Always Trust Your Gut…Or End Up Like Me | True Scary Stories - Scary Stories from Bad Vibes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
The first time this happened was when I was in
middle school. When I was in seventh grade, I would
ride the bus to either my house or my grandma's
on Wednesday along with my cousins and siblings. Both houses
are at the bottom of two hills and have long driveways.

(00:28):
Every Wednesday, we'd see a van parked on top of
the hill as we were getting off at my grandma's house.
Once the bus left, the van would drive slowly past
our driveway or pull in and watch us. One day,
as we were getting off at our house, the van
sped by the driveway and pulled in as we ran

(00:50):
as fast as we could to the door. As soon
as we got inside, they sped away as they saw
another vehicle at the house. My grandmother started picking up
us up at the end of the driveway and they stopped.
The second and third time this happened was when I
was going to college. One night, I wanted some ice

(01:12):
cream and went to the grocery store. It was just
about dark was quite full. As it was a small
grocery store, my only option was to park next to
a white truck. I'm slightly paranoid and try to get
out of my car and into the store as quickly
as possible. As I was getting out of the car,

(01:34):
I noticed the passenger door of the truck open and
armed try to grab me. I booked it inside and
stayed there until the truck leaves and an employee can
walk me out. The next year I began this job
at Burlington. We had a regular customer that always came
to my register. He seemed a little strange, but never

(01:57):
really talked to me. After I got I noticed the
vehicle parked near my car every night that doesn't belong
to any of my coworkers. I brushed it off, but
stayed aware. Often when I got off, I would go
get wings from the store next door. One night, I
was waiting in my car for my order, and I

(02:18):
see the customer get out of his truck and start
walking towards me. As he's fiddling with something in his hands.
I forgot about my order and sped off. I also
quit that job shortly after. Now I've been seeing the
same man at every store I go too. Lately. I
go out to eat, he's there. I go to the store,

(02:41):
he's there. I go to the park with my daughter,
he's driving by. I've never seen him near my house
or my new work, so I'm unsure if it's just
a coincidence. However, I'm starting to get scared to leave
my own house, and I'm scared that he's actually following me.

(03:06):
My friend, sixteen and I, seventeen year old female, had
been drinking at our friend's place and we're pretty drunk.
At five a m. We finally decided to head home
and took the bus first. However, when we climbed to
the back of the bus, a guy around sixty years
old with a goofy hat immediately complimenting my friend, saying

(03:29):
that they were good looking. Without thinking too much of it,
my friend thanked him. As we sat down, the man
joined us, sitting right next to me. He went on
about how he was so drunk and proceeded to ask
my friend for a drink. My friend accepted the offer
of five euros. However, the man continued the questions as

(03:52):
he was looking for the bill in his pocket. He
asked for my friend's name and at which stop we
would get off. He would repeat the questions over and
over again, even though my friend told them that they
were not comfortable with answering. That's when we actually started
to realize the true nature of the situation. Fortunately, that's

(04:15):
also when a younger guy decided to step in. He
told him to move and stop bothering us. The old
man was very resistant, even though he eventually obeyed. He
gave the drink back to my friend and went to
sit somewhere else. The interaction caused a verbal fight between
the man and the younger man. The younger man was

(04:38):
also drunk and provoked the older man with some pretty
bad insults. Even though the younger man hadn't handled the
situation very well. We wished them a good night and
told them to take care. Relieved, we started walking towards
the tram stop, waited for a bit, got on the
tram and waited for it to leave. We were both

(05:01):
low key scared as hell, but tried to brush it off.
Then the worst case scenario happened. I saw the man
walking towards the door of our tram. He got on,
keeping intense eye contact with us. This man had followed
us to the tram. It couldn't have been a coincidence
because he entered so much later than us. He had

(05:23):
noticed that we had left the bus, and at the
last minute decision decided to follow us. He literally walked
towards us fist clinched. I was sure he was going
to hit me, so I raised my hand to protect
my head. He stood there for a moment while I
waited for the punch. Luckily, it never came. He sat

(05:44):
down very close to us and started telling us about
how he would killed those men and that he knew
where they lived. My friend and I decided to get
off the stop earlier than we had planned to. At
that stop, we immediately started running till reach the shady
walkway where we could still see the stop. We stayed

(06:05):
there silent for a moment until we were sure the
man didn't also get off. After that, we walked through
the forest to make sure he couldn't find us anymore. Finally,
we made it safe back to my friend's place, but
holy hell, I was scared. My friend, female twenty one,

(06:32):
was at a bus stand recently waiting to charge her phone.
While she was there, another man, probably in his forties
wearing shades, was also used in the charging point. He
was fiddling with his phone trying to take it out
of the charging porter and started talking. But the weird
part was he wasn't really making eye contact since he

(06:55):
had shades on and kept looking at the floor, it
wasn't clear if he was even talking to her. He
said something along the lines of you should really take
care of your belongings. After grabbing his phone, he walked off.
A few minutes later, he came back, this time directly
told her he looked very beautiful, but society will use you.

(07:18):
Then he left again. What do you guys think? Is
this some random creepy man or something more like a
warning or a revelation. I had a friend in high
school who was unique to me. I'd been in class

(07:39):
with all the same students from grade school until getting
to high school, and everyone in that class was incredibly
serious and competitive about grades and school work. We were
way higher performing than even the gifted class. I even
talked to some of the gifted students and they said
that their teacher was always like, why can't you be

(08:01):
more like the French class? When I started hanging out
with her, she didn't give a damn about school and
had an actual personality. It was refreshing. She told me
about ways she would avoid her parents knowing and report
cards that came, and how she had plans for tricking
them and delaying the eventual truth that she wasn't doing

(08:24):
well in school. Nobody I ever knew did that sort
of thing. I was over at her house all the time,
and it didn't take long to notice her neighbor. He
was friendly. The first couple times we saw him, i'd
wave back at him or say hello if he had
said it first. She told me not to talk to

(08:46):
him or pay any attention to him, and I didn't
realize how serious she was. Creepy people weren't new to me.
I already understood the concept, but didn't realize the extent
of intrusion could have to me. It wasn't like she
was over at his house or that he would come
over to hers, so I didn't see the harm. But

(09:10):
she was right. That guy was really creepy. It was
just that he knew things about her and wasn't afraid
to mention these things. Her schedule, where she'd been over
the weekend, stuff like that, Hey, you relate to class
this morning? Did you have fun camping this weekend? Also,

(09:31):
he was focused on her. I probably ended up spending
just about as much time as she did at her house,
and he couldn't have cared less. All he ever did
that I saw was wave and say hello, try to
start conversations with her from his driveway. It's like it
was okay if he was on his property, Like if

(09:53):
it was from his driveway, it was innocent and fine.
That actually, to me made it infinitely creepier, like his
whole house was the menace, and not just him as
a person. So the house was a looming threat that
my friend had to pass by every day and from
wherever she was going, even if he wasn't outside. As

(10:17):
far as I know, nothing ever happened with the sky,
but the image of him in his driveway or on
his porch is still there in my mind. I lived
in New Mexico for several years before moving to the Midwest.

(10:38):
My friend Amy and I, both females, would spend many
days exploring the remote corners of New Mexico, discovering abandon
ghost towns and joining the quiet, desolate beauty of the desert.
One afternoon in March twenty ten, we were traveling from
Merduso to Albuquerque. Always up for exploring, we took a

(10:59):
back road rather than traveling the more direct highway. One
leg of our journey had us on the MM fifty five.
It's a remote teeny two lane highway. We love those
types of roads up until that day. This part of
New Mexico is a flat and desolate desert. You can
see for miles. There's virtually nothing except dirt and rock

(11:23):
between towns and towns could be miles apart. So we're
on the n M fifty five going north. After a
few minutes, we see a white pickup truck ahead of us,
going in the same direction. Suddenly, he stops his truck
in the middle of the highway, blocking both lanes. We
were about a mile away from him, and as we

(11:45):
were getting closer, we begin to get uneasy. We can
see no reason for him to do this. We were
the only other vehicle out there, and we begin wondering
if we should turn around rather than come up to
him and have to stop. We were about a half
mile away from him when he pulled to the opposite
side of the highway, but his truck was still pointed

(12:07):
in the direction we were going. We tried to relax
a little. Surely this guy was just a rancher or something.
Maybe he was checking something on his land. As we
passed him. We noticed a few things. There was only
one person in a truck, a middle aged guy who
never took his eyes off of us, and he was
talking into a walkie talkie. A few seconds after we

(12:30):
passed him, he pulled back onto the highway and started
following us, but he never got too close. He would
get within a few car lanes and drop back a little,
and then speedback up to within a few car lanks. Again.
We were getting nervous. We realized how alone we really were.
We had seen no other traffic on this road and

(12:52):
hadn't told anyone about our great idea to take this detour.
We checked our cell phones and neither one had a signal.
Typical for remote New Mexico, but scary giving our present situation.
Amy was driving and speeding up while I frantically checked
the map, hoping to find another road that would happen
more traffic. But there was no other road. We had

(13:18):
to travel this one to get to the next town.
Mountaineer turning around to go back the other way didn't
seem like a good option. After a few minutes, we
saw another pickup truck coming towards us. He was going very,
very slow, maybe twenty miles per hour. If that this
pickup was the old beat up pickup, whereas the one

(13:38):
behind us was newer. Amy had us up to seventy
five miles per hour, which wasn't typical for us, as
these are fifty five miles per hour highways. We blew
by the old pickup, and as we passed it, we
saw another middle aged guy and he was talking into
a walkie talkie. After the white pickup passed him, he

(14:00):
a U turn and turned behind it. As we watched
all this, we could see the guy in the white
pickup talking to his walkie talkie. No doubt these two
knew each other. We were being deliberately followed, and for
the first and only time in my life, I felt hunted.
They stayed right behind us. We watched for obstacles in

(14:21):
the road. We truly thought the old beat up guy
had set a trap on the road and our vehicle
would be disabled somehow. We talked about driving into the fields.
We were in a STV, but this was obviously their
territory and we were afraid of what would happen if
we went off road and got cornered, so we stayed
on the highway. By now, the white pickup was right
on top of us. We could see him talking to

(14:43):
his walkie talkie, and he stayed right on our bumper.
The old beat up truck was right on top of him,
the three of us beating down the highway. The white
pickup inch closer. His maneuvering and edging closer made it
appearance that he was trying to bump us. I watched
helplessly as he got with it inches of our back bumper.
Amy floored it. We were passing eighty miles per hour

(15:05):
and edging up to ninety. The road was flat and deserted,
but any little thing going wrong would have been catastrophic.
We absolutely were not going to slow down or stop
if we could help it. The white pickup pulled it
to the opposite lane and started to gain speed. The
only thing we could think of is he wanted to
pass us and get in front of us. If he

(15:26):
had got in front of us and his buddy was
behind us, that we would have been boxed in and trapped.
We looked frantically at the rocky desert on both sides
of us. Our only option was to off road it.
Should we risk it? Could we speed to the desert
and make it to safety one piece. As we topped
a small incline, we saw a sign for Salinas Pueblo

(15:50):
Missions National Monument, and it pointed it towards the road
to the left and ran. At that moment, a blue
pickup truck pulled out of that road and onto the
highway in front of us. As we came up on
the blue pickup, we saw the plate said US Park Services.
We looked at each other, then looked behind us. Both

(16:10):
trucks did a U turn and went the other way.
We followed the blue truck to Mountaineer and then made
our way to Albuquerque. I don't know exactly what those
guys' intentions were, but they weren't good. There is something
seriously wrong out there. I notified the state police and
they said that they would keep an eye on things.

(16:32):
This area is very near Berlin, New Mexico, which is
where Ta Kalico was abducted. It's also around one hundred
miles from Elephant, But, which is where David Parker Ray
and his little torture laboratory were. We didn't put all
that together until later. Even though David Parker Ray had
died by this time. We do believe that there are

(16:54):
others out there like him, and whoever abducted Tara has
never been caught. Or maybe we came into a meth
lab territory, but since it happened on an actual highway
rather than a backcountry road, I tended to discount the
meth lab theory. Whatever was going on out there, it's
not good. So let's not ever meet or have anyone

(17:16):
else ever meet these guys. A long time ago, my
job out of office near the Canadian border in Washington State,
I often had to travel over there to help out
and help train staff. Being a guy in my late twenties,

(17:37):
single and like to get away for days, I was
always up to making extra cash by volunteering to go.
Whenever the need was there, I'll usually fly up there,
but some occasions when I needed to bring equipment or materials,
I would drive. This particular time was about seventeen years ago.
We had bought a bunch of equipment wholesale and needed

(17:59):
to deliver this and some other odds and ends up
to our office in Washington State. Of course, everyone knew
I would volunteer to drive. I was told to drive
a box truck up there and leave it and fly back.
Prior to this, I would drive the company car or
an STV, but no worries. The box truck wasn't that
big and probably the same size as a U haul

(18:22):
rental truck. I always preferred to start my driving journeys
towards the end of the day, mostly because I'm one
of those people who likes night driving. For the majority
of my journey it was uneventful, only stopped at the
gas station and occasional rest stops to take care of nature.
At some point near the California Oregon border is when

(18:44):
things started to get bad. It was approximately one o'clock
in the morning. I had stopped at a rest stop,
probably the last one on the California side. On the
far side. I do remember seeing some truckers parked, but
basically the rest of the parking lot was empty. Now
at this point, I wasn't thinking anything creepier out of

(19:04):
the normal. I get out of my truck, go into
the restroom and take care of business. I wash up
a bit and take my sweet time stretching my legs.
But when I exit the restroom area and walk over
to my truck, I notice the vehicle park next to mine.
I was literally like this whole parking lot and this
person pulls up next to me. Oh well, I jump

(19:27):
into my truck and continue my journey. About ten to
twenty miles down the freeway, my truck starts acting funny.
Some of the interior lights start flickering. I don't really
think anything of it. A little while later, the lights
in the vehicle goes out, interior lights, running lights, and headlights.

(19:47):
At this point, it's about two am and I'm in
some wooded area in Oregon. I can't even find a
flashlight in the truck cabin. I get so angry, not sure,
being scared to be driving six of my whis per
hour in the middle of what seemed to be a
scene out of Tails from the Dark Side, but I
pound my fist on the dashboard and scream at the truck.

(20:09):
Almost instantly, everything came back on. I felt like Phronsie.
At the next upcoming rest stop, I decided to pull over,
and maybe from the adrenaline or what I had to pee.
Like never before, I jumped out of the truck and
went into the restroom, although this time I didn't take
as long inside the restroom and walked back out to
the truck. I remember my thoughts were should I stay

(20:32):
here till dawn or attempt to continue on. As I
walk up to my truck, I see an older guy,
kind of heavy set, gray hair, and he's standing next
to my truck. I didn't see his vehicle near mine,
but assumed he was out stretching his legs. As I
walk up, he starts a conversation about the weather or something.

(20:53):
A very light snow was falling, but not the kind
of stuff that stays on the ground. I wasn't really
paying much attention to him because my first impression was
he was just some lonely old guy who wanted to
chit chat. Then he says something that made my hair
stick up. He's looking at my truck and says, are
you having mechanical problems? I stopped in my tracks and

(21:16):
felt the blood rushing to my head. I just said nope,
just driving and trying to stay out of the cold.
He then tells me that he doesn't live far from
here and that i'd be welcome to join him for
hot coffee and if I needed to sleep on the sofa.
That kind of gave me the creeps, but thinking to
myself if I needed to take this guy out. I

(21:36):
was younger and stronger and not afraid to defend myself,
So I basically end the conversation with well, i'd better
get back on the road before the snow starts to
really fall. As I'm driving away, I see that he's
walking behind the restrooms, So I think to myself, what
the heck was that all about? My mind is racing,
retracing the last few stops. How does this guy know

(21:59):
I was having an electrical problems with my truck? I
suddenly think back to the rest stop in California and
the car that was parked next to my truck. Could
he have done something to my wiring when I was
taking my sweet time in the john a few miles
down the road, no new issues with my electrical but
I decide at the next gas station I will stop.

(22:22):
I pull up to the gas station and in Orgon,
they don't let you pump your own gas, so I
wait for an attendant and decide to go in to
get a drink. I paid it, and as I was
waiting for my fueling, I walk around the truck and
look for any signs of tamperinge up near the front
fender of the truck. I see some smears, but not
really sure if it's from the road, snow, or what

(22:45):
I told myself, Okay, you're just freaking yourself out. I
jump into my truck and as I pull out of
the gas station, I have to turn around to get
back to the side where the ramp is on. And
as I'm turning and just about to exit, I see
the car parked at the corner and someone inside. I
think to myself, I'm just freaking myself out seeing shadows

(23:06):
on every corner. It's just a few hours before dawn.
Maybe in the morning I'll laugh at this. But am
I being followed and set up? Did I interrupt the
guy when I came out of the restroom? So fast
was he following me and waiting for the right time
and place to kill me for whatever I had in
the back of my truck. As I continue driving, the

(23:26):
snow starts getting a little bit more concerning. I didn't
grow up in areas of snowed, but I have a
little bit of experience driving in snow, but not enough
to know when things are getting hazardous. I look out
the side and mirror and see a pair of headlights
trailing behind me, which is odd because most drivers pass
me up. This person is following me. I'm already going

(23:49):
well under the speed limit, but I slow a bit more.
He's still not passing me. At some point, I'm getting
closer to the largest city, Portland. It's still dark and
snow is still lightly falling. I decided to pull over
and maybe the car will pass. I quickly exit the
freeway and in front of me is another gas station

(24:10):
with a patrol car parked there. Immediately pull up next
to the cop and get out. There's a lady officer
in there, and I start making conversation with her about
the snow and expected conditions. I'm thinking about telling her
about the car behind me, but all of a sudden
I felt silly about it. What was I going to say?
I think I'm being followed by an old man. She

(24:33):
is kind of nice and we're talking for a bit,
and she asked me where I was going and where
I came from. She does suggest I stop for the
night and starts to tell me about the dangers of
driving sleepy. I take a look around the area. I
say yes, I'll stop for the night. She tells me
that if I go down the road a couple of
blocks near the seven eleven there's a motel. I look

(24:55):
around and not see the car anymore. I decide that
I'll stop for the night and go in and sleep.
As I pulled up to the hotel, I decided to
park the truck away from the room. I got and
parked the truck behind the motel so that it couldn't
be seen from the road. I get into my hotel
room as quickly as I could lock the doors, and

(25:15):
I can honestly say I didn't get much rest. I
watched TV and knotted off here and there and would
awake to every noise. My mind kept racing back to
recalling all the events from before the California border to
my conversation with the police. Maybe he saw me talking
to the cops and decided to take off. Maybe he

(25:36):
was waiting for me to pull over at another rest
stop and complete whatever he was planning. Why would a
stranger invite another stranger to his house in the middle
of the dead of night at a rest stop. Why
did he ask me if I was having problems with
my truck. Finally, it was about seven am, and I
decided enough was enough. I get up, check out, go

(25:57):
have a big breakfast, and continue to my office with
anything weird happening, but I always wonder about that night
and why I was being followed. This happened during the
summer of twenty seventeen. Every weekend, I would wake up

(26:19):
early around five am for my morning workout. Then I
would head to my job. Generally, I would leave my
house around five thirty because my morning drive took about
twenty to thirty five minutes, giving me enough time for
two hours before I needed to leave before my shift started.
Most of my drive was me just putting on loud music,
trying not to fall asleep, and it being on the

(26:41):
freeway before six am, almost everyone was going at least
ten miles per hour over the speed limit. I would
drive most of the time on the main interstate before
turning off onto a small highway, which I would only
use for about a mile or so. This highway was
three lanes on each side. People also drive fast on it,
but usually not more than seventy five miles per hour

(27:02):
or so, and while you'd have some unsafe drivers in
the morning, most people aren't swerving erratically. The highway runs
north and south an on ramp from the main street
becomes a lane. Then there are two other entrances from
the freeway I would take every day, one from the
eastbound side and one from the westbound side. I hope

(27:24):
that makes sense, but basically I got on the eastbound
side right us. Three cars from the westbound side were entering,
one with some sort of orange sports car, and the
other two were identical Grace sedans. I don't remember exactly
what the makeup models were, but I do remember them
being fairly uncommon models, not as the day. You'd see

(27:44):
it one hundred times a day. One was in front
of the orange car one behind. These guys would go
on at least eighty miles per hour. The orange car
would change lanes and the car in front of it
would cut them off, while the one behind it would
change lanes behind him. They kept this up the entire
time I was on the highway near them, weaving in

(28:06):
and out of cars, not slowing down. Eventually I pulled
off my exit. This could have been a complete coincidence
and just some asshole drivers, but I definitely got the
vibe that the driver in the orange car was trying
to get away from the gray cars. Maybe it was
extreme road rage or maybe something more sinister. Regardless, I'll

(28:28):
never know. So to the drivers of those great cars,
that's not me. I used to live in the medium
sized city near Paris. It was mostly known for its
really useful train station and its big mental hospital. Patients

(28:51):
rounded the city. It was mostly open for daycare. They
were clearly not a threat. We just got used to
seeing some weird behavior on the streets. One time, one
guy clearly from the hospital, threatened to take off my hair.
He kept repeating it while following me, but I told
him in a strict voice to stop walking, and he

(29:11):
did so. We were just used to it context. I'm
a woman. I was twenty four at the time. I
just started my new job. I used to live uphill
in the city and used to drive downhill every day
to park at the train station. On my way back home,
I always used to drive by the hospital. There's a

(29:33):
little road between the hospital and a primary school. It's
a good shortcut to avoid traffic. It happened on a
winter day five years ago. It was late so it
was already dark. I walked in my car and decided
to take the shortcut to avoid the main road. And
the traffic. As I was driving, I saw a car
parked on the side of the road shaking. I stopped, worried.

(29:58):
It was moving left to right on in the yellow
street lights. I didn't see a driver in it. Then
it crossed the road and hit the sidewalk in front
and back and forth, but no driver in sight. It
was a red car. This was the one that sent
the first car flying to the other side. The red
car also hit the one behind it, and it backtracked away.

(30:21):
Then the red car started going in my direction and
I started to get scared. At first I was just shocked,
but now I was really scared, and I was alone
in front of something really weird. The red car stopped.
The driver's side door opened. I saw a guy getting up.
It was like he had fallen asleep and left his

(30:42):
foot on the accelerator, which caused him to drive forward
while laying down. He started smiling creepy at me. A
little girl came out of the school and looked at
me too. I know I should have called the cops
for the traffic incident, since the red car hit and
damaged two cars, but I was so scared I just
drove backwards and parked away from the scene. I was

(31:06):
shaking NonStop. I called my mom and told her everything.
She told me that I might be dangerous and that
I should go home by another route, like right now,
that I might not be safe. So I did what
she told me and drove home. To this day, I
sometimes think that I had an hallucination because I was

(31:26):
tired or something, and that I had dreamt everything, or
that I'm going crazy. But my mom told me this
week that she remembers my call and everything I said.
She said I sounded a coherent, so I guess it
really did happen. I never took that shortcut again and
moved away two years later.

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