police I only managed to calm down after I fail to find any recent news stories the men were both apprehended a month earlier I don't know who these men were nor their intentions but I can only assume it was something sinister I continued to tell myself it was just a coincidence then find a logical explanation for what happened as I have to wake up the next morning for work and walk the 20-minute route to the train station alone [Music] so this happened when I was eight or nine years old my parents had just given me the house keys so I could get back from school on my own this was a normal day I was getting back from school with my friend who lived in my neighborhood we passed by a lady who looked pretty normal so we just ignored her while we were talking someone stepped in between us it was the lady and it wasn't even an a-hole move when you want to pass by two people walking together so you go in between them and walk away she was walking along with us as if though she was part of the conversation from the beginning we started to walk faster but she just kept up with us finally I was across the street from my home I said goodbye to my friend who went to his house and the lady just walked away in a different direction I opened the gate steps into our front yard and closed the gate when he opened the door to go inside my house my dad was just going out to see what was going on because he saw everything through the window I told my parents what happened and when we looked out the window that lady was trying to open our gate my dad rushed out to get her out of here he asked her why she was going with me and my friend and why she was trying to get into our yard she said my little child Barbara went into your yard and accidentally locked herself in here I'm here to get her back my name is Alex not Barbara this lady thought I was her kid or something so she decided to attempt to break into my house my dad explained to her that her child is not here and I'm just his daughter going back from school he got her to get away from our house and she was still standing on the other side of the road I looked out the window she looked directly at me dad called his friend who apparently was this lady's landlord his friend said that she was always messed up and apparently there was a case when she was running down the street with a knife his friend called the police to come when the police came my parents were not to explain what happened they wanted me to stay in the house because they didn't want me to be too close to that lady so I was watching everything through the windows the last time I saw her she was getting put into an ambulance [Music] this started towards the end of my eighth-grade year basically my friend and this guy who was following her on Instagram and he would comment on all of her posts telling her how pretty she is no that wasn't super weird but we found it kind of creepy because this dude was obviously in his late 50s and she was 13 and then he also started messaging her everyday nothing overtly creepy just mainly small talk at first eventually he finds my page and starts commenting but I don't post pictures of myself online much and basically all of it was just doodles and pictures of my dog now this guy's account also mainly consisted of arts and most of it was actually pretty good so I didn't mind him commenting on my art at first eventually though he also started to message me and try talking to me now I have pretty bad anxiety and I hate coming across his means so I wouldn't really respond with words unless he asked me a direct question mainly what I did was send just a heart or a smiley face stupid I know so this continues for a few weeks and I learned that this guy can randomly blow up I learned this because I had responded to a message from him asking my age I told him I was 13 and then put my phone down because I had to help do dishes when I came back to my phone I had like ten messages from him asking why I wasn't responding and also telling me he was just joking that was super confused at first as to what he could have sent that would have made me mad and basically he had responded about how both me and my friends look like we were 18 I found that to be kind of creepy but I didn't want to confront him about it so I told him it was fine and that I was just doing my chores and the conversation moved on and I made an excuse to stop messaging him for the day one really creepy thing he did was when I posted the picture of my grandma's dog which is a Corgi and put in the caption how much I love that dog he liked that photo and then a day or so later he's me a picture of a corgi he drew for me I thanked him for it and then he asked me to tell him my address so he could send it to me I refused but he kept asking me telling me that it was a gift and he wanted me to have it I had to send a message explaining that it was a family ruled that I was not allowed to tell him my address and for him to drop it eventually after a bunch of little creepy things my friend blocked him so he started ranting about it to me saying how she shouldn't be creeped out by him and he was just trying to be nice and and that if she had a problem with anything he was saying how she should have just told him he basically continued on like that for the next few days and then he pointed out how he was following her backup account and now he was gonna start talking to her on that one so I immediately told my friend about all of this and she blocked him on her backup as well it's amazing to what extent these weirdos will go to when I was in kindergarten I met this woman I'll call Mary apparently I actually knew her for a while before my first memories of her because she helped out in my Sunday School class I don't really remember that it's just what was told to me by her and my mother the first time I remember meeting Mary was when I was walking through the hall of our church I knew a lot of the adults there and generally felt safe I was walking down a hallway when this woman stuck her head out of a supply closet and started talking to me asking me to come over and started give me the whole do you were a good kid why don't you help me with something sort of spiel and she knew my name without me telling her that was about fiver had just turned six and particularly aware of stranger danger but couldn't decide if I should be creeped out or not there was this strange lady's seemingly hiding in a closet asking me to come over to her what was that not sketchy but this was church and church was supposed to be safe somehow she managed to coax me over to the closet it turned out that she was trying to fill in the birthdays of the kids in my class so that they could be given little gifts when it was their birthday and she assumed that I would know all there face for some reason when she found out I didn't she settled for asking me when my birthday was I got kind of cagey because I knew better than to give out information about myself and that was one of the specific things my mother told me not to divulge to strangers but then she claimed to already know that my birthday was in April wrong in fact that's about six months off I told her she was wrong but didn't feel right about telling her the truth partly because I felt like her false guests and offers the future birthday gifts was some kind of ploy but when I wouldn't divulge my real birthday she called me a liar and then she threatened to tell all my teachers what a liar I was if I didn't tell her when my real birthday was that was the point when I ran to go find my mom and explain to her that there was this strange woman in the supply closet who was asking me for personal information and threatened to get me in trouble if I didn't tell her she came to confront this weirdo only to realize that they already knew each other the woman Mary was someone who helped around the church and basically everyone knew her Mary laughed off my claims and assured my mom that I was exaggerating and of course she would never threaten a kid with something like that and my mother believed her my mom explained the fact that my birthday was indeed not in April but came away from the conversation with the idea that I was paranoid and just overreacting to someone asking me for my birth month either right before that or after that I had another incident with this woman but didn't realize at the time that she was the same person similar to before only not in a closet this woman Mary came up and struck up a conversation with me saying that she knew how much I love to help out my teachers and wouldn't I like to be able to help out even more the obvious answer was yes long story short she was organizing some kind of teachers conference in this cabin way out in the woods they weren't allowed to have al its ein but she was worried that a normal cardboard sign wouldn't be visible at night so she had decided that the best solution would be to take one of the little kids from the church dress them up in an aim costume and have them stand next to the sign for hours using a small switch to turn a lit in when cars approached and then turn it off again so that it wasn't by definition a continuously lit sign this woman should have worked in sales I did not see anything wrong with this scenario and excitedly went to tell my mother about this fantastic opportunity I just been given to help someone she was much less enthused pointing out that this will be outside in October when the average temperature at night is under 55 degrees Fahrenheit I would be standing outside alone freezing my butt off and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes just to flip a switch so that she could bend the rules about not having an electric sign there would apparently be no one there to make sure I was safe from wild animals or any human predator who happened to drive along and spot a random kid out by themselves in the middle of the night my mom tracked down Marion gave her a pretty thorough overview of her opinion about the whole thing Mary said something like well fine I can just who get some other kid to do it then which prompted my mom to go to the pastor and tell him what this lady was trying to do he was a nice guy with three girls of his own and put a stop to the whole plan immediately I could tell Mary was upset with me afterwards for having supposedly told on her and putting an end to this weird scheme of hers but since I didn't really know her I didn't care of course after those two incidents all of my teachers became a lot more chili toward me and one especially tactless woman flat-out told me that she had been warned about me come to find out that Mary had gotten her revenge on me for effectively embarrassing her twice by making good on her threat to tell everyone I was a troublemaker and a liar even though by that point my mother had already told her that I've been telling her the truth about my birthday not being in April what a witch I'd like to say it ended there but of course didn't my family stayed in the area and she continued helping with various social functions so inevitably we ran into each other several more times one of the most outrageous things she ever did I was 12 and my mother had decided to enroll me in some kind of VBS summer school sort of thing surprise surprise Mary was the main coordinator this place was so screwed up not perverted or anything but just the sheer magnitude of poor planning was incredible lunches were provided but it was weird stuff like go-gurt and slimy pears that had a texture like raw fish basically all the kids hated everything they served us on one occasion I was served SpaghettiOs and tried to make the best out of it because at least it was better than the pears only to find out that Mary had slipped gummy worms in before microwaving them and they had melted into the SpaghettiOs when she found out I hadn't liked her prank she ridiculed me for not being able to take a joke in insisted that I eat it anyways at some point it had also been decided that the schedule could not be flexible to any degree all age groups were expected to get something like half an hour outside every day bear in mind the state where this took place has unpredictable sometimes extreme weather so this included days when it was pouring rain out and our breath was fogging up in front of our faces they ditch one of those little event canopy tents and force us to sit outside under it in a little plastic chair and so our half-hour of outdoor play was up even this one girl whose father had told the teachers beforehand not to make her go outside because she had a fever naturally she got worse they called him to come pick her up and he chewed the teachers out before taking her home it also included days where the temperatures exceeded a hundred degrees Fahrenheit we'd be forced to line up alongside the buildings so that we could stand in the shade of the eaves of the roof because it was physically too hot to be in the Sun and none of us had access to water sunscreen I wish I was joking about this we had three kids dropped from heatstroke in the same day and have to be taken by ambulance to the hospital the sheriff personally came out and gave the teachers a massive tongue lashing threatening the shut the place down if any other kids came into the hospital from there of course then they decided it was okay to bend their rolls and keep everyone indoors instead of forcing them outside there is a point to me mentioning all of this and that is so that you understand the context behind what happened next my mother was working overtime and Mary had volunteered to drive me to this summer camp since she was there every day on this day she had her niece and nephews in the back seat with me where this place was it was out near the edge of town and mostly surrounded by crop fields which weren't in use the area had a decent amount of traffic but there weren't many buildings close by on the left-hand side of the building there was nothing but fields maybe two or three acres on the right-hand side a tiny farmhouse and beyond that to a pawn shop and then a gas station so I was in the back of Mary's van with these other kids and we haven't look out as we're passing the pawn shop which hasn't open yet and there's this scraggly bearded man stalking around outside with a rifle or shotgun in his hands not like gee I wonder if it's open so I can sell my gun but like he was out of the owner and thought an intruder had broken in or he was the intruder and was in the process of breaking in we all started telling her in a panic about this guy and she just tells us to be quiet and then tells me that she knows I put them up to it and that when we get there she's gonna tell all the teachers not to listen to me that day inexplicably the schedule that was never changed unless the sheriff threatened the teachers was randomly changed that my class was sent outside immediately instead of later in the afternoon and the doors to the building were locked so that we couldn't go back inside even to use the restroom I spent like an hour fearing for my life because I knew that if that guy robbed the pawn shop and tried to escape by foot there was nowhere for him to run to the head cover except our building I even beg to call my mom and Mary refused to let me anywhere near the phone saying that my mom had better things to do to be bothered by my stories so yeah basically the coordinator of the summer school changed the whole schedule for the day and locked a bunch of kids outside just to get back at me for truthfully reporting seeing a creepy man with a gun nearby and also forbade me from contacting my parents what she was never supposed to do my mom was ticked when she picked me up and learned that I had been forbidden from calling her when I felt I needed to although she didn't realize the full context of the situation until later when I had a chance to explain it better it doesn't even end there although I wish it did because the last part was the worst series events that had ever happened to me I guess it was kind of a perfect storm from six to ten years old I had been best friends with this boy whom I'll call Michael not boyfriend/girlfriend but real true best friends I don't think we ever really argued about anything except maybe his father who seemed nice but always seemed to try to spin whatever I said into some kind of innuendo so that he could complain about me to my parents like getting on my case about having mentioned the term pussy-willow once or claiming that the word pooter was grossly offensive when he knew that was the alternative my parents made me use instead of fart I got some weird vibes from him but not enough to warrant his own post Michael and I were inseparable up until his family decided to move three states away after which they only occasionally dropped in to visit every couple years when I was 14 they dropped in a visit again and so on Saturday I was invited to stay over at the house where they were staying while they were in town to catch up with him I also had been friends with a girl I'll call Julie who was my age and Michael had been friends with Julie's younger brother Nate who was his age so Julian Nate and their parents were also there visiting with Michael and his family I had grown apart from Julie due to other reasons but having everyone back together was fantastic I was on cloud nine all day Julie's younger brother had been a bit of a handful when he was little he had temper tantrums kicked small animals randomly screamed at me multiple times and would sometimes cry for no reason while claiming that somebody else had hurt him he was severely in my opinion bullied by his sisters so I never took any of it personally are really considered it as fault since I hadn't seen much of him or his sister in years by this point I had no idea how he was getting along but because he was so much more grown-up four plus years had passed I assumed he'd just grown out of it that afternoon we were all playing tag in the front yard which was sort of a u-shape and surrounded by hedges at some point I lost sight of the others I guess they had gone inside or something I was at the end of the you that was near the garage door playing fetch with Michaels dog in this big walking stick when I heard Julie's mom call my name from the other end of the U which was near the houses front door I took the stick because I thought leaving it lying around would be rude and started running around this you apparently when Julie's mom had opened the door and called my name Nate had darted out the door and come running around the you to come find me only he didn't say anything and I didn't know he was there we were both closer to the inside of the bend and when we reached the middle there was no chance to stop we ran straight into each other he landed flat on his back and I nearly fell over to his chin hit me hard in the collar though we just stared at each other and shock for a second finally I reached a hand forward to help him up and asked if he was okay immediately his eyes filled with tears he started screaming seemingly in pain and then absolute terror and turned around and bolted back the weight come I knew he had to be bruised at least as badly as me but was also totally confused the way he was crying now is afraid he might have broken an arm or a leg or something but if he was hurt that bad then how could he run so fast or if he was afraid what was he afraid of I ran after him feeling like there was an axe murderer behind me or something I reached the door but nobody was there and it was closed and locked I knocked and Michael's mother answered it she saw me still holding the walking stick and looked confused but let me inside I could hear Nate screaming and crying in the kitchen his mother had him up on the counter was looking at him trying to figure out what was wrong with him she seemed just as confused and scared about the whole thing as I was and then he saw me in immediate pointed and scream she beat me with a stick he just screamed the same thing over and over I didn't know what to do but seeing me seemed to make him hysterical so I left him with his mother in the kitchen I wanted to go find Michael and the others but Michael's mom refused to let me go downstairs where he and the others were so I just stood by myself in the foyer next to the door and try not to panic maybe Nate hadn't grown out of crying wolf about other people hurting him but this was way different from what he'd been like when he did that as a little kid this time he seemed hysterical he seemed like he legitimately believed what he was saying I had been holding the stick when we ran into each other even though I certainly didn't hit him with it maybe he didn't understand what had really happened I tried to go back into the kitchen thinking I should try to explain to his mom what had happened but Michaels father stopped me I don't even know where he came from I must have been really freaked out because from my perspective it seemed like he just appeared in my way he told me not to go into the kitchen I tried to explain that I needed to talk to Nate's mother and explained very shakily that Nate was telling her I'd attacked him so Michaels father asked did you I told him no of course not he pointed out that I didn't seem to be hurt at all which I refuted telling him I got in my own bruises from running into Nate he asked for me to show him I said no he asked why I pointed out unnecessarily I think that I was a 14 year old girl and so I couldn't just take my shirt off the way a 12 year old boy could he asked me why again and persisted in stating that I needed to show him and that if I didn't he couldn't help me because I refused to give him any reason to think that I was innocent this miserable sod who had known me growing up and had allegedly been a close friend of my family for years and knew that I had never hit another kid in my life was essentially trying to blackmail me into undressing in front of them I still feel angry just thinking about it because the entire time my family had known this he had always come off as this perfect kind and caring father and he always found things to nitpick and whatever I said even as a first grader who didn't know what anything was somehow I was allegedly spouting all kinds of innuendos all the time and now this I have learned as an adult that people who talk excessively about a topic generally do so because it occupies their own mind too frequently and it makes me wonder if maybe that wasn't his problem all along if not I don't know how to explain anything all I know is that night it was like everyone I knew had gone insane at the same time but I did say no to him and went to the kitchen more to get away from him than anything else Nate's mother was still frazzled but was starting to seem more exacerbated than anything else somehow he still hadn't stopped crying I asked her to please call my mom to come pick me up that hadn't been the plan the plan that I was to stay until after dinner but I couldn't handle the situation anymore she could see that I was shaking and agreed I asked Michael's mother if I could say goodbye to any of the others but she didn't want me anywhere near them my mother was tense and quiet all the way home and I was afraid of what she might have been told over the phone she asked me once if there was anything I wanted to tell her I panicked and said no the next day was Sunday I habitually stayed with the adults instead of going to the teens class because the teacher who was coincidentally Mary's husband picked on me sometimes in retrospect I should have spoken up about that but I was an insecure teen and thought I might be oversensitive and wasn't really sure how much of what he said could be considered harmless ribbing the end result was that I didn't see Julie so I had no idea how the situation with Nate had resolved until after church was over the phrase news spreads like wildfire doesn't even begin to fit the bill it was like everyone had developed telepathy I overheard part of the story from Nate's mother while she was telling it to Mary Nate had continued to insist even after I left that I had savagely attacked and beat him for no reason he had some pretty nice green bruises that seemed to back up his claims I did too right on my collar bone and shaped exactly like a Chinn Nate's mother was completely unnerved by how sincere he seemed and was torn between believing him because he was so grown-up now because there were those bruises because he had been legitimately too scared to come to church in case he saw me again or not believing him because I seemed so scared too because she had their decency to remember what kind of kid I had been growing up well he hadn't been there Juli had told all the girls in my class that I attacked her brother Michael told me that he didn't know if he believed that I had done it or not and his parents refused to let him stay in contact with me because they were both certain I was guilty Julian Nate's parents said wanted to talk to my mother to try to resolve whatever had happened because they were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt but they couldn't find my mom and didn't want to take the time looking for her because they had left Nate home alone and were eager to get back to him so instead they told the whole story about what had happened to Mary trusting that she would convey the whole situation to my mother that was not what happened Mary changed the story now it was Nate's parents herself and Michael's parents who all knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was guilty with the added insinuation that it might not have been just an assault because apparently that wasn't good enough for her yeah she decided to play that card just for the sheer fun of it but the time I just started to realize that the issue with Nate was still an issue half the people in the church had already been told what an awful despicable person I was the head of the youth ministry personally sat me down to tell me how unacceptable my behavior was I had former teachers I hadn't seen since first grade coming out of the woodwork to tell me how disappointed they were and me everyone flat-out refused to hear my side of the story they already knew everything they said nothing I said could make up for what I did Marian already told them that I was a rebellious lying kid a troubled child and had stuck to that story over the years including during the pawnshop incident so it seemed like there was precedence she'd been building off the same claims about me for eight years by this point why would anyone believe in a lying rebellious troubled teenager over a charismatic adult that was always doing her part to help the community Mary was so disgusted with me her words that she refused to speak to me she specifically told her yarn to everyone but my mother having learned earlier on that my mom was not going to stand for baseless rumors and accusations about me Mary was of the opinion that my mom was in denial about what an awful kid I really was Mary's husband my current youth teacher somehow snowed me into thinking that my mom knew about everything and that I shouldn't try to talk to her about it because she was so angry with me that she would basically explode on me I spent the next two and a half years despised by almost everyone I knew all the adults I knew were against me except for the pastor who refused to take sides and my mother Mary's husband continued to make snide remarks and insinuations whenever he thought they were vague enough that other adults wouldn't know what he was talking about all the kids I knew who were in my age range shunned me even when new kids came in who didn't know any better they were quickly told to stay away from me ruining any chance I had of making new friends to replace the ones I'd lost even random strangers in the grocery store would glare daggers at me sneer at me or just watch me with creepy disapproval the shyness I always had became full-fledged social anxiety complete with what I suspect was selective mutism because I was afraid of virtually all the adults I knew afraid of the little jabs they'd make at me afraid because I didn't know if my mom knew or not and was afraid to find out if she knew if it was true that she was just so indifferent in reality that even though I knew she loved me for some reason she still let everyone pick on me it seems so stupid now that I was afraid of talking her about it if there were any one thing in my life I would choose to change I would have told her immediately but that isn't what happened so I lived with it by myself there were some mornings where I would just spend an hour in the shower crying my eyes out because I didn't want to have to go out and deal with it all over again I don't know if you'll know what I mean when I say that having other people expect you to feel guilty is oppressive in and of itself when you laugh or smile or just feel normal but they believe you should be ashamed of something and don't like that you aren't for a while but I tried just not remembering what had happened it is possible to make yourself forget something but don't ever do that to yourself once you have a memory you can't really destroy it the best you can do is bury it part of your mind will still always know it's there I still got all the same judgmental looks and hurtful remarks I just no longer understood why people were acting that way and I had all kinds of awful nightmares until I finally dug those memories back up and face them again I got over it but slowly so many people who had known me the entire time I was growing up had immediately assumed the worst just because some gossip had been told to them I never knew who had been told and who hadn't every time I thought people had forgotten Mary's husband would make some new cutting remark or someone else would and I'd lose whatever sense of security I'd started to scrape together it was only in my early 20s a few years after we moved out of state that I finally found the courage to bring up the subject with my mother which led to some interesting revelations it turned out that Nate's mother hadn't divulged anything about what had happened over the phone my mom had been tense on the drive home because of something totally unrelated to me and had asked if I wanted to talk not because she thought I was guilty about anything but because she could tell I was under stress of some kind Mary's husband had lied through his teeth about turn knowing what was going on or being angry about it she had never known this was why Mary's husband always tiptoed around the subject in her presence because he knew she didn't know and wanted to keep it that way it was practically a conspiracy my mom the one person who had actually had a right to know what had happened had been denied the opportunity to try to make things right because everyone else was so busy judging me for themselves and Nate's parents the two people who had actually had a semi balanced view of that night had no idea how bad things had gotten after they left that day because they didn't live in our area anymore and weren't there to see it if they had I'd like to think that they would have put a stop to it they were good people that's the end I guess I don't have nightmares anymore and I feel more or less and different to the situation now it's over a decade behind me at this point but marry end your husband holy crap I never want to meet either of you again for as long as I live all of the stress and fear and heartache I've mentioned here and that's still not even mentioning how much you bad enough my mom behind her back gushed over her cancer scared because it gave you something to gossip over and generally treated us both like dirt I never want to meet Michael's father again either because whether he is just some sort of deviant or just too dense to realize how wildly inappropriate he was being doesn't really matter at this point either way it was still beyond creepy and wrong never meeting Mike who again is still kind of painful to think about but I guess it can't really be helped I even tried contacting him on Facebook a few years ago but to no avail I already know Julie and Nate never want to meet me again I guess that makes this sort of a round robin let's not meet when I was 16 I got a job working as a barista at the local Caribou Coffee I was in high school so I work closing shifts my first job was at a hospitals so I was used to nights and I thought that caribou would be less crazy than a hospital on my very first shift at 9:00 at night the store was completely empty the girl who was training me decided to go in the back and do the dishes she went outside and smoked by the trash leaving me alone to run the store we closed at 9:30 and there was Tuesday's so she didn't think anyone would come in well a few minutes after she left the sky comes in is a giant I'm six six he was taller than me and looks like Hagrid scruffy beard curly hair built like a barrel but he had a ring of either psoriasis or acne around his face he's got those eyes that shook me to the core crazy Charles Manson eyes he's completely drenched in sweat and he can hardly breathe he comes to the counter and grabs a ginger ale right out of the cooler opens it and pounds the whole thing in one go he takes another one opens it looks me dead in the eyes and says I don't feel so hot BAM collapses to the ground I kept trying to call my coworker over the headset but she was out of range I was so scared I was gonna call 911 was shut off the store phone was in the back room but I wanted to make sure that this guy was alive first so I run around the counter to try to help him I kept asking him are you okay are you okay do you want me to call an ambulance but he just kept shaking his head I started to get up to go get the phone to call the police and like he read my mind he grabbed me by the arm pulled me down to his face and said they couldn't help me no one could help me I'm fighting a spiritual battle and I'm losing well my idiot self decides ok let's just hear this guy out so I get him off the ground and sit him in a chair and ask him what's wrong he starts rambling on and on about his mom and his stepdad I kind of disassociated so I didn't get everything my heart was pounding because I had a feeling that this guy was not only crazy but that he would hurt me in a heartbeat so after he tells me his tale I just shrugged and said you do you man you got to do what you got to do he lit up and gave me a big hug and said you're right thanks for the help and he left well a week later while in my current events class I pulled up the local paper and guess who's on the front page this guy's mug shot with a headline man strangles stepfather to death in the street this happened about 15 years ago but it feels just like yesterday it's crazy how fast time goes by once you become an adult and start paying monthly bills I had moved into a really scary part of town in KCMO my father being from an even worse part of town in New York would always justify living in our neighborhood and made sure everyone knew how much worse his old neighborhood was as if that made this neighborhood a good one typical New Yorker anyways when we first moved to this area I just finished middle school and started high school now if anyone here is from Casey they should be able to agree that Casey MOS D is just crap it's known all over the state as being pretty much the worst district available the district isn't just bad because of their academic failures but because they honestly don't care about anything mostly the students in their safety school started really early in the morning so in order to get there in time for free breakfast which every one of the students took part in our buses got there so early that two months it was still dark out when we would walk to our bus stops when I got my bus assignments I couldn't believe how far my bus stop was especially since I was the only student that caught the bus at that stop so it's not like they couldn't have given me a stop closer to my house when my mom tried to ask them to move it they refused so for the four years I attended my school I walked five and a half blocks in the dark to catch the school bus now I have to mention that across the street from us there are no houses in fact in my neighborhood there are a ton of blocks that are just empty lots where old mansions used to set from before blockbusting and white flight leaving the area to lower-income residents who were mostly african-american so on my side of the street there's a row of old run-down houses and then across the street nothing but the block before mine there were houses on both sides of the street and in one of the terrible houses a block away but facing my house lived my creepy disgusting neighbor this guy was most likely in his late 20s or early 30s and without a doubt had some sort of learning disability in fact I heard at one point he was quite normal but took so many drugs that he ended up with seizures and completely fried his brain I also caught him gross because he was he never showered he was always dirty and dripping with sweat let no one paid him any attention due to him looking and acting just as weird as the homeless people and addicts that frequently hung around the block for a long time anytime I would pass his block he would be standing outside and when he saw me he would wave often times running up to me and trying to get me to talk to him but I'll ignore him and go home everyone knew that he had a thing for me but brushed it off as being harmless due to his mental illness this often angered me because even though he wasn't all there in the head that didn't give him the right to make me feel so weirded out all the time and that was only 12 or 13 so he shouldn't be talking to me all the time or asking me to give him a hug every time he saw me who I wouldn't touch him if you hey Denis this behavior happened so often that people around the neighborhood would joke about it and just laugh when he would say something like she's my girlfriend or I'm gonna marry her one day even my parents would laugh about it rather than listening to me when I would tell them how uncomfortable he made me and how the behavior was actually getting worse the older I got fast forward to a few years later one summer morning I was woken up by my stepmom they wanted me to go to the door and give the creepy guy some loose cigarettes I guess he woke her up by banging on the front door for 15 minutes and when she answered he asked her who was home she wouldn't tell him and then he asked if he could come in she told him no and he tried to get inside so she pushed him out he didn't asked if he could just have a hug and she told him no and that he needed to leave he finally agreed to leave if she would just give him a few cigarettes so she decided to make me give them to him because of the fact that he creeped her out sure thanks Mommy Dearest I gave him the cigarettes quick and slammed the door and locked it the behavior continues but not as often as it's summer and I'm not riding the bus but when school started I had to ride the bus and almost every morning in an evening there he was then one morning it was really dark and for some reason I decided to walk to the bus in a direction that I normally didn't it was behind my house which would make the bus stop a straight shot after that except instead of him just waiting for me at his house he decided to follow me he must have been watching me the worst part about my decision was that the block I was walking towards was one of those empty blocks one side was a gigantic Church that someone had attempted to build but never finished so it was abandoned the other side was an empty lot I was walking further and further towards the middle of the block where we would be completely alone I couldn't run back home because he was in that direction and could catch me and I couldn't run further into the block because he would probably catch me and we would be in the middle of an empty city block I started to freak out I'm scared I just knew that this was it this was his opportunity this is what he had been waiting for all these years he was getting closer and closer so much closer I lost my mind I flipped out I went off I freaked all of the anger and all of the fear that I had harbored through the years came spilling out of my mouth my actions all of it I pulled my hair jumped up and down I spit I cussed I threw my shoe I wanted him to be so scared of me that he never mess with me again I started running in circles around him as he cowered literally in fear of my sudden behavior that made him feel the way he made me feel since I was 13 years old get away from me I'm crazy I howled don't you understand I'll end you if you like need to stay away from me stop following me stop talking to me stop asking me for hugs I can't stand you and if you don't stop you'll regret it he stood stunned shocked and honestly scared of me he suddenly began walking backwards towards the way he followed me Jesus girl I'm not following you I'm bi he ran away from me and honestly never bothered me or my family again later on I told everyone the story but no one really understood how scary he was they all figured he learned his lesson but then I was fine the whole time jerks [Music] so this took place when I was around 10 that live about a block away from a park as a path that leads through it and comes to a tea left leads down to a lake right leads across a wooden boardwalk around a swampy area and back to a main road I was at this park one Saturday night with a friend Charles and he was about 13 it was probably midnight Charles and I had just crossed the parking lot and were walking through the baseball fields that leads to the park when we hear a car pull up into the lot we thought it was just a car full of stoners or something of the sort and kept walking the driver turned on his brights for a few seconds and then someone rolled down a window the people in the car began shouting at us asking what we were doing if we wanted to hang out with them and go to a party we all know and just kind of shrugged it off as the car was turned off at this point we're about 3/4 of the way across the field when we heard all four doors of the car slam shut then some more indistinct shouting Charlie and I were a little freaked out and I remember joking with him saying things like wouldn't it be crazy if they came after us the four from the car began crossing the field as well we could hear them on the gravel of the baseball field at this point Charles and I were walking back which to the park watching the group the kept shouting in us to wait up for them and that they just wanted to hang out with us they all began jogging towards us now this wasn't the first time I'd been in a situation like this so I told Charles that we needed to book it so we did we took off towards the t-junction before surrounding us blocking more and more of the light the group behind us however decided we couldn't just leave like that so they chased us and they were fast as we reached junction and took a right we slowed down to cross the boardwalk quietly when we got roughly halfway through it the people behind this were at the junction as it was dark and they couldn't hear or see us they pulled the classic stop and split up except it didn't take very long we broke free of the trees and moon provided just enough light for them to see us a few shouts of over here and all four of them were hustling after us we took a right turn after the boardwalk to circle back to my house when we realized our pursuers were just about to finish crossing the swampy area I mentioned earlier plays a part here it's just off the right of the sidewalk we're on Charles and I knew we couldn't outrun them if we just went straight so we descended to dive off the path in the bushes trees and murky swamp water we ended up somewhere between knee and waist deep and muck breathing heavily covering our mouths and noses to try to be as quiet as possible the group after us started pacing up and down the sidewalk shouting for us saying we could talk it out and that they were cool people and we could be friends on the while they began poking around in the bushes above us after what felt like an hour but was probably five minutes I guess they got bored because they went back across the boardwalk Charles and I waited a little longer just to be sure then crept out and started the jog back home as we got onto the streets I live off of we noticed their car was still in the parking lot not wanting to risk another encounter we took off running as fast so we could after finally getting back to the house we saw a car with its brights on speeding down the street Charles and I both took showers to clean off and never spoke of it again [Music] I'm a 20 year old girl two years ago I started studying at my chosen university thanks to which I had to move to one of the biggest cities in my country I rented a flat in a residential block as I learned the area was calm and quiet but definitely not fancy I got used to living there pretty quickly and made a lot of new friends not long ago I decided to go to a party with my friend and her boyfriend the event was taking place quite far away from the flat but seemed fun enough to give it a shot we danced a bit talked and laughed eventually we got tired and decided to go home they were going together and I was going alone I wasn't too concerned since I've done a lot of times before not to mention it was Friday and even if it was around 2:00 a.m. there was still a large number of people around I was walking and listening to music on my headphones the air outside felt quite refreshing after the hours of partying eventually I got to the front door my block at this point I felt completely safe since I was pretty much at home I was looking for the keys in my purse however I had some troubles with it since it was dark suddenly I heard footsteps behind me I looked there and immediately fell paralyzed just a few steps away from me there was a man who was almost completely naked the only thing he was wearing were boots he was walking past me very slowly and kept his eyes on me the whole time I'm not quite sure if it was because the panic but I especially remembered his expression it seemed calm and collected but there was some creepy wilderness in his eyes I remember them as very dark he kept them focused on me which made me feel even more unsettled this man seemed to be in his mid to late 20s maybe even around 30 I'm a girl of a very petite build I'm only about 5 feet 2 inches and I remember thinking that could never overpower him I looked away from him pretending not to be bothered and tried to focus on finding the keys I simply couldn't do it though which made my eyes fill with tears of frustration I felt like I was in danger but at the same time I was so close to safety meanwhile this man walked a few metres past me I didn't look at him but I felt that he kept on observing me and my desperate attempts on finding my keys something told me to check if my feeling was right and I looked in his direction quickly of course he kept his focus on me all that time once he saw that I looked at him he turned back and started walking towards me again my heart starts to pound even faster as I tried to find the keys even more desperately knowing he's pretty much attacked the doors with it and jumped right in when I turned back this guy was just standing there looking at me through the window the thought of how close he was getting to me before I jumped through the door seemed absolutely terrifying we started each other through the window for a few more seconds and then he turned right and left I finally felt safe by the time I was in my room it was almost 4:00 a.m. and I had no idea what to do with myself I called my boyfriend who insisted that I should call the police but I was too scared and tired to do this at that time I kept on thinking about the what-ifs and how lucky I was that nothing happened after that I decided to stop walking by myself at night and if I absolutely have to do this I call somebody and talk with them till I'm in my flat this whole situation taught me that danger can be found in any place even the one you feel safe in [Music] I'm 18 and my ex-boyfriend is 23 we dated for about three months and then two months ago I decided we weren't compatible for various reasons a major one of which was that he didn't respect my religious beliefs our relationship seemed good although it was my first relationship so I don't know a lot to base it off of and he always seemed like a good person our breakup was amicable enough and he wanted to stay friends which pretty much consisted of texting each other small talk meaning up occasionally more like acquaintances than real friends I suppose but the point is we didn't fall out and there weren't any particular red flags before about two weeks ago when we had a bit of an argument it was Sunday so I went to church as usual into my surprise he came to meet me afterwards we set off walking back to my house and he rolled his eyes at me and said something along the lines of I can't believe someone like you would buy into rubbish like that honestly even if he was joking the fact that he wasn't even making an effort to tolerate my beliefs he could have just said nothing about them I didn't bring it up bug me a little when I told him so his response yeah well I'm not gonna like it if that's the reason I haven't had my way with you yet I wasn't at all prepared for him to say that and I was just shocked and disgusted that he was being like that after we had tried to have a normal friendship so I just walked away from him I couldn't think of anything to say so I sped up and walked away he caught up with me and tried to put his arm around me telling me to be honest because he knew I wanted him I pretty much shoved him off and ran the rest of the way back home almost straight afterwards he texted me an apology which I ignored for a while while I tried to calm down then replied with fine just please don't say things like that in the future and I genuinely believed he wouldn't a little dumb I know but he had always seemed pleasant before his apology seemed genuine and I'll confess I'm have been a bit soft touch where he was concerned seeing as I still cared about him and had regretted breaking up with him a few times since we broke up things settled back down to normal for about three days then he messaged me again saying he still wanted me before I could reply he sent an apology and I reaffirmed that I only wanted to be friends with him now that's when he decided to flip the crazy switch on me I received a string of texts telling me that a platonic relationship wasn't going to work we should be friends with benefits because he had to have me at some point promptly followed by a request to meet up I thought the best response to that level of sudden weirdness that had caught me off guard was no response at all which is usually a pretty clear no if everything I had said before hadn't been he didn't stop even after about an hour silence from me in fact he got creepier he accused me of teasing him and then said that we were going to do it whether I was playing his game or not at this point I became pretty panicky because he started to sound like he might dassault me or do something worse but I tried to calmly respond in case I was getting things out of hand in my head and reading it wrong or in case he was generally thinking I was just playing hard-to-get so on the off chance it was misunderstanding I spelled it out for him telling him clearly I was ignoring because I wasn't interested his follow-up to that chilled me to the bone he accused me of being some terrible things because I was mad about Sunday still then told me if I didn't want to go meet him he was gonna come around when you're home alone and get what I want quote-unquote at this point I felt like I didn't know him at all anymore and I couldn't predict if he was serious or not so I got scared and decided I should get the police involved I told him as much and hope he would back off now but he didn't he just seemed to find it funny and told me that quote by the time they managed to do anything you'll be mine end quote at this point I thought I wasn't safe in my own home and I got out well I put the post online first because I wanted some evidence if I really didn't make it to the police then pack some emergency things and drove to my parents house and address my ex was thankfully unaware of once I was there I showed my father the messages I'd been sent and he took me to the police station for moral support and because he was very angry at the time the police did drive-bys to my house that night because we were concerned about break-ins after threats to come and get me and happily no one tried to break in even so they took my accent for questioning in the morning a police officer handling this gotten touched much later that day and told me that he had adequate evidence for me and detaining and questioning him I gather he basically admitted it wasn't very repentant about it for me to press charges currently planning to charge him with harassment and threatening behavior after that he was released on bail with conditions not to contact me I wish I could say that's the end of it but I'm suspicious that he has contacted me two days after the original texts were sent I worked the breakfast shift at the cafe I work in and not long after I arrived some flowers with a card were delivered the delivery person had clearly been given my name since he asked for me by name the card was the creepy part though it was written to order thing and probably tone down quite a bit in comparison to what he might have written personally it made my skin crawl first off it started by calling me love referred to this incident just as falling out apologized like it would make me feel better then said that I should apologize to him too because we both took it too far then said I'd be happier if we got together again it wasn't signed by name and but it isn't hard to tell who it is but I don't have a hard evidence so I don't know if I can say that he's violated his bail conditions I did report it to the police but they didn't have much they could do either given the lack of proof it was his I've also had similar issues with social media some weird Facebook friend requests I've deleted that think we're from him but nothing serious thankfully all I can really say to finish this or at least hopefully finish this since I'm praying this is not an ongoing story is to my creepy ex I've got my pepper spray and I'm staying with my parents where I can reach my dad's gun so it's probably in both our interests to not meet again until I take you to court that is so this happened ten or so years ago when I was 14 I befriended a girl named Rebecca now Rebecca came from a terrible home her clothes were always dirty she never had lunch and she sure did have a mouth on her we were friends though and everything was sweet my mom had a bad upbringing was well so she didn't mind Rebecca coming over to have dinner with us every night on more than one occasion my mom bought clothes and underwear for her I cannot stress this enough we treated her like family which makes what happened all the more messed up Rebecca and I ended up having a falling-out she dropped out of school and I didn't see her for a while fast forward a few months and I'm waiting at the bus depot to go to a mate's house I see Rebecca and she's hanging out with a group of girls who come from a well-known violent family in a small town these girls were and are always picking fights intimidating others and just generally terrible people the kind of people who start a fight if you looked at them for a second too long I didn't want to look at them but I could see in my periphery that they were all looking in my direction pointing and laughing I decided to walk to the bay where my bus was supposed to be and they followed just before my bus pulled up the leader of the pack came up to me and said something about her knowing that I called her something terrible and I was gonna get what's coming to me now I never said a word about her in my life it was obvious Rebecca was the one feeding her these lines this went on for a while I be hanging at the local shopping center or be at the bus depot and see them in the distance causing me to hide or run sometimes they would see me and run after me other times they would just yell stuff I didn't know what it was at the time but my anxiety was crippling I was constantly terrified so one day I'm in a jewelry store with my friend I look up and see Rebecca and one of the girls walking past the shop I immediately turn around in hopes that they wouldn't recognize me but it was too late Rebecca comes in and starts letting out this stream of abuse at me telling me she's gonna beat the crap out of me and then I'm all these terrible names my friend ran away and I'm looking at the shop workers with pure terror on my face but all they are doing is telling me to get out because they don't want us to break anything I felt so alone Rebecca's friend is egging her on telling her to give it to me before security comes I can see that Rebecca is hesitant but she also wants to seem tough in front of her friends now I don't know if it was the adrenaline going through me or she just threw a terrible punch but I managed to grab her fists before hit my face I think it surprised us both Rebecca and her friend ran away I'm crying the shop people were yelling at me to leave but the girls might still be in the shopping center and I'm so scared to run into them again I end up believing and calling my mom on a payphone she knew what had been happening so instead of me catching a bus home she said she picked me up our house is a 10-minute Drive from the shops but mums didn't show up until 15 or so minutes later when I got in the car I was frantic asking my mom why she took so long she informs me that as she was driving she saw Rebecca and the other girl walking she pulled up and yelled out to Rebecca to leave me alone Rebecca tells my mom to buzz off so my mom grabs her by the shirt poles are closed and says it again while also adding that shall personally flog Rebecca if she tries to hurt me again my mom is an incredibly kind and patient woman but she will not tolerate things like that towards her children I constantly see all the other girls but I haven't seen Rebecca in years and I hope I never do probably around two years ago I had gotten a job at a certain Australian ripoff Steakhouse in my hometown I was really excited to start this job because it had been the first time I'd had a job while in school that year due to how busy I was it was nice healthy distraction from constant schoolwork and extracurriculars plus I was getting paid me meal Deford food was a fun thought I don't think I had ever been so excited to buy hamburger meat my days there were a lot of fun but we had this one horribly main manager named Steven that would get super upset and angry at other employees but he would never get upset at me Steven was probably in his mid-60s and was the kind of guy you could just tell hadn't been happy with how his life had turned out now I was a super hard worker and liked my job but there were definitely some times that I deserved to get yelled at but he never would like he never raised his voice at me all of my co-workers started making Josa that was Stevens favorite it got to a point where I would be on shifts with some other girls and he would rip into them for stuff that was definitely wrong on both of our parts and would never touch me eventually I wasn't capable of putting up with the poor treatment of my co-workers anymore and pulled another manager Elliott's aside to see how I could file a complaint and get justice for my fellow servers Elliott and I had become super close since I started working there and when he sat down with me he held me as I cried over my uncertainty this job meant the world to me and I didn't want to lose it he reassured me that I was all right and that he would handle it over the next few weeks he would make me feel better whenever something happened and he constantly reassured me that action from corporate was coming about two months after the original complaint I had taking a vacation to Texas to visit my mother I said bye to everyone at work for a whole two weeks and had so much fun hanging out with my mom easily the break I needed from the work environment not too long after I get back from my vacation I come back to work and just after a few shifts I realized that Elliot isn't there anymore I figured that Steven had fired him for standing up and I was livid and my anger I started talking to my co-workers about the crap and they all look confused and baffled by what I was saying after stopping mid-sentence and asking them why they were looking at me like that a co-worker corrected me and told me that that's not why he got fired Elliot had been cocked keeping to eight year old boys in his basement Elliot was arrested and that's why he was fired apparently he also had been caught in the past for publicly urinating on a seven-year-old and beating his own children who had gotten taken away from him permanently when he went to prison the first time both boys were safely returned to their parents but they'd been there for at least two months from what I remember [Music] so when I was around seven years old we moved into this big house that was split into three different apartments it was a light blue shade so everyone called it the big blue house I had a sister a year younger as well we lived in the upstairs apartment there were two apartments on the ground floor in the front apartment lived a couple with their teenage son and my parents knew them very well and had actually known them most of their life they lived in the apartment for a long time but the third apartment is where people seem to come and go I still remember a certain tenant who was lady in her 40s that had a daughter around the age of four years old she would scream at her daughter that it wasn't her fault her father decided to go be with some woman so even at the age of seven I knew that this was very odd to tell such a young kid that her father was dating someone terrible the little girl would even tell me sometimes my dad is with that woman again but the stories about the tenant who moved in after she left he was just a single guy in his 40s as well he was very friendly now my mom was an addict and would take off for weeks at a time and my dad had to work full-time to care for us so we were left alone often if not with the teenaged son of the couple who lived on the front apartment he would babysit us sometimes but half the time we took care of ourselves I remember hanging out inside the apartment of the couple with the teenager often my parents loved them and they were good people and we hung out inside their apartment a lot well sometimes when all of us kids and adults were there and they would invite the man next door to come over and hang out this man carried a camera with him at all times he loved taking our photos and since we were young girls we love having our photos taken so he would take a ton of pictures of us in full view of the adults and tell us he would print them and give them to us when they were ready I don't recall this men never asking us to enter his apartment or take photos alone but he was overly friendly and seemed to enjoy taking our photos a little too much he would also photograph her older cousin who was a 16 year old girl at the time if I remember correctly this lasted about a month the next thing I know my dad is telling me to never go into that guy's apartment or speak to him at all after listening in on the adults talk I find out that someone entered his apartment though I don't know if it was a landlord or friend and discovered that he was developing our photos and cutting our faces from them and pasting our faces onto the bodies of models on other pictures he had them plastered all over his walls seven year old girl faces on these model bodies he moved out within days I'll never forget hearing about that since I have no idea if the cops were called or will happen to the guy in the photos afterwards so even to this day I don't even know if this creep may still have my childhood photographs somewhere my family moved into a small house in Northeast Ohio when I was about five years old I had a bedroom on the first floor for a few years everything went fine the entire upstairs attic was my parents bedrooms since it was just one giant room when I was about 12 I switch rooms with them so I could have the big room the addict always gave me a strange feeling but nothing horribly off-putting sometimes I would be sitting at my desk alone and I would manage to spook myself out with what I thought was just my wild imagination I just never felt completely alone for some reason a few months after staying in the Attic a young boy started to appear in my dreams probably about six years old he was almost blue in color had short dark hair and he wore little shorts and a button-down shirt almost like a 1960s type school uniform he always had an initial expression on his face he never spoke to me in my dreams he was just there he would occasionally point to things or just stare at me I never once felt like he was evil or malicious I think he just wanted to be seen by me I would always wake up feeling like I was being watched after seeing him in my dreams one night I had a dream that he was standing by my bed staring at me and when I woke up I felt an overwhelming presence close to my bed I felt sick like something was horribly wrong but I still didn't feel like the boy was evil just sad and lonely maybe like maybe he was having nightmares and one of the BEA by me I started to recognize his presence whenever I would feel like I wasn't alone in my room fast forward to when I was 16 I hadn't seen the boy in my dreams for quite some time until my grandmother passed away I fell asleep through the night before her awake and saw the boy in my dream I was in the field and he was standing at the top of the hill with his back turned toward me keep in mind I've been dreaming about him for about four years and he has never spoke to me before he turns around and looks at me in a soft slow voice he says you know her feet are cold and then I woke up I felt strange because he literally has never spoken to me before but then he randomly tells me that someone's feet are cold so I went to my grandma's open casket wake that day and my mom started to throw a fit because along with my grandma's favorite belongings that were placed on her body in the casket there was a pair of her favorite slippers on top my mom one of the slippers put on my grandma's feet because her feet were always cold when she was alive she wanted to make sure my grandma's feet would be warm in the afterlife I had no idea that my mom even asked the funeral home to put the slippers on her I realized that the boy who often visited me and my dreams was letting me know that my grandma's feet were cold although I still saw him in my dreams and felt his presence he never spoke to me again after this I always felt a special appreciation for him I felt more connected and at ease when he appeared in my dreams or when I felt his presence he was like a guardian of some sort I grew to love him I don't live with my parents anymore and ever since I moved out he stopped appearing in my dreams I miss him every now and then and I'll go into my old bedroom and sit on the floor just so he can see me so he knows that I'm okay and I still think about him this is a real experience of mine and I've been wanting to share it with people for years and maybe I'm crazy but I know what I felt and I know what I saw [Music] it was the summer of 2010 during the World Cup I was chilling with my older brother at home and my uncle calls us and asked if we could sleep at their house for one night because their door lock was broken and my uncle and their family had to go to a nearby town for a quick vacation my brother reluctantly agrees and we go to their house taking the keys even though the locks broken then begin our duty after we finished our dinner and we were sitting on their couch in the living room waiting for World Cup matches and suddenly around midnight I hear a quiet footstep closing on us from the bedroom I was scared and I asked my brother if he heard that too he becomes silent and we both concentrate on the approaching sound as we listen to it breathlessly the footstep made a turn and went into the kitchen and soon we heard some noises from the cupboard as if someone was searching for something that was frozen but my brother regains his mind and suspicious that it might be a burglar runs into the kitchen however there was no sign of any trespassers we were very freaked out and we continued the night and fear an alarm after we came back home several other people noticed the sound our uncle experienced a lot of sleep paralysis and eventually decided to move out and contact the previous owner and asked if they knew anything abnormal about the house the previous owner said that the apartment was rented by a young couple the husband worked for long hours and came home really late and the wife always prepared his dinner at night presumably during one such night the poor woman slipped in the kitchen and fell and hit her head when the man came home he found his wife deceased and moved out after a while with much grief the owner said that since then the apartment became haunted and those footsteps and the noise in the kitchen were undoubtedly a repetition happened that night of her death I don't know how it happened I'm over 40 and recently had my tonsils taken out if anyone knows it's a lot harder for adults to recover from that quickly anyway I live with my sister and in January 2018 my sister's cat died while she has several cats she was really torn up about losing this one as it only has three legs after a car accident in February after getting laid off I had my surgery and stayed with my girlfriend and then at my mother's as I recovered I had to go to the emergency room twice for excessive bleeding the second time I went through the emergency room they were able to chemically cauterize it using Afrin nasal spray the ER Doc's sprayed tons of it in the back of my throat after a few hours I was able to come home as the bleeding began to stop I got home at about 2:00 a.m. and tried to go to sleep about an hour later I began spitting up blood again profusely my mom and brothers went to bed I didn't want to wake them as I had already put them through the ER in the bathroom mirror I noticed that I looked really pale I started to get afraid that I might die as I read so many things about that tonsillectomy experiences I know it sounds silly to some but when you've seen so much blood coming out of you you might think that - I got the bottle of Afrin the ER doc gave me which the ER bill was 800 bucks and I'm still mad about that I sprayed probably half the bottle down my throat and this is where the strangeness happens I remember praying to the universe that if I'd died please just put me in another parallel universe close to mine I don't want to leave yet I then fell asleep almost automatically when I woke up near morning I ran to the bathroom and huge gelatinous blob of blood clot came out of me it was about the size of my palm cupped a few minutes after I stopped bleeding and began to recover very quickly and everything seemed normal two days later I was able to eat noodles and near normal food except for crunchy stuff so about a week later I came home and everything seemed normal I went to the kitchen and guess who's there my sister's dead cat alive again since then I have noticed things many of which are covered in the Mandela effect videos and some things with friends and family that are somewhat different but more explicitly I've had several revelations come to me in regards to this reality what happens when we die I believe that if we live in a simulation so like any other game we are given a few choices when our avatar dies extra life we get an extra life and respond in a similar point in the game start the game from the beginning reincarnation and selection of a new avatar I think the light tunnel we see at the end is the birth canal and the game heaven and rejoin others that have ended the game purpose of the simulation I believe that we might be from the future and because of great Wars and destruction the human race has created a learning machine controlled by artificial intelligence we created as children we were put into this matrix so that we can learn and grow hopefully to live a better more fulfilled life than the baseline reality [Music] so I'll start with the beginning of things it started when my mother was around 17 years old she spent a lot of time outside mostly at night one night she was outside on her front porch when she could only describe distorted galloping she honestly thought it was just some horse that got loose but there was nothing just the sound it was coming closer and closer and yet nothing she decided to go inside for the night end for a long time so she would still spend her time outside though in the daytime and she eventually heard it again it was basically the same thing that happened last time but now just during the day the third account is more interesting she was on the way home from work she worked late it was around 1:00 in the morning when this happened she stopped at a stoplight and she had the windows down for god knows what reason she heard the noise yet again it was moving towards her car and it went in front of her car but this time she could see it she described it to be like a very hairy brown dog that could walk on two legs if it wanted to it ran across the road and disappeared my mom sped home and wouldn't get out of her car until her father walked her into the house the final count happened last year I was on the way home from school with my mom and my brothers we were approaching a bridge when in the distance me and my mother both saw it it was exactly like her description hairy brown dog that looked like he could stand on two legs across the road and disappeared I've been spending a lot of time trying to find out what this is or find it again with no luck if anyone knows what this could be or needs any more details let me know and thank you for taking the time to read this [Music] I'm 25 now and I've been experiencing a lot of stuff that I can't really explain this is going to be a long post since I want to share as much as possible with you not going to write down everything now so a couple of years ago I lived in an old house with my family I was at home in my room sitting on my bed while reading a book all of a sudden I felt this really strong presence and that someone was staring at me from a corner in my room I got this super uneasy feeling my whole body was screaming at me that something wasn't right and that I needed to get out of there it was a really uncomfortable feeling and I felt like I wasn't welcomed in my own room but I tried not to think about it thought it was only my mind playing a trick on me or something but then out of nowhere our dog a German Shepherd who usually is calm and friendly ran into my room to that corner and suddenly went crazy raging and started barking like he was super angry I got terrified and ran out of my room another day in the same house I was in my room watching TV it was on one of those old TVs thick and heavy you know and I felt this uneasy feeling again then the TV started to shake and wobble like a lot back and forth literally wobbling like someone was grabbing it with a lot of force that really freaked me out 10 I ran away from there as fast as I could one late evening I was up watching TV with my mom and dad in the living room we had this drawer where we kept some old mobile phones they were all out of charge since we hadn't used them for a long time but all of a sudden one of the phones started ringing we all got kind of surprised I looked at the phone and it said unknown number I answered but no one was there only a white noise that had just turned off after like 30 seconds my grandma had just passed away a few days prior maybe she tried to reach out to us I don't know but it sure was weird to say the least later we move to our current house now I don't have this eerie feeling of being watched as frequently anymore sometimes I feel it but I try to ignore it one time I really couldn't ignore it though and I felt that I couldn't be in my own room usually not that easily scared but I really had to run out of my room I tried to stay and ignore it as long as possible but I really couldn't stay it was like I was forced to leave that night I've slept on the couch downstairs haven't really felt this kind of threatening feeling again after that incident but I used to have a lot of nightmares why I dream that I'm not welcome in my own room and that something is chasing me out of there but one night I was in my bed reading stuff on my phone it was quiet and everyone was asleep I began to play guitar so I had my guitars hanging on my wall on the other side of the room then I hear the strings of the guitar being played on imagine if you swipe your finger across all the strings one time that's how it sounded but there was no one in my room that didn't feel scary though it just felt like someone was visiting and wanted me to know about it [Music] I live in a small town in northern Florida is a place nearby that has been a hotbed of strange activity locals to the area have talked for a long time about many of these things and a friend of mine whose family used to occupy the area has told me a few stories his family passed down to him the run down in the area there's a creek in the area that a monster's supposedly inhabits there is a graveyard not far from the creek that is very active with spirit activity and there is a road that goes for miles through the woods it's not uncommon for people to go to this particular part of the woods to end their own lives and often people will park their cars on the road and go into the woods here and never return the monster it is just called the name of the town monster he supposedly inhabits the creek primarily but wanders the woods mostly during the day maybe to hide from people who live in the area is very tall about seven feet he's similar to Bigfoot's or maybe Swamp Thing from what people have said and I have observed my friend told me his grandfather had passed down a story where he heard about his animals freaking out one night he went out to check it out bringing along his revolver he saw the monster and yelled at it thinking maybe it was a very large person as it was dark outside he said it came at him making loud noises that were most definitely not human he shot it once and it stopped him momentarily before proceeding towards him so he shot it twice more quickly and it turned and ran I myself have been to the creek a few times at night a one time heard some very odd noises ranging from animal noises that sounded almost like the animals were hurt or afraid to screaming and loud grunting I sat and listened to these noises with my friends for a moment before we went to check out the graveyard on our way back we stopped on the other side of the creek this time the noises weren't as loud but we heard something moving around it sounded as if though it came towards us staying out of sight then moved away then we saw something big running at us through the creek i alator went back with my mom and sister who wanted to see the area after hearing the story so we stopped where my friends and I did and I'm showing my mom the spot and recounting the story again and we noticed something large lurking in the back of the creek we decided to leave when we see it noticed us the graveyard this cemetery had been around for a long time some of the dead have been there since the late 1800s it contains a grave that somehow glows at night as if it were emitting a bright light my friend's father and uncle supposedly went in there and touched the glowing grave at 3 a.m. and had a flock of crows to send on to the cemetery well my friends and I went to check it out we felt very much like we were in the company of others I could see people wandering the area out of the corner of my eyes as we entered I made note to the deer statue at one of the graves we walked towards the back until we could spot the glowing grave as we approached it my friends and I all saw the same thing a large apparition that seemed to be a bright almost fiery orange that made us feel threatened we walked back on her way out I noticed the deer statue was now at the front fence rather than positioned where I had originally seen it the road in the woods as I said earlier the creepiest thing about this area's people and in their lives and going missing it's not uncommon to find an empty car parked on the side of the road more often than not it will be there a few days later until the county comes and gets it these things are the only objective truths I can put forth in all of this and my experience with this road I have noted catching glimpses of odd creatures in the woods as we drove but what really got me was a sense of lost time it feels as if though time passes slowly on this road I recall my friends and I listening to the radio telling stories talking about different experiences we've had and just all in all having a good time with the part of our look-see of this area that didn't involve being out in a graveyard or a creek at night we heard at least a good seven to ten songs and the radio as we drove but as we neared the end we noticed that we had only driven for 10 minutes we stopped out on the road at night a few weeks later and it's was overall a strange experience nothing very noteworthy aside from odd noises and just an overall weird feeling from the place that's about all I have heard and experienced in this area I know a lot of it can be attributed to me seeing things wrong my imagination and many other things I don't claim any of it to be objectively 100% true but I felt the need to share my story and I'm curious if anybody who knows the area may have experienced the same thing [Music] my sister and I both had very similar unexplained experiences 10 to 15 years ago while we were still living in our parents house we grew up in a small gated community in the woods of New Jersey with only a handful of other residents a few of them were very elderly it first happened to my sister when she was about 15 years old and I was 11 or 12 in the middle of the nights I woke up to the sound of her bedroom door opening she rushed out and went toward our parents room calling their names I sat at my bed and tried to listen as she woke them up but I couldn't make out exactly what they were saying all I could hear was that my sister was breathing heavily and very upset this went on for awhile until I eventually went back to sleep in the morning and went into the kitchen where my parents were sitting at the table with serious looks on their faces they explained that in the middle of the night our next door neighbor an elderly man in his 70s had died in asleep I can't remember if they explained exactly what happened but I believe it might have been a heart attack at the time I didn't make any connection between our neighbors death and my sister getting up that night I wasn't even really sure what happened to my sister and didn't ask her about it directly a few years later I had what I would eventually find out was an almost identical experience to hers I shot up in my bed around 3:00 a.m. one night I remember feeling confused wondering what it was that woke me up after a moment my heart started racing and I turned the light on sitting at the edge of the bed I started feeling an overwhelming sense of dread like something was very wrong my breathing became heavy and I started to sweat in retrospect I think it's safe to say that I was having a panic attack I remember feeling Restless yet unable to move from my bed eventually I calmed down and went back to sleep in the morning I went into the kitchen where my dad was sitting at the table crying he explained to me that a man from our community who he was very close with had passed away in the middle of the night somewhat suddenly he was really shaken up about it at the time I didn't tell anyone about what happened to me the night before but a few days later I remember the experience my sister had that wasn't until a year or two later that I actually brought it up to her I told her about the experience I had waking up in the middle of the night and how we found out about our dad's friend the next morning she immediately seemed creeped out and told me about what happened to her the night that our neighbor died our experiences were nearly identical both waking up in the night with overwhelming feelings of fear and panic after that we never really spoke about it again but I think about it frequently I've told the story to a number of people who found it pretty unsettling I've never heard of anyone having a similar experience to ours I don't have a definitive explanation for these events but I really do believe that it's more than just coincidence I believe that something about the energy these two people emitted either at the moment or just before they died is what woke me and my sister up please feel free to discuss and let me know if you or someone you know has had a similar experience and thanks for listening [Music] so when I was little maybe six my older sister eight at the time would wake me up screaming a lot in the middle of the night this continued until she was in high school no one really told me details just that she was having night terrors so I never thought much of it well when I was about 18 I took my sister's old room when she moved out it was a big room so I was excited nothing major really happened to me until a few months afterward I had my niece's stay over that night I woke up at around maybe 3 to 4 a.m. my nieces were sleeping on my floor we made a bed up for them I can't explain the feeling I had or why I didn't freak out but there was just some dude leaning against my dresser watching my niece's I just laid there watching him until I fell back asleep he looked very old-timey but maybe in his 20s I didn't feel scared when I saw him when I woke up the next day I was pretty confused I'm positive I saw him I remember exactly what he looked like everything I mentioned this to my sister and she began to describe the man detail for detail apparently growing up she would wake up and see this guy at the foot of her bed just watching her that's why she'd wake up screaming so that was pretty eerie we decided not to mention it to my parents because my father's a pastor and they usually don't listen to me about that stuff they just told me to pray it away in being a kid I was like okay fine well about two weeks after this instance I was woken up to the sound of my dad downstairs praying at about 4 to 5 a.m. he usually prays in his room but for some reason he was pacing the whole downstairs praying really loud when I woke up the next day I asked him what it was all about and he told me that he was watching TV he worked thirds as well at this time he said he saw some guy looking at him from the stairs he said he just sat and watched this guy very calmly walked down the stairs past the living room and evaporated into the kitchen my dad said from there he jumped up and just started praying blessing the house I asked my dad what the man looked like and he described the same man my sister and I saw a few nights later things got real I had a friend over and my older sister was upstairs with us as well so it was me my friend my mom and sister at around 4:00 Sh we were woken up by what I can only describe as something absolutely destroying our kitchen we could hear plates smashing things breaking it even sounded like they turned over our fridge it was terrifying the scariest part was that we could hear our dogs screaming and whining like crazy after a while we thought it was a wild animal or something so we called my sister's boyfriend to come over and kill it he had guns so I guess it was our line of thinking I don't know this is the weird part so we're still hearing our kitchen just get ruined and what sounds like our dog dying but when Kyle got there he said it sounded like the house was being destroyed him and his friend grabbed their guns rushed to the door and the second he unlocked the door silence there was no noise no smashing nothing everything just stopped the second we heard the door open he waited a few minutes until he came upstairs to get us and at first he was angry he thought we were pulling some stuff on him when we went downstairs everything was fine no plates were smashed nothing was out of place but her dog she was in the corner crying and peeing herself she wouldn't get out of the corner for a long time she was terrified and we were incredibly confused to this day we can't explain it said nothing has happened ever since that was my weird paranormal story I think about that man a lot and sometimes I wake up feeling watched but nothing's happened since sometimes a light will be on when I know I just turned it off little things like that has anything like that happened to anyone else I felt no fear when I was watching him I didn't feel anything does that mean something maybe it's somehow means he's not dangerous I don't know I think about it constantly and I just wish I had answers my house isn't even that old I don't think [Music] skinwalkers are not some mystical fantasy creatures they're evil witches who like to cause pain and misfortune on others and may even cause death in order to get their powers they have to sacrifice someone they most love and the more they sacrificed the more powers they get this is an old story that happened in the 40s or the 50s about a man who lived alone with his sheep and his dog in the middle of nowhere in his Hogan for weeks he heard and saw strange things happening around him like a black shadow running knocking on his house a man's cough and his sheep missing and later found dead and mutilated until he found his dog dead tired and afraid of this he went to a medicine man they told the medicine man what he was experiencing he blessed the man and told himself to cover himself with ash leave no part uncovered and to sit outside his house with a rifle and wait for it to come to him and when you see it and you'll know when you see it you shoot at it and it will leave you alone so the man did as he asked and waited in the dark for a long time before he heard it something was coming towards his house when he looked to his left he saw a dog or a coyote he knew it then for what it was he slowly raised the rifle and aimed that the dog creature and shot at it the scary part was when the bullet hit instead of the dog cry the creature let out a scream of a man who was just shot and the dog creature immediately turned and ran away after that the man didn't see any strange things again he even got a new dog he fought with a skinwalker and one I will start off with my very first paranormal experience I was three or four and living in a small village in western Germany during the mid-80s my family lived in a quaint little two-story farmhouse while we waited to get housing on base my dad was in the military my life was pretty normal I have two brothers one older and one younger than me but that really isn't relevant to the story I love that house and remember helping the little old lady that lived across the street snap peas played outside with my brothers and had a happy childhood for the most part that was however one place in the house I refused to go this is going to sound cliche but it was the basement the door to the basement was in the tiny kitchen that would be in there helping my mom make cookies or something and I remember getting an uneasy feeling just from the door to the basement my dad would go down the stairs to the basement without a problem but I refuse to go with him I mean I would immediately start crying at the thought of going down there it wasn't that it was dark and creepy in fact it was well lit and didn't have any blind corners or anything the reason I wouldn't go down there was because an old man that it seems only I could see I would tell my mom and she would tell me I don't see anything I would get the same response from all my family members but there was an angry German man down there and he didn't like me it went as far as I would have nightmares in that house vivid and graphic nightmares it is very telling that I remember these horror visions after 30 plus years like I had them last night I'm getting ahead of myself a little these nightmares were the same every single night now remember that most four years old and have not seen a scary movie yet every night I would fall asleep without an issue and have a few happy dreams and then it would start and my nightmare I would see the stairs that led up to the top floor of the house where the bedrooms are I saw the stairs like I was at the bottom of them looking up but I wasn't me I would see things through someone else's eyes I know even in my dreams I was sleeping upstairs comfy in my bed but as I started to go up the stairs I would start to see the plaster on the walls crack and the thin boards beneath it start to splinter the further up I go the worse it gets like the whole house is going to crumble then I start to see dismembered body parts come out of the wall the stairs go up they are decaying and smell horrible I can see bone and rod darkening meat around the jagged cuts on each part first it's the hands and feet than the arms and legs finally the head with half its face bloated and green with the other side sloughing skin so I can see the empty eye socket and the hole where the nose rotted away these body parts would hurl themselves at me like they mean to eat me I wake up just as a head starts to talk but I don't know what it is trying to say to me as it's torn shrilled lips move but there was no sound I would wake screaming my mom would comfort me and get me back to sleep I would have normal dreams the rest of the night this happened every night for the four or five months we live in that house and we finally moved neither the nightmare or the man ever plagued me again but I still remember it very vividly as I grew older and developed a love for the sciences especially Anatomy I realized that my dream the body parts were anatomically correct I wish I could actually draw on then I could sketch a picture to show you how horrifying it was I'll post another story later thank you for reading this even if most of you will believe I made this up it's nice to get it off my chest I've been carrying this around for 33 years I used to live in a small town in Texas my town was so small that it wasn't so much a town as it was just a really big neighborhood with one gas station my town wasn't completely finished a lot of the streets had empty lots and woods even though the town was 60 years old it was possible to walk onto a lot head to the woods and get lost if he didn't know exactly where you were going and since we had deer and wild animals running around it wasn't a good idea to go wandering know what I mean my house was in the oldest part of this town I lived on a circle yeah a circle my street was an actual circle that you could drive all the way around and what was weird about it was that my street had houses on all of the Lots but the houses on the inside of the circle including mine were the perimeter - about two acres of free woods and it was so packed that you couldn't see through it was just something everyone knew about but didn't talk about my school had a media class that you could take the kind where they tell you to make short films and stuff a bunch of my friends from the neighborhood and I were grouped together for one of these short film projects like idiots we decided to do a short horror film based off the Blair Witch Project movie it had been out by that time for a couple of years so we thought it would be a cool idea since found footage films hadn't really become a thing yet and we thought since our neighborhood known for being creepy at the best of times had a forest in it we could shoot our project there so my friends Genesis Hunter Tyler Kass and I decided to try to shoot our short film and one evening at night and you guessed it we decided to shoot in the woods right behind my house my parents were cool with it because they'd be able to hear me yell if something happened and we didn't have curfews so or like cool we'll shoot it on Saturday saturday rolls around and the first five hours are fine nothing spooky happens so we go back to my house eat and decide to shoot the last couple of shots this is when things go south we come out of my house jump the backyard fence and head back into the woods the second we hit the treeline we all feel like something's off it just doesn't feel right the air is sticky and heavy yes it's Texas and that's a Texas spring for you but this was different it felt like walking through water or tar or mud it was hard to just move forward but the feeling goes away we get through a couple of more shots and then it's time to shoot the last scene it's simple get Genesis walking through the woods and into a clearing that's it like I said this area's about two acres total we'd been all over the woods by this point getting different shots but at night that night it felt like the woods we were in wasn't the same woods from that afternoon the boulders weren't in the right place the trees weren't in the right place there was a clearing where there shouldn't have been one it was really weird in my mind I'm thinking all right he just got turned around happens all the time right it's a sizable area in just because you've been walking around it for five hours doesn't mean you know it like the back of your hand I can accept that what I can't accept is the fact that there was now a shed in the middle of the clearing that we decided to shoot our last scene in what I mean is when we scouted the place three days before shooting when we went in there to check sound earlier that day and even right before we went back to my house there was no shed in that woods none zip zilch zero there were no buildings no construction supplies not even a football in that woods and yet here was the shed in the middle of the clearing we were all getting vibes from this thing like we weren't supposed to find it or we were unwelcome in its presence or that we were somehow intruding on its alone time so the guys tell us to hang tight they're gonna go investigate I don't remember exactly what happened but I remember them coming back and telling us that we had to check it out I went up to the shed and I realized that it was old very old the wood was warped in the wall bowed inwards the wood from the shed didn't look like any of the trees from that part of Texas it wasn't mesquite my best guess would be maybe maple I was walking around the edge of the shed and we were trying to figure out where this thing came from or if it had always been there how we managed to miss it we were close enough to my house that I could hear my dad talking on the phone in the backyard in fact all we had to do was walk forward for a minute or two and we'd hit the backyard fence that's when I realized that this shed had no windows or doors I told my friends and we looked for trap doors or latches tightly or even down on the roof of the shed to check for a way not that we wanted in but at this point I was curious because it didn't feel like the shed should be there we didn't find any way into the shed so we tried to figure out what to do the shed was in the middle of the shot but none of us wanted to shoot especially not Genesis she wasn't having any of it we were in the middle of deciding to shoot some other time because we were all creeped out when we hear it a laugh a long low guttural laugh from the shed and then we heard thud thud thud we were close enough to the shed that we could see the walls shake and we booked it out of there it took us less than two minutes to get back to my backyard at this point you're probably thinking this silo belongs and no sleep or we were on something I don't blame you I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't been there but I told my dad when we got back who back then didn't believe in the paranormal it was still pretty early about 10:00 p.m. so my dad goes into the house gets his shotgun and goes to get our neighbor a cop who also has his shotgun tells us to get inside and they go into the woods whose flashlights and everything he was gone for 10 minutes and when he got back he told me that I'm not allowed to go back there anymore and then we'd had to figure something else out for the final scene it was years before he told me what happened in the woods but he finally did he and our neighbor found the shed couldn't find a door and heard the laughing then they heard growling go from inside the shed to outside of the shed then my dad still swears on this they saw something huge and human-like come out of the wall the shed go down on all fours turned black and growl at them these two grown men both was significant military experience nearly crapped themselves trying to get back to the house my dad petitioned the town to get the shed removed and it was knocked down a week later we never talked about again but here's where it gets weird again my little sister still lives at home she moved back in because she got into med school and needed to save money she called me a few days ago to tell me that one of the dogs got loose this afternoon and headed for the woods and she went in there she saw a dark wood shed the dog saw too and was barking and growling then she and the dog heard a growl and the dog backed up like it was scared and went home my little sister didn't know about the shed unless my dad told her I never told her about it because she's younger than me and a bunch of weird stuff had already happened my sister told my dad who went back out to see it he said it was the same shed he won't say anything else but I know he's probably panicking I don't know what to think about all of this I mean it's just one of the many weird things that happen in that neighborhood when I was a kid but it always stuck out as being ominous is it possible we had collective hysteria sure we were kids and we were making a short horror film is it possible that we just missed the shed absolutely the woods can get confusing even when it's broad daylight is it possible that a wild animal was closer to us than we thought and that's what we heard instead of a weird scream of course it's Texas and we were known to have big cats running around but what I can't explain is how the shed my dad had torn down years ago shows back up again and my sister's the one to find it that's what I'm having trouble with my dad had the fire department come to take the shut down they said it was a fire hazard so they got rid of it my sister's safe my family's safe and I'm happy to hear that but why a shed with no windows or doors I posted this on another subreddit but it wasn't helpful so I'm here now hoping someone has had some similar things happen to them I don't want to be the only one dealing with something like this some interesting things have been going down on this house for months now at first I chopped it up to ambien or lunesta or even lithium or just an episode however after recent conversations with my dad I'm not sure this is the case so last year I started hearing very audible voices it would happen once or twice sometimes it was hard to tell what they were saying other times they were clear that would hear a very heavy vibrating sound here and there as well my phone is always on silent my parents phone is always on a loud ring and would feel like something is there with me and my door would even move on its own so anyways one day I just said out loud - screw off and it just sort of died down cut - this year a few months earlier I heard a very clear male voice say she's right there and my bed had started to shake okay so I get up and I go to sleep on the couch after that I started having a cat sleep with me for comfort and the shaking stopped when we put down one of my cats I would hear her meows sometimes and the click click click of her claws and just over a month ago I started to hear the sound of feet crunching on gravel at first I brushed it off as an animal could be a coyote or a deer but Adana me that that would sound different this sounded like shoes on gravel but whenever I would go look outside there was nobody there at times I'd hear the sound of my car door opening and closing but I always lock my doors a month and a half ago one of my cats was outside and I heard him audibly cry out in pain and I panicked I ran out the garage door and called for him and he comes dashing in but there's nothing out there no owls coyotes other cats or people he was unharmed last summer he was coming home with injuries I assumed cats fight but some of these look like someone was hurting him because they look like burns more than scratches for some reason now my cats hate being in the garage they used to love it but now they're afraid of it about three weeks ago the part where I put my key and started to fall out turns out the thing that latches in and keeps it in place somehow broke metal broke Dan says there's no possible way that could have happened dad's gun checkbook truck keys coffee cup and mom's ring have all gone missing within the past three months and tonight's when I got up to let my dog out I saw a light shine into the window I live in the middle of nowhere back to the lights though I go back into my room one cat is out of the room and using the litter box and the other is sleeping with me the third cat is outside probably torturing my sore something I hear the sound of a computer starting up but that would be impossible because my parents are fast asleep mom's laptop is dead and dad is out in his little Hut a few minutes after hear the startup noise I hear the cat that's outside my room hiss and then she starts to me out to be let back into my room I poked my head out and there's nobody in the living room hallway or laundry room the dog is sleeping peacefully on the couch I need to convince dad to get security cameras hey friends thanks for listening be sure to subscribe and click that notification bow to be alerted of all future narrations if you got a story be sure to submit them to my subreddit our let's read official and give and receive feedback from the community and maybe even hear it featured here on the channel and if you want to support the page 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 comm links in the bio thanks so much friends and I'll see you again soon

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Channel: Lets Read!

Views: 808,868

Rating: 4.5734653 out of 5

Keywords: lets read podcast, podcast, subscriber submissions, true scary stories, scary true stories, true scary stories from reddit, reddit scary true stories, true horror stories, true horror stories from reddit, true scary stories reddit lets not meet, scary stories, horror stories, true stories, scary horror stories, stories from reddit, lets not meet, reddit, lets read, asmr reading, asmr sleep, ASMR, creepy stories, true creepy stories

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Length: 187min 17sec (11237 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 22 2018

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